Rock Town

Stole this post title from an aptly-named wifi network name in Göreme.
There were some rocks there, I think.

On the way there, I thought that a pretty good definition of ''uncomfortable'' was 12 hours on a loud bus with no bathroom. 

On the way back, I learned that the definition was actually a 12 hours on a loud bus in a seat that doesn't recline with an angry baby directly behind you, coupled with the knowledge that you have to go directly to work once you arrive.

That said, the time spent in between the bus trips this weekend was beyond incredible. We saw so many unique things, and I kept remarking how there's no place like Cappadocia (Kapadokya) in the world. That's because it feels like a different world. 

The famous fairy chimneys!

Our pension owner Mustafa was delightful and so so helpful (shout out to Cave Life Pension). He detailed how to hike down the hill behind our place and find the main road and the open air museum. The hike was super scenic and the museum was fantastic, we even used our intern IDs to get Turkish student museum passes which we can use all over the country! Notice how things are looking very sunny...

On our way back we got lost (of course) and spent a while trying different paths/freaking out. As we slowly found the right way back it started to get a little cloudy and we were thinking that it was a nice break from the unrelenting sun. Oh we got a break alright. 

Que Thunder

Lightening

Pouring Rain
Ripping Winds

and finally,

Hail.

 

It was quite the adventure! And we got quite a workout running all the way back to our hotel. When we got back we had small bruises from the hail and looked like we'd just be thrown overboard off some carnival cruise ship. We had to cancel the sunset horseback ride that we had booked, and instead went to Turkish night!

We saw the dervishes whirl!
The ceremony was beautiful, and they did it again briefly
afterwards so that people could take pictures

The next morning we decided to wake up at 5 in order to see the hot air balloons rise, and it was spectacular. I'll let the pictures tell you.

 

Sunday we went to see one of the underground cities! It's so wild to imagine people living their entire lives underground. I'm immature so obviously I imagined them as mole people. To us it felt like an 8-level maze, but I'm sure that to the residents it was as easy to navigate as downtown Ann Arbor! 

Cave Rave

Chicken Egg? Normal

Souvenirs anyone?

I'm making an effort to take more pictures even though I'm usually the person that chooses to enjoy the moment rather than trying to capture it on film. And more videos too! (see end)

Rep the crown

Carpet world!

Nerd moment. Brace yourselves. My favorite class this year, Soc 102: Culture, Markets, and Globalization honestly altered my worldview. I got so, so much from that class because of our incredible professor and his fervor for the subject. I'm still amazed at how my roommate and I would just find ourselves having random conversations about trade ethics or cultural preservation and appropriation. It felt like how a University course should feel, thought-provoking and enlightening. The reason I'm bringing it up is because we learned about the UNESCO world heritage sites and how they're some of the best instances of successful cultural preservation. AND I FREAKED OUT ABOUT VISITING THEM. And I will again this weekend when we visit the Pamukkale travertines!







That probably sounded fairly smart. So to balance it out I'll confess that I'm listening to Avril while writing this.










Super long post. Here is your reward for reading!

PS Don't know enough about the interwebs to figure out why the text background turns white sometimes. Eh.

Grabbing the Istan-Bull by the Horns

Hi blog!

I'm almost three weeks into my internship, which is HALF. WAY. DONE. Absolutely unbelievable how quickly time is flying! I thought six weeks was a long time but soon I'll be outta herr and onto Part Two: Eurotrip with Benjamin! We've started a rough outline of where we think we'll go, but the room for spontaneity is one of the most exciting parts! We had some pretty great adventures as kids (like the walnut story, classic) and I can't wait for the shenanigans we'll undoubtedly get ourselves into in Europe.

One the right is one of my favorite pictures in the world,
 left is the first of dozens of tries to recreate it.
 Personally I think my eyes could get MUCH more crazy.

I have way too many things to write about last weekend. It was such a blasty blast! But those of you that have heard me tell stories know that I tend to spend way too long on the mundane parts then accidentally skip important bits and end up going ''WAIT WAIT okay well actually before that...'' It is very annoying. And that's kind of how this blog feels. But let's just keep rolling with it!

On Friday we got to leave work at 12 because they wanted us to come in Saturday morning to help with an alumni event (more on that later...). So we headed downtown and met up with Benjamin, Annalise, and Jessie who are interning in Ankara and came to the bull for the weekend. Seeing them was incredible for so many reasons. They've been in Turkey for a lot longer than we have and seeing how well they've eased themselves into the culture was great. They were some much needed relief for Emily and I who have been fighting an uphill battle to fully understand how some things work around here.

We had lunch then went to see the Hagia Sophia, which was gigantic and magnificent in it's old age! It's wild thinking about all of the people that have walked through it over the course of all that time.

View of Hagia Sophia from a terrace cafe

Enlightened B?

Friday night we were graciously invited to stay at Jessie's friend's apartment on the Asian side, and we knew that would mean that it would be a little harder to get to work the next morning (hours away, and on a different continent, but it's whatever). We have to get to work at 8:30, and we know it takes about an hour once we get on the metro to get to Koc, and we think it'll take about 30 minutes to get from where we are to the metro. SO we get up and leave around 6:30, adding in an extra half hour just to be safe. Long story short it was not enough. We were told the wrong bus number twice (the same wrong bus number! by dudes in an info booth! what?)  and waited around until it came to find out we needed to get on a different one, which we had conveniently just missed. This is when the stress starts. Then we split an expensive cab to the metro, sit in panic on the train as the clock slowly hits 8:20 and we start. Hold on this is getting stupidly long. I know y'all want to hear about my adventures but I'm not going to make you read about every minute about it.
We we late. It was okay. Working the alumni event was pretty dull. Then we headed back to downtown Ist!

For reading that, here's a picture of a kitten. With my awkward hand next to it for comparison.

 Oh gosh. I want to tell the other long story now though! No one is forcing your eye spheres to continue from word to word, so I'm going to write it. It's Saturday night, out on the town bar-hopping near Taksim square and everyone is having a grand ol time. Around 1:30 or 2 our group is approached by a shaggy-haired dude who seems very excited to find people that are around his age and speaking English. His name was Aaron (Erin? Inside joke. Sorry inside jokes aren't for blogs) and he had a one night layover in Istanbul. We obviously adopt him into our group and have a grand old Turkish time. Emily and I tried Raki for the first time (marks off box on imaginary cultural list) and I got my picture taken about 1000 times by random Turkish photography students (?), that sounds legit right? And we paraded around until we realized that the sky was kind of starting to do that thing where it gets all bright.....so we headed back to Asia to enjoy a solid 6 hours of sleep.


 Sunday we took a lovely (and windy) Bosphorus tour. It was super relaxing and a fantastic way to end a great weekend in a great city!

Sidebar: Living in "the Sariyer region of Istanbul" and "downtown Istanbul" are not the same thing at all. It does not feel like the same city at all. Istanbul should probably be a country. Continent-hog.

Winds so powerful you can use an empty bag as a parasail!

Th-th-th-that's all for now folks!

 Thanks for reading!

If It Makes You Happy

Hey Bloglodites!

This week: more public transportation adventures! So plentiful. We caught the absolute last bus back into Sariyer from the end of the metro last weekend, and it was only 10:30. Not fun. Hopefully we'll get around that this weekend. Feeling a little isolated. 

Saturday we got up early to take 2 minibuses (dolmuses? still don't really know the difference) and the metro into the center of Istanbul, where all the excitement tourism is. Just joshin, it is really exciting. We walked around and got lost several times, but eventually made it to the grand Bazaar, which was quite the experience! It was a totally sensory overload. Things are just crammed in tiny storefronts and there's colorful lamps and rugs and belly dancing costumes and knockoffs galore! And then the entire time men are out in front of their stores heckling you. Surrounded by other tourists, the heckling was funny (sometimes when we're in more remote areas, and we can't understand what they're saying, it's more just scary).

Grand Bazaar's super old entrance, we walked through
about a half mile of  stores surrounding it to get in!

     "Hey! Spice Girls!" "Coming in from Paradise?" "Lady lady you dropped something!!! .........My heart!" "Barbie Barbie! Come spend your money here!"
It was a full on attack. And it didn't help that the GB is actually a huge labrynth and you end up passing the same store and the same dudes over and over again even though you could SWORN you took different turns. Crazy. Can't wait to go back this week and work on my bargaining.

We also met up the other Istanbul interns from Michigan that I'd met during the pre-departure class and hung out. This weekend that will happen on an even larger scale, when the interns from Ankara come to visit us! Shit might get a little buck...

Also I just learned that the cleaners actually come into our room and straighten it up a bit. The definition of embarrassing is having a foreign cleaning lady employed by a university tuck in your beanie baby....

Yes I am an adult and still travel with a tiny stuffed turtle. Judge me.

Who even wants to grow up anyway? My best friend is 19 years old and still has so many childhood stuffed animals that he can make a bed out of them. I mean, hypothetically. It's not like he does or anything....

Really wish I had a picture.

I lıke the ı no dot key on our work computers and I have a feeling ı will mıss ıt.

I've found that I like dressing up every day. Work clothes are a refreshing change of pace from what I usually wear, and they make me feel professional. This will probaby fade towards the end of the internship because I have a finite number of outfit combinations for work clothes. And everybody hates a repeater.
[Side bar: I can't find a clip of "Lizzie McGuire you are an outfit repeater!!" The internet has failed me.]

To end on a serious note, even though almost all of this had just been me rambling (wait, I think that's the definition of a blog). I talked to my mom this week about making the best out of your opportunities, and she really helped me conceptualize an idea that I've been thinking about ever since I had a somewhat rough-then-fantastic experience being on my own in Montreal last summer (for those of you that haven't heard it, it's a long story that I will probably reference a lot and only explain a little, sorry). I have obviously been given the world's best set of opportunities this summer, but sometimes when you build things up too much in your head, the reality feels a bit lacking. It's really hard to write this without sounding bratty. I am having a fantastic time! But we spend most of the week hanging around our office waiting to be assigned more work to do, then come home to our dorm or go into Sariyer. It's already becoming a little routine-y. But soon we'll be spending weekends taking trips to rad places like Cappadocia!
My mom always talks about how kids in her internship programs get to the foreign country and start to feel like they're not loving as much as they thought they would. People my age have hugeeee misconceptions about culture shock, and I really don't think you can understand it until you go through it. No situation is perfect, there are going to be times when you're stressed or bored or anxious even though you thought that study abroad meant instant and constant bliss with a side of cultural wealth. 


So I've been trying to channel the optimism that I see in my mom and my little brother, and experience things positively! I realized after last summer that every day of an experience will be some sort of adventure, but you'll only fully realize it when you're not living in it. So instead of lamenting that lack of tasks we're assigned at work, I use the extra time to listen to audiobooks and (hopefully) teach myself the basics of C++ programming!

Ending in a suitable way (random babble), these are the 69c songs that I bought (crazy, right) on itunes the other day.

Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...) - Lou Bega

Eet - Regina Spektor

If It Makes you Happy - Sheryl Crow

American Girl - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The end! Thanks for reading! Here are some pictures!

One of these things is not like the other

This is RIGHT outside of our gated dorm complex, which is pretty luxurious. Pretty big difference. 

Istikal Ave (huge pedestrian street). Simultaneous parade and...

.....protest. Literally side by side.

Sideways Galata Tower. To symbolize how lost seeing it made us

                                                       

Frat?