tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22589490867190049712024-03-13T13:51:38.272+02:00Stranger in a Strange LandThe account of the travel, work, and education of a strange girl in an unfamiliar place, with an unfamiliar language, full of unfamiliar people.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-89228271084503537462010-12-15T16:22:00.009+02:002010-12-15T17:13:53.974+02:00Villages, Homework, and more Mudbrick AdventuresWow, it's been a long time since I've updated this thing. I'm going to blame it on stress and homework, although that might be a little bit of a lie. More like laziness.<br /><br />So in the past three weeks much has happened. I've gone on two mudbrick adventure fieldtrips with two of my classes, I've had to do a number of PowerPoint presentations, one of which I finished today, I've stressed out a lot and then decided to procrastinate horribly with Facebook and South Park, and more importantly, there has been SNOW! Yay snow!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-lXYmmdclr7s76ypFVNhxdgyC7U2hzo68TZPTi2qfVAZhjJDJTZj4aZt14RNAtEo_SPqQDCPJwe8ZYLpGceeVZqvSbjU-FBA6hE-ixvJChkyjwRSGaBeY-kruqGmWvGprbdZs7_8Yko/s1600/DSC05021.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-lXYmmdclr7s76ypFVNhxdgyC7U2hzo68TZPTi2qfVAZhjJDJTZj4aZt14RNAtEo_SPqQDCPJwe8ZYLpGceeVZqvSbjU-FBA6hE-ixvJChkyjwRSGaBeY-kruqGmWvGprbdZs7_8Yko/s400/DSC05021.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550915222523479730" border="0" /></a>Yep, that's me, tromping through the snow. It must have snowed at least 6 inches upon return from last week's fieldtrip. I don't think I've ever seen so much snow in a single place. On the overnight bus ride back from the fieldtrip there was so much snow, that at one point the bus had to go at a snail's pace on the freeway to keep from flipping over on the ice. It was a little scary. I wore my seatbelt. I'm glad I was sedated with sleeping meds. Anyways, back to the snow, for some reason I'm always surprised by how cold it is when I touch it. I mean, I know that snow is cold, as it's frozen rain, but I never knew it was <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> cold. I also get constantly distracted by it. Like I forget that it's there when I'm inside, and then I either look out the window or leave a building and am surprised/excited that its there. Hilla said that it's like walking with a 5 year old because I'll be walking and talking with her, and then I'll get distracted by a particularly pristine looking bit and have to stomp through it and make Godzilla noises. It's starting to melt though :( so now it's all soggy and brown looking. It'll probably be gone by tomorrow, or Friday, especially since it's supposed to rain soon. Poop.<br /><br />But now mudbrick! I've gone on two mudbrick adventures since the last post. The first one, 2 weeks ago, was to Nallihan, Hasanlar, and other assorted villages around the southern part of the Bolu province (Northern Turkey) where we walked around and stared at cute little mudbrick timber frame houses, and climbed all over people's grain storage units for my Vernacular Architecture class. It was quite entertaining, and it was actually really interesting going into these really small villages, especially since they are SO different from Ankara (Oh Ankara, filled with malls and rich people!). And the people were always so nice too. We would be wandering through their front and back yards, getting all in their property, checking out their front doors and ovens and grain storage units, and they would just walk out and yell "Welcome!" and try to offer us tea. At one point we were poking around this abandoned house, and these ladies next door were watching us and then offered to open the house so that we could look inside, which we did. I turned to Katie (the other American girl in my class) while we were walking through someone's front yard and I told her that I kept on expecting someone to come out of their house with a rifle pointed at us yelling to get off their lawn. But no, everyone was very nice. One lady even let us pet her donkey.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13KUnHX6tm_NdlpYkE9Eb23uYiCyOojZzWgJ7Q5k-tblwZUgVLnBAZOHKEKcyvEHTqaOBhQaq72FQcW9d3Zzj60j5yGM_k_boQeQWNhqArfw1Rvh75bxRn_eTI7YRZywwEroA3jPOTuc/s1600/DSC04743.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13KUnHX6tm_NdlpYkE9Eb23uYiCyOojZzWgJ7Q5k-tblwZUgVLnBAZOHKEKcyvEHTqaOBhQaq72FQcW9d3Zzj60j5yGM_k_boQeQWNhqArfw1Rvh75bxRn_eTI7YRZywwEroA3jPOTuc/s400/DSC04743.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550918393168615922" border="0" /></a>That's a falling apart mudbrick house. So cool!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj70i83PDky9ogytbCOvpKaEqLjZ2CDKIMPPgT1BFvT9Qz74cuh90NMJSn2HHkwQUtkJYciTncmEcZXAl9DTAl83KsPO2afQZCL3IaUvGUvOmCq2dormreS9p09HgRApdxDoikqzTHKEs/s1600/DSC04797.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj70i83PDky9ogytbCOvpKaEqLjZ2CDKIMPPgT1BFvT9Qz74cuh90NMJSn2HHkwQUtkJYciTncmEcZXAl9DTAl83KsPO2afQZCL3IaUvGUvOmCq2dormreS9p09HgRApdxDoikqzTHKEs/s400/DSC04797.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550919011070823298" border="0" /></a>Katie, appreciating mudbrick and timber framing.<br /><br />The other cool thing about the fieldtrip, about which I'm a little bit sad that it didn't happen earlier, is that I actually got to hang out with my classmates and my professor and I realized that I really like them once I don't have to deal with them in a limited classroom setting. One of the nights we all crammed into our professor's room, which had a little living room area, and drank beer and listened to music with him. And then the other night we all hung out in this meeting room in the hotel and drank more beer with the professor. One kid actually got really really drunk from drinking 4 small bottles of raki and drunkenly attempted to bribe the professor, and then sat angrily complaining about how he didn't have any ice. He also ate about 4 kilos (that's almost 9 lbs) of a 6 kilo melon that tasted like nothing. It was really funny laughing at him the next morning. And amazingly, I actually gained a lot more respect for my professor, especially since he has to deal with so many apathetic kids in his class. He told us that one of the kids in our class has been at Bilkent since 2003, is still an undergrad, keeps on failing his courses, and has a history of cheating. I just can't believe that these kids are even allowed to stay at the university. It's probably because they keep on paying tuition since all of the apathetic kids are the really rich ones. I think that it's because they know that they're going to have money and a job when they graduate but all they have to do is graduate with a gentleman's C to show that they've gone through Turkey's top university and then they're set. It's all very frustrating, especially for me, and I have to imagine especially for the students.<br /><br />This past weekend I went to Urfa (Şanlıurfa) in Southern Turkey with my Museum Studies class, and we walked all around the city staring at old Armenian houses, going into renovated mosques, seeing the mudbrick beehive houses at Harran, eating a lot of food, going through their giant bazaar, and visiting the Urfa Museum. I even got to go to Göbekli Tepe which is the oldest known religious structure in the world (9,000BCE!) and has all of these circular structures with t-shaped stones that have animals carved on the sides.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wIPjAe0LKeoKr3FndLTl5vAacuHn3YyBH7x4ZIFImzCt8SWz91AxpHm5KxaOtKyh5UjPcFogtLzV2CyUzvIKLcL2zvcNRrND5QNJhl0B3ESvkBHYeUWvNlK4sWSHaGUi0GWYhEYY0sM/s1600/DSC04984.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wIPjAe0LKeoKr3FndLTl5vAacuHn3YyBH7x4ZIFImzCt8SWz91AxpHm5KxaOtKyh5UjPcFogtLzV2CyUzvIKLcL2zvcNRrND5QNJhl0B3ESvkBHYeUWvNlK4sWSHaGUi0GWYhEYY0sM/s400/DSC04984.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550922049997118722" border="0" /></a>Beehive house at Harran.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCFyoFUBqSj5WFKHlo1Bg3dx5TQBRag3nB0VM-maMR_EOYvH2jj75fXfemDkAxp8fyq9as9XVukSQuCnOEr3XhCJiwqgyOe2GhAnB4ocHhX7DPN9gf5_Uzx-MIui3356C6uPvC-F8k8XU/s1600/DSC05016.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCFyoFUBqSj5WFKHlo1Bg3dx5TQBRag3nB0VM-maMR_EOYvH2jj75fXfemDkAxp8fyq9as9XVukSQuCnOEr3XhCJiwqgyOe2GhAnB4ocHhX7DPN9gf5_Uzx-MIui3356C6uPvC-F8k8XU/s400/DSC05016.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550922348561209906" border="0" /></a>Me being very cold at Göbekli Tepe.<br /><br />Again, it was exceedingly fun, well, except for the 12 hour overnight bus ride back and forth, although I just drugged myself with Unisom so that I could sleep. It was cold pretty much the whole entire time, even though we were right next to the Syrian border. It also rained on Saturday, and since the city was getting dust and wind from the Syrian desert it actually rained mud at one point. The sky also had a weird orange color because of all of the dirt. But even then we still saw some pretty cool things, like Göbekli Tepe and the Harran Houses, and I even bought a 5 ft. handmade rug for 80TL ($60). I definitely ate a whole lot of food, including this one breakfast item that was pure cream that was the consistency of cold butter that had honey poured on top of it and was sprinkled with pistachio bits. I also tried cow's liver for the first time in the form of a kebab (not like on a stick kebab, it was all chopped up). When we were in Harran wandering around the beehive houses we peeked into a family's outdoor oven room where two ladies were making lavash bread (like a flour tortilla only huge), and they got really excited and kept on giving us free bread that had just come out of the oven. It's amazing how tasty hot flour, water, and salt can be. Our tour guide while we were there was this really awesome guy, who's name I don't know, who was a friend of our professor and who lived with his family in the German dig house in the middle of Urfa. On our last night, after getting drenched by a wall of freezing rain at Göbekli Tepe and before getting on our 12 hour bus ride back home he brought us to his house where we got to watch TV in his heated living room covered with rugs and his wife gave us tea and fruit. I was also able to dry my pants with the space heater (with the pants still on me of course). While in Urfa I somehow acquired the name of Michael among my classmates, and I also fell down the stairs at an old Armenian house inhabited by Kurds. Oh yeah! And I also got to feed the holy fish of Abraham! Apparently there's a curse on them so that if you eat one you die.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIWThyphenhyphen2XKjXBKr4egdbdnYoe5GFhmAvi-SF9_yFK8E8tMgn91d0i6B2wiBTAGiv9Qg8frmnOe_xYnA01J209P71_GaWIG3NFc8NHylpbtufeFCtl0GiT2U44_3D59apbysOFUHYc34dwI/s1600/DSC04897.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIWThyphenhyphen2XKjXBKr4egdbdnYoe5GFhmAvi-SF9_yFK8E8tMgn91d0i6B2wiBTAGiv9Qg8frmnOe_xYnA01J209P71_GaWIG3NFc8NHylpbtufeFCtl0GiT2U44_3D59apbysOFUHYc34dwI/s400/DSC04897.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550925428741035090" border="0" /></a>Feeding da fish.<br /><br />In the time since the last post Valentina and I managed to find a fake Christmas tree and have decorated it and put it on top of our refridgerator in our room. It was all very exciting. I was convinced that the holiday season was going to suck because, since this is a Muslim country, they wouldn't have any Christmas decorations or anything. But lo and behold they do! However, it's under the guise of "New Years Decorations" but all the big shopping malls have trees and lights and ornaments and all that good stuff. They were even selling little Santas at the grocery store Wallmart-esque thing that I go to to buy food. It's funny how commercial Christmas has become that even non-Christian countries are practically celebrating it. Well, the pagan part that is. But who cares? It makes my Christmas that much better, even though I'm going to be studying for finals and working on two presentations on Christmas. Blegh.<br /><br />I'm going to have to say this now because it completely boggles my mind. I'm coming home in 3 weeks. It's crazy. It's like this entire 6 months has both flown by and drug on all at the same time. I can't believe that a month from now I'm going to be home. But first I have to get through 2 huge presentations, 1 Turkish performace, 4 finals, 3 fieldtrip write-ups, and some packing. We'll see how that goes.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7-aoqsN9wRicbCcPiLRLLAo0BWEClHkpqmzgeb6FHwuRWpLszTkeNhG6I5mo_dpNVpJRo6Ti1AKGgd58MvThjQxUdP6lj3lVHJ85myUJoYHNFkKJVcvDFrqpao8SkkL4WkFL71KGEB7w/s1600/DSC04840.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7-aoqsN9wRicbCcPiLRLLAo0BWEClHkpqmzgeb6FHwuRWpLszTkeNhG6I5mo_dpNVpJRo6Ti1AKGgd58MvThjQxUdP6lj3lVHJ85myUJoYHNFkKJVcvDFrqpao8SkkL4WkFL71KGEB7w/s400/DSC04840.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550927210172395650" border="0" /></a>Happy Holidays from Sarah, Kardy, and Valentina in Yurt 76 Odalar 308 and 307.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-85945013339741950612010-11-24T10:32:00.005+02:002010-11-26T23:01:30.267+02:00WELCOME TO EGYPT!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8JrDm1B8S9RuxF0etsXGKuBY6F0QX0M2Btxrg8fbX9uGynTebNcbZc8sBrbmBkpLR96Ob4UEjEb1UThXu7elnG7TfNgQRSSHdvdb0yB8bHfEIU9MgK-lkYISDEmV0FueMLlH1YK-5jE/s1600/DSC04494.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8JrDm1B8S9RuxF0etsXGKuBY6F0QX0M2Btxrg8fbX9uGynTebNcbZc8sBrbmBkpLR96Ob4UEjEb1UThXu7elnG7TfNgQRSSHdvdb0yB8bHfEIU9MgK-lkYISDEmV0FueMLlH1YK-5jE/s400/DSC04494.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543031639661074914" border="0" /></a><br />Sorry that it took this long for me to post about Egypt. This week/the coming weeks are going to be hell on wheels, and Tuesday was my panic day. Enough with the excuses. Egypt!<br /><br />Egypt was probably one of the coolest places that I've ever been. Ever. It's just a shame that we couldn't have stayed longer than the 6 days that we were there, although I talked to Hilla about it, and I don't think it would have been quite as fun had we stayed any longer. This was primarily because are hosts were the coolest people ever, and since it was a holiday, neither of them had work or school so they were able to spend the entire time with us driving us around and taking us to do cool things. Had we stayed for any longer, they would've had to go back to their normal lives and we would've been left to fend for ourselves while they were gone. Moral of the story: we stayed the perfect amount of time.<br /><br />So our hosts: We stayed with two guys named Mark and Eddie who are both friends of one of my friends, Kate, who had studied abroad through EAP at the American University in Cairo a couple of years ago. After buying our plane tickets I had contacted her asking if she knew of anyone who could show us around, and she put me in contact with these two guys. Best...idea...ever. They were both incredibly awesome and spent the entire week showing us around Cairo, and some other parts of Egypt (as will be detailed later) and planning what kind of foods we were going to eat while we were there. It was also great because Eddie was Egyptian, so he not only spoke the language and would get us out of getting scammed and ripped off, but he also drove like an Egyptian, knew all of the places to go, and how to get, there, and we also go to stay at his parent's house in Giza. Mark, was American but had come back to AUC after studying abroad there to get his masters in journalism. Both of them were really cool.<br /><br />As previously mentioned, we ended up staying at Eddie's parents' house in Giza, which was right outside of the Pyramids. Apparently you used to be able to see the Pyramids from the roof of the house, but a couple of months ago someone had started building an apartment building right in front of the view, so you couldn't see them anymore, but it didn't matter because we would drive down the street and be able to see them again. Anyways, the house was awesome, as it was part of an apartment complex sort of thing that his grandparents had built that had 3 floors occupied by family members and a bottom floor that housed their four golden retrievers. We got an entire wing of the apartment to ourselves, which consisted of a huge living room with TV, office, bedroom, kitchen, and two bathrooms, all hidden behind this crazy secret bookcase door so that you couldn't see that part of the house upon entering the apartment. It was nice because it meant that we could pretty much be as loud as we wanted and it didn't really matter that much, so we'd stay up until 2am and listen to music, drink wine, and watch movies.<br /><br />Upon our arrival into Cairo, which was bizarre in and of itself because its completely surrounded by sand which looks really bizarre when flying over it, we were met outside of baggage by Eddie and Mark holding signs that said "We are Mark and Eddie!" and "You are Sarah Giffin and company!" We were then immediately taken into Cairo to go drink beer on a faluca that we rented for an hour. It was pretty much a long looking sailboat that the driver/steerer guy would sail back and forth across the Nile while we just sat there on little couch/benches and drink beer.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs488.ash2/76194_480027894136_658394136_5364779_900502_n.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 720px; height: 540px;" src="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs488.ash2/76194_480027894136_658394136_5364779_900502_n.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />That, is a faluca (felluca?). Awesome? Indeed.<br /><br />So the awesomeness of the faluca only started out what awesomeness was to come, which I will number below, and then go into more detail for the really important things. Anyways, here are the super cool things that we did:<br /><br />1) Road on a faluca.<br />2) Ate a traditional Egyptian breakfast of foul (pronounced fool) at a restaurant so close to the pyramids that we were across the street from them and could see them as we ate.<br />3) Went to the Pyramids in Giza. Oh...my...god...<br />4) Went to the national archaeology museum which was so full of stuff that an entire floor was dedicated to sarcophagi and the stelai on the bottom floor were basically hiding behind support pillars.<br />5) Went to a bar frequented by the American ex-pat community where I experienced my first pull-tab soda can. I screamed when I opened it because it took me by surprise.<br />6) Ate koshary, a dish of tiny macaroni noodles, lentils, fried onions, tomato sauce, garbonzo beans, and a super spicy chili sauce. Cilantro might have also been involved.<br />7) Slept on the beach at the Red Sea. Also swam in the Red Sea. Also got eaten alive by sand fleas.<br />8) Ate at a legit American diner in Maadi called Lucilles that was voted by Time Magazine as having the best hamburger in the world. I got a bbq bacon burger. The bbq sauce was homemade and the bacon was beef bacon, which was an acceptable substitute. They also made pancakes with maple syrup *gasp*, chicken fried steak, Waffle-House style waffles, and raspberry iced-tea. There were also free refills.<br />9) Ate at a fancy Egyptian restaurant where I was stuffed full of things like rabbit, hummus, chicken, foul, and where i also ate an entire pigeon stuffed with rice.<br />10) Went to the Coptic quarter of Cairo and saw the Coptic Church of Saint George.<br />11) Went to the Nileometer which used to measure the height of the water on the Nile. I then sat and stared at the Nile in amazement for a long while.<br />12) Walked on a bridge built by Eiffel and was then followed around by a bunch of small children saying "WELCOME TO CAIRO"<br />13) Went to Cairo's version of the Grand Bazaar and drank tea at a coffee shop that hadn't closed for the night in over 200 years.<br />14) Went to Alexandria for a day and got to sea the ocean...and a fort!<br />15) Ate at a restaurant called "This is Sheren, the Fish Restaurant That Everyone's Been Talking About" in Alexandria. At least, I think it was called Sheren, I don't really remember. Anyways, we ate a 1/2 kilo of shrimp, 1/4 kilo of calamari, 4 fried fish, 2 large grilled fish, a salad, 3 orders of tahini sauce, bread, and 3 Cokes and payed about $5 each.<br />16) Drank what could only be described as mooshed up mango in a cup, and downed a big ol' glass of sugar cane juice.<br />17) Ate donuts for the first time in months from a place called House of Donuts which was associated with the American Embassy in Cairo. Apparently the Americans really needed their donuts.<br />18) Ate at an awesome pizza joint where we had Mexican pizza, pizza with salmon on it, and lemon meringue pie and cherry cheesecake. We called it better than sex cake.<br />19) Got to see large groups of lambies bunched in the side of, and in the middle of the main roads, waiting to be bought to be sacrificed/slaughtered for the holiday. We then had the joy of driving down the street with a whole lot of blood in it. Also weird: cars with bloody handprints all over them. Eddie said that they act as blessings. I thought it was a little weird/morbid.<br />20) Ate at an awesome Thai restaurant that was in conjunction with the Thai embassy and which imported all of its stuff from Bangkok.<br /><br />I just realized that most of my trip involved me eating things.<br /><br />I don't know if I can really describe in detail everything that happened on this trip. I think that I would need an entire novel to write it all down. Luckily I figured out how to directly link my photo albums to my blog, so they can be looked at easily. Hurrah!<br /><br />I think that's all that can really be said about Egypt. I can't really put a lot of it into words. The trip was amazing. We did a lot of stuff that we couldn't otherwise have done without our awesome tour guides. I need to find a way to get back.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-64764250903992587842010-11-08T16:51:00.002+02:002010-11-08T17:26:43.755+02:00Food Adventure of the Week: KokoreçKOKOREÇ!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://kokkokokorec.com/images/kokorec.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 500px; height: 308px;" src="http://kokkokokorec.com/images/kokorec.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />So that is kokoreç (Co-Co-Rech). "What is kokoreç?" you may be asking yourself, and how does this count as a food adventure since it looks pretty normal and a little bit like ground and grilled chicken? That's because it's not chicken, its lamb or goat. Oh yeah, and it's also the small intestine of said animal, wrapped around a spit and then roasted over some source of heat.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM9VNxSrDXTpGCu6CJg6FrlfKeqd1i5k-a2lAzJnwDm-FK0S3BtEsGhWP_1Md1Y0vEKOWblrai29LVSAHvt8UdFSNfhlVFwHJuf9XY-2Bc9jhf9SjAqSo2gHYho7cQuOBGDyVuGS0edX8/s400/kokorec.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM9VNxSrDXTpGCu6CJg6FrlfKeqd1i5k-a2lAzJnwDm-FK0S3BtEsGhWP_1Md1Y0vEKOWblrai29LVSAHvt8UdFSNfhlVFwHJuf9XY-2Bc9jhf9SjAqSo2gHYho7cQuOBGDyVuGS0edX8/s400/kokorec.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Yum, doesn't that look delightful? Wikipedia says that it usually wrapped around some other organ meat like kidneys, lungs, sweetbreads (that's gland for anyone who doesn't know), or heart, but I don't think that mine had any of that stuff in it. I don't know, it might've, I'm not really sure since I couldn't exactly see what was wrapped inside of the kokoreç, nor do I think that I really want to know what was wrapped inside. Anyways, back to the intestines, they're seasoned, spit roasted, and then cut off, chopped up, and in the case of where I was, served in a lovely roll of french bread like a sandwich. You can also eat it served on a plate, or wrapped in a dürüm wrap (basically a flour tortilla).<br /><br />So what was the verdict? It was super tasty! They seasoned it really really well, and it wasn't even remotely chewy, which is what I would expect from intestine. There weren't any of the gross little hairy things that you usually get with tripe, and it was so chopped up that you couldn't even tell what the hell it was. My friend Sarah said it best, that the consistency was a lot like fatty beef, soft and a little bit meaty. I feel like Andrew Zimmern would be proud of my eating weird things, and Anthony Bourdain would be proud of my eating innards.<br /><br />So this all came about because Kardi, my dorm neighbor friend who took us to that place to get Maraş dondurma (icecream), likes going on food adventures and wanted to take me out to get kokoreç because I was intrigued by it. Mainly I was interested because half of the people that I talked to about it said that they loved it and then the other half just made a gross face and said that they thought it was a disgusting concept. Kardi said that most of the people who said that they hated it had actually never even tried it because they were scared/lame. I also wanted to try it because apparently it is very traditional Ottoman food, so of course I couldn't leave Turkey without eating it. So Kardi took Hilla, Sarah, and me to a kokoreç restaurant in downtown Ankara that was the recommendation of her roommate who's from Ankara and who loves kokoreç. It ended up being this bar that had the rotating intestine spits in the entryway, so you could see them making it. Because it was being served in a bar I just figured that it would be excellent bar food so I ordered a beer, some fries, and onion rings to go with my kokoreç. Kardi later told me that this is a really weird thing to do since it actually isn't considered "bar food", since it's Ottoman, and the Ottomans probably didn't drink beer with it (actually they probably didn't drink beer at all, being Muslim and all). But it did end up being good bar food in the way that someone might consider a Philly cheesesteak to be good bar food; greasy and goes great with fries and a beer. I also managed to drink <span style="font-style: italic;">good</span> Efes for once, since their usual Pilsner tastes like Bud (gross), but their "dark" beer actually tastes a little bit like beer. So our dinner ended up being this bizarre hodgepodge of kokoreç, french fries, onion rings, stuffed muscles, calamari, beer, and then Kardi got this disgusting fermented carrot drink that tasted like drinking spicy pickle juice. She likes it though, although Sarah, Hilla, and I all made gross faces after trying it. And afterwards we finished off the night by going to Mado and buying a whole bunch of Maraş dondurma: goats milk, chocolate, and pistachio flavors, and we still had to cut them with a knife.<br /><br />In a complete change of subject, this Friday I'm going to Istanbul with Hilla and Sarah to stay with Kardi and her father for a couple of days before the Korban Bayram holiday. Then Monday we're leaving for Egypt for a week to spend the holiday there. Many exciting pictures should be up in my next post after I come back from the holiday on the 21st.<br /><br />Also in other news, I have less than 8 weeks until I come home. Holy crap.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-4648274993165774202010-11-02T13:28:00.015+02:002010-11-02T15:01:05.644+02:00Ephesus, Pergamum, Sardis...OH MY!This past weekend was a 4 day holiday in observance of Republic Day on October 29th. As a result, I took it upon myself to use this time to go do some archaeology-ing! Yes, that's right, I just made up that word. As the sites around Izmir required the largest amount of time for me to visit them, due primarily to the sheer number of sites located in that area of the west coast, I decided that Izmir would be the optimal place to go to during this holiday. So as usual, I drug along Hilla and Sarah so that I wouldn't be by myself. The adventure also started out with a Pole added onto our group, and midway through a German.<br /><br />The adventure begins...ON A TRAIN! Yes, a train! One of the few times that I've been on a train since I don't exactly ride trains in the US because Amtrak sucks. So Hilla, the Pole (Szymon), and I left on Wednesday evening to take an express train to Izmir so that we would arrive on Thursday morning. Since I'm in Turkey, when they say "Express Train" they actually mean "Slowest Train Possible Making Frequent Stops" so in the end the express train took about 16 hours to get to Izmir. But that's ok because we had our own couchette compartment with pull down bunkbeds and...dun dun duh...a dining car! So exciting! And not even a crappy dining car like the Amtrak trains, but a car with tables and flowers serving kebaps at way too high prices! It was all very exciting, and considerably more comfortable than a bus although it did take twice as long to get there. But at least I got to sleep lying down. The OTC sleeping pills that I took also helped.<br /><br />Upon our arrival into Izmir we were greeted with this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWHUesYiZfjEYzqVRDmKgGT0UvW5LaU2kfU3XLRzOdC2q3Yi7zbP7TaTeRVly5VnZnmgrafQnhTjjUuZJqE3wHmLY7XLYXteeuXZc9sopj5xyFX71_qlMu0F0647lr8I-MycVbjgDaYE/s1600/DSC03932.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWHUesYiZfjEYzqVRDmKgGT0UvW5LaU2kfU3XLRzOdC2q3Yi7zbP7TaTeRVly5VnZnmgrafQnhTjjUuZJqE3wHmLY7XLYXteeuXZc9sopj5xyFX71_qlMu0F0647lr8I-MycVbjgDaYE/s400/DSC03932.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534915824268631346" border="0" /></a>That's right. That is a street completely underwater. It had been raining almost continuously in Izmir for about 4 days and the streets in the low areas were so heavily inundated with water that the drains couldn't handle it so there was flash flooding. When we were walking to our hotel we had to do some creative street crossing complete with fording of road rivers, oxen dying and losing a fiddle and some sacks of flour. Sometimes we would pass stores where the store owners were having to scoop the water out of the store because the entrance was below street level. It was all very exciting. Except when my shoes soaked through. Then I was cold with wet feet. Luckily it stopped raining once we arrived, so after about an hour the water had gone down and the streets were once again passable.<br /><br />The rest of the first day was lovely, wandering around Izmir, going to the archaeology and ethnography museums, getting lost on a weird street that sold mannequin parts while searching for the ancient Smyrna agora (which we never found), getting accosted by a strange man who wanted us to go into his shop, and staring at the kind of bizarre looking clock tower by the ocean. That was, until 4:00 happened, and a HUGE thunder storm rolled in. As it was warm when we left our hostel to go exploring, I was completely unprepared for rain, wearing only a scarf and sweatshirt as my warm clothing and not having an umbrella. Szymon didn't even have a jacket, but he said that he was fine because he's Polish. Hilla was the only one well prepared with both umbrella AND jacket. It didn't really matter though because once the rain started coming down we were basically soaked and had to seek refuge in the subway until it stopped raining long enough to walk under the umbrella and not get wet. After we decided that it was not quite the torrential downpour that it was at the beginning, we walked a few blocks only to find that one of the intersections that we had to cross was a raging river of water that was completely overflowing onto the sidewalk. So we took refuge again, this time inside of a candy store. I think the woman at the counter felt a little sorry for us because, after Hilla bought some Turkish delights she gave us coupons for free Turkish coffee from a little corner booth in the store. After waiting it out a little bit longer we were finally able to cross the street and make it back to our hotel. I was so excited to get changed into something dry, until I discovered that because I had left my window open before we left (it was warm and sunny then), the rain had come through the window, completely soaking my bed and my two jackets that I had left on top of my bed. I then had to go downstairs, and embarrassedly tell the desk man in very limited Turkish that my yatak (bed) was ıslak (wet) and waited for him to begrudgingly walk upstairs, flip my mattress, and get his wife to change my sheets, which she proceeded in doing while sounding like she was saying some strong words to me. It was all very embarrassing/traumatizing.<br /><br />Of course the night could not have been complete without a very strange trip to a bar, which we determined was most likely a brothel partially disguised as a bar. We probably should've been suspicious at the get go since the establishment was called "Leydi Bar", but Szymon and I really wanted a beer. Upon entry, we found ourselves to be the only people in the place, although I can't imagine why as it was creepily lit only by red lamps and black lighting with a DJ doing his thing all by himself on one side of the room blasting irritating, loud, and bad Turkish pop music. And the waiters were almost overly friendly, wanting to find out where we were from, what kind of music we wanted to listen to, etc. Walking back from the bathroom I noticed that all of the tables in the middle of the room all had their chairs facing the exact same direction, towards a line of booths on one wall, which I thought was bizarre. And then the first girl walked in from the back room, wearing a gold tight dress thing with her ass barely covered by the shirt, in the highest heels that I've ever seen, and with the fakest, blondest, worst hair extensions ever. She obviously knew the guys who worked there, as she came from a back room and chatted it up with all of them. And then she just sort of sat down at one of the awkward center chairs facing away from us and began looking bored. She was then joined by another girl from the back, wearing a black corset and black shorts with her ass hanging out, who sat at another table, also looking bored. Then two older men walked into the bar, not together, and sat at different booths on the wall facing the awkward chairs and just sort of quietly sat there staring at the women. It was then that Hilla and I were convinced that we were actually in a brothel and that it was getting really awkward. The "bar" then decided to charge us out the wazoo for our beers (10TL) and for a veggie plate that we never ordered but that they set down at our table and prompted us to eat (also 10TL).<br /><br />The next days were significantly less weird and a lot more awesome. On Friday Szymon, Hilla, Sarah (who joined us that morning since she had class on Thursday), and I all went to Ephesus for the day. Because it had rained so much, it was beautiful outside with all of the green, and it was relatively clear and cool, and all together much more pleasant than Thursday. The site was spectacular with a beautiful library with a two story facade, a theater with pretty good acoustics (not as good as Epidauros), and lots of antiquity...EVERYWHERE! All very exciting for me.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BEbnN9YNF77arVaBYrCFU2hzT1ifahL2b8U2YrFWQUDQVQSXdJOVex11UH8AQJv-_RS83fH1j27RYQLaQeQO8bRXFrijjlqFkHUSzYzjQLYeVTsLdAq6T-lemerD5gqy9zZWfziXYxw/s1600/DSC03994.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6BEbnN9YNF77arVaBYrCFU2hzT1ifahL2b8U2YrFWQUDQVQSXdJOVex11UH8AQJv-_RS83fH1j27RYQLaQeQO8bRXFrijjlqFkHUSzYzjQLYeVTsLdAq6T-lemerD5gqy9zZWfziXYxw/s400/DSC03994.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534923880371900978" border="0" /></a>Us in front of the Library at Ephesus.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgceX-SdWilw_GObqvSrI5hFDiAXIdL-A6XUXbplj9gn8vntHLa5iG05h0s-PSjY19Qnz9jw9clKTa7tPqM63GBym0Lep2iLVsFRzPZ8k6M_L_mp37_uPlgbzroTVfk46ApKnYeyULWE80/s1600/DSC04012.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgceX-SdWilw_GObqvSrI5hFDiAXIdL-A6XUXbplj9gn8vntHLa5iG05h0s-PSjY19Qnz9jw9clKTa7tPqM63GBym0Lep2iLVsFRzPZ8k6M_L_mp37_uPlgbzroTVfk46ApKnYeyULWE80/s400/DSC04012.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534924268998410194" border="0" /></a>So beautiful and green, and with an artistically placed arch! I know. I should be a photographer when I grow up.<br /><br />After hanging around Ephesus, and Szymon finding out that he had lost his wallet and calling the bus company, the police station, and anyone else who might know where his wallet was, we decided just to hang around Selçuk for a couple of hours until we could catch a train (I know! Another one!) back to Izmir. All in all it was whole-y uneventful, with the exception of Szymon finding out that his wallet was on the bus that we'd taken to Ephesus. The 3 km walk into town was quite beautiful, though, with a nice tree lined street.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfd1LNC3j7ZE6m_5CHZ36k5wrETNYk7vCX_scxKh-w7HhAkEDp4WmCxhsl40qZGNamd3rn7ISow_pFmdG68F7YoI4vuxutUbPHUQGzKCVKI_R4H1PqvOc97UC0LpQ1LhIrZDDX5EZfBpE/s1600/DSC04029.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfd1LNC3j7ZE6m_5CHZ36k5wrETNYk7vCX_scxKh-w7HhAkEDp4WmCxhsl40qZGNamd3rn7ISow_pFmdG68F7YoI4vuxutUbPHUQGzKCVKI_R4H1PqvOc97UC0LpQ1LhIrZDDX5EZfBpE/s400/DSC04029.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534925969599439058" border="0" /></a>For me, Saturday was the most exciting day of them all because I got to go to Pergamum, which I have been wanting to go to for about 3 years now, ever since I first saw pictures of the theater in my Classics 17A class with Crawford H. Greenewalt Jr., bad-ass extraordinaire. And oh how spectacular it was! Again, it was super green and beautifully clear, but it was also almost completely empty with the exception of a tour bus full of Germans and ourselves. This time, Sarah, Hilla, and I were joined by Florian (German) because Szymon had to go home to do a take home midterm. The site was unbelievable with the most amazing view of the plains below, and so quiet because there was hardly anybody there. And I got to sit for a long time in the theater and enjoy every single minute of it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEH2SrNlckxBJdBS-5ff-VG2g-Xp7wdqlTNk3nYiXBK4JZ55zUgdihZwZjKsylNEO_f_uHyzjkofQrECl-Z2QdpG-GplD1GM0uj5SxAvJZiIDGvaCFe-ezhJJ7N-PeJQU_19nmP-J8eyQ/s1600/DSC04051.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEH2SrNlckxBJdBS-5ff-VG2g-Xp7wdqlTNk3nYiXBK4JZ55zUgdihZwZjKsylNEO_f_uHyzjkofQrECl-Z2QdpG-GplD1GM0uj5SxAvJZiIDGvaCFe-ezhJJ7N-PeJQU_19nmP-J8eyQ/s400/DSC04051.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534927332607262402" border="0" /></a>Oh my god that theater is so awesome! Because of the shape of the hill, instead of building the theater around, like most Greek theaters are build, they made up for it by building up so as to still fit a lot of people into it. It has kind of iffy acoustics, but the steepness of it all is quite dizzying.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7p0cGGf2C1pWVf_TwctiBseGOcAO1Hlm6E9sUeB6Hfn6BsELXhvB-hOc6soEhwpmtalebcPrSJ0uRCHnU71bB1GIp4-y43DEgkR2hBjTXN4wIhC5FkSKC_rCCVvG5Z02pBZnLY692WN8/s1600/DSC04038.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7p0cGGf2C1pWVf_TwctiBseGOcAO1Hlm6E9sUeB6Hfn6BsELXhvB-hOc6soEhwpmtalebcPrSJ0uRCHnU71bB1GIp4-y43DEgkR2hBjTXN4wIhC5FkSKC_rCCVvG5Z02pBZnLY692WN8/s400/DSC04038.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534927895989080274" border="0" /></a>What it looks like sitting midway down the theater. So steep and death defying! At the end of the stage area (skene) there's a cliff. Awesome? I think yes.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhZ4HJopVz7EqUufsnzjzXde_eJszFBmUJOzT4plujGteWU6vqcoeHVyakV-gIFEZLmJPsqPbr0-SdeLwIuVKlEbGOks0v-z6bCD0xBr-LKbRL7eGembH8JBGj74a3-ZO8L1QY5TtCEzw/s1600/DSC04040.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhZ4HJopVz7EqUufsnzjzXde_eJszFBmUJOzT4plujGteWU6vqcoeHVyakV-gIFEZLmJPsqPbr0-SdeLwIuVKlEbGOks0v-z6bCD0xBr-LKbRL7eGembH8JBGj74a3-ZO8L1QY5TtCEzw/s400/DSC04040.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534928393993647026" border="0" /></a>The theater looking up from the stage area. I'm still totally obsessing about this place.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_1Fhe_uLwyMlEuGD8Rl2U0pmWBDU1OqzQrO3FvpDJZ72tRM57gQnKBqp3dE-sxS3CYXynhBfkYHFwinh-sBMXhRbkdM4uJ2ONzxS6ekDNxT6GzKFWHokEkptV-sLM085CNxpKMXZPFXs/s1600/DSC04035.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_1Fhe_uLwyMlEuGD8Rl2U0pmWBDU1OqzQrO3FvpDJZ72tRM57gQnKBqp3dE-sxS3CYXynhBfkYHFwinh-sBMXhRbkdM4uJ2ONzxS6ekDNxT6GzKFWHokEkptV-sLM085CNxpKMXZPFXs/s400/DSC04035.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534928730212074178" border="0" /></a>A kind of crappy picture of me because of where the sun is, but you can see how awesome the view was from on top of the acropolis.<br /><br />After walking all around the acropolis, we went down to the Aesclipion, which is where there was an ancient hospital and medical school. The funny thing is that, in ancient times, you couldn't go into the Aesclipion if you were dying or pregnant because it was also a temple. But those are the times when you most need to go to the hospital. Anyways, there were all of these underground areas where people used to sleep and hope that the cure for their ailment would come to them in a dream. The sleeping chamber was this really cool, multi-lobed underground building with vaulted ceiling that was caving in, allowing the sun to shine into it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXEsTsVU9IeCbciS-W3pin_U9MKHuVKXN1K6TMnL4QlWs0fv5A0Zx4Mh-cs3V30yh3WTX0FswEPjRRNC3zlY9rNNbPYukDzXEuhc6N__8qPNdb9OTcNb4pQVy6I7Fkq5kcwOXTFWrqtrM/s1600/DSC04068.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXEsTsVU9IeCbciS-W3pin_U9MKHuVKXN1K6TMnL4QlWs0fv5A0Zx4Mh-cs3V30yh3WTX0FswEPjRRNC3zlY9rNNbPYukDzXEuhc6N__8qPNdb9OTcNb4pQVy6I7Fkq5kcwOXTFWrqtrM/s400/DSC04068.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534930353405000082" border="0" /></a>After that we went to the Red Basilica, which was not to particularly exciting, other than that it had big red brick walls that were all crumbly. For the day we managed to rent a taxi to take us around to the different areas, since they were all over different parts of the city, which ended up not being that bad, as it cost us 60TL for about 3 hours of renting.<br /><br />Sunday Hilla and I decided to go to Sardis since I figured that CHG Jr., bad-ass extraordinaire would be sad if I didn't go and visit the site that he's been running for the past 30 years. It ended up being quite the adventure, getting dropped off on the side of the road with our bags, walking the 1.5km to the site through town, and then getting to the Temple of Artemis site and having it almost all to ourselves with the exception of a bus of Swedish highschoolers and a bus of Koreans. The temple itself was pretty awesome, as its a monumental sized temple (bigger than your average Greek temple) in a lovely location, and with Lydian tumuli (for tumuli, see Gordion entry) around the area.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vb2a76KC1NDi5FWy6zbW28x9o151_0812I9jK94kVDFnmdibtUCEA8LSKzNh70wqZ18zp3e987NPePbXzvdcQldaNcXkcG5ZYV1Nm4apAdAZEfUPzmqZwo1s0oP7McRR1hfJgteuU9Q/s1600/DSC04098.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vb2a76KC1NDi5FWy6zbW28x9o151_0812I9jK94kVDFnmdibtUCEA8LSKzNh70wqZ18zp3e987NPePbXzvdcQldaNcXkcG5ZYV1Nm4apAdAZEfUPzmqZwo1s0oP7McRR1hfJgteuU9Q/s400/DSC04098.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534932735370765794" border="0" /></a>For size reference, I caught a picture of Hilla standing next to one of the elevated columns. And these aren't even half their actual height. They're HUGE! And the design work on the column bases is so intricate and beautiful, I don't even know how someone was able to do it without messing up.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wwlGoffsEKaNQG85JzckKBAJE1Fn75JyodRCltF_UhX-Exw86ugwacvnc3Wt1yX5KIKzH3rXOwKWFhc35awAwXZYowiMsGhyphenhyphenBcC_swZOx2zi75VrcjXBt8dC_jKrEucnTPm0AF73DFs/s1600/DSC04094.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wwlGoffsEKaNQG85JzckKBAJE1Fn75JyodRCltF_UhX-Exw86ugwacvnc3Wt1yX5KIKzH3rXOwKWFhc35awAwXZYowiMsGhyphenhyphenBcC_swZOx2zi75VrcjXBt8dC_jKrEucnTPm0AF73DFs/s400/DSC04094.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534933249260930642" border="0" /></a>I really like this picture of me, also because I'm hanging out with an IONIC CAPITAL! So exciting!<br /><br />Food adventure for the weekend: FISH ON FIRE OH MY GOD!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNIXyGD7mjI_j6JiS_ffY4tlLrztxsTKGh3NWxy9c57YszhjlkyjnKeSe0R_F0BMag_2LOdoalNxs-t0JVOUCYmLxVQNZOGsnYpUolr8dkAjNAJwk1AhNBi1HFx978y9J6NKpYjT1ZX8/s1600/DSC04091.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuNIXyGD7mjI_j6JiS_ffY4tlLrztxsTKGh3NWxy9c57YszhjlkyjnKeSe0R_F0BMag_2LOdoalNxs-t0JVOUCYmLxVQNZOGsnYpUolr8dkAjNAJwk1AhNBi1HFx978y9J6NKpYjT1ZX8/s400/DSC04091.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534933805200010370" border="0" /></a>So I read in my Lonely Planet travel guide that there's a fish restaurant in Izmir called Deniz Restaurant that serves this crazy fish where its served in a salt block and then "broken dramatically at your table". After coming back from Pergamum Florian, Hilla, Sarah, and I decided that it would be a good idea to find out what exactly this "broken dramatically at your table" entailed. We got to the restaurant, and after standing awkwardly at the front of the restaurant, waiting to be noticed, a waiter finally came up to us and we asked if they still served this salt block fish on their menu. He said of course, and we went into the restaurant to pick our fish that we were going to split between us. We chose sea bass at his recommendation. I have a feeling that he knew that we were only there for the fish because when we sat down he said "So do you guys want to order any sides at all, or do you just want to wait for the fish? I suggest sides since it will take about half an hour to cook". Not wanting to look like complete barbarians in a fancy fish restaurant, especially since we were all wearing rain jackets and polar fleeces while everyone else was wearing blazers and such, we agreed to order a salad and a yogurt dipping sauce to eat while waiting for the fish. Waiting for the fish was a little miserable as we were sitting outside and it was really, really, REALLY cold, and we were too scared to ask for blankets, which they were periodically giving to patrons. But oh, when the fish came, how dramatic it was! First of all, it was completely covered in a thick packing of salt which had hardened into a crust on the outside of the fish. And then they lit that salt crust ON FIRE and brought it out to our table ON FIRE in front of everyone. I'm pretty sure that everyone else was jealous that they hadn't thought to even ask about this on fire fish since it wasn't listed on the menu. Or we were just those assholes who were disturbing everyone else's peaceful dinner by ordering an on fire fish. You know, like those people who order baked Alaska who everyone sort of hates because they've disrupted the peace by ordering something that is on fire, but then everyone is jealous of because they never thought to order baked Alaska. Yeah, kinda like that. Anyways, after the fire had died down, the waiter had to come out and crack open the salt crust with A KNIFE AND HAMMER. We all just sort of stared open mouthed at him while he hacked away at the salt crust and took apart our fish for us. And oh, it was so delicious! The salt had kept it nice and moist, and it was tasty and not fishy at all. It was also served with a yummy lemony sauce. And in the end the meal cost each of us about 39TL each (about $30 in America speak), which I don't think is all that expensive. Plus the entertainment of it all was well worth it.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-13702343143031908732010-10-25T21:54:00.002+03:002010-10-25T22:09:13.498+03:00A relatively non-eventful weekendSo in news completely unrelated to Turkey but referenced in a previous post, my honors thesis was selected to be published in the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal. Congratulations, the weeks of finger crossing worked. Now my paper will be one of probably 5 papers that will be published in the semesterly publication of the BUJ, and will also be able to be found on Google Scholar after it is put online. This means two things:<br /><br />1) When you Google stalk me and search my name, something other than my Facebook and horseshow placings will show up.<br />2) I am now citeable. Yipee!<br /><br />Sure, it was selected by students and not professors, but who cares? It's a peer review, and they're my peers, and they have deemed me awesome enough to be printed on (most likely) glossy-ish paper, in the annals for ALL ETERNITY.<br /><br />So this weekend was spent re-formatting my paper into its final PDF format, including how to get pictures to show up on my Mac Word document ALL BY MYSELF, and going on a celebratory movie outing with Hilla. We went and saw the Facebook movie (I think it's called The Social Network), which was super good and I would definitely pay 13TL to see it again. I also want to see it again because I had to pee, count it, 4 TIMES during the movie, all because I drank a bottle of Coke before the movie to get rid of my developing migraine. After the movie I then proceeded in purchasing 4 huge pomegranates at 1.39TL a kilo (that's about $0.50 a pound in America-speak). As bitter as I am about bacon costing $58 in this country, I've got to admit that $0.50 a pound for pomegranates is a steal.<br /><br />For all those reading who are disappointed that I have had no traveling pictures for the past 2 weeks, never fear! I'm leaving for a 4 day trip to Izmir on Wednesday night, so next week I will be able to grace everyone living vicariously through my study abroad trip with photos of ARCHAEOLOGY! WOO!Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-47746318759905566572010-10-19T22:32:00.002+03:002010-10-19T22:38:07.689+03:00RandomToday I sat on a grassy hill drinking a Coke out of a glass bottle, watching a Frenchman juggle and staring out at the view of Ankara, which was completely clear because the rain had washed away all the smog. Above were huge storm clouds and the sun was starting to go down so the world looked like cobalt.<br /><br />Sometimes I get homesick, and then I look at my pictures and I remember why I'm here.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-70984891929567824762010-10-16T17:46:00.002+03:002010-10-16T18:41:28.469+03:00Icecream that you can cut with a knife?I've decided to take a break from my homework today to bless everyone with another update. I know. I'm so benevolent.<br /><br />This weekend consisted of trying to get over probably the worst case of the flu that I've had in more than 5 years. I was hoping that getting a flu shot in the states would have prevented me from getting too sick whilst abroad, but seeing as how I have the immune system of John Travolta in Boy in the Plastic Bubble I'm not too surprised that I ended up getting sick anyways. This time though, I couldn't get out of bed for two days, and still couldn't really eat solid food without getting nauseous until yesterday. However, now all I really have left is my original gross smokers cough and some fatigue and that's pretty much it. I did, however, almost pass out while waiting in line to make photocopies on Thursday.<br /><br />Since this weekend is "Sarah Giffin saving money" weekend, my adventures have not been, and will not be quite as exciting as the last few weekends, mainly because I'm staying at home. I am still having food adventures, which is the most important thing anyways, so I will not disappoint in that regard.<br /><br /><br />So food adventure for this week: Icecream that must be cut with a knife.<br /><br />In Turkey there's two different types of icecream. There's normal, Dryers-esque type icecream that's all creamy and tasty flavored and you put it on a cone in a ball (or if you're at Thrifty's in a cylinder) and then lick it off. Then there's this weirdo type of icecream that's chewy, where guys stand on the side of the street wearing vests and fezes so that they look like the monkeys that play the tamborine, and they stab at this icecream in metal pale looking things that are recessed into refridgerated boxes and then serve it to you in what looks like slices and its so thick and dense that they can flip the icecream upside down and it doesn't fall out of the cone. This weirdo icecream is also chewy. It's actually really quite bizarre. I've tried it a couple of times, and while I like it because its so strange, sometimes the flavors are a bit off, especially the banana (ew).<br /><br />A couple of weeks ago my dorm neighbor friend came up to me and told me that her dad had taken her to a restaurant that served this weirdo type of icecream, only its so thick that you have to cut it with a knife. I told her that she had to take me, so yesterday was our icecream date, with Hilla coming along with us because she was intrigued. So she took us to this kebap restaurant in downtown Ankara which specializes in foods from Maraş, because here in Turkey, each city has its own culinary specialties which all somehow form variations on the beloved Adana kebap, but sometimes have some really bizarre foods that they're known for (Americans have it, too, but we're divided into culinary regions, not so much cities). Anyways, so this place specialized in food from Maraş, and one of the things that Maraş specializes in is this crazy icecream that is so thick you have to cut it with a knife. Here's what it looks like when it's served (ours didn't have pistachio bits on it):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.bikudo.com/photo_stock/302659.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 195px;" src="http://www.bikudo.com/photo_stock/302659.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Sometimes this is also how they serve it:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i49.tinypic.com/2ivlohv.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 448px; height: 627px;" src="http://i49.tinypic.com/2ivlohv.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>In case you don't know what's happening here, that man is cutting the giant slab of icecream that's, oh yeah, hanging by a meat hook WITH A CHAINSAW.<br /><br />Anyways, we went to this kebap place specifically so that we could experience this super duper dense icecream. We ended up getting a huge amount of food: 2 salads, one that was a bunch of plates of shredded carrots, pickled cabbage, lettuce, pickled peppers like jalapenos, mint leaves, lemons, onions, etc., and another that was cucumbers and tomatoes, a plate of bread that looked like monster pita that had been injected with air to make a pillow (think HUGE chapati), a cheese and mushroom pide for Hilla, an eggplant kebap for me, and an adana kebap for Kardi (my Turkish friend), then 3 servings of the crazy icecream, and finishing it off with 3 teas, all for 49TL. It also helped that we had a Turkish person with us because then the restaurant wouldn't be able to pull the "we're going to way over charge the foreigners because they have no clue what the hell is going on" trick.<br /><br />So the icecream, it was good/strange. When we ordered it, we had to wait for a while to get it because since it is so thick they have to let it sit out for a bit before they serve it to you or else it will be too dense to cut. They serve it with a fork and knife, because you need them. It was made out of full fat goat's milk, and the flavor of the icecream was full fat goat's milk flavor. It was super creamy, not as strangely chewy as the kinda gross street variety, but rather really dense, and it never melted. I mean, it melted a teeny tiny bit which made it slide around the plate a little, but there was never a puddle of icecream from not eating it fast enough. It always just stayed the same amount. And it tasted excellent, especially since it was chock full of milk fat. It also had that slightly bizarre taste that goat's milk has, you know, the taste where you know that it definitely came from a goat. So overall, really good. It's a shame that I can't bring it home with me, and I can't recreate this icecream because I'm still not exactly sure how it's made. Kardi explained that it has some sort of orchid powder that's in it that gives it some of it's density, but other than that, its a mystery.<br /><br />Tomorrow culinary adventures continue with my going to the only Chinese food joint in town because I've been craving Chinese food like a mad pregnant woman. We'll see how that goes.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-28630532117660947872010-10-11T18:02:00.005+03:002010-10-12T18:34:10.565+03:00Istanbul not Constantinople...Part IIWe (and by we I mean Hilla, Sarah, and I) decided to go to Istanbul. Ok, let me rephrase that. Sarah had to go to Istanbul and Hilla and I decided to sort of tag along in Istanbul but in reality just go off by ourselves while she had to look at Islamic and Byzantine architecture. I insisted that Hilla and I go anytime but in September and August because I didn't want to go back any closer to August in case that it would be like the last time: so hot the sweat drips down my legs. And it wasn't! In fact, it was the exact opposite. It was freezing cold, and for a while I was seriously worried that we were going to spend our entire trip soaking wet. To give you an idea of just how different the temperatures were, let us do a photographic comparison.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUnSzM8IQoSvTJBej_yClqS5M1aoBQ729RI4-0rXEazE-ycVhXk5oMndlGiaqV26h9fSoNZzgR2_6rsUsARbrKicEAQAJzP6MUTdnS3yCI9hDqse0PKAAFaHeeI8Ux2RO6ao3HYvhj9QA/s1600/DSC03055.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUnSzM8IQoSvTJBej_yClqS5M1aoBQ729RI4-0rXEazE-ycVhXk5oMndlGiaqV26h9fSoNZzgR2_6rsUsARbrKicEAQAJzP6MUTdnS3yCI9hDqse0PKAAFaHeeI8Ux2RO6ao3HYvhj9QA/s400/DSC03055.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526805799424090834" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0J7-70Se01RAL-CIR7z8yMStKUmFFWZ-Bk5jQCSGN9zUwdOm1Ik54wfghh1EMubUTFeAuixZUSdPRCrcmi4056NYxjLlA-PldlSOowLGkyWss6NDAeyYkevKLHD5yuVD02JzEduxHVQk/s1600/DSC03883.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0J7-70Se01RAL-CIR7z8yMStKUmFFWZ-Bk5jQCSGN9zUwdOm1Ik54wfghh1EMubUTFeAuixZUSdPRCrcmi4056NYxjLlA-PldlSOowLGkyWss6NDAeyYkevKLHD5yuVD02JzEduxHVQk/s400/DSC03883.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526806832761399202" border="0" /></a>I know it's two different locations but we're primarily using this as a comparison of sky/Sarah Giffin clothing choices. Notice the first picture. A beautiful, cloudless blue sky and me wearing what is probably a sweat-soaked T-shirt and skirt. Now let's look at the second picture. No blue sky, instead it is gray, and I'm wearing a polar fleece jacket, a shell with furry stuff lining it, a scarf, pants, and my completely ridiculous fur lined, knit aviator's hat. And I'm pretty sure that I was still cold. However, I think that being all bundled up and still a little bit cold is <span style="font-style: italic;">much</span> better than looking and feeling all day like you just got out of a shower. So in the end, much more enjoyable, especially since I thought that the cold weather gave the city a much more European feel. Don't ask me where that logic came from.<br /><br />So I guess I should start from the very beginning of the trip. Hilla and I decided to take an evening bus the 6 hour drive up to Istanbul. However, my intense fear of rain happened as I was watching someone's seat-back television reflection in the mirror of how Istanbul was completely flooded. There were even shots of people using buckets to empty out rooms in their houses. I mean, it was already pretty rainy and cold back in Ankara, and I heard that it was supposed to rain in Istanbul, but I didn't know it was going to rain that much. And then the deluge happened. We were driving, and then all of a sudden the bus was being pounded with rain. And it continued getting pounded all the way into Istanbul. At one point we made a stop to drop some people off and the parking lot was so flooded that you couldn't see the asphalt, it was just completely underwater. So we ended up getting into the main bus station in Istanbul at about 12:30am and had to wait outside in the cold, but luckily covered, for the bus service that would take us to a stop downtown where we could pick up a significantly cheaper taxi to take us to our hotel. We ended up getting into our hotel at almost 2am, completely soaked, very cold, and very tired.<br /><br />And then, low and behold, it didn't rain for the rest of the weekend! It was actually quite pleasant outside, despite the fact that it was overcast and cold most of the time. Much more enjoyable when I was sweating through my clothes back in August. And I went to pretty much all the same places that I went to back in August: the standard Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia, Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar. I even ate at some of the same restaurants, like this really tasty and legit Indian place near Sultanahmet where the Indian food is really spicy and they have LAMB. I love lamb.<br /><br />So random/bizarre travel experience that I had. Hilla and I had gotten a little bit lost trying to find this kofte place to eat at. We ended up turning around down a side street in an attempt to backtrack and find a place where we knew where we were. While turning around we happened upon this store front that had a bunch of really cool oil paintings of whirling dervishes and then I noticed that there was a sign over the door that said "Art Gallery: Free Entry". So we wandered down the stairs into the coolest basement art gallery ever. I it was divided into 2 main rooms, all plastered and white washed with vaulted looking ceilings and these wide arched doorways dividing the different rooms. The first room that we found ourselves in was full of paintings and sculptures with a sign that said "Everything is for sale" and in the second room was what appeared to be a workshop full of half finished sculptures and with 3 people inside working on some sketches. After looking around the for sale items, and finding and buying a couple of water colors that we liked, the people in the workshop invited us over to partake in some tea with them in the workshop. Luckily, a woman who was there spoke some English, and she informed Hilla and me that the two younger people were students of the older man who was training them for their fine arts entrance exam for an Istanbul University. Then they had to go back to practicing their artwork, but they told us that we could stick around and have more tea if we wanted. So Hilla and I stayed and watched for another 15 or so minutes, just sitting in this workshop and listening to classical opera music. All in all the whole experience was very bizarre. And then we went and got strange street candy that was like this:<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5oYDvg8gAn1ldFSihfmUs5wU5N0UIEVhOTJj98HMqUDaamrgeM6RE23AcSTy0I8bTDb5A5KfLrWVQOBQWkVn0R8-UBMxQHhgdyA_kWrwF9jQHBmLGJwxdi47ZdFW_FSRaYvwnJrkV1w/s1600/DSC03873.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5oYDvg8gAn1ldFSihfmUs5wU5N0UIEVhOTJj98HMqUDaamrgeM6RE23AcSTy0I8bTDb5A5KfLrWVQOBQWkVn0R8-UBMxQHhgdyA_kWrwF9jQHBmLGJwxdi47ZdFW_FSRaYvwnJrkV1w/s400/DSC03873.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527181886102023586" border="0" /></a>I love Hilla's face in this picture.<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br />So in other news, I got a full blown case of the flu right after getting back from Istanbul, complete with fever, major body pain, smokers cough, etc. I went to the doctors and they put me on mandatory bed rest, and even made me take a slip of paper saying that I couldn't come to class for 2 days to the department secretary to inform my professors why I wouldn't be in class. I actually really like this system since it forces me to stay home, which I normally don't do. Good thing I decided that this week I wasn't going to go travelling anywhere.<br /></div></div>Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-80746245953753252822010-10-07T15:48:00.007+03:002010-10-07T16:11:30.607+03:00Soggy mudbrick adventure #2<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhChuan8BFh976ZHF-vmaL_fwloHWzfbMLTGjlvpecaZNiTLw8Wn-22ZYzutrWr-XLy92PSI4e656oZKh6iDpSEfV_bXVxh2dGT5i-PMmYQBZ4tK6P0gTrw37kX1rYQ3jm1k5Vi6IEwxe8/s1600/DSC03786.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhChuan8BFh976ZHF-vmaL_fwloHWzfbMLTGjlvpecaZNiTLw8Wn-22ZYzutrWr-XLy92PSI4e656oZKh6iDpSEfV_bXVxh2dGT5i-PMmYQBZ4tK6P0gTrw37kX1rYQ3jm1k5Vi6IEwxe8/s320/DSC03786.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525286531634743970" border="0" /></a><br />Today was yet another rainy mudbrick expedition. Again, Benni Claasz-Coockson decided to take us on a fieldtrip to find a mudbrick village, only this time it was even wetter than the last. Especially since this time it actually rained non-stop. It was actually a lot of fun, despite ending up soaking wet and with very muddy shoes.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Rrlg5iQt1UDx-GLbbTcjtRqt-UoFtAmqnF2f2LiIkUP8pbZbN_ysC-OYRMU5avPjxX6zBRH4xotyvzCrHWv6NeD3bhsb72wHGMfHfTdFlxAcSbhNDFn6PoNxeCdWvbCzIYGY8jGajIk/s1600/DSC03773.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Rrlg5iQt1UDx-GLbbTcjtRqt-UoFtAmqnF2f2LiIkUP8pbZbN_ysC-OYRMU5avPjxX6zBRH4xotyvzCrHWv6NeD3bhsb72wHGMfHfTdFlxAcSbhNDFn6PoNxeCdWvbCzIYGY8jGajIk/s320/DSC03773.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525285952178833042" border="0" /></a>The hike up, as led by Professor Coockson.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9-XzrDldFDznk60d10Ru2lonTQwC8kh43FIbCg0gxqQmYle2QAQp8m6_jCQYLS7uN5NxZgwBcXxtvv0wNq4IcX7pZR5gqjAzTSwTmQ1GMkz04cz1aAnrKaVtwyIJch3DiBvrIwNcCnxI/s1600/DSC03774.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9-XzrDldFDznk60d10Ru2lonTQwC8kh43FIbCg0gxqQmYle2QAQp8m6_jCQYLS7uN5NxZgwBcXxtvv0wNq4IcX7pZR5gqjAzTSwTmQ1GMkz04cz1aAnrKaVtwyIJch3DiBvrIwNcCnxI/s320/DSC03774.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525286088518351666" border="0" /></a>Muddy shoes.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJbd24uurBVYlZ53bnyI0F4O8ZcClYt-RwC4Dq4y1aW6Z6EOYube31UQ82z107xGdNeKpcmvMBh6mhJMy5CvZ96RCC3tubl7_3qzjI6e90gHCG9Vl7lKtN5kPLKJGVusovYAZn4Pq23o/s1600/DSC03775.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJbd24uurBVYlZ53bnyI0F4O8ZcClYt-RwC4Dq4y1aW6Z6EOYube31UQ82z107xGdNeKpcmvMBh6mhJMy5CvZ96RCC3tubl7_3qzjI6e90gHCG9Vl7lKtN5kPLKJGVusovYAZn4Pq23o/s320/DSC03775.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525286277652925634" border="0" /></a>What the surrounding area looked like. Actually quite scenic, never mind that this was right behind Middle Eastern Technological University (METU)<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVwY8GHxAC6T0FWy6H9jRdJrwPS5_02xiIGvWygvCpRss9ErwiNwrTTTfahyphenhyphenOUtN68qGOssJjFMqv1S6AYXyIFrCSPH6Ie9Ppro6sIvPfkOd-r_9_UMdYD3e1FUcdSumxVwQ7ixj8XLWE/s1600/DSC03793.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVwY8GHxAC6T0FWy6H9jRdJrwPS5_02xiIGvWygvCpRss9ErwiNwrTTTfahyphenhyphenOUtN68qGOssJjFMqv1S6AYXyIFrCSPH6Ie9Ppro6sIvPfkOd-r_9_UMdYD3e1FUcdSumxVwQ7ixj8XLWE/s320/DSC03793.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525286403731194050" border="0" /></a>Mudbrick!<br /></div><br />All in all I think the hike might've been about 3 kilometers round trip, although it was slow going on the way there since mud ended up weighing our shoes down. At one point I had to run into the woods to pee and I saw THE BIGGEST RABBIT EVER with big fluffy feet hopping away from me. It rained almost the entire time, and midway through the walk up I had to dorkily roll my pants up because I kept on kicking mud into the folded up hems. By the end of the two hour excursion, which was actually 3 hours because our professor got into a minor fender bender upon entering the METU campus, We were drenched, muddy, and definitely ready to go home. However, upon my arrival home I found that my dorm still had no hot water since this morning (the second time this week), and the electricity was out so I couldn't microwave my lunch. Lame.<br /><br />Here is my strange pondering rant for the day: Sometimes I don't understand Turkish college students, especially in the Archaeology Department, and most especially the boys. Coockson had sent out an email on Wednesday saying "Be ready for a short walk and the weather type of the day" meaning "wear crappy shoes and get ready for a bit of a schlep". Of course this meant that, once again, one girl was wearing sandals and one boy was wearing WHITE nice leather shoes. This was despite the fact that last week we went on a field trip where the professor specifically said wear old shoes and they still wore unfit footwear. So of course, the girl with the sandals looked miserable because her feet were wet the entire time, and the boy was super slow because he was trying not to get his white shoes muddy, which was impossible. In the end, Katie (the other American girl in my class) and I were really the only ones able to properly keep up with the professor, although the girl in the sandals did manage to hold her own up with us despite being improperly shod. I mean, seriously, these people are studying archaeology. They must have at least one pair of crappy shoes and they can't be afraid of getting muddy because THAT'S THEIR JOB. It is very frustrating sometimes.<br /><br />Also what I would like to point out is the behavior of the boys on this trip. They were the slowest members of the party and also the ones most concerned with the upkeep of their appearance. I feel like, in the States, boys would be embarrassed to not only be slower than the rest of the girls but also cleaner than the girls as well. We actually had to wait for them at the end to finally make it down the hill after the professor and all 5 of us girls had already made it down to the cars. I called them indoor boys, since they're like indoor cats who never actually go outside. It was actually quite pathetic, and the exact opposite of what I was expecting boys to be like around here. However, they are still horribly aggressive drivers which makes for some terrifying driving experiences.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-8160649379173203442010-10-05T21:04:00.010+03:002010-10-05T21:53:18.348+03:00Mudbrick, Safranbolu, and The SicknessI have been negligent in my blogging. Sorry. I blame it on my being sick, although that's a bit of a lame excuse because it's just a cold and it's not like its keeping me from doing much. That, and today is the worst day, and here I am, blogging.<br /><br />I love Sudafed. I think it's one of the best things that I've brought with me on this trip. Thank god I remembered to bring it, since I'm not really sure if they have Sudafed here, and even if they did I would probably have to be prescribed it since you have to have cough drops prescribed to you by a doctor. Lame. And the doctor would probably want to load me up with antibiotics. Also lame. So for the past couple of days I've been surviving off of Sudafed and my miracle sickness juice which consists of hot water, one lemon, and a couple spoonfuls of honey. No jokes, my miracle sickness juice heals, and it's super tasty.<br /><br />So update from the past week and a little bit. On Wednesday we went on a mudbrick fieldtrip, the first of many fieldtrips for my vernacular architecture class. We went to this little town called Beyetepe Köy which is a tiny village that's right behind the university. It had a whole bunch of dilapidated mudbrick houses that were just falling apart on the side of the road, having been abandoned probably about 20 or so years ago. Apparently one section was a part of an old Armenian village 60 or 70 years ago. It was beautiful outside, having just recently rained, so all of the houses were kind of damp looking and there was that lovely just rained smell and the light was that perfect amount where it makes colors appear really vibrant. Here's an example of one such mudbrick moment:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSXMcCg5POuQwi384c0Xx1F7rV1Ho_eDKvOk_TmYojT2ByJjtBEsLd0tuRb8OZbmgGkwMC9Hct9tMNHqwSAtywN0_R46HnuBsIIdfvCeOivpJbMVWRGnGVNo9XUzaPHZybNOOSht4_AI/s1600/DSC03628.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSXMcCg5POuQwi384c0Xx1F7rV1Ho_eDKvOk_TmYojT2ByJjtBEsLd0tuRb8OZbmgGkwMC9Hct9tMNHqwSAtywN0_R46HnuBsIIdfvCeOivpJbMVWRGnGVNo9XUzaPHZybNOOSht4_AI/s320/DSC03628.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524627627195356818" border="0" /></a>Look at that beautiful mudbrick! It looks like it's just melting in the rain because, well, it is. Not only do you get a good idea of just how decrepit these houses were (this being one of the more complete ones of the group) but you can also see the mud plaster facing on one side (the front) and then the exposed mudbrick on the side. Look, you can even see the wood beams on the side of the house were they support the window and door frames! Isn't mudbrick exciting! People actually lived here! I am a huge nerd!<br /><br />Towards the end of the fieldtrip we found an old man to explain to us about the mudbrick village, although his explanation was entirely in Turkish so I really have no clue what the hell he said except for what little translation was provided to me. Midway through his conversation he just busted out some apples and pears that he'd been keeping in his coat and gave them to us as snacks. Then, when we were walking away he came up to me and started jabbering on to me in Turkish, after which I responded with "Uh, çok biraz Türkçe biliyorum" which means "I know very little Turkish" to which he replied with more Turkish punctuated by poking me in the shoulder. I was later told that he was telling me that I needed to learn more Turkish. Thank you old mudbrick man for telling me something that I already know!<br /><br />Over the weekend I did some more travelling with the usual travelling group, minus Valentina. We decided to go north and spend some time in Safranbolu, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Amasra which is on the Black Sea coast. Little did we know that not only was it going to be freezing cold while we were there, but it was also going to POUR on Sunday. No problem though, because we still had a good time.<br /><br />So the down-low on Safranbolu. It's an almost perfectly preserved Ottoman village, well, the old part of the city is, which is slightly down a hill from the new city of Safranbolu. The city specializes in things with saffron in it (hence <span style="font-style: italic;">Safran</span>bolu) including saffron tea, saffron turkish delights, weirdo saffron rice jello stuff (gross), and art with saffron flowers in it. The city itself was stunning, with winding streets with the most treacherous cobble stones that I have ever seen, beautiful houses, a Saturday street market, and a helpful policeman who spoke English. Our hostel was spectacular, and only 20TL a night ($15) for a dorm room, which was a dorm room in so much that it was 6 beds crammed into one room, but none of them were bunks, they were super comfy, and we had antique Ottoman rugs and wall hangings and our own bathroom inside the room. Outside, a traditional Turkish soup that is sold as a grainy powder was drying on benches in the hallway<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhN4-ow-apFzZ927uwLXF_kASwVA6QScGddhYZ-z6JYBjO_ca4RVcGcqsGc9j_2dsEkkdagSec8WCSQGLkmcJjiQSMWYhZRUWN2Zt0t_fPPVCUO1AaHBm45BduAmI_G6vYJwourQkQbO4/s1600/DSC03674.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhN4-ow-apFzZ927uwLXF_kASwVA6QScGddhYZ-z6JYBjO_ca4RVcGcqsGc9j_2dsEkkdagSec8WCSQGLkmcJjiQSMWYhZRUWN2Zt0t_fPPVCUO1AaHBm45BduAmI_G6vYJwourQkQbO4/s320/DSC03674.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524632198832485826" border="0" /></a>That's the soup, and Sarah's face with the soup. We even had to take our shoes off before we went upstairs to our rooms to keep us from destroying the carpets. And breakfast was free! And the hostel lady was really nice, and when we expressed interest in her homemade soup stuff she had to take us outside to show us the soup making process and tell us about how she uses homemade yogurt and homegrown veggies and the like.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguembHu-u4opaUtiKR9eNz9piBep2EubPeQDWnBjEL5L13OirXUWGvr8RYJBuNuXYiPg8rBz6QmimNkUemPn2FveOGKQN5refJJbXANulKI2hpBtjSnLE4OnIJxiP3VtUIr4mbzHMrloU/s1600/DSC03678.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguembHu-u4opaUtiKR9eNz9piBep2EubPeQDWnBjEL5L13OirXUWGvr8RYJBuNuXYiPg8rBz6QmimNkUemPn2FveOGKQN5refJJbXANulKI2hpBtjSnLE4OnIJxiP3VtUIr4mbzHMrloU/s320/DSC03678.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524632995513462354" border="0" /></a>The market place and houses.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5m4UlW7DHmyiD9fyR-mx8GORzDyZBmPrM_F3JNKMHtQKA9FTIb1itmguqvLxRABzYuhzmiIVVUk6R0ENb0EJqHM93iADcn1NKVta_ba9RcT9yiPFDJQCnnxNPdufBHrNFjgSOY8CVO30/s1600/DSC03697.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5m4UlW7DHmyiD9fyR-mx8GORzDyZBmPrM_F3JNKMHtQKA9FTIb1itmguqvLxRABzYuhzmiIVVUk6R0ENb0EJqHM93iADcn1NKVta_ba9RcT9yiPFDJQCnnxNPdufBHrNFjgSOY8CVO30/s320/DSC03697.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524633139587338130" border="0" /></a>Me! And more houses from above!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHqHFHLZIWpb8aX_cW2OGrpt7rw7xBQoWfjxHAH8sGeMG2L8_rXExnS9YW2OzfKZMkGq62tjzSpTL0alAMD9hpcNQFw0rzU0GnSDvccFY4pqOs3_Jb92zSesSMJ8ACtAHDrEqi0edZ1As/s1600/DSC03701.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHqHFHLZIWpb8aX_cW2OGrpt7rw7xBQoWfjxHAH8sGeMG2L8_rXExnS9YW2OzfKZMkGq62tjzSpTL0alAMD9hpcNQFw0rzU0GnSDvccFY4pqOs3_Jb92zSesSMJ8ACtAHDrEqi0edZ1As/s320/DSC03701.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524633427506146018" border="0" /></a>Inside a bazaar marketplace in town.<br /><br />We wandered around town for a while, found a really tasty restaurant where I ate Turkish raviolis with a tomato/pepper sauce and yogurt, and then decided to go to a hamam since we were a little bored and were really cold. It ended up being not only cheaper but also better than the one that I went to in Bursa. For 30TL we got a massage, the weirdo scrub thing where they scrape off like 3 layers of skin, AND they shampooed our hair and it was much longer than the one that I got in Bursa. It was one of those super ultra bonding moments since it was like "oh yes, here is the inside of the hamam. Now get naked!"<br /><br />The next day we went to Amasra on the Black Sea. I didn't realize how long it was going to take to get there until we were on a bus for 2.5 hours. It was, however, one of the most beautiful drives that I've ever taken as we went through pine and deciduous forests along mountains and sort of in the rain. Sometimes there were those really cool looking low-hanging clouds that made it look all mysterious. The one bad part was that I had to pee really bad towards the end, so once we got to a transfer point I ran across the street and had to ask an old man where a bathroom was. He then proceeded in leading me into a man cave cafe so that I could use the hole in the floor toilet in the back. It was a little bit awkward.<br /><br />Amasra was beautiful but rainy and we were only able to spend about 3.5 hours there before we had to take the 6 hour drive home. Upon getting off the bus we got poured on, and had to take refuge in a fish restaurant who had seriously limited their menu after the tourist season so we could only get chicken, salad, and calamari. The food was really good though in addition to being cheap (if you can't tell, I love cheap things). Afterwards we just sorta wandered around town, taking pictures and attempting to stay dry.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDqCQBpKqpy1cRSZrWnMu18-65HL_GCu29GzLG6eGYQNDAkpMySHLVhst7XSeKahJ2LXthYJgzPs6A5sPgiv0uIAY5ZjkRwgMXi17zKXKMh5usqNkbh_DChn2FMrPukPkbafiw-tWd4lI/s1600/DSC03745.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDqCQBpKqpy1cRSZrWnMu18-65HL_GCu29GzLG6eGYQNDAkpMySHLVhst7XSeKahJ2LXthYJgzPs6A5sPgiv0uIAY5ZjkRwgMXi17zKXKMh5usqNkbh_DChn2FMrPukPkbafiw-tWd4lI/s320/DSC03745.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524636173124562690" border="0" /></a>Me and the Black Sea are buds.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOAAnmWzI01Lq_XcysMWvPEvPGr9MW07jwOls9hg8mohZC3GKLT4xYUw3MnTtL1WV92JP8UPWCaukB_sBWchCdAmmGQX_T3fucjzVq7wXeF8ANEC-6pSG7nFRHNZ6NyP3GxKz8ua5ddlU/s1600/DSC03741.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOAAnmWzI01Lq_XcysMWvPEvPGr9MW07jwOls9hg8mohZC3GKLT4xYUw3MnTtL1WV92JP8UPWCaukB_sBWchCdAmmGQX_T3fucjzVq7wXeF8ANEC-6pSG7nFRHNZ6NyP3GxKz8ua5ddlU/s320/DSC03741.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524636480077168162" border="0" /></a>Walking through a colorful little bazaar of fruits and pickled things.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-7467455336800226552010-09-28T21:49:00.009+03:002010-09-28T22:44:28.477+03:00This weekend, and the effects of boredom.This weekend consisted of 3 exciting things that happened.<br />1. I was shown around Ankara a bit by an actual Turkish person.<br />2. I wandered around the old part of Ankara and bought my first souvenir (oh my god!)<br />3. I finally left this area and went to Gordion.<br /><br />On Friday a girl from my hall took Valentina, Hilla and myself to Ankara to show us where to get cheap, good Turkish food. Surprisingly, it was a chain restaurant, but a really good one, and I got to try lahmacun for the first time. It's basically like a burrito, so I must love it, since I love burritos. It was a large piece of pita-esque bread, topped with lots of minced meat, and then I was given a little plate with cilantro (which I usually hate), tomatoes, and lemon. Put all that on top of the bread with meat, roll it up into a burrito looking roll, and voila, lahmacun. I am now an addict. It might be because its the closest thing to burritos that I can get around here. Especially since I'm still pretty sure that the closest Taco Bell is in Spain. Anyways, I got a lahmacun meal, which consisted of 2 lahmacun (about 9 inches across each) a soda and a bowl of super chocolate-y pudding for...wait for it...8TL. Converted that's probably about 6$. Not bad. And it was legit tasty. I will go back. The bad thing was that it gave me weird dreams that night, which I can't even remember at the moment.<br /><br />Following the lahmacun adventure we were then escorted to Kocatepe Camii (camii means mosque in Turkish), of which there is a picture of here<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyqni9VhLWs3JdlsbHb9Z8DSoFiGZqhMYD09uDHNwrAh2qbEyp7AxFkOWi9GoG8PcjyAKCPAOsl_92mIxAH-lVePJo_qVemAKb6TkBrNTU0o8LQKxGumXiarJ07WLhBeMVAfgh2bD7dak/s1600/DSC03538.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyqni9VhLWs3JdlsbHb9Z8DSoFiGZqhMYD09uDHNwrAh2qbEyp7AxFkOWi9GoG8PcjyAKCPAOsl_92mIxAH-lVePJo_qVemAKb6TkBrNTU0o8LQKxGumXiarJ07WLhBeMVAfgh2bD7dak/s320/DSC03538.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522043194255740818" border="0" /></a>According to Sheyma (our Turkish friend/tour guide), it was built in the 1930s in the more modern style after the foundation of the republic. Anyways, it was gorgeous on the inside. And the best part was that, before we went into the mosque, and because Valentina (who is Muslim) and Sheyma could go in to pray, they showed Hilla and I how to do the proper cleansing ritual before you pray, which consists of a lot of washing of hands, blowing of noses, washing of feet, and for me that means WATER EVERYWHERE. After washing, with my pants half wet, they put our scarves on for us (since Hilla and I are incompetent at dressing ourselves) and in the end I looked like this<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9UAZKZrys2MxkMovFCpuk7XSO_UnU7IhWBz-OPl2jKqmTc4FmmrOb_hedSxYmO4027vbqcK3oBDfUkKyliY1KsagUkUOJkpDH29tyKQzPlUqqvujQNM4upPdIfqFoJjb120dF475t-N4/s1600/DSC03505.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9UAZKZrys2MxkMovFCpuk7XSO_UnU7IhWBz-OPl2jKqmTc4FmmrOb_hedSxYmO4027vbqcK3oBDfUkKyliY1KsagUkUOJkpDH29tyKQzPlUqqvujQNM4upPdIfqFoJjb120dF475t-N4/s320/DSC03505.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522044362447835682" border="0" /></a>Look at how stylishly conservative I look in my fancy Gap scarf. Then Hilla and I amused ourselves by wandering around the mosque trying to be unobtrusive while some people inside did their evening prayers. I looked a little weird wandering around with my backpack on since I had come from class.<br /><br />Saturday was spent wandering around the area of Ulus in Ankara. It's the older, and seedier portion of the city, but has a lot of cool things in it, as long as you go to see them when it's still light outside. I don't remember if I wrote about this in one of my earlier posts, but I actually stayed in a hotel in Ulus the night before I started orientation. I was not informed that it was a dangerous part of town until, when I asked the concierge where someplace good to eat was, he said "oh, this is a dangerous street". I then had to be escorted to and from the restaurant 30 feet away because there were sketchy people just hanging around. Anyways, I actually got to see Ulus when it was nice, so we went to the fortress, got some durum (more burrito like foods), wandered around the bazaar where I bought a hand towel for the gym and stared at these bizarre bedspreads that apparently everybody buys even though they're atrocious.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnXIAO10xulB7TefO8CNVDzzi9K230Z79yeBssBx7O_PP1cnm9zAth0ngth6D7tc17D6JuhabD3zvvbw1c16LSZpKKrFK3nw6b2wQHnnYVayqkzo38gW_dZOWqZbk-fkHr6JgZjqJkpnQ/s1600/DSC03559.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnXIAO10xulB7TefO8CNVDzzi9K230Z79yeBssBx7O_PP1cnm9zAth0ngth6D7tc17D6JuhabD3zvvbw1c16LSZpKKrFK3nw6b2wQHnnYVayqkzo38gW_dZOWqZbk-fkHr6JgZjqJkpnQ/s200/DSC03559.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522047528343094098" border="0" /></a>It looks like it belongs in a porno. And it's not just for wedding nights, its for all nights. Some even had little fake roses all over them like a garden. I don't know how people would be able to sleep on them. Do you think that husbands want to vomit every time they walk into their bedroom? Hell, I want to vomit just looking at it. Valentina says that Turks are obsessed with this kind of kitschy stuff. There is no excuse. That is awful.<br /><br />Sunday Valentina, Sarah (other Sarah, I'm not referring to myself in the 3rd person), Hilla and I went to Gordion to go check out the tumuli and the citadel. We ended up renting a cab for the entire day since the local bus would drop you off about 1.5 kilometers from the citadel, and the cab waited for us at each location and then took us home. All in all the cab cost us about 100TL, so 25TL a pop, which ended up not being so bad. The Gordion museum ended up being really cute and surrounded by a "demonstration garden" which, in the springtime, has native flowers that grow around the area. The Midas Tumulus was cool, although not quite as spectacular as the Treasury of Atreus, although what it did have in the middle was a log cabin (no Abe Lincoln was not buried in Turkey, as much as that may surprise you), where they entombed the body, and then over which they dumbed a whole bunch of dirt to make the giant mound that we see today. And here it is!<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMRdfwBzNRMRhrwrN_1vexNuAzFo_vhIDPzHxPSzjm3qz2N-sgrvgm31hBiqOAFVN5zwyjjqQtgmTtVY2F2zIaQGkxUJcjgLW3D8sDUXuQaE13oL8pE0dzjSLgEPKWtsCbDDMRDX1BqBs/s1600/DSC03567.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMRdfwBzNRMRhrwrN_1vexNuAzFo_vhIDPzHxPSzjm3qz2N-sgrvgm31hBiqOAFVN5zwyjjqQtgmTtVY2F2zIaQGkxUJcjgLW3D8sDUXuQaE13oL8pE0dzjSLgEPKWtsCbDDMRDX1BqBs/s320/DSC03567.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522050270784434946" border="0" /></a>Don't we just love that I can upload pictures now! So yes, it's basically just a giant hill with a log cabin inside. But even cooler is that the 3000 year old logs are STILL PRESERVED OH MY GOD. Even cooler than that, much like Stonehenge, the area around the citadel is COVERED in burial mounds. I don't think that I have a very good picture to show just how covered it was, but there are little hills all over the place. The museum said that there are approximately 88 tumuli in total, but only 35 have been excavated. That means that there are still probably 45 of them with bodies and stuff (maybe more log cabins?) still inside. It's the coolest thing ever.<br /><br />In other news, I find that I'm very bored in the evenings during the weekday. My professors haven't exactly figured out that they can give us homework yet, so I end up with the afternoons and evenings free to do, well, not very much. As much as I prefer living on campus to living in the middle of the city (safety, convenience, Turkish people living next to me) I find that, because I'm on campus, that I have next to nothing to do once I get out of class. I'm still kind of waiting for my homework to start happening, although since it's already the 3rd week I'm not expecting it anytime soon. I guess its just weird since I'm so spoiled living in Berkeley and having everything going on, even when I was living in the dorms, that, when I have nothing to do here I just don't know what to do with myself. I find that I Facebook stalk a lot, and watch a lot of Mad Men. I also think that's why my blog entries have been so detailed now, because I have nothing better to do than to update. Not like its a bad thing. It keeps everyone informed.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-50320407946437337122010-09-23T19:57:00.011+03:002010-09-23T20:29:48.124+03:00A brief photo tour of life at Bilkent so farAs promised in my last post, now that my camera works and I can upload photos onto my computer I will provide you all with a brief photo tour of life here. By "life" I mean dorm pictures, janky toilet pictures, roommate pictures, etc. I am especially excited about the picture of my room. Why? Because it is so small.<br /><br />Here we go.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaUsWf7__BmHPtKkPokTYieKYV_zyAXJ-7pMCqgawIQIH5paREwCwHc2guE61umPeR7l_7rzAaJI7Qn09zgU1LH19jlcOKBbrhmQAWXPwuDlKBaK2mOJTimB_sNVmbaxwGbIPlpvesyC4/s1600/DSC03494.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaUsWf7__BmHPtKkPokTYieKYV_zyAXJ-7pMCqgawIQIH5paREwCwHc2guE61umPeR7l_7rzAaJI7Qn09zgU1LH19jlcOKBbrhmQAWXPwuDlKBaK2mOJTimB_sNVmbaxwGbIPlpvesyC4/s320/DSC03494.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520155499637034994" border="0" /></a>This is the H Building. It is where I have every single one of my classes. I believe it is one of the biggest buildings on campus and houses a large number of Humanities departments, including the Archaeology department (1st floor). It's kind of a boring building, but that's ok. I have come to accept the modern style. Or at least, more modern than Berkeley buildings.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2FmxksmqIPwKOJsaZgQgYK0-ZpKU54rqh4NkUxRW9oCVUSGEpInUcwdDO9fDXUrsplRuC6tHMzsbe-sVH-PLdE-3I2dSqhm-Z5wOrmhkinZFTZDulAqKVLAJ1Zy0P4DubZrcHS10Q_M/s1600/DSC03497.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2FmxksmqIPwKOJsaZgQgYK0-ZpKU54rqh4NkUxRW9oCVUSGEpInUcwdDO9fDXUrsplRuC6tHMzsbe-sVH-PLdE-3I2dSqhm-Z5wOrmhkinZFTZDulAqKVLAJ1Zy0P4DubZrcHS10Q_M/s320/DSC03497.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520156583852099746" border="0" /></a>This is my walk back from the H building to my dorm, which sometimes I make multiple times a day. Look at how green it is! I'm almost sad that it won't be as green as soon as summer is over, even though it's hot as all hell here and it's almost October. Most of the time there are people sitting on the little patches of grass on either side of the walk. It's also very full of stairs. I think when this picture was taken I had already walked up 2 other stair segments.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXjK4h1N8TcxRfxUQYSEgvYB9WMVTfjL3os-p21pI4f0pQMuS84rzf4XYyj20BdgrzuB2VZZTOpxW8J8HzelxWd6HkKhq_MjLif-KopDP2qW-g2SZFF3JJpUpaMOzYTCtKBDcu9ca8esg/s1600/DSC03500.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXjK4h1N8TcxRfxUQYSEgvYB9WMVTfjL3os-p21pI4f0pQMuS84rzf4XYyj20BdgrzuB2VZZTOpxW8J8HzelxWd6HkKhq_MjLif-KopDP2qW-g2SZFF3JJpUpaMOzYTCtKBDcu9ca8esg/s320/DSC03500.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520157469800157970" border="0" /></a>This is my dorm. Wait, I just realized that there are 3 dormitories in this picture. Mine is the one on the far left, sorta behind the trees. It's in a prime location because it's right behind the grassy knoll where people sit and hang out after class. What you really can't see in this picture is the French kid who constantly juggles. Constantly.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfKUe3MY_-K8HgIgHS2q4tpjPM7eyvGNXLqYem7UTQXqhtGvqkfAmGDy5dcoPdmeSvELk69g_pmkYg6BGmNvQoXMoapRghJVCSdDKAqHxx-krXpjxpiO0mkpgmvxuO7Rh6haT3JhpA9Xs/s1600/DSC03502.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfKUe3MY_-K8HgIgHS2q4tpjPM7eyvGNXLqYem7UTQXqhtGvqkfAmGDy5dcoPdmeSvELk69g_pmkYg6BGmNvQoXMoapRghJVCSdDKAqHxx-krXpjxpiO0mkpgmvxuO7Rh6haT3JhpA9Xs/s320/DSC03502.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520158475176315074" border="0" /></a>This is the super ghetto kitchen that I make all my food in. Notice the lack of oven. Also notice the fact that I will be COOKING OFF OF HOTPLATES FOR THE NEXT 4 MONTHS. Never again will I complain about the Hoyt kitchen. This by far takes the cake as most communist era kitchen. What you can't see in the picture is the microwave (which didn't work this afternoon), large refrigerator, and toaster thing that looks like a George Foreman grill. I am tempted to cook hamburgers on it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtsFsGWBOSHtDnd86zqqcvk9Ut5YRNVwVYWxC-lI5CEI4Py6ph7ida-3JzrrqRLwp0EAf-VDcjOQTkqntTTTj81yZ2Wv7E4zfBNN7SewuuwfhPjeggoksRu8tTtzBxt9DZris6uAVCv1g/s1600/DSC03493.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtsFsGWBOSHtDnd86zqqcvk9Ut5YRNVwVYWxC-lI5CEI4Py6ph7ida-3JzrrqRLwp0EAf-VDcjOQTkqntTTTj81yZ2Wv7E4zfBNN7SewuuwfhPjeggoksRu8tTtzBxt9DZris6uAVCv1g/s320/DSC03493.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520159462935284114" border="0" /></a>Whoa, what the hell is this? More importantly, what the hell is this doing in my dorm? There are two of them in the bathroom across the hall from my room, which comprises half the stalls in that bathroom. And it's a girls bathroom. There aren't even boys allowed inside my dormitory building. And it's not like it's a hold over from some period when only boys were allowed at this school. This dorm was renovated this summer. All the facilities are basically new. So this was put in my bathroom because people actually use it. In fact, these strange hole in the floor toilets are all over campus. I had to pee in one this afternoon in the H building because the normal toilet was being used. Why do they even keep these things around? They smell funny. I guess they bring a whole new meaning to "squating" and "standing" stalls. Also note the decided lack of toilet paper because they don't give us any.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6quPezVtvih9XOCMzIKwJFNfo8vvlaIlCudCqOmH5-ulNYpb1L2WkztBWRdGnMUN1Mu8bn7hHRNTfXKUvXFRi0OIG5mkXZ60TPoBDfMev9k3WOgWJkLnRcXLZ_hrIMfqhBotdCx1x87c/s1600/DSC03492.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6quPezVtvih9XOCMzIKwJFNfo8vvlaIlCudCqOmH5-ulNYpb1L2WkztBWRdGnMUN1Mu8bn7hHRNTfXKUvXFRi0OIG5mkXZ60TPoBDfMev9k3WOgWJkLnRcXLZ_hrIMfqhBotdCx1x87c/s320/DSC03492.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5520160565166967762" border="0" /></a>Holy crap its the official first picture of my room, complete with roommate! I told Valentina to look excited to be in our room, so she of course wanted to ensure that everyone knew that this room is a war free zone. I sleep on the top bunk with the treacherous and completely vertical ladder that I must scale at least twice a day, sometimes more, fearing for my life every time. My desk is the one that's the closest to the window. I'm actually standing slightly outside of the doorway if that gives you any idea as to how small this room is. What you can't see in the picture is our tiny wardrobe on the left and our mini fridge that is also on the left. I like the room so far. We'll see how much I like it by January.<br /><br />So there it is. A small tour of my day to day life at Bilkent. More to come later.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-46574786750133025182010-09-22T17:15:00.003+03:002010-09-22T17:26:28.835+03:00ITS A MIRACLE!My camera decided to pull a Lazarus and resurrect itself from the dead. This means there's more than one piece of good news:<br /><br />1) My blog will be much more colorful and full of pictures as opposed to boring and full of words.<br />2) I no longer have to spend the equivalent of $150 on a new Sony camera to replace the one that is no longer dead.<br />3) I can actually show you what my room/closet looks like instead of telling you about it (this will most likely happen in the next post).<br /><br />In other news, which may not be quite as exciting, I'm actually learning things in class now. Yay! It was getting very boring just listening to the professors talk about class. And now I get homework! (that was not sarcasm)<br /><br />Also, I decided to submit my honors thesis into the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal. Everyone cross their fingers.<br /><br />So here it is, what everyone's been waiting for *drum roll*<br />THE PICTURES FROM TURKEY FROM THE PAST MONTH (warning: there are some pictures of my sprained ankle. You don't have to look at them)<br /><br /><table style="width:194px;"><tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/110880954057960685360/TurkeyTheBeginning?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_5rrTotMgdUM/TJoGXJ5lhdE/AAAAAAAAAxQ/qNTRVzJtjvc/s160-c/TurkeyTheBeginning.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/110880954057960685360/TurkeyTheBeginning?feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">Turkey, The Beginning</a></td></tr></table><br /><br />Just click on the picture and it will link you to the photo album<br /><table style="width: 194px;"><tbody><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><br /></td><td style="vertical-align: top;"><br /></td><td style="vertical-align: top;"><br /></td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><br /></td><td style="vertical-align: top;"><br /></td><td style="vertical-align: top;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-78188485780661663132010-09-19T12:48:00.005+03:002010-09-19T14:11:48.644+03:00The school updateI finally started school on Thursday. Finally. After 2 1/2 weeks of orientation hell complete with sprained ankle, cast, no cast, spraining the other ankle, apartment searching circus, moving into dorms, going on fieldtrips, figuring out how internet/buses/life works in this country, never stopping, etc, I have actually begun the school year. It feels like its taken forever and a day just for classes to start. So far this is what my schedule looks like:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday</span>: Turkish I, 10:40-12:40; Latin III, 1:40-3:40<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday</span>: Vernacular Architecture, 8:40-10:40; Turkish I, 10:40-12:40; Museum Practices and Theory, 3:40-5:40<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday</span>: Paleolithic Archaeology, 12:40-2:40; Latin III, 3:40-4:40<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday</span>: Turkish I, 9:40-10:40; Vernacular Architecture, 10:40-11:40<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Friday</span>: Museum Practices and Theory, 1:40-2:40; Paleolithic Archaeology, 4:40-5:40<br /><br />I say "so far" because in the first week this whole schedule is subject to change hours, especially since the professors are assigned 2 hour blocks from which they decide when to put their classes. However, most of my classes are only 3 hours in total so there's an extra hour when they get to decide whether or not they want to put the class during the first hour or the second hour of that block. It's kind of complicated. My (not) favorite part about this scheduling plan is that there is no consistency to the timing of classes. Note my Museum Practices and Theory class. It is offered Tuesday and Friday (odd), but not at the same time on those two days. I'm so scared that I'm going to forget when my classes are just because they're all over the place. I constantly carry around a schedule with me in the hopes that I won't miss any of my classes. Especially since, if you miss 9 hours of class you fail the course. It's nice that attendance is mandatory since it forces people to go to class, as opposed to those irritating people at Cal who never show up to class and then expect to do well on the exams.<br /><br />I'm super excited about my department. The Archaeology Department at Bilkent is unbelievably small, with something like 7 professors in it. Of the two department classes that I've taken, the maximum number of people in my class has been 5. The other class only had 3 people in it. Two of my classes have fieldtrips, one to Ankara museums and the other to neighboring villages so that we can survey different styles of architecture. The department itself also organizes fieldtrips for the students, particularly for the Intro to Anatolian Archaeology class that is offered for all first year students, although they let people tag along. There is also a student group led by one of the professors that goes hiking to offroad archaeological sites and camps and all that fun stuff. This is so awesome and so much better than the archaeology programs back in the states, especially since we get to actually visit the places that we learn about as opposed to just looking at pictures of them in our text books.<br /><br />More exciting news. I met with the professor that I'll be working with while I'm here for the semester. It looks like I'll be doing my usual database management for her since she has a whole bunch of paper catalogues of loom weights that absolutely need to be digitized. Unfortunately, since its an old department with a lot of older people in it they haven't really entered into the computer age for all of their cataloguing. So that's what I get to do, use FileMaker Pro and create computerized databases that are more aesthetically pleasing than Excel spreadsheets. The funny thing is that, during my meeting with Prof. Gates (the woman who I'm working for), she found an edition of Filemaker Pro that she had bought back in 1994 during the original push to digitize (look how long that lasted) so it was on a floppy disk and therefore unusable. She said that she would ask around the university for a more up to date version for me to use. Thank god because Excel is not exactly my favorite.<br /><br />During this meeting Prof. Gates gave me a brief rundown as to how exactly the university system in this country works, which sort of explains some of the bureaucracy of this place. When students apply for college they have to take a college entrance exam, which sounds something like the SAT. However, this test alone determines not only what university they will be attending but also what department they will be in. Students are not allowed to chose their major, their score chooses it for them. Thus, the people with the highest scores are put into majors like computer science and physics etc, while, unfortunately, those with the lowest scores study things like archaeology and other majors that are deemed less important by the government. My dad explained it to me pretty well, that the government wants the best and brightest to be studying things that are more important for the development of the state. It makes me feel a little bad for the students, especially since I entered into college intending to be a molecular toxicology major and switched midway through. Apparently its very difficult to change majors, so if you get selected for computer science you are staying in computer science whether you like it or not. It makes me really appreciate the American university system so much more.<br /><br />So I guess I should probably give my usual day by day update, especially since yesterday ended up being an...interesting day.<br /><br />Thursday and Friday school started, as stated before. For the first time in god knows how long I don't have homework the first week of school. In fact, my Museum Practices class was completely canceled this Friday because the professor had a friend visiting. Classes were good, small, and sound really interesting. We'll see how the semester progresses.<br /><br />Yesterday was when a whole bunch of stuff started happening. Hilla and I decided that we wanted to go see a movie, so we planned to take the school bus to the Sıhhıye stop in downtown Ankara, hop on the subway which would drop us off in front of AnkaMall, which has a huge movie theater inside. However, we missed the stop and ended up having to walk about 1 1/2 kilometers to the metro station. I did manage to order both subway and movie tickets in Turkish and luckily the guys both a) knew that I spoke English and b) spoke English as well so they responded in English. The subway ticket man seemed to be pretty excited about it and asked what movie we were planning on seeing, etc. So we ended up seeing The American which was not good. The plot is slow, there's not much action, and even though it seemed like it had a lot of potential for something really good it just never got there. Again, there was a 10 minute potty break in the middle of the movie while they switched reels, like in Bursa.<br /><br />After the movie we decided to go back into downtown Ankara to get dinner and then see a live band play in this underground music hall place. When we were waiting for our train, all of a sudden the train on the other side stopped and no trains came for probably about 5 minutes. Then we were told, I think, that in order to go downtown we would have to take a train in the opposite direction and wait at the stop there for another train to come going towards downtown. This all seemed really strange, and then we found out why once we got to that stop. Someone had committed suicide by jumping in front of the subway train and they had shut down the track going towards downtown. However, they did not shut down the track going the opposite direction, so while we were waiting for the other, rerouted train to come and get us, we sat on the platform and you could see some of what had happened underneath the train across from us. Luckily you couldn't see everything, but there was definitely blood all on the track and you could see the guys legs. It was really gruesome. Why they didn't just shut down the entire station, I don't know. Sometimes this place confuses me.<br /><br />Once we got to downtown we ate at this really good fish restaurant which, although pricey, still wasn't quite as expensive as we thought it was going to be. We were preparing for a 100TL bill, at the very least, to be split between the two of us. Instead, for a huge salad, calamari, sauteed shrimp, and a swordfish kabob that we split between ourselves it was only 71TL. That's 36TL per person, or about $24 with the exchange rate. And to top it all off it was delicious! I hate shrimp and I liked this shrimp. It might also have to do with the fact that it was basically swimming in butter.<br /><br />After dinner we went to the live music show which was a steal for 10TL. There was a live band which played some cover songs in English, which was nice to sing along to, and we got a beer with the ticket price. Then, before the show, I befriended the sound engineer who was really excited when he heard that I was American and had to tell me all about how he went to a 5 week intensive recording school in Columbus, OH and insisted on showing Hilla and me the sound equipment that he had. He had this really cool record program where the turntable is connected to the computer, and you put on a record that only has data on it, no music, so you can scratch the record and run an MP3 through it. Thus, you don't damage the record itself, and you don't have to keep on buying new ones. It was pretty awesome. And because I thought it was so awesome he bought Hilla and I beers. And then we got to have a table in the place that previously had a reserved sticker on it. Hopefully my befriending the sound guy doesn't end up like my befriending the student guy. He seemed really nice though, and he didn't come and bother me during the show so I hope that's a good sign. And he doesn't know where I live, which is also good. <br /><br />So all together, a fun/productive week and a half. Much better than the past 2-3 weeks.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-80603900194483794072010-09-14T16:50:00.002+03:002010-09-14T17:16:42.589+03:00Things that sometimes confuse me about this place1. Why are there so many cats around? They're all over campus. And they're not gross, ratty looking cats. They're huge, and well fed, and amazingly tame. There's one black and white cat that really likes to sit in my lap whenever I sit on the grassy hill in front of my dorm. Last time, it just sat there for 20 minutes doing that weird cat kneading thing that cats do. It helps me miss my dogs a little bit less.<br /><br />2. Why is it so difficult for me to get the interwebs in my room? I was told at orientation that there is wireless all over campus, but nobody told me that by "everywhere" they mean "everywhere except your room". At first I couldn't even get wireless since I wasn't registered for a dorm room. Then, upon registration, I found that I could only get wireless internet right outside the dorm and in the kitchens, but I needed an ethernet cable for my room. Then I discovered that there was no wireless in the kitchens for some reason. So I go to get my ethernet cable at one of the DormNet offices in the lobby of another dorm. They tell me that I can't pay for my cable there, that instead I must walk to the administration building about 15 minutes away, pay there, receive a receipt, bring the receipt to the DormNet office, and <span style="font-style: italic;">then</span> get my cable. So I walk to the administrative office to find that it's closed. The next day (today) I finally pay the 3TL for my cable, head to the DormNet office and find that, not only is it closed 40 minutes early but that it continues to be closed 20 minutes after they're supposed to come back from lunch. So I head to <span style="font-style: italic;">another</span> DormNet office in <span style="font-style: italic;">another</span> dorm and get my cable. But then I find that the cable that they have given me is too short, and that when you pay for the cable you must specify cable length, and that I can't pay them for a longer cable at the DormNet office but I must walk down to the administrative building <span style="font-style: italic;">again</span> and give them more money. So I finally said fuck it and traded cables with Valentina (the roommate) since she's closer to the ethernet outlet and she has a longer cable. I don't get why this had to be so hard.<br /><br />3. Why do I leave the states only to be back in the states again? Yesterday, after applying for my residency permit at the police department, I had to spend about 3 hours in AnkaMall next door, waiting for everyone else to finish with their permits. This mall, which I was later told my the archaeology deparment coordinator is medium sized, is 5 floors and god knows how long, filled with high end stores, has a huge supermarket called Migros 5M which rivals a Walmart in selection of stuff, and even has a little pool on the bottom level near the kids play area that has bumper boats. I thought excessive shopping malls and monster grocery stores was a distinctly American characteristic. There's even another supermarket called Real that is down the street from Bilkent. Sometimes it makes me forget that I'm even out of the country.<br /><br />4. Why do I have to cook off of an electric hotplate when I use the kitchen? I really don't think that needs any explanation.<br /><br />5. Why does even my dormitory bathroom have the gross hole in the floor standing toilets, even though its an all women's dorm? I just don't understand why they even put them in. I've only ever seen them in rest stops and bus stations. I don't get why they're also a part of dormitory bathrooms, especially since they also have normal toilets as well.<br /><br />6. Along the toilet vein, why doesn't my dorm provide me with toilet paper? There is a constant supply of cleaning ladies who clean the kitchens and floors, but the dorms refuse to put money into supplying us with toilet paper, so instead we must buy our own. I would rather have toilet paper than a daily cleaning crew.<br /><br />Sometimes I ask myself these questions when the bureaucracy of this place completely overwhelms me.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-48584912004746481172010-09-12T17:43:00.004+03:002010-09-13T21:48:04.855+03:00The Joys of FethiyeThis weekend, in celebration of the end of Ramazan, ESN decided to take all of us exchange students to Fethiye for the 3 day holiday (for a fee of course). Holy shit, was it cool. The following is a semi play-by-play of what all happened. Alas, there are no pictures up yet, which I will explain about at the end.<br /><br />Day 1: We arrive in Fethiye at around 8:30 in the morning after spending the night on the bus since it's about a 12 hour drive to go from north/central turkey to southwestern turkey. They divided us into 2 buses for the drive down, The Party Bus (aka The Drunk Bus) and The Sleeping Bus (my bus). Unfortunately for The Party Bus, The Sleeping Bus ended up with more action as there was a fight between the Palestinians and the Azerbaijani's, who were on The Sleeping Bus, at one point during the car ride and The Party Bus ran out of alcohol about 2 hours into the drive. Sucks to be them. Luckily nobody peed on The Party Bus this year, which apparently happened last year. There are no bathrooms on these buses. That means that someone peed INSIDE the bus. Drunks are gross.<br /><br />Continuing, we got to Fethiye at around 8:30 and had to wait around The Party Bus's hotel for a couple of hours since The Sleeping Bus's hotel was not allowing check in for a few more hours. Thankfully we were supplied with breakfast and were able to look at their pool and water slide that was inhabited by a group of heavily tattooed and overweight Brits in their 50's. Finally, after about 2.5 hours of waiting around, exhausted, and still wearing underwear from the day before, they took us to The Sleeping Bus hotel, which was the nicest hotel that I've been in out of the country for a long time. Not only was there a swimming pool, but our rooms were in apartment style with 2 rooms for 5 people, a kitchen, bathroom, and living room with a television, they fed us both breakfast and dinner, and there was live music in the evening. After checking in they took us to the beach for the rest of the afternoon, where we swam in the stunningly clear and blue water that was warmer than the swimming pool back at the hotel, and where we wandered around town for a few hours trying to find something to do other than get sunburned. Because Fethiye is famous for its paragliding, people were landing their parachutes right on the beach, and the sky was filled with them. The really bizarre thing about the town of Ölüdeniz (the beach town next to Fethiye) was that there are so many British tourists there that all of the menus are in English, all of the prices are listed in pounds sterling, and all of the pubs play UK soccer matches and advertise traditional English breakfasts (you know, complete with baked beans).<br /><div><br /></div><div>Day 2: We were taken on a chartered boat trip around the "12 Islands". Booze was free, drinks were free, lunch of freshly caught fish was provided. The boat would toodle around the islands surrounding Fethiye and would periodically stop off in little coves so that we could jump off of the boat and swim. I was brave and jumped off the top floor, thereby making myself look braver in comparison to the stupid European girls who were too busy tanning and bitching about how hot it was. At one of the islands that we stopped off at we were able to get off and hike for a while. And my ankle was feeling good enough to walk around in sandals and without any sort of wrap! Hurray! After getting back from the boat trip and eating dinner almost all of the other students went out to a karaoke club, but since I'm an old person and get tired really early I went to bed at 9:30 instead. Luckily I had Hilla as my roommate, who is also an old person, who went to bed at the same time as me so that I didn't feel like too much of a loser.</div><div><br /></div><div>Day 3: Holy fucking shit adventure day! We started out the day going to Tloss, which is a huge shit storm of an archaeological site complete with Roman amphitheater and stadium, Ottoman era fortress, Lycian tombs, and cult shrine to Belerephon and Pegasus. It has these awesome tombs just carved right into the cliff face that looks like a building facade but made out of cliff. Think Petra but not quite as cool. I just sorta drooled all over the site while the rest of the students looked properly bored. Luckily I had Hilla tagging along all over with me, and Sarah (other friend, also American but from UCSB) mountain goating all over everything so I didn't feel like the only person enjoying myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>After Tloss we were taken to by far the strangest restaurant that I have ever been to. It was a trout farm, but it looked like a real rainforest cafe. The seating was all outside, with big leafy green trees everywhere, waterfalls, pools with giant trout in them, really delicious fresh fish that was probably swimming around 2 hours before, and these elevated tree house looking things were you could sit on rugs with cushions and eat your food. They even had a bar where they had carved a channel through the middle of the counter that had water and small trout swimming through the bar. But the channel wasn't covered by anything so you could just stand there and pick the fish up. I think I stood there for like 15 minutes trying to pick up a fish. I kept walking around saying "What the fuck <i>is</i> this place?!" I think that whoever takes this idea to the states is going to make bank. James said that it would probably never fly because there are no health codes in Turkey so the fish bar would be out of the question in the US, and if it was able to open in the States that you would have to sign a waver to eat there. But I can still dream, can't I?</div><div><br /></div><div>Following the strange trout farm experience and on our drive to Saklıkent Gorge The Sleeping Bus broke down. Apparently, whenever the driver stepped on the gas pedal the bus didn't go, but it felt more like the bus was jerking and moving slower than I walk. So we had to stop off at this little restaurant/tea house on the side of the road while they fixed the bus. It was another one of those bizarre moments, where 40 some odd people all of a sudden flood this tiny little tea house and just sort of milling around waiting for our ride to be fixed. At one point 15 of us just sat on the curb, transfixed watching a woman making these crepe things. I felt a little bad for the poor people, especially since less than 10 of us actually spent money there. But then finally the The Party Bus came to retrieve us and take us to the gorge while The Sleeping Bus got fixed.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Gorge. Holy. Fucking. Shit. Awesome. Most of it was just walking through the river/stream that ran along the bottom of it. Because there is apparently no such thing as a lawsuit in this country, part of the hike consisted of wading thigh deep across a river that had just come off of a rapid. And the water was freezing cold. And it rocked. The rest of the hike consisted primarily of walking through the shallow stream that went through the gorge and periodically climbing over slipper marble rocks that obstructed the path. This was all well and good going up, since you could stay relatively dry. The hard part was going back to the entrance and having to slide down the rocks, with the stream. Almost all of us ended up soaking wet, especially since usually you would end up stepping into a pool that would be knee deep in water and you wouldn't realize it until you had already stepped down into it. At one point I fell backwards into a pool so that the front of me was dry but my back was drenched.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now for bonehead Sarah move of the week. At the end of the hike, after managing to keep my back relatively dry to preserve the state of my camera, I decided to ask someone to take a picture of me while I was standing thigh deep in the river. As I was handing my camera to the guy to take the picture, the string for the camera got caught on my finger and I dropped it in the freezing cold water. Luckily the memory stick with the pictures is fine, but the camera is completely shot. So this is why there are no pictures up yet, because I was dumb and broke my camera.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that ends the story of the Fethiye trip. After finishing at the gorge we were able to change into dry clothes and drove back to Ankara. I managed to dry my underwear on the seatback table in front of my during the drive.</div>Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-51732054931147282502010-09-05T21:04:00.002+03:002010-09-05T21:50:07.655+03:00And the orientation week of hell only continues...So my retardedness only gets better and better. Last night, while boarding a bus after getting dinner in town I sprained THE OTHER ANKLE while stepping off the sidewalk...again. Luckily it's not half as bad as the other one, as it isn't even swollen, just painful when I walk. And I've decided to baby it for the next couple of days in the hopes that it will get better faster, so I have a frozen water bottle that I plan to use to ice my ankle twice a day, I'm trying to walk on it as little as possible, and I've been actively elevating it when I sit down. But now I'm sporting the ever stylish 2 ankle wraps which draw even more attention, so now I'm really known as the crippled girl who's retarded and can't walk down the street without hurting herself. Although I have to imagine that this wouldn't have happened if the first ankle wasn't already sprained because I've been favoring it a lot plus my balance is already off and add on an absurdly high curb that I have to step down from while I'm tired because its midnight does not make a very good combination. That, and I have to think that my brain cells that would have otherwise gone towards helping me walk down the street and feed myself without getting food all over me were allocated to more useless areas of my brain, like the place where I remember random information. The good news, though, is that my really bad ankle is getting a lot better, and if it weren't for the bruising and stiffness I would be able to walk pretty comfortably. The swelling has almost completely gone away as well.<br /><br />So the extra little bit of hilarity to this otherwise hilariously tragic first week of orientation is the gem that I woke up to this morning on my facebook. So a little bit of background story: A couple of days ago I was walking from the computing center after checking my email, and it was dark, and I noticed that another student (male) was walking about 20 feet behind me as I hobbled up the hill. After a while he caught up to me and asked if I needed help carrying anything, which I told him that I didn't, and we started making small talk and discussing what we major in, and he apologized for his relatively broken English and I apologized for my extremely limited Turkish. At the end he walked me up to the road that lead to my dorm (not even to the door) and we both agreed that we should get coffee sometime. I walked away, excited that I actually made a Turkish student friend and might be able to have someone to practice my Turkish with. Then, this morning I wake up to find this in my facebook messages:<br /><br /><span class="GBThreadMessageRow_Date"></span> <span class="GBThreadMessageRow_BranchLink" bindpoint="branchLinkWrapper"></span> <span class="GBThreadMessageRow_ReportLink" bindpoint="reportLinkWrapper"></span> <div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body"> <div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body_Content"> hey Sarah. how are you. Tonight ı was at party (radio Bilkent) and ı decided to invite you. ı came to your dormitory but you were not there. well ıf ı had seen you, ı would have told you something. actually ı wanted to talk about an issue face to face with you. however you will be busy because of orientation. so now ı am writing here to you. little girl, ı am captured by your beautiful eyes already. well ı like you finally ı succeed to explain .Sarah, you are in my mind since we have met. ı cant forget your eyes and your simile. you were in my mind even at party. sarah please be my girlfriend. be my angel. thanks god ı met with you.<br />ı will wait for your respond impatiently. ı like you sarah. iyi geceler.<br /><br />Jesus. H. Christ. This is NOT what I asked for. I was so excited to have a friend, and then I find out that not only has he sent me what's basically a love letter, but he went to my dorm looking for me AND fantasized about me all night. Ew. Creeper. Stalker. Ew. After I found that this morning I just sorta banged my head against the keyboard a few times. It's like "Welcome to Turkey! Here's a cast! And a stalker!" Luckily he thinks that I'm going to be living off campus during the year so he won't know where I live during the semester.<br /><br />In much better news, I decided to live in the dorms for the semester instead of find an apartment. The whole search was just turning into a shit show, especially after I got ditched by the one group, and then I found two other girls who were looking but they were getting really picky and a little bit unreasonable about what the price of apartment would be, so I just kinda gave up on that. I'm much happier now because I registered for my dorm today, and I believe that I'm going to be living in a double with an Italian girl named Valentina that I met yesterday on our fieldtrip to Beypazarı who is also an archaeologist (although she studies pottery) and is going to be taking some of the same classes as me. That, and living on campus is going to be so much easier since I discovered that I'm going to have a class at 8:40 in the morning. So now I can just roll out of bed and down the hill to my classes instead of waking up at 6:30 in the morning to catch a bus in the hopes that I'll get to campus on time. And I'm still going to have a kitchen so I'll be able to cook for myself during the semester. Also, I realized that one of my arguments for living in an apartment was the whole 12:00 curfew on weekdays was ridiculous because I'm in bed by 11:00 anyways. In the end, the dorms were a much better idea.<br /><br />More good news! I made friends! I've been hanging out with a Finnish girl named Hilla who was actually one of the girls that I had mentioned I wanted to live with but was living in the dorms for the semester. She's great because we both joke about how we are like old people because we both get tired really easily, and hate going to night clubs, and all those other things that make me an oddity among the "normal" 20-somethings. This became especially apparent when I came to the conclusion that, unlike myself, most of the exchange students here are in the country to party most of the time, since they're out drinking almost every night, where I actually had a specific reason to be here, which was to study. Anyways, Hilla's cool. Plus, she ends up saying things that end up sounding really funny because of a) the Finnish accent and b) the sarcasm that she couples it with. Oh, and also, neither of us can dress ourselves so it works out pretty well. She was saying that sometimes her mother tells her that her clothes don't match, and I was like "in the winter time, I get made fun of for looking like a hobo". I also make fun of her because she's from Lapland. Like, Santa.<br /><br />I was going to end this post, but then I remembered that I went to Beypazari yesterday on a field trip. The city was pretty cool, as it had a bunch of really old Ottoman style houses that were winding down a hill on little cobble stone streets. We actually passed by a woman who was making homemade tomato paste in a big vat in the middle of one of the little streets that we were walking down. I was told by my Turkish teacher that the city is known for it's carrot juice, so I bought some which, surprise surprise!, tasted like I was drinking a carrot, complete with that sorta dirty taste that one gets when eating a carrot. There was a little museum that we went to that was put in an old house in the city that tried to preserve the traditional way of life for the Beypazari people. I got to make a cool traditional painting out of these paints that are all natural but mixed with cow poop to get the right consistency so the place smelled a little strange. To make the painting they make a water mixture with a special root, then drip the paint into the water and swirl the water around to make different designs for the background and add additional drips and swirls on top to make pictures. My picture was of a gold fish. The lady doing the demonstration did most of the work, but I got to put on some drips so it's still kinda mine. I'm going to give it to my mom and write "Sarah Giffin Age: 22" on the bottom.<br /><br />During the fieldtrip we had to hike up a hill to get a good view of the city, and I was congratulated by one of the ESN members because I have a bum ankle and still beat almost all of the other students up the hill. Mainly I was trying to get away from them because they kept on bitching about how hot it was outside, which was pissing me off. I felt proud of myself for making them look like complaining idiots. And then later that day I sprained the other ankle, so I guess that showed me.<br /></div></div>Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-45554648481711743812010-09-03T20:57:00.003+03:002010-09-03T21:17:48.326+03:00Hurray the cast's off! I went back to the doctor two days ago at the urging of the ESN (Erasmus Student Network, they're the exchange student people) coordinator because the cast was starting to turn my toes a funny color. That and I absolutely didn't need it since my foot isn't broken. So now I'm back to the original soft elastic bandage that I started out with. Even the swelling is going down, and it doesn't hurt quite as bad. I only have a bunch of bruising, especially on my three middle toes, some minor swelling, and a lot of stiffness in the foot. I'm supposed to go back next week so that the doctor can give me some rehab exercises to do.<br /><br />Orientation has been hectic. We're constantly doing things, and it totally does help my foot since it needs to be resting and elevated and not constantly walked on on uneven ground. My day consists of:<br />1. Wake up at around 7:50ish, shower, eat breakfast, get ready.<br />2. Walk (or in my case hobble) to Turkish class from 9:30-1:00<br />3. Eat lunch for 1.5 hours. Usually I finish before then so sometimes I hobble back to my dorm and leave my backpack.<br />4. Go on field trip somewhere. Yesterday it was to Ataturk's mausoleum, today it was going to the house of Parliament, although I didn't go because I'm resting my foot for an all day field trip that's tomorrow in Beypazarı.<br />5. Get talked at in some sort of presentation.<br />6. Eat dinner.<br />7. Try to internet. I only recently figured out how to get it in my dorm building, although I still can't get it in my room.<br />8. Go to bed<br /><br />A couple of nights ago I went out to a bar with a big group of people, although I was only drinking a single beer and trying to offset the fact that I hadn't had dinner by chowing down on the Doritos that were on the table. I wish they had nachos.<br /><br />So I'm scared shitless that I'm not making any friends. I don't remember welcome week freshman year being this hard for friend making. I think its because I basically missed the first two days of being here because of my foot and I also seem to have next to nothing in common with most of the exchange students. Plenty of people know who I am, considering the fact that I had a HUGE cast on my foot for the first three days, and I basically limp around everywhere, and everyone always asks how I am, but nobody is really my friend. It doesn't help that we didn't get cell phones until today (which I payed 165TL for which I think is excessive but that's all they had for a shit phone that doesn't even have a color screen and only has 10 minutes of talking time on it right now). For example, there was a group of girls that I met on the first day, was getting along fine with them for a while, then realized that we had nothing in common with each other (i.e. they've been going out every single night which isn't my thing, plus one of them skipped Turkish class because she didn't like being called on. Lame.), and then about 15 minutes ago I was informed by the one girl of the group that I actually really liked if it's OK if I look for an apartment with someone else because one girl's parents want her to have a single yadayadayada. So now I've been voted off the island in the apartment search. And then the girls that I actually do want to live with are living in dorms for the semester. I'm almost thinking about moving into a double dorm room just so that I don't have to live with people that don't seem to want me to live with them. It's really super frustrating/stressful. I can't wait until school starts in 2 weeks because that means that this whole hell will be over with. I would just like not to be miserable and alone for the entirety of the semester. It really makes me miss home...a lot. This is not the way that I was wanting this whole thing to go.<br /><br />I can only hope that this whole situation only gets better from here on out.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-59411326757429594842010-08-30T14:27:00.002+03:002010-08-30T14:29:07.445+03:00So I'm in a cast...The doctors decided that it would be best for me to be in a cast that goes 2/3 the way up my leg. It'll be on for 10 days at least. That's all that really needs to be said.<div><br /></div><div>Oh, and it is unable to be signed because its only hard on the back and soft gauze the rest of the way around. Not even fun. Poop.</div>Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-71538949269870262542010-08-28T14:56:00.002+03:002010-08-28T15:00:04.555+03:00The slide show for GreeceSince I can't figure out how to make the slide show application work in my sidebar, I will just post a slide show of my pictures as a post instead. If you click on it, it will redirect you to my picasa website.<br /><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" width="400" height="267" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&hl=en_US&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2F110880954057960685360%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26access%3Dpublic%26psc%3DF%26q%26uname%3D110880954057960685360" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-25339085711195749162010-08-26T19:11:00.002+03:002010-08-26T19:16:44.435+03:00One of the most bizarrely beautiful moments of my trip so far...Sitting on the steps out the side door of a military van in the mountains above Lake Egirdir, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon when the sun is not stiflingly hot but still warm and golden and coming through trees at the perfect angle, on a dirt road between two apple orchards while a military officer, maybe 20 or 21, in full Turkish officers garb complete with green off-kilter hat, picks small purple plums from a tree beside the van, silently sharing them amongst ourselves, neither of us speaking the other's language, waiting, and throwing the pits into the field nearby. No words were spoken, nor did they need to be.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-39163298460030588432010-08-24T19:50:00.002+03:002010-08-24T20:43:51.307+03:00It's official, I'm a retard...I'm going to have to start referring to all of my ankle sprains whilst abroad as "Pulling an Argentina". Many moons ago (4 years), when I was in Argentına for the 2nd time, I decıded to try my hand at learnıng how to drıve a motorcycle, all at the promptıng of my host brother who assured me that ıt was goıng to be perfectly fıne, and that we wouldnt tell my grandmother because my grandmother would never fınd out that I was a) learnıng to drıve a gear shıft motorcycle and b) doıng so wıthout a helmet on. To make a long story short, I crashed the motorcycle ınto a rather hıgh curb after I hıt a bump, throttled the engıne accıdentally whıle stıll ın 1st gear, and then went kareenıng ınto the curb. My lack of helmet was remedıed by my host brother, who was sıttıng behınd me provıdıng me wıth ınstructıons on how to drıve that damned vehıcle, who grabbed my head as we were goıng down. I then had to somehow hıde a horrıbly spraıned ankle and chest contusıons from my grandmother, whıch dıd not work very well. Luckıly, we only had 2 days left untıl we had to go home, but I stıll had to rıde back to Buenos Aıres on a bus for 11 hours and then a plane for 10 hours after that.<br /><br />So why am I tellıng thıs seemıngly tangentıal story about spraınıng my ankle ın Argentına 4 years ago? Because today, whıle walkıng harmlessly down the street and poıntıng out a completely rıdıculous dress to Emıly that was ın a wındow above us, I pulled an Argentına. I ate shıt whıle steppıng off of the sıdewalk to cross a small sıde road. Not only dıd I eat shıt, but I completely rolled my ankle on the way down (ıronıcally, or maybe not ıronıcally, the same ankle that was spraıned from the motorcycle ıncıdent), ın front of a very busy street wıth a sıdewalk full of people, and then ı just kında sat ın the road for a lıttle bıt tryıng to wıll myself to get up. I thınk after that I went ınto shock because I was able to walk the block to get to a step so that I could sıt and waıt for the paın-caused rıngıng/lıghtheaded nausea to leave. After that, I thınk the dumbest decısıon that I decıded to make was to decıde that ıt was stıll ok to try to walk to fınd the archaeology museum (whıch was closed for renovatıons, by the way), and then contınue to walk all the way to the hamam that we went to because, my god, I was goıng to go to a hamam whıle I was ın Bursa whether I lıked ıt or not. It was there that I dıscovered the golfball sızed lump on the sıde of my foot, ın the exact same place where I had been havıng mysterıous searıng paın wıth every step that I took. It was then that I decıded that maybe walkıng all that way was not the best ıdea, as was refusıng to go to a doctor. I speculate that I mıght've torn the tendon that runs down the top/sıde of my rıght foot. So now I hobble around short dıstances untıl tonıght I get on an 8.5 hour bus rıde to Eğirdir, whıch I had specıfıcally pıcked so that we could go hıkıng, but where, ınstead, I wıll be spendıng my 4 nıghts there as an ınvalıd. Maybe I'll be able to fınd a doctor whıle I'm there. If not, ıt's a 4 day waıt untıl I get to Ankara, where I wıll see a doctor ıf I havent already. No fear parentals! I'm not completely destroyıng myself, hopefully!<br /><br />And now for somethıng completely dıfferent!<br /><br />Wıth the exceptıon of my bobble, the trıp has been excellent so far. We got ınto Bursa two nıghts ago, to fınd a cıty whıch remınds me very much of San Francısco. Ok, so ıt really only remınds me of SF because the whole cıty ıs buılt on a mountaın sıde so I perıodıcally have to walk uphıll, but ıts somethıng that I have to remınd me even the lıttle-est bıt of home. We're back to a bustlıng cıty where I am unable to get homesıck because I constantly have somethıng to occupy me, and untıl thıs afternoon, Emıly and I have been walkıng everywhere. Although we dıd have to take a bıt of an Amerıca break. Mıdway through yesterday afternoon we dıscovered that a movıe theater was showıng Inceptıon, ın Englısh, wıth Turkısh subtıtles, and sınce Emıly was starvıng for Amerıcan pop-culture, and because I REALLY wanted to see that movıe and have been bıtchıng about ıt for the past month and a half (don't belıeve me, ask Sam), we bought tıckets. I was actually quıte proud of myself ın the tıcket buyıng because I was able to use my very lımıted Turkısh to ask ıf the movıe was ın Englısh and get two tıckets, all wıth pretty much no mısunderstandıng. After buyıng tıckets we then went to the GIANT shoppıng mall down the street, complete wıth glass pyramıd remınıscent of the Louvre (the Turks, we've dıscovered, love theır shoppıng), walked around the mall a bıt, and then chılled out ın the Starbucks for a whıle, waıtıng for the movıe. Are we cop-outs? Maybe a lıttle bıt. Was ıt stıll awesome? Absolutely.<br /><br />The movıe theater ın and of ıtself was an experıence to behold, as there was a 15 mınute break ın the mıddle of the movıe when they had to CHANGE REELS (WTF?!), and had a whole new set of commercıal/prevıews that we had to watch (maybe 2 or 3). Although what the theater lacked ın screen/fılm qualıty, they certaınly made up for ın sound. It was almost so loud that I had to plug my ears. Inceptıon was excellent and lıved up to everythıng that I had hoped ıt would be.<br /><br />So after Amerıca Fest, we actually dıd some culturally relevant thıngs. We got home, and a man who was frıends wıth our hotel owner decıded to take us and 3 French people to, what he descrıbed as "A Sufı cırcle dance ın very old Ottoman buıldıng. 600 years old!". Not untıl we got there dıd I realıze that we were goıng to a legıt (and FREE) whırlıng dervıshes performance ın a restored Ottoman mosque, as performed by the chıldren's/young adults dervıshes group from the cıty. It was unbelıeveable, and the fact that ıt was not part of a 100Lıra nıghtly dınner show made ıt that much more authentıc. We also got to wıtness a small part of a Muslım servıce whıch took place at the end, all from our lıttle spots agaınst the raılıng on the top floor of the mosque where the women are supposed to sıt. As ıt was technıcally a relıgıous servıce the mosque was gender segregated throughout.<br /><br />Afterwards our frıend, who we called "The Man ın the Pın-strıped Pants" took us to hıs favorıte tea house where a bunch of hıs buddıes got together and played tradıtıonal Turkısh ınstruments ın a sort of "man cave jam sessıon" sorta deal. The men were all quıte nıce, and even ınvıted us to dance towards the end, whıch consısted of dancıng ın a lıttle cırcle and snappıng our fıngers. All together, a very enlıghtenıng experıence ınto the ways of the Turkısh people.<br /><br />As stated before, today I hobbled and Emıly walked to a hamam ın Çekirge. Also very ınterestıng, albeıt slıghtly homoerotıc. Much lıke a spa, we were led ınto a gıant domed and marbled room wıth a pool of steamıng hot water from a hot sprıng ın the mıddle. We had to fırst cleanse our feet before enterıng the room, and then rınse off usıng medıum sızed shallow bowls ın low to the ground sınks before we were able to get ınto the pool. We then had to waıt whıle, ın the same room and ın front of everyone, a woman scrubbed and rubbed you down wıth soap on a marble slab at the front of the room. So basıcally a hot sweaty room fully of half naked women (turn off- most were mıddle aged or old) loungıng around ın a pool whıle another woman ıs gıvıng a soapy massage to a practıcally naked person on a marble slab. Imagıne that as you wıll. I was hopıng the hamam would heal my foot, as we were told that they are supposed to help people wıth rheumatıc dısease, but I thınk the heat just made ıt worse. I stıll had an excellent tıme.<br /><br />(As you can see, I fınally gave up wıth fıxıng the weırdo Turkısh "I"s whıle I wrıte, sınce the keyboard only slows me down.)Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-75957873166841431452010-08-18T20:53:00.002+03:002010-08-18T21:10:04.554+03:00So Turkey has been, well...TurkeyTurkey is unbelievable. There are really no words to describe how awesome this country is. First off, Istanbul made Athens look like a 3rd world slum. Just walking around our hostel in Istanbul was a new experience, with cobble stone-esque brick layed streets, and huge Byzantine style mosques on practically every single corner. It's almost unfortunate that our first mosque experience had to be the Blue Mosque, as its so spectacular that it's made all others practically pale in comparison. The Aya Sofia was quite literally breath taking, with Byzantine Christian mosaics coupled with huge Islamic inscriptions just hanging on the walls. The one, and only bad part of my experience in Istanbul was the heat plus extreme humidity. It made it so that I was never dry. I woke up in the morning wet, walked around all day practically dripping with sweat, took a shower and never dried off completely, and subsequently went to sleep wet. I would wake up at 6 in the morning to pee and would discover that my hair was still slightly damp and so was my pillow. But other than that, the city was spectacular. We walked up and down the major street leading up to Taksim Square, which was jam packed full of people and stores and was just a spectical in and of itself.<br /><br />I have to say, that one of the strangest things that I've had to get used to while I've been here has been the Islamic culture. As it's Ramadan, people who are observing are not supposed to eat, drink, or even smoke during the day time from probably about 5:00 in the morning until 8:20 in the evening. There are constant prayer calls, and all over Istanbul there were activities for children to keep them from thinking about the fact that they were fasting all day. And then once the fast was broken, everyone would flood the restaurants. Some restaurants wouldnt even be open until fast was broken at 8:20, and even then, others would seat you and feed you, but then would put out special place settings for the observers, waiting for them to come and eat. Prayers were called about 5 times a day, and even here, on the island of Bozcaada, which is decidedly more layed back than Istanbul, a rocket or firework or something very loud is set off marking the end of the fast. Around Istanbul, especially where we were, with all the mosques and stuff, women would be walking around in head scarves, and i even saw one family walking where all the women were wearing full blown burkas, complete with covering from the eyes down. A number of other women were wearing burkas minus the face covering. It was a very strange site to see.<br /><br />I'm updating this blog from an internet cafe on Bozcaada (formerly Tenedos) which is playing all Pink Floydd live music. The island is lovely, but since I spend most of my day doing nothing, I've found myself getting horribly homesick towards the middle of the day. I just get so upset because I want to come home but I know that I can't for at least 4.5-5 more months which seems like a really really long time. But then I have to remind myself that loads of people study abroad for that long, and they've done fine, so I just need to man up and get over it. I think its just accentuated by the stress caused by travelling around with a huge suitcase, and full backpacking backpack, and a regular school backpack. That and my backpacking bag got all full of soap a couple of days ago because my body soap container exploded in transit from Istanbul to Bozcaada, which was horribly frustrating since not only did I lose an entire bottle of soap, but I also had to completely wash out my backpack. It made for a foul mood and wishing that I was home.<br /><br />As I have no internet in my hostel for the next week or so, updates will be sporadic, as they have been, with no pictures. I apologize in advance and promise more detailed updates soonish.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-19521615167569925602010-08-10T12:14:00.000+03:002010-08-10T12:14:49.150+03:00Now I've figured out how to work this damn contraption<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoNxBE0Z_qPnswMg5aPkPeJm6xIC1m_xKmvQ_CAkj02hvbNpjVXZZL7nApaZQyALPfoDhg91aMzddO5Ys3QiuMCkqAlcC3rv5DLjwT89UaIWxSn7Np70g50SmW3rFyx3It4v-nV0z_8c/s1600/DSC02835.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihoNxBE0Z_qPnswMg5aPkPeJm6xIC1m_xKmvQ_CAkj02hvbNpjVXZZL7nApaZQyALPfoDhg91aMzddO5Ys3QiuMCkqAlcC3rv5DLjwT89UaIWxSn7Np70g50SmW3rFyx3It4v-nV0z_8c/s320/DSC02835.JPG" border="0" alt="" style="clear:both;float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1gc5ooBiqs1OgqLnx9bpEwOhj9_hdiZmtu5T9xzkt3btx-Vr73A6Ungt_R5zYY6qxrVCmmZy1IBmbSUjJklJxBLj0jJysmVrMdGhdTjApQ9XNwUVg8Gk4R5UqjLoxs4MW3Je502V37mo/s1600/DSC02836.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1gc5ooBiqs1OgqLnx9bpEwOhj9_hdiZmtu5T9xzkt3btx-Vr73A6Ungt_R5zYY6qxrVCmmZy1IBmbSUjJklJxBLj0jJysmVrMdGhdTjApQ9XNwUVg8Gk4R5UqjLoxs4MW3Je502V37mo/s320/DSC02836.JPG" border="0" alt="" style="clear:both;float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;" /></a> Now that I think that I've been able to figure out how to post pictures onto this new fangled contraption that I've heard people calling a "blog", I figured that I would grace you all with lovely scenic views of pretty much the entire town of Mikines as seen from my back porch. It goes in a panorama from right to left starting at the top. Across the street from us is where we dropped off the kitten, just for a little bit of context<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDYbpipmRkWXaYVVs34LFt8KcVl6Y3z4jII1q6qwsXoqkxCrrDUxxSz5jzXndHxkVtJ-P-ELqFLKnJLASai7cgGFgiZR9sZV5fsFHnXLfVAXyVLr3RfT2I4YUBZruSkWZQusOuWtvwY4/s1600/DSC02837.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDYbpipmRkWXaYVVs34LFt8KcVl6Y3z4jII1q6qwsXoqkxCrrDUxxSz5jzXndHxkVtJ-P-ELqFLKnJLASai7cgGFgiZR9sZV5fsFHnXLfVAXyVLr3RfT2I4YUBZruSkWZQusOuWtvwY4/s320/DSC02837.JPG" border="0" alt="" style="clear:both;float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;" /></a><div style='clear:both; text-align:RIGHT'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2258949086719004971.post-35908957837318518512010-08-09T16:38:00.003+03:002010-08-09T16:55:05.222+03:00It's over...sortaToday was the last day of work for the undergrads. I feel like sad is the wrong word to describe this feeling. While I'm a little sad because now I'm no longer going to have my little routine that I've worked out, and I'll miss Marion (hotel owner who calls me "Sunshine" every morning when I walk down for breakfast), I'm glad that I'll no longer have to spend 7 hours inside the museum. I was getting a little stir crazy. I won't have to be terrified of Deanna anymore, which is especially good after I got yelled at for possibly losing a fresco fragment last Wednesday, which I had put on her mat but forgot to move the label card over to it. I'm also glad to be out of this country. I'm tired of it and more than ready to go to Turkey and actually get into a school routine. But tomorrow, when I'm in Athens for two days before my flight I get to stay in...a Best Western. I never thought that I would be so excited to stay in a Best Western, but for some weird reason I am. I'm hoping for a) a mattress that doesn't kill my knees/back/neck/boobs and b) a shower head that's attached to the wall. I also think that I get free wireless internet, but I'm not entirely sure, so some photos may get posted here...finally.<br /><br />This weekend, as part of our last weekend here, Sam and I went to Nafplio and hiked up the Palamidi to the big fortress on top of the hill/mountain thing. Views were spectacular, it was really really hot, and we ran into a family from Chicago while we were up there. Luckily, we decided to schlep up the steps before we went to the beach so that we could swim off all of the sweat that had accumulated during our few hours at the fort.<br /><br />Saturday night, when we were walking home, we got followed by a kitten. Because it kept on running into the middle of the road, and I didnt want to be present if and when the kitten got hit by a car, I convinced Sam to pick it up and carry it with us until we came to a field to ditch it. Unfortunately, when we tried to ditch it in the field, it still followed us and kept tripping us up because it was getting underfoot, so we carried it all the way back to the hotel. Marion told us that we had to let it go somewhere because Kenzo, the dog, would eat it, so we tried to ditch it in front of the house across the street. It was super cute/frustrating because whenever we would put it behind the gate, it would escape and rub itself all over my feet (which were REALLY sweaty) and purr and roll around. This made ditching it even harder. Luckily, we finally managed to leave it, and Marion said that she saw the mommy cat that lived across the street holding the kitten in her mouth. I really hope she didnt eat it.<br /><br />This post has been very disjointed.Giffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16594299071275871342noreply@blogger.com0