And....time for a new blog title

...as I'm not in Turkey anymore, and as my next trek is off to the wilds of Niger. I'll retitle the blog as soon as I think of something I like. In the meantime, here's a brief update of my next big trip:

I'll be living in Niamey, the capital of Niger. My flight leaves Minneapolis on January 25th, and I'll get in to Niamey on the 26th sometime. I've already had an orientation session, and it was quite different from my Turkey orientation: when I went to Turkey, orientation was coffee with the program director and the last student to go to METU; for Niger, it was a full-day orientation, full of information on how not to die of infectious diseases, and dress requirements, and language tips, and all kinds of helpful stuff. I've got a big packet full of things I'm not allowed to or shouldn't bring, like hair dryers, pants, sleeveless tops, and my computer. That last one could be an issue: there's one computer on-site there, and this semester there'll be 17 students, the most ever. I suppose I should count myself lucky, as they just got 24-7 Internet access this year. So...that'll be an adjustment for me. The clothing should be interesting, as well: mostly skirts, which shouldn't be above mid-calf...this sure isn't Turkey!
I'm getting excited to see the city, it'll be a very different experience for me. After my last finals this semester, I'll get a posting up with my answers to the questions I've heard most frequently, like I did last year for Turkey, as well as my contact info, so you-all can stay in touch and see my photos. 'Til then, take care! and Happy Holidays!
-R

Just a little update

Hey everyone,
Just thought I'd stop by my poor, slightly-neglected travelblog to update y'all on recents happenings and such. After finishing up my summer in Minnesota (5 different jobs does not make for an enjoyable time...), I'm currently back in Boston, for my Fall semester, occupying my time with classes and student groups and clubs. It sounds less exciting than last semester, but it's really been fantastic to see everyone out here again and to reacclimate to campus life. Of course, this too shall pass, as I'm planning on spending my Spring semester in Niamey, Niger. No, not Nigeria, Niger. It's north, and landlocked. It should be a very interesting experience; I'm pretty excited about it.

In Turkey-related news, I have a few more photos up on Flickr, and if you happen to be in Boston when I'm in Boston, or Minnesota when I'm in Minnesota, I have actual, hard-copy photos.
I'm also learning more of the language, which is really fun; the agglutinative aspect makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm sure Turkish will come in handy somewhere down the line...

Hope you all are doing well, of course,
Cheers!
-R

Home again

Hey everyone,
So, as several people have pointed out to me, I've been in the US for almost a month now, and haven't really mentioned it on here; therefore I'm remedying that lapse now.
I flew back to the US May 29, arriving in Minneapolis via Munich and DC. I started out at 10:45 Sunday night (May 28), waiting for the local bus from ODTU to the bus station with Desi and Jeroen (Desi and I had the same flight to Munich). And we waited. And waited. By about 11:45, we figured there was absolutely no chance of a bus coming, so we grabbed taxis. I got to the bus station pretty uneventfully, and immediately had to go withdraw more lira from an ATM, because I hadn't planned on spending on cab fare. When I got back to the Havas bus gate, where the airport bus left from, I found Jeroen, but not Desi: she was cab-hunting, in a successful bid to find her purse, which had been left in her cab, complete with passport. Thankfully, that crisis was averted thanks to some frantic Turkish cabbie radioing, and we boarded the Havas bus at 1, give or take a bit.
I figured we'd get to the airport by 2, and have a catnap before our flight at 6 AM. Of course, I figured wrong: because it was the middle of the night, the bus went to the Havas company offices, and we got to hang out there until 3:15, when we boarded another bus to the airport, where we got to wait around again. As it got closer to 5, more passengers for our flight arrived (the only flight in that terminal that morning), including the Norwegian and Portuguese national volleyball teams, which was...interesting. Wow, are Norwegians tall. And blond. Anyways, Customs finally opened, so I officially exited the country and headed to the departure lounge, where I waited around again before getting on another bus, which took us to the plane. The flight was pretty nice; Lufthansa has the best airline food I've had, and they make a mean breakfast. We got to Munich, and I freshened up before buying a mochaccino at an airport cafe, which was an interesting experience, given my nonexistent German language ability and lack of Euros (it ended up costing $10. What's with that???). Nonetheless, having a real coffee drink again was heavenly, and it killed some time before I headed to the to-the-US departure lounge to go through some security questions before boarding the flight to DC (Security Woman: "Did you purchase anything while in the airport?" Me: "ummm...a mochaccino." SW: "...ok, that's not a contraband item, you can board"). That flight was pretty boring, except that they served ham sandwiches, with mustard, which I was pretty excited about since I hadn't seen ham or mustard since before arriving in Turkey (...and I'm easily amused). I got to DC okay, and through Customs pretty easily, except for the part when I almost took someone else's bag through. My flight to Minneapolis was overfull, and I almost volunteered to be bumped (what's another couple hours?) until I found out the next flight on that airline to Minneapolis was over 24 hours later. Anyway, by 7:15 Monday night (or...1:15 Tuesday morning, Turkey-time), I was at baggage claim in the Minneapolis airport, and by 8:30 I was back at home, just about dead on my feet. Since then, I've been working like a fiend, at the same place I worked at last summer. In between working and more working, my sister graduated high school and I turned 20, so my summer's been buzzing but not too busy.
I'm off to get some sleep, so I'll have to update more of this later; I'll post more about my last few trips and my last few weeks in Turkey on here, and hopefully work out a more sophisticated photo organization system.
Til then,
thanks for reading,
-R

ancient wonders and ruins

Hey everyone,

This is a continuation of my last post about my trip to Selcuk and Efes; I left off after the Efes Museum, so I'll pick up right there. Leaving the Efes Museum, Le Xuan and I started off down the road to Efes. The Temple of Artemis was on the way, so of course we stopped there. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, originally bigger than the Parthenon. Of course, there's not that much left now; we saw a single pillar, and myriad stone pieces lying around. The site of the temple was actually fairly marshy: there were a couple small ponds dotting the field, and when I looked into them, I could see pillar segments lining the bottom of them. The site was gorgeous, and full of geese, who apparently were pretty used to visitors, but not used to being spoiled by visitors: they waded right through the small crowd of visitors, honking indignantly.

From the Temple of Artemis, we continued on down the road for a couple kilometers to the turnoff for Efes. There was a tree-shaded pedestrian walkway alongside the road, which according to Lonely Planet was planted/planned by Dr. Sabri Yayla; we were very, very grateful to Dr. Yayla, as the weather was hotter than fresh lava, and sticky to boot. We made it to Efes, checking out some sporadic ruins just outside the gates bought our tickets, and entered behind a German tour group and before a Chinese tour group. Efes was, in a word, incredible. We walked down the ruins-lined path (apparently, it's called "Harbor Street"), stopped and chatted with some Turkish schoolkids, who played the "Where is Le Xuan from" game and lost, but who were pretty impressed that we spoke Turkish, and the first thing we saw was the Great Theatre. It was pretty great. We arrived just behind the aforementioned German tour group, just in time to hear their guide belt out a snippet of an opera tune to demonstrate the acoustics of the theatre, then had the whole 25000-seat theatre to ourselves for a bit before the Chinese tourists came in. From there, we ambled down the Sacred Way, another ruins-lined street, stopping to check out what looked uncannily like the ongoing excavation of a tomb, before arriving at the Library of Celsus. The Library of Celsus is definitely in contention for my favorite ruin in Turkey. It was incredibly beautiful, and so unbelievably detailed. It was built in 114 by Consul Tiberius Julius Aquila, and held 12,000 scrolls. The facade was pretty darn imposing: it had 4 statues of the Virtues (Arete Ennoia, Episteme, and Sophia) in niches behind the front pillars. One was headless, one was pretty whole but being restored, and the other two were almost completely whole. Their niches were very intricately carved, as well as the facade stretching above them. On the whole, the Library of Celsus was an impressive sight.

We left the Library of Celsus and ambled along to see some Roman communal toilets; they were mostly restored, but they had the distinction of being the most sit down toilets I've seen in Turkey, which I'm sure you all wanted to know. From there, we continued down another ruins-lined walk, the Curetes Way, which had much better ruins lining it than the prior two Ways: there were busts, statue fragment, and even whole statues, still on their pedestals. We saw the Temple of Hadrian, but didn't stop, as at that point the area looked like Disney World without the rides: hordes of tourists sallying forth; instead, Le Xuan and I passed the Fountain of Trojan, some shop ruins, and the Gate of Hercules, and continued on to Upper Efes, which was strangely almost empty of tourists. At the Efes Museum, there was a huuuuuge altar facade on display from the temple dedicated to Emperor Domitian; that temple was the first thing we saw in the upper part of Efes. It was preet cool seeing something in a museum, then seeing the spot it came from, and piecing together what it must've originally looked like; I don't think I've had that opportunity before.

At that point, we'd reached the other end of Efes, so we exited and rested our aching feet while pondering what to do next. We considered going to Meryemana, the house where Mary (yes, the Mary, Jesus' mother) lived her later years and passed away, but it was over 7 kilometers away, and the taxi fare we were quoted was too high to bargain to a decent level. I did do a little shopping, and was able to argue down the price of a belly dance scarf (sooo not traditional, and sooo touristy, but fun nonetheless) over half price, which was still overvalued, but a decent bargaining effort on my part. We then struck off towards the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers, which apparently is the Turkish version of Rip Van Winkle: During the 3rd century, 7 Christians fled Efes and hid out in a cave about 3/4 kilometers away. Unfortunately for them, Emperor Decius had them followed, and their trackers sealed off the cave. Flash forward 200 years, and an earthquake broke the wall sealing the cave, and woke the sleepers, who walked back into town looking for food and found that everyone they knew was dead; the sleepers concluded they'd undergone a resurrection of some sort, and when they eventually died, they were buried in the same cave. They had a cult following for a while. The grotto itself was very pretty, but we arrived as it was closing, so although we were able to climb around the grotto, and to peek in and see the remains of the 7 Sleepers' tombs.

From there, we walked the 4ish kilometers back to Selcuk, and took an ice cream/orange juice break at a cafe, where we were immediately surrounded by schoolkids from Izmir on a field trip, who played the "Where is Le Xuan from" game (of course...) and lost; I'm pretty sure they came up with every single remotely Asian nation other than Vietnam. After that, we walked through downtown Selcuk; the whole town was turned out for the evening bazaar, which was fascinating; we saw quite a few gypsies, which was a first for me. We headed over to the otogar, where the touts assumed we were tourists (which we...kind of were, I guess, but I feel like somewhat of a hybrid tourist, since I'm a legal resident of Turkey for the time being) and quoted us inflated prices for a bus to Ankara from Selcuk; we ignored that and hopped
a bus to Izmir, where we got tickets to Ankara and were on our way back home, 24 hours after we'd embarked upon our marathon day trip. 'Twas a great time, but I was very glad to get back to ODTU, grab a hot shower, and crawl into bed.

I've kept busy since my trip to Selcuk and Efes: I just finished my finals today, I'm packing this weekend, and I'm getting ready to return back to the States on Monday. I also found time to take a trip to Trabzon, and along the Black Sea coast to Bat'umi, in Georgia. I didn't get to spend nearly as much time in Georgia as I'd've liked, as I had to return to Ankara for my second set of finals, but I had a great time nonetheless and a trip writeup and photos will
be forthcoming.

'Til then, take care,
and hope y'all are doing well,
-R

well, it's obvious I'm a student...

...because I'm travelling like one! Last Saturday, Le Xuan and I went on the day trip of all day trips, to Selcuk and Efes (or, as you probably know it, Ephesus). We caught a bus to ASTI (the bus station in Ankara) to get tickets for the overnight bus to Izmir. On the local bus to ASTI, we ran into 2 exchange students on their way to a triathlon, 2 more on their way to the Black Sea coast, and the entire ODTU debate team on their way to Izmir for a tournament. Everyone was getting their last-minute, end-of-semester travel in. The debate team found us cheap tickets (native speakers can negotiate better discounts), and we were off.

We got in to Izmir at 8ish, give or take half an hour. From the bus windows, it looked like a nice city; the bus station was 6 kilometers from downtown, though, so we didn't "see" Izmir. As we got off the Ankara-Izmir bus, this guy asked us if we needed help (foreigners stand out in Turkey, and between my whiter-shade-of-pale and Le Xuan's Vietnamese heritage, we practically screamed "Yabanci"); he said he'd get us to the right bus to Selcuk, but he had no clue where it was and led us to the wrong level of the bus terminal. I had that part of Lonely Planet memorized, and got us back on track, on the bus, and off to Selcuk. After an hour on the minibus, we arrived in Selcuk, brushed off several touts, and figured out our bearings by finding the museum, information center, and the road to Efes. As we were more than a little groaty after the overnight bus, we decided that the first order of the day would be a visit to the hamam. It was amazingly refreshing; it was interesting, because I've been to 2 different Ankara hamams, which have a primarily local clientele, and this one was very definitely geared for tourists. The hamam itself was coed, the staff was mainly male, and everyone kept their towels on (probably because the hamam was mixed...). Also, the staff spoke fluent English. I think I like the local hamams a bit better; the Hamam Ladies are half the experience, and it's so fun dealing with the language barrier. Anyhow, the hamam was exactly what we needed, and we left there fully awake, refreshed, clean, and ready to see the town.

We started at the Roman Aqueduct remains, which are home to many large stork nests, and spent time watching the storks. We walked along past the citadel, which was closed because of structural instability, and past what turned out to be the Basilica to the Isa Bey Camii, which was built by the Emir of Aydin in 1375. It was gorgeous, but my favorite part was the palm trees and other greenery in the courtyard. The minaret was different, as it was flat on top to accomodate a stork's nest (Selcuk is a stork-breeding hotspot). We ran into our first tour group of the day at Isa Bey, they were German. From the mosque, we walked back up a cobblestoned hill to the Basilica of Saint John. Truthfully, it was more the Ruins of the Basilica of Saint John: the entire place was leveled over the course of several earthquakes and myriad building materials looters, and excavations are ongoing today. It still looks pretty nice, and they have a surprising amount of it rebuilt, including a fresco or two. The Basilica was built in the 6th century over the tomb of Saint John, the apostle and Gospel-writer; if it stood whole today, it would be the 7th largest in the world. The Basilica had beautiful views of the city and the countryside, all so green. There were tons of tourists, though: a big school group from Izmir, and a group of Turkish police trainees who immediately glommed on to us to practice their English.

After touring the Basilica, we stopped by a restaurant for some pide. We ate outside, as it was probably 75, and beautifully sunny. The pide was great, except our table was under a tree, and (those of you who know certain relevant stories from my past will find this fitting and highly amusing) as we were talking, a bird "decorated" my last two slices of pide. It was a hoot trying to explain it to the waiter, and once he understood, he was really apologetic. I found it more ruefully humorous than anything. After that, we browsed through the horribly-overpriced souvenir stalls, laughing over the male fertility statues and made our way over to the Efes Museum.

The Efes Museum was incredible: there were soooo many busts, statues, and other fragments of Roman life from the ruins at Efes. We saw a lot of depictions of gods and goddesses, most remarkably Artemis: her statues featured rows of breasts/testicles across her chest, and a gorgeous headdress. The carving was more intricate than I would've imagined was possible, and beautifully detailed. The museum also had an exhibit on the gladiators of Efes; it was truly fascinating. I didn't get any photos of this section, but I should have, because it was so interesting. They had examples of gladiator weapons, and I'd never imagined gladiators bearing weapons like those: there were daggers, which were pretty normal, but there were also handled weapons with three and four iron points sticking out, and another called "the scissors." When I saw that label, I looked and looked at the examples, but saw absolutely nothing resembling a pair of scissors. "The scissors" are actually a metal cup-looking thing that fits over your hand, with a nasty-looking 2-pronged barb at the end. There apparently was a carefully delineated protocol for gladiator fights: a gladiator was trained with a certain weapon or weapon combination, and the weapon types were carefully matched against each other, so that a pointy-thing gladiator wouldn't fight a scissors gladiator, but might fight a dagger gladiator. The exhibit also featured excavated skeletons of gladiators; you could definitely tell what they died of! I think 4 evenly spaced puncture holes in the skull would put a damper on anyone, and you know a weapon had a lot of strength behind it when it's still stuck in the skeleton. It was, all in all, an utterly fascinating exhibit; the displays on gladiator culture were exceedingly well done, and they even had tombstone translations, so you could read how long a lot of the Efes gladiators lasted. Looking at the directional signs in the museum, the gladiator exhibit might have been the Kids' Exhibit, but I thought it was excellent.

Well, it's past 3AM here, so I'll try to cover the Temple of Artemis and Efes itself tomorrow. In the interim, here're my photos from my trip:

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040008&l=e5875&id=911357
and
http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040294&l=5360d&id=911357

I'm in my downtime between exams at the moment: I had 2 today, so I'm at 3 down, 2 to go. I'll probably go travelling this weekend, to the Black Sea coast and maybe to Georgia. Now is definitely the time to travel: the lira is at 2/3 of a dollar, versus the 3/4 of a dollar it's hovered around all semester...guess who's going shopping :-P

Hope you all are doing well,
-R

Cappadocia

Hey everyone,
Things are getting slightly more hectic around here; it's the last week of classes, and finals are next week and the week after. I still have no clue when exactly my finals are, but I'm sure I'll get it all figured out. I do know that most of my finals will be the 16-18, except for 1 that's on the 26th. If my cards fall just right, I might be able to fit a trip in the middle there. I'll keep my fingers crossed...
Last weekend, I headed to the region of Cappadocia, the land of fairy chimneys. It was, in a word, amazing. I travelled solo, for the first time ever, and had a really great time. On Friday, I hied to ASTI and caught a bus to Goreme; it was 15 lira, which wasn't too bad. I got to Nevsehir, the regional jumping-off point for Cappadocia, at 5, and was supposed to transfer to a minibus to Goreme, but as I was the only one heading to Goreme, they brought me there in a car, and dropped me off at the doorstep of the pension that I thought I'd stay at. I checked on the price of a single, and was unpleasantly surprised to find out that although Lonely Planet said they had singles, they didn't actually; I was shown a 5-person room, and told that they'd charge me 25 lira for it. Naturally, I didn't want to pay 25 lira, even for the opportunity to sleep in 5 beds, so I hightailed it off to Shoestring Pensyon, which I'd read good things about online, where they showed me a three-bed room and offered it to me for 20 lira. I figured I could do better, so I asked about a dorm room, which I got, for 10 lira, breakfast included. It was just 6, 6:30ish by then, so I strolled around downtown Goreme, stopped for cookies and hot cocoa at the most amazing pastry shop in Cappadocia, and bought some postcards. After wandering around the whole center area of town a few times more, I stopped at a restaurant for some excellent pide, and provided loads of entertainment to the little girl at the table next to me, who was fascinated with my appearance (I don't know if it was the fair skin, the short hair, the reddish hair, the short sleeves, or all of the above), before heading back to the pensyon, chatting with some friendly Australians, and heading to bed. The dorm was pretty cool: it was built into a fairy chimney, as a cave, so it felt half like a room and half like a fanciful playhouse.
In the morning, I got up before 8 (I know, this is really unlike me), because I had to be checked out by 9. After having the best menemen I've had in Turkey (and that's saying something), I headed out to explore Cappadocia. First up was the Goreme Open-Air Museum, a site with Byzantine monastic retreats and cave churches galore. It's really popular with tour groups (I saw mora Americans there than I've seen since arriving in Turkey...), so at first I kept getting stuck behind clusters of tourists and guides. I did eventually find a pace that allowed me to see everything between groups, and ended up with most of the tombs, chapels, and churches to myself, which was nice. Everything was incredibly gorgeous; many of the frescoes had been damaged or scratched, but they still retained magnificient colours and details (links to pictures and in-depth descriptions are posted below). The churches and rooms themselves were amazing: all carved out of the rocks, with furniture and storage carved into the rooms themselves. The scenery was gorgeous, as well, with valleys full of delicate fairy chimneys rising out of the trees. I saw the Chapel of St. Basil, the Chapel of St. Barbara, the Chapel of St. Catherine, the Apple Church, the Church of St. Onuphrius, and the Sandals Church, along with some unnamed tombs and small chapels. After finishing up at the Goreme Open-Air Museum, I strolled through some of the shops outside, and then... I rode a camel! It was really, really cool, and I was so excited: I've always wanted to ride a camel (or an elephant, but the camel came along first...), and I passed this guy offering camel rides through the fairy chimneys. It was one of the highlights of my trip. After that excitement, I wandered back to Goreme Village, passing a sign for the UFO Museum (see? tourist traps aren't just in America!), and booked my ticket back to Ankara for 6 that evening.
With 5ish hours to kill, I decided to go to Zelve, the other Open-Air Museum in Cappadocia. I snagged a bus there, but it let me off at the access road to Zelve instead of at the site itself, so I walked 4 very hot kilometers to the Museum entrance. About halfway there, I walked through Pasabagi, a scenic viewing area with lots of touristy shops, which was a nice change of scenery; I finally got to Zelve, got my ticket, and walked in. Zelve was really interesting: it was a Byzantine monastic retreat center, like Goreme, but it was also a fully-inhabited cave village, up until the 1950s, when the rocks started falling down and the villagers were evcuated to non-cave dwellings about 2 kilometers away. I saw the ghost village first: it was really cool. The houses were in cliffsides, just carved in; if they wanted to expand, they just carved out another room or two. I also saw the village mosque, also cut into the rock; its minaret was designed differently than most of the minarets I've seen here. After wandering through the main valley of the villages, I hopped 1 valley over and saw some churches: one of the cave churches was fenced off, because it was in danger of falling apart and/or dislodging rocks onto visitors' heads, so I didn't see that one, but I did see the Grape Church and the Fish Church, which weren't quite as well kept-up as the Goreme churches, but which were pretty nonetheless. I had a small moment of panic when my camera batteries died after my first photo of the churches, but I was able to leave the museum, buy batteries at a souvenir stand, and go back in to get my photos. After that, I was pretty tuckered out from walking to Zelve and hiking through the valleys, so I had some of Turkey's famous ice cream (the ice cream man hoists the entire slab of ice cream up into the air on a hook, that's how sticky it is) and bought some more postcards before catching a bus back to Goreme village, where I took some photos of the village mosque and a horse before grabbing some more cookies at that wonderful pastry shop and heading to the bus station, where I headed back to Ankara.
It was kind of strange being in such a touristy area, because I don't feel that I'm strictly a tourist, per se (even though I'm there to do touristy things). I was really proud of myself, as I was able to communicate almost entirely in Turkish; although the Turks immediately pegged me as yabanci (a foreigner), some of the tourists heard me asking questions in Turkish and thought I was a Turk(!). The one slightly unpleasant thing about being in a tourist center was all the touts, calling out to me in English. If I didn't respond, they'd yell at me, and keep calling after me as I walked down the street. I figured that if they were calling out in English, they were either trying to sell me something or trying to get something (speaking from experience, here), so I pretended my native language was Spanish or Chinese, depending on my mood (good thing they didn't speak either, otherwise that wouldn't've worked well at all).
All in all, I had an excellent time in Cappadocia: saw beautiful churches and scenery, got horrendously sunburned, walked my feet off, and, of course, I Rode a Camel! It was a great couple of days, and it was nice to get out of Ankara. Due to bandwidth limits at Flickr (I did post some Diyarbakir photos there, finally), I have all my Cappadocia photos on Facebook for the time being, you can see them at:

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038078&l=5129e&id=911357
and
http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038128&l=93f00&id=911357

This weekend, I'll be heading to Ephesus on a marathon day trip, which should be exhausting but incredible. Ephesus is the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean and is the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. It's also home to the Library of Celsus. While I'm there, I'll also stop in Selcuk, to see the Basilica of St. John (the St. John of the Gospel-writing fame); I'm very excited!

Not much is new on campus; ODTU had Springfest last weekend, which is rather like an enormous street fair with concerts. They had tons of earring vendors, so of course I picked up some earrings; I also tried an ice cream dish that was served in a honeydew half, it was quite good. The Seniors are getting antsy: every once in a while, a caravan of little cars teeming with graduation-robe-bedecked Seniors will come careening around the perimeter road of campus, honking and screaking as much as they can; this's been going on for about a week now, and graduation isn't til June, so I suppose it'll continue for a while. It freaked me out the first time one came around a corner, honking madly, but I'm getting used to it.

Well, that's about all that's new here,
hope you all are doing well,
-R

updates

Hey everyone,
It's been awhile since I updated here, so I figured I'd post a blurb on the last few weeks. Things have been pretty busy; I had 2 presentations today, and I have another presentation and paper tomorrow. After that, I'll be pretty free for a bit, but then finals begin, which'll be barrels of fun.

Two weekends ago, I took a field trip for my Museology class, which was amazing. We toured Gordion, where Alexander the Great cut the Gordion Knot before going on to conquer pretty much everywhere he could find. There was a nice museum there, with a ton of pottery, and some bones, but the really interesting part of the site was King Midas' tumulus (burial mound); it's been excavated, but we could enter the tumulus and see the actual burial chamber. For those of you thinking, "wait a minute....Midas???", yes, it's the tomb of the Midas, he of the Golden Touch. Gordion was a happening place way back when.
After that, we headed off to Midas Sehri, where we saw Midas' Tomb. This was for a different Midas; if you were a Phrygian king, you got you choice of names: Midas or Gordius. There're several of each. Midas' Tomb is cut like a Phrygian temple face, which is really stunning; it was absolutely enormous. The sides were engraved with Phrygian script, which looks very much like futhark/runic. Across from the tomb was a large rock formation with a couple dozen small caves carved into it; apparently it was a monastery at some point in time. Around the back of Midas' Tomb, there was a half-carved temple; it was abandoned at some point in time, and just left, half carved. A little ways into the rest of the Midas Sehri site, we saw a cave tomb, with three sarcophagi (I think...) inside. We also climbed through a Phrygian cistern, past ancient water-collection pools, and saw all that remained of a 6th-century-BC two-storey house (2 post holes in the stone). On the way back towards the bus, we passed an ancient altar, and several more caves, which were really unusual because they were bright green (it was the lichen).
After Midas Sehri, we stopped at a restaurant for a trout lunch, which was pretty good, especially since I'm now used to getting the whole fish instead of trout filets.

On the way back to Ankara (it was a loooong way back-- Midas Sehri is over halfway to Istanbul from Ankara), the most random thing happened: we stopped at a military base for tea. The professor just told the bus driver to turn in, and off we went, past weapons armories, training facilities, and lots of guys in combat fatigues, til we arrived at what looked very much like a regional park: there was a playground, and walking paths, and picnic shelters. It was a little bizarre, especially once the guys in combat fatigues started walking around with trays of tea and pide (Turkish pizza, but closer to meaty bruschetta). There was even a little stream, with ducks, and one soldier was stationed on the bridge over the stream with a tub of bread, to feed the ducks (and the fish in the stream, of course). I've got to say, if I was in the Turkish Army, I'd much rather have duck-feeding duty than Diyarbakir duty.

It was quite an interesting field trip; I've pictures on Facebook, which you can see here:
http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032338&l=67ff2&id=911357

This weekend looks like it should be very interesting: I found out today that I'll be participating in an EU simulation occurring Thursday through Sunday at METU. I'll be representing Estonia, as their Foreign Minister at the Ceneral Affairs Council. I don't know much about Estonia other than its location and general Baltic issues, so I'll be Googling madly in the next few days to become an impromptu Estonian expert. I'm hoping it'll be a fun experience; at the very least it'll be a crash course in how the EU operates. Next weekend, I may get to Cappadochia, or possibly Georgia (the country, not the state...), but we'll see when my finals are scheduled first.

Hope you all are doing well,
I can't believe I've only got a month left here in Turkey,
-R

What a Weekend, Part 2

Hello again, folks,

I finally have time to update this a bit more, as I've handed in one term paper this afternoon, and the next isn't due for nearly a month. So, I'll finish updating on my trip last weekend:
First of all, as I can't upload any more photos on Flickr for a month, I'm posting the links to my Facebook albums from this trip:

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031030&l=55352&id=911357

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031038&l=78bd6&id=911357

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031046&l=dc2dc&id=911357

The first two albums are from Diyarbakir, the last is from Mardin and Urfa (or, as the locals call
it, "Sanliurfa" meaning Glorious Urfa)

Saturday morning, we checked out of our hotel in Diyarbakir, and got directions to "the minibus station," where the front desk clerk assured us we could get a dolmus to Mardin. We set off down the street, skirting the piles of broken glass from the bus stops and broken bottles, and after 10 minutes or so, came upon the minibus station. Except, it was pretty clearly abandoned, and appeared to have been abandoned for years. There were no busses, mini or otherwise, anywhere around the building. There were, however, several people setting up produce stands, so we asked one of them where the dolmus to Mardin was, and ended up being led to a bus to the city bus station by the vendor's son. We arrived at the bus station, got on the dolmus to Mardin, and were off. We were pretty lucky, as we snagged the last 2 seats on the dolmus; everyone else had to stand. I ended up sitting next to a really nice Turkish lady who shared her simit with us (she was very vehement about sharing her simit; she wouldn't take no for an answer!). They charged 6 lira, which I thought was a little high, but it was a posted price, so no bargaining. The dolmus made a few stops about ten minutes out of town to drop off some folks, which was really nice, because there were at least 35 people on the dolmus, and there were maybe 16, 17 seats. We were stopped by a police checkpoint, which was mildly exciting, but it went pretty smoothly: the gandarma asked for the IDs of the guys sitting next to the door, looked at it, talked to his superior, and let us go on. We arrived in Mardin a little disoriented, because the dolmus let us off at the western part of the old town, next to the main road, instead of the eastern part by the bus company offices, as Lonely Planet had said they'd do. We got ourselves sorted out and struck off for the bus company offices, to buy tickets to Urfa later that evening and to leave our luggage. Along the way, we saw a sign for Kirklar Kilisesi, which we recognized as being in our guidebook, so we stopped to visit. In English, the name is the Forty Martyrs Church, it's a 15th century church, and it's still in use. It was absolutely gorgeous, there were tapestries hangingon every spare patch of wall, the apse was incredibly beautiful, and the tabernacle was gorgeously ornate; I took lots of photos. As we were there, a big tour group came in, and we listened in to the tour leader, hoping to learn more about the church, but they were all German, so we remained unedified, and continued on to the bus companies. Again, we found that the prices were fixed and non-negotiable, at 15 lira, which was a big ripoff (I can get from Ankara to Istanbul for 12, and we paid 15 to go to Antalya from Ankara, which is 8 hours of travel, versus 3 and a half from Mardin to Urfa). After booking and paying, we set off again for the historic section of Mardin. We dove into the bazaar, which seemed to consist of the entire old town south of the main road, and windowshopped our way to the Ulu Cami (a lot of towns seem to have an Ulu Cami...), where we took photos of the minaret and the building; we didn't go inside, because even though the mosque itself was built in the 12th century, and by the Seljuks no less, the inside is supposed to be pretty plain, the result of damage to the mosque during the Kurdish rebellion in 1832. It seems like the Kurdish issue isn't such a recent thing... We went back into the bazaar and found ourselves back on the main road, next to the Sehiyide Camii, where we took photos of the minaret and the really impressive below-the-street entrance (I could probably publish a coffee table book of minaret photos by now...) before turning our attention to the attraction across the street: the post office. Lonely Planet calls the Mardin central post office the "most beautiful post office in Turkey," and I agree. It's housed in an old, beautifully restored caravanserai, with intricate architecture and the requisite shrine to Ataturk, of course. We headed back across the street to have tea at a cay salonu next to the mosque, and pondered what to see next. Mardin is built into a hillside, so each street climbs a little higher up the hillside, until at the very top a trail zigzags its way up to the kale (castle), which crowns the hill, and as we looked up towards the top of the hill, we decided to go for it. We hiked up sidestreets perpendicular to the main road that were actually steep staircases, past honey-colored buildings and little kids who just looked at the two odd foreigners and continued playing. We passed one man, who took a look at Le Xuan and called out "Ni Hao!" I called back "Women hen hao; ni hao ma?", and he just stopped and stared. He definitely hadn't expected me to know Chinese!
We left the last row of houses and started up the near-vertical trail, passing two women having a picnic lunch with their kids. As we made our way precariously up the fairly tractionless slope, the kids would scamper by, as agile as mountain goats. We finally made it to the top of the trail, where we discovered...barbed wire and chain link fencing surrounding the castle. We walked along the fenceline for awhile, hoping to find a gate or entrance, but didn't find either, so we settled down on the hilltop to take in the views of the city. Mardin looked very different from the other cities I'd seen in Turkey; the design of the buildings was more Middle-Eastern, it seemed as though we could've been looking at a Syrian town (although I haven't seen a Syrian town, so maybe they're entirely different). Just out of town, the phrase "ne mutlu Turkum diyene" was etched into a mountainside in giant letters, an interesting statement for a Kurdish nationalist hotspot (if I'm translating correctly, it means "How happy I am to call myself a Turk", and it's a quote by Ataturk). We trekked back down the mountain (slowly, precariously), and passed some goatherds with their goats, including some adorable kids (if I ever end up living anywhere other than a city, I want a pet goat). After making it back to the main street, we consulted our map and set off towards Mardin's star attraction: the Sultan Isa Medresesi. We wandered through some really twisty and steep streets for awhile before finding the medresesi, which is an Islamic school; from what I understand (and I know I don't perfectly undrestand the concept), it's very roughly the Islamic version of a Catholic school in the US, but with more religious instruction. It was closed, as it was the weekend, but we were able to see the really impressive recessed doorway, and to walk around it to the back, where we could see into the courtyard, which had really good views of the city. We wandered back down to the main street again, where we sought out a juice shop and had fresh-squeezed orange juice made from blood oranges, and window-shopped our way towards the bus companies, where we chilled for about 20 minutes before boarding the bus to Urfa. At 8:30ish, the bus dropped us off at a roundabout in Urfa (apparently, they didn't want to stop at the bus station), and we set off down the street towards one of the hotels in the guidebook. After walking for a while, we found a different hotel listed in LP, so we popped in to check it out and ended up staying there: it was pretty bare-bones, but it was 10 lira/person, which is really, really hard to beat short of sleeping on the streets.
The next morning, we woke up to a light rain, which was actually really nice. We set off towards Golbasi, the main tourist area, with the sites where Abraham was born and where he was flung out of a fire which subsequently turned into water, and with a complex of mosques. First, we went through the courtyard of Mevlid-i Halil Camii, which marks the spot where Abraham was born. It was beautiful: not many people were there, as there was a light drizzle, but the weather sharpened the colors of the stones and the trees. We ran into some Turkish women wearing Kurdish headscarves and asked them if they could show us how to wrap them, but it turned out they were also tourists, and had it done by the headscarf vendor. This was one of the first times we'd seen Turkish tourists, and as we walked around more of the complex, we saw tons of them. There were also a good deal of Iranian tourists, which was fascinating, as they walked around in large groups of chador-clad women. We stopped by the headscarf vendor, who wrapped our headscarves for us, and met a volunteer tour guide, Cebrail (pronounced "Gabriel"). He was a Junior in high school (or the Turkish equivalent), and wanted to practice his English guiding, as he planned to work in tourism after graduating. He brought us to the pools of water that supposedly contain the water that God turned the fire Abraham was burning into, and which are filled with the carp that were originally the coals in the aforementioned fire. The carp are sacred, and it's good luck to feed them, so I did, of course. Legend has it that anyone who catches one of these fish will go blind, so...no fishing for us. We then climbed up to Urfa's kale, which was huge and had great views of the city. From the kale, we could hear this steady drumbeat, and Cebrail told us that it was from a wedding celebration. As we looked around the gece kondular from the kale, we found the wedding celebration; it was pretty obvious once we noticed the line of people dancing in the streets. Apparently, Turkish weddings are 3 days long, and this particular wedding was on its last day, the day after the actual marraige; they were celebrating the fact that the bride had, indeed, been chaste.
We climbed back down from the kale, through a rock tunnel with absolutely huge stairs; they were not built for my legs! We went over to the Rizvaniye Vakfi Camii and the Halilur Rahman Camii, which both overlooked the ponds with the sacred carp. Halilur Rahman Camii marks the spot where Abraham fell to the ground after being flung from the fire (he landed on a bed of roses, so apparently he wasn't hurt too badly...). We were only allowed in the women's side, as it's a big pilgrimmage site, but it was still really nice; it had a sacred air to it, probably partly because everyone inside was so reverent. Rizvaniye Vakfi Camii was a little plain after seeing the other mosques, but it was quiet and empty, which was nice, and had a cozy feel to it; if I was Muslim and lived in Urfa, I'd want to go to Rizvaniye Vakfi Camii for my prayers.
By then, we were a little tired of Cebrail; nice as he was, he couldn't understand our Turkish and we couldn't understand his English, and he had showed us the touristy places and wanted to take us back to his house, which we didn't particularly want to do, so we set off towards the bazaar, which was mostly closed as it was a Sunday, but which had a kervanseray in the center which was supposed to have good tea. We had a nice cuppa, and headed out in the direction of the hotel section of town, telling Cebrail we were heading for our hotel and the bus station. We window-shopped our way back to the hotel, still accompanied by Cebrail, who offered to wait outside the hotel for us, which we politely declined. We met a lot of really nice Turks (and Kurds!), and I was really impressed by Turkish hospitality, but if anything they were a little too hospitable: in Diyarbakir our city walls-guides offered to meet us at our hotel the next day and accompany us around the city, the curator at the museum invited us to his village for the night, and then for the next day, and escorted us back to the main road, Ali the photojournalist invited us to hang out at his place, and to crash at his house to save on our hotel bill, and offered to meet us at our hotel the next day to show us around the city; in Urfa Cebrail invited us to his house, and offered to wait at our hotel to escort us to the bus station, and pretty much anyone that we asked for directions offered to escort us there. Oh, and pretty much everyone treated us to tea. It might be a cultural norm, but it was a bit overwhelming; and as two female travellers in a pretty tense and emotionally-charged region, it didn't seem wise to get off the beaten track much (unfortunately, it might have been different if we'd had a guy along...such are the realities of life, I suppose).
Back at the hotel, we sat in the lobby talking for 10 minutes or so before looking outside and noticing that it was pouring, so we stayed in and talked and watched some Turkish music videos. By the time it finally cleared up, we were about ready to head to the bus station, so we set off. We took the wrong fork in a road, where our map showed a cemetery on the wrong side of the street, but we were pointed in the right direction by some friendly Turkish ladies who seemed to be pretty used to foreigners getting lost in their back yard: they knew we were headed to the bus station, and called out to us in German that we were going the wrong way before switching to Turkish, which we understood much better. Once we were on the correct side of the cemetery, we made it to the bus station, and bargained the prive of our tickets to Ankara from 40 lira to 35, which was still high, but not too bad. We settled in the bus company office, and did some of our copious amounts of class reading before getting on the bus back to Ankara. We arrived in Ankara at 5:30 AM, and found that the dolmuses didn't start running til after 6, so we went into the bus station and killed time staring blankly (we were pretty darn tired) before catching a dolmus back to campus at 6:30. By 7, we were back in our dorm, with just enough time to check email and catch an hour of sleep before heading off to our morning class.
It was definitely one of my more memorable weekends; all in all, it was a great trip!

Hope you all are doing well,
Happy Belated Birthday, Kelly!
-R

What a Weekend!

Hello, everyone!
I'm back in Ankara after an exciting time in the Southeast of Turkey, as you can probably tell from my last post. I went to Diyarbakir with a friend on Wednesday; we took the overnight bus and arrived in Diyarbakir at 8:30 Thursday morning. After checking out a hotel, and checking into another one, we set off to see Diyarbakir's fabled city wall (it's the second-longest wall in the world, after the Great Wall of China).
Lonely Planet's Eating and Drinking section of their Diyarbakir entry starts out "A stroll along Kibris Caddesi reveals plenty of informal places to eat." Hah. A stroll along Kibris Caddesi revealed nothing but metal security grates, pulled down and locked securely. We'd read about the demonstrations on Tuesday, but the stories we'd read noted that the demonstrations were strictly in response to the Tuesday funerals of PKK fighters killed last Sunday in the mountains. The stories also noted that most of the fighting was localized in the mountains, and that things seemed to be settling a bit in Diyarbakir. Apparently noone told the Diyarbakirlilar, because they were locked up and hunkered down. It didn't seem too strange at 9 that very few stores were open; Diyarbakir's a hot city, so we figured that maybe they got a late start to their days. However, after we walked through the park next to the walls, and clambered up onto the walltops, we began to think it was a bit strange that the stores weren't opening yet. Two Kurdish college students struck up a conversation with us on the wall, and showed us around the ruins on the walltop (according to Lonely Planet, that's completely normal; they wanted to practice their English a little). After we saw the cityscape and the ruins, we walked back down to the park, where we chilled on a bench and remarked on how even in the playground area men outnumbered women by about 30 to 1. We asked about the pazar, as my friend wanted to buy Kurdish headscarves and salvarlar (Kurdish old lady pants; they're excellently horrible!), and the two students started to take us there before remembering that it, like most of the businesses, was closed Thursday, as well as Wednesday, and perhaps even Friday, because of the civil unrest. We headed off towards our hotel to look for some lunch, and couldn't find anything open, so we asked the front desk guy for an open restaurant, which he found about 5 minutes later. While he was looking, we popped up to our room and watched the live report on NTV from Diyarbakir, which showed recaps of some of the clashes. The restaurant only served kebaps, and it had raised its prices since there was an utter lack of competition and a lot of demand (oh, economics...). We headed off to the Tourist Office to ask about the current situation and to pick up some information; they didn't speak English there, and didn't tell us how the city was, but they did give us a map, and they pointed the way to the Archaeological Museum. At the Archaeological Museum, the staff was really surprised to see us; we were their first visitors in a while. We toured the museum with the chief curator, Ramazan, and had tea with him afterwards. He was very interesting; he's Kurdish, lives in a Kurdish village, is married, and has 7 kids. His brother has 3 wives and 22 kids (ughhhh...); Ramazan's the only guy in his village with 1 wife. He used to work at Incirlik, the US military base in Adana, but now he's the head Turkish archaeologist in the area. He invited us to see his village, but we figured that would be not so safe, so we politely declined. After that, we walked back towards the kale, passing a vehicle roadblock outside the police station, and were stopped by Ali, a photojournalist for BBC, who was stopping by his hometown (Diyarbakir) on his way from Iraq to London; he thought we were journalists, as we were obviously foreign, and he didn't think there would be any tourists in Diyarbakir. He showed us the Ulu Camii (Great Mosque), and tried to bring us to the pazar, except it was closed, of course, and as we walked away from it we heard drums behind us, meaning demonstrators were gathering nearby. Ali invited us to have dinner with him and 2 of his friends, but the only place we could find that was open was where we'd had lunch, and Le Xuan and I couldn't eat that much meat and bread again, so we had tea, and we had a really interesting discussion about Kurdish relations with Arabs and with Turks (all 3 of the guys were Kurds); they were vehemently against the demonstrations, as they didn't see any progress for the Kurdish cause coming from them, and they opposed violence as a means of attention to their cause. I learned a lot by talking with them. After we finished our tea, we headed back to our hotel, then went back out to get some bread, fruit, and chocolate, and spent an enjoyable evening talking with two other travellers, Lina from Ireland and Andre from Holland.
The next day, we ambled on down to the bazaar, which thankfully was open, and went shopping. I picked up some Kurdish headscarves, and some salvar, and we spent a lot of time exploring, before heading to see some mosques and the kervanseray. We walked outside of the main walls to the Hazreti Suleyman Camii, which was built in the 12th century and which houses the tombs of Islamic war heroes, and we had such a delightful time there! The courtyard was full of old men getting prepared to pray, women, and children running around. After we paid our respects at one tomb that was set aside for veneration, at the direction of a very nice Turkish lady, we said hi to the kids, and started talking with them in our limited Turkish. They were really excited to talk with us, and when we brought our cameras out, they were fascinated: they took as many photos as they could with my camera, of each other and of us. They laughed at our haphazard headscarf-tying jobs, and played with my sunglasses for a while, til we left to see another mosque. From there, we tried to walk along the eastern side of the wall, but were stopped by locals who pantomimed that people would throw rocks at us if we went down there, so we headed down the main road. There were policemen everywhere, and dozens of armored personnel carriers, police Hummers and tank-looking things with machine guns mounted on top; they all looked fairly battle-worn, I'll post pictures later. We stopped by a pastanesi, or pastry shop, and while we were sitting there, they were replacing their front window, as the original one had been shattered the night before. In front of the pastry shop, a police battalion was getting ready for a raid or police action of some sort, we watched them all read an official-looking paper and then get all their riot-y gear ready before loading up into a police transport vehicle and driving off. We headed off and found the Kasim Padisah Camii, also called the Four-Legged Minaret, because its minaret stands on 4 thin pillars. We visited the ruins of an Armenian church as the sun was starting to set, which was absolutely gorgeous, and tried to see another, which was closed, before heading back to the hotel and talking with Lina, Andre, and some French and German tourists for awhile. The next morning, though, we were out of there like a home run out of a ballpark, and we took a dolmus to Mardin to explore that city a bit, which I'll write up hopefully tomorrow.
I do have some photos up on Flickr, but unfortunately my bandwidth for the month is used up, so I'll have to figure out an alternative for the rest of my photos to post them here. Hope you all are doing well!
-R

Quick update from Diyarbakır

Hello everyone,
I'm in Diyarbakir right now, and it's been the "most interesting" place I've been to so far in \turkey. We got here yesterday to find pretty much the entire city shut down; there were 14 PKK members killed in the mountains last weekend, 3 of their funerals were here on Tuesday, and demonstrations accompanying the funerals killed another 3 people. There were more demonstrations yesterday and last night, and 6 more people died. We're doing the smart thing and leaving early tomorrow morning, instead of late Sunday; this is the first place where multiple local citizens have told us it's unsafe. On the bright side, they did say it would be better today, and it is: stores are open, and women are out on the streets, and the pazar was fairly normal. Still, yesterday was pretty interesting: there were two eateries open in the city, and perhaps 5 or 6 shops. Even the street-corner simit sellers were packed up and empty. Of course, I checked my email here today to find a nice warning from the US Embassy saying "The Department of State advises U.S. citizen traveling or residing in Turkey to avoid [the town of Diyarbakir]." Would have been nice to get that on Wednesday, but oh well. Just figured I'd post an update so that those of you who knew I'm here this weekend know that I'm just fine, and that I'll be moving on to somewhere with fewer machine guns and police tanks tomorrow.

more updates later, of course,
-R

Olympos photos!

Hey everyone!
I got back this morning from Olympos, where 7 of us exchange students spent the weekend. I'll post stories and such later, but I'm trying out online photo sharing right now, so I'll just leave the photo link here:

www.flickr.com More of Minnesota Globetrekker's photos tagged with Olympos

Or, try this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26857704@N00/


Kodak didn't work so well, so here's hoping Flickr is more idiot-proof!
apparently, Blogger doesn't like Flickr's javascript. I am really not the person to be fiddling around with that, so I'll just hope whatever's above this works

I'm hoping this works out, because it takes a really long time to upload photos to this blog. Also, this way you all can comment on photos, should you care to.
Olympos was very nice; I'll write it up later,
-R

updates

Hey everyone!
I figured I'd update this, as it's been nearly two weeks since I last wrote anything. I haven't done anything horribly exciting (no exotic trips or anything...), but I've been settling in and exploring Ankara.
The weekend before this, I spent a lot of time exploring Kizilay (the big, central, shopping district) and Armada (the big, new shopping mall); Armada has one of the two or maybe three Starbucks in Ankara, and I needed some cheering up: As many of you know, Joy (my dog, Evensong Joyfully Singing) died on February 24, of cancer, and it's been really tough being here and not seeing her one last time; it wasn't something I'd prepared myself for or even thought about before coming here. I did make an effort to not cloister myself in my room, though, so I went exploring in Kizilay on Saturday, and bought some cute scarves. I actually bartered, and got the price down from 6 lira each to 5 lira each. The guy was very quick to accept my offer, though, so I think I was still overcharged, but compared to prices in the US, it's cheap and a half. On Sunday, I went to Armada, where I sipped my mocha (it was soooooo good!), and window shopped, as the prices at Armada are pretty astronomical in my book (95 lira for a shirt? it's a shirt! and it's cheaply made! it'll fall apart by the end of summer!), mainly because most of the stores are Western. They have a Marks & Spencer, an American Eagle, a Puma store, and dozens of others. It was my lucky day, because they were having a China exhibition that day at Armada, so I got to browse Chinese handicrafts, look at Chinese art, look at photografs of Chinese culture, and watch a Chinese dance demonstration. It was right up my alley! I went back to Armada Sunday night with some friends to see a movie (there's a cinema inside), and we saw Match Point, which wasn't as much of a chick flick as we'd thought it'd be, but it was really very good.
This weekend, I went to Kizilay on Saturday, to try and find a bazaar that I'd stumbled upon before while slightly lost. I started picking random directions to walk, and lo and behold, I found it again! According to my cell phone locator, I was in Sihiyye, which I'll have to look up at some point. The bazaar was really good; I got 3 kilos of oranges for a lira, and a lemon, half a kilo of strawberries, and a kilo of tomatoes. At the edge of the bazaar, I picked up these Amazing earrings for 2 lira that I've pretty much been wearing ever since. As I left the bazaar, though, I had my first Really Uncomfortable Experience here: this guy started following me and calling out to me, so I ignored him and walked faster, at which point he sped up, caught up with me, and started talking to me. I said "hayir, tesekurler," which means "no, thanks," several times, before he physically leaned into me to try and get me to go somewhere. When I kept saying "hayir," and tried to walk around him, he grabbed my arm and tried to pull me somewhere. At that point, I put my foot down, gave him the nastiest look I've ever given anyone, and said "HAYIR!," then walked quickly away. He didn't bother me after that; I'm just glad there were people around. It was, all in all, an interesting experience, and not one that I'd recommend for anyone.
Today, I headed to Ulus (the "old" part of the city) with a friend: we walked up to the citadel, to watch the city for a bit, and met some really cute kids, who all knew amazing English. Of course, as soon as we got to the citadel, I realized that my camera was still on my desk in my room, so I have no photos of the views or the kids. I bought some jewellery from the vendors who line the entrance to the citadel; I bartered, which was fun, but I may have gone a bit overboard, as I now have 8 bracelets, in an assortment of colors, from the citadel. From the top of the citadel, we spotted the really big mosque in Ankara, and I mentioned that I used the mosque as a directional point to get to the Sihiyye bazaar. Michael (my friend) wanted to buy some fruit and veggies and such, so we set out down the hill to try and find the bazaar. As we were operating from "as the crow flies" directions, our route was definitely not the main tourist path! We passed all kinds of women doing laundry and men washing their cars, and stopped in a cafe for tea where I was the only female, and I think the server asked if we were married. I'm pretty sure it was an all-male cafe (they have quite a few of them here), so I'm sure I provided weeks worth of stories for the 2 dozen-ish Turkish guys there. From there, we zigzagged around before stumbling on the bazaar (I still have no clue how we got there), where I bought a cooking pot. From the bazaar, we tried to get to the Dolmus (shared taxi minibus) stop in Kizilay, but somehow ended up at the huge mosque and then the Belgian Embassy, before finally making it to the Kizilay dolmus stop and back to campus. I was really impressed with how much Turkish I actually knew, as Michael isn't taking Turkish lessons, so I had to translate most things for him. I was able to barter for both of us, talk with storekeepers, ask for directions, talk with the little kids by the citadel, and ask people if Michael could take their photo. I hadn't thought I'd retained that much, but apparently I have :-)
This week looks to be fairly fun; I may get to Safranbolu this weekend, which is known for its Ottoman houses, and I'm planning a trip to Van in a few weeks, which I'm really excited about. Hope you all are doing well!
-R

contact info and the like

I figured now that I'm settled in, I'd let you all know how to get in touch with me, if it strikes your fancy.
My snail mail address:
c/o Study Abroad Office
504 Rektörlük
Middle East Technical University (or Orta Doğu Teknik Universitesi)
06531
Ankara, Turkey

or you can email me at r_doffing_at_hotmail_dot_com (take out all the _s)
that's also my msn name, so feel free to say hi!
Of course, you can always comment here, too.

I've finalized my class schedule. I'm taking Turkish, Contemporary Turkey, Political Economy of Globalisation, Advanced Communications in IR, Human Rights in World Politics, and Museology. I only have one morning class, on Mondays, which I'm psyched about.

Oh, and it's finally warmer! Most of the snow has melted, so you can really see what the campus looks like, which is nice. I'll try to take pics in a bit and post them here.
'til later,
-R

Istanbul Rocks!

The view looking upwards, towards the domes, in the Blue Mosque.


More of the Blue Mosque. In this photo, you can see the Ottoman-style arches, and the thousands of tiles (the name "Blue Mosque" comes from the blue tiles), all gorgeously patterned.


The view from the Golden Horn. We walked along the waterfront at sunset, and the views were just stunning.


Sarah, me, and Desi, in the Blue Mosque. We're standing in front of one of 4 gigantic pillars that hold the dome up. The blue headscarves are lent to tourists, as women are supposed to cover their heads inside mosques, although they don't bother with headscarves for large tour groups.


The Blue Mosque. This is the right side, and it's a little blurry since they aren't too keen on flash photography inside.


Me, in front of the Aya Sofya.


Several of us at a narghile cafe. The thing in the middle is a narghile, or water pipe, and it's a major Turkish pastime.


The Blue Mosque, looking down from Sultanahmet Park.


A man praying at Yeni Cami.


A shot of some of the inscriptions under the dome at Yeni Cami.
Some of us exchange students, with Yeni Cami in the background.


A close-up shot of the fishermen and cafes on the Galata Bridge.


Yeni Cami. It's simply immense, and there's so much attention that was paid to every last detail, it's gorgeous.


Fishermen and shops on the Galata Bridge. The card game "bridge" is named after the Galata Bridge; apparently British soldiers stationed in Istanbul during the Crimean War would cross the bridge every night to play a new card game in a Beyoğlu coffeeshop.

Yeni Cami (The New Mosque, although it was finished in the 1600s), from Beyoğlu.

Hey!
It was a little cold last week, so about a dozen of us exchange students took off for Istanbul for the weekend. It was incredible. We stayed in Taksim, which is full of shops, boutiques, restaurants, cafes, and bars, and we saw soooo much! We took the bus there Friday afternoon, which took about 6 hours. It was only 20 lira, and the bus had a beverage service, and gave out chocolate brownies, which is definitely something that the New York-Boston busses should look at. We got to our hotel at maybe 9 at night, and had dinner and chilled for a while after walking down Istikal Caddesi, which is where the locals come to see and be seen, and to do their shopping. It's a very Western street: I've only seen one Starbucks in Ankara, in a shopping mall, but there were 2 Starbucks, a Dunkin' Donuts, and 2 Gloria Jeans on Istikal. I didn't actually stop at any of them, but they certainly illustrated that Istanbul is not Ankara. On Saturday, we went for breakfast, then walked down sidestreets full of music shops and other specialty shops to the Galata Bridge, which connects the 2 European parts of Istanbul. The bridge is really cool: under the part where the cars drive, there are tons of cafes and restaurants, where you can sit and watch the sea (One cafe has beanbag chairs, which are heavenly after a day of walking around Istanbul). There are also loads of street vendors on the bridge, as well as fishermen casting their rods off the side. It's a very lively place. On the other side of Galatay, we toured the Yeni Cami, or New Mosque. The "new" part is relative, as it was finished in 1663; it was stunning. It was right next to the Spice Bazaar, so we toured that next, and had some Turkish Delight, which is really good when it's fresh. I saw some spice sets that I liked, and was going to get them, but then the shopkeeper found out I was American and refused to do business with any "American terrorits." Other than that guy, the shopkeepers were more than happy to do business with us, often too happy. We practically didn't need our limited Turkish, as so many of the vendors spoke English; we still tried to speak Turkish as much as we could, though. After the Spice Bazaar, we wound our way to the Grand Bazaar, which is immense and overwhelming. Imagine any large shopping mall, but increase the size, fill every spare inch with vendors, and have merchandise literally packed in, with scores of Turkish shopkeepers calling out "Hey ladies," "Excuse me, beautiful," or "Oooh, it's a harem!" (we were walking around in a group of four girls and a guy). It actually wasn't very crowded, because this is the tourist off season, so it was kind of nice. I didn't buy anything, though, because the prices were all at least 4 times what I'd seen things for in Ankara, and the shopkeepers had us pegged as tourists and didn't really want to barter. Note to the wise: don't actually buy things in the Grand Bazaar unless you speak Turkish. We stopped at a narghile cafe afterwards, and had some narghile and tea. Narghile is a Turkish water pipe, and it's part of the core of Turkish identity. The stereotypical Turk on a Sunday afternoon is sitting at a cafe with a narghile and some tea, playing backgammon. It's pretty relaxing. We found a guy selling earrings on the street for 1 lira, so naturally we all bought several pair; they're really nice. We then wandered down to Sultanahmet Park, which is known for the two buildings at the ends of the park: the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque. I didn't go in to the Aya Sofya (I will next time, for sure), but I did get to see the Blue Mosque, which was absolutely stunning. It's just immense, and the builders made sure that every small detail was just gorgeous. While we were walking on the grounds, we bought head scarves from a vendor; mine is black and red, and I don't have photos of it yet, but I'm sure I will soon. We then wandered down to the Golden Horn, and walked around it on the waterfront back to the Galata Bridge (incidentally, the card game Bridge is named after the Galata Bridge), where we stopped at a cafe before heading back to Taksim for dinner and dancing. On Sunday, we slept in, brunched at a cafe, and did some shopping before heading to the bus station, where we bargained (or, Katy bargained, as she's been here since Fall semester and therefore has better Turkish and better bargaining skills) and got 15 lira bus tickets back. We went shopping and ate at the Otogar (bus station) Metro station, which is full of shops selling everything (I could have got a television, or baklava, or a handgun. yes, they had 3 different stores selling handguns. this is so not America!); I picked up some Turkish Delight, which is really good, but only when it's fresh. We got on the bus at 7, it left at 7:30-ish, and we were back in Ankara by 2AM. I was absolutely exhausted in class today, but it was so worth it. I was really surprised at how different Istanbul was. It was very Western, and very tourist-oriented; so many people spoke English that I think if I studied there, I'd never learn Turkish. I also saw more "stereotypically Turkish" things in Istanbul than in Ankara: doner kebap were everywhere, they're huge amounts of meat packed onto a vertical metal spit and cooked, the cook shaves off meat as it's ordered. There were also a lot of shops selling Turkish Delight, which you really can't find in Ankara. It seems to be primarily popular in Istanbul. A lot of the things for sale in the tourist shops struck me as odd, because I hadn't seen them as part of Turkish culture.
I am really glad I got to Istanbul this weekend. It is an amazing city, really romantic in the old-ageless-but-really-modern city kind of way. It was also like 60 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny, whereas there's definitely still snow on the ground here in Ankara.
I'll leave you with some photos of my trip. I don't think I'll get a chance to caption them tonight, but I can edit my post tomorrow and add captions. I tried to capture how gorgeous everything was, and how absolutely immense Istanbul is.

Take care,
-R

Turkish!

Hey everyone!
Marcus' comment reminded me that I'd been meaning to write a post about the Turkish language, so I figured I'd do that now. It's been pretty fun, learning Turkish, although I'm tripped up a lot by pronounciation of the vowels, especially ö, ü, and the "i" without the dot (I haven't figured out how to type that one yet). My other languages have come in handy: Turkish has a "ma" particle, like Chinese, used to ask a yes-no question. Of course, where it's just "ma" in Chinese, it's "mi," "mi(no dot)," "mu," and "mü," because Turkish has vowel harmony, which means that you match up the vowel of the particle with the last particle of the word before it. It's pretty easy to just gloss over in conversation, because I seem to subconsiously harmonize the vowels, but when I'm writing, I always have to stop and think about which vowels are linked.

Turkish is also a case language, which means that the subject and object of the verb in a sentence are indicated, so that word order doesn't matter as much (English isn't a case language, but Latin is). There is a "preferred" word order (basically subject-object-verb, at least from what I've learnt so far), but it's ok if you don't say it correctly, which is great for me.

Turkish is also an agglutinative language, as Marcus pointed out (English isn't an agglutinative language, but Finnish is). This makes stringing sentences together...interesting, for me. It also makes for some really, really long words. I've only learned present-tense conjugations so far, but they seem designed to make every verb at least 8 or so letters long. For example, "bilmek," or "to know," is conjugated in the first-person-singular present tense as "biliyorum" (I know). Negating is pretty simple; you just add an "m" in the middle, for example to make "bilmiyorum," or "I don't know." I've been using the phrase "bilmiyorum Türkçe" a whole heck of a lot recently. So far, the agglutination hasn't been too much of a big deal for me, because I don't know enough structure to string together megawords, but my Turkish teacher did give us a longer Turkish word during a discussion we had about word lengths; it sort of makes me a bit nervous about what I'll learn next, grammar-wise: it's çekoslavakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmisiniz. You'll have to imagine most of the "i"s without dots, and the middle "s" with a line through it, because I can't type those letters on this keyboard. The word is a full question, and doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it literally means "Are you one of the people who we couldn't make Czechoslovakian?"

One of the easier things about Turkish is the structure of related words. If you want to say that someone does something, you append "-cu" or one of its vowel-harmony variants to the noun. For example, "futbol" is soccer, so "futbolcu" is soccer player. Possession is similarly easy, you just append "-im" (for "my") or a variant to the word, for example "defter" is notebook, so "defterim" is my notebook.

I'm really enjoying learning Turkish so far. It's not anything like English, so I can't use English as a crutch as you can with Romance languages; even the cognates don't always sound like they're from the same word ("bilardo" is billiards, but I'd never have guessed it). Turkish is a very logical language, with almost no irregular verbs so far, which is nice.

In other news here in Turkey, it's been snowing here all weekend, but not half as much as I hear it's snowed in Boston. The difference is that they still don't plow here, so I had to wade through a foot of wet slush to return a book to the library today. I spent the rest of the day comfortably ensconced in my dorm, reading, surfing the web, talking with other exchange students, and making dinner with some other American students (it was pasta with a fesh-tomato-based sauce; I've made this 4 times with exchange students, and am fully convinced that this must be the one dish that every college kid worth their salt can make and likes to make). Next weekend, I believe I'll be in Cappadocia, although I haven't signed up for the trip yet; it should be fun, and it'll be nice to get out of Ankara. On Thursday and Friday, I don't have classes, so I think I'm going to try and find the pazaar in Maltepe (a region of Ankara), which is supposed to be the biggest pazaar in Ankara; it'll be an adventure, as I'll get to take the Metro system (subway) to get there.

Well, that's about it for now, so I'll just leave you all with one of the longest words in Turkish: Muvaffakiyetsizlestiricilestiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmissinizcesine. It means "acting like you're one of those people who support bad manners," and I have no clue when you'd actually want to use it. But it's fun, nonetheless. Hope I wasn't too confusing with the Turkish grammar rambling,
'Til later,
-R

Class!

Hey everyone!
This week was the first week of class here at METU. I was reeeally looking forward to it; it's been like 7 or 8 weeks since my last classes at BU. My classes seem pretty interesting, I've been adding and dropping a few, to get a better schedule with better classes, and I think I'll end up with:
Intensive Turkish
Contemporary Turkey
Political Economy of Globalisation
Human Rights in World Politics
Museology
Intro to Foreign Policy Analysis (I might drop this)
Advanced Communications in IR (I'm probably going to add this)

I've been able to find all of my IR classes pretty easily; it's slightly a pain to walk to the IR building, since it's 2 miles from my dorm and much of the trek entails wading through a good 3 or 4 inches of slush-water, but the building itself is gorgeous, all marble and modern, with really comfortable lecture rooms and seminar rooms. It kind of reminds me of SMG back at BU. My other classes, though, have been interesting. I originally signed up for Rural Sociology, and I spent over an hour trying to find the darn classroom. Never did find it. I asked the Sociology department secretary for help, but she didn't know English, so I asked some random people about the room number, and got 3 different answers as to where it was. I found out later that it was a required course for Socoilogy majors at METU, and that it met twice a week at 9, instead of once, so I dropped it in favor of Museology, which I also got lost trying to find. This time, though, I'd learnt enough Turkish to ask the History Department secretary "Sinif 412 oda nerede?" which is, "what room is class 412 in?"; it didn't help much, though, because the room had a name, not a number. When I finally found room "masada izdemir" (or something like that), it was in the basement of the Library. I still can't believe I found it.
Classes here are a bit different than classes back home. They still have 3 hours of class a week, but instead of having an hour on Monday, one on Wednesday, and one on Friday, for example, they have a big three hour bloc, one day a week. It's kind of nice, as I have no classes on Thursdays or Fridays, so I can travel, shop, or do pretty much anything. 3 hours at a stretch does get a little long, though, so the professors usually give smoke breaks either 2 hours in or 1 and 2 hours in, thank goodness.
I've been fairly relieved at my professors' English ability so far. Although METU is an English-speaking university, most people there, including the professors, are more comfortable in Turkish. I have exchange friends here who had classes where the professor simply couldn't hold class in English when asked to; they had to drop the class. Apparently, that happens more in introductory, required courses. I'm pretty lucky: I walked in to my first class Monday morning, and the professor was new, just in from London, so he speaks perfect British English. My other professors are less fluent, but still really understandable.
Well, that's about all I can update for now,
Take care,
-R

Photos

This is my room at METU: it's cozy and really nice. My side's the right side.

This is the biggest mosque in Ankara. It's quite cool; I passed it while I was wandering the city.

These are gece kondurs, which I wrote about in my last post. There are literally hhundreds of thousands of them in pockets all around the city. As a side note, most of the buildings are candy-colored, brights pinks and yellows and greens, etc. It's nice, because the city would otherwise be insurmountably gray.


My camera works again (apparently you can't scrimp on batteries and get the cheap ones, because then your camera will pretty much die), so I've finally taken a few pictures. Not many, but at least there are Turkish photos on my memory card. So, to start things off, here's a few from the last few days (above).

Take care,
-R

Gece Kondur

Hey everyone,
Today, I visited the Citadel, or Castle: an ancient fortress in the middle and on the top of the city. Ankara has an air pollution problem, especially in winter, so we couldn't see too horribly far, but it was really gorgeous: spread out beneath the citadel in all directions were huge areas of gece kondurs. These, in my opinion, are one of the really cool things about Turkey: Turkish law says that if you erect four walls and a roof in the course of one night on government land, it's legally yours, and you can stay, hence the name "gece kondur," or "built overnight." A lot of internal immigrants from outlying villages did that when they moved to the city to find work, so there's maybe a million or so people living in these quasi-squatter residences. It's really something to walk around in the gece kondurs: it's a delightful mishmash of architecture, and a maze of narrow, sloping streets. Little kids are everywhere, and the shops in the area seem very relaxed. As my group was walking through on our way down from the citadel, it was teatime, and there was a man with a tray full of individual tea cups, all poured and ready, making his way among the merchants. Most of the shops had their wares displayed on the roadside in front of their windows, and other vendors wove their way through the street, hawking shoe sole inserts, jewelry, and fresh simits (simits are these wonderful thin round pastries, named after the sesame seeds they're coated with and the sesame seed jam they're baked with; they're somewhere between a donut and a bagel). It was all so timeless (well, maybe not the shoe sole inserts), and yet modern at the same time.

Well, I think I might go find some government land, put up four walls and a roof and beome a Turkish homeowner. Anyone fancy a vacation home in Ankara?

-R

Winter

Hello, everyone!
This is just a quick update, as I have a few extra minutes. It is so snowy here, it's incredible. There's currently over a foot of snow; it stopped for a bit last night, but picked right up this morning. They handle the snow very differently here: it's been snowing almost nonstop since I arrıved, but they just bothered to plow a few roads last nıght. Most roads on campus aren't plowed, and none of the sidewalks are; my socks are soaked. Today, on the way back to my dorm, we came upon some students sledding on plastic bags (I don't know that they have sleds), and we joined in. It was a lot of fun, and definitely not something that I thought I'd be doing in Turkey. The weather is a little dangerous, though: they don't shovel sıdewalks, so the snow melts a bıt, freezes, and ın covered by more snow. This makes outdoor steps more than a little interesting; there are also 40-degree ramps all over that take the place of stairs. It's more than a bit difficult to walk up a ramp in a snowstorm wıth several inches already coating the inch of ice coating the ramp: I have a black and blue knee to show for my efforts to do that Monday night. Other than that, the weather has been unexpected, but pretty fun; it reminds me a bit of wınter in Minnesota.
-R

I'm Here!

Hi everyone;

I'll keep this short, as i'ts 1AM here and I'm writing on a Turkish keyboard (fairly confusing/exasperating), but I figured I'd let'ch'all know that I'm here in Ankara. I arrived yesterday at about 3 pm local time, or 7 am Minnesota time. So far, it's very exciting/fascinating; the campus is interesting, it's pretty wooded, and it's maybe 20 minutes from downtown Ankara. The biggest struggle I've had as of yet is the food: it seems as though everything is made smothered in cheese, even breakfast foods. I had some sort of dinner today that's apparently a Turkish favorite; it was a baked potato split down the center, with the insides scraped out and mixed with something, like mashed potatoes. The mashed stuff was then put back into the potato and topped with pork sausage slices, pickle slices, jalapeno peppers, olive slices, onions, peas, corn, ketchup, and mayonnaise (it normally also has cheese, as well). It was pretty interesting.
Well, I'll write more when my wireless is up and running, so I don't have to use these darn Turkish ones,
-R

Updates!

Merhaba!

I'm slowly getting ready for Turkey; I have nothing packed, but I've made several packing lists. I've been reading a lot of travel books and books on Turkey, and I've been slowly working through my Turkish phrasebook. A few weeks ago, I was assigned my housing and my roommate: I'll be living in one of the EBI dorms, which means I'll have ethernet access in my room and a kitchenette, with a student lounge and a breakfast bar/cafe on the first floor. My roommate is Turkish, from a region called Pamukkale, and she seems really nice. I went to the Travel Clinic last week and got my Hepatitis A, Typhoid, and Influenza innoculations, along with a strict lecture on staying away from birds. I've been following the bird flu developments in Turkey quite keenly; it should be interesting to be over there as they're dealing with bird flu, but I hope it doesn't get too much worse: I don't think I'll be in any personal danger from bird flu, as I'm not going anywhere near any bird that's not fully cooked, but if a large outbreak results in mass panic or disorder, or travel restrictions, or instability, it would be interesting but not all that safe. At the moment, it looks like bird flu won't be horribly widespread in Turkey, knock on wood.
At the moment, I'm just trying to figure out what I'm bringing and how I'll pack it; I can bring 2 suitcases and a carry-on, but I have no idea how much stuff I should bring. I'm sure I'll probably manage to bring too much, and to forget something crucial back in Minnesota.
Looking ahead, I leave for Ankara at 3:20 next Saturday, and I'll arrive in Ankara at 3 on Sunday (or 7AM Minnesota time), where I'll be met at the airport by a student guide. I'll then spend two weeks in orientation, learning Turkish, learning about Turkey, registering for classes, and probably taking a trip to Cappadocia; classes don't begin 'til February 8. I'm getting really excited, and in the meantime, email or comment if you have any questions, comments, warnings, advice, or jokes about Turkey! I'll post more contact info once I get to Turkey; I won't know my address 'til I get there. 'Til later,
-R