Port to Port, Marina to Marina: 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!