Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Visitors, Trips, and Midterms, Oh My!

Between feeling like I've had the plague, having a visitor (my Mom!), midterms, and a trip to Bursa, it's been a busy few weeks! Midterms haven't been that bad (which may be a function of my study abroad work ethic, rather than their actual difficulty...), but they have created a change of pace from the normal schedule. I have 3 behind me, and two more exams and a presentation to go... all of which will be over by Spring break, which starts on April 6. Sun has FINALLY arrived at Koç, making it more and more difficult to do work! It's been great, though, because you can finally sit comfortably outside and read, throw a frisbee, or what have you - the end of cabin fever is in sight!


As I mentioned, my wonderful Mom came to visit a little more than a week ago. It was really great to see her! We spent the week hitting up the many sights in the Old and New City, and even made a trip up to Sarıyer. We saw: the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, Topkapı Palace, The Grand Bazaar, The Spice Bazaar, The Basilica Cistern, Dolmabahçe Palace, and Gülhane Park. It was the first time that I had been to any of the last four sights. The Spice Bazaar was as beautiful as everyone had said, if not more. Here are some photos of the displays: 




Notice the guy at the stand sticking his tongue out:




The streets around the Spice Bazaar are filled with local goods and treasures. I can't wait to go back - I think that's where I'll buy my juice press (I don't know if these are special presses or not, but the fresh juice here is so good, I hope to continue drinking it when I get home), and probably a bag of Turkish coffee and/or tea to bring home. 


The next place we visited was Dolmabahçe Palace. Dolmabahçe was large and extravagant. You are not allowed to take any photos inside the buildings, but below are some from the outside. We saw the great halls, one of the largest crystal chandeliers in the world, and the bed in which Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (founder of the Republic) died. 








It was beautiful, but very ironic. The palace was built by Abdülmecid II to demonstrate to the world that the Ottoman Empire was not having financial problems. The issue was, that they really were in deep financial trouble, and the building of such a large and expensive palace (obviously) didn't help... The Empire collapse following World War I, less than 100 years after the building of Dolmabahçe.


Another place that we visited was the Basilica Cistern. I had mentally written-off this sight as not high on my priority list. I don't really even know why, it just didn't sound that impressive in the guide books, especially when there are so many other sights that are better known and publicized. I was so wrong, this is something that everyone who comes to Istanbul should see. It's not that expensive to visit, and is in the center of Sultanahmet (the center of tourism). Essentially, it was a water holding well for the city during the early Byzantine time (during the 6th century). It was covered at some point, and not re-discovered until recently (early 1900s, if I remember correctly...). It was really neat - they have built a set of elevated walkways through the cistern, as there are still a few feet of water remaining. It's pretty dark (as the whole thing is underground), but every pillar is lit up, creating a really cool effect.






There are some fish that live in the water, it's really hard to see them, but here is a photo:




In one corner of the cistern, there are two pillars that have carvings of Medusa at the bottom. The museum is unable to explain why they are there, just that they are. It was kind of cool, but a little creepy too.




Speaking of creepy, there is a cistern monster sculpture that is lurking in one area of the building. It lights up, and makes an eery noise that resounds throughout the cistern. The music is creepy, but oddly calming. 


The last place that was new for me was Gülhane Park. It was a large, gorgeous, green park hidden in the streets of Sultanahmet. It was originally part of the grounds of Topkapı Palace, but was opened to the public. On the last day of my Mom's visit, we stopped there and read in the park for a good chunk of the afternoon. There were a ton of families spending the afternoon together, too - it was so nice to see kids! Obviously, there are none at school, and you don't see a lot of kids out and about in the city. One adorable little Turkish boy ran up to me an handed me a daisy (which happens to be my favorite wild flower), smiled at me and ran back to his parents. I almost died. Here's the daisy (unfortunately I didn't get a photo of him - just imagine the cutest little Turkish boy, then multiply by a sweetness factor of 3203948320498).


It was a great week - the weather was impeccable and it was so nice to see my Mom, especially because I've been missing home a bit more than usual. And (Bonus!), I picked up a set of Paşabahçe Turkish çay glasses to send home! Here they are:




I was sad to see her go, but glad to be back and school and retire my tourist hat for a bit. With the sun comes visitors, and noticeably more crowded streets. 


Last week I had two exams and a paper - so life was pretty boring. Study, eat, exam, study, sleep, exam, and so on... However, last weekend the whole CIEE group ventured to Bursa, a Turkish city on the other side of the Marmara. It was a great, albeit whirlwind, trip. We set our alarms bright and early Friday morning, so that we could be pulling out of Koç by 7:30am. We rode the bus across the Bosphorus to Asia, then boarded a ferry to cross the Sea. The ferry was great, we'd all had a little time to catch some more sleep, and were able to enjoy the sun a salt air - something that I and another student from the northeast had been craving and appreciated greatly! 

Our first stop was lunch. We tried the dish that Bursa is famous for - İskender (a type of döner). It consists of pide bread squares covered in tomato sauce and the meat of sheep that occupy the mountains near the city. It's served with yogurt, and is very delicious and filling. We all ate a ton, and paid for it during the walking tour!



Once we arrived in Bursa, after a beautiful drive through the mountains, we checked into our hotel and set out for a walking tour. One of our first stops was the Ulu Cami (Great Mosque) (pictured above). It was beautiful, and one of the first times we had seen people actually praying in a mosque. The inside was simpler than many of the mosques I'd been in, but still very beautiful. It is one of the few mosques that have a fountain inside. It was placed there to calm people while they were in the sanctuary. Here is a photo of the inside:




Next we walked through the local spice and food bazaar. Here is a photo of a beautiful fruit market:




Here are some different types of Turkish tea. I need to figure out which is used most commonly, so that I can bring it home! Turkish tea is so good because it is meticulously made. The leaves are steeped in the top pan of a double boiler until the liquid is the right color. The tea is then cut with some of the water from the lower pot and - viola! - you have Turkish tea! I don't know what about the process makes the tea so smooth and amazing, but it is. I don't know how I will live without it!




Finally, here is a spice shop. These owners were much less outgoing than those in İstanbul, which makes them much more approachable. 




We also climbed some of the city walls. Here is a view from the top:




On the grounds of one of the many complexes in Bursa, there was a sign pole (like that in Maine) that showed the distance and directions to many important places in the world. We were only 565km from Tunis!




In the late afternoon, we volunteered at an English speaking club with an organization called BurSanat. They also set up a scavenger hunt around the city for us. We were all exhausted, and finally decided to pop a squat and grab some ice cream in stead of completing all of the tasks. Even though we were tired, we had tons of fun! Here are some photos of our shenanigans.


This is Alex and Terry showing that we had found someone who was walking their dog!



We had to find someone who was over 65 years young - This is Isaac and our guy. He was also born in June, so we killed two objectives with one stone!




We asked this woman if she had a one kuruş piece, yet another task on out list. She said she didn't, but gave us a one lira piece and chatted us up for a bit. She was a sweetheart! She told us about a village nearby that we need to visit if we come back. 




That evening we had dinner in a small cafe and went back to the hotel to hang out. Amy had brought baklava from the most famous bakery in the city, and we had a few bottles of wine for the group. It was a relaxing and fun night!


This is one of the sights we saw the next morning. We were up and out early, and ready for another day of sight seeing. This is the largest tree in... somewhere. Okay, I was having a hard time paying attention... It was at least the largest in Bursa, and maybe Turkey... Anyway, it was a really big tree, and the tea garden surrounding it, and the view from the park were amazing. The weather wasn't too bad, either!




After the tree we went to a covered bazaar to see a production of Hacivat and Karagoz. These are two hand puppets that originated in Bursa. The story goes that they were real men who worked in construction and were very unproductive because they were constantly joking with each other. The puppets are all handmade from camel skin that's stretched and colored. They are them held behind a white curtain with a light shining on them. There's much more to the story, but those are the major points... Here is a clip of the show we saw. It was in turkish, so we didn't understand all of it, but the puppeteer used the names Koç University and Kathryn (the CIEE's director's name), so we thought is was funny. 



Another famous Bursa sight! This is one of four bridges like it in the world - over water with shops extending all the way across. There is another one in Florence (The Ponte Veccio) and two in Sofia, Bulgaria. Most of the shops were local artisans. Too expensive to buy, but looking is free - and there were a lot of beautiful pieces!




These were really just the highlights - it was a jam-packed weekend in a wonderful city! I hope to get back some day to explore it at a slower pace. Finally, a funny photo. One of my friend somehow locked herself in the bathroom right before we were about to head back to İstanbul. This is us trying to pick the lock from the outside... Eventually we had to get someone from the cafe to break her out by prying the door open with a screwdriver. We all laughed harder than we had in a while, especially once she was out. It's been a great few weeks with wonderful people! Here's to a few more!



Monday, March 12, 2012

Weekend in İzmir

Merhaba! 




Friday morning (03/02) at 7:30am, seven of us boarded a plane for İzmir, a city on the western coast of Turkey. We were lucky enough to find cheap tickets - 59TL (about $35) each way, and decided to take the weekend to explore another city! We met at 5am, and we had surprised Akshata with a cake at midnight for her birthday, so we were all dragging! The flight was about an hour, and I think we all slept most of the way. Once we arrived, we crammed the whole group into one cab and headed to our hostel - the Otel Vatan. On the way, we passed a giant bust of Atatürk that had been carved out of the side of a mountain. I wasn't quick enough to take a photo, as my camera was under a pile of 5 people. I think I've mentioned before, but Atatürk is here, there, and everywhere, in Turkey. 


When we arrived at the hostel, we were quite pleased. It was, like the plane tickets, purchased on a low budget, and was better than we'd expected. We had two triple rooms, and the staff was nice enough to let us check in, even though it was only about 9:30am. They even let us have a complementary brunch, in regular Turkish style. Hilarious is the only way to describe the decor. Hallie aptly described it as an "underwater pet planetarium." There was a parrot  in the lobby that screeched continuously, and huge aquariums full of fish all over the first floor. They had created small fake gardens all over the building, full of fake flowers and mushrooms. One even had a flashing light string draped through it. In the breakfast room there were some of the cheesiest wedding chairs (with the 20-layers-of-toule covering) and weird paintings of the seaside and cliche garden scenes. It was weird and cheesy, but we were happy! 


The crew at Selcuk Castle

We spent the morning in the hostel, relaxing and getting oriented, then walked down to the water to have lunch and spend the afternoon. We found a cafe on the water and stopped for some food. The waiter spoke English and kept asking us weird questions. He told Logan that Texas (where Logan's from) was a "sucks place to live." He begged Amy to take a photo of him, so she begrudgingly did. Akshata deemed him untrustworthy as a result of his overly-greased hair, and so, after eating, we moved on. 



We spent the afternoon walking around town, visiting a few sights, like the clock tower, although there aren't many right in İzmir. We stopped in the main square and bought some seed to feed the pigeons. There must have been at least a thousand birds in the square - it was amazing! The little boy in the photo below was playing with the pigeons, feeding and chasing them - it was about the cutest thing I've seen. 


Older men and women (generally) sell the bird seed in the square for 1TL a cup. They were really sweet, albeit persistent. The two women sitting below were just a few of the many seed vendors. 


After walking a bit, we went to the Ethnography museum. It was empty of people, but had some cool displays of, and artifacts from, the social life of the Ottoman Empire. The neatest part was probably the building, there was a huge spiral, marble staircase in a room full of windows. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to climb to the top, but it must have a great view of the city. We stopped for waffles and çay on the way home and headed to the hostel for a nap. We found a great meyhane (a restaurant where you have appetizers, usually fish, and Rakı) for Akshata's birthday dinner in the Levent Marina area of town, called Potiri Meyhane. It was amazing, the menu was prix fix, and they just kept bringing you food. You had to buy the Rakı by the bottle, but with 7 of us that wasn't a problem. Here's a photo of just the first course:



The food was absolutely delicious. My favorite thing, a surprise for me and anyone who knows me, was the stuffed mussel (below). It was SO good, even though I'm not generally a seafood lover. 



There was a table behind us of about 4 older Turkish couples. The restaurant had a live band playing, and toward the end of the night people were getting up and dancing. Two of the men from that table went around our table and got almost all of us to get up and dance with them. They took the flowers from the vases on the tables and gave them to all of us - 5 girls and 2 guys. I'm not sure what dance they were teaching us, but they were so sweet - and once you got into it, it was really fun! Akshata was nice enough to capture me dancing with one of them. 



The man that I was dancing with gave us his card at the end of the night and said that, if we ever came back to İzmir, we should call him, and he and his wife would love to have us over. At the end of the night, the waiters brought our table some complementary Turkish coffee (Türk khavesi). We enjoyed it, then told each others fortunes with the grounds. Akshata told mine, and said that I would most definitely travel to Greece, and that she saw children and decided that this meant that I would end up working with children and making a difference in their lives. I can deal with that!! We were the last group to leave the restaurant, and thanked the wait staff profusely. After a long and wonderful day, we headed back to the hostel and crashed. 


The next day it was up early to travel to Ephesus and the sights near Selcuk. The hostel offered tours of the area. They would drive you to the sights, and you could explore on your own. This worked out for us, because the sights were about an hour and fifteen minutes away, in a place none of us had ever been. It turned out to be a great decision - they brought us to four major sights, and we never would have been able to navigate the area on our own!
We visited Selcuk Castle, the Seven Sleepers, Ephesus, and the Virgin Mary's Final House. 


The ruins at Selcuk castle were actually primarily the ruins of a cathedral, including the resting place of Saint John. Here are the tops of Grecian Ionian pillars from the cathedral, and a photo of the actual Selcuk castle on the hill beyond the ruins. 




Our second stop was the Seven Sleepers. This is the ruins of a worship hall built into the side of a mountain that was supposedly used by seven Christian men trying to avoid persecution. This photo is taken from a hill next to the ruins, but we also were able to climb into the hall. One of the great things about Turkey is that many of the ruins, etc... are really well preserved, but people are still allowed to climb in and on them, unlike many sights in other parts of the world. 



At the Seven Sleepers, there was a little restaurant where we stopped for some Gözleme for lunch. There was a farm adjacent, and so there were chickens and roosters running around everywhere. I know this is ridiculous, but I have this fear of small animals biting my achilles tendon and a very vivid image in my head of me collapsing, like just hitting the pavement, as a result. The chickens kept getting closer and closer, and I was getting more and more nervous. To add to it, Amy was trying to coax them closer to let her take photos of them. Although, shockingly, no one lost their achilles tendon to what had to be the largest rooster in the freaking world, it was certainly a tense few minutes. 


Our next stop was Ephesus, probably the most famous of the sights we saw. It is the uncovered ruins of a settlement in Selcuk. It was incredibly extensive, and is still being excavated. Apparently, the archaeologists believe that, even with all of the work they've done so far, they've still only uncovered about 18% of the ruins that are there.




Here we are in the ruins of the library at Ephesus. I think that this was my favorite part of the city. 


Within the site, there is another museum you can enter where they've built a structure over an excavation project. Inside, there is a huge maze of dwellings, with amazing paintings and mosaics on the floors. You can see some examples in the photo below.



These were apparently the ruins of a gymnasium. I just really liked the photo of the mountains in the background...



Finally, we stopped at the final home of the Virgin Mary. There was a shrine, and people could light candles in honor of their loved ones. There were no photos allowed at the shrine, but I did take a photo of this hilarious bathroom sign of a woman doing the pee dance.



When we arrived back at the hostel, we collected ourselves and headed out for dinner in the youngest area of town - Alsancak ("all-sun-jack"). We had dinner at a really great restaurant, Blanc, then went to a bar on the water for drinks and nargileh. It was a lovely night! 


The next morning we headed back to Alsancak for brunch, and found ourselves in the middle of a women's rights rally. It was to celebrate and remember a Kurdish woman who fell victim to an honor killing by her father about 3 years ago. Men were not allowed to enter (although one of the guys in our group, Will, tried). Here is a photo of all of the men outside of the rally, likely waiting for their wives and daughters. 



It was a beautiful day! We spent the afternoon walking and shopping around Alsancak. We stopped for some coffee, hot chocolate, and sahlep (a steamed milk and spices drink) before picking up our bags and heading to the airport. All in all it was an amazing weekend with great sights, food, experiences and people!


*Thanks to Hallie for letting me steal the group shots from her :) 

Monday, March 5, 2012

Cappadocia, Continued!

I am WAY behind on posting! I've been busy - seven of us went to Izmir this weekend and had a wonderful time, classes are going well, midterms are around the corner, internship applications are coming due, and my wonderful mother is coming to visit me in just a few days. I have been here for almost a month and a half and I can't believe it - where is the time going!? In this post I'll tell you about the rest of the Cappadocia trip. Stay tuned, because I hope to get the blog up to date by the end of the week.


Our second day in Cappadocia was full of classic (touristy, but fun) sightseeing in the region. We had a tour guide, Efe, who took us around to the sights. He had a rather high voice for a man, and looked like an elf. He even wore a hat that came to a little point. He named us his penguins, because there were so many of us, and the churches were so little, that we really had to squish (like penguins). We thought it was funny, mostly because he thought that he was HILARIOUS. He became famous for giving us "fifteen, tventy minutes for photos" at each of the lookouts/vistas (of which there were many). Although it was not ideal to be carted around in a large group, I'm so glad that I went on an organized trip - it would be very difficult to navigate your own way around Cappadocia and not miss a bunch of really cool sights. 


First, we went to the Cappadocia Open Air Museum in Göreme (the town in Cappadocia that is at the center of all the sights), which consists of a collection of churches and dwellings carved into stone. Unfortunately, there are no photos allowed inside the churches, because they have incredibly old frescos that are difficult to preserve. However, they were really neat and beautiful. Here are some photos:




The churches and houses were built by Christians attempting to avoid persecution. They started creating the dwellings in the 4th century and the churches that we visited were established and decorated in the 700s. They used pigeon eggs yolks and natural dyes to paint frescos inside the chambers. They were amazingly preserved for essentially being in the open air. It was amazing how extensive the caverns were - They were everywhere! The area is all volcanic rock that cooled after the eruption of a volcano nearby (I can't remember the name...) Anyway, the Christians were able to carve the stone because it is very soft, but becomes hard when exposed to oxygen. Therefore, it was fairly easy to carve the houses - and they were not visible because there is no outside structure.




Below is an example of some of the decorated churches. This is much less ornate than those found deeper in the rocks, but it gives you an idea!



After the Churches of Göreme, we headed to a pottery-making seminar. Cappadocia is famous for its pottery. There is a lot of tradition that surround the pottery of Cappadocia. One tradition states that the parents of a girl needing to marry places a pot or vase on top of their roof. A man breaks the pot if he wishes to marry the daughter. Here is one of the pottery places that we passed on the ride. Pottery literally littered the lawns and sidewalks in Göreme. 


Here are a few photos of the pottery making and shop. 



This is Emily, one of the CIEE girls, making a bowl - it turned out wonderfully!




Here are some of the photos of the pottery - it was beautiful and the colors were amazing. They said that they made 80% of it on site. I bought a ring, but no other pottery. It was really beautiful, but you can buy all of the same stuff in Istanbul, and you can bargain to get it cheaply...









After the pottery shop, we headed to a vista where you can see all of Göreme. Here are some photos:



Doesn't it look like a fairyland?




All of the gift shops have these pottery room ornaments. You see them all over in restaurants and as decorations, I really want to get one of the blue/white/green ones - they're so beautiful!



Another stop on the second day was Imagination Valley. It is full of rock formations that people see different shapes in when they use their imagination. We were all pretty tired, so our imaginations weren't completely active, but it was really cool! This is a picture of the most famous rock in Imagination Valley - the camel. 



Here's another shot. Can you see anything? I see rocks. Cool rocks, but rocks all the same.



Our final stop was to see the Fairy Houses of Cappadocia. Efe gave us another "fifteen, tventy minutes for photos!"and we obligingly explored. These are some of the better known formations - they look like smurf houses! There was one church here, but most of the formations were houses. 




This was a camel that you could ride - it was only 10TL, and he was so cute! I have seen a couple of camels since I got here, and they are all very furry. They need to be, even though it's warm in the summer, it gets really cold - it was in the 30s almost the whole time we were in Cappadocia. He was sweet, until he tried to eat a few of the students trying to take photos of him... He smelled a bit, too.  


After a long, long day, we drove back to the hotel through snow. We had dinner, and Hallie, Amy, and I, went to the spa, got in our pajamas and ordered a bottle of wine - an experience in itself. We went down to the bar to see if we could buy one, but had to try about 3 different places in the hotel before we found someone who could both help and speak English. We finally found someone, who insisted on bringing us a bottle to the room. Our room, by the way, was a mess. When they came to deliver the wine (apparently it takes two of them), they awkwardly stepped around our piles of clothes, towels, shoes, etc... and laid out a little display on the table (also covered in random books, phones and computers). He brought us something that he had "made special for us." It was a tea light candle balanced on top of a tiny glass which he had filled with some of the wine. We also stood there, awkwardly, while he slowly poured the wine. He poured a little in each glass, like he was going to have us test it, but then filled them each without having us taste. It was really well intentioned, but made for an incredibly awkward 5 minutes. We kept looking at each other and trying really hard not to laugh. One of the girls had run down the hall to talk with another person, and came back right in the middle of the whole scene - she was clearly confused. The ceremonious wine pouring finally ended and we settled in and relaxed - it was a great way to end a long day.

The next day we headed back toward Göreme, picking up Efe on the way. We had to leave for Istanbul that evening, so it was a shorter day than Saturday had been. Our first stop was Pigeon Valley - a nesting place for the pigeons. They are thought to be good luck, and used almost like farm animals in Cappadocia. Their eggs were used for painting, as I mentioned, and they were used to deliver messages to Istanbul. They were useful in other ways, but I can't remember right now... We had another (and final) "fifteen, tventy minutes" for photos. It was one of the best views that we had. 



A tree with some Cappadocian pots - this looks like what I imaging the Southwest US looks like (without the snow).





At Pigeon Valley, there was a tree covered in the evil eyes. I don't think I've talked about these before... I'll discuss them later in a longer post, because they're everywhere, but essentially they ward against evil eyes (jealousy, or anyone wishing to do you harm). My favorite color is blue, so I love them. I'm a little obsessed... The tree was so beautiful - here is a photo. One of my friends broke one when she went to look at it, then didn't know what to do, so she took it. We nagged her the whole way back to Istanbul that if something bad happened, it was her fault. All seems okay now, but don't mess with the evil eye - you're playing with fire!


After Pigeon Valley, we headed to Turasan Winery to do a wine tasting. Cappadocian wine is famous in Turkey, and Turasan is the second largest winery in Turkey. We walked through the room where the grapes are fermented them proceeded to the store where we tried the wine. Turned out, it was the same wine that we had had the night before. It was pretty good! 

Our final stop was the underground city. It was an entire maze of houses and community facilities underground. They warned us beforehand not to go in if you are claustrophobic or have asthma - it is very tiny and very dusty and stuffy. It was really neat, but you really can only stay down there comfortably for about 10 - 15 minutes. 



There's electric lighting all through the caverns now, but I have no idea how they lighted the dwellings originally - they're so dark!




Hallie and I, deep inside the city




One of the many tiny tunnels



After the underground city we got back on the bus to head home. We said goodbye to Efe and got on our way. The ride home was long, but we had many spirited games of Contact to pass the time. Overall it was an amazing weekend!