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!
Monday, August 9, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
A Day in Yerevan (June 14th)
A knock at the door came very early. Although we thought we had agreed upon 9am, our host knocked on our door and awakened us at a very early 8am. We gathered our things and took our stuff to the hotel. I was very thankful that the new hotel had a shower, as it had been a couple of days since I had taken one. The water was even warm. Alex and I decided that we would probably have time to see a couple of places outside of Armenia: Echmiadzin and Garni.
We decided to go to Echmiadzin first. I researched the appropriate bus numbers from the French people's guidebook and we were on our way. We decided to stop off at a place near the city center to get something to eat. We chose a relatively nice restaurant, which had the benefit of the waitress speaking English and free wifi. :) We also stopped and snapped a couple of pictures of statues on the way to the center of the city. Then we walked through Republican Square, which was a beautiful circle in the exact center of Yerevan. The buildings had been re-gentrified with new architecture. The architechture was a combination of Russian and Armenian influence from what I can tell. It seems that the new city center was indicative of the new direction of Armenia after the fall of the Soviet Union. I imagine that if I returned in 30 years, I wouldn't recognize it (and I hope I have the opportunity to do so!).
So after our walk through the city center and our breakfast/lunch, we took the bus to Echmiadzin, which was a short ride away. Echmiadzin is essentially the Vatican City for the Armenian church. The holiest Armenian church is located here and we thought it would be a pretty neat place to check out. We weren't disappointed.
In the first church we entered, which was the St. Gayane Monestary built in 630AD and restored in 1652AD, we stumbled upon an Armenian wedding. The church is typically open to tourists and there was no sign indicating that it was closed for a wedding ceremony. Alex was uneasy about going inside, but I thought it was no big deal and might actually be cool to see! The couple was no older than 18 and the wedding ceremony was beautiful. The setting of this church added to the beauty. From what I could tell and what Alex said, the ceremony had similarities to both other Christian sects and Islamic weddings. The church itself was filled with paintings and symbolism. Outside of the wedding, there was a cage full of white doves to be released upon the completion of the ceremony. I think I would like white doves at my wedding.
Anyways, just before the wedding had finished, we decided to wander outside of the church to the main portion of the church area. The largest of the churches was the Echmiadzin Cathedral. This cathedral was built in between the years 301 and 303 AD by St. Gregory the Illuminator. It is one of the oldest churches in the world and the oldest that was built by a state. The building featured the traditional round dome of Armenian architecture with stone and marble on the inside. It also had a large collection of beautiful artwork. It was both similar and different to the many churches one would find in Europe.
When one leaves a church in Armenia (also in Georgia), it is considered disrespectful to turn your back towards the alter. So traditionally one must walk out of the church backwards and illustrate a cross in front of your torso (kind of like the catholic cross before eating). In front of the church was a nice green courtyard with greenery and fountains. Although Lonely Planet advised us not to drink the water, we did anyway.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs9Y8o_IW7TOSozpL5j3S8tXHOPxFk0TM2elhcRyHc_8kMoItiV_0G1g5S7ONtYGZXaSSS3DphokoYNdm4wZhcTXPowt6E12OBg-20Prhp8ybo9fJ-vLVo20EWGIyo370XvSxdctkLns/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
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.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs9Y8o_IW7TOSozpL5j3S8tXHOPxFk0TM2elhcRyHc_8kMoItiV_0G1g5S7ONtYGZXaSSS3DphokoYNdm4wZhcTXPowt6E12OBg-20Prhp8ybo9fJ-vLVo20EWGIyo370XvSxdctkLns/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
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The Journey to Yerevan (June 13th)
After a somewhat refreshing sleep, we were ready to make our way to Armenia. We would then back track into Tblisi and spend a couple of days there before finally returning to Turkey. The Green Stairs had a community bathroom at our disposal. Alex took a shower and discovered that there was no hot water. I tried to take a shower, but the water was too cold for me to handle. We were told that the closest place with an internet connection was a McDonalds down the street. We were off to research a route to Yerevan that was cheaper than $100.
We ordered McDonalds and I researched ways to get to Armenia. I discovered that we could take a bus, a train, or a dolmus. The website indicated that the dolmus would be the fastest route (and I needed to be back to Istanbul to meet my family by the 19th of June). The bad news was that the dolmus (minibus) left within the hour, giving us not much time to find the place and get a seat on the bus. We crossed the street and took the subway to the nearest terminal.
After getting off the subway, we were directly across the street from the terminal where dolmuses were leaving to Yerevan and other areas in Georgia. The terminal looked like something straight out of a movie. If you asked me what the most stereotypical piece of Soviet architecture I have ever seen was, my answer would easily be the terminal station. Looking at the building, I could almost feel the repression that was the Soviet Union.
We found the right dolmus and were able to get a seat with 15 minutes to spare. I was glad I remembered to buy water for the trip at that time because we definitely needed it. The bus ride was going to take another 6-7 hours because the route to Yerevan took us straight through the Lesser Caucasus Mountains.
After a couple of hours on the bus, we arrived at the Georgia-Armenia border. When I visited the exit officials in Georgia, their eyes lit up when they saw my passport. They said, "oh! American!! We love Americans!" This was a very surprising reaction to me because the majority of people are either neutral towards Americans or don't like them too much. Even more hilarious to me was that after they were excited about us being American, they said yeah!! George Bush!!" I knew because of the war and from our Georgian police officer friend that Georgians already liked Bush a lot. So I decided to do a little test. Usually when you meet people that don't know any English and are border guards, they will say, "Obama!!" when they understand that you're an American. So I said to them, "What do you think about Obama?" They shook their heads disapprovingly and made sounds of disgust. Then, I said, what about McCain? They responded with enthusiasm, "Yeah!! McCain!" (in the same way they responded towards Bush). It was all very comedic for me.
On the border between Armenia and Georgia, they require everyone to leave the van with their belongings inside while the vehicle is searched. You are required to walk across the border (good thing I am not disabled or anything). In this part of the world, very few accommodations seem to be in place for older or disabled people. I wonder how difficult life is for them living here. I took my camera, thinking it would be a neat opportunity to snap some pictures as I crossed the border. There was even a sign that said "Georgia." I was excited because lets be honest, how often do you ever get the chance to take a picture in front of a sign that marks a border between two countries (ok maybe a bit more often if you live in Michigan or Texas but not for me). Well, apparently the Armenian officials were less than pleased that I was taking pictures of their border facilities. Perhaps they thought there was some sort of security risk by allowing me to do that. They took my camera and examined the pictures I had taken. I was so afraid that they were going to make me delete my photos. Luckily, they decided not to but made it clear to me that I shouldn't take any more pictures.
After we crossed the river on foot, we arrived to the border control guard on the Armenian side. We learned that a single-entry tourist visa costs 15,000 Armenian Dirhams. This was about 40-45 USD. That blew. They also demanded that we could only pay the fee in Armenian Dirhams. Of course I didn't have any Armenian money because I had not been in Armenia yet, so they allowed Alex and me across the border to the border offices in order to change money into Armenian Dirhams. I decided that it would probably be better for me if I changed Georgian Lari into Armenian money instead of the Turkish Liras in my wallet. I wasn't sure how the average Armenian felt about the border closings with Turkey, but I didn't want to find out at that particular moment.
While we were waiting in line, a girl approached me and asked me if I remembered her. I did not. Apparently, she was a French foreign exchange student and remembered me from one of my classes at Bogazici (it was hard for me to know who was in class because some of my classes had 60-80 students in them). She was traveling with her boyfriend, which was a little disappointing for Alex. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. One thing that was pretty awesome was they had a Lonely Planet book for Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, which they let us examine so we could figure out stuff to do once we made it to Yerevan.
After the boarder crossing, we got back on the bus. The scenery immediately changed over the border and became much more rugged and mountainous. The first sign of civilization (about 10-15 minutes over the boarder was quite strange). There were clearly enough buildings that the place used to be a decent sized town of sorts. The factory buildings indicated that it was involved in the production of something. However, many of those buildings had since been abandoned, probably since the fall of the Soviet Union. The design of all of the buildings appeared very Soviet in style and it was both interesting and eerie to see.
The mountainous scenery along the ride was amazing. The road quality was poor, sometimes not even paved. Winding around the mountain roads allowed me to see scenery like I had never seen before. The mountains were green but beautiful. I think one day I would love to return to Armenia, and instead of visiting Yerevan, I'd like to go on some sort of hiking/nature exploring trip. I felt the mountains in Armenia were much more beautiful than the ones we passed through in Georgia. The other interesting thing was how free the livestock was. Several times the bus had to stop and/or swerve to avoid hitting it in the middle of the road. It was clear that we were in a different world.
We pretty much had to stop every 45 mins to an hour because one of the Russian Armenian passengers was a chain smoker. At one particular rest stop, there was food but I decided not to get any. Instead, I decided to play a game of backgammon with the bus driver. Unfortunately for me, the bus driver was quite good and I lost. I think this was also because the Russian-Armenian was forcefully suggesting me to make more risky plays, which the bus driver took advantage of. Alex took a picture of me playing backgammon with the bus driver: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiEbfjuosNhnn-bavnR5AoVu5o5z8UAd2iFg57ZoAxt01NK_UOyTrTBEWOWRqBCPKXAiwQoNeyOsQFTSbwVI_rhLa9HAfxyNlLEvLymyxx0ZUWhMYMTT6TFormd6ipJAuIb_u59OY2sM/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!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig63FJj4sfXddL5osKcciOKVDxCEK0ym_ZpoHEt9C6jL1CdEVlfRyeGv303To6lYX9HECmPg0yjLyEsviLc1mL_IaWvlV-rnGS3QJdukjKbHQedAGkzrLlEvUfsnjKxxDYhoQvYOx-fRM/s1600-h/IMG_0176.JPG
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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!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQu1F357zhgVVoZnCQJqpbPuRUoSvMNzueUQO8sk04V5uAShv7sfs92zmNhGb9nSvYUQwjMNku1EtDFTneDp6FrpwE_bM6r8fZ-wU2vqoW-WkBtp3FLRuvaeSM6QYqocjF4fJrHVDDY1c/s1600-h/IMG_0190.JPG
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.
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: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiEbfjuosNhnn-bavnR5AoVu5o5z8UAd2iFg57ZoAxt01NK_UOyTrTBEWOWRqBCPKXAiwQoNeyOsQFTSbwVI_rhLa9HAfxyNlLEvLymyxx0ZUWhMYMTT6TFormd6ipJAuIb_u59OY2sM/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!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig63FJj4sfXddL5osKcciOKVDxCEK0ym_ZpoHEt9C6jL1CdEVlfRyeGv303To6lYX9HECmPg0yjLyEsviLc1mL_IaWvlV-rnGS3QJdukjKbHQedAGkzrLlEvUfsnjKxxDYhoQvYOx-fRM/s1600-h/IMG_0176.JPG
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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!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQu1F357zhgVVoZnCQJqpbPuRUoSvMNzueUQO8sk04V5uAShv7sfs92zmNhGb9nSvYUQwjMNku1EtDFTneDp6FrpwE_bM6r8fZ-wU2vqoW-WkBtp3FLRuvaeSM6QYqocjF4fJrHVDDY1c/s1600-h/IMG_0190.JPG
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.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Journey to the Caucuses (June 11-12)
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.
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:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjel1kxKHkSz6gy7o-mYOV8JPvKW4qkBw4zWXWdRsQ46NmoHdij5FBNK68V8ku-yejCNJPBSwsyPbNk0Gac1MdfF5fvcJYkjIW2Br73emmhvrYEoeYka-_O79JdyfHWC3hlTLWoHphv_rs/s1600-h/IMG_0039.JPG
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigLAsXiimNE6x-M-z-bxi3SQi1AWpQRFLtdUDNNGclbUVQvMybTb_2BpfFqUwk7AzHrZKb1cKYmqVgQ_CtH9aeh_TjTvoiEJ7usgR8zGPUeLQaBIGXIT3Pkvqxd8U0xqGVjg6rTHuWJPk/s1600-h/IMG_0040.JPG
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.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Finals at Boğaziçi
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.
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.
Friday, July 16, 2010
The trip in the middle of finals - Day 4-5: Budapest
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The trip in the middle of finals - Day 3: Vienna
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 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.
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