Mediterranean Adventures (Day 1-2: June 29-30)

For a while I had been contemplating where my next (and probably last trip) would be. The only area of the country that I had really not travelled to was the Mediterranean area and the center of Turkey. I wanted my last trip to do a little of both. I actually started this trip earlier than I anticipated, which caused a few (not insurmountable) logistical issues.

My aunt and uncle had some family friends in Columbia who actually had family in Turkey. They gave me their number so that I might explore the possibility of meeting with them and staying with them during my time there. When I called, indicating that I wanted to visit, Besim answered. He explained to me that if I wanted to come and visit, it would be best if I came within the next couple of days. I said ok and began to pack quickly (which was no small task because I anticipated this being a jumping off point for a minimum two week trip). To make matters worse, I discovered that my debit card had been lost (for a second time), causing me not to have an easy way to obtain more money (as most places in Turkey refused to take credit card). Rather than have my dad send me my banking card again, I developed an ingenious solution to the problem. I would link my Turkish bank account to one email address and my American account to another email address, allowing me to transfer money internationally. The bad news was that paypal takes out fees when you pay someone and so I ended up losing money in the process (but it would allow me the ability to get money, which was important).

The bus company, thankfully, took credit card (minimizing the amount of cash I should spend would be best since it was in limited supply waiting for the transaction to go through). I boarded the bus and began the journey to Çeşme. The trip would take approximately 12 hours and I would be doing the trip over night. The next morning I was told to get off at Ilica, a small town right near Çeşme, where the family I was meeting lives.

I arrived early in the morning (around 8 or 9am) and was completely exhausted from the bus ride. Besim picked me up from where the bus drops people off and took me back to their home (which was located near the very luxurious Sheridan hotel just off the beach). The family I was staying with was a Jewish family, the second one I had the opportunity to spend time with in Turkey. Jewish people in Turkey are pretty much exclusively limited to Istanbul and Izmir (and surrounding areas). This family actually had two homes: one in Izmir and one in Çeşme. They usually stay in Çeşme in the summer and in Izmir in the winter. The area of Çeşme, which is a peninsula extending out into the Aegean Sea is absolutely stunning.

I arrived at their home and was shown to my room. I put my stuff down and went to their patio which was outside. The table was set and breakfast was almost ready. I patiently waited for what promised to be a delicious breakfast. I wish I had taken pictures of the meals I got over the next couple of days here. The food was absolutely amazing and was unlike anything else I had anywhere else in Turkey. The way it was explained to me was that the food was a mixture of Jewish and Turkish food. Clearly, this was a microcosm of something I wouldn't have been able to find pretty much anywhere else. I had hoped one day that Naomi would be able to teach me to cook some of the dishes she prepared, but it didn't seem like there would be a chance.

After a delicious meal, I was extremely tired and I needed to take a nap before we did anything else. So I fell asleep at around 10ish and slept for a little while. I woke up and Besim took me down the street to have an official kumru sandwich. Many of you may remember reading about the kumru (Umut taught me how to make them as he is also from Izmir). The kumru sandwich was actually invented, not in Izmir, but in Çeşme. I went to the very place of its origin and it was so delicious. Definitely better than anything I could have made myself in the grocery store. Besim, unfortunately, had a prior commitment and needed to go to Kuşadası (the same port where I first entered Turkey on a cruise two years prior). Besim was a tour guide and would often take foreigners to the ancient city of Ephesus.

In Besim's absence, I would be shown around by his mother Naomi. The family themselves have a pretty interesting history. They immigrated from Spain after the Spanish Inquisition. Naomi can speak Spanish, French, and Turkish fluently. Unfortunately, the one language she could not speak was English, which meant this would be an interesting couple of days for me. Actually, it would turn out to be really good for me because it would force me to practice my Turkish in a way that could not be simulated anywhere else.

More Istanbul Adventures

So after my trip to Bursa I came back to Istanbul and decided to take advantage of staying there again for the next 3-4 days. In addition to seeing my friend Kerem, who I wrote about in the last post, I got a chance to see some more great sites of Istanbul. Because most of my friends were either gone back to the US or had classes, I had to do the sightseeing alone. By this time, I had learned my way around the city so navigating wasn't a problem. It just would have been nice to have someone with which to share these experiences while they were happening.

As winter melted into summer, this is what my daily walk to class (and to Bebek) every day. This is from the point near the entrance to campus over the Bosphorus.



Sigh...paradise, right? This site and the path to Bebek was required for my first Istanbul mini-adventure: the Rumelihasari.

Rumelihisari translates to "The Fortress of Europe" and was built by Mehmet the Conqueror before his conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It was from this site that he launched his attack on the city. The fortress itself is built on the narrowest point of the Bosphorus, making it an excellent strategic fort as well. The outside was built of stone and resembled the typical conception of what a medieval castle looks like. I had been wanting to explore this place ever since I moved there in February. On my first attempt, I discovered (on a Wednesday) that the place is closed on Wednesdays. The inside was cool, letting you climb up the stairs to see all the parts of it. The striking thing about the place (from a safety standard) was that most of the stairs did not have any rails or ways to keep you from falling. Here are some of my favorite pictures from Rumelihisari (by the way, my neighborhood, Rümelihisarüstü, is named after this fortress).









Çamlica

In the afternoon on the same day as I visited Rumeli Hisari, I visited Çamlıca. Çamlıca is the name of a large hill (and consequently governing district) on the Asian side of Istanbul. Çamlıca is the highest point in Istanbul and from here one can see the entire rest of the city (from Topkapi in Beyoglu to the skyscrapers in Levent to both bridges crossing the Bosphorus). No bus (that I could find) goes directly to Çamlıca. I took a bus to the Asian side and got off near the entrance. From there, I hiked up almost a mile (all uphill) to the top of Çamlıca. By the time I had reached the top, I was quite hungry. There was a place at the top which served kumpir. Kumpir is basically a Turkish stuffed potato. It had cheese, sour cream, and several other types of ingredients. I LOVED kumpir because they put bulgar in it (truthfully I could probably make it in the US but I haven't tried). After my lunch meal, I walked the rest of the way to the park. The park overlooked an amazing view of Istanbul. I am glad I was able to come see it. Here are some selected pictures from the place:









Princes' Islands

On another day, I took a day trip to the Princes' Islands and specifically to the largest island, Büyükada. The islands are a short ferry ride from Istanbul. The ferry ride to the island itself was a treat. From the water, I got to see the historic peninsula. On the other side we passed the island where Abdullah Ocalan (former leader of the PKK) is being held. The approach to the islands is really pretty too. I only really had time to go on the largest island, even though there are several other islands available to visit. As I stepped off of the boat, there was a little town near the harbor full of overpriced restaurants.

Büyükada, itself, is a very touristy place, so this is not surprising. The island has traditionally been an important place in Turkish history (royalty were exiled here and Leon Trotsky from the USSR lived here when he was exiled from the Soviet Union). There are many ornate houses on the island because it became a retreat for the wealthy during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Motorized vehicles of any kind are strictly prohibited on the island and so the only way to get around is by walking, bicycling, or taking a horse drawn carriage. I decided to walk. The island itself has two peaks. The furthest one from the ferry is where I went. The monastery at the top was called Ayios Nikolaos. The hike to the top was really tough (the hill was pretty steep). I actually had to stop a few times and sit down. Stupidly, I had forgotten to take water with me.

I was rewarded handsomly by the view at the top of the mountain. There was also a pretty church to go inside. I actually was very lucky. At first the Greek monks were not going to let me enter because I was wearing shorts. The inside was very ornately decorated, like many other Greek Orthodox churches. I also took some amazing pictures from the top of the mountain









From the top of the mountain, I hiked back down and found a private beach nearby. I was going to go swimming, but then I found out that it cost something like 20 Lira to swim there and decided that I didn't need to swim that badly. Instead, I ate lunch at one of those local restaurants. I then walked about half way back towards the ferry before I realized that I had left my wallet at the place where I ate lunch and had to go all the way back to get it. Then, I made my way back to the ferry and came home. Honestly, the islands were very pretty, but it would have been more enjoyable if I hadn't been alone. I think I would like to come back and visit again with company. I will say, I did enjoy going and seeing the island (as it was quite beautiful) and I got a lot of exercise walking all over the place!

Sunday Brunch

The last of my little day trips was more of a morning trip. As a side job, Elif tutors Turkish people in English. Elif happened to mention me to one of her students and said that I would be available one morning for breakfast if she wanted to have the opportunity to talk to a native English person (she had never had the opportunity). I was more than happy to have an excuse to go to the Asian side of Istanbul, meet a new person, and have free food. :) It was nice of Elif to suggest it to her student and to invite me along. After an hour of traveling (traveling to the Asian side is always a hassle), we made it to their home. Did I also mention that I had to get up at 7:30am? Grrr...

Anyways, we got to their home and the woman had a really nice leisurely sunday brunch prepared for us. At first she was rather quiet and only talked to Elif. I think she was nervous, but Elif prodded her a bit and told her not to be. I decided that it would be my job to try and help the situation, so I started asking her questions. Basically, any question I could think of (from the instruments on the walls in their house to what she did for a living to her likes/dislikes, favorite foods, etc). I was doing anything I could to get her to speak English. Overally, she came out of her shell a little bit but didn't talk to me too much. I hope Elif didn't think it was too much of a waste to have me there. Surprisingly, her husband spoke perfect English. I guess he didn't want to teach her or didn't have the time between his job and other things in life. I actually had some sympathy for the woman. After living in her country and being in many situations where I couldn't understand what was going on and people pushing me to speak (it was good for me but often nervewracking and awkward), I could really understand where she was coming from. All in all, I was happy with the experience because of the free food and I had fun meeting one of Elif's students.

My friend Kerem

So this post isn't really about something I did, but it is a shorter one about one of the friends I made in Istanbul. One of my favorite people I met was Kerem. He was in my Intro to Turkish Politics class. We met through that wretched group project that I described in an earlier post. We ended up being in the same group because I asked some random girl that I sat next to on the first day of class to be in her group. Truthfully, I asked her because I thought she was attractive and thought being in her group would mean I got to see more of her.

So through this group, I started talking to Kerem. I really liked that he was an intellectual guy and he didn't mind talking to me about Turkish politics or other things I was really interested in. Sometimes, I think some of my friends at Bogazici got tired of the questions I asked and wanted to talk about lighter subjects. Kerem was never like that and was always a wealth of interesting information. We also shared an interest in music and he sent me a couple of neat Turkish music stuff to check out. I was also amazed at how well he spoke English. With the exception of Elif, who actually lived in the US for a while, Kerem was probably the best English as a second language speaker I met in Turkey. He taught himself by reading the Harry Potter books (and even spoke English with a slight British accent).

We worked on our project and at one point I got to spend the night at his house, which was fun. Unfortunately, I wasn't very studious and had difficulty staying up past 3am or so. I forgot what his mom does for a living, but his dad is a trader on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. I thought that was pretty darn cool (bc I am interested in stocks). Also, every member of their family was fluent in English, which was kind of surprising. Their house was really nice too (they lived in Sariyer)



Although Kerem was a pretty studious guy and we only hung out sometimes, I enjoyed his company. Over the summer we met up one day and he took me to Taksim Square. We went to dinner and then to a dessert place. The dessert place was particularly cook because in addition to dessert they give you a little appetizer of coffee bean dipped in different types of chocolate (white, milk, and dark). It was delcious. Kerem also took me on some side streets of Taksim, allowing me to see some places I hadn't seen before (and the pedestrian path all the way to Kabatas).

Kerem is one of those people I still keep in touch with after my time in Turkey. Actually, he was helpful during my honors thesis writing process. He still has another year to go at Bogazici but he definitely has a bright future ahead. I am glad I met him in Turkey and hope we continue to keep in touch.

Mt. Uludağ (Day 3)

We slept in a little bit later today and didn't live Elif's house until around 10 or 11. We took a walk and went to a local sandwich shop near Elif's house. In Turkey, sandwiches that are heated with the cheese melted are called tost. It's not quite the same as the toast here obviously. At the restaurant I also tried the uludağ soft drink. I don't remember what the carbonated beverage tastes like exactly but I don't think I liked it that much. We ended up chatting with the owner of the shop and he gave me some advertisements for his restaurant. The advertisements were squares of cardboard with pictures of different menu items from his shop. I think he was hoping that I would be some free advertising for him in the United States. :) At the very least it would make for some decorative coasters back home. I have them in the garage or I would have written the name of the restaurant here.

Then we headed to the center of Bursa. I had told Elif that one place I absolutely wanted to see was the top of Mt. Uludağ (Great Mountain). Between the ulucami and Uludağ I think we have learned a new Turkish word, haven't we? At any rate, in retrospect it was probably not the best use of our time and resources (to go to the top of the mountain) but its what i wanted to do. It has to do with my love of mountains and my unfulfilled desire to visit Uludağ during the ski season. We decided we were going to take the cable car (teleferik) to the top! After we got to the base of the cable car in Bursa, we discovered that there was some sort of maintenance occurring and the cable cars were out of service. If we wanted to head to the top, a dolmus would be the only way. The ride up took about 30 minutes or so. When we got to the top we just kind of walked around a bit, took some pictures of the view, and got some snacks. The view was great but the experience was a little anticlimactic. If we had planned for it, it would have been fun to take that 3 hour hike to the summit from where we were but alas, it would have to be another time. We could see the summit from where we were and there was even still a little bit of snow up there! Truthfully, the air was a bit cooler than the steamy air in Bursa, so it was nice to get a break from the heat.

We made our way back down to the bottom. Elif suggested that we make their parents dinner that night, which was fine with me. Since I was there, she wanted me to try and make an American meal. I asked what sort of American she wanted and she said she had been missing a really good cheeseburger. I told her I would do my best with the supplies available, but couldn't promise much. We went to the store and bought some supplies. We were able to get real ground beef for the burgers, bread for the buns, and a cheese which was like smoother like a mozzarella cheese (but not quite). Oh well, it was the best we could do. We also bought potatoes to make french fries. So that's what our traditional American meal would be...cheeseburger and fries. Of course, I didn't think it would be quite the same without the Worcestershire sauce.

Elif's house did not have a grill, meaning the best way for us to prepare it was to cook it in the oven. I prefer this to the cooking on the stove method because it actually cooks the inside better without burning the outside (like the oven does). So we cooked the beef in the oven and melted the cheese. Surprisingly, it turned out ok and was more like a cheeseburger than any of the kofte burgers (which they called cheeseburgers) they sold at local places. More importantly, Elif's mom liked it a lot. I was glad to make her happy. Elif told me that this was especially good for her because usually after she works all day, she has to come home and cook for her father (her father doesn't cook even though his job is a lot less taxing). Anyways, it was good to make her happy and make her life a little bit easier.

After dinner, some relatives of Elif's came over. Then, Elif told me she needed to go out for a while. Apparently, Egeman (her boyfriend) had invited her out to spend time with his friends. He specifically told her not to bring me, even though he knew I was in town. I actually thought this was incredibly rude of him. I am Elif's friend and I am visiting. If they are going out with a bunch of his friends, its not like they were going to have a romantic evening or anything. Elif thought it may have been because they would speak Turkish the whole time and I might be bored. Perhaps she was right...I don't know. Either way, it should have been my choice and I don't think he should have said that. I was also pretty frustrated with Elif for going. I thought it was kind of rude for her to leave me even though I was visiting her. However, I did understand that it was her last night in town before she needed to go back to Istanbul and I am sure she wanted to spend time with Egeman. I guess even Turkish hospitality can have its limits sometimes. I shouldn't complain though, because she did invite me over and offer to show me around Bursa. It was still frustrating for me though.

So while she went out to spend time with Egeman and friends, I was to stay at home. Elif's mom's family came over (I think it was her sister and her sister's husband). They also had a baby. They were actually really nice. The only problem was that no one could speak English. So I was sitting out there on their balcony with them at a family gathering unable to contribute much to the conversation or anything like that. It was kind of an awkward situation. I did break out my good old pocket Turkish dictionary and tried to talk to them. I learned a bit about their family like where they were from, what they did, etc, and they asked some basic questions about me like how long I had been in Turkey, what I was studying, etc. I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but I don't think the conversation was too complex. After about an hour and a half, I excused myself and walked down the street to a local restaurant with internet access. There, I ordered a drink and caught up on emails and talked with some people. Elif came home around midnight and we packed for the journey.

The next day, we were taking a high speed ferry from Bursa to Istanbul. It only runs twice a day (or something like that) but it is a car ferry with a very comfortable place to sit down (it even came with a show to watch on TV). It was kind of like an airplane on the water. The high speed ferry (that's what it was called - hizli feribot) only took 90 minutes to get to Yenikapi, where we found a taxi and went back home to Rumelihisarustu.

Mudanya (Day 2)

We got up in the morning and decided to head to Mudanya for the day. Mudanya is a town a few kilometers away from Bursa on the Marmara Sea coast. It was also the site of the armistice agreement signed at the conclusion of the Turkish War for Independence in 1922. The seaside town used to be home to a lot of Greeks, but was replaced by Muslims from the Greek island of Crete following the population exchange after the War of Independence.

Elif had some cousins who lived there. We went to their flower shop because Husniye's birthday was in a couple of days and I needed to order flowers for her. I had no idea how flower delivery worked in Turkey, so it was great that they were there to help. The helped me by writing my message for me and assisted in picking out the right flowers to send. They also only charged me the amount of money it cost to buy the flowers and ship them because I was Elif's friend (meaning they did not make any profit off of me). It was really nice of them to do that for me and I really appreciated it! Actually, this happens a lot in Turkey. If you know someone or are friends with someone, you can get perks or better deals than one would ordinarily get. This is true in the United States as well, but in my opinion it seems more true of Turkey. At any rate, they did a great job and the flowers went over well. If I ever need another florist in Turkey, I know who I'm calling!

After the flowers, and a visit with Elif and her relatives, we went to the barber shop. As you may have been able to tell from my pictures, I was in desperate need of a haircut. By this time in Turkey, I could do most things pretty easily. If you gave me a Turkish menu, I could order in order. I could shop in a Turkish grocery store. (Notice how all of the things I am self-sufficient in in Turkish involve food). I could also compare fares between bus companies and haggle with them. However, every now and then one gets a reminder of why its so important to be fluent in the language where you live. One thing I still could not do was adequately explain the type of haircut I wanted. Ok, maybe I COULD have, but I don't want to see what it would have looked like in the end.

Elif graciously agreed to accompany me and translate exactly the type of haircut I wanted. Going to the barber in Turkey is actually a cool experience. I stepped inside and immediately felt like I had gone back to the 1950s. The only anachronism was the electric razors. As soon as we walked in, everyone stared at us. I figured it was because I was foreign, but quickly figured out that that was not the reason. Contrary to the US, in Turkey, the barbershop is very segregated by gender. No other women were in the barbershop. Elif explained to me that this was normal here (which surprised me since women accompany men to the barber all the time). Elif didn't seem to feel uncomfortable, though. In fact, it seemed like she kind of enjoyed it. She told me that she liked to challenge and defy cultural norms in Turkey (such a true statement!). So this was fun for her! Yay for defying cultural norms.

Anyways, so she tells them what I want and he starts to cut my hair. In addition to the haircut, he also offered to trim up my beard for me (just like they used to do in the old barbershops). Here's the interesting part. Instead of using an electric razor, he pulled out a single bladed razor (like the old ones they used to use) and used it to trim my beard and trim around it. It took some serious skill to do as good of a job as this guy. It was like one of those razors used to make Mrs. Lovitt's meat pies (Sweeny Todd). The best part was that the haircut (including the beard trim) was only 7 Lira (and no tip required)! Awesome!

After my haircut, we went to a pool owned by a hotel in Mudanya. Elif's mom has been trying to get Elif to meet up with her friend's son who was in town. I think he either just finished the military or is just about to start his required military stint. I am not sure which. Anyways, he met us at the pool to hang out. I didn't mind too much at first. However, despite the fact that he knew English, he spent most of the time talking in Turkish to Elif. Considering I was there, I actually thought it was really rude. Elif thought his opinions were kind of out there and didn't like talking to him that much supposedly, but given how much they were talking, you'd never know it. Eventually, I got tired of listening to them and went swimming and became occupied with my own thoughts. I was definitely not happy with the situation.

After our day at the pool, the three of us changed clothes and headed back to Bursa for dinner. Despite my frustration with the previous events of the day, we were about to go eat my favorite dish in the whole wide world. And what is that you ask? Iskender kebab! What's more, we weren't about to have just any old kebab. We were going to Kebapçı Iskender. The owners of this restaurant are descendants of the infamous Iskender Usta himself (the inventor of the Iskender kebab). Bursa, and specifically this restaurant, is known for its iskender. We went inside and sat down and ordered drinks. My mouth watered in anticipation. What is a good appetizer for the best iskender ever you ask? None other than homemade ayran of course! By this time, I had actually acquired a taste for ayran and decided I rather liked the stuff (and it goes great with a lot of Turkish meals).

Finally, after lots of anticipation, the iskender came. The meat plate was a combination of döner, lamb, and şiş meat! The plate itself was like any other iskender plate in looks, complete with the green pepper, tomato, tomato sauce and yogurt on the plate. The one difference between this one and normal iskender was the top. Generally, iskender is served with butter already on top. At this place, the waiters come around with cannisters of melted butter and pour it on top of the iskender right at the table. I took a bite. Heaven in my mouth. All of my frustration from before melted away with the butter. I was happy. Unfortunately, since iskender is such a hot commodity and we were at the best iskender restaurant ever, it was a little more pricy than a normal Turkish meal. We ended up paying 20 TL per person (quite expensive for a meal in Turkey) but worth every penny! After dinner we parted ways with Elif's new friend and retired back to her house.

Bursa (Day 1)

After I had returned to Istanbul for a few days (I think a total of 2), it was time for another trip. A really good friend of mine, Elif (the same one I traveled to Eastern Turkey with), invited me to come and visit her at her home for a few days. I appreciated the offer and thought it would be a great chance for me to see another city in Turkey that I may not have otherwise seen. I also thought it would be fun to hang out with Elif for a few days, since with traveling and with her doing summer school stuff, I wasn't sure when we would see each other again.

The journey to Bursa from Istanbul is a fairly short one. It takes a little over two hours to get there by bus. The best part is that you get to take a fairy over the Marmara Sea. If one looks at a map of Turkey, the location of Istanbul is a small slither of land separating two much larger seas. Bursa is just inland from the coastline on the bottom sea (Marmara) and so the best way to get there is to cross the sea. Crossing on a car fairy (this one took about 30 mins to cross) reminded me of my days as a younger kid in Florida. Sometimes when we would travel to Mayport (in northern Jacksonville), we would go the long way down State Road A1A. To cross the St. Johns river, they used a car fairy instead of a bridge. I am pretty sure it is one of the few car ferries left in the United States. Suffice it to say, it had been a while since I had ridden on one.

On the bus I had been working on my blog posts and trying to catch up. I exited the bus to enjoy the scenery and the cool air from the salt water. The area around the sea is kind of mountainous (a lot of earthquakes happen in this region) and so it was pretty to look at. Another interesting thing that you could see were the famous brown jellyfish. Apparently, the year I was there was an especially bad year and they were all over the place. It certainly made me think twice about swimming the Marmara. While outside admiring the ocean I met a brother and a sister from Bursa. At first I felt like they were making fun of me, but I ended up talking to them for a little bit. The conversation was of course limited by my Turkish (so they could still have been making fun of me and I just don't realize it).

Once we crossed the Marmara Sea it was only another 30-45 minutes before I arrived at the bus terminal in Bursa. I exited the bus and stepped out into the hot sun. I was immediately struck by how hot and humid it was. It felt as if my two hour bus ride had actually taken me back to Florida instead of just across the Marmara. I stepped out of the bus and went into the terminal to find Elif waiting for me. Her dad was waiting for us in the parking lot and he came to pick us up.

Her dad drove a yellow car, which resembled one of those taxi cabs. It actually made me chuckle when I saw it. I put my stuff in the back of the car and got in and we drove to Elif's house. Elif's dad was an interesting guy. He wasn't like other Turkish people I met. It's not that he was rude...but he wasn't overly friendly either. I liked Elif's mom a lot. She was a really nice lady. My opinions may have been tempered by Elif's own relationships with her parents (as she was translating for me and commenting on them herself). Her dad helped keep up a mosque near their home while her mom worked for a bank as a supervisor. This was surprising since usually the gender roles in Turkey are reversed.

Anyways, we put my stuff in their guest bedroom and Elif and I set out towards the city center of Bursa. Our first stop was the Ulu Cami (Great Mosque). This mosque truly lives up to its name. Built between 1396 and 1400, it is primarily Seljuk architecture. The building itself has 20 domes. The inside has a large amount of open space and is one of the biggest mosques I have ever seen still in operation (the only one bigger that I have seen is the Blue Mosque). However, my favorite aspect of the Ulu Cami was definitely the fountain in the middle of the mosque. Inside the mosque is a fountain and it's awesome. I'd never really seen something like that insider a place of worship before. Elif showed me a spot where apparently anything you pray for will come true. When she was a senior in high school she knelt there and prayed to be accepted to Bogazici (and now she is a current student there), so maybe it works!

After the mosque we walked over to see the Tombs of Sultans Osman and Orhan Gazi. On the way there, we walked through the markets of Bursa. These markets were historically significant because Bursa lies on the infamous silk road. Here in these market (even today) there were items from places in the far East. It was cool to be on the Silk Road. We didn't stay too long because most of the items for sale were silk scarves and other types of clothing items and I'm not really much of a shopper.

The tombs of Osman and Orhan Gazi were pretty amazing to see. Similar to the way the tombs in Eyup were decorated, the tombs of these individuals had a green cloth draped over them. Additionally, to enter the building that houses their tombs, one is required to take off their shoes just like in mosques. These tombs are so important because Osman and Orhan were essentially the cofounders of the Ottoman Empire. Before the Ottomans took Istanbul in 1452, Bursa was their capital. The function as a capital allowed Bursa to grow and develop for the 70 or so years prior to the capture of Istanbul. Additionally, Bursa is seen by many as the birthplace of modern Turkey. It was clear that I was in the presence of history in the tomb and I am glad I got to see it.

We then continued to walk to Tophane, which is the highest point of Bursa inside the city. It had a really neat view of the city and of part of Mt. Uludag (Great Mountain). Elif and I enjoyed the view and snapped some nice pictures before eating at a restaurant up there nearby. I took Elif out to dinner (I think we had some kebab something or other...I just ordered whatever she told me to have) to thank her for inviting me to her place and showing me around. After dinner we came back home and hung out in their house.

Istanbul in May

With the end of finals and the beginning of summer brings a bittersweet time for me. On the sweet side, I no longer had to worry about school and classes and could devote all of my energy to exploring Istanbul and spending time with the new friends I had made over the past 5 months. The times were also bitter because it meant that my time in Turkey was nearing an end and that I would have to say goodbye to some of my new friends I had made.

After our last final (on June 10th), a group of us (Alex, Vilena, Gorkem, Ali, Maddy, and myself) went down to Bebek to celebrate. As I have mentioned previously, Turkey is a relatively dry country due to Islamic laws and it is hard to get a decent variety of alcohol at a decent price. Despite these shortcomings, there was a brewery in Bebek that brewed its own alcohol. I think some of the other exchange students had already tried it, but I had not. We decided to go down there and I had the beer sampler, which consisted of 5 different types of beers that were brewed there (enough to give one the chance to try a little of everything to see what they liked).

I may not have talked about this group of people previously. I had only started becoming friends with many of them towards the end of my study abroad experience. Most of them found each other in the Superdorm (where all the exchange kids lived). Since I had not lived there, it was a bit harder for me to make friends with the exchange students (other than the ones I met in my Turkish language class). Maddy and I started sitting next to each other in Turkish Politics class and became friendly that way. I would say she is pretty much how I met most of the others (though I sometimes spoke to Alex outside of Turkish class).

Maddy is actually a very interesting person. Her family is of both British and Turkish origin. She can speak Turkish fluently and is a very smart person with a good sense of humor. I enjoyed spending time with her and getting to know her throughout our classes together. Ali and Gorkem are Turkish students who are enrolled in a dual program at SUNY-Binghamton. They spend 2 years in NY and 2 years in Turkey to get a joint degree from both. I imagine it will give them quite a few more opportunities in Turkey if that's where they decide to end up. Both of them were really nice guys, but also a little nerdy (yes, I realize this is coming from me and many of you would argue that I am kind of nerdy too).

Vilena is also an interesting character. She is Russian but studies in SUNY-Binghamton as well. We had a tendency to butt heads a few times because we were each very staunch in our opinions. I like to believe I am not as stubborn as she is when i am wrong, but what do I know? At any rate, I, unfortunately, don't talk to her much these days because we ended up having a falling out.

You already know about Alex from my description of my trip to Georgia and Armenia. Ohad is another interesting person. He is from Pittsburg, PA. He studied History at Bogazici and LOVED to take pictures. When I say photography was his favorite thing, I mean he would randomly take pictures of people on busses. He was not always popular for his picture-taking. He also was very much into the whole being Jewish and Israel thing. It was surprising to me, given this fact, that he chose to study in Turkey. All in all I thought he had good intentions and what little things he may have done that were odd, I ignored because I knew he was a good guy.

So these were some of the foreign friends I had made during my last month or so at Bogazici. In addition to the outing to the brewery, we also had an evening in Istinye Park (one of Turkey's newest and biggest malls) and found a very delicious Mongolian Grill place. This was surprising because Turkey does not have too many foreign food places (and by this time I was dying for something non-Turkish). It was exactly the same as it is here (except that it was 40 TL for all you can eat where as it might only be 2/3 that in the US). The other bonus of the Mongolian was that in America, you can't have leftovers, while in Turkey you can. I guess that sufficiently corrects for the price difference. :)

I also became friendly with Leesa, a student from Oklahoma. We met and studied together one day in Emirgin Park, which is a beautiful park to the north of Bebek just off the Bosphorus Strait. There was a giant chess board there and tons of landscaping. The highlight of the park was definitely the köşkler (big houses built during Ottoman times). Actually, the names of these houses is the origin for the word kiosk, which we use in English today. I took a lot of pictures of blooming flowers in the park and it was a very picturesque place to study. There was even an icecream place for me to get my favorite karadut ice cream (which apparently translates to black mulberry). I love that stuff and have yet to find a place here in the US that has it (much to my disappointment).

Saying goodbye to most of these friends (with the exception of Alex) was sad. It was nice to have made some new friends from all over the US and the world and I would not forget them soon.

To see some of my pictures from this, see the album entitled Istanbul in May. I also encourage you to check out the Bosphorus cruise photos which featured a lovely afternoon on the strait and produced some awesome pictures.

Family Visit (June 20)

So ideally I would have taken more time to explore and visit new places since I was already in the neighborhood of Eastern Turkey, but I had to get back to Istanbul. The next day (June 20th), my Aunt Heidi and Uncle David would be in town and wanted to see me while I was there. I thought I owed it to them to make sure I was in town for their visit.

Aunt Heidi and Uncle David stayed in a nice hotel in Sultanahmet. In the tourist district there (very near the Aya Sofia and Basilica Cistern), everyone spoke English. I met them for breakfast at a very early 9am (this was early for me because with traffic the trip on the bus took about an hour to get there (and I had only arrived from my long journey just the previous evening)).

It turns out that they had already made some friends of their own. Apparently, the previous evening they met some Turkish guy that took them to a great baklava place (I had not been) and took them to a nice meal. I was glad that the Turkish hospitality was treating them as well as it had treated me.

So basically, I was going to be their tour guide for the day and take them to many of my favorite places in Istanbul. Our first stop was the Basilica Cistern. As I explained in a previous post a ways back, the Basilica Cistern was the holding place for all of Istanbul's water siphened directly from the Belgrade Forest nearby. To keep up the Cistern, it had solid roman columns (and a cool carving of Medusa's head at the end of the corridor). There were also a lot of awesome karp.

Next, I had to take them through Gülhane Park. Although the tulips weren't in bloom anymore, it was still a beautiful walk. It goes right past Topkapi Palace and takes you right up to the sea. We bypassed the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque because they had already seen those the day before (otherwise, I obviously would have taken them there). From there we walked along the Bosphorus (and then the Golden Horn) until we got to Eminönü, which was one of my favorite places to walk. I fell in love with it because it is right along the seaside and has plenty of cool sights to see.

I took them into the Yeni cami (New mosque), which was right next to the street in Eminönü. I would like to point out that the mosque is "new" relative to other buildings in the area. It was actually constructed around 1643, so we use the term lightly. I think this was the first place that I had picked that was a little off the beaten path. I am not sure they would have chosen to come there on their own.

From the New Mosque, we went right to the Mısır Çarşısı (Egyptian Bazaar) built in 1660. The Egyptian Bazaar is actually connected via some commercial streets to the Grand Bazaar, but it is a little bit lesser known. There is a fantastic spice market there. This is where Uncle David did a lot of his souvenir shopping for everyone. He even got me some pomegranate tea! Yum! I was going to try and make sure he didn't get screwed, but the truth of the matter is that the prices are much higher there and I didn't know what the normal price was. At least the art of negotiation was not lost on my Uncle, which is a vital skill to have in these parts. :)

After we got some Turkish delight, tea, and other goodies, we headed to our next destination -- Dolmabahçe Palace. I actually had toured this only a week or so before for the first time, but I thought it was something they needed to see. The palace was enormous (built in the 1870s and famous for its staircase). After the fall of the Sultan, the Grand Mufti lived in it for a while (his granddaughter recently returned from the US and received a private tour because it was her home as a little girl). After the War of Independence it became Ataturk's home. It is like touring any great palace in Europe. It's all very ornate and awe-inspiring that someone got to live there. One ironic aspect is that in Ataturk's bedroom, all of the clocks are turned to 9:12, which was the exact time when he died. The amount of reverence shown to Ataturk throughout Turkey is amazing. They love him there more than we love George Washington here (if you can believe that). The property of the palace is also beautiful. It's located right on the Bosphorus Strait.

After the palace, we took the bus up to Ortakoy, a famous neighborhood in Turkey. This is the neighborhood where Altug was from. While there, we walked around a bit and decided on a place to have a beer (mmmm Efes). After our beer, we sought out another place for lunch. I had not been to these restaurants but they were a bit overpriced, being in this neighborhood and being located right on the water. The waiter there new a little bit of English, but not much. I think he was relieved when he discovered that I could speak Turkish. The menus were only in Turkish and i had to translate the food items for Uncle David and Aunt Heidi. I also made some recommendations based on what was authentically Turkish and what I personally liked while I was there. I think overall the restaurant was good for them and they enjoyed it. The waiter was so funny. When it came time to order, instead of looking at Uncle David or Aunt Heidi, he just looked at me. Clearly, he didn't even want to try to understand English if he didn't have to. I think Aunt Heidi ended up having a kumpir, which is a Turkish stuffed potato with bulgar, sour cream, butter, and lots of other goodies. Actually, Ortakoy is famous for its kumpir (one of the best places to try it).

I decided to take them over to Taksim Square, which is where a lot of people go for shopping, restaurants, and bars. Uncle David was astonished by how many people were there. Istiklal Caddesi is usually wall to wall with people. Uncle David said it was more people than he'd ever seen in such a close area before. It reminded him of New York. It is a pretty darn cool place to see if you've never been! We found a place for drinks (and the restaurant guy was upset because we decided not to eat). I also took them to a place I knew in Taksim with really cheap beer (it was shown to me one time by one of my friends -- can't remember which one).

From there, we took the furnicular down towards Galata. I was hoping to get them to the top of the Galata Tower by sunset. We journeyed up hill on some back streets (which Aunt Heidi thought was a little questionable on my part). Unfortunately, it was closed by the time we got there and one could only go up if they had dinner reservations at the very expensive restaurant located at the top. I wish they would have gotten to see it. It was certainly one of my favorite places to visit in Istanbul (and if I would have know the problems, I would have taken them to Kiz Kulesi on the Asian side). Oh well...I guess we can't win 'em all.

Our final stop for the evening was to Tophane. You see one of my Uncle's favorite things to do is to smoke a cigar. He was also horrified by the fact that my cousin Morgan, his daughter, had brought home a hookah from Israel when she had visited (in the US hookah's are sometimes wrongfully associated with illicit drug paraphernalia because of the people who like to smoke it). Therefore, it was a requirement that I take him to a good hookah place. Of course, I couldn't take them to just any hookah place. I had to take them to the best. I knew the best place would be Tophane because that is where hookah's have been made since the 1600s in the Ottoman Empire.

We did hookah the traditional way. We sat on bean bags (just like when we went there during orientation) and ordered a hookah. We even got the backgammon board to go along with it (and played a few games). I think Uncle David and Aunt Heidi really enjoyed it! By the end, Uncle David was hoping that I would bring him home a hookah! I considered that a big success. It was nice to sit there and chat with them about Istanbul and my life and to have a little taste of home after being gone so long.

After hookah, we walked down to the water (near the bus stop) so I could show them a pretty view of the Bosphorus Bridge. The cool thing about this bridge (which I am sure I mentioned in the past) is that it is lit up with colored lights and those lights change colors every 5 minutes or so. We met a Turkish kid (close to my age) and we briefly chatted with him (in Turkish). I was happy for the opportunity because I wanted to show off to Aunt Heidi and Uncle David. I think they were impressed. I walked them to the station and we said our goodbyes.

Overall, I the visit was a nice one and I was really glad they came. I enjoyed playing tour guide and sharing with them some of my favorite places and things to do in Istanbul. By this time, I felt like Istanbul was my home and was happy for the opportunity to share that home with people I cared about.

Trabzon Again (June 18, 2009)

The second day of my stay in Trabzon was a really good day. Hüsniye had actually gotten the day off from work from her boss, allowing us to spend the day together. Many of the sights that Alex wanted to see, we had already done during Spring Break. So Alex went off by himself to go see the Sumela Monestary. This also allowed Hüsniye and me to spend some quality time together alone, which was definitely fun.

As I explained in the previous post, Trabzon didn't have a whole lot going on in the city itself and I had already done most of it. So what could we do? The tourist office guy (he actually remembered me from before and thought it was strange that I was back) recommended some caves not too far away. They were called the çal mağarası and were located in Düzköy (an ironic name for the village because düz literally means flat or straight and the town was on the side of a mountain). No matter, this is what we decided on for our days destination. I was excited actually. I've always wanted to go in a cave and other than the little archeological tour we had in Israel, I had never really had the chance to do that before.

We found a dolmuş to the village and discovered that it would take about 30 minutes to get there. Although the dolmuş only was supposed to go to the village itself, the caves were a little bit out of the way. The driver agreed to take us there after he had dropped off the passengers. The scenery on the way up was magnificent. In all of my time in Turkey, I think one of the most picturesque things I saw (as far as nature is concerned) was the drive south from the Black Sea coast into the Kaçkar Mountains. As soon as we left Trabzon, we began winding into the mountains. They were very green due to the high amount of rainfall received in the region as a result of its proximity to the Black Sea. The Black Sea also meant that just about every valley had a natural mountain spring, bringing water to the coast from high into the mountains. One of my favorite things was a mosque tucked away on the side of a mountain with beautiful greenery around it. When one thinks of a mosque, generally sites of flat, arid desert come to mind. To see a mosque here in Turkey with the exact opposite landscape was really neat.

We finally made it to the top of the mountain and to the outside of the cave. We discovered that the caves weren't really open to tourists, but a young boy offered to show them to us. They asked for a small fee to pay for the cost of turning the lights on in the cave for our tour, which we gladly agreed to pay. We spent about an hour or two being shown many different parts of the cave (it was actually quite large and deep into the mountain). We also got to see an underwater stream,which helped form the cave. The outside was dry whereas, the further in you went, the wetter the air got. See some of the pictures I took of the stalactites to the left in my photo album. It was a really cool thing to see in person and I was certainly not disappointed.

When it was time to leave, we called the number given to us by the driver who promised to come back. It turns out that this guy was not such a nice guy at all. To drive us down to connect with the bus, he was going to charge us 10 Lira each. There is no way it cost 5 Lira in gas extra for him to do that. What a dick. Hüsniye was more angry than i was about it and felt like he was taking advantage of the situation. Unfortunately, there was not much we could do about it so we had to pay the guy to take us back. I guess not all Turks are so hospitable.

We arrived back in Trabzon and were not sure of what to do. Hüsniye decided to drop by her office and say hello to her co-workers who were working (as well as introduce me). I can't say I know many people who would go to their office on their day off. Apparently, Hüsniye is one of them. I met everyone and they were really nice. No one could speak a word of English but they were friendly and interested in me. I am not sure if some of them (especially Nurcan and Aşiye had ever met an American before. We even played a bit (Hüsniye took a picture of me in her dental chair!).

After we went to her office, we went across the street to her favorite ice cream shop (this was the real reason we were in the neighborhood in the first place). After ice cream we walked along the shoreline of the Black Sea taking in the nice weather and the view. We met Alex for dinner in the Forum. The Forum is the mall in Trabzon (Turkish people love their malls). I think there are more malls in smaller places here than in the US. The mall about 20 mins from my apartment in Istanbul (which I did go inside several times) was at one point the largest mall in Europe (5 stories, but it was also deep, bowling alley, ice skating, roller coaster, etc). The mall was a good place for dinner as it had some traditional Turkish places as well as some standard American ones (McDonalds, Sbarro, etc). I ended up having Sbarro's (ok, go ahead and judge me).

Alex told us that he had a good time at Sumela and made new friends. He also told me (much to my chagrin) that he ran into a certain fellow exchange student that I did not get along with. I was mortified and prayed that he did not invite her to dinner or to visit later (luckily he did not). The thought of her laugh makes me shiver...even a year later.

After dinner, Husniye and Bahar offered to help me pick out new shoes. I desperately needed a new pair but I was sorry I ever agreed to let them help. Moral of the story: Whether Turkish or American, never ever go shopping with girls. It is always a painful process that takes way longer than necessary for you to get what you want. I was totally fine with the shoes I saw at the first store. Instead of buying those, I was informed that we needed to go to a second shoe store and then a third. Then, we had to go back to the first one again. It was exhausting! Eventually, I did get my new pair of shoes but not without a good amount of torture in the process.

After our little shopping extravaganza, Bahar, Hüsniye, Alex, and I went up to Böztepe. For those of you who forgot about Böztepe from my last trip to Trabzon, it was the large hill at the start of the Kaçkar Mountains allowing you to see the entire city and the Black Sea. The view was phenomenal. Since it was night, we could see the city lights there and along the coast for miles. At the top, they also serve tea (çay). This çay is particularly good because all of Turkey's tea comes from Rize, located just 90km away. The tea served here comes with hot water allowing one to make the tea more concentrated or less concentrated (something I haven't seen in too many other places around Turkey). Also the ambience is really nice (and kind of romantic if you're up there with just your significant other). It was good for me to get to see the place again and good for Alex to see it for the first time. So ends our second day in Trabzon.

June 19:

We didn't really do much on the 19th before my flight back to Istanbul. Alex decided to leave and go visit Uzungol on his week long trip through the Eastern part of Turkey before summer classes started. Husniye and I went down to the coast and spent some time there. Actually, we almost missed my flight (I had to run back to their house and out the door and only got to the airport with 45 minutes before my flight took off). Luckily, the Trabzon airport is very small and it took about 5 minutes to get through airport security.

Trebizond (June 17)

I suppose it is appropriate that my 50th blog posting would be about Trabzon, considering how much time I ultimately ended up spending there. The title of the blog comes from the name of the name of the ancient Greek colony that was founded here. At any rate, our bus arrived at the bus station early in the morning of the 17th. We took the transportation that was provided to the city center and met Hüsniye in the main square in front of the McDonalds.

Hüsniye led us into a dolmuş and we rode to her apartment. Hüsniye and I had not seen each other since we had met in May but continued to speak online and had developed a good friendship. When I saw her, it was not strange it all. It was as if I was meeting an old friend again. I sort of felt bad for Alex because all he could do is sit there and watch us talk.

After a short ride we got off and cut through a paved parking lot to the street on which Hüsniye lived. When I met her last time, we had always met in the city center, so I had never been to her apartment before. We took our luggage up the stairs to the second floor. The apartment was nice I thought (definitely nicer than my accommodations in Istanbul but not as nice as Altuğ's apartment). The really interesting thing to me was the bathroom situation. The water heater was powered by gas fuel. You could even see the flames warming the outside of the container (they were small flames like one of those old gas burners). The other interesting part of the bathroom was that there were two toilets (in two separate rooms). One toilet was the normal western style toilet and the other was one of the traditional turkish toilets. (See my earlier rant about those).

We put our things down and Hüsniye needed to go to work. Her mother offered to prepare breakfast for us (she lives in the apartment with both of her parents). At age 25 as a working professional, it would be strange here in the US for someone to be living with their parents unless their parents were will or needed to be cared for. In Turkey, the situation is much different. Families usually live together until they get married (and sometimes afterward too). Based on my observations, the concept of family is much closer here than it is in the US. Of course you see these relationships much less in westernized Istanbul, but out here in the Eastern part of Turkey, traditional attitudes are the norm.

Hüsniye mother was a very sweet and mother lady. Even though she couldn't speak a word of English, you could tell that she had a warm heart. She also went out of her way to ensure that Alex and I were comfortable. She made us sucuk ve yumurta (sausage and eggs), which is a traditional Turkish breakfast. This was accompanied with bread (freshly baked that morning), cheese, and jam. Yum!

Alex and I were very tired from our trip (neither of us slept well on the bus) and we both wanted to take a nap. I would be sleeping the guest room for our two day visit and Alex would sleep on the couch. Not such a great deal for Alex but from what I could tell the couch was relatively comfortable.

We woke up from our nap refreshed and ready to eat lunch. Alex and I ventured out into the city in order to find lunch. We found a nice fish place on the coast. Alex had a fish sandwich (grilled fish) and I had a grilled fish plate (the amazing thing was that this plate was only something like 6 or 8 liras). Where can you find grilled fish in the US for that price? :) While at this one local restaurant, the owner was very interested in Alex and me. It was probably because they don’t see many Americans in Trabzon considering that most prefer the Eastern Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts. He brought out his son to serve us though, and we could tell by his posture that he wanted to practice English but he was a little shy in doing so. With that in mind, Alex and I decided to torture/help the boy by only speaking English to him. He loosened up and started speaking to us in English. The conversation was simple dealing with primarily school, subjects of choice, age, whether or not we enjoyed Turkey, etc.

Following lunch and tea, we set out to explore Trabzon. Since I had already been before, I acted as Alex's tour guide for the day. We saw the Aya Sofia (not the one in Istanbul), and walked along the coast. Truthfully, Trabzon doesn't have that many sites to see in the city itself. Most of the cool stuff is located around the city nearby.

At the end of the day I decided to get Hüsniye a present to say thanks for letting us stay there - a backgammon board (surprisingly she didn't already have one in her home). We walked along the city walls and back towards the center square. We met Hüsniye and Bahar at the city center (I am pretty good at finding this central square after all of this). Bahar and Hüsniye decided to take us to this place called Sera Golu (Sera Lake). It was a few kilometers to the west of Trabzon and at the beginning of the mountains. We got out and saw a pretty mountain lake nestled between the mountains. I must admit that I thought Uzun gol was better, but for something close it was definitely not a bad substitute. We walked around the lake and talked for a while.

Hüsniye and Bahar decided to take us to dinner at the famous Akçaabat köfte Lokantası. This is the very same restaurant I ate at when we visited Trabzon during Spring Break. There is no need for me to describe the meal again as it was the same and still delicious. Bahar was nice enough to pay for our meal (yay Turkish hospitality). Actually, one thing I did want to mention that I find odd about the Turkish hospitality is that when you bring your friends and are with another friend, the other friend (not the friend of friends) seems to pay. For example, Bahar paid even though technically I came because I knew Hüsniye and was friends with her. Similarly, when we came for Spring Break, Zafer paid even though Sonya, Em, and I were there because of Sonya's connection with Halis. I am not sure if this is a Black Sea tradition or a Turkish tradition, but it struck me as really odd. Since all of these people knew Hüsniye, it could also just be something they do amongst their friends. I am not really sure.

After dinner we decided to walk along the Black Sea (the restaurant is located right on the sea). The evening was comfortable (the cool water keeps the temperatures along the Black Sea pretty mild during the winter. After about 5 minutes of walking a policeman stopped us and asked us if we were tourist. He could tell immediately by the fact that we were conversing in English. We said that we were and he asked why we were in Trabzon. I explained that I was visiting my friend Hüsniye. He then asked us if we met on the internet. We both laughed and said no. Its a funny thought though. I wondered how many couples he met in Trabzon where they met over the internet. He then said that in addition to his day job as a policeman, he runs rafting trips to his home town in Yusufeli (Artvin province). He gave us his number and told him to give him a call if we were in town (in July I did end up returning and would end up going rafting with him...which was awesome).

Georgia Day 2 (June 16)

We woke up and left the hotel for the bus station. Before we did any sightseeing we needed to determine whether we wanted to stay another day and figure out the logistics as far as when buses leave, etc. We had severe issues finding the bus terminal (the Turkish bus terminal was different from the main terminal). Although we had just been there 2 days ago, it was dark and night time so we didn't have the ability to see exactly where we were. After walking a while and getting lost several times, we decided to hire a cab driver to take us there. The driver tried to rip us off but Alex and I were stern about the price we agreed to at the beginning of the ride. For some reason, cab drivers in Georgia seem like they are worse than cab drivers in other countries.

We eventually found the place and were immediately harassed by people from different bus companies telling us that their bus was the only one that went back to Turkey. Of course I knew that wasn't true and I certainly wasn't going to impulse buy without comparing prices. There was one guy who literally would not leave us alone. All I wanted to do was think about the times and our options but this guy was an asshole. He was abrasive and when I thanked him and asked him to leave me alone, he refused (even when I asked in Turkish it didn't matter). Eventually he gave up and started swearing about us in Turkish (little did he know that I understood every word of what he said and at that moment committed not to buy anything from him). I also told him to go fuck himself in Turkish, but I am not sure if he actually heard me.

We walked out of the area and decided to purchase a ticket later to keep our options open. We went to this Georgian place for more traditional food. We knew the place was authentic because no one spoke any English whatsoever. In order for us to order, we needed to call someone on the phone that spoke English. They served us a traditional Georgian dish (I don't know the name of it) but it was kind of cheesy and you mixed it with this other darker food. It wasn't exactly cheesy but it wasn't exactly doughy either. It's very hard to describe but it tasted good and was probably one of the most unique meals I had on our entire trip through Georgia and Armenia. We even had a demonstration on how exactly we were supposed to eat it!

Because the city is surrounded by mountains on three sides, the terrain in the city itself is quite diverse. According to wikipedia, the terrain limits the development of Tblisi. Therefore, less land causes the developed land to be more densely populated while other parts of Tblisi are virtually undeveloped. At the top of one of the more jagged hills lies the Narikala fortress. To get there, we literally had to climb up this small mountain. We passed a hamam at the bottom, which was adjacent to a Persian mosque. We briefly looked at the outside (the design was similar to the mosque in Yerevan but quite different from the mosques of Turkey). Then we hiked to the top of the fortress. The view was beautiful and there was even a neat little waterfall along the way. I think we had wandered a bit into the Tblisi Botanical Gardens.

When we got to the top of the fortress, we ran into several Georgian couples who were using the view and secluded area as a romantic getaway. Alex and I were pretty sure we even saw one couple having sex (clearly we were not in conservative Turkey anymore). At any rate, we soon discovered that we had gone around the back way to get inside the enclosed part of the fortress and had to do some creative wall climbing to get on the right side of things. It was more difficult for me than for Alex because he is taller and has longer legs. The fortress had two walled sections still intact. The Narikala Fortress was built in the 4th Century and was considerably expanded by the Umayyads in the 7th Century. As cool as it was to walk on and see this piece of history, the best part was by far the view. The hill that contained the fortress was one of the highest in Tblisi (and was located within a couple of blocks of the river) allowing for a spectacular view of the river and the main part of the city.

The top of the hill (which is more of a long pathway than a single point) also has the Kartlis Deda. The Kartlis Deda is a large statue of a Georgian woman in Georgian dress with a sword in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. This symbolizes Georgia's character of welcoming friends and a warning to foes. It was erected in 1958 to celebrate the 1500th anniversary of the city of Tblisi. On the lower portion of the fortress was the St. Nicholas church, which was nice to walk inside. The best part were the bells outside the church.

After we climbed down from the fortress, we headed across town to see the Tbilisi Holy Trinity Cathedral (Sameba). As we were walking over there, the weather took a turn for the worst and while we were inside, a torrential downpour and thunderstorm occurred. The Cathedral was constructed between 1995 and 2004 and is the largest religious building in Georgia and in the South Caucasus. It was enormous (and kind of what I expected to see in Echmiadzin). It was basically a super-sized Armenian/Georgian church (the large space on the inside kind of resembled the inside of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to me). The inside was ornately decorated with Christian figures. One thing that struck me as odd amongst the decorations, marble columns, and marble floors was that there were no places to sit down (aside from benches near the entrance for tourists). The height of the cathedral, which can hold up to 15,000 people is 85m and towers over the entire city. This is without a doubt a doubt one of the largest structures in all of Georgia.

We ran back to the hotel in the rain. On the way, we both decided however that we both missed Turkey and that we both didn't want to spend money for one more night in a hotel. So we got our stuff at the hotel at around 6:30pm, called a cab that came at 6:55 to take us to bus terminal for a bus that was leaving at 7:00. Although we agreed on a price of 5 Lari for the cab driver, he tried to up the price to 7 upon arriving at the bus terminal. Although normally I would have argued on principle, it wasn't that much money to us and we were in a rush to make sure we made it on the bus in time. Alex was a lot more pissed about it than I was.

We got on the bus and began the overnight ride back into Turkey. At one of the stops on the way to Trabzon I ended up getting into a conversation with a Georgian guy who spoke Turkish and gave him my number to call if he ever came to the US (fully knowing that he probably would never call). We also were joking around with the bus driver a bit (I can't remember what was said exactly). All in all it was a pleasant and fairly uneventful trip back. We crossed back over the Turkish border in the middle of the night (making the process go much quicker) and I was able to purchase a new tourist visa for my remaining time there.

Georgia on my mind (June 15)

So we woke up and waited for the minibus driver (who was conveniently staying at the same hotel). We were to journey back north through the mountains to Tblisi. The journey north took almost half the amount of time the journey south did. Not only did we hardly stop (yay for no smoking Armenian-Russians), but our driver drove like a bat out of hell. The trip that took us approximately 7 hours on the way down took only 4 (and this even includes the time change that we didn't know existed). When I say this guy drove crazy, I am not exaggerating in the slightest. He took turns in the mountains so sharply that one of the Russians riding with us actually had to make the driver stop the car so she could throw up. Truthfully, even I was feeling a little queasy during part of the ride.

Luckily, we made it back to Georgia safe and sound. We exited the bus and asked for directions to the old city from the metro station. It was very difficult to find someone who spoke English. We thought that asking younger people (close to our age) would yield the highest likelihood of people who speak English. We finally found Beka, who spoke English and decided to guide us personally to the Old City since he was on the way to the same place. He was studying Economics at a university there. He lead us to the area where he thought we should stay and told us a little about the city and which places we should visit while we were there. He also showed us a really pretty overlook that not many people know about where you can gaze down at the Kura River which runs through the center of Tblisi.

We found a nicer hotel district across the river. After the less than luxurious accommodations over the last few days (and the whole spending 30 something hours on the bus), Alex and I both agreed that we could splurge for a nicer hotel. Even this "nice" hotel only cost something in the neighborhood of 20 or 30 dollars per night. However, with a warm shower, clean room, air conditioner, and soft bed it was a huge upgrade from the places we had been staying.

We put down our stuff and headed out to explore the great city of Tblisi. Our first objective was to get something to eat because we did not eat much on the trip from Yerevan. We asked the man at the desk, who spoke English (another benefit of being in a nicer hotel), where the best place to eat Georgian food would be. He wrote out a list of Georgian food for us to try and recommended a restaurant that was of high quality and reasonable price for us to try the foods. We crossed the river and ventured towards the restaurant. The Old City was revitalized and did not have the same sort of Soviet architecture found in many post-Soviet states (though there were still places in Tblisi to find this architecture). The streets in this area were cobblestone with French influence. It was definitely a chic part of town.

The restaurant was fantastic. We ate Mcvadi (very cheesy bread that went well with sauce), Khachapuri (a cream and meat stuffed bread), and a meat main course (I think Alex had trout). We complemented our meal by splitting a bottle of chilled Georgian white wine. The entire meal came to about 25 Lari (15 dollars), which was awesome considering what we ate. Georgian food was definitely much cheaper than Armenian food. Towards the end of our meal, a woman named Maggie approached us from another table. She was an American who was working as a traveling journalist for magazines like Backpacker. She hadn't spoken to Americans in a while and so wanted to chat with us. She asked us about our impressions of Tblisi, our trip to Armenia, other traveling experiences, and other stuff. We sat and talked with her for a while before paying our bill and leaving.

We continued to walk along the street and came across a Georgian synagogue. I pestered Alex to go inside. We walked in and walked around the synagogue. I think it might have been a sephardic one because the bima (altar) was in the center of the synagogue instead of at the front of the sanctuary. The bima also resembled a ship. It was oddly shaped. Otherwise, it was a pretty standard synagogue with an upstairs for sunday school. I gave a donation to thank them for allowing me to come inside and check it out. Seeing the synagogue there was a pretty amazing feeling. One does not typically associate Georgia with a large Jewish population. However, it exists. I am amazed that the synagogue survived all of the Russian pogroms (which is how my family ended up in the United States) and survived the anti-religious Soviet regime. The Jewish community there has seen so much adversity and yet it still continues to live and thrive. It just amazed me.

We continued to walk around and walked back towards the old city along the river. Some Georgian girls caught Alex's eyes and smiled at him. I am pretty sure that women are his biggest weakness. It's so strange to me because it's for these women that he meets one time and never sees again! :) Anyways, so he starts making eyes at some girls. They wave to each other and the girls start giggling. They spoke in Russian or Georgian (we honestly weren't sure which) and we couldn't really understand them. As we walked a way, a guy tapped us on the shoulder and in what little English he could speak, asked us to follow him. They tried with what little English they know to speak to us. They asked us where we were from, and we stated America (because everyone likes America now). They asked us what we were doing in Tbilisi and we told them that we were visiting. We all were trying to speak a combination of languages to each other. They tried speaking in English and Russian, and we tried English and Turkish. Eventually it came down to drawing pictures and hand gestures. The two girls along with their lone male friend motioned us to follow them.

I was pretty resistant and thought Alex was being an idiot but it seemed like I didn't have much of a choice. They took us around the backward, hidden alleyways of Tbilisi until they arrived at a building. I followed Alex through the dark passageways inside the building up to the place where his new friend Mariam worked. Alex was lest worried about all of this than I was.

It turns out though that they worked at a craft school for jewelry making. They called someone on their cell phone who spoke English and he translated for us what they were saying and he translated what we were saying. Basically the school is also a place for female refugees from South Ossetia to pick up another trade. It was interesting to hear about the damage the Russians have done to Georgia but it was even more interesting to hear about how much these girls loved America. They were also especially curious about Alex because I showed that I was much more interested in this conversation than me. Actually, its not that I wasn't interested, it's just that the language barrier and drawing of sign motions became exhausting for me. After they finished chatting with Alex, they accompanied us out and said goodbye.

We noticed that there were a lot of churches in Georgia. They were built in the same style as the Armenian ones, but their religion was slightly different. Being so close to each other, I am sure the Georgian christians were heavily influenced by the Armenians.

As the sun set, the city lights shone brightly. There was one part of the city where city walls stood with different colored lights illuminating them. It was a pretty sight to see. We didn't really have an agenda that night. We just walked around to see different random things. We also saw Freedom Square lit up at night where the Central Bank was located as well as the building for the local government in Tblisi. A short walk away, we came across the Parliament building. In front of it, a sign in both Georgian and English read: "People for Saakashvili's Resignation." I had learned all about Saakashvili in my EU Relations with Russia and CIS Countries class. The people of Georgia do not like Saakashvili nowadays and believe he provoked Russia into attacking South Ossetia in 2008. They also believe he has not handled things well for Georgia after the Rose Revolution that brought him to power. At any rate it was exciting for me to see and my nerdy political science self took a picture in front of the banner!

We walked up to the base of a tall hill. At the top was an Eiffel Tower looking structure which was actually the Tblisi Broadcasting Tower. There was a way to go up it but by the time we got there it was already closed. I thought this was really unfortunate because I bet the view would have been amazing. There was a shop nearby and we ended up chatting with the owner. I wish I could remember more about what we discussed, but I don't. I remember it being a nice conversation and him inviting us to come back and visit him again sometime. We walked down the hill to the river, crossed it, and made our way back to our hotel. After all that walking, my feet were quite sore but I was ready for another day in Tblisi!

A Day in Yerevan (June 14th)

A knock at the door came very early. Although we thought we had agreed upon 9am, our host knocked on our door and awakened us at a very early 8am. We gathered our things and took our stuff to the hotel. I was very thankful that the new hotel had a shower, as it had been a couple of days since I had taken one. The water was even warm. Alex and I decided that we would probably have time to see a couple of places outside of Armenia: Echmiadzin and Garni.

We decided to go to Echmiadzin first. I researched the appropriate bus numbers from the French people's guidebook and we were on our way. We decided to stop off at a place near the city center to get something to eat. We chose a relatively nice restaurant, which had the benefit of the waitress speaking English and free wifi. :) We also stopped and snapped a couple of pictures of statues on the way to the center of the city. Then we walked through Republican Square, which was a beautiful circle in the exact center of Yerevan. The buildings had been re-gentrified with new architecture. The architechture was a combination of Russian and Armenian influence from what I can tell. It seems that the new city center was indicative of the new direction of Armenia after the fall of the Soviet Union. I imagine that if I returned in 30 years, I wouldn't recognize it (and I hope I have the opportunity to do so!).

So after our walk through the city center and our breakfast/lunch, we took the bus to Echmiadzin, which was a short ride away. Echmiadzin is essentially the Vatican City for the Armenian church. The holiest Armenian church is located here and we thought it would be a pretty neat place to check out. We weren't disappointed.

In the first church we entered, which was the St. Gayane Monestary built in 630AD and restored in 1652AD, we stumbled upon an Armenian wedding. The church is typically open to tourists and there was no sign indicating that it was closed for a wedding ceremony. Alex was uneasy about going inside, but I thought it was no big deal and might actually be cool to see! The couple was no older than 18 and the wedding ceremony was beautiful. The setting of this church added to the beauty. From what I could tell and what Alex said, the ceremony had similarities to both other Christian sects and Islamic weddings. The church itself was filled with paintings and symbolism. Outside of the wedding, there was a cage full of white doves to be released upon the completion of the ceremony. I think I would like white doves at my wedding.

Anyways, just before the wedding had finished, we decided to wander outside of the church to the main portion of the church area. The largest of the churches was the Echmiadzin Cathedral. This cathedral was built in between the years 301 and 303 AD by St. Gregory the Illuminator. It is one of the oldest churches in the world and the oldest that was built by a state. The building featured the traditional round dome of Armenian architecture with stone and marble on the inside. It also had a large collection of beautiful artwork. It was both similar and different to the many churches one would find in Europe.

When one leaves a church in Armenia (also in Georgia), it is considered disrespectful to turn your back towards the alter. So traditionally one must walk out of the church backwards and illustrate a cross in front of your torso (kind of like the catholic cross before eating). In front of the church was a nice green courtyard with greenery and fountains. Although Lonely Planet advised us not to drink the water, we did anyway.

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I snapped some pictures of the area and then saw a photo of an Armenian soldier being taken in front of the Gate of St. Tiridates. I wanted to take his photo myself so I did. The family there decided that since we were taking their photo, they should take ours. We ended up having a group photo together.

Before we went back we stopped in a convenience store and met these two Armenian women who were very friendly and wanted us to take their picture (so I did). Even though they couldn't speak our language, I felt like all of the Armenian people were very friendly towards us. It's good to know that that Turkish hospitality spreads into the Caucasus as well.

After our trip to Echmiadzin we went back to the city center in Yerevan. I purchased a tourist map to see what we could do there before heading to Garni. There was a mosque on one side of the city that had been preserved. We went inside the complex to find that it was not just a mosque, but a whole center of Islamic civilization when it was in use. There was even a dentist office inside the complex! Although, we could not go inside we could look inside the rooms and take pictures of the courtyard. I found the schooling area especially interesting. Above the classroom sits a picture of Ayatollah Khomeini! At the entrance of the building, it says that donations for the mosques upkeep are made by the Iranian government! This was just another sign that we were in a completely different part of the world and of how close we really were to Iran.

We caught a bus towards Garni and then looked for the bus that we needed to change onto. However, for some reason it did not come at the right time. We found someone who could speak English and asked them about it and told them the time we wanted to catch the bus. He laughed and told us we were an hour too late and that we would not be able to make it to Gori that day. I then realized that there was a time change between Tblisi and Yerevan! Even though we actually travelled south west from Tblisis, we were one hour forward (so as to be on the same time as Moscow) when we crossed into Armenia! The entire time we were in Armenia, neither Alex nor I had any idea that we had gone forward an hour! It suddenly made sense to me why the Armenian guy woke us up so early! He had awakened us on time but we just didn't realize it. Also, it is odd to me that, since Turkey borders Armenia, there is a 2 hour jump forward in crossing the border. I wonder if there is any other place in the world where a time zone is essentially skipped.

Oh well. We missed out on that opportunity and decided to see the area where the bus dropped us off. There were some stone statues to look at (and we got to see more of those lovely Soviet apartment buildings). Actually, getting a closer look of those buildings made me sad. They really looked like they were about to fall apart. I would hate to see what the inside of one of those things look like. The area we saw depicted some kind of battle on stone, but we weren't sure what it was or from when it was. Nearby there was a little park with a trail and Alex and I decided to walk along it.

At the end of the trail there was a clearing and we couldn't believe our eyes! It was Hogwarts Castle of Witchcraft and Wizardry!!

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We saw the colors of Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and of course Slytherin. The place looked like some sort of place to bring children. This was here I think before the Harry Potter world was opened at Disneyworld. Anyways, Alex and I decided we absolutely HAD to go inside. The inside was stone and themed as much like a castle as possible. It appeared that it was some sort of restaurant with entertainment (full bar included) so that adults could bring their children to play while they ate. We decided to sit outside, as the weather was not too hot (it is an amazing feeling to sit outside in the month of June and not die of heat exhaustion). We each ordered a beer and were served by a very nice waitress. She wanted us to come visit her again but we told her that we were probably leaving the country the next day. It was unfortunate because she was nice and definitely took an interest in Alex and me.

After our Harry Potter experience, we got on the bus and headed back towards the city center of Yerevan. We took a walk in Republican Square to enjoy the summer evening. We were surprised to see a large group of people gathered around the fountain in the middle of the square and decided to investigate. Within a few minutes of us arriving there (this was at about 9pm or 9:30) music began to play and the fountains became alive. Colored lights shined on the fountains as water sprayed rhythmically with the music. It was beautiful actually. We just happened to walk up as the show started. I even took a video of "Time to Say Goodbye" when it played (most of the songs played were actually songs with English lyrics). By the time the fountain show was over it was around 10:30. One amazing thing I noticed was that at 10pm, it was still not dark outside due to the weirdness of the time zone and how far north we were. Can you imagine twilight at 10 or 10:15pm?! It was crazy!

After the fountain show, we decided to take a walk down to the part where the Armenians had shown us last night. We saw the new street where apartments would be opened above the stores soon. We also saw the Armenian Opera house. One thing we did not see that I really wanted to see was the memorial to the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide. It would have been interesting, after learning how charged the issue is in Turkey, to see it from the Armenian perspective. Perhaps that will be something for another visit. On the way back, I took a few more pictures of Republican Square and took a picture of the map of Armenia on the side of a museum. The street layout is of that of a circle, which seems odd to me as most of our American cities are rectangles and squares. I later learned that the circular city is actually a specific type of Soviet planning. Cool.

We decided that due to time constraints and the desire to see Georgia that this would be our last night in Armenia. Although we were here a couple of days, I felt like we were able to get a lot out of it and I enjoyed the trip. It is definitely a place I would like to visit again.

The next day before we left, Alex had an interesting conversation with the girl who had helped us and knew English. If you are interested in learning more about it and getting a perspective on Armenia from the people, I recommend reading his blog entry found here: http://adventuresinasiaminor.blogspot.com/2009/07/armenian-conversation.html

The Journey to Yerevan (June 13th)

After a somewhat refreshing sleep, we were ready to make our way to Armenia. We would then back track into Tblisi and spend a couple of days there before finally returning to Turkey. The Green Stairs had a community bathroom at our disposal. Alex took a shower and discovered that there was no hot water. I tried to take a shower, but the water was too cold for me to handle. We were told that the closest place with an internet connection was a McDonalds down the street. We were off to research a route to Yerevan that was cheaper than $100.

We ordered McDonalds and I researched ways to get to Armenia. I discovered that we could take a bus, a train, or a dolmus. The website indicated that the dolmus would be the fastest route (and I needed to be back to Istanbul to meet my family by the 19th of June). The bad news was that the dolmus (minibus) left within the hour, giving us not much time to find the place and get a seat on the bus. We crossed the street and took the subway to the nearest terminal.

After getting off the subway, we were directly across the street from the terminal where dolmuses were leaving to Yerevan and other areas in Georgia. The terminal looked like something straight out of a movie. If you asked me what the most stereotypical piece of Soviet architecture I have ever seen was, my answer would easily be the terminal station. Looking at the building, I could almost feel the repression that was the Soviet Union.

We found the right dolmus and were able to get a seat with 15 minutes to spare. I was glad I remembered to buy water for the trip at that time because we definitely needed it. The bus ride was going to take another 6-7 hours because the route to Yerevan took us straight through the Lesser Caucasus Mountains.

After a couple of hours on the bus, we arrived at the Georgia-Armenia border. When I visited the exit officials in Georgia, their eyes lit up when they saw my passport. They said, "oh! American!! We love Americans!" This was a very surprising reaction to me because the majority of people are either neutral towards Americans or don't like them too much. Even more hilarious to me was that after they were excited about us being American, they said yeah!! George Bush!!" I knew because of the war and from our Georgian police officer friend that Georgians already liked Bush a lot. So I decided to do a little test. Usually when you meet people that don't know any English and are border guards, they will say, "Obama!!" when they understand that you're an American. So I said to them, "What do you think about Obama?" They shook their heads disapprovingly and made sounds of disgust. Then, I said, what about McCain? They responded with enthusiasm, "Yeah!! McCain!" (in the same way they responded towards Bush). It was all very comedic for me.

On the border between Armenia and Georgia, they require everyone to leave the van with their belongings inside while the vehicle is searched. You are required to walk across the border (good thing I am not disabled or anything). In this part of the world, very few accommodations seem to be in place for older or disabled people. I wonder how difficult life is for them living here. I took my camera, thinking it would be a neat opportunity to snap some pictures as I crossed the border. There was even a sign that said "Georgia." I was excited because lets be honest, how often do you ever get the chance to take a picture in front of a sign that marks a border between two countries (ok maybe a bit more often if you live in Michigan or Texas but not for me). Well, apparently the Armenian officials were less than pleased that I was taking pictures of their border facilities. Perhaps they thought there was some sort of security risk by allowing me to do that. They took my camera and examined the pictures I had taken. I was so afraid that they were going to make me delete my photos. Luckily, they decided not to but made it clear to me that I shouldn't take any more pictures.

After we crossed the river on foot, we arrived to the border control guard on the Armenian side. We learned that a single-entry tourist visa costs 15,000 Armenian Dirhams. This was about 40-45 USD. That blew. They also demanded that we could only pay the fee in Armenian Dirhams. Of course I didn't have any Armenian money because I had not been in Armenia yet, so they allowed Alex and me across the border to the border offices in order to change money into Armenian Dirhams. I decided that it would probably be better for me if I changed Georgian Lari into Armenian money instead of the Turkish Liras in my wallet. I wasn't sure how the average Armenian felt about the border closings with Turkey, but I didn't want to find out at that particular moment.

While we were waiting in line, a girl approached me and asked me if I remembered her. I did not. Apparently, she was a French foreign exchange student and remembered me from one of my classes at Bogazici (it was hard for me to know who was in class because some of my classes had 60-80 students in them). She was traveling with her boyfriend, which was a little disappointing for Alex. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. One thing that was pretty awesome was they had a Lonely Planet book for Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, which they let us examine so we could figure out stuff to do once we made it to Yerevan.

After the boarder crossing, we got back on the bus. The scenery immediately changed over the border and became much more rugged and mountainous. The first sign of civilization (about 10-15 minutes over the boarder was quite strange). There were clearly enough buildings that the place used to be a decent sized town of sorts. The factory buildings indicated that it was involved in the production of something. However, many of those buildings had since been abandoned, probably since the fall of the Soviet Union. The design of all of the buildings appeared very Soviet in style and it was both interesting and eerie to see.

The mountainous scenery along the ride was amazing. The road quality was poor, sometimes not even paved. Winding around the mountain roads allowed me to see scenery like I had never seen before. The mountains were green but beautiful. I think one day I would love to return to Armenia, and instead of visiting Yerevan, I'd like to go on some sort of hiking/nature exploring trip. I felt the mountains in Armenia were much more beautiful than the ones we passed through in Georgia. The other interesting thing was how free the livestock was. Several times the bus had to stop and/or swerve to avoid hitting it in the middle of the road. It was clear that we were in a different world.

We pretty much had to stop every 45 mins to an hour because one of the Russian Armenian passengers was a chain smoker. At one particular rest stop, there was food but I decided not to get any. Instead, I decided to play a game of backgammon with the bus driver. Unfortunately for me, the bus driver was quite good and I lost. I think this was also because the Russian-Armenian was forcefully suggesting me to make more risky plays, which the bus driver took advantage of. Alex took a picture of me playing backgammon with the bus driver: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_npXKmJnH00s/Sk-4a1oVrII/AAAAAAAACy8/mRA0AUEe6ok/s1600-h/IMG_0174.JPG

We got back in the bus and we made friends with another student, Vlad, who was studying Political Science at a University in Armenia. His English was decent and he taught us some introductory phrases in Armenia, which was awesome. He also told us where we should visit while in Yerevan. Since we didn't have a guide book and we had done almost no planning, this advice was very helpful.

After our first stop, we continued along in the mountains. Before long, the mountains turned into rolling hills with brilliant green meadows. It was amazing and unlike any landscape I had ever seen. It was like something out of a movie. Add to this picturesque scene white mountains in the distance. It was so strange because there were hardly any trees on this massive green expanse. Because we were so high in altitude, the temperature was much cooler as well. As someone who spent most of his summers in Florida and Georgia, it was really strange to be in 70 degree weather in the middle of June!

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Our second major pit stop was in an Armenian village high in these plateaus. Although we did not stay for long, we did stay long enough to get a snack and something to drink. I decided to try some of the local cuisine. There was a type of soft flatbread that was native to Armenia and I bought some for the trip. It was really good. Across the street from where the bus stopped, there was a fountain with water flowing out of it. It was clear that this was the villages' local water source and people would come there for drinking water. I decided to fill up my water bottle with it (I am sure that it was fresh from local mountains and springs). Yum!

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We got on the bus and started to make the descent towards Yerevan. As we entered the outskirts of the city, one could easily see the mark of the Soviet's everywhere. The streets had several of the Soviet style apartment community living spaces. They appeared as if they were on the verge of collapsing. The place overall appeared to be rather depressing, devoid of much culture or varied architecture. The van driver asked us where we wanted to go and we asked to go to the city center because we did not know where to stay for the night (neither did our French friends actually). Vlad translated for us and it was explained to us at that time that there weren't really many hotels in Armenia. Apparently, there were business places for Americans and Russians who come to do business, but those luxury hotels are around 100 dollars a night. I was not about to pay those kinds of prices.

Then, the bus driver offered to see if the hotel where he was staying would allow us to stay there. They did not have any available room, but the owners agreed to host us in a bonus room they had under their house, which was within walking distance of the city center. We agreed and were lead to the house. A young girl named Lucy (who Alex had spoken to on the phone) met us and she spoke fluent English (apparently she had been studying in school and on her own). She was quite fluent and I was impressed!

They lead us into the room under their home. As I sat in the bed, I sunk almost all the way to the floor. Additionally, there were spider webs (and a couple of spiders) in the corner of the room. These were definitely NOT luxury accomodations. Additionally, there was no bathroom for our use (and apparently Lucy was only permitted to show the female French girl the bathroom in their house and the boys were not allowed inside). They told us that the hotel rooms would be available for us tomorrow. The area of their home was in what appeared to be a really poor area of Yerevan. I snapped some pictures of the street we were on. It literally seemed like a scene straight from a movie about a third world country (I feel like a lot of things looked like they were from a movie on this particular part of the trip). At any rate, I wasn't sure I wanted to stay long as I was on a tight schedule and my initial impressions lead me to believe that I didn't really want to spend a lot of time in Yerevan.

After getting settled in the four of us decided that we wanted to go out and explore and get a nice dinner. As we began walking towards the city center, two Armenian boys began to follow us. I thought it was a little weird and was a little concerned. Our French friend decided to strike up a conversation with them and ask them for advice about where we should go. They agreed to show us around and come with us. We went to a place downtown that was recommended to us by them.

They were curious as to why we wanted to come here and I told them I didn’t know anything about Armenia. Because of that, I felt that it would be necessary to just dive right into Armenia and get a crash course. We talked a bit about the country, economic problems, the problems with Azerbaijan, and other things. I was impressed though. One of them had pretty good English for only taking lessons for four months. I was also surprised about the cost of food there. Our meal was something like 7 dollars (and the next day our meal out was equally expensive). For this part of the world, eating out was kinda pricey. I was not sure if it was because this was a city or because their borders were closed on the majority of sides (Turkey and Azerbaijan have closed borders with Armenia) and I don't know how much trade they maintain with Iran. I believe the unfortunate political situation added to the already stifling effect of the Soviet Union and its aftermath combined to make Armenia a poor place. Nevertheless, there were still interesting things to see and experience! We walked back through the city center (where you could see a re-gentrification process occurring). There were new apartments (like Atlantic Station) that were supposed to open soon. Republican Square was also really pretty at night (but more about that later). We returned to our sleeping quarters and slept.