The Chronicles of Neglecting our Blog: Some Weeks Later

So it seems as though we have neglected our blog (thank you for the push in the right direction Grandma Sara). A lot has happened in the last two weeks or so. We have been busy getting our resident's permits (we are now officially residents of this great country). More importantly, we are allowed to leave Turkey and not be charged exorbitant amounts of lira when we come back. 

We also started classes which has been an interesting process, to say the least. The way it works here is students need to get permission from their professors to get into a course and, if rejected, can either ask again or attempt to get into another course. We have a friend who asked 5 times to get into a course. She got in on the 6th try, though, so it isn't a totally hopeless process. There is also a professor here that rejects all requests as a rule the first time. So chin up kids! It'll happen for you if you try hard enough (this is for all those who are considering Istanbul for study abroad - you're welcome). After adding classes, students go to the classes and often times attend courses that they have gotten rejected from or haven't signed up for. It is a shopping period, if you will. For my parents who don't even know what classes I'm taking, here is my updated list:

1. History of Economic Thought

2. Evolution of Economies

3. Climate Change Economics

4. Turkish Literature 

5. Agriculture, Food and the Environment (or something like that - yes, I am on a computer and could check, but that takes all the fun out of this silly little side note (I love parentheses (truly!)))

While settling into courses, we have also explored a little more. Our friend (Kyle's friend) Rob visited us and it was a riot. He stayed in mine and Pratibha's room and it was quite the slumber party for three nights in a row! Miss you Rob Z! We tagged along to Kyle's architecture course's field trip and got to see several Byzantine ruins in Aksaray. This city has such an incredible history. 

I have also started to volunteer at a school for Syrian refugees on Sundays. The students are studying for their TOEFL so that they can continue onto english speaking universities. Many of them have completed engineering, math, and science degrees and then were forced out of Damascus only to get jobs that are not within their area of expertise. One student is taking 12 classes a semester at Istanbul University so he can graduate as quickly as possible and make up for the time he has lost in the transition to Turkey. They are all so determined and optimistic, though, that I can't help but feel inspired by them. I am hoping to start a blog for the class so keep an eye out for the link, I expect you all to read it! 

Lastly, we survived our first and hopefully last Istanbul blizzard. Three days of sideways slush and snow was brutal (I know we shouldn't be complaining considering Boston's situation, but they don't salt the roads here (an environmental victory) and I felt as though I would break a leg every time I walked to class. The silver lining, though, was that class got cancelled and I got to pummel Kyle with snowballs

I don't have too many more updates off the top of my head, but hopefully I will remember to update more frequently in the coming months. 

Here is a picture of me and Rob looking fresh as hell (and extremely white):

Peace out girl scouts!

I bit a turkish guy's finger

What a weekend. Since I last blogged, we went on an unbelievably eventful weekend extravaganza to Cappadocia, or known in Turkey as Kapadokya. The physical appearance of Cappadocia is like nothing you have ever seen in reality... it most resembles a hybrid of smurf-ville and the set of Lord of the Rings, as you can see from my beautifully executed iPhone 6 photography skills. Thanks to the burst option, I was able to capture the flock of pigeons flying over...the conveniently named "Pigeon Valley." 

Now I am going to take a step back and lead you up to the picture of the pigeons. Later on Thursday night, we hopped on a bus with 60 other exchange students from all over the world to begin our venture to this ancient city once occupied by Alexander the Great. Since we googled map our journey earlier in the day, we decided that the monstrous 12 hour bus ride would go much smoother with 12TL wine sold at the trusty convenient store outside of our apartment. Thank goodness we thought of this because after 20 minutes of highway driving, the busses' tire popped and at that very moment, a majority of the bus reached into their backpacks and grabbed their alcohol of choice to accompany them for the not-so-smooth starting bus ride. 

I had the gr8 pleasure of sitting behind someone who needed to recline on my legs. Honestly. Does the 10 degree difference in sitting angle differentiate between not comfortable and comfortable? If my 6 foot 3 inch or 1.91 meter (for all our metric system readers) frame can catch some zzzzzs without reclining then you have NO EXCUSE. someone had to say it. Sorry for the side note but my legs were numb. Now, after a bottle of red, numerous rounds of solitaire, the movie Boyhood, and about 3 hours of snoozing, we arrived in Cappadocia. The fun part about friday was that we arrived in the early afternoon and we wouldn't be checking into the hotel until the evening. We were truly seeing people in the rarest of forms. Sleep, hygiene, and wifi deprived exchange students were roaming the ancient rock formations of like they were hobbits. I will say that despite this, Cappadocia grabs your attention in every way. I couldn't help but compare it to the southwestern United States, but then you would see a rock formation that resembled something very phallic... see below 

The region is surrounded by volcanoes and if history proves correct, a majority of the bizarre shapes you see in Cappadocia are a result of volcanic eruptions way back when. After finishing our agenda for the day, we finally arrived at our hotel. Durant and I were blessed with room 128, where the sink leaked and the shower head had full intentions of cleaning not only the person in the shower but the walls of the bathroom and the clothes the person was supposed to be getting changed into...The next day was another full schedule with more valley walks and money spending traps. We visited some of the original rock monasteries and education sites, and also went into the depths of Cappadocia's largest underground city. This underground journey consisted of 110 meters of underground amazingness. These people built a kingdom underground for the purposes of war and survival. With 7 levels and shrinking ceiling heights, walking through this ancient city was extraordinary. I felt like my back was never going to straighten out again but besides that part, we were like kids in a candy store. 

Later on in the day we stopped for lunch...which became the most unfortunate part of the weekend. After about an hour of waiting for a tortilla wrapped with potatoes...we were advised to go to another restaurant for "toast." Yes. Toast. Talk about a sad looking meal. Karolina, Pratibha and I were not happy. SO we decided to treat our selves to traditional Cappadocian ice cream. Big mistake. Once walking up to the ice cream stand, I soon noticed that the man serving the ice cream seemed to be auditioning for X Factor for the world's dumbest talent of not giving the paying patrons their ice cream. 

For instance, once Karol ordered chocolate, he scooped the ice cream onto a cone and when he reached out for you to grab it, he would spin the ice cream in his hand for about 60 seconds..just out of your reach. He did this for every single person in line, but once he got to me, he decided to try some new tricks. I must commend him for his creativity but by the end of his little clown arrangement all I wanted to do was throw the creepy tasting ice cream into his smug face. After sticking the ice cream cone in my crotch, he thought it would be fun to ask me to bite the ice cream (we had a decent audience by this time). Unfortunately he was in full control of the situation so I did not have a choice.... I slowly leaned in to bite the ice cream and he quickly flipped to cone right before I got ahold of the ice cream. This caused me to bite the man's finger. I am terrified to this moment of what happened right then but I digress. 

 My horrible ice cream experience was saved by a traditional turkish night + bottomless alcohol. We got our first glimpse of a whirling dervish, and our first glimpse of what a room full of drunken turkish people looks like. After leaving the club we went back to the hotel for some sleep but a majority of the exchange student group had no intentions of doing this. That became quite apparent when we walked off the elevator to see a trail of vomit leading to room 132. Not cool people. 

Sunday started off with a breakfast filled with the saddest group of hungover erasmus students you ever did see. Not to mention that the fact that water costs money everywhere added to the severity of peoples' headaches. A few hours later we all piled back into our busses and started our journey back to Istanbul. As fantastic as the weekend was, I could not wait to be back on trustworthy wifi. The bus ride kept us on our toes of course. The temperature ranged from frigid to sweltering but besides that, I had two educational conversations with my favorite aussie, Carla. (pronounced Cah-la...Australians drop their Rs) I even had the opportunity of talking about my childhood hero, Steve Irwin, with one of his kind. #BLESSED



Today I was lucky enough to not have class so I hung around campus and pretended to be studious. Karolina was still a little off from the stressful weekend as you can see by the picture on the left. I walked in on her having a conversation with four cats sitting with her at lunch. Never in America would you see such a thing. 

Now I know this is a long blog post but I thought it would be important to type out all the fun stuff that has happened over the past 4 days. I encourage anyone that is given the opportunity to travel to Cappadocia, to DO IT! And if you see someone serving ice cream....resist. 

There's my advice. Take it or leave it -ko

After a spontaneous morning decision, based mostly on the logic that group things will be cheaper, I went with the huge ESN group to see.... the Hagia Sophia, Sultanahmet, Basilica Cistern, and Topkapi palace.

I know, you are thinking so much history at one time? What could you possibly be thinking? My morning brain clearly had some issues today. Either way, I loaded up and went down to what has been the most visited sites in the world for thousands of years.

I ended up only going into the Sultanahmet ( commonly known as the Blue Mosque), Where incredibly huge. The sheer size of the place is absurd. It's got domes on domes on domes. However, I think the thing I liked about it most the ancient wall paper. The entire wall had was plated with beautiful symmetric tiles, Each a defined space, but none repeating creating a chaotic yet peaceful feeling. all the paint was of course blue.

It is still a active mosque, so the women all had to cover there heads, while everyone had to take off their shoes. I didn't mind, as the carpet was quite cozy around my toesies.


Eating of course is always a treat here. The food is fantastic compared to the many bland (yet filling) courses we adore in America. However, all the socializing had me quite tired and I headed Home after about an hour of enjoying some sun time with our Greek friend Clio.

For how nice and sunny the day was, tonight was quite dreary, but was made better by the always comfortable home of Selcuk, where we watched a movie and enjoyed eachothers prescence. Very yavas yavas

Now I am sitting at home enjoying the guilty pleasure of Taylor Swift. Of course I only listen the stuff before she become a power hungry mongrel of the music industry trademarking phrases like "This Sick Beat" and moving all her songs off of spotify in "Artistic Protest". Blah

It has been a over a week since I got here..... Wow