Goodbye Turkey

With this post ends my foray as a writer as my time in Istanbul has sadly come to an end. The whirlwind of emotions accompanying my last week in such a wonderful country ranged from heartbreak at leaving my new friends, excitement for seeing family and friends back in the States, and concern for fellow students participating in the protests against a government they feel is infringing upon their rights as a secular, democratic society.

While my apartment and school were unaffected by the actual protests, students from the university were very active in the movement, meaning that for the last few days in Istanbul large groups of students were marching down from the university to participate in the protests. Flags filled the windows of apartment buildings while the sounds of car horns and the clanking of pots and pans poured into the streets. Since coming home I have seen more and more pictures of friends and classmates in Taksim Square actively participating a movement that shows no signs of stopping and toggles between a festival-esque celebration of national identity and a battle against police brutality.  In the least, the last few days in the country were an interesting and thought provoking send-off. 

Below are some photos of peaceful protesters in Gezi Park. Photo credit goes to my friend Sabreen.

Although I have been fortunate enough to visit many countries with family and friends prior to Turkey, a two week stay in a hotel offers a completely different experience than the one that gained from actually living in a foreign country. Living in Istanbul allowed me to see the nuances of Turkish culture and appreciate the flow of daily life instead of just the large touristic sites. (Of course, I can't say that these sites weren't impressive.)

Here are some of the sporadic thoughts I have had about things that I will miss in Turkey.

1. The Food. 
Specifically Lahmacun. Which, I am ashamed to admit, was my dinner, oh say 4 nights a week. Lahmacun is a thin tortilla-like bread with a spread of minced lamb, onion and tomato topped with fresh veggies and rolled up into a wrap. In 5 months I never tired of it's perfect taste. And, considering the fact that 2 lahmacun cost 5 TL – $2.80, I didn’t feel too bad about eating out almost every night.  Also the owner at the  my favorite lahmacun  restaurant and I shared the special kind of bond that is created when neither of you speak the other's language, but communicate via a combination of smiles, gestures, and constant re-fills of free tea. I am honestly surprised that I have not posted a picture considering the perfection of Lahmacun likely made up about 40% of all conversation I had with friends.

Also I learned that there is something to say about eating seasonal produce. Right before I left it was cherry, greengage (a small green tart fruit in the plum family), and apricot season. I can honestly say I have never had more delicious cherries. I think I frequented the grocery store/man on the side of the road selling cherries out of the back of his truck once a day for about two weeks. I was cherry obsessed.

2. My Friends. 
I was lucky enough to meet and become friends with some absolutely incredible people. 

3. The Beauty of the Bosphorous. 
I know that almost all the major European cities have a river running through them, but I honestly doubt that any of them are as beautiful as the Bosphorous. First of all it is not a river, but a straight connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.  Secondly, it is not the least bit brown or murky (as I have experienced many of the European rivers to be), but a piercing blue that captures your eye and makes you forget that you are living amongst 18 million people. Now, pictures cannot do justice to the magnificence of the view, but as a refresher...

4. The Cost of Living. 
So I have been back in the US for a grand total of ten days and I have noticed something – stuff here is expensive! Almost everyone who I have talked to about studying abroad has asked why I decided to go to Turkey. And, while my answer was typically “they had good engineering and it was an English speaking university,” retrospectively a component of my decision should have been the cost! No euro = more for your buck. After talking to many of my friends who studied abroad in Western Europe or London (gasp! The pound!), I didn’t realize I was spending significantly less. 

5. Gripping over a fun, frustrating, and interesting living situation.

The saga of Apartment 3 deserves a blog post of its own, however, a quick summary of the main events will have to do. In the span of 5 months, Steven, Joe, and I had 6 different tenants in the fourth bedroom, waged a silent battle of the heating system in which the temperature options were “see your breath cold” and “only a sweat shirt is needed cold,” endured a sporadic lack of Internet as a result of mooching off the Internet downstairs and not having our own, avoided a perpetually dirty kitchen due to people thinking that it is fine to not wash dishes for weeks on end, and dealt with an obscene amount of hair in the bath tub as a result of a very inefficient drain. Oh and fought the mold that covered the ceiling of Stephen's room in a matter of days with no apparent cause. Thank god for industrial bleach... and the fact that it was in Stephen's room and not mine. Fortunately, despite these minor annoyances, my apartment living situation worked out quite well. Big bed room, close to campus, congregation spot for many of my friends who lived in the dorm and were not allowed to have visitors.  But, lesson learned, sign a lease with specific terms and conditions.

My room .. and my friend Elizabeth asleep on the couch

View from the Balcony

6. Big city living. 
While an obvious downside of living in a city as big is Istanbul is the intense, infuriating amount of traffic, I learned that living in a big city has its benefits. I previously held the viewpoint that I could never live in a city like New York. I thought too big, too  impersonal, and too traffic-ey(sp?). Well after living in a city that is over twice the size of New York with a far less extensive metro system, my ideas about city living have changed significantly. Being able to pick up food at the grocery on the 5 minute walk home, exploring a new neighborhood every weekend because there are so many to explore, and meeting up with friends who live one street over instead of a 15 minute drive down the parkway isn't half bad.

I have so much love for Turkey, the people that I met, the memories that I will cherish, and of course the wonderful friends and family here is the US to whom I have returned.  5 months in Turkey flew by.

Teşekkürler Türkiye!

Below are just some additional pictures because I figure pictures are more fun to look at. 

What Taksim looked like when I went shopping a weekend before the protests began

Campus Activity during Sportsfest

View from a Friend's Apartment...where I invited myself to dinner often

Fresh Squeezed Juice

Another picture of the bridge

The Final Getaway

$90 round trip tickets?! To Jordan for five days with eight of my friends?! That sounds awesome! Oh wait, you guys are leaving on Tuesday night so I would miss six hours of class on Wednesday.... Hmm.. Okay, yup still going! Oh wait, I have an exam on Wednesday and the next cheap flight isn't until Friday night? Nope. Not going. So, what to do.....

Answer? Go to Olympos, Turkey! A few of my friends did a hiking trip for 12 days in Southern Turkey over spring break and both spoke of Olympos  as one of the most beautiful places they had ever been. Considering, as I mentioned before, many of my friends were gone for the weekend, I decided to indulge myself in one final trip before the last week of school and finals. Luckily I convinced Joe to join me and we spent two and a half days in the stunningly beautiful town (if you can call it a town).

After waking up at 3:45 on Thursday morning, taxiing to the bus, busing to the airport, taking a one hour flight to Antalya, getting on the wrong bus that dropped us off on the side of the road, taking another bus that took 1.5 hours from Antayla to Olympos, and then one final bus that took us down the mountains and into the valley.... and still able to hit the beach by noon? Not bad at all.

Just for some background, Olympos is essentially a collection of "tree house hostels" along a little dirt road that opens up to a historical park of ancient ruins and eventually the Mediterranean. The hostels aren't really tree houses, but little cabin-like structures on stilts.

The Orginial Tree House Hostel

Unfortunately we checked out before I took a picture of our "treehouse," but it looked a lot like this.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking but, in short, we spent two and a half days lying at the beach, hiking up into the ruins, lounging in the hammocks of our hostel, and drooling over the incredible home cooked breakfasts and dinners that were included in our hostels price of $15 a night.

Fresh Fish Dinner 

With mountains jutting up straight from the beach and old castle ruins looming above the tree tops, the beach was absolutely stunning.

Olympos draws some pretty intense rock climbers 

Did not want to leave.

How clear is this water!

Only downside of the trip? Severe sunburn. Oh and our one hour flight back to Istanbul after a two hour bus ride to Antayla was suppose to leave at 10:25 pm...Actual departure time was 2:00 am. Ah well. A small price to pay for three days in paradise.

Second Spring Break

Well, that felt like was a much quicker turn around then I anticipated.  I arrived home Sunday night at 9:00 PM. Two loads of laundry, two problem sets, a take home exam and, by 5:00 PM on Tuesday afternoon, I was off again!  Before you all argue that I don't go to school. Wednesday was a Turkish holiday and I engineered my schedule to have no class on Friday. Therefore, I was only really missing one day of class on Thursday.... 2 hours... to be exact....

Now that I've justified my "second spring break," I guess the next step is to tell you where I went. Answer? ISRAEL!

Our first night was a less than an ideal start to an incredible trip. In short, we arrive at the illustrious Momo's Hostel around 2 am and are greeted by some wonderfully seedy lobby characters. It only gets better when we open the door to our 8-person dorm room only to find people sleeping in our assigned beds. They proceed to scream and scamper across the room to their own beds. This of course begs the question as to why they were in our beds in the first place. The wonders of this hostel don't stop here. Have a mentioned that it is located next to a club. Nothing like 2:30 am pounding bass to rock you to sleep. I snag a bit of the ol' shut eye before waking up to the sound of all 6 of the Vietnamese travelers having a full fledged, full volume conversation with lights on, computers open at 4:15 am. Um, excused me? Not ok. Let's just say that at this point niceties are avoided for a more, call it, direct approach. By 7:00 am the alarm that had been going off across the room for at least 30 minutes signaled an end to our time at Momo's.

Beth loves Momo's

Without even staying to brush our teeth or changing our clothes, we headed off in search of some breakfast. Thankfully we found a cute breakfast that served Shashuka (a traditional tomato based breakfast dish) and freshly baked brown bread. Nothing like good food to make you forget about the fact that you have had 12 hours of sleep in the last 3 days.

Saving Grace Breakfast

After breakfast we caught the bus to Jerusalem, which is about an hour bus ride from Tel Aviv.

We spent two days in Jerusalem - two days of being in a place of so much culture, religious diversity, that it was both overwhelming and enlightening.  The old city of Jerusalem only occupies 1 km squared, yet within the city walls exists a community of 200,000 people whose religious affiliation ranges from Muslim to Orthodox Jew to Catholic. Our hostel was located in the old city and provided us an optimal homebase. We spent two in touring the old city - one of the few places where I have submitted to paying for a guided tour because the place is filled with such rich history that it seemed like a waste to not know the significance of each site. For instance, the first day we were there, we didn't even realize that the city was divided into four religious quarters. Oh, the role of ignorant tourist.

Old Jerusalem (thank you google images)

Highlights of the Tour Include:

(1) Church of the Holy Sepulchre: The church, located in the Christian quarter, and has incredible religious significance for many sects of Christianity.  Owned by multiple religious groups including the Greek Orthodox Church, who are the largest owners, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Churches, and some smaller sects. A status quo is maintained that prevents changes to the interior of the church. According to Catholics, the church contains both the site of crucifixion and the sepulchre (where Jesus was buried). The church was apparently built on top of the site of the crucifixion is said to be where Jesus's cross was discovered.

Inside church of the Holy Sepulchre (notice the difference between the Catholic Arch on the left and the Christian Orthodox arch on the left)

Reaching down to touch the hole left from Jesus's Crucifix

The slab where Jesus's body was prepared for burial when removed from the cross

(2) Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount): Today this site is under Muslim control as it is the third most important site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. Muslims believe that it is the place from which the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and the first Muslim prayer took place.

The Dome of the Rock (yes, it is real gold on the top)

Because of the strict control of the area, it is only open to non-muslims for two hours in the morning and one in the afternoon. Luckily part of the afternoon tour was dedicated to getting in to see the site. However, they were quite strict about the one hour limit for visitors, and we were only able to stay for about 20 minutes. Five of these were dedicated to arguing with the security guard who said that my skirt was see-through and I would have to buy some cloth from his "friend" to cover myself. This, of course, was the skirt that I had bought earlier that day for this exact purpose. Fortunately a women in our tour group had an extra scarf which I could drape over my floor length skirt. Honestly I was a bit upset that this man was clearly trying to make a buck off a tourist by claiming that I was inappropriately dressed. Goes to show that mixing business with religion isn't the best.

Scarf on top of skirt on top of shorts + long sleeve shirt on top of short sleeve shirt = appropriate dress

(3) The Wailing Wall (The Western Wall): The Temple Mount has important significance for Jews as it was the site of the First and Second Jewish Temple. Our guide informed us that the Wailing Wall does not have significance in itself; however, it is the closest that Jews can get to the Temple Mount.

Wailing Wall (The Western Wall)

The wall is divided into two sections where men and women pray separately.  While there we witnessed many people inserting prayers and notes into the wall as well as multiple bar mitzvahs taking place in the large square.

Inserting a prayer 

(Just to reiterate, all of this knowledge is the result of a 6 hour tour and from the opinion and interpretation of one tour guide, so I apologize if anyone knows any of the information to be incorrect)

In addition to the sites above, we also visited the house where the Mother Mary was born, the room of the Last Super, and the tomb of King David (Although our tour guide had a pretty good argument for why this could not be the tomb. He also said that in Israeli belief is far more important than fact.)

The historical significance of this area is more complex and nuanced than I can possibly replicate in a blog post. So I would highly advice reading a bit about the area. An area, which less than 60 years ago was not even part of Israel. An area, that regardless of one's monotheistic religious affiliation, is a holy place that draws people from all over the world.

Although we spent most of our two days in the Old City, nights were spent exploring New Jerusalem where we were greeted by people who were friendly and willing to candidly talk about their life in Israel.

One of the Main Streets in New Jerusalem 

Some of the most meaningful parts of the trip were talking to people my age who were either Israeli soliders, people who had been born in Israeli and had never left, people from the US who made Aliyah  in their twenties, and people who moved to Israel with their parents in grade school. New Jerusalem was such a friendly, open place to walk around and sit down at a bar or cafe and just talk with people.

Not to mention some of the best people watching. Beth and I sat on a curb for at least an hour chowing down on Falafel and watching all the different people walking through the market.

Fresh Falafel Toppings

Waking up on the roof of our Hostel to a scenic view of the old city

The second two days of our trip were spent in Tel Aviv. After two days of intense "touring," the soothing blue waters of the Mediterranean and powdery sand were luxurious. Although I can't say that my fair skin felt the same.

Two days were spent lying on the beach, swimming in water that was eerily clear, and talking with guys that we meet at our hostel from England and Australia. It may seem cliché to say that I have learned far more from the people I have met and talked to abroad than from any lecture in a classroom, but it couldn't be more true. With beers in hand and a setting sun, we discussed stereotypes of Americans and Westerners, careers, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, college tuition prices and more...

Tel Aviv

Two Nights Spent at the Beach Enjoying this Sunset

During our second day we rented bikes and went to the southern part of Tel Aviv to an area known as "Old Jaffa." It is one of the oldest port cities in Israel and has ties to many biblical stories.  

Old Jaffa Building

Beth and I ended our time by splurging for a real sit down restaurant on this beautiful street.

Rothschild Street

It was a wonderful 4 days. Too short for my liking but meaningful and relaxing nonetheless. It definitely left me wanting to return.

Much longer post than I anticipated! It is hard to believe that I have less than a month left in this fabulous place. Too bad it is plagued with final projects and exams. However, I'm planning on making the most of my final weeks before heading home in early June!