Ross' Travel Adventures

Sunday (6/19/11)

2011-07-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

So after our long trip to the Taj, I decided to take things a bit easier the next day. I met up with Louise and we went to this place called the Lotus Temple. The Lotus Temple is actually located very close to where I work. I probably could have/should have just gone after work one day and spent my time seeing something else. At any rate, this is what we decided to do.

We took a rickshaw to the temple itself. The area is enclosed and one must pass through a search and a metal detector to get inside (pretty standard procedure for India).

The great part about the Lotus Temple is the amazing green space around the temple. The temple itself looks great from the outside and is built in the shape of a lotus flower. The people who worship here are of the Bahai faith (which I had never heard of). Apparently, there was a prophet in the 1800s who lived in Iran and carried a message from God and these people are his followers. The most amazing part of the faith is that they take pieces from all religions and believe in accepting everyone. It's a really neat message. Interestingly, one of the things that they call for is establishing a single language in the world so that everyone can communicate with each other.

We didn't spend long walking around the grounds, as it was already very hot outside. The temperature was easily over 100 and probably closer to 110 (if not higher). To enter the temple, you are required to take off your shoes. This made the walk from the shoe place to the temple entrance very uncomfortable. I felt as if I were walking on hot coals.

We walked to the top and were told a bit about the faith and the rules inside. There is to be no talking and the inside is for silent meditation. Once finished, you can leave, taking as long as you like.

Louise and I went inside and sat down. We met a high schooler who was eager to talk to us. Once we were inside, I had to shush him so that we did not draw attention to ourselves. I thought the atmosphere inside was absolutely incredible. Once you're inside, its completely silent except for birds chirping. Inside the temple (which is one large open room with marble floor) birds live there. Their songs echo throughout the silent building. The temple also does not have air conditioner and is kept cool by the water pools surrounding it.

After we spent a few minutes inside in our own thoughts, Louise and I walked outside and down the stairs to the area where the pools are. The water was amazingly clean looking for Delhi. We then walked down to the museum near where we entered and learned about the Baha'i faith and how it got started. It kind of reminds me a bit of the Mormon religion for some reason...except this one doesn't throw it in your face and force you to convert.

After we finished with the Lotus Temple, Louise and I took the metro to go to Connaught Place. We were meeting up with Melanie there before seeing more sites. We decided to wait for her by getting a snack (and change) at McDonalds in CP. McDonalds is awesome because the give you change without complaining. It's one of the only places in India I have found that will do that. Everyone conveniently "doesn't have change."

From Connaught Place (CP), we walked to the jantar mantar. This was an old celestial observatory built in Delhi in the 1700s. According to the plaques around, it can calculate the precise celestial position of the sun and planets. It also can tell the time on earth via the sundial down to the minute! Pretty cool. I wish the instructions had been a bit more clear on how to read it, but the idea is neat.

After that, we walked back to CP to go to a South Indian place. We got dosas, which are a special type of bread that is dipped in different kinds of sauces. Definitely a success. I even had a mango lassi there. Yum! After leaving the restaurant, I turned over my ankle, which made it very painful to walk. I hobbled to the subway and then we took a rickshaw back to the guest house. And it was time to start the week once again.

The Taj Mahal

2011-07-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Who knew that half the excitement of going to the Taj Mahal would just be getting there! We decided we were going to do the whole trip in one day, leaving at 5am from New Delhi, arriving at 9am that morning and spending the day in Agra seeing the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri.

One of our Indian friends who had also not been to the Taj volunteered to drive us in his car because he wanted to see it too. He is actually a really nice guy and I am glad I have had the chance to get to know him a little bit. Anyways, we get into his car at 5am and I am still half asleep. One thing I do not like that much is really loud music (or really loud bass). I am not sure if its just because I am classically trained as a musician or if I just dont enjoy really loud noises or what the reason is, but that's how it is.

Anyways, so three of us cram into his back seat at 5am and the music is blasting. He has a bass in the back of the car which is equivalent to half the size of the trunk. It is so powerful that I could literally feel it in my chest. Also, there was virtually no traffic on the road, so we were hitting bumps like crazy. Several times the force of the impact caused me to jump in my seat. I can't say it was the most pleasant 5am car ride I had ever taken (not that doing anything at 5am is pleasant).

We drive across town and get to a gas station. In India, instead of getting the gas yourself, you have people who pump the gas for you. Its very similar to how it used to be in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. One pulls up to the gas station, tells the attendant what kind of gas and how much, and they fill it up. You never have to leave the car. On this particular morning, however, the gas attendant was not paying as close attention as he should have. We did not realize until the tank was full that the attendendant had actually put diesel fuel in the car instead of premium gasoline. The wrong gas in a car will certainly ruin the engine! Furthermore, a car that runs on gasoline cant even run on diesal. Our friend was pissed, thinking that his car had just been ruined.

We got out of the car and he started yelling at the attendent. The manager came over and apologized. The only thing that could be done at this point was to empty the gas tank completely of all the gasoline and then refuel with the correct fuel. This certainly put a damper on our Taj Mahal plans. We exited the car and they pushed it off of the side. The same attendant that had made the mistake jacked the car up and got a metal bucket to put the gasoline in. I wasn't sure how safe this was, but there wasn't much else that could be done. The entire process of waiting and having the gas emptied took about an hour (I wished at that moment that I could have just slept for an hour instead). Standing outside was uncomfortably warm and we began sweating.

While we were stopped at the gas station, we got to see survival of the fittest first hand. A small baby chipmunk dropped from the tree near where the car was parked and began scurrying towards the fence. The chipmunk was damp as if it had just been born or bathed. Somehow it must have fallen out of the tree. The little chipmunk scampered towards the fence to take cover. Out of nowhere a large black bird sees the vulnerable chipmunk, flies down, and grabbed it in its beak. It flew to the top of the fence nearby and began eating the baby chipmunk. Ashley gasped as the scene unfolded. Darwin would be proud. I wished I had been video taping the scene.

Discussing that little bit of excitement kept us occupied while we waited for the car to be fixed. Our friend got a signed contract from the gas station agreeing to indemnify him for any damages that occurred relating to his car as a result of the incident. They gave him a slight discount on the gas, giving him premium for the price of regular to compensate for some of the remaining gas in his car that he lost. Personally, I think he should have gotten the gas for free considering it was their negligence that caused the issue AND they caused us to wait over an hour. What if he had been going to work? Or to a meeting? Or the airport or any other number of places where an hour would not have been enough time. I suppose the gas station did not care that much or they just figured they could get away with not giving it to him for free.

We got back in the car and continued down the road. Soon we had started going through toll roads and within 45 minutes were in the countryside outside of Delhi. The landscape was semi-green, but also a bit barren. I also did not realize that by traveling to Agra, we would be going on a safari. On the trip there we saw we saw elephants, wild monkeys, sheep, camels, cows, and oxen. The elephant and the camel were both being ridden by owners, so they were domesticated.

Also on the way there, a drunk driver hit our friend's car on the back right side (luckily there was a lot of traffic, so it was not a hard hit). Clearly, someone or something did not want us to get to Agra to see the Taj that day. Unfortunately, the concept of car insurance in India is pretty undeveloped. If you get hit, you have to bear responsibility unless the other person has car insurance (which they often do not). You can have your insurance pay, but it causes your rates to go up even though it was not your fault. You can also sue the driver directly, but the courts are backlogged here. It might take 5-10 years before one can get a settlement. Even then, you can't get blood from a turnip, so if the defendant is insolvent, you're SOL anyway. That was a long way of saying our friend had to pay for the damage to his car out of pocket, which sucked for him.

Eventually, we drove into Agra and through the town to the Taj Mahal. Due to pollution, the Taj will not allow cars to drive to the front of it anymore. So instead, we had to find other transportation to get to the entrance from the parking lot. For the entertainment of tourists, you can get a camel pulling a wagon. We decided that this option seemed cool enough and took it. Just as we were about to push off, an Indian man jumped on our thing and offered to be our tour guide. He showed us his card with the official rates and offered to give us a tour for the Indian price rather than the foreign price (b/c we did have two Indians with us). Since it was only like 400 or 500 rupees for the tour, we decided to take the option.

He rode with us into the grounds of the Taj but did not say too much. When we got to the gate area, he lead us right to the foreign tourist ticket area. We gave him money to purchase our tickets and had them in about 5 minutes. We then had to go through the security to get to the Taj. Because we had a tour guide, we qualified to go through the VIP section and not wait in the very long and hot line to get inside. Having him probably saved us a good 30-45 minutes of waiting plus confusion. As far as I am concerned, having him for this reason alone made him worth the money.

We went inside and he started talking to us. We got some great pictures from a professional photographer (which I eventually broke down and bought). The Taj itself was amazing. Before entering the main garden area, there was a gate. The gate itself was quite a spectacle. The domes on the top were added for each year that it took to complete the Taj. It took 22 years in all, so there are 22 small domes.

We walked inside to see the Taj in all its grandeur. Wow! That's all I can say! I can understand why this is one of the most popular places to see in all of India (if not the world). The entire complex is completely symmetrical with a long pool of water running down the center. I guess because its summer the pool was drained and it was just empty concrete. It still looked pretty cool.

The photogropher guy kept following us to get more pictures in hopes that we would buy them on our way out. When the others were taking photos (by this time I had decided I wasn't going to buy but a couple because I had my own camera with which to take pictures), the tour guide and I spoke briefly. I learned that he was a student studying in Agra and he gives tours to make extra money. He told me that his favorite people to give tours to are Americans. I smiled and asked why. He said it was because they always give him $100 tips because they think he does such a good job.

I don't know if he was bullshitting me or not (sometimes people say stuff like this to you in India to play mind games with you to give them more money). Even if he was, he probably should have kept it at 10 or 15 dollars in order for it to have been believeable to me. So I didn't believe him and he certainly was not getting an extra one hundred dollars out of me!

Anyways, we went inside the Taj itself. You had to remove your shoes like any proper mosque. Inside was dark but still amazing. You could look all the way up to the top of the dome. Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed. Shah Jahan's grave is right next to his wife's. Because his grave is bigger, it is the only part of the entire Taj that is not symmetrical. Another neat thing is that the inside is decorated with beautiful semi-precious stones. Our tour guide took the flashlight to one of them to show us that it glows when light shines on it. This is precisely what happens when there is a full moon (they open up the Taj on nights with a full moon and its supposed to be amazing).

We walked outside the back part and saw the river. We also saw across the river a large foundation. Our tour guide said it was for the Black Taj Mahal that was never built (for Shah Jahan himself), but the guidebook says the Black Taj Mahal is a myth. I am not sure who to believe. He also showed us that the columns on the outside are an optical illusion to make it look like there are more sides than there actually are.

Although we got there around 9pm, by the time we were finished, it was closer to 11 or 11:30pm. By this time it was scorching hot outside. By scorching, I mean at least 100 degrees. We were sweating, tired, and exhausted. The tour guide took us out of the Taj and to the inevitable shop where they try to get our money and he gets a kickback. They were selling plates and marble things, which actually seemed quite nice if not a little overpriced. I did appreciate the fact that we could sit down and it was air conditioned. Our friend Jerry, likes to talk, a lot. Usually, it would have irritated me, as I would have wanted to move on and see more things since we had such a short time there. In this particular situation, however, I was glad he wanted to chat for a while with them because it allowed me to enjoy the cool AC.

After we watched Jerry haggle for an hour, we walked headed back to the main area. On the way, we were heckled by numerous small children selling random trinkets. We didn't really want what they were selling and it became annoying very quickly. The other problem is that here they simply will not take no for an answer. When you have someone like Jerry with you, as nice of a guy as he is, it compounds the situation and you go nowhere fast. After we battled off the children (and ended up buying a couple of t-shirts), we made it to our car. I think the tour guide was disappointed that we did not buy any of the things at his shop, but what can you do?

We then decided to stop off at lunch. I was happy to go somewhere quick, but Jerry wanted to go to a specific restaurant (at the Sheraton hotel). He wanted to go there because someone from his office had recommended it, and he wanted to be able to talk to them about it later. It made sense...its a great networking strategy. I could definitely learn a thing or two from Jerry about networking.

Lunch was fabulous. We ordered kebabs (chicken and lamb), dal (lentil beans), naan, and beer. It was all quite expensive, being one of the nicest restaurants in Agra. Jerry offered to pay and I was shocked! It was really nice of him and he didn't have to do that. The hotel said the dal was the best in India. I would say it was pretty good. The waiter was kind of a pompous guy though. He wouldn't bring Ashley utensils until she first tried eating with her hands. After living in India for 2-3 weeks, I am sure we've all tried eating with our hands enough that we know whether we want the experience or not.

After lunch (which lasted like 2 hours), we were running out of time in the day. We had to choose between seeing the Agra fort and Fatehpur Sikri. Everyone at worked told me how awesome FP was, so I pushed for that one and we were off.

We drove for about 30 minutes in the car before finally reaching the turn. We were flagged over to the side of the road by a man who offered to be our tour guide and only charge us Indian prices (there were 2 Indians in the car). So for about 500 rupees we had the option of going on a tour, which was a more than reasonable price. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

He lead us to the front and let us park in front of the entrance to the old city. We saved a lot of time doing this, but I was a bit disappointed because we did not get to walk around the area a bit. It was nice not having to find a car to take us to the front or having to walk there though.

We went inside the old city, which was the capital of the Mughal Empire for 14 years before it ran out of water. It was pretty awesome, I'll give it that. Our tour guide lead us around, showing us little things. Children continually swarmed us and the tour guide tried to keep them away. There were actually two of them - one who only spoke Hindi and a second who spoke English. We were assured that these guys were working together and that we would not be double charged.

He finally lead us around to this back area. In Fatehpur Sikri, there is a religious shrine in a white building. Before entering, he told us we were required to make an offering of cloth and to buy a string to make a wish. Conveniently, he lead us to a Muslim Imam who just happened to be selling exactly what we needed. The price of the cloths also just happened to be 500 rupees per cloth ($10). It was completely outrageous! When Jerry questioned it, the tour guide incredulously argued with Jerry about how its a custom and its disrespectful. The cloths could easily have been produced for less than 40 rupees.

I didn't end up paying, but some of the others did. I also did not like that this tour guide was constantly impatient, rushing us when we had not spent as much time at a particular place as we wanted to.

He then lead us around to the back of the shrine where there were little marble things being sold (just like at the Taj Mahal). The guys were putting things in my hand and showing it to me, but I wasn't really interested. It looked cool but I figured there were better places to buy them. What was really striking was that the tour guide got involved, as if he was the shopkeeper. He was trying to convince us to buy things and being pushy about it. It's one thing to lead me to a shop where the guide gets a commission and he sits there quietly, but its quite another for the guide to actually participate himself. It seemed he was more interested in that than giving us the tour.

After way too long with the person selling the marble statutes, we forced the tour guide to leave (it would have been shorter if Jerry had not been haggling with them). Even after we left, instead of continuing the tour, the guide walked behind the rest of us, talking to Jerry and haggling with him some more. I went inside and saw the mosque there and examined the architecture as we finished our tour.

Outside I took pictures of the area (Fatehpur Sikri is on a hill rising above the rest of the landscape). When I was away from the others, the guide came to me and asked for a tip. I told him it was my understanding that our friend had paid him and tipped him. He claimed to have not received a tip. I felt bad and gave him 200 rupees (or about 5 dollars). As soon as I got into the car, I found out that our friend had indeed tipped the guide 500 rupees already. This meant that he got almost a 150% tip for not giving us very good service.

The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. The money is not that important, but its the principle (I find myself saying this a lot in India). I think I would have enjoyed Fatehpur Sikri much more if we had had a better experience with the tour guide. That being said, it was a great place and I was glad I had the chance to see it and the Taj.

The drive home took an hour longer than the drive there because of the ridiculous amount of traffic. As soon as we got home, I went straight to bed.

Week 2

2011-06-25T06:10:00.001-07:00

So after my first week at my internship. Two of the Indian interns - Ayush and Laban - had finished their internships and left. I still have two others - Mrenali and Rukmani. So at least I am not alone.

One thing I started to notice very quickly here was that the people in my office were surprisingly not as friendly as I expected. Everyone here is really nice. They will smile, wave, say hello, and exchange pleasantries. Beyond that however, it seems that they really aren't that interested in talking to me. According to the other interns, this is normal treatment for an intern. It seems that there is a sort of social hierarchy in the law firms. At the lowest level you have interns like me, who when I ask for work, thye sometimes tell me they have plenty of work but can't give it to me. I wonder what kind of work they could possibly have that is non-delegable. I mean I can understand if they want to check my work or that the time that they would wait for me to do the assignment and then check my work might take too long. Who knows.

They take the hierarchy thing to surprising levels. For example, in the firm there is an upstairs area where everyone eats lunch. There are three tables there and they are relatively close, so its easy for others to talk from one table to another (it is a small room afterall). When we sit there with the interns, no one really speaks to us at all. If they do, it might be a small conversation like oh where are you from? Oh that's nice. Or oh what kind of work have you gotten so far? Interestingly, when I try to engage them in conversation, they answer my questions but usually my conversation will spark up a conversation between them in which I am no longer included. It's like my question is used as a basis for what made them think about it and then they talk and I usually will just listen and watch. In the weeks that come, I will try to venture out and break down these barriers a bit.

At least Rukmani and Mrenali are nice and talk to me. Mrenali's family lives in Delhi but is originally from Kashmir...so that is pretty cool. Rukmani is also from Delhi I think. She goes to school in Rajasthan (the desert state to the west of Delhi).

As far as work stuff goes, my second week just carried over from my first week. I finished my gambling assignment and on Thursday I finished my beneficial ownership assignment. I am not quite sure how good it was, but we'll see when I get comments. I feel like the lawyers here don't always give a lot of good feedback. I have no idea if I am doing a good job or not or if I am even giving them what they want. I guess if a lawyer gives me more work in the future, it means I gave them what they wanted and if not, I didn't. That's the only way I can think of to gauge.

On Thursday, the senior partner gave me a research assignment for him. He asked me to work on a paper comparing the fiduciary duty of directors in the US to the fiduciary duty in India and to identify possible holes in the law. A lot of the research projects I have received so far (beneficial ownership and the directors assignment) have been theoretical to help them with problems that will likely come up in the future. While this is all well in good, I was kind of hoping for some more practical experience. I can (and likely will) write academic papers in law school. The point of the internship is to get some hands on experience. (Luckily, by weeks 3 and 4 this does change).

On Friday, I ended up going out to dinner with Sana in Visant Vihar. Sana is a friend from Emory who did Model UN. She is originally from New Delhi and has an internship here this summer and is living with her family. She came and picked me up at the guesthouse with her driver and we drove to Visant Vihar, which was about 4km away. We went to this thai restaurant, which was really nice in the back of the shopping area.

Visant vihar is a nice little area with shops and restaurants. There is a wide range of places from a local shop on the side of the street to nicer restaurants. She had heard about this place but had never tried it. It was not disappointing. I ended up having some japanese food that they make on this special kind of grill. They allowed us to customize the ingredients kind of like they do at a mongolian barbeque place. We also had a glass of house wine (it was an Indian wine) that was pretty good too.

One thing that is irritating about Delhi is how high the taxes are. The VAT is 12.5% here! So you pay a base of that on everything you buy. Additionally, alcoholic beverages are levied at a tax of 20%. I suppose this is to discourage drinking and to raise extra revenue for the government. I have also noticed that there is a service tax when you are charged a service charge (the tip for the waiter). So generally a meal will be something like 1400 rupees for two people at a nicer restaurant (this is about 30 dollars). After all of the taxes and service charge, the bill comes out to be about 1900. So as you can see...the taxes here are quite ridiculous! My sister always complained about how high the taxes were in Chicago. I guess she would really hate Delhi.

Sunday

2011-06-23T03:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday was another day for sightseeing. You'd think I would take the time to sleep in and relax before starting another week, but I decided that my weekends in Delhi and in India were limited and that I needed to make the most of them. I wonder if I will feel that way after a few more weeks here or if I will be too tired.

I met Louise and Melanie in the lobby to go out. They needed to return some things at FabIndia (where we went with professor Krishnan on the first weekend). I hadn't eaten, so while they were there I went across the street to have lunch.

It was good that I went to eat so I didn't have to watch the returning and shopping that would ensue (no cash back but only exchanges are allowed there). By the time I was finished eating, they still hadn't finished yet...so I waited for them to finish (they were almost done, so that was good at least).

Afterwards, we went to a large Sikh temple. It was called the Gurdawa Rakab Ganj Sahib. Next to the temple there was a large pool of water where people could ritually bathe. It kind of resembled the pool of water in Urfa around the mosque there. It was pretty to look at. In some places people were bathing, but in others someone in charge was telling people to stay out of the water. I am not sure why. I did notice that there were fish in the water that looked like catfish or coy (it was hard to tell from where we were standing).

We also went inside the temple. It looked similar to the one we saw last night. Louise stayed in line to get blessed and give a donation. I just stepped to the side and observed the inside of the temple and of course snapped photos. I am not sure when it was built or anything, but it was both beautiful and fascinating.

Afterwards, we took a rickshaw to a metro station so we could go to Chadni Chowk. I was hoping to get another shot to go into the mosque and the red fort. Melanie and Louise also wanted to go see the book bazaar (on Sundays there is this big bazaar where you can find books of all kinds).

We took the cycle rickshaw and the girls sat in the front while I sat in the back. This was a horrible rickshaw for us to take. The back had the seat bent forward slightly so that the space was smaller for me than it should have been. Additionally, there was some piece of metal or some sharp object on my butt. Every time we went over a bump, it was quite painful for me. Unfortunately, the road quality is not good in India...so there were a lot of bumps. First the rickshaw went the wrong way. Then, he went to another wrong place...finally after going twice as far as he needed to, we ended up where we were supposed to be. I was suffering immensely. (At least I had a thumbs up-an Indian soft drink resembling coke) along the way. Still, I felt that I would not be able to sit for days.

We walked around the bazaar and they had every book imagineable. Everything from Mein Kampf to Clinton's memoir to engineering books. They even had classics like Dickens and Jane Austin. The price was also less than half the price in the U.S. If you ever wanted a book, this was the place to get it.

I was only mildly interested in the books. I didn't really want to spend as long there as Louise and Melanie did. Finally around 4:30pm, we decided to go to the mosque. By the time we walked there and climbed through the same neighborhood I described yesterday it was almost 5:00pm. They required us to pay 200 rupees to take our bags inside even though we tried to explain that only one of us would take pictures (they have a fee of 200 rupees per camera). After a considerable amount of arguing, we all three had to pay and were allowed inside.

I was ticked about the fine and so I was taking many pictures to get my money's worth. Then, people started coming up to us asking to have our picture taken. It was mostly Melanie and Louise that got asked. I was still asked by a couple of people. They even made Melanie and Louise hold their babies! It was like they were movie stars!

In all the commotion, we were delayed from going inside the main portion of the mosque. All of a sudden an imam came up to us and said excuse them. I am not sure if he was talking to us or to the people trying to take our pictures. I say this because the guard told us we had to leave and started ushering us out. On our way out, the call to prayer started. I was dragging my feet and still taking pictures on the way out, which displeased them immensely.

The whole ordeal actually really pissed me off. Not only did they take 200 rupees from each of us just to get inside with our bags, but then they ushered us out before we could even see the inside. I understand that it closes when prayers start, and I am more than happy to respect customs, but the way they did it was rude and left a bad taste in my mouth. Furthermore, it was like we had a personal escort on the way out. How does this guy know I wasn't a Muslim who was a tourist in India who had also come to pray. Maybe I wanted to stay and experience the mosque as a real Muslim. No one else was forced out like this. If I try to go back, I am sure they will try to make me pay the 200 rupees again, which is just ridiculous. I actually kept my receipt (which did not have a date) and upon them trying to make me pay, I will be very argumentative and show them the receipt and claim that I have already paid. Hopefully, it will work. I really want to see that damn mosque. I think what's crazy is that in Turkey, as a non-Muslim, I was never ever treated like that. It was absolutely terrible.

After that experience, we went to McDonalds to get a coke and break some more change (I go there and usually get either a coke or fry and just break the bills when I can). Anyways, we also took the opportunity to sit and plan our next move. We were going to go to the India gate. We decided to get off at Central Secretariat and walk down the lawn from the parliament to the India gate.

Delhi took its city planning ideas from a number of cities, one of which being Washington DC. Between the parliament building and the India gate, there is a large mall just like the national mall in the US. We decided to walk it and enjoy the evening. Furthermore, I was told that the best time to see the India gate is right around sunset...so the plan was to walk the mall as the sun was going down so we'd get to see it lit up at night and in the evening before the sun set.

The weather was hot, but the gate was beautiful. One thing that was neat was that many Indian families go to the mall area and have picnics and enjoy the weather in the evenings. It was nice to see people enjoying the outdoors with their family. We even saw a couple of pickup cricket games in action.

The gate was built to commemorate the lives lost in India in World War I. There is an eternal flame that burns under it and there are gates with guards to prevent you from getting too close to the actual gate. It seemed a bit like the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington. Perhaps that is the atmosphere that they wanted to portray.

Around the corner from the India gate there was a fountain with tons of kids playing in it. It looked really refreshing (bc it was so hot) but really dirty. It was almost like a makeshift Indian water park. If we had one of these back home, I'd certainly go play in it. After watching the kids for a bit, we took the rickshaw back and settled in for the evening.

A Weekend in New Delhi

2011-06-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

So the first weekend I was here, I decided would be a great opportunity to explore New Delhi. I was itching to make the best use of time and wanted to get out fairly early. Many of the others who were on the trip were still sleeping by 10 or 11am. Krista, Tara, and Danny were awake and invited me along with them to see Humayan's Tomb. The rickshaw ride ended up taking us to a neighborhood near it without taking us to the front of the tomb. We eventually were able to find out way there. It was very hot outside. The neighborhood that we were dropped in was an interesting place. There were all sorts of things being sold. However, you could also tell that the people there did not have much money. I was asked for money several times even in the first few minutes I was there.

We walked around the corner and it was extremely hot. Krista, Danny, Nick, and Tara didn't really tell me before they were leaving that they were going to go...so I had to throw on clothing in like 5 minutes. As a result, I didn't have any food or drink before we went outside. When the weather is over 105 degrees, its probably not a good idea to leave the house without having any water. It's especially not a good idea not to be carrying water on you in case you become dehydrated. Oops?

We finally made it to Humayan's tomb which was awesome. First you go inside a small gate onto the grounds. The grounds are a manicured lawn with gates to the right, left, and straight ahead. One walks down the path, through the gate, to reach the tomb.

Actually, the tomb was built 100 years before the Taj Mahal AND the Taj Mahal was modeled off of it. It was neat to see this tomb before seeing the taj so I could compare. It was built in the 1500s for Humayan by his wife.

On the way in, we met this professor who was a professor of history and knew a lot about it. He shared his knowledge with us (well me mostly). He asked where we were from and all of that sort. In the end, he then asked me for money! I was shocked (but I guess I shouldn't have been). Apparently, information is not free here. He then remembered I was a student and then said not to worry about it...but even that he expected money was surprising. It was a good reminder for me to be careful about these things.

I walked around the grounds and enjoyed the tomb. To get to the tomb, you had to climb up very steep stairs. The tomb itself was elevated above the rest of the ground level, so it allowed you to see around Delhi. From the complex, you could see a factory and a seikh temple. The inside was a few large rooms with graves in them. Actually, it was very similar to the inside of the taj mahal. The architechture and grounds were beautiful. The others were ready to leave, but I definitely could have stayed longer. Unfortunately, one of the monuments was under construction when we were there so I didn't get to see it (Humayan's tomb has several monuments).

After walking around, I wasn't feeling well. Being out in the heat for 3 hours with no breakfast and no water was not good and I had to get to a place. Getting a rickshaw for a fair price was difficult (partially because we didn't know what a fair price was and none of them would use the meter). We eventually got one and probably overpaid (story of my life with rickshaw drivers) and were on our way to Khan Market.

We were going to Khan Market, which is a nice place to eat and shop, because Ayush suggested that we meet him there at around 3:00 before we end up going around New Delhi for a bit. He offered to take me and whomever else wanted to come to Chadni Chowk. He specifically wanted us to go later in the day because he said it was too hot to be outside and most people from Delhi don't actually go out at the time we were out. Oops.

We got to Khan Market a little early and I was desperate for something to drink. I felt like I was about to pass out. The others were dragging their feet about finding a place and I had to communicate to them how badly I needed water. Not soon after we found this place called the Boombox Cafe, which served all kinds of foods (including American foods even!). Some of the titles on the menu definitely made me laugh. It's like they had things on there but they weren't quite right. Chicago style hotdogs but with slightly different ingredients. That kind of thing. Anyways, I chugged a bottle of water pretty quickly and after sitting in the air conditioner felt much much better. We waited for Ayush to come and then we ordered. (Ayush happened to be wearing an awesome Sean Connery James Bond shirt).

Upon eating, Melanie, Ashley, and Jerry joined us as well. At this point everyone from our group was there except Louise, who was hanging out with another friend. After finishing lunch (it was getting kind of late by this time), Ayush took us on the subway to Chadni Chowk. This place is one of the most famous places to go in old Delhi.

We exited the subway and walked down the pathway to the more open area. I was immediately struck by how chaotic everything was. Cars were rushing in all such directions. There were tons of people. It was insanity.

We followed Ayush towards the end of the street where the Red Fort was located. Keeping up was difficult because the sidewalks and streets were congested and people would get between us. I tried to walk in the back to make sure all of the girls were safe. Old Delhi has a reputation of being particulary unfriendly to women...especially after dark (but it wasn't after dark here just yet).

We finally made it to the end of the path where the Red Fort was located. Our initial goal was to go inside and see it. When we got there, we realized that you couldn't go in after a certain time without paying. Usually it is free, but every night they have a light show which costs money to see. They close entry of the fort after a certain time because much if it is off limits even during/after the light show. We snapped a couple of pictures in front of the massive complex, but then we left.

We decided that the Jama Masjid (the largest mosque in Delhi) was close by and that maybe we could go see the inside of that instead. Ayush suggested that instead of walking we should take the cycle rickshaw. I rode in the back of the cycle rickshaw while 2 others rode in the front. There was also another rickshaw for the others. I felt a little bad for the rickshaw driver actually. Peddling 4 Americans is no small feat. It seemed like hard work and it was definitely hot outside.

We went a ways and got out. I am glad we had the experience of the cycle rickshaw but I think I could have walked just as easily. We then walked through the rest of the market to the stairs of the mosque. People were shouting at us to get our attention. I think they were hoping we were shopping. The one thing that looked and smelled fantastic was the meat on the skewers. I wished so badly that we could have it, but it is not hygenic and we'd probably get very sick from it. It smelled so good though! There were other sorts of interesting foods that I would have liked to try.

We got up to the mosque and we were accosted by more beggars. Unfortunately, this mosque closes before sunset. No tourists are allowed after about 5:30pm AND no women are allowed in the mosque after dark. So another Delhi landmark without success. At least I knew where it was.

We took another cycle rickshaw back near the metro station. The traffic was heavy (and cycle rickshaws are subject to it just as much as cars). We got out early and decided to go inside a seikh temple in Chandni Chowk.

In order to go inside, men have to cover their heads with a bandana looking thing. Although its a religious custom, I couldn't help but laugh and think that it was like pirates of the Caribbean or something. Arrr matey!

Anyways. We take off our shoes and go inside. There was some kind of service going on and so we couldn't really stop and stare or take pictures. We just had to walk through the path laid out. It was kind of weird because there were no chairs (like the inside of a mosque) and the path laid out went in front of some of the people watching the service. I wonder if it was a problem that we were obstructing their view. If I were praying, I would have found it incredibly distracting.

The inside of the temple was very interesting. There was a golden alter in the center and a seikh religious cleric of some sorts sitting on it and talking. I later learned from Louise that taking pictures would have been ok (which I did at the other Seikh place we went)because they are one of the most open religions to outsiders in the world. Its neat that they are so willing to have people learn about them and don't mind pictures and things. (Or maybe I think that because it satisfies my tourist urges).

We walked back to the metro and made our way to Connaught Place, which is the center of New Delhi. It also happens to be where all of the expensive shops and places are. So we were going to eat but then Krista and Tara didn't want to. They wanted to go to the India gate. Ayush wasn't hungry either so he offered to drive them there.

Instead, the rest of us (by this time Nick and Danny had left) decided to go to McDonalds. It was a great choice for 2 reasons. 1) They always have change; 2) A fountain coke and fries sounded super delicious.

So the change thing is a number one reason which might surprise people. Back home, getting change is easy. You go to a store and buy something and they break your bills. Whatsmore, whether you go into a taxi cab or something else, everyone has change for everything. In India, its different. Rickshaw drivers will often say they just "dont have change" which means they are trying to stiff you for some extra profit. Additionally, when I try to pay for things like laundry services or other things, they won't have change and will complain or it will be very difficult for them to break your money. If you can find any place to get small bills here, its definitely worth remembering. The ATMs at the banks wont dispense in anything less than 500 rupee bills, so its very difficult to find change (some even dispense in 1000 rupee increments). The McDonalds there is different though. For whatever reason, they have enough change and the employees are friendly. I think Indians sometimes go there to get change as well. (Its even a problem for them...just they know how to ask more easily).

Long story short, I got my fountain drink and some change too! While we didn't get to see as much in Delhi as I wanted, getting the lay of the land was helpful to orienting me here.

The First Full Week (6/8-6/10)

2011-06-16T06:21:00.001-07:00

So its been over a week since I posted my last entry. Things have settled down a bit and I have gotten into the groove of my daily life here.

So last week Ayush took me to New Friend's Colony to a restaurant there to get some food. One thing India is known for is the street food. The only problem is that most of it is not safe for foreigners to eat for various reasons. It sits out all day, its prepared with dirty water, the street vendors don't have gloves or wash their hands, etc. Even most Indians won't eat the street food. It makes it very hard to resist when you're walking down the street and you smell delicious food cooking (and being sold very cheaply) but you cant have any. Suffice it to say, I was more than just a little excited for this little trip.

After work we get in his car and make our way over to New Friend's Colony. First we stood outside of the restaurant and had this thing called golgappe. It is a spherical crunchy (but hollow on the inside) piece of food. The consistency is like that of a tortilla shell but it tastes nothing like it. The vendor in front of the restaurant dipped it in a red sauce and a green sauce. My instructions were to take it all at once. It was delicious. We then went inside the restaurant. Ayush ordered two other types of chaat AKA street food (one with potatoes and one with some other type of vegetable). They each had a red sauce with a white sauce. The combination included a little bit of spice and a little bit of sweet.

We also had some sort of chickpea dish with paneer (Indian cheese) and bread of course. It was fun to spend time with Ayush and eat the Indian foods.

On Wednesday, another intern, Mrenali came back from her little vacation/break/whatever she was doing. So in total, there were 4 Indian interns and me.

Thursday and Friday were relatively uneventful. The first real assignment I got for work was kind of overwhelming. My mentor asked me to examine the concept of beneficial ownership and talk about how it applied to the Indian context. Apparently, little or no law had been made on it and it was up to me to do some research. Not only did he expect me to find the answers, he also wanted me to come up with the questions. So basically, he gave me the SEBI Regulations (the equivalent of the Security and Exchange Commission in the US), the Companies Act (basically the law of corporations here), and the FEMA manual (all the regulations regarding foreign exchange in India). My task was to look through these things and find inconsistencies and things that are not clear about the concept of beneficial ownership. The materials given to me were well over 3000 pages, so it took a lot of time even to skim it to come up with some questions.

By Friday, (two days later) I had come up with what I thought might be 5 relevant questions and had partially attempted to answer one of them. He took it for comment. In the mean time, I was given another assignment about gambling, which was fascinating. Basically, I had to do some research into Indian gaming laws and what the internal government's policy was on the subject. In doing so, I also learned a lot about the different legal ambiguities surrounding it. The gambling law here is really interesting and in a state of flux. There are interesting legal questions like whether the internet is a public place that I thought about (even though they had already written the memo on the law part it was still fun for me to think about the answers to these kinds of questions).

Another thing that is really great about my internship (that I don't think others are getting) is that Venkatesh will sometimes teach us classes on relevant Indian/US laws. He knows a lot about US law so that's always his basis of comparison, which is particularly great for me. This week he taught us classes on how an IPO is offered in India (on Thursday) and on Friday he taught us about the elements of a mergers and acquisitions deal and how its done here. I enjoyed getting the background and was especially appreciative that he was willing to take the time to teach us. The other interns think that the only reason we were given the class was because I was here. They even said they were grateful that they got the classes because other Indian firms do not teach them about Indian laws in this way. I hope more will continue so that by the end of my internship I will have a decent working knowledge of corporate law. (Also, I am grateful because the learning curve is steeper than I thought it would be. I wish I had taken a class in either corporations or securities regulation before coming).

On Friday, Krista decided she wanted to go shopping with a friend of hers at work, leaving me to find my own way home. I had decided by this point that taking a taxi by myself would be too expensive. I don't want to spend 300 rupees just to get home if I don't have to. Although Professor Krishnan told me not to, I decided to try and brave a rickshaw home.

It actually was not too bad! I am not sure why he told me not to (probably b/c he thought I wouldn't get a fair price or because it was hot or something like that). The first guy I found was willing to give me the meter (a rarity here) and I gladly took it and even tipped him when we got home. The guy actually did me a huge service by giving me the meter because now I knew what a fair price home on the rickshaw would be. It was great for my future ability to bargain a ride home every day.

The ride was also not too bad. It was hot, but that's India. I enjoyed the wind blowing in my face and definitely enjoyed paying less than half the price of a taxi cab. I resolved after this never to take a taxi home again. I will probably continue to take the taxis to work, though, because they are nice, always use the meter, are always reliable, and most importantly, they are air conditioned. Taking the cab will allow me to come into work clean and unstressed.

For the weekend, I just planned to go sightseeing in New Delhi and get to know the city a bit better. That's all for now.

The Last Few Days

2011-06-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

So apparently, I am not very good at being diligent about this whole blogging thing. Thus far, there has been very little time to do so. In the day we get up in time for work and work until 6:30 or 7:00. With the horrible traffic in New Delhi (and believe me...its REALLY BAD), I usually don't get home until about 7:45 or 8:00. Some of the others who live closer or can take the metro get home much earlier than I do. Such is the life of working in a law firm. Once I get home, I am completely exhausted (even at work I am completely exhausted). I am not sure if its the jet lag that is killing me or if I am legitimately tired. I hope its the jet lag because other wise I will never see any of Delhi because I will be too tired all of the time.

So I'll just give some highlights and some observations I've had over the last few days to broadly catch everyone up.

The temperatures are hot, but not as bad as I expected. Luckily, the humidity is very low. The 100 degree temperatures feel like the low 90s that you get in Georgia or Florida...so I can handle it. Besides, we have air conditioning in my room and at my work place so I have spent very little time outside so far.

I am still a bit jetlagged. On Sunday, I woke up voluntarily at 6:15am. I just basically messed around for a little while.

On Sunday, we got up early to meet one of the new donors for the program at Professor Krishnan's hotel. The hotel was excellent - a 5 star resort (I wouldn't expect anything else from Professor Krishnan). In order to get there, I took my first ever auto rickshaw ride which was quite the experience. For those of you who don't know, a rickshaw is basically a three wheeled device powered by a motor and a driver drives it on the road. It's kind of like being on a motorcycle with 3 wheels. The rickshaw does have a roof over it to shield you from the sun and bad weather (not that it's rained since we've been here). The one big disadvantage to the rickshaw is that since it is open (ie: no doors or windows or any of that). Thus, it can be very hot. I cant really take it to work because I would be drenched in dust and sweat by the time I got there (the land here is pretty dusty). It almost seems like we're living in a quasi-desert. The breakfast was beautiful. It was an all you can eat buffet with a breakfast station, fresh pastries, cheeses, yogurt, and salmon. I definitely enjoyed it thoroughly.The new donor for our program was also a really interesting guy who is doing interesting research in India. I was really glad I had the opportunity to hear him speak about it and meet him.

After breakfast, we took a cab over to a Market area called GK-5. The girls wanted to get some clothes and I just wanted to get out of the guest house and see a little bit of Delhi. I quickly realized that clothes shopping with the girls was not the best way I could have done that. The traditional indian clothes were interesting, but I lost interest in watching the girls try on their clothes. They met with Vibhu, an Indian lawyer who met us for dinner the previous night and she was helping them. Actually, Vibhu is a really nice person and I wish I had talked to her more.

After the seemingly endless clothes shopping, we went to a middle eastern restaurant called Shalom. Apparently, Shalom serves Lebanese food and not just Israeli food. Weird. Anyways, I definitely got a picture in front of the sign and that will be posted soon. I didn't really eat because I was still full from breakfast, but I drank soda and smoked hookah. The hookah was decent but of course not as good as Turkey.

After lunch we went to another cafe and had some dessert. It was a fun day to unwind before the first day of work. We came home and had dinner at the guest house and then went to bed relatively early.

The first day of work was uneventful. I met with the senior partner and then with all of the associates. Then I basically went to my desk and sat there with nothing to do. No one gave me any tasks or assignments. It was weird. I was waiting for Venkatesh, the attorney I had been in contact with, to come to the office. He didn't end up coming until 11:15 or so. I wish I could roll into work at 11:15 every day. Anyways, thats besides the point.

He calls me into his office and we talk for a bit. He is a really nice guy and very very intelligent. He actually worked at Cravath before coming back to India. So we talked for a bit and he told me about a research project he was thinking he might have for me and then said he would talk to me about it in a little while. So I went back to my desk and I waited and waited some more. Then, it was time for lunch. It was an associate's last day so they took us in an office car to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. It was a 5 star all you can eat buffet. They had sushi, lamb curry, this awesome kind of chicken on drum sticks, and several other foods. Additionally, they had a dessert table that was to die for! I had chocolate cake AND chocolate mousse. Yum! The lunch was a nice opportunity for me to start talking a bit with some of the associates and one of the partners I sat next to. Everyone was friendly, but not overly so. I felt like I kind of had to start conversation to get them to talk to me, which was not quite what I expected. Seeing a foreigner is not really that exciting for a lot of these people because many of them have studied in the US and/or travelled abroad.

After the 2 hour lunch, I returned to work and sat more until 6:00pm. Then I was given a small research assignment to do by one of the lawyers, which I worked on until it was time to go. I was a bit disappointed overall and before I left I told Venkatesh that I was there to work and wanted to have more to do. He said they were trying to give me a little time to get settled. Although I appreciated it, sitting in front of a computer with nothing to do for 6 hours is not exactly that fun or relaxing. He probably thought I needed to chill out.

That night, we met professor Krishnan for dinner at the guest house. I didn't end up eating because I was so full from lunch. I think the heat has also decreased my appetite a bit. We recounted our first day and generally hung out. Vibhu was there too. Then I came back to the room and went to bed (I was completely exhausted and probably could have slept as soon as I came home at 8pm).

Work on Tuesday was a bit more interesting. I got a couple of research assignments and one bigger assignment (that I still have no clue what to do from Venkatesh). At least I had something to do! I also started talking with the interns, which were all pretty nice. They all attend Indian law schools and are in either their 4th or 5th years.

After work we met professor K for drinks and dinner and Ayush, one of the interns, offered to drive me there so I didn't have to take a car. It was really nice of him to do it (he is awesome). Dinner was great! I had a seafood platter complete with lobster, mussles, and scallops.

So now I have settled in and the daily routine is just to work and go home.

I would say one of the things I have most surprising is how much service help there is. At home we have someone to cook for us, we have someone who comes in and makes our bed and cleans, and we have someone who will do our laundry for us. At work, there are people who come around and serve us water at our desks. When we eat in the conference room, they take out plates for us and put our food on the plate for us and then they wash our dishes when we're finished. Even when I got up to get a coke, the guy poured it for me. It's crazy! I almost feel like its like the south before 1861. I was talking about it with the interns and they were telling me that the concept of "running errands" here is completely nonexistent.

The other interesting thing is how really nice buildings and areas are juxtaposed next to really not nice areas. I thought where I worked would be this really nice industrial complex (Amarchand, the largest firm in India is right around the corner). Instead, the neighborhood is really run down. There are smatterings of nice buildings but otherwise, its quite a sobering experience. Yesterday, a religious group set up a stand in front of my office and was offering free food to everyone who wanted it. I asked if it was safe to eat, and they said definitely not...so that was the end of that.

Tonight, Ayush promised to take me to a place where I can get street food that is actually safe to eat. He also offered to show me around Delhi this weekend! So hopefully the next time I post I'll have much more to say about the city itself (unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to see that much yet).

I am writing this post at 6:45am. I woke up at 4:45 and couldn't go back to sleep. Yesterday I slept all the way until 7:15 and the other day I woke up at 4:15am. The adjustment has been slow and hopefully I will get over this horrible jet lag soon! I've never taken this long to get over it before (but then I've also never been this far away).

The Cell Phone Debacle

2011-06-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

Before we arrived in India, we were told that the culture was different and the pace of life moves differently. One of the things we were forewarned about was the concept of "Indian time." It operates a lot like Jewish Standard Time but in a more pronounced fashion. In India things move at their own pace and that schedules are more like suggested times, with actual times being much later. This morning, we were told to be in the lobby by 9:30am to go get our cell phones. Ordinarily, this would have been way too early for me, but being jet lagged I actually woke up this morning at 6:15am so 9:30 wasn't really a problem. We went down to the lobby and we waited...then we waited more...then we waited some more. Finally, at 11:00am, our patience was wearing thin and Danny called the cell phone guy to see what was happening. Apparently, they had forgotten that they were supposed to come and said they'd be there in 15 minutes. Well of course 15 turned into 30 which turned into an hour. The cell phone people did not show up until about 12:30 or 1pm. I knew things were going to be a little different, but wow.

Anyways, they took us in small groups to get our pictures taken (passport size photos required) and to buy phones. I was in the 2nd group and was itching to get out of the house since I had not left since we arrived the previous day. They took us down the road and into an alley way and down a street which was crowded with people, shops, and all sorts of chaos. We stopped close to the end of the street at Raj's photo shop. The place only had two rooms and they took us inside and snapped our photos. They developed them in about 5 mins and we paid about 1 dollar for 8 passport sized photos. I tried to catch up with Jerry who was purchasing the cell phones (about 10 bucks each), but he was long gone. I walked down the alley looking for them and could not find them. Some of the stores and enclaves in the street were run down, so it was an interesting stroll.

I returned back to the car and the driver told me to wait inside (Danny had stayed in the shop and ended up getting a free meal). I started talking to the driver but his English was difficult to understand. He was telling me about his family and where he was from and it was all interesting. One really interesting thing is that within the first 5 minutes of our conversation, he volunteered to me how much money he made (20,000 rupees/year or about $446). I was surprised that he just told me (I didn't even ask and was unsure what to say when he told me). It was a good reminder for me about how much poverty there is here.

We returned to the guest house and I ended up going for a walk with Melanie and Louise. We found a cafe a few blocks down the street and stopped in for a snack (we hadn't had lunch so everyone was starving). I had a piece of black forest chocolate cake and a mango shake. I was hoping that the mango shake would be like a mango lassee (one of my favorite Indian drinks at a restaurant), but instead it tasted more milky and less mango-ey. I was disappointed.

When we tried to pay, the shopkeepers refused to break our large bills. The ATMs dispensed only in 500 rupees and 1000 rupee denominations. The cafe claimed not to have change even for my 100 rupee bill so I ended up charging it on my credit card. Melanie on the other hand had no card and they gave her change in gum (each gum piece costs 5 rupees). This happened to us at two different places. I wonder if we collected gum for the entire time and tried to pay one of these shopkeepers in gum what would happen (I suspect that they would not accept it).

As we were walking, the heat was surprisingly bearable. It wasn't cold outside, but I didn't feel it was very much hotter than being in Florida during this time of the year. Lets hope it stays like this.

At around 7, we met professor Krishnan and he took us out to a really nice restaurant at DLK (a large mall in New Delhi). The drive to the mall was fascinating. On the way there, we passed by a shanty town where several pigs were roaming freely. Immediately next to the shanty town was the sparkling DLK mall, one of the larger malls I had ever seen. There was a security guard on the outside. The inside had a staffed piano player, a fountain, and beautiful marble floors. The glass elevators took us to the restaurant on the third floor. The mall contained stores like Louis Vitton and Armani and other extremely nice and expensive stores. The contrast between the two worlds so close together was absolutely stunning.

We arrived at the restaurant and Jerry and I found out that shorts were not permitted for evening (I wish we were forewarned about this). I exchanged my khaki shorts for a pair of jeans. The hostess correctly guessed my size (pretty impressive!). We sat down to dinner and ordered beers (and other drinks--I had a kingfish draft). We had a hummus appetizer and a delicious whole peking duck. For the main course, I had a buttered garlic crab dish. It was like heaven in my mouth. The crab was not quite as big as a dungeness crab but it was larger than a blue crab. It must be some kind of crab that only lives in this part of the world. It was seasoned a bit differently than in the US, but done in such a way that did not require any butter.

I sat next to Danny's mentor (her name is escaping me b/c I am horrible with names and extremely horrible with long Indian names), but she was awesome. She even let me try some of her food. At the end of the meal, Jerry and I collected our pants and had to wait outside for the others. We changed in the bathroom, which was one of the nicest bathrooms I've ever seen. In addition to having someone to hand you towels (like at the Ritz Carleton), the stalls with the toilets had several buttons along the side. There was one to flush, one to disinfect, one for a fragrance, and several others that I did not know what they did. It was weird.

When we drove home, there were random cows in the middle of the busy highway that our driver had to dodge. It was one of the crazier things I had ever seen in a foreign country. I meant to take pictures, but I forgot my camera in the room. I will upload some pictures on here soon. We returned home and had a tea with professor Krishnan and then retired for the evening. Tomorrow's plan is to go into New Delhi proper and get prepared for the start of my internship on Monday!

To India 6/2/2011

2011-06-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

So I officially changed the name of my blog from "Turkish Adventures" to "Ross' Travel Adventures," as I have decided to keep a blog while I am in India for the summer working at a law firm there. I am excited, anxious, and nervous all at the same time.

The journey to India is a long one, with 2 flights keeping me in the air for a little over 16 hours. Because I was flying internationally, Murphy's laws require that something must go wrong. We arrived at the airport to find the original flight we were on to be delayed by an hour. They pushed it back another hour and as scheduled it would cause us to miss our connection (there is only 1 flight a day direct to New Delhi, so this would present quite a problem). We were able to get onto an earlier flight which was also delayed and we were unsure if we would even make our connection in New York. All we could do is go to the airport brewery (why Indianapolis' airport happens to have a brewery inside their airport I couldn't tell you) and have a drink.

We made it on our flight to New York and it was further delayed by "paper work" issues...whatever that means. We took off and would land with mere minutes to sprint to our next flight. This was going to be tight. We landed at 8:24pm (approximately) and our Delhi flight was scheduled to depart at 8:30. We sprinted off of the plane to make the tight connection (Jerry, Nick, and Tara were ahead of Krista, Ashley, and myself). I followed Krista who was supposedly following them. Somehow we got lost in the hustle of the airport and Krista, Ashley, and I were running to the airport train between terminals. What we did not realize was that it literally takes you outside of the secured area to get there. A German lady who was trying to make her flight also followed us (her mistake).

We took the train over and got to the security line leaping past everyone. I literally must have gone through all of security, including the metal detectors in 5 minutes flat. I was certain we were going to miss the flight. What really concerned me was if the three of us missed it and the other three that were on our plane did not. I sprinted to the terminal and made it just in time! The gate was closed and they had to open it back up for me. Krista was supposedly right behind me, but I did not see her. I stalled the ticket agent as much as possible, telling her that she was right behind me and that I didn't know if I could leave without her. Anything I could. Finally, she said the plane had to go and that I needed to get on it if I wanted to take this flight. There was nothing I could do. Just as I was handing her my passport, I saw Krista (apparently Krista while racing through security had been selected for extra explosives screening). Anyways, she and I both made the flight. Ashley didn't unfortunately, because of a snafu with the travel agent.

After that nice little sprint, I was placed in an aisle seat next to a couple of really nice people. The mother and son were both Americans returning to visit their family. Their daughter was taking the LSAT on Monday and so she asked me a bunch of questions about law school and applications and the like. I ended up giving her my email address and she said she'd stay in touch.

I learned very quickly in the flight that even though international carriers provide free alcohol, Continental does not. I was quite dismayed when the stewardess was going to charge me $6 for a beer. However, a couple of hours later the seal broke on one of the Heinekens and she was going to have to throw it away. She came back with it and served it to me free of charge, which was super nice of her.

The airplane food was decent, an eclectic mixture of American and indian foods.

Then of course there was the screaming child. It is a law of inevitability that on every international flight I am on, there is a screaming child in my vicinity. I do not know how or why. It's like gravity, it just happens. This one happened to be a special occasion, for it was no ordinary screaming child. This child was a super child with special baby screaming powers like I've never seen before! I did not know it was possible for a child to scream for 8 consecutive hours without taking a break, but it was. The mother just sat there and watched. She didn't try to discipline the child, didn't try to pacify him, did not do anything to mitigate the situation. It was completely and utterly ridiculous. We could probably harness this child's screaming ability and power all of New Delhi for the summer. It was that bad. (which obviously caused me to get little to no sleep on the plane EVEN AFTER taking my tylenol PM). When the child finally stopped with about 2 hours to go on the flight, another child started on the other side of me. I couldn't catch a break.

We finally landed and the trek through passport control and customs was quick and easy. Even more surprising, all of our bags came! (Given the short transit time between the flights, I was shocked that my bags made it).

We were picked up by our drivers and I got my first taste of why India is number 1 in motor vehicle accidents. The traffic even at 10pm was as bad as any major city in the US. The drivers were weaving in and out of cars and honking. No one maintained their lanes. There were even a pair of bicyclists pedaling on the opposite side of the interstate. It was chaos. They also drive on the left hand side of the road here (like in England).

We finally made it to our guest house, which happens to be very nice. There is a TV in the rooms, air conditioning, and the beds are OK. Jerry and I finished packing and got a quick bite to eat. Since it was late, the cook, Rhajeev (a really nice guy) apologized to us because he only had Indian food left. I was actually glad he only had Indian food left because that is of course what I wanted to eat. He served us rice, lentil beans, and a green bean & potato dish. The beans and the green beans had a nice little spicy kick to them which made them taste really good (I am sure he went easy on the spices because we are American). He also took the time to show us around the guest house (there is a conference room on the ground floor and a gym). Also, the roof has grass on it and is a really nice area to take in the surrounding sites. I went to bed at 2:30am and the jet lag caused me to wake up at 6:30am. So the adventure begins and I think it's going to be one hell of a summer.

My Last Day in Istanbul

2011-01-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

I returned to Istanbul and had one final day before my flight back to the States. How would I spend it? Well, I saved one tourist attraction for the final day. It was kind of a present to myself, something big in Istanbul to give me something to look forward to. This was the Church of St. Chora. None of the exchange students had talked about it too much but it took up two full pages in my Istanbul guidebook (the same amount as the Hagia Sophia), so this meant it had to be big! Unfrotunately, I would never find out. It turns out that the attraction is closed on Wednesdays, which was what my last day in Istanbul happened to be. Oops.

Anyways, after that didn't work out for me, I basically walked around it and took pictures of the outside. I also got some pictures of a section of the nearby city walls I had not seen.

I then went to Taksim Square to do a bunch of souvenir shopping. I had neglected throughout most of my time to buy people things as I went, so my goal was to find things for everyone at one time (including myself). I was able to buy quite a few things to take back for people. I also met up with Alex and Crystal and we went to a baklava place.

Now I don't actually like baklava but I wish I had known about this place before the last day I was here. It had the best baklava I have ever eaten! It was amazing. It was called Karakoy Gullogllu if anyone reading this ever gets a chance to go to Turkey and eat baklava. You must go here!

It was a good time and it would be the last time I would see either of them for a while. I was one of the last exchange students to leave. Most of them had left earlier in the summer. Alex was still around because he was taking summer classes there and Crystal was around because she liked Turkey a lot.

That evening I went back to the apartment and I went out for my last evening with Umut, Elif, and Egemen to our favorite local establishment - the Bu Cafe. Umut and I played backgammon as we had often done before. As I was sitting with them, I told them about my travels and was even speaking some Turkish with them. Elif was impressed with how much I had learned in the previous month (that's how long it had been since I had seen them). I even beat Umut at backgammon. I felt as if things in my time in Turkey were coming full circle. I remembered back to the first time I went out with Umut and we played backgammon and he asked to play for the bill. I laughed to myself as I remembered getting my ass handed to me and foolishly thinking that I was as good as he was even though I hadn't played the game in years. Things were the same and yet they were different. Sitting on that balcony, overlooking the Bosphorus, I thought about all of the times I had in Turkey. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. I don't remember much about what we discussed that night, I just remembered having a good time (and making Umut pay for the bill because he lost in backgammon).

That night I went to pay him for the month of July's rent. I had not been there since the end of June but my stuff had been. I gave him the 350TL. He said to me, but you didn't stay here at all. I said I know but my stuff was here and I agreed to pay you. He gave me 100TL back and said, "It wouldn't be fair for me to take this from you. Keep it." I smiled and thanked him. Umut was such a good guy...probably one of the best people I will ever meet in my life. From the beginning until the end of my time there, he had been nothing but kind and helpful. He helped me deal with the airlines in Turkish, he lent me his clothes, he told me where to buy new clothes, he took me out when I didn't have anyone else to spend time with, he helped me learn Turkish, he didn't take advantage of me (like so many other Turks did to their foreign roommates who didn't know the prices). He is just an all around great guy and I hope I will stay in touch with him for the rest of my life and that one day I can help him the way he helped me.

I woke up very early the next morning to take a cab to the airport (with all of my things it was much easier than taking the public transit). It was early so the roads were not busy. I woke Umut up to tell him goodbye, loaded my stuff in the taxi and was off. As I rode to the airport, I began to talk to the taxicab driver. We talked about where I was from, why I was in Turkey, talked about his kids, whether he liked being a taxi driver, etc. It was fairly mundane conversation that one could have in a taxi. The point was that I was actually able to have these conversations with him! It was amazing to think how far I had come in 6 months. 6 months ago, I was in a taxi and I did not even know where I would be staying. I had lost my bags at the airport and with nothing more than the clothes on my back, I got into the taxi cab and gave him a sheet of paper with an address on it. I had no idea where it was or how to get there or even if he had taken me the shortest way. I was completely at his mercy. Not knowing the culture, I tipped him (not usual) after he overcharged me for the distance he drove. How different it was 6 months ago to now as I rode on the expressway through the Turkish suburbs to the airport.

I arrived in Miami to find that the airlines had lost one of my bags (shocker). I ended up in Florida that night, in my own bed and it was all over.

The plane ride was very sad for me. I knew I was going to miss so many things about Turkey -- the people, the traveling, the food, the walks along the Bosphorus, etc. For the first time in my life in Turkey, I wasn't looking forward. I was living in the present. Every time in my life I always feel myself looking to the future. When I finish high school, I am going to go to college and it will be so much better. When I finish college, I will go to law school, which will be so much better. It goes on and on. However, when I was in Turkey, I never thought to myself, "when I finish my time in Turkey, I will go back to the US and do X." I was living in the present. I hope that I can have that feeling again, for I fear otherwise that I will spend my whole life wishing it away and then one day I will wake up and realize it is over. That thought scares me, which is one of the many reasons why I fell so deeply in love with Turkey and it's people and it's culture. I hope one day to return. To this day I still miss it. I can't help but think how lucky I was to have the experience I had and meet the people I met. There were so many times where bad things could have and should have happened to me (see the trip in Eastern Turkey). There were times where people were nicer to me than I probably ever would have been to them if the situation were reversed. I also got to see so much history and culture and met so many great people while I was there. I was so lucky to be able to go to Turkey and to have this experience. As I sit here in the US, I can only hope one day that I will get to return.

Yusufeli

2011-01-14T23:58:00.000-08:00

It was my last weekend in Turkey. I had to make sure whatever I did was awesome and tons of fun. Luckily, I had the opportunity to do just that. Husniye and I were staying in Trabzon and we talked about what we could do for the last weekend that would meet that criterion. We decided (well rather I decided and she went along with it) that it would be amazing to go white water rafting.

Going back to my June post in Trabzon, you will see that we met a police officer in Trabzon by the name of Necmettin Coskun who stopped us on the street because we were foreigners and gave us his white water rafting card. So we gave him a call. Luckily, it turns out that he was in Yusufeli that particular weekend. Normally, he requires a party to have 4 people to raft (b/c otherwise it is not worth his time to pay for the raft itself and the guy who picks us up in the van). Anyways, he told us on the phone to come and that he would not charge us extra and that he would take us out for the same price he charges individuals in groups of 4. It was incredibly nice of him.

We made the trek to Yusufeli which involved 6 hours on the bus. It was an ambitious journey for a two day trip. The plan was to take the bus up there on Saturday to get there by Saturday evening, spend early Sunday rafting and be back in Trabzon by the evening. We got on the bus and started towards Artvin, where we would change busses and get in a smaller van to Yusufeli.

On the way we stopped in the very same rest area I complained about during my trip to Gerogia. Did I mention that I STILL hate Turkish toilets? Why do these bus companies all stop at the same bathroom stops if they are disgusting? Wouldn't someone say something about it? Also, why the hell do they give you one little piece of paper when you go in? That's not nearly enough for anyone! It wasn't enough for me! That's for sure. I had to go buy tissues at the nearby store. Also, if you are not feeling well and you need to enter the bathroom multiple times because you aren't finished, they charge you for each entry. So I left the bathroom and then had the urge to go back and had to pay the fee again. If I had just stayed in the bathroom, they wouldnt have charged me! Furthermore, the guy recognized me. I mean COME ON. Sorry for the rant. The Turkish toilets make me that angry. Anyways, after my little bathroom fiasco, we got back on the bus and continued for Artvin.

When we arrived in Hopa, we took a right off of the main road that paralleled the Black Sea. After a few minutes we were increasing our elevation and weaving into the mountains. The scenery was beautiful, complete with mountain lakes and trees. I took several pictures from the bus. It is amazing that such beautiful places exist on Earth. Some of the valleys were filled in with water but this may not have been a natural phenomenon due to the dam project.

On the bus we started to get into a conversation with a Turkish guy sitting around us. It turns out that he was the owner of the bus company (or something like that). I can't remember what he did exactly but it was somehow related to the bus we were on. He was curious about me because I was a foreigner. Somehow we started talking about Jewish people and Israel (I can't remember how we got onto that subject) and he actually seemed OK with Israel. He asked me my religion and I contemplated telling him the truth. Husniye gave me a look that indicated that I should not do that, so I didn't.

We eventually made it to Artvin, which was a surprisingly small town considering it was the provincial capital. It is built on the side of the mountain and has a pretty view of a mountain stream/river below it. The bus station was also small and we waited for the van. The mountains were so steep that there wasn't a lot of vegetation right outside of Artvin. It was another different landscape than any other place I had seen in Turkey.

The ride on the van took a while. The roads were not that great through the mountains (as expected). Also, riding in the small van was uncomfortable (also expected). There was a road block for a wedding party on the way up there and we were forced to stop for 20 minutes. I didn't mind, as I was able to get out of the bus. We stopped near a small waterfall coming down the mountains and I took a picture.

We finally got to Yusufeli around nightfall. We met Necmettin at the bus stop and he took us to the hotel he had arranged for us. Instead of having us go through the trouble of finding a place, he booked a room for us for 30 TL for the night with his friend in town. We put our things down and went out to dinner at a restaurant on the Çoruh River. The dinner was decent. Necmettin asked me if I wanted a beer. Husniye really really does not like beer or alcohol. However, since he was technically my host, I felt it was the right thing to do to accept him. I don't think Husniye was happy with me for that...especially after offering me a beer, he didn't have one! At least I enjoyed mine.

After dinner, we took a walk around town. Necmettin could tell us a lot about the town because he had been born there. He told us about the future dam project, which threatens to submerge thousands of houses. We talked about how he works in Trabzon but prefers Yusufeli. It was interesting for me to learn that the police in Turkey are not allowed to be police in the same province in which they were residents. This is why he had to move to Trabzon (he was considered a resident of Artvin). On our walk we also saw a Turkish wedding going on outside. The party was dancing a traditional Turkish dance (the same one we did with our Kurdish friends in Urfa and Dogubeyazit). Necmettin asked me if I wanted to join in but I respectfully declined. I did not have nearly enough alcohol in my bloodstream to attempt any form of dancing.

Husniye and Necmettin talked quite a bit in Turkish too, which was a little boring for me but understandable. Necmettin had pretty good English though.

After our walk we got back to the hotel and were in for quite a surprise. We went downstairs to check into the rooms. As per the norm in Turkey, they required a form of identification for each of us to check into the rooms. I gave my passport and Huniye gave her Turkish ID. At this point, things got interesting. Husniye and I had only booked one room (we would be sharing, which would not be unusual at all in the US). It turns out that the owner of the hotel had a problem with us staying in the same room for the sole reason that Husniye was a Turkish girl and we were unmarried. If we were two foreigners, he would not have had a problem with it, but because Husniye was one of their own, he did not like it and refused to allow it in his hotel. He told us that we would be required to sleep in separate rooms. He apologized for the misunderstanding and offered to give us a "discount" to 20TL for each room. If we shared a room, the total would be 30TL (15 TL for each of us to pay) but now he would be charging us 20TL! Is 5TL that much to quibble about? Probably not. It was the principle of the thing that bothered me. If you give someone a set price, you do not increase it just because you didn't know that the girl I was staying with was Turkish! That is absolutely preposterous!

It turns out that the guy who owned the hotel was actually an imam (Muslim spiritual leader akin to a priest or a rabbi). He obviously felt very strongly about the situation.

I got really angry about the situation and asked Husniye to translate exactly what I was saying. She did so. The man was genuinely sorry but stated that the Koran required him to do this. I believed the Koran should only have required him to govern his own life but not that of others. I told him that I would not accept the deal and that if he did not lower the price to 15TL for each of us (I was even willing to accept sleeping in separate rooms though I did not like the idea), that we would be finding another hotel. He refused to lower the price so we left.

The very first hotel we walked into down the street quoted us the exact same 30TL price. My first question was whether they cared if we slept in the same room or not. I was worried that this town was particularly conservative and that perhaps everyone in the town cared about something like that. Luckily, they did not care. We moved our stuff in and settled down for the night. We would have to be awake at 8am for our rafting adventure.

I reflected on the evening's events with the imam and a few things were interesting/surprising. Firstly, I was warned that something like this could have happened when we were traveling in Eastern Turkey. I found it ironic that E. Turkey is supposed to be the most conservative of areas in Turkey and that this particular incident happened in another region and not E. Turkey. Secondly, I was thinking about this situation and how it would be handled in the US. No one would have cared who does what behind closed doors whether they were American, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, French, or any other religion or ethnicity. Here, not only did the imam care, but he cared so strongly that he was willing to give up business to preserve his ideals. At the late hour that we left, there is no way that those rooms were going to be filled that night. In some ways, I respect him for feeling so strongly about his morals. It is also interesting to observe the differences between the cultures. Thirdly, I was annoyed that the guy felt like he should be the parent of a 25 year old girl. Truthfully, whatever she decides to do is none of his business. I think he may have made Husniye feel bad because he was implicitly judging what she was doing and suggesting she was a bad person (which she wasn't because she didn't do anything wrong). This obviously pissed me off. At any rate, it was over and we found a place to stay for the same price any way. If nothing else, I had another interesting story to tell in this blog and to my friends back in the States.

Rafting

We woke up the next morning and met with Necmettin. We told him about the events of last night and he apologized profusely. He had no idea his friend was like that. He told us that we normally need 4 people in addition to himself to navigate the raft and that he had some friends (Turkish) who wanted to go rafting. After a tea and a quick breakfast, we met them. One was a dentist and the other...I can't remember what he does. I remembered the dentist because I thought it was ironic since Husniye was also a dentist. We were taken over to the place where we would put in the river and we got the equipment ready and had our safety briefing.

We were finally ready to go out on the water. The expedition was only supposed to last about 2 hours or so and we'd go about 11km. We had to do the shorter one because we were constrained by the need to catch the last bus to Artvin and Trabzon. I thought it was silly that the last one leaves so early in the day, but I guess the demand is not that high, as Yusufeli is a small town.

We started by practicing on the water. Oddly enough, even though I was the only one who spoke English on the boat as their first language (the other two did not even speak any English), the commands would be forward and back, right, and left paddle rather than their Turkish equivalents. I suspect that Necmettin only rarely takes out a majority Turkish group, so that is probably why this is the case. We practiced and everything was good to go and we started off down the river.

At first it wasn't too bad. I learned that the rapids we would be doing would be class 4 and 5 on a scale of 1-6. Nothing like really jumping straight into the fire, eh? Anyways so the rapids got very intense. We passed rapids such as "King Kong Rapids." There was also a point where we had to get out of the river and drag the raft around one of the rapids because it was impossible to pass without flipping the raft. Oddly enough, Necmettin stood over the rapids and was watching the water flow. He was clearly trying to figure out exactly how to pass that area and not flip. One has to be careful in areas like that because there are rocks sticking up in rhe river, which if hit could be very dangerous (also the reason why helmets must be worn).

There was one point where we got really close to the rocks and the raft went almost vertical. It was a huge adrenaline rush. After we passed, Necmettin told us that we were about one or two strokes away from completely flipping the raft. Speaking of which, Husniye couldn't swim (which we didn't realize until afterwards). Had she fallen in, it would have been bad. She also made me promise to jump in with her if she fell in. Luckily, we never had to test whether I actually would :)

At one point, the raft did flip up and we didn't quite paddle fast enough. The raft reared up and I fell into the water as did one other guy. I had underestimated how strong the current was. I kicked upwards but at first I could not get to the surface. Eventually after a few seconds I popped up near the raft with my paddle floating closely by. I think I may have been under the raft at first. They pulled me back into the boat and everything was fine. We then paddled over to get the other guy that fell in.

The rafting wasn't quite as scary after I fell in since I knew that was the worst that could happen. It was still a ton of fun though. Every time we passed a really rough rapid, we all clicked our paddles together. I guess it was a showing that we were victorious. Also, it was interesting to note that we were the only raft on the river. I saw no others the entire time I was there. This surprised me since the Coruh River is supposedly one of the primier rafting places in the world. It's going to be hard to try out hamburgers after I've had filet minion.

We finally got to the point where we were supposed to get out around noon but the others (and myself) were having a ton of fun and we kept going. We rafted for almost an hour longer than we had planned and ended up rafting something like 20km. I wish we didn't have to go back to Trabzon. IF we didn't, I suspect they would have rafted longer. As it was, we were cutting things very close. Luckily, Necmettin knew the bus people and called them and asked them to wait on us. I think we put them about 15 minutes behind schedule. I thought it was super nice of him to do that for us. The entire time he was very nice and accommodating and I don't think I would ever raft with anyone else in Turkey. You can see how dirty the water was by our appearance after the ordeal.

Husniye and I changed clothes and got onto the bus to make the long trip back to Trabzon. I snapped a picture of the river we rafted on a little further downstream so you can see what it looked like.

Necmettin also did a good job telling us about the wild life during the less tumultuous parts of the rafting trip. The scenery throughout the whole trip was incredible.

Speaking of incredible scenery, I got some great pictures of the landscape as we drove through the mountains on the way back to Trabzon.

We also stopped once more along the Black Sea in time to see the sun set over the water, which was beautiful. Then our trip was over.

In two days time, I would say goodbye to Husniye and Trabzon. It was a tough goodbye because I had enjoyed being with her and enjoyed my time there. It was also tough because of what it meant. The sun was setting on my time in Turkey and I was genuinely disappointed about that.

Trabzon A Third and Final Time

2011-01-10T21:41:00.000-08:00

I didn't do much while I was there. Toured around Trabzon a bit more (but since it was my third time, there was not much left for me to see!). I enjoyed relaxing and also did some work for Dr. Beardsley. There were a few highlights from my trip to Trabzon, however.

1. On the first night I came to Trabzon, I decided to surprise Husniye by making dinner for her. I went to the market and got a fresh fish. (I think I got alabalik, which is a local fish found in some of the lakes around here). It's kind of like a grouper and is quite tasty. I prepared it by seasoning it with pepper, lemon, and butter. While this is a pretty normal and simple seasoning, it was more of a traditional American way to prepare the dish instead of a Turkish one. She hadn't had anything like it before and really liked it, which made me happy. We also had macaroni and cheese with it, which was also another first for Husniye. Now I send her boxes of it occasionally because you can't get it in Turkey.

2. Speaking of food. Husniye and her friend Bahar also taught me how to cook a couple of Turkish dishes. The first, karniyarik (I think that's how it is spelled), is an eggplant and meat dish with a tomato sauce. I tried to make it in the US afterwards once but it fell apart when I tried to pick it up and only mildly resembled the Turkish original. Oh well. It still tasted pretty good. I also learned how to make kisir, a traditional dish with bulgar and other kinds of vegetables. I have not attempted to make this one in the US yet. I didn't like kisir as much as I liked some other things in Turkey. Husniye also taught me how to make pilav (rice) the Turkish way. It involves mixing in a lot of butter and cooking the rice grains before they absorb the water. This method of cooking makes the rice more buttery and creamy tasting (quite yummy). I tried to make this one in the US but it wasn't quite as good as it was in Turkey. I am not sure if the differences in taste are because I did something wrong or because the ingredients here are just not the same.

3. Going for walks: In the evening, we would sometimes go for walks along the Black Sea. I would meet her after work and we would walk there. We also walked on the main street in Trabzon that had all of the shops (Uzun Sokak).

4. Drinking tea on Boztepe. There is a tea garden at the highest point in Trabzon that overlooks the Black Sea. We went there a couple of times and I loved it every time (I described it in a previous blog post and you can read about it there).

5. Movies and Bowling: We went bowling. The bowling alley was just like in the US, except more expensive. We also saw the Harry Potter move (number 5) in English with Turkish subtitles. Husniye didn't like it...and now I think Harry Potter has been ruined for her even though it was the worst of the 5 movies. We went to a local movie place that had English movies with turkish subtitles. I wanted to get Austin Powers for her to watch. Sadly, they did not have it...but I wish they had!

5a. We also tried to play tennis one night on some local tennis courts.

6. We went to the nicest restaurant in Trabzon for dinner one night. I took her out to dinner. Their specialty plate was a fish dish with cheese on top. It sounds weird, but it was absolutely delicious. It was a 3 course meal and it was fantastic. Best part of all is that the nicest restaurant cost only about 50 TL for two people.

7. Talking to Tiffany on skype randomly at 4am because we couldn't sleep.

8. Learning more Turkish (most of which I have now forgotten unfortunately).

Otherwise we just spent time together and enjoyed each other's company. It was nice to settle down after all of that traveling and it was a nice way to spend my last two weeks in Trabzon. On one of our weekends we went to Yusufeli, which was its own adventure (see next post). I hope to visit the Black Sea region again sometime soon. It was a beautiful place and I liked it a lot!

Day 17: Cappadocia (July 16)

2011-01-08T21:34:00.000-08:00

This would be my third and final day in Cappadocia. I probably could have done more on this day, but I decided not to. The truth of the matter is that I had been traveling for 17 days straight without much rest. I was exhausted and frankly tired of traveling (I never in my life thought I would ever be tired of traveling). After 17 days of it though, it is definitely possible.

At any rate, the plan for the day (my last in Cappadocia) was to hike the Pigeon Valley to Uchisar (I figured the hikes would be as awesome as the first day). Basically, nothing remarkable happened. I started hiking and made it about a third of the way through the valley. The trail was not well-marked and I eventually got to a point where I could not go further. I had lost the trail and could not find my way. I also twisted my ankle or did something. It was sore and painful to walk. I decided to turn around and walk back to Goreme before I got lost. I went back to the hostel. I stayed in the hostel for the rest of the afternoon until it was time for my overnight bus to Trabzon. I was tired of traveling and enjoyed hanging out with the Turks who worked in the hotel. I had quite a few fun games of backgammon! :)

i still managed to get some cool pics of the short hike I did take in the two hours I did hike.

I rode the bus overnight. It sucked as usual but after a 12 hour trip I had gone from central Turkey to the beautiful Black Sea region once again to meet Husniye. I would be staying with her for almost 2 weeks, spending my remaining days in Turkey with her.

Day 16: Cappadocia (July 15)

2011-01-07T13:05:00.001-08:00

Today was the day of the tour. I was going to get up very early (around 8am) and I was excited. It cost 50 TL, which was reasonable for an all day guided tour that included lunch. My Canadian friends decided not to come because the one girl was still sick. This turned out to not be a very good trip for them. I feel bad for them to have come all this way for such a short amount of time and not being able to enjoy it.

I went alone on the tour. It was in a minivan which would carry us to our various destinations throughout the day. Our first stop was up the ridge from Göreme to get a good view of the area. Here's what it looked like.

She told us a little about the area, how it was settled by Christians and all of that good stuff. Then we got back to the car and drove towards Derinkuyu. After a 45 minute drive or so, we arrived. Derinkuyu was one of several underground cities built in this region. This particular city was built either in the 8th or 7th century BC by the Phyrgians (though they aren't really sure). The underground city was also used by the Christians to take refuge from Romans persecuting Christians. The city itself was large, 11 levels. It went 85 meters deep (the passageways were very very narrow though). It could hold several thousand people and could even store livestock. The city had everything needed for a city including cellars and storage rooms, etc. They even had a room for religious studies.

It was an amazing place to walk around - to imagine how people would have lived here in hiding for years. It was also amazing to me to think how they built something like this without today's technology. There were no bulldozers, tractors, cranes, etc to build this 11 story underground city. It was all done by hand.

One memory I wont forget is trying to climb down and back up the 55 meter staircase. It was so steep and narrow. There were several times that I thought I wouldn't make it out of there. It was actually built this way for defense purposes. No more than one person could ever enter the stairwell at a time, so if they were ever attacked, they could pick off the attackers one at a time as they tried to enter the lower levels of the underground city.

After we had left the underground city, it had started to rain. It was only about 8C outside. i didn't know it was going to be that cold. The tour guide told us that she had never seen it rain in Cappadocia in July in all of the years that she's lived here. She was just as surprised as we were.

We then took the bus to a volcano lake. Although it was no longer geologically active, the lake water is undrinkable and no living things live in it. There are still poisonous gasses bubbling up from beneath the earth's surface. The gases also make the water a slightly different color, but it was hard to see the difference because the weather was so bad. The clouds were rolling over the volcano lake. I braved the rain to get a picture.

On the bus, I started talking to these two British guys sitting next to me. They were touring around Turkey and we were swapping stories. They had already been to Van and some other portions of Eastern Turkey. Originally, they had wanted to go to Iran and tour there. They had come all the way out to the border with Eastern Turkey when their visa got denied. This was when all of the journalism stuff was going on in Iran and the "Green Revolution," which wasn't really a revolution at all, was occurring. Iran didn't want any more westerners in their country for any reason that summer. So these guys had to change their plans and here they were. I was jealous that they even had the chance to go to Iran. As an American, they wouldn't have let me in regardless of whether there were political uprisings. There was some other guy I talked to on the bus for a little while that was an American. I can't remember his name or what he did (I should really write these things down on my trips) but he was a nice guy.

The bus made it to our next stop, the Ilhara Valley. The Ilhara Valley is a 10 mile gorge cut out of volcanic rock by the Menderez River. The reason it is so famous (in addition to its beauty) is that it has numerous hiding places and entrances to Byzantine churches built to hide from the Romans and access points to underground cities. We, as a bus, had to decide whether we wanted to do the 3km hike through the valley. It was lightly raining and once we decided to do it, we could not turn around. The bus would leave the starting point and pick us up at the end. We decided to make the hike anyway (the rain was not that bad).

Here are some pictures from the hike (and we went inside one of the churches too).

After the hike we stopped for lunch, which was pretty unremarkable. Then we arrived at the Selime Monastery.

The monastery is the biggest rock-cut monastery of Cappadocia with a cathedral sized church. Selime monastery was carved by the monks in the 13th century and apart from the church has monks quarters, a large kitchen, and stables for animals. The walls were once decorated with frescoes of which very little remains. The inside was pretty cool to see and the view was great. Our tour guide told us some other cool stuff about it but I can't remember exactly what she said!

After the monastery, we rode back towards Goreme. On the way back we passed Mt. Hasan and Mt. Melendez, which were the two largest mountains in the region. In fact, they were even snow covered in July!

Our last stop brought us to overlook Pigeon Valley (Güvercin Valley). This valley was the gorge that connected Goreme to Uchisar. The pictures should reveal why it is called Pigeon valley!

Also at the Pigeon Valley was the inevitable jewelry shop. They took us for a tour of the jewelry store and at the end was of course jewelry that if bought would be a commission for the tour guide. I didn't buy any, obviously. All in all the tour was great and i was really glad I took it.

That night it was raining more (surprising for the region) and I went to a local kebab restaurant. The local kebab here in Cappadocia is known as a Pottery Kebab. The weird thing about it is that it is actually served in a piece of pottery (I think cooked in it too) and the piece of pottery is actually broken upon serving it. I am not sure if this is just for show or if they ruin a piece of pottery every time it is made! It was tender and good. I really enjoyed the meal. I then went back to my room and hung out a little while before going to sleep.

Sharing my room with me was an interesting couple from New Mexico. They had lost their jobs in the bad economy and instead of living in the US, they travelled to poorer third world countries and were seeing the world and using their money on that. They explained to me that traveling around the world was actually less expensive than living in the US because the cost of living was so much cheaper. They had bought one of those around the world air fares and had been going to places like Thailand, Malaysia, Turkey, etc. They told me that Thailand was the only place they had been to that was better than Turkey. One day I hope to find out if they are right. They were certainly an interesting couple to say the least. Soon after chatting with them for a little while about their life and what they were doing, I went to sleep.

Day 15: Cappadocia (July 14)

2011-01-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

I saved what would become one of my favorite destinations in Turkey for last. I knew before I went that it would be a highlight of the trip. In fact, I heard this from just about every exchange student who made this trip back in mid-February.

For the entire time I was in Turkey (ever since late February) I had a chip on my shoulder about getting to Cappadocia. One of the Turkish students, Mert, had planned a trip for a set number of exchange students to go to Cappadocia together. He arranged the busses, hotels, activities, etc. I can't remember how much it was, but it was definitely more than it should have been. He was almost certainly making money on this little arrangement. Even still, for a weekend trip, it was quite cheap to us foreigners. I had originally planned to go on the trip, myself. I signed up and was going to pay him the money. Unfortunately, the only place he was willing to collect the money was in the Superdorm. Truthfully, it made sense because thats where 95% of the exchange students lived. He said that he would be there at 8pm to collect money. I guess for whatever reason I messed up the time and I thought he meant 9pm. I was there for 30 minutes, money in hand, ready to pay him. He was not. When another person told me he had already been by, I raced back to my room and emailed him. He received the email no later than 9:35. I told him of my mistake and that I would be willing to meet him anywhere right now to get him the money in time because I really wanted to go on the trip. He told me that I missed my opportunity and that I would be put on the bottom of the waiting list (giving me no hope to get a seat on the trip). He was actually a real douchebag about the whole thing. The reason I was really upset was not just because I was missing the trip, but because I lived in another place, away from the exchange students. They live in the same dorm, see each other every night, hang out, plan outings and trips together. I felt that this trip to Cappadocia would have been an opportunity for me to meet some of the American and European students who were traveling so that I would be invited and involved in potential weekend trips. It is no fun to travel alone (and not always very safe either). At any rate, I missed out on the chance to go. Upon the return from the trip, I heard from several exchange students about how great Cappadocia was and how I needed to go see it. For these reasons, it was one of the places I REALLY wanted to visit during my time there.

I took another overnight bus trip from Antalya to Nevşehir. The bus cost about 60 TL (as expected for an overnight bus). The bus ride was approximately 12 hours. My feelings about the overnight busses were mixed. I took several of them on this trip. On one hand, it saved me the cost of a room for a night, but on the other hand, they were usually uncomfortable and I got little sleep (it's kind of like trying to sleep on an airplane). Even though it wasn't really that far, the roads were difficult because the path weaved through the mountains of the southern Mediterranean and up towards the center of the country. By the next morning, I was at a bus stop outside of Nevşehir waiting for the bus company shuttle to take me to Göreme, where I would be staying for the next three days (and the heart of Cappadocia).

While waiting for the shuttle to Göreme, I recognized the two Canadian girls that I had previously stayed with in Olympos. We had talked about potentially being in Cappadocia at the same time and that if we were it would be fun to see it together. I was glad to see them, as I had been traveling alone since I had seen them in Olympos a few days prior. While I had been traveling, they stayed in Olympos and relaxed in the hammocks, swam, and enjoyed the ridiculously good deals of staying in the air-conditioned treehouses (which were actually a lot more comfortable than they sounded). I had not made plans as to which pansiyon I would stay in. They had and I just followed them.

The ride into Göreme was magnificent. I could instantly see why everyone wanted to visit this place in Turkey. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. This is what I saw on the way in:

These rock structures are called "fairy chimneys." Basically, they are tall, thin spires of rock that protrude from the ground in a dry place. The sediment had been piled on for years, hardening, and creating new layers. These things were all over the place. It was a beautiful sight to see.

We made our way to the pension. I was ready to go sightseeing after a little nap. The Canadian girls had a different plan, it seemed. One of them had gotten sick in Olympos (I had heard that people who stay there for a while end up getting sick but it was unclear whether it was staying in close proximity to a lot of other people or if it was because the fresh water creek that emptied into the ocean near where a lot of people swam had some sewage and other disgusting things that one would not want to swim in). At any rate, rather than rent the cheap, dorm style rooms, the girls opted for a slightly more expensive private room. We had hoped that the sick girl would feel better by the next day and made plans to take a tour. Now I had been using my lonely planet guide and had specifically not taken tours because I kind of wanted to do it myself on my own schedule (and my own budget). However, Cappadocia was a HUGE place, and there is no way I would even get to see a fraction of what I wanted to see unless I took the tour. So I booked the tour with the girls for the next day.

The room I was staying in was interesting. It was a part of one of the fairy chimneys. It had been hollowed out and it was slightly underground. This created a kind of natural air conditioner, keeping things cool. This was necessary, as I was in the middle of a high plateau (that gets very hot) in the middle of the summer. The accommodations were also quite reasonable. (Only something like 8TL per night), the cheapest I had seen yet! It was so cheap that I didn't even try to negotiate (It likely wouldn't have done much good anyway).

I took a nap and then asked the concierge about the open air museum. He told me that it was about 1.5km (1 mile) or so down the road and that I could walk if I wanted (which was just fine with me). He also gave me a map of the area and told me which areas he would suggest hiking (I wanted to go for a hike after the open air museum). So armed with the map he gave me of some cool hiking trails and the direction to the open air museum, I was off.

Here's the road I followed:

The Open Air Museum

The Open Air Museum was really neat. Persecuted Christians lived here inside the fairy chimneys and painted frescoes on the walls and the ceilings. These have been preserved for over a thousand years. There were several churches (perhaps they did not all function as churches but they all had frescoes depicting christian scenes on them). Once inside, you could wander from one room to the next, seeing the history. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Open Air Museum.

There are several more pictures from the open air museum (see the link on the right of this page).

After I finished walking around the Open Air Museum (it took a couple of hours), I decided to go hiking in the area around Göreme. The area itself is famous for its hikes and a big reason why many backpackers choose this particular town when they come to Cappadocia.

The Open Air Museum is nearest to the Valley of the Swords, so that's where I decided to go first. The map was unclear exactly where I was supposed to go to get in, so I hiked up the large hill next to the Open Air Museum to see if there was an entrance way up there.

Near the sign, there was a gravel path to the right which lead down into the valley. I figured this was my best option for getting into the Valley of Swords. I hiked down the hill for a few minutes into the rocky area. The trail had definitely been trodden before but there were tall grasses on either side. The rock formations were stunning. In hindsight, the ensuing hike was probably not something I should have done alone in a foreign country, but I did it anyway.

I saw instantly why they called it the valley of swords.

This is what the trail looked like.

I hiked on it for a little while. I went in between rocks. Amazingly, on the cliffs on each side, you could see evidence of people who lived here in quite a few of the rocks (even the ones further away from the open air museum). It seems this whole area was used as a natural shelter from enemies. Lots of them have random doorways carved out of them. After a little while, I got to a cliff on the trail. The drop was probably a good 15-25 feet. I probably could have climbed down and continued on the trail (which likely would have connected up with one of the others I was going to walk on), but I didn't think it would be a good idea to try (especially being alone without a cell phone). If I were to fall, it might have been days before someone would have found me.

Rather than go on, I turned around and came back the way I had come originally. I found the main road and walked back towards Goreme on it until I saw a dirt path on flat ground going in the direction I had just come from (to the right). It would lead me to another trail .

I began walking towards and inside the Rose Valley. It was a much more open trail than the Valley of Swords. The fairy chimneys were further apart.

After walking a ways, the pathway opened up. I ran into some other hikers and they told me that one of the fairy chimneys was open and you could go inside. I went inside and found that it was in the same style as the ones in the open air museum. Pretty cool.

From this place, I hiked up the side of some rocks to another church and went inside there. The view from the higher ground was amazing.

I hiked some more and found another random church. Now I was much higher in elevation from where I started the hike. Right about when I got to the church, it started drizzling and a rainshower passed by. I waited it out in another place next to the church. An older Turkish man was there. He obviously made money by selling drinks and snacks to tourists who hike out there. He showed me some of his art work and allowed me to wait out the rainstorm with him. He was a friendly guy.

It was so strange to be raining in July there. I hadn't come prepared for it. I also found out later from both the people in my hostel and my tour guide that they had NEVER in their entire lives seen rain in Cappadocia in July. It was the weirdest thing. I was hot and it was hot outside, so it was refreshing...but very very odd. (I guess I attract this kind of odd weather because it also rained the first time I went to a desert in Israel).

Here are some more pictures from the hike.

After hiking for a couple of hours, it was time to turn around and go home. I hiked back towards where I came from and thought I went to the right place. I tried to go a slightly different way than I came so that I could see new things and I thought it would be a little quicker. Much to my dismay I got turned around and got lost. By the time I found the road (I ended up walking up the hill where the Goreme sign was and ended up about an extra quarter to half a mile further from the town than I thought I would be, I was exausted. I found the road and began walking towards town. Luckily, an American couple had rented a car and they were lost. They asked me for directions, which I was able to provide. They offered to give me a ride back to town, which was awesome of them. So I basically ended up hiking for about 5 solid hours after walking to the open air museum. The hike was amazing and was definitely a highlight of my trip (see more pictures on the Cappadocia link on the right).

I went to a quick restaurant when I got back to town and went to bed. I had to get up early and I was completely exhausted from the day's hike.

Day 14: Düden Falls or not (July 13)

2010-12-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

I woke up and gathered my things and left for the day's adventure. I did not eat at the hotel's continental breakfast as per the arrangement I made in deciding to sleep there. I had hoped to go to Düden Falls, a famous waterfall in southern Turkey (the pictures from the guidebook seemed cool). There would be a bus to the end of the roadway and a chance to hike up to the falls, which were supposed to be pretty magnificent. I took the shuttle to the bus station and searched for the right dolmus to go to the falls. What I discovered, much to my dismay, was that there would be no dolmus running to the upper falls that day. I am not sure why it was canceled. I was having horrible luck in Antalya with my day trips. Unfortunately, there is only so much that you can see in this place. I wish I had known earlier and maybe I would have planned to do something else.

I boarded the dolmus and returned to the city center. I walked around and took some pictures in the day time. I also purchased a new watch (as you may have seen a couple of posts ago, I had no cell phone after my endless walk to the Chimera). Anyway, I walked around the city and took some pictures of the harbor and grabbed some lunch at...McDonalds. Ok. Don't judge me. It had been a while since I had a real American cheeseburger. While McDonalds isn't REALLY a good cheeseburger, it was as close as I was going to get.

I decided that I would go to beach for the afternoon and get some swimming in before the long bus ride. I was unsure how long exactly I would stay in Antalya originally. After my bad luck and truthfully, I was starting to get a little tired of traveling, I decided it was time for me to move on. So anyway, I went to the beach for the afternoon. I went to Lara Plaji (Lara Beach). According to the guidebook, it was a nice public beach.

On the way, I saw a sign for Lower Duden Falls. I decided I would stop there on the way back and get some pictures. The beach was decent and also crowded. One thing I love about beaches pretty much everywhere except the East Coast of the US is how clear the water is. The other thing I noticed while swimming is that the water was extremely warm. It felt like I was swimming in bath water -- quite a contrast from the cold water in the Aegean. It was interesting how much warmer it was between even Fethiye (where the water was quite cold) and Antalya. I also wandered a little too far on the beach and was told to turn around. Apparently, a section of this beach is marked off for Policeman and Firefighters (and their families) only. Its an interesting concept but nice to reward the firefighters and police for their hard work.

On the way back, I stopped and saw the Lower Duden Falls. Here are some pictures:

I had dinner overlooking the main square. I took a picture of the bazaar entrance because it was built in the 1400s. How cool!

Day 13: Aspendos Theater (July 12)

2010-10-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

Antalya is a really great place to visit in Turkey because it can be used as a base for a lot of really neat trips. In the main city of Antalya, other than the Mediterranean and a little downtown area, there really isn't a whole lot to see. So the idea for visiting this place is that you stay in Antalya and you take day trips to places (there is rafting nearby, awesome beaches, waterfalls, hiking, ancient cities, etc). Because I was only going to be there a couple of days, I had to plan my trips carefully. I didn't realize just how difficult it would be to get to these places without renting a car or using a taxi. I considered renting a car, but it would be something I should do with others and not alone. That was probably my first mistake.

Anyways, so I decided that I would be taking a day trip to Aspendos. The Aspendos theater is the largest and best preserved amphitheater in Asia minor and one of the best outside of Rome. With something so spectacular so close to where I was, I felt I had to make the effort to see it. I boarded the local dolmus marked Aspendos and took it about 20 miles away to Serik. I asked where the bus to Aspendos was and the driver told me to walk a couple of blocks and there would be a place for me to wait. After waiting about 20 minutes or so, I asked a shopkeeper about the bus to Aspendos. He told me that the next bus would be in 4 hours. By this time, I would not have the chance even to explore the place or anything. I wasn't sure if I should start walking towards it (the walk itself would have probably taken at least 2 hours).

Luckily, the village near Aspendos was a small place. Just as I was explaining (or at least trying to explain) that I was very unsure about what I should do, a friend of the shopkeeper drove by in a truck and he waved him down. They spoke briefly in Turkish and then said that he would take me to Aspendos (I think it was on his way near his farm or something). I got in the car with a random guy and was at Aspendos in about 10 minutes. They really do not make it easy to get there and the dolmus falsely advertised that they would take me to the actual amphitheater.

I entered the park and went to the amphitheater. It was enormous. Built in the year 155 during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, it could seat 7,000. I walked up and down the stairs of the theater and took some neat pictures. The other neat part of Aspendos is that the backdrop was still intact, so you could picture how performances may have looked when it was used thousands of years ago.

I walked around the coliseum for a while but afterwards wanted to explore the area a bit more. Although the coliseum is the main reason why people visit Aspendos, one can only look at a coliseum for so long. I walked outside of the the coliseum and began walking up the hill towards the ruins of the town where the theater had been located.

These were probably some of the cooler ruins I have seen while looking for ancient ruins. In most places, the ruins have already been cleaned, the overgrowth has been cut, and the path to walk has been clearly marked. It is very tourist friendly. These ruins were quite different. There were some old signs that would tell you what things were (which I appreciated), but otherwise the site was not that well maintained. I am not even sure if I was supposed to go back there (but no one stopped me).

I hiked to the top of the hill and got a fantastic picture of the theater.

Anyways, there were two reasons I really liked these ruins. Firstly, it was secluded. It was must nicer to see things and explore a bit when you aren't surrounded by people. It just seems more real to me. I don't know why. Secondly, I liked these ruins because you could see how they likely looked when they were discovered by people hundreds of years later. Truthfully, I am sure the people living in this area have always known about the Aspendos theater and the town of Aspendos and so there was never any real "discovering" occurring. I couldn't help feeling like I was an archeologist discovering new things since the ruins were overgrown with all grass and nature. I felt like I was one of the first people in hundreds of years to walk thought these streets again. It was a cool feeling. I took some pictures to share.

There were a few more, but I think you get the idea.

I exited the area into a parking lot (I had to figure out a way to go home). As I walk over to the bus stop, a man dressed in a somewhat funny costume comes up to me and asks me if I wanted to ride his camel. On the other side of the parking lot, there were two men in traditional middle eastern garb with a camel. I guess the idea was to make some money from tourists. I told him no thank you (in English). He persisted and began lowering the price from 20TL to 15TL to 10 TL. I suppose he figured that I was just trying to negotiate and that if he gave me a good price, I would acquiesce. I was on a budget at this point (I had lost a credit card and so cash was not easy to come by) so I wasn't feeling like spending money on extra expenses. When he didn't get the idea, I told him no thank you again, this time in Turkish.

The Turkish definitely caught him off guard. He stopped negotiating with me and became intrigued. He asked me how I knew Turkish. I explained that I was a study abroad student and had learned the Turkish while I was in the country and told him about some of the places I had traveled and that I went to Bogazici. This sufficiently impressed him. He paused for a moment and then he said, "bedava!" which is Turkish for "free." He wanted me to ride his camel and take pictures for free. I was very surprised and thanked him profusely. He smiled and lead me around on the camel while his associates took pictures of me. We even had a couple together. I thanked him again. He didn't have an email address but gave me his mailing address and I told him I would send him pictures. Unfortunately, in the packing of my things going back to the US, I lost the paper where he wrote his address and never sent the pictures. I feel bad about it because he did a nice thing for me. He probably won't be that nice to someone in the future because of me but there is nothing I can do about it. Here are the pictures anyway.

As I was waiting for the bus, I met some people that were going the same direction I was and they offered to take me back to Antalya. I accepted and ended up within walking distance to my hotel. The day trip to Aspendos took longer than I had planned. It was already late afternoon and I didn't have plans, so I just got something to eat and then walked around the city center for a little while before heading back to my hotel room.

Day 12: Olympos (July 11)

2010-10-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

I woke up feeling refreshed after sleeping. I decided that today would be a fairly easy day. I would spend the day exploring the ruins of Olympos, followed by a swim in the Mediterranean before finally taking the bus in the evening to Antalya.

The city of Olympos was very prominent in ancient history. It was one of the 7 preeminent cities in the Lycian confederation. It was also the place where Poseidon stood and watched Odysseus sail away from Calypso's Island (at which point he called up a great storm). The town itself was in a picturesque place, nestled between two mountains. I was able to get into the site for free due to my handy Muze kart. Other students weren't so lucky.

The other cool part of it was that it was built around a mountain stream that flowed and emptied into the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, due to the resorts that had developed, the stream itself had a lot of algae. I had also heard that some people who had gone swimming near the stream became sick. I decided to play it safe and check the stream out from a distance.

i went for a swim a little further down the coast away from the stream. It was a great place to swim because of the scenery of the mountains (but that's true of a lot of the places down in this area). It was a fairly lazy day (which was deserved after the adventure from the night before).

I gathered my things, checked out, and got on the bus to Antalya. I took a city bus to the city center and began searching for a place to stay. I had a certain couple of hostels for which I was looking. I was in the process of searching for them when this Turkish guy got my attention and wanted me to stay at his hotel. In the book, the three types of hotels are low, medium, and high priced. This hotel was a medium I later discovered. I told him that it was probably out of my price range, but we started to negotiate anyway. He started at 50TL to which I obviously scoffed. I explained that I was a student and couldn't afford to pay much. He took me more seriously because I could actually speak Turkish even though the bulk of our negotiations were in English. He dropped it to 40TL then 30TL a night. He claimed it was his final offer. I explained to him that it was higher than any place I stayed at for the whole trip. He then asked what the highest price I paid was, and I told him 25TL. He thought for a moment and then agreed on 25TL with the promise that I do not partake in the free complimentary breakfast given to the members of the hotel. I agreed and had a room (the nicest room of the whole trip). It had a glass shower and the room was air conditioned and wireless internet in my room. The hotel must have been pretty desperate to have more guests. I was surprised and happy. It was definitely the biggest negotiation success of the trip.

I decided to walk around the downtown area close to the hotel. I got to see Hadrian's Gate and the greater downtown area of Antalya. I returned to my hotel and went to sleep.

Day 11: Saklikent Gorge and Olympos (July 10)

2010-10-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

Arda, the New Zealand guy (I can't remember his name), and I decided that we wanted to take a day trip to Saklikent Gorge. I wasn't sure how it would be, but Arda said that it was definitely worth changing my plans. He was definitely right.

After a ride through the mountains a little ways, we crossed some streams and made it to the entrance of the Saklikent Gorge. Saklikent is Turkish for secret city. I am not really sure why it's called that. I took a couple of pictures on the approach (the bus was nice enough to stop for anyone who wanted to see it from afar).

We finally reached the gorge and walked inside. There was a boardwalk along the side at the entrance because the walls were steep and the water flowing out from the gorge was flowing too fast and was too deep for us to enter at that point. After walking a couple hundred meters or so, the board walk ended and the gorge opened up slightly.

The water was rushing from the gorge to this point and there was a fairly deep portion that needed to be crossed in order to hike into the main part of the gorge.

The park recommended some sort of water shoes beyond this point. We would be hiking through rushing water (it got shallow after this pass). However, the rocks would be very painful on the feet without the proper shoe wear. A very friendly Turkish guy allowed me to try on his shoes in order for me to walk over and see one of the tributaries that flowed into the main stream.

The water was fast and quite cold. For most of the year it is quite chilly because it comes from the snow melt in the mountains. The gorge itself is so tall that the sun can barely reach inside (and in some parts not at all). It's 18km long (the 2nd longest in Europe) and the longest and deepest gorge in Turkey.

We waded across the deepest part of the water to get into the main part of the gorge. I couldn't borrow the Turkish man's water shoes, so I just wore tennis shoes on my feet and allowed them to get really wet. As I crossed, I had to carry my bag above my head in order to prevent the contents (like my camera and phone) from getting wet. Our New Zealand friend did not come along for this part of the journey and decided to wait for us at the opening of the gorge. He was in his 70s and I think this part was just a little too much adventure for him (though he truthfully has had more adventure in his life than I will probably ever have).

Once we crossed to the other side, the water was quite shallow, allowing us to walk through the floor of the canyon. It was magnificent to see, especially with the cool water flowing over my feet. Since I love running water and mountains, this place was absolutely perfect. It was really interesting to see the flowing water continue to cut out the gorge, as it had done for thousands of years. Although we could have hiked for hours, we only hiked for a little while since our friend was waiting for us. Also, I had actually planned to travel to Olympos this day and so my time here was limited. IF I get a chance to return to Turkey, the Saklikent Gorge is definitely a place I'd like to see again. Here are some pictures from inside the gorge:

Here is a picture from the entrance of the gorge:

After we finished out hike, the three of us decided to eat some lunch at one of the restaurants at the mouth of the gorge. The restaurants there were neat because they had floating platforms on the stream to sit on while eating. This allowed for a great view! Based on Arda's recommendation, we decided to have gözleme, which is basically a Turkish pancake. It's not quite like American pancakes (usually it wraps something like meat), but that's the best way to describe it. It's not served with syrup there.

We took the bus back to Fethiye and I gathered my things to catch my bus to Olympos. The bus ride would take 4-5 hours. The route was particularly pretty as I would basically be paralleling the Mediterranean coast. The coastline here looked amazing. As I approached Kaş, it transformed from beaches with mountains in the background to cliffs coming right up the coast. As the bus weaved around curves, I felt as if I was driving on Highway 1 south of Monterey. The scenery was that pretty. I didn't get to stay in Kaş, though I had originally planned to. I think that's another one of those places that I would really like to see if I had another opportunity to spend a lot of time in Turkey. I don't think there is anything to see in particular, but the hiking and the scenery of the coastline would be enough to keep me occupied.

We continued along a little further until we reached Olympos. The bus stopped at a place on the side of the road and they told me it was Olympos. I got out and waited with others for a dolmus that would carry us down the mountain to where the beach was. This is another cool place that I think I would have liked to return to. It seemed very much like a place for college students and young people who were backpacking across Turkey.

I decided to stay at Bayram's Tree House. I checked in and they had an air conditioned tree house for me. At this point I was so freaking ecstatic! Air conditioner had been a luxury for me on this trip. I hadn't had air conditioning since I had been in Pamukkale. Anyways, the setup was basically like that of a hostel. I ended up rooming in a bungalow with others. There were two Canadian girls in my house. They were pretty nice. It turns out that I would be seeing them again in Cappadocia, which was pretty cool. The other neat thing about this place was that it (a) had wireless internet all over the place and (b) the 20 Lira per night included your dinner and breakfast. It seemed like a lot of younger people would sit outside until late hours of the night and talk and chill out. Too bad I didn't have time to stay for longer.

I got there about 8pm and had some food. I knew that I really wanted to go see the Chimera that night, as it would be my only night in Olympos. Little did I know exactly how much of an adventure this would be! I asked the lady at the desk and she told me it wasn't that far. She said, "oh you just walk down this way a little while until you get to the beach, turn left and go down the beach until you get to the road and then walk up the road a little ways and you'll be there." I am thinking to myself, how long could this walk be? An hour? Maybe an hour and a half? I mean the way this lady made it sound, it wouldn't be THAT long.

I take off toward the beach with my flashlight that I borrowed and then get onto the beach. The night was hot and quite humid. After walking about 10-15 minutes, I was already sweating. I called Husniye on the phone and she talked to me to provide me some company for the walk. After walking along the beach for an hour, I finally reached the road the lady at the desk talked about. I thought to myself, well ok, it cant be THAT much further, right? Wrong again. I continued to walk for about 2 more hours along the road. By this time, I considered turning around but had already invested so much time into the walk that I figured I had to see it through. At this point in the journey, sweat had seeped into my phone causing it to die. It turns out that it would be irreparable and I would be phone-less for the rest of my time in Turkey. So I continued walking. At around midnight, I met a lady on the side of the road and asked her how much further it was and she said it was only a few more minutes. Thankfully I was almost there!

I finally reached the entrance to the chimera a little after midnight. I was exhausted as I had been walking for a solid 2.5-3 hours. I later found out that the Chimera was actually 8km (5 miles) from Olympos and I had walked all that way by myself. Curse that stupid desk lady for telling me it wasn't that far away! Anyways, when I reached the bottom, I discovered that I had to then hike up the mountain path (another km or so straight up hill) to get the chimera. I decided to buy a frozen drink at this stand that was still open and took a rest before deciding to make the climb. I finally got the top and pretty much collapsed on the spot. I was so sweaty that I looked like I had just jumped in the ocean.

The Yanartaş (meaning flaming rock) was identified as the ancient Mount Chimaera. This place was also known as the inspiration for the myth of the Chimera. Sailors in ancient Lycia used the natural flames coming out of the rock as navigation. The vents emit methane which burn constantly. It was definitely a cool site to see at night. I talked to some of the people up there (yes I was not the only one up there at 1am in the morning surprisingly). One was this middle aged Turkish guy with a bunch of younger Turkish girls. I thought it was strange but didn't say anything. I also met these Americans. When I told them about my little walk, they felt so bad for me that they offered to drive me back home with them (they had rented a car to drive out to the Chimaera). I was immensely grateful that I wouldn't have to walk another 5 miles before sleeping.

I took some awesome pictures of it too!

It was amazing how this was naturally burning out of the ground like this. One kid took a bottle of water and actually put one of the flames out. Then they used their lighter to start it up again. I imagine that the fires probably started when there was a forest fire or perhaps a lightning strike. The flames had probably been burning for hundreds of years. It was absolutely incredible. I enjoyed spending some time resting there, taking in the flames and looking up into the night sky. Since we were so far from a town, the stars were more apparent than normal. After about an hour at the top, I hiked down with the Americans and they drove me back. I got home around 3am and promptly went straight to bed, completely exhausted.

Day 9-10: Fethiye (July 7-8)

2010-09-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

Another uneventful bus ride and I was finally in Fethiye. Technically, Fethiye is in the Mediterranean while Bodrum was in the Aegean...so this was my first stop on Med (officially!). The city of Fethiye is a very old town (used to be called Telmessos in 400BC). I arrived and found a cheap hostel for 15 TL per night. The only catch with this place was that you had to share your room with someone, something hadn't experienced at any of the other places I had stayed except for when I went to Europe. No one was in my room when I checked in, so I put my stuff down and decided to venture out into the town.

I was hungry so I had a late afternoon lunch at some random place that looked like it had a good deal. The picture on the outside said the combo included french fries and a drink with a doner. When the guy refused to give me the fries, I told him it came with the deal. In broken Turkish, I explained to him that the sign outside said it. He looked and was visibly upset but gave me what I was entitled to. Some guy who spoke English asked me where I was from and told me he was surprised that I was able to explain to the man in Turkish what was going on. I was proud of myself for getting my point across. The guy next to me had apparently been living there for some time and had learned the language. He told me that afterwards the owner yelled at one of his workers who had apparently put up the wrong sign.

After lunch, I walked around town but there wasn't that much to see. There was an old ruined fortress way up on the hill, but I couldn't access it. I also got to see the famous pink Pelicans. Apparently, Fethiye is known for them. After a walk along the harbor, I returned back to the hostel for the evening. Every night, the hostel serves dinner and I found out that if I eat three meals there, I will earn a free boat cruise (and will only have to pay 10TL for lunch as opposed to the 30 TL a boat tour normally costs). I decided that I definitely wanted to take advantage of that option.

I returned to my room to find my new roommate, Arda. Arda was one of the most awesome people I met in Turkey (I say that a lot...but it's because I met so many awesome people there). Arda was traveling alone after recently having finished his required military tour. He and I had a lot in common. We both majored in Political Science in college and were both interested in Turkish politics and international politics. We had a lot to talk about, obviously. We bonded and he ended up deciding to come with me on the boat tour the next day.

We woke up and had breakfast (one of the required meals). The tour operator would pick us up in a van and take us to the launching site of the boat in Oludeniz. The people were late and I was afraid we would miss the boat. We boarded the van (there were a few others from the hostel taking advantage of this deal) and drove over the mountain 15km to the south. On the way over, we passed by an abandoned village (Karmylassos). This town was once inhabited by Greeks until the Turkish War of Independence. During the population exchange, these people were uprooted from their homes and told they had to go live in Greece. Muslims in Greece returned to Turkey. Can you imagine being told you have to leave your home and live in a new place? It must have been a horrifying and scary experience for these people!

We crossed over the hill and arrived at the beautiful seaside resort of Ölüdeniz. This site was actually one of the places I really wanted to see, so I was glad the boat tour was leaving from there. I would have the opportunity at the end of the day to check the place out. We boarded the boat and embarked upon our tour. Honestly, this boat tour was awesome and I would totally do it again! It was immensely superior to the boat tour in Bodrum.

Words can't really do justice the places we stopped (there were like 6 or 7 overall) throughout the day. The first place we stopped was a place, like that in Çeşme where there was a place with warm water coming out of the rocks. Truthfully, the water here was quite chilly and the "warmer" area was not that big of a difference. Still, it was a nice place to swim. I liked these places because a lot of them were deep water, where you could jump right into the water.

The second place we went to was called "Camel Rock." Luckily the tour was in English, so I could retain a bit more information about where we were stopping. The reason it was named as such was because the rock looked like a camel lying down in the water in front of the beach.

The third place went to was called Gemiler Island. This island's claim to fame was that it supposedly contained the former house of St. Nicholas. Yes, you heard me right, Santa actually chills out on a tropical island in the Mediterranean. I think I would prefer this lifestyle to the north pole as well! Supposedly, there were ruins that could be checked out on shore. We were technically allowed to go see them, but no one else went because it cost money (it would not have cost me anything because I had a Muze kart). I was afraid of taking too long up there and then being left behind. So instead, I went swimming and enjoyed the view. I also took a picture of the water here to show just how crystal clear it is!

We also had lunch here, enjoying a delicious dish of fish with a side of salad and something else (I don't remember).

We then left and went to Butterfly Valley. I had heard from some of my other colleagues who studied abroad that Butterfly Valley was amazing, so I really wanted to see it. The pictures I had seen of it, since I had started traveling, confirmed its amazingness. The valley itself is basically an access to the Mediterranean bordered by two large cliffs on either side. Apparently, it is also home to the unique Jersey Tiger butterfly, but I didn't see it. I didn't really go swimming here. I just wanted to take in the sites. Unfortunately, they charged money to hike up and see the waterfall at the back of the valley. There is also a dangerous path to hike to the valley from land. I would really love to try it when I return to Turkey one day. I briefly spoke to a girl who had come here the previous year and had decided she wanted to live there. She was selling drinks just off the beach for campers (you can camp here too) and for people who arrived on the boat tour. She just picked up and moved to Butterfly valley. I wish I had the guts to do something like that. It would be amazing. Here are some pictures of the place:(they really don't do the place justice).

Our final stop was the Mavi Mağarası (Blue Cave). Here was a place in the Mediterranean where the water had carved out a cave and you could swim inside it. I had always wanted to go swim in a cave so i was really excited about this trip. I was, unsurprisingly, one of the last people to leave the water. Did I mention that the water was absolutely frigid? It had been cold throughout all of the places on this trip! Here are some pictures of the cave:

From the Blue Cave, the boat returned back to Ölüdeniz. Instead of returning to the hostel, I preferred to take time to walk along the beach and swim there. I entered the park on foot and walked to the main area. It was basically a big beach which kind of jetted out into the Mediterranean. The cool part was that there were natural rock formations on the far side of the little out cropping which created a natural jetty, making the water extremely calm. This is what it looks like from an aerial view (obviously in the best condition):

Just for kicks, I swam from the beach to the island in this picture.

As you all can see, it was a very pretty place (you can see more on the link to my pictures on the left) and I guess it was kind of a bonus that I got to swim there in addition to all of the other neat places I saw on the boat tour.

I returned to the hostel around 6 and ate an early dinner (done by 7ish) because I wanted to go see the Lycian tombs. I knew that Fethiye had them and wasn't sure exactly where they were but wanted to give myself the opportunity to see them (I actually wanted to go the previous night but due to a combination of fatigue and not being able to find them, I didn't go).

The tombs were located on the hill on the other side of the city, about a 10-15 minute walk away. Because the city of Telmessos was an important city in ancient Lycia, they had the burial tombs that were reserved for important members of society. The hike to the top was a bit of a hike, but full of cool images. Here are a couple of my favorites.

I was lucky enough to arrive to the highest point just in time to see the sun set over the mountain and bay in Fethiye. I also met a nice couple who were there taking pictures. After the sun finished setting, I continued to enjoy the scenery. I imagined what it would be like to be here during ancient Lycia, when the tombs were being built and furnished. I am constantly amazed at how ancient people, without any of the modern construction technology that we have, were able to build these kinds of things. I walked back to my room and talked with Arda. We decided to take a trip to the Saklkent (Secret city) Gorge tomorrow before I left for Olympos.

Day 8: Bodrum (July 6)

2010-09-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

So I woke up early to go diving. I was really excited actually, as it had been quite a while since I had gotten to go driving. I was hoping that there would some beautiful coral reef places to see here too...or at least some areas where cool fish hung out since it was so rocky.

We got on the boat and headed out towards the dive site. I found out that the boat doubled as one of those cruise tours and a dive boat, so most of the people on the boat were not diving. They only had to pay something like 20 Lira for the boat while we paid 100 TL. On the boat ride over there, I met this girl named Can who was pretty cool. I learned that she was in college in the US. She studies at Brown University and is back at her parent's place for the summer helping out with their boating business. I wish my summer job was being on a boat all day in a tropical location. That sounds like the life to me!

We came to the island where everyone else would spend the day swimming. Here's what it looked like from the back of the boat.

We suited up in the tanks and descended for our first dive. The dive was maybe 40-50 ft (not sure exactly since all of the equipment was in meters). We ended up doing two dives and overall I was mostly disappointed. We saw a few fish, but not a large amount and certainly not as many as I saw when I dove in Mexico and the Bahamas. I was also disappointed that both dives were at the same location. I was hoping we would maybe do one dive at one location and another at another. That's how most dive boats work. The coolest part was that the dive master who was leading us found a baby octopus for us to play with, Everyone was able to put it in its hands and you could feel the suckers attach to you. When it was scared at first, it even inked! The rock formations were decent too, but not the most impressive I had ever seen. Perhaps I should have chosen to dive in Fethiye instead...oh well.

The boat had grilled fish for lunch and after a while at that swimming place, we went to another swimming place. The water was pretty cold, which was surprising for the month of June. I guess you forget just how far north Turkey is when its so hot outside. I think Turkey is about even with New York City, but you'd hardly guess it when you see water that looks like that! :)

After two swimming stops, we arrived back in Bodrum. As I said before, it was largely disappointing but oh well.

When I arrived it was still a couple of hours before sunset. I decided I wanted to take a trip to the end of the Bodrum peninsula to see the sun set. I have heard the sunset there is quite beautiful (as it is on the western edge of Turkey looking over the Mediterranean). I took a bus out to the small town of Gümüşlük and walked down to the shore line. Oddly, the towns name means "of silver," but with a sunset as brilliant as the one I would see, I would have excepted it to be "of gold." The shoreline here is protected by headlands just on the other side of the bay. To get to the headlands, you have to wade through water, which got all the up to the upper part of my legs at one point. I was concerned about my camera and my backpack, but it all worked out ok.

Across the shoreline to the headlands was "Rabbit Island." The island is named as such because rabbits live here. Shocking I know! The cool part was that there were enough here that even I would catch a glimpse of them.

After snapping a couple of photos of rabbits and flowers, I climbed my way to the top of the headlands and positioned myself for the sunset. The view was absolutely amazing!

While at the top of the mountain rising out of the water, I met a man with a group of kids. He explained to me (in English) that they were a group of kids who took a trip down here as part of a diabetes camp. Apparently all of the kids had type 1 diabetes. It made me happy to see that they had some solidarity and I reflected for a few moments on my grandfather who had passed away 3 years earlier. He was also a type 1 diabetic and so I have a special affinity for those people and can sort of understand the difficulties they have to deal with every day. There were also two women sitting together who did not speak to me and were sitting on the ledge. I sort of suspected that they were a lesbian couple, but wasn't ultimately sure. I probably ruined their alone time, as I stayed for the entire sunset. Here are some pictures I took from it and the subsequent moon rise:

This is kind of what the island I was on looked like too

Other pictures of sunset:

After watching the sunset, I walked along the beach a little bit. Had I visited the place earlier in the day, it would have been a neat place to swim. Instead it was just a nice walk.

I returned to Bodrum and went to a place that was open along the seaside for dinner. It was one of those little kumru sandwich places. When I sat down the waiter greeted me and I responded in Turkish. He immediately told me to hold on a sec and after 5 minutes, a man came up and asked me what I wanted in English. Apparently he had decided from my one word utterance that I was not a native Turkish speaker and that he would need someone else to take my order. This area was very popular for British tourists. Well the guy came up and asked me what I wanted. I said that I wanted a kumru sandwich but without pickles in Turkish. He responded in English, so you don't want pickles? I'm sitting here thinking to myself...no shithead...I just said that in Turkish just for the hell of it. So I merely said, come on man, I am just trying to practice my Turkish, give me a break. After I said that he was much better about responding in Turkish and I was able to order and ask for things throughout the evening in Turkish. I then retired to my room and slept for tomorrow I would be heading to Fethiye.

Day 7: Bodrum (July 5)

2010-09-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

I woke up in Pammukkale and took about a 4 hour bus ride back towards the coast and south to the city of Bodrum. I had heard of the city of Bodrum before from Melisa (yes that's with 1 s), the Jewish girl who worked in Bu Cafe who was going to travel with us on Spring Break but couldn't at the last minute. Since she couldn't go with us, she ended up spending her spring break here. It was a nice Mediterranean town on the coast, perfect for sunbathing and enjoying a week of vacation. Apparently it is also famous for having one of the loudest discos on the Mediterranean Sea.

I got off the bus and walked down towards the seaside. It was a sure bet that there were going to be places to stay. As I saw them, I found an alleyway back away from the season and found a place. After some haggling, I ended up staying there for something like 15 Lira per night. Considering this place was in Bodrum, that was a steal! It seemed like Besim's bargaining tricks were working out really well for me. Now I won't tell you the quality of the room I was in. Let's just say...it was a little rustic. No internet connection and worst of all...no air conditioner. At least I saved money though. After I put my stuff down, I went down to the seaside to walk around some. The place was very touristy and there were lots of shops and things. I also had decided on this trip that I wanted to go diving. There were a few dive boats on the water taking deposits for diving the following day. Unfortunately, a day trip cost 100TL. I decided that this could be a splurge for the trip. When would I have the opportunity to dive in Turkey again?

Then I went and found the Castle of St. Peter. This thing was spectacular. According to my guidebook, when Tamerlane invaded Anatolia in 1402 and threw the Ottomans off balance, the Knights Hospitaller captured Bodrum and built this castle. When I entered the castle, I went down a corridor under the crusaders coat of arms. The corridor then leads up into the main court, which is centered on an ancient mulberry tree. On the left hand side, there were exhibits of artifacts dating from the 14th Century and recovered from the waters around southwest Turkey.

I then went inside the chapel of the castle, wich contains a full-sized reconstruction of the back half of a 7th Century eastern Roman ship. You could even climb on it! After that I kept going to a glass shipwreck exhibit. In the castle I also saw the Snake Tower and the German Tower. Each were great vantage points to look out over both the town of Bodrum and the beautiful blue waters of the bay. Near the snake tower, I went down the stairs to see the dungeon. Over the top of the corridor were the words "Inde Deus abest," which means (where God does not exist). Knights were brought here to be confined and tortured from 1513 to 1523. It was a happy place as you can tell. I also went inside the English Tower, which was set up like a medieval dining room. On the walls were flags from both the Crusaders and the Ottomans. While in the room, one could sit and listen to the lovely music of Carmina Burana (even though the piece was written in the 1900s). I didn't get to go to the French Tower because it was closed. Overall, the castle was a really cool place to spend a few hours. I was amazed at howe well it was preserved and how it resembled the European castles you see in the movies.

After my tour of the castle, it was pretty late in the afternoon (maybe 6pm). I walked up the hill, hoping to go to the ancient Mausoleum. The Mausoleum was one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. Unfortunately, it was closed by the time I got there and would be closed all day the following day. Apparently, there wasn't that much left anyway, but it still would have been cool to see. I continued to walk up the hill from Bodrum until I got to an ancient theater. I couldn't go inside, but was able to snap some pictures from the outside.

Down the hill back towards the water I passed some of these circular stone buildings. Actually, they are all over the place here. Apparently, the stone buildings had the ability to turn salt water into fresh water. Ancient people would put water inside them for a year and then the water would be fresh. Personally, I don't understand the chemistry of it, but it apparently works. I guess these were some of the world's first desalinization plants!

I walked down to the coast and went to the shipyard, which was a museum to the shipyards that built Ottoman ships in the 1800s. The shipyard itself was fortified as a defense against pirates. This place was also a graveyard.

I then went back to town and walked along the shops to see everything and found an internet cafe to spend the evening. I am boring and wasn't really interested in checking out those crazy discos by myself. At the smoothie restaurant, which provided free internet to its customers, I met Oner. He was a nice guy and well-meaning, but he would not stop talking to me/asking questions of me for the life of it. I gave him my msn name (Turks love MSN) before I realized how annoying he was. That was a mistake and to this day he still tries to chat with me, though usually I don't respond.

I went to bed kind of early because I had to be up early for the diving trip the following day.

Day 6: Pamukkale/Hieropolis (July 4)

2010-09-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

I awoke a bit early, around 10am to start the day and explore fully Pamukkale. The place located about 20km north of Denizli and was actually quite a bit inland from the coast. The terrain had changed and become more mountainous. I didn't get a chance to see what the place looked like the night before because I had arrived so late. I began my walk towards Pamukkale and almost as soon as I walked on the main street of the hotel I was able to see it very clearly. Extending into the sky on the side of the mountain was a very white slope (no doubt where Pamukkale got it's name).

As you can see, it almost looked like the side of a ski slope, which is a pretty striking site in the summer. I found the entrance to the place (which was about a third of the way up) on the right side of the mountain (from the perspective of this picture). Pamukkale was formed when warm mineral water cascaded over the cliff edge. As the water cooled, it deposited calcium on the side of the mountain, turning it white. What a cool place!

As I started to walk up to the mountain, I got to the guard structure. They informed me that if I did not have a Muze kart, it would be 20TL. I thought to myself...20 TL! That's crazy for this place (most ruins cost between 5 and 15 TL to see). I think even the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was 15TL. Luckily, it didn't matter because I did have a muze kart. The guard looked at the card and looked at me for a long time. It was hard for him to believe that I was actually a Turkish student. I explained in my Turkish that I was an exchange student. After a good solid 30 seconds of looking between the card and my face, he decided to let me pass. Great success!

Not far beyond where the entrance was restricted, there was sign that indicated that shoes were not allowed on the rock from this point until the top (which was quite a ways). They believed that restricting shoes would help preserve the calcium deposits. I took off my shoes and put them into my backpack and began walking barefoot into the mineral pools. The water was almost a blueish white color. The bottom of the pools were covered by a soft calcium mud that felt soft against my feet. I had my camera in my hands so I had to be careful not to drop it. There were several pools, which were called travertines, that one needed to walk through to get to the top. The calcium covered pathway was about 250m to the top and the tiny sharp ridges that the calcium formed sometimes made it difficult for the feet.

There were also deposits that made the cotton ball parts of the cotton castles:

I feel like words don't really do this place justice when you see the pictures.

Here is another neat one of the travertines near the top.

When I got the top, you can see a picture of me with the pathway I came behind me. Its absolutely stunning!

At the very top you had to be careful because there was running water running down the rock and into the travertines (the same running water that formed them over these thousands of years and formed the stalagmites under the pools.

After about an hour's walk I had reached the top. At the top of the dramatic walk lies the ancient city of Hieropolis. The city was founded in 190 BC by Eumenes II, the king of Pergamu. The city was built because it was believed that the pools of calcium water would cure ailments. It had a large Jewish community and an early Byzantine church. It was eventually abandoned after several earthquakes hit the area (the last in 1334).

The ruins themselves were pretty extensive over a fairly wide area. I walked to the east and started at the city walls near the southern entrance. From there I walked to the city center. It contained many things that a typical Roman ruined city would contain.

One unique thing though was the Plutonium, which was dedicated to Pluto, god of the underworld. The spring gives off toxic vapors, lethal to all but the priests. The priests would demonstrate the power of the spring by throwing in small animals and birds and watching them die. It is now marked by a sign that says "toxic gas". The gas is still poisonous and there is a grate installed to prevent people from getting too close to the spring.

Up the hill from the plutonium is the magnificent Roman Theater, which was capable of seating more than 12,000 people. The theater was built in two stages by Hadrian and Septimus Severus. It is in remarkably good shape. While I was there, I met some lady from Miami, FL who had forgotten her camera. It was nice to talk to someone in English for a little while since I was all alone. I took a picture of her for her and promised to send it to her.

Outside of the top of the theater, I ended up speaking to these Turkish people who were locally from there. A relative of theirs was someone who was employed as a security guard for the park. I made some small talk with them and rested from walking around the place. Up the hill from here was the Martyrium of St Phillip the Apostle. It is believed that St. Phillip was martyred here.

I hiked on the hillside down to Frontius Street, which was the main street in Hieropolis. Several more ruins were here, such as bath houses, columns, and the famous Byzantine gate.

Pretty cool, huh?

At the end of Frontius Street, there was a building with two latrines cut into the bottom to carry away sewage. Outside of the northern gate was the necropolis. For quite a ways, several sets of mausoleums marked where people had died and been buried in this graveyard. They had small stone structures with carvings on top of them.

From there I walked around the town back towards where I had entered. On this part, I don't know what some of the older buildings were, but I thought the juxtaposition of the ruins within the white rock was a unique site. Here is a picture of it.

Here are a couple of other pictures from the place.

After that I sat on the bench for a little while, talked to Husniye on the phone, and enjoyed taking in the scenery. It was quite lovely.I then went into the museum that was on site and walked around in there for about 30 minutes or so, observing some of the cool things they excavated.

I then headed down and took a few more pictures of myself in the travertines. I really liked the travertines. :)

I walked around in the town below and found a place to eat dinner. Pamukkale is not really known for any Turkish dish as far as I knew so I just had a kebab.

I then returned to my hotel and sat in the deck out by the pool and talked to some guy for a little while. It was then that I realized that the entire day it had been July 4th and I had barely noticed. I happen to really like the 4th of July and watching the fireworks and it was strange to me not being at home to celebrate. This was the first July 4th that I had ever been outside of the country. I told the guy (I think he was British) that he should wish me a Happy July 4th! This guy had decided he liked Pamukkale so much that he was staying there at a discounted rate for an indefinite amount of time. I thought it was a bit strange since there was not a whole lot going on there.

The pool to the hotel was nice (all of the hotels here have pools because the water is siphoned into them from the spring at the nearby Pamukkale. Perhaps it was luxurious for him and that's why he was staying? Who knows! I don't remember what else we spoke about but soon after I retired to my room to get some rest before I would make the journey south on the bus to Bodrum.

Day 5: Izmir (July 3rd)

2010-09-04T11:44:00.000-07:00

Besim and I both understood that neither of us liked to get up early. He made it clear to me that I shouldn't wake him up (not that I would have done so anyway because I liked to sleep late too).

We woke up and Besim took me out into the city of Izmir. The city of Izmir is a large port for Turkey and Turkey's 3rd largest city. Historically, Izmir was the ancient city of Smyrna, which was the very same place that Homer lived. The city was destroyed in a fire in 1922, meaning that it basically consists of modern buildings. It has always been a very liberal city, at one point in history having more Christians and Jews than Muslims.

So we didn't end up leaving the apartment until around noon. We had lunch and then went for a walk. Besim was very interested in purchasing new sunglasses and so he dragged me to a couple of those stores (I wasn't really interested in it but since he was letting me stay with him and showing me around, I didn't say anything). After that we walked along the water front and took in the scenes there. We also walked to this open area along the water that looked more like Miami Beach than Turkey!

I also saw the famous clock tower of Izmir. Apparently it is one of those big landmarks that everyone sees and takes a picture in front of when they go. I suppose it would be the equivalent of the arches of St. Louis in the United States.

After our walk along the the water, we took the ferry to the other side of Izmir. Izmir is located on a big bay, so the city spans around the entire bay, making travel from one side to the other faster on ferry than on land. On the other side, we just planned to walk around (that's pretty much all we really did). When we crossed the ferry over (which was a really pretty ride), we began walking on the main street. A young kid came up to us, trying to advertise for this environmental cause. When Besim pretended not to understand Turkish, the kid started talking in English. Besim responded in Portuguese that he didn't understand English. The kid then responded in Portuguese that he only knew a little bit and something about helping or something. Besim was so impressed that the kid understood that he decided to give the kid a couple of minutes of his time to listen. The exchange was pretty humorous to me.

We then walked down another side street and Besim decided he was thirsty and wanted lemonade. I wanted one too. He told me to go walk away from the store so the store clerk did not see us together. He explained to me that if he saw a foreigner he might try to raise the price because foreigners don't know what the actual prices should be. I hadn't experienced that before (as far as I knew) and I wondered how many times it had happened to me without realizing it. I guess I couldn't complain too much because everything was still way cheaper than the US.

We walked around some more and then headed back to the other side of Izmir. Besim did provide me with one really good piece of advice. We started talking about the art of bargaining (which is huge in Turkey and the Middle East). I told him I wasn't really sure how to do it and he told me a technique that I didn't think of that would change my life for the rest of the time I was in Turkey. He told me that if I want to effectively negotiate, I should push them down as low as I can. Always let them offer prices (you don't want to show your cards and tell them where your basement is incase its too high). Then if the price isn't low enough, you leave. Generally, when someone leaves, they will find an equal or better price elsewhere (and would not return in either situation). For this reason, if the seller credibly believes that you are going to leave, he will give you his absolute lowest price. If its still too much, you can always leave and if you find its way better than anywhere else you can always come back and get the thing for the same price offered. There's definitely an art to it.

That evening I took a taxi back to the bus station and boarded a bus for Pammukale (which literally means cotton castle in Turkish). I had always wanted to go there ever since I saw the pictures. The ride was about 3 hours. When I arrived it was very late and I had to take a taxi to a hotel. With it being so late and dark and me not knowing where any other hotel was, I was not in a good place to practice my bargaining skills. I ended up paying 30TL for the room, which was actually not too terrible. The room had air conditioner, wireless internet, and a pool in the hotel. It was also quite comfortable. I retired to bed and went to sleep.

Day 4: Çeşme

2010-09-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

We woke up and had brunch and started for our next little exploration in Çeşme. We went to another place that was about a 10 minute walk from the house. I didn't catch the name of the place, but for some reason in the jetties there was a warm spring emptying into the Aegean. So a lot of people swim around this warm spring where the water mixes with the Aegean creating warmer water than the other areas around. As you can imagine this was a pretty popular swimming place.

After our swim, we walked back to the house and swam briefly in the beach right in front of their house, which was in actuality a pretty darn nice beach to live in front of. I certainly wouldn't have minded!

All in all it was a great visit and I had a great time. It was wonderful of them to give me such hospitality and to get that practice with my Turkish. While Naomi had been showing me a good time, Besim had completed his tour in Kuşadası and returned to Izmir. I would take a bus that evening and meet him there for a day. Naomi refused to let me pay for the bus and sent me on my way. On the bus, I ended up sitting in the front seat, giving me a bird's eye view of the short ride to Izmir.

When I arrived in Izmir, Besim did not pick me up at the bus terminal. Instead he told me to take a cab to his apartment. I didn't really want to take a cab (after my previous experiences, I think you all should know how I feel about them. The cab driver was actually pretty cool though. He was a Kurdish guy and was surprised to find out that I had traveled to some Kurdish places. We spent the 20 minute taxi ride learning Kurdish words, which I thought was fun. Unfortunately, I don't remember most of them now, "tav" = sun and spas = thank you. I think that might be the extent of my Kurdish knowledge at this point. :-/.

When I arrived, we took a walk and Besim showed me the area around his apartment. I got to see the main square of Izmir at night, which was cool. We also went out to dinner at a restaurant nearby. Then we came back home and went to sleep.

Day 3: Çeşme (July 1)

2010-09-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

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.

After a delicious breakfast, we would be off for our day's adventure. The one thing about Naomi was that she wouldn't let me help with anything. Repeatedly both before and after dinner I tried to offer to help prepare or clean up and she would have no part of it. The most I was allowed to do was to help set the table. She took the idea of Turkish hospitality to the same extreme that everyone else did. She is one of the sweetest people I met during my time in Turkey. Even though there was a severe language barrier between us, I could tell that she was a really nice, well-intentioned person.

After brunch, she asked me what sort of beach I would like (if I preferred shallowed or deep water). I told her I liked deep water and then we got in the car. I had no idea where we were going or what we would be doing. I understood that I needed to bring my bathing suit. First, she showed me this beach in Alaçatı called Sörf Cenneti (Surfer's Paradise). The beach was an inlet from the main portion of the Aegean and was famous for wind surfing. Apparently, the way the landscape was shaped caused it to be one of the windiest beaches in the world. People could come there and learn to wind surf and major competitions were held there. On the hills nearby, there were several windmills to create hydroelectricity. Here is a picture of the beach.

We sat at the restaurant along the beach and got a drink (I enjoyed a nice glass of ayran). We started to converse about our families. I used my Turkish-English dictionary and slowly was able to understand what she said and was able to articulate my thoughts. She told me about her grandchildren, who lived in the US. I felt bad for her in some ways because her grandkids do not know how to speak Turkish and she does not know how to speak English (but she wants to learn!). Imagine not being able to speak to your own grandmother/grandchildren. I told her a little bit about my family and the history with my mother. It is not a story I really like to tell, but I was really proud of myself for being able to convey the story in a way that Naomi could understand.

After our drink, we drove to this place called Paşa Limanı. The place was a natural deep water beach. There was some shallow rock with a steep drop off which allowed for a really nice place to swim without any sand. The water itself was a little chilly but overall quite refreshing. We spent the majority of the afternoon there. Naomi swam for a little while but brought a book to occupy her time. At one point, we had a bit of a language misunderstanding. I asked her if she was bored. "Sıkıldınız mı?" Unfortunately for me the difference between the pronunciation between "ı" and "i" is actually very small. So even though I asked if she was bored, it seemed to her as if I said "Sikildiniz mi?" which translates to, "Are you fucked?" She was quite shocked for a moment before I quickly tried to explain to her that it was a mistake. I think she understood and said no and went back to reading her book. Correct pronunciation actually matters in Turkish. :) Here are a few pictures of the beach we went to:

After the beach, we came home and had dinner and we went out again. We went down to the harbor of Çeşme. We walked along the coast and she pointed out the island of Chios right on the other side of the harbor. From Çeşme you can take ferries to several Greek islands as well as Italy. We also saw the outside of the Çeşme kalesi. I wanted to go inside, but the fortress was already closed for the evening. We sat down at a cafe near the water and had tea just in time to watch the sun go down. The sunset over the Aegean and the island of Chios was amazing. Here's one of several pictures I took:

.

It turns out that Naomi had actually brought me down there because there was a concert that was going on that night and she thought I might enjoy it. The main square got crowded and the concert was pretty cool. I appreciated her taking me down there. After the concert, we walked around and she showed me some nicer restaurants and shops near the Aegean Sea. We stopped for ice cream and I got a karadut (I love this stuff and they don't have it here as far as I know!). Naomi was really nice and she wouldn't let me help to pay for anything. I was really thankful for her kindness and hospitality. Also, I thought she was a really cool grandma! How many grandmas would take their kids to a concert AND to these awesome beaches. The best part was that she even swam with me (something my grandparents would never do). It was clear that she was really young and vivacious and just a fun person. It made me sad that her own grandkids couldn't see this that often. We went back home and after an exhausting evening, I went to sleep.

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

2010-08-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-17T22:40:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-13T16:35:00.001-07:00

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)

2010-08-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-10T22:28:00.001-07:00

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)

2010-08-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-09T00:31:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

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.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_npXKmJnH00s/SlNeUWB_5iI/AAAAAAAAC1s/xH2wrLWLnZU/s1600-h/IMG_0293.JPG

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)

2010-08-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

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.

The Journey to the Caucuses (June 11-12)

2010-07-31T01:32:00.000-07:00

I decided that there was no better way to celebrate finishing finals than another trip. During the planning for our Spring Break trip in Eastern Turkey, I had flirted with the idea of going to Georgia. We all really wanted to see it, but decided that we didn't really have enough time to make the trip worthwhile. However, with the end of finals and the extension of my plane ticket, I had plenty of time on my hands to see more places in the region.

I was happy to discover that another exchange student, Alex, was staying at Bogazici for summer classes and had some time off before the summer semester began. Alex was also interested in going to Georgia. We also thought we might try to travel to Armenia (time permitting).

Two days after finals (June 11th), we decided sort of spontaneously to head for Georgia. We boarded an afternoon bus that would take us to Trabzon and from there we would change to a bus bound for Tblisi. Originally, we looked for a bus that went directly to Tblisi, but it had already left. The total cost of the trip was only about 140 Lira one way (about 100 dollars). We weren't really sure how long the trip would take or anything and kinda decided to play things by ear or as Alex would like to say, "improvise." Actually that sort of became the theme of this trip (and I think his favorite word for the duration of it).

The trip to Trabzon was a solid 17 hours (we would arrive at around 7am the next morning). While waiting for the bus, I befriended a Turkish guy who was in the military and returning back to his home somewhere in the Black Sea region. He was a nice guy. Apparently, Alex was both pleased and annoyed at my ability to speak Turkish and claims that when he mentioned his annoyance (because he actually wanted to learn more Turkish and never got the opportunity to practice too much with me around) it only stroked my ego. He is probably right about that. :) After a long and relatively uneventful bus ride, we arrived early the next morning in Trabzon. We discovered immediately that a bus to Tblisi would arrive in about 30 minutes, giving us hardly any time to use the bathroom and adjust to being off of the bus.

Part two of our trip began around 8:30 and we were bound for Georgia. Near Rize, we stopped at one of the most disgusting bathrooms I think I have ever had to endure. It cost 75 kurus for the use of the bathroom plus 2 napkins (which is a big problem if number 2 is required). Let's just say...there's a reason you shake someone's right hand and not their left in these parts. I will spare you any more details and merely say that it was an unpleasant experience.

We boarded the bus and continued for a couple more hours before we finally reached the Sarp Border crossing in Georgia. This was the first time I had ever crossed a land border before. All of the other times I had experienced controlled border access was in an airport. The process was sheer insanity. By this time on the trip, we met an Asian American woman on our bus with a Georgian friend. This was actually kind of nice because we had the opportunity to speak English. Apparently, no matter where she travels she always carries around good ole American "Greenbacks," (aka US Dollars) because she believed that they were still taken in more places than the Euro. If she is right, she won't be for much longer.

In order to cross the border from Turkey to Georgia, it was necessary for everyone to stand in a long line outside in the heat to be seen by the border guard. This is what the scene looked like:

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As you can see, it was not pretty. Alex and I lucked out though. Instead of being forced to stand in the line from hell, the bus attendants motioned for us to get back on the bus. After all of the Georgian and Turkish occupants had left the bus, we were directed to the side of the building where a supervisor stamped our passports and allowed us entry (with the bus staff) into Georgia. We were allowed back on the bus to wait for the other passengers to complete the crossing. I must admit, I felt something like a VIP in a club at that moment. It is sometimes good to be an American.

It took about two hours for our companions to finish their crossing. We then left the area on a road along the Black Sea towards Batumi. As soon we crossed the border, the difference in prosperity between the two countries was noticeable. The roads on the Georgian side were in worse condition than the ones on the Turkish side. I also noticed that the gas station was quite a bit more rustic when we stopped. I had to take a picture of the gas pump because it was hard for me to believe. The gas pump featured a dial (like the older ones before digital tanks) to measure how much gas had been pumped. The arms of the dial rotated around like the hands on a clock. I honestly believed the gas tank resembled something that you would have seen in 1950 rather than 2010, which gives you an idea about just how rustic some parts of Georgia were.

We crossed into the city of Batumi, but did not stop for long. The place is revitalizing itself and has added casinos that are themed like Las Vegas casinos. I think when it comes to gambling that I still prefer Las Vegas.

After Batumi, the road turns inland to traverse through the center of Georgia, into Gori (the birthplace of Stalin), and then south into Tblisi. The journey from Batumi was only about 309 km (which is about 180 miles). The trip, which would only have taken 3 and a half hours on back roads in the United States took approximately 8 hours in Georgia due to bad road conditions and winding roads through the mountains.

The scenery on the way to Georgia was absolutely incredible! As we turned inland, there were flat lands at first, with abundant farmland. As we progressed, the terrain became more hilly and eventually we were in the mountains. By sunset, we were weaving through narrow valleys as we made our southward descent into Tblisi. We met some Swedish guys on the bus when we stopped for dinner at a random restaurant in Georgia. They spoke English, which made the trip on the bus go by a bit faster. Actually, in the restaurant they wanted me to translate for this Turkish guy because they wanted to ask him some questions (the Swedes were much more interested in the fact that I could help them ask Turkish people questions than they were in me). I also thought it was funny, considering how abysmal my Turkish was, that they were asking me to translate. I feel like I did ok, but there were definitely parts of the conversation I could not understand and did not translate. It was certainly a challenge for me, which was pretty cool.

We finally arrived in Tblisi at 10pm Georgia time (which is one hour ahead of Turkish time). After essentially 30 hours straight on the bus, I definitely did not want to see the inside of a bus any time soon. Although we had no way of knowing what time we would arrive when we started, this trip taught me that it is never a good idea to arrive in an unfamiliar city at night. We were originally trying to get all the way to Yerevan that day. However, when we arrived in Tblisi, the bus station was closed and the only people around were cab drivers. The guys in the cab told us that there was no bus to Yerevan and that the only way we would be able to get there is if one of them drove us for 100 USD. Obviously, he was full of shit and I knew better than that.

Alex and I ended up choosing the only cab driver that spoke a little English. We did not have a place to stay and the driver wanted to show us hotels. At first the cab driver tried to charge us $30 for the taxi ride! Luckily, Alex and I knew better than that and reluctantly accepted when he dropped the price to $10. It was still probably too much, but what could we do in our situation in an unfamiliar city by ourselves at night and not speaking the language? Alex was a douchetruck and made me sit up front with the taxi driver, who at that point, I did not trust for the life of me.

He drove around for quite a while before he found an internet cafe. I am not sure he actually knew where one was originally. The one good part about this is that we got to see a bit of the city. The amazing thing was the quality of the roads. Keep in mind that we are in the capital city of a country. One of the roads we went on had gravel and was incredibly bumpy (you couldnt drive more than 20 mph on it). It resembled one of those dirt roads that we have in rural America sometimes (like the ones in Nassau County, FL in some remote areas). We also passed George W. Bush Rd (which even had President Bush's picture on the sign)! I think Georgia is one of the two countries that actually liked Bush because we protected them from Russia in the 2008 war over South Ossetia.

The internet cafe was in a fairly sketchy looking part of town. I felt uncomfortable and it was clear that we were in a seedy area. We got on the internet, searched, and found a hostel called the Green Stairs. Afterwards we got back in the taxi and headed towards it. The driver tried to get us to stop in at other hotels along the way, but we decided that we were going to our economy priced hostel whether he liked it or not. I also think his desire to pawn us off stemmed from the fact that he could not find the place at first and we were costing him more money than he thought we would. He eventually did find the place and we exited. He demanded that we pay him a higher price than we previously agreed upon before we left the internet cafe site. I was not going to budge on this one and told him we would only pay what we agreed on and nothing more. He took the money unhappily. He also gave us his card and informed us that he would be happy to give us a tour around the city to major sites in Tblisi (for a fee I'm sure!). Now, I know Americans can be stupid, but does this dumbshit really think we are so stupid that we would call him after he already tried to screw us twice? (I imagine we were still somewhat screwed and probably gave him above the market rate for a taxi ride like the one we took). Anyways, luckily, I was not that dumb. I did decide to write his number down to make him think we were considering his request (I didn't want him to think otherwise because we were still kind of vulnerable to him at the time.

We left the car and knocked on the door of the Green Stairs. The owner spoke English, thankfully, and we requested a room for the two of us. Unfortunately, we discovered that there was no vacancy at the Green Stairs. It was the cheapest place we could find online and it definitely looked the part. The guy did say that he had two cots that he could pull out and we could sleep in the room at the bottom of the stairs. We wouldn't have any privacy but at least we would have a place to sleep. It was 11pm and we were exhausted from our trip so we decided to accept. Actually, he told us that since we did not have a private room, he wasn't going to charge us for spending the night there. It was incredibly nice of him and we were grateful.

Just as we were getting settled in, Alex made a troubling discovery. His digital camera was missing. He accidentally left it in the back of the taxi. Understandably, Alex really wanted his camera back so he could remember the trip we had taken. If the cab driver was trying to make off with the camera, he did a stupid thing by giving us his phone number. At any rate, we told the owner of the Green Stairs and he promptly called the Georgian police. I waited inside while Alex went outside to speak to the policeman.

After about 20 minutes, the police arrived. Although there had previously been no answer on the taxi cab's phone, when the police called him they were able to get through. The police were able to intimidate the driver into returning with the camera for Alex. Apparently, Alex and the police had an interesting conversation. The Georgian police officer had an American accent. The officer told Alex that after the Russian invasion in 2008, the Americans had offered support and training to Georgian military and police officers. Many of them had apparently trained in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They also talked about Georgia's position of preventing Russia from maintaining an oil monopoly in the area (pipelines go through Georgia and Turkey to give European markets access to Azeri oil in the Caspian Sea). Many believe that one of Russia's objectives in the war was to destroy the oil pipelines in order to maintain its natural resource monopoly. We had learned a lot about this in my EU Relations with Russia and CIS countries class I took the previous semester. The Georgian police officer, Goga, also explained that the reason relations between Armenia and Turkey are still so bad is because they want to remain on good terms with Azerbaijan because they are reaping profits from the pipeline that goes through Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea. The policeman also talked about his love for George Bush and his dislike for Mikhail Saakashvili (current President of Georgia). I learned about all of this second-hand from Alex, but it was interesting to hear the opinions of the average Georgian on many key global and political issues.

The taxi driver eventually did come and demanded 15 Lari ($10) as compensation for returning with the camera. The police officer apparently told the taxi driver that 5 lari would be enough for the trip (I think the policeman understood that the cab driver had been screwing us). Goga gave Alex his number and said that if we needed anything while in Georgia not to hesitate to give him a call. He was a really nice guy. Alex returned and we went to sleep on those uncomfortable cots. It was hot, even with the fan in the room, but we had arrived in the former Soviet Union.

Finals at Boğaziçi

2010-07-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Taking final exams at Boğaziçi was an experience in itself. I knew that because I was in Europe, I would have to get used to a different way of doing things. I also realized that grade inflation in the US is rampant and that the exams in Turkey would probably be more difficult. I just wasn't exactly sure what to expect.

My Turkish exam was a joke. I finished it in about an hour and apparently made a 98 on it. I think she could have made it a lot harder but chose not to do so because many of the students didn't care whether they learned much Turkish or not. Many took the course because it was required.

My international law exam was challenging, but not impossible. The exam was taught by an American professor who teaches at American University Law School. It was also a good taste of what law school exams would be like. Basically the exam featured two hypotheticals where we had to analyze and explain two distinct legal issues in international law. We had to pretend as if we were the legal advisor to the chief of state as to whether or not we should recognize a country and what legal issues surround it.

Things started to go poorly with my next exam, Contemporary Political Economy of Turkey. I wish I remembered more about the exam (I am writing this post a year later). Needless to say, it was hard. The questions were so far out in left field from anything we read or discussed in the class. I basically felt as if I was writing for the sake of writing, hoping that if I wrote down enough stuff I would get credit for something. The exam was only supposed to take two hours. However, I think for short answers, 3 short essays and 2 long essays, 2 hours was a completely unreasonable expectation. I felt especially sorry for the majority of the class who did not speak English as their native language. Even for me, it was one of the hardest exams I ever took. Unfortunately, I didn't do that great either. I think my final exam grade was a 72 or so, which is probably the worst final exam grade I have ever earned. The others did not do much better from what they said. Basically the exam was brutal to the point where I felt it was not a fair exam.

The other exam that did not go well was my Turkish Politics Exam. This exam I can explain to you in more detail than the others due to the sheer ridiculousness of it. To this day, thinking about it still makes me angry (and that's saying something!). So before the exam, the professor told us that we would have 12 short to medium answer questions (6 coming from lecture and 6 coming from the reading). The format seemed reasonable and I wasn't too worried. This was also my last exam, so as you can imagine, I was looking forward to finishing it and putting the semester's work behind me.

I sat towards the back of the exam room. As the exam was being handed out, you could hear people gasping (this is never a good sign for an exam). I thought to myself, how bad can this be? It's only supposed to be a 200 level class. I received my exam and immediately understood why the others were so horrified. Instead of the expected short essay questions, there were three sections to the exam. The first section listed all of the election years in Turkish History from 1950 to 2007. The top of the paper asked us to identify the party that won the elections (which is a fairly reasonable request) and then to indicate the percentage by which they won the votes (as in 40% +, 30-40%, 20-30%, or less than 20%). That was the part that was quite a bit less reasonable in my opinion. Imagine having studied concepts and main ideas from Turkish politics and then receiving an exam like THAT. As if section 1 wasn't bad enough, section 2 was worse! A list of dates were given and we were asked to identify what major event in Turkish politics occurred on that date. Now this would be fairly simple if there were say 5-10 blanks reserved for major events. However, instead there were about 30 blanks and the distance between dates were something like April 1960, June 1960, December 1960. How the hell are we supposed to know what happened in such specific instructions?

The third section was reasonable and was the short essay question we had expected for the other two sections.

So why would a professor lie to us about the format of the test? I have a theory about it actually. From what many students have said, Professor Yilmaz is supposedly quite lazy. We also had a major group project (complete with a major paper). It was curious that all of my group members received the exact same final grade in the course (also apparently people in other groups did as well). He also allegedly does not like to give out many AAs (the equivalent of an A here in the US). I believe he only graded the projects and drafted a ridiculously hard exam in order to prevent any students from questioning their grade. I mean if the exam is so hard that everyone thinks they failed (and the exam is 50%), if they get a B, no one is going to say anything to the professor. He also asked for our projects to have the transcript of all interviews and a release form to be used for other studies by Bogazici professors. Is it possible that we were essentially doing his research for him through our projects? I will never know the answer to that for certain, but I really do believe he wrote an impossible exam in order to justify not having to read them (admittedly, grading 120 exams is a lot).

So despite my ups and downs my final results for my courses were decent overall.

Turkish Language AA (Equivalent to an A here in the US)
International Law AA
Contemporary Issues in World Politics AA
Contemporary Political Economy of Turkey BA (Equivalent to an A- here) (I would also admit that there was a nice little curve to help me there)
Turkish Politics BA

Although my grades abroad were the lowest of my entire 4 years at Emory, I was satisfied overall. The classes in Turkey were on the whole more difficult AND I definitely played/traveled more than I would during an average semester in the US. So ends the study part of my study abroad adventure.

I decided to extend my stay through the summer, rescheduling my flight to return on July 31st instead of mid June.

The trip in the middle of finals - Day 4-5: Budapest

2010-07-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

I woke up in Vienna and went to the train station to travel back to Budapest. I suppose the story of how I made it make to Budapest foreshadowed the rest of my trip there. I boarded the train for Bratislav and we departed East. When the conductor came to check my ticket, he looked at me with a straight face and informed me that I was on the wrong train. I laughed, thinking he was joking (you know how sometimes people will see someone foreign and joke about something like that). He did not laugh and I said, "you're kidding right." He said he wasn't. Apparently, Bratislav is a different place than Bratislava. As a non-native German speaker, I assumed that since the city names were in German, that Bratislav was just the German name for Bratislava (just like Wein is Vienna in German). I asked him if it was possible for me to get off the train (since we were undoubtedly still in the suburbs of Vienna). He told me that it was an express train and that was not possible. I was to get off at the next station, about an hour to an hour and a half away and would have to find my way from there.

I left the train at a place called Breclav. I had crossed from Austria into the Czech Republic. Luckily, I was on the same train line as Bratislava and only had to wait about an hour or so for the Prague-Budapest train. I boarded the train and arrived in Budapest three hours later.

I went to the hostel and put my stuff down and went out to explore. The Danube River divides Budapest into Buda and Pest, which have since merged to form the city Budapest. I decided to explore Buda first. From my hostel the walk was probably about a mile to the river and I crossed the bridge. My first stop was the largest hill in Buda. At the top of a steep and tiring climb is a statue. It is to the left of the Buda Castle when looking at the river. At the foot of the hill, I encounter some gypsies. I ended up getting robbed. I won't go into detail about how it happened exactly because it is an aspect of the trip I would like to forget. Upon visiting the ATM, and getting awat from these gypsies. I climbed the steep hill to sulk angrily about what had happened.

I stopped about halfway up and started talking to this girl who was also alone. I can't remember her name (which is actually kind of sad) but she had an interesting story to tell. She was originally Russian but had moved to Australia and gotten Australian citizenship (her English accent was also Australian). She was doing what many Australians have done and decided to travel around the world. I told her about the incident and asked her if she wanted to hang out. Truthfully, I was getting tired of traveling alone and with the incident that occurred, I especially did not want to be alone. She was also alone and agree to hang out. She was going to be in Budapest for a few days at least before she made her way to her next stop. From what I understood, she was spending a little bit of extra time in Eastern Europe because it was cheaper and she had to take care of something at the Russian consulate.

At any rate, she told me that she didn't want to climb to the top so that I should go check it out and come back down when I was finished. The hill was the highest in Budapest and you could see the bridges that cross the Danube and the rest of the city perfectly and it was absolutely beautiful (see my Budapest pictures). I climbed down the hill and found my new friend (I forgot her name unfortunately).

We walked together along the river and made our way to Fisherman's Bastion. It was a reconstruction of a fortress that was pretty much destroyed in WWII. The Fisherman's Bastion has 7 towers that represent the 7 Magyar tribes that settled in the area in the late 800's. After hanging out there for a little while, we continued up Castle Hill to the famous Buda Castle. The castle was a very ornate structure, but unfortunately we could not go inside. There was some sort of art gallery there but we weren't too interested. We walked around the top of the hill looking at the statues and enjoying the park. At some point, she needed to go to the bathroom and I decided I would walk around a bit more up there and we would meet back at a meeting point in 15-20 minutes. When I returned to the meeting place, my new friend wasn't there. I decided to wait for her for some time. The sun was setting on the other side of Castle Hill and I took pictures of it. Because I was in one of the highest points of Buda (I believe it was technically the 2nd highest), it made for a great view. Unfortunately, my new found friend never returned. I stuck around the castle and took some night photos of the area and then made my way back to my hostel around 10pm. There was also some sort of labyrinth on the guide map that I really wanted to see, but I walked all around the area and could never find it.

Day 5: Budapest

The next day, I had decided that I would explore Pest. Pest had a lot neat historical places to see. One of the most interesting areas was the Jewish Quarter and the synagogue. The synagogue in Pest is supposedly a great place to see. I woke up around 9am, hoping that I would be allowed in for the 2nd part of services (this was a Saturday morning) to see the interior. Unfortunately, when I arrived, the metal detectors were off and no one was outside. The synagogue was locked up tighter than Ft. Knox. So instead I just walked around the Jewish Quarter a bit. I was a bit disappointed. I decided to backtrack to a place near my hostel where the Budapest Holocaust museum was located.

The museum was open and I went inside. I will say that this museum was one of the better Holocaust museums I've seen and I thought it was really well done. It was neat how the museum was specifically about the Jews and what happened in Hungary rather than the entire Holocaust in general. After I spent a couple of hours there, I walked over to the Parliament building. As if I hadn't been disappointed enough with the synagogue and the robbery, I discovered (contrary to what Brooks and Tyler told me) that I did need an appointment for a Parliament tour and that the tours were sold out when I got there. Just as I did with the synagogue, I admired the Hungarian Parliament from the outside.

I decided to move on and went to St. Stephens Basilica. It was a nice, typical European church. The one cool thing was that you could pay a couple hundred Hungarian Forint to climb to the top of the church and see all of Budapest from the Buda side. The inside of the church was really pretty just like any other European church.

After the church, I made my way to Heroes' Square at the edge of City Park. In the center of the square is the Millennium Monument to commemorate the Hungarians living there for a millennium (hence the name). I also walked around the city park (which had some sort of festival going on and there was even a medieval looking castle inside). After the park, I went to one of the city's islands (Margaret Island) which is covered with parks. I decided to sit in the grass, relax and enjoy the view before I ended the day.

I finished by heading over to get some pizza across from the city market (which was also closed for the day by the time I got there). The pizza and beer was good (Hungary has some really cheap beer!). Overall, I thought Hungary and Budapest was beautiful with a lot to offer. Unfortunately, my experience wasn't that good because I was robbed and I missed out on some of the highlights. I hope one day to return to Budapest and tour it properly. All in all, it was a nice introduction to Eastern Europe and I hope it will not be my last trip there.

The trip in the middle of finals - Day 3: Vienna

2010-07-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

The next morning I took the train from Bratislava to Vienna. It only took about an hour to get to Sudbanhof (the south train station). I entered the Vienna subway system and made my way to my hostel. It was the most expensive hostel ever (about 25 euro for a night). I looked for cheaper but there wasn't really any. On top of that, you had to pay 5 euro for blankets. That was annoying. I couldn't check in to my room, but they were willing to hold my stuff while I explored the city.

The city of Vienna is definitely a top European destination. Luckily, I already had an itinerary of exactly what I wanted to see while I was there. Dr. Karnes, my music history professor, typed out a whole description of exactly what I should do with only 1 day in Vienna. Because he had been there about a thousand times, I just decided to follow his itinerary with only minimal adjustments.

I started just as Dr. Karnes suggested in the center of town. My first stop was St. Stephens Cathedral (Stephansdom). The cathedral was magnificent (just as one would expect of any church of Europe). Haydn was a choirboy here; Mozart's Requiem premiered here. The inside was beautiful, with statues, paintings, and stained glassed windows. The size of these European churches never ceases to amaze me. I also walked downstairs to the crypt portion, where many prominent church officials had been buried.

After enjoying my time in the cathedral, I took a detour from Dr. Karnes' suggestions. According to the map, we were very close to Mozart's apartment in Vienna. The place had been converted into a museum tributing Mozart and his accomplishments. I decided it was worth a detour. The price to go inside was a a ridiculous 10 euro. I thought to myself, "this museum had better be good..." Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed. It did show the rooms where he lived and some information about his life as a composer but honestly it wasn't anything I didn't already know from the history books. I suppose this is why Dr. Karnes had not recommended it in his list of suggestions.

I returned to the street and headed down Graben St. and Kohlmarkt. I don't remember much about the walk (I am writing this entry a year later) but there was a fountain in the middle of Graben and it was a nice little walk to take even though there wasn't anything specific to see. The end of Kohlmarkt St. took me face to face with the Hapsburg Palace! The Hapsburgs, as many of you know, were at one point one of the most prominent royal families in Europe. Even though Karnes didn't suggest it, I could not help but take the tour. I knew it would be a long tour so I decided to go to lunch first and then return for the tour.

For lunch, I went to a Würstelstand which was located in front of the Albertina. I had been instructed to order a "Waldvierteler" and ein Glas Bier. I was assured that I would not be disappointed and indeed I was not. Although it cost 6 euros (not so cheap for street food), it was probably better than much of what I could find in a restaurant. I was being treated to the two things German-speaking countries are best known for: pork (in the form of sausage or weinershnitzel) and beer. Both were top quality at this place and I enjoyed my lunch.

I returned to the Hapsburg Palace to take a self-guided tour. The tour was long and took well over 2 hours to complete. However, it covered a lot, taking me from all of the dishware used in the palace to the quarters of Sissy (one of the last famous Hapsburgs to live there). It was a great tour with a lot of information. Throughout the tour, my legs were sore from walking and standing so long and I had to sit down several times. I would compare the tour through the Hapsburg palace to the tour I took of Buckingham Palace. Both were great and allowed you to see a lot about the lives of the people who lived there.

Afterwards, I proceeded to the Opera House, where Mahler conducted from 1897-1907 and where Richard Strauss conducted for a short time. Unfortunately, there was no way for me to go inside. I decided to keep walking and head to the Museums Quarter. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, the museums were closing for the day and I wouldn't be able to go inside and look at the exhibits. Instead, I decided to walk over to see the Parliament building. I knew I wouldn't be able to get inside, but at least I would get to see the outside and say I was there. It had a nice fountain out in front of it. After that, I walked to a park and relaxed for a little as it grew later.

I then decided that I was tired and it was time to return to the hostel. Before I would return, the nerd in me took over and I decided that I couldn't leave Vienna without seeing the United Nation's building. Vienna is home to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA is responsible for many things, including reporting the nuclear activities of countries that have nuclear power. I had read several articles and documents concerning the IAEA during my internship at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies the previous summer in Monterey, CA. I couldn't resist the temptation to take the subway across the river to see the building first-hand.

I arrived at the IAEA headquarters (just outside of all of the security stuff of course). A man walked over to me and asked me to identify myself and to give him my passport. I didn't think about it at the time, but realized that taking random pictures of the UN building could look very bad. I suppose the guy thought I could be a terrorist or someone planning an attack and wanted to confirm that I was not. He walked away with the passport, studied it for a minute or so and gave it back to me. At that point, I had decided that I probably had enough pictures and it was my time to leave.

I returned to the hostel to find that I did not have a roommate for the evening. That was a nice surprise. I went to sleep early because I was so tired from walking around all day.

The trip in the middle of finals - Day 1-2: Slovakia

2010-06-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

June had arrived and with it the end of my classes at Bogazici University. Of course there were still final exams to take, but let us not forget that I am a carefree exchange student (except for the fact that my grades actually count unlike most of the exchange students).

The final exam period at Bogazici is much longer than the exam period I was used to at Emory. Instead of only a week, the exam period lasts for two weeks. This can be both good and bad depending on how your exams are distributed. I would say that for me it was mostly good. The first three days of the exam period, I had three exams: Turkish language, EU Relations with Russia, and International Law. With the exception of International Law, my easiest exams were first. This was good because I got those out of the way early without having to stress too much. Then, my final two exams (Political Economy of Turkey and Turkish Politics). Political Econ is probably one of the hardest classes I've ever taken anywhere...so I expected that one to be ugly. The professor of Turkish politics is so lazy that I didn't know what to expect from his exam. Since these exams were at the very end of the exam period, I functionally had about 10 days off with nothing to do.

Certainly, I wasn't going to waste those and so with the suggestion of Brooks and Tyler (two exchange student friends I made over the semester), I decided to find a flight to Budapest. From there, I would meet them and we would travel to Bratislava. I decided after that that I would spend a day in Vienna (the Music major in me could not pass up the opportunity of traveling to one of the music capitals of the world when I was only 40 miles away!).

So there was the idea. I got on a Malev Hungarian flight to Budapest from Istanbul (round trip only $200) which I thought was an incredibly good deal. I met up with Brooks and Tyler at the hostel and we went out for a traditional hungarian meal. I took pictures but couldn't tell you what it was. It was some sort of red meat dish and it was delicious. There was also yogurt involved and some sort of pasta-like dish. I also had a local beer (which by the way only costs about $2 in Hungary).

Brooks, Tyler, and I went back to the hostel and went to bed early since we had an early train the next morning. We took the train for 3 hours and finally arrived in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Once we got off the train, we made our way to a hostel to put our stuff down and explore Slovakia. We then began walking. We didn't really have a plan...we were just hoping to see cool stuff. We walked across the river under the famous futuristic disk thingy that people associate with Bratislava. One thing I did notice as I was walking across the river was the remnants of the old communist apartment buildings. They were not nearly a pronounced as they were in say Armenia or Georgia, but it was still an interesting reminder that only 20 years earlier the entirety of eastern Europe was under communist rule.

We walked to a castle (another famous landmark in Bratislava) but unfortunately we couldn't tour the structure because it was under construction/renovation. It was nice just to walk around. Walking over the Danube River, you could see a good portion of Bratislava. We then walked down a hill near the river to a main courtyard. It looked as if the area had been especially made for walking. We knew we were in the center of town because we were close to the American Embassy. It was funny to compare the American Embassy to the other embassies in Bratislava. The others looked like normal buildings, but the American one was equipped wiht metal detectors and intense equipment to keep out unwanted visitors. I was surprised because I didn't think Slovakia was known to harvest people hostile to the United States but I guess with embassies abroad the US can never be too careful.

We walked around for a bit and then decided to have lunch. Unfortunately, everything in this area was going to set us back at least 10 euros. Oh well, at least the hostel was cheap.

After lunch, we continued walking and saw some neat buildings (including the famous opera house). I definitely took some cool pictures. We also went inside a church (not that going inside a church in Europe is all that surprising). We finished off by randomly stumbling across the Jewish museum. We spent about an hour going through it and seeing Jewish items from this area. They had everything from prayer shawls to menorahs to yads and it was all very ornate.

After the Jewish museum, we walked back to the Bratislava castle and took pictures and admired the view. It was situated on the highest hill in Bratislava and allowed us to see the entire city. We then made our way to a restaurant to meet with a family friend of Brooks'. Doug and his wife had been doing missionary work in Slovakia for the last few years and had been living here. Doug was religious but a really nice guy. He suggested some authentic Slovakian cuisine for us to try (it was some sort of pasta in yogurt with meat on top) and he also suggested some Slovakian beers for us. At the end of the day, we wandered back to the hostel and went to sleep. At this point, Brooks and Tyler left me to return back to Hungary and to Turkey. I decided to take an extra day on my little excursion to head to Vienna since I was so close!

The Metrobus

2010-06-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

I wanted to take this opportunity to write about another amazing aspect of Istanbul: the Metrobus. When I refer to the Metrobus, I am not talking about the busses that stop every few minutes along the streets. Instead, I am talking about an express bus that can take you across the city in about 45 minutes -- truly remarkable. For most of you, this does not seem that remarkable because you are used to the ease of transportation in a car in the United States, so I should qualify this statement by saying it is truly remarkable for Istanbul.

It took me about 45 minutes on the normal bus to get to Taksim Square, which is only a few kilometers from my apartment. The metrobus is a project of the AKP Government and is able to bypass traffic. This is a huge asset in a city of 18 million. On the 2nd outer loop of the interstate (and now it goes over the Bosphorus Bridge as well) 2 center lanes were built on the limited access highway that goes through parts of Istanbul. In the center of these lanes, there is a bus stop every few kilometers where people can get on and off and walk on a bridge over the interstate to either side and catch a local bus. Because the only vehicles permitted to travel in these two center lanes (and they are completely blocked from the main traffic), the buses never experience any traffic. Between stops they travel 60-80km/hr, which is generally faster than the cars on the interstate due to traffic.

Observing and using the Metrobus makes me wonder if the Turks got it right in some aspect of public transit. All of the facts and figures in the US indicate that to built rail lines (like new MARTA lines in Atlanta) it would cost a million dollars a mile (or some close astronomical figure). In Atlanta, there wouldnt be as much of a need for this sort of metrobus system because MARTA already follows the interstate, performing the same function (but maybe on I-75 north of the split with 85 or 285 it could be useful). It's hard to compare Istanbul with American cities because its much more compact and everything is much closer together (though it takes twice as long to get everywhere). Perhaps it would be a more viable solution in places like LA.

The conditions of the metrobus were nice and they ran rather frequently (unless you're taking 1 at 2am in the morning). All in all I thought it was a really cool thing to see and thought it was worth a posting (but that might have something to do with my weird fascination for interstates and limited access highways). If you ever find yourself in Istanbul, it might save some time if you take the metrobus (especially now that they have expanded service across the Bosphorus) or you can always take a ferry.

The Saturday Markets

2010-06-07T06:53:00.000-07:00

In my little neighborhood of Rumeli Hisarustu, far from the city center, they have a really neat thing they do on Saturdays. From 10am-6pm, they have the neighborhood market. I had taken advantage of the neighborhood market sporadically throughout the semester (some weeks more than others) but don't think I ever really wrote about it. To me, the markets were a pretty cool concept (much like a Farmer's Market you would see in the US).

These markets were, of course, slightly different, selling Turkish foods and produce. The market was set up about a 5 minute walk from my apartment along the main road north. Every Saturday, the sellers would set up big white tents covering the area. I really liked the markets for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was without a doubt the best place to buy fresh produce. I am pretty sure this stuff came straight from the farms to our neighborhood. I suppose that in itself is not overly surprising or impressive considering the same thing happens with markets here in the United States too (they are just fewer and further between).

I walked down the streets to find any sort of produce imagineable. They had fresh broccoli, fresh peaches, potatoes, lemons, etc. The best part was the price (my 2nd reason for loving these little markets)! 4 Lemons for 1 TL and 3 TL for a kilo of potatoes was pretty much the norm. They also sold all sorts of authentic cheeses (but I wouldn't touch the cheese in an outdoor market because I am superstitious). They even had freshly caught fish, laundry detergent, toilet paper, and clothes.

I think the diversity of items beyond the produce (which is typically what one would expect at a farmer's market) is what surprised me most. On some Saturdays I would go and buy what we needed for the apartment and come back with bags full of things for only 10 or 20 Lira. It was out of control! They even had "Turkish bananas" which were like the South American ones but smaller and different. I really did enjoy going to the fresh markets and it was another of the aspects of life in Istanbul that I will miss.