What I'll Miss

I should be packing my suitcases right now, especially since a) I need to leave the apartment at 7am tomorrow and b) I have accumulated an extraordinarily large amount of (very heavy) stuff in the past 3 days or so that somehow needs to fit into said suitcases.  But I'm going to write a quick update first because I just feel like there needs to be some kind of "farewell Turkey" post.  So here goes...

I am going to miss a lot about Istanbul (and Turkey in general), and I don't think I could even begin to list everything here.  I will try, though, to give you a brief summary:

I will miss the chaos of a city where 15+ million people are packed into very small spaces.  I will miss the public transportation, even though sometimes it feels like a good majority of the aforementioned 15+ million people are standing uncomfortably close to you for the hour-long bus ride through gridlocked traffic.  I will miss the sound of yelling, as in "BUYRUNBUYRUNBUYRUN" or "SIMIT" or, my personal favorite, "ŞEMSİYEŞEMSİYEŞEMSİYEŞEMSİYE" ("umbrella," repeated over and over whenever it rains).  I will miss the peacefulness of the mosques and the sound of the call to prayer as it envelopes the entire city five times each day.  I will miss the smell of fish and salt water and that lemon-scented hand cleaner that people are always giving you in restaurants and on long-distance bus trips.  I will miss the tanginess of the fresh yogurt and Iskender Kebap, the creaminess of the domates çorbası, and the sticky-sweetness of the baklava.  I could probably go on forever about all of the little things I will miss about this city and this country, but perhaps what I will miss the most is actually pretty big.  No, not the Superdorm or my single-burner hotplate.  What I will miss the most about this place is that ribbon of water that divides the two continents and makes Istanbul such a beautiful and special place: the Bosphorus.  It was the first thing that really struck me when I arrived and, five months later, I am still not tired of looking at the turquoise-blue color or steady stream of boats, from tiny fishing dinghies to giant oil tankers.  Sitting on a ferry yesterday afternoon, I couldn't help but think that there probably isn't a view of the Bosphorus I don't like; it really is an amazing sight from virtually every angle, whether you're on the open deck of a boat with the wind in your hair and the Istanbul skyline spread out before you or on the top of a hill, the city and water twisting and turning together until they disappear into the distance.  I will miss those views.

The view from campus...with snow!

Those are some of the things I'll miss.  And that's just counting the things, not the people.  To talk about the people would require more space and time than I have.  Not to mention the fact that they would be a little more difficult to sum up.

Okay, I suppose I should go and attempt to pack my things (i.e. defy some fairly basic principles of physics). But I will post again (pictures, too!) once I'm back home and adjusted to the snow drifts and frozen ponds.  I guess I'm feeling a lot of things right now - sadness, of course, but excitement about going home, too - and I had better stop rambling or I will never make it onto the airplane!  So farewell, Turkey, and thanks for a great 5 months.  I'll see you again sometime soon!

Mutlu Yıllar!

Happy New Year from Turkey!  The last couple of weeks have been kind of a blur, but I'll try to summarize.  Christmas was wonderful - we celebrated with a great party on Christmas Eve, a service at the Union Church on Istiklal, pancakes on Christmas morning, and dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant in Sultanahmet.  Plus classes, of course (strange but fine).  Here are a few pictures...

It is possible to cook breakfast for 12 on a single-burner hotplate (with help from friends)!  We even had a little Christmas tree and decorations courtesy of my wonderful aunt and cousin!

Christmas dinner with the Hagia Sophia (photo courtesy of Adrienne)

Chestnuts roasting over an open fire on Istiklal Caddesi

New Year's decorations for sale near the New Mosque
Almost no one celebrates Christmas, but New Year's is a big deal.  The decorations look very much like those found in the US (or Western Europe).  I guess since Saint Nicholas is supposedly from Turkey, this is appropriate!

New Year's Eve was also a fun night spent with friends.  Now it's on to finals (starting on Monday)!  I hope to post more throughout this next week as I should have plenty of time outside of studying (okay, mostly procrastinating) to share some more observations about this wonderful city and the experiences I've had over the course of the semester.  It's so strange to think that classes are over and I will be traveling back to the States in a month!

Turkey in Turkey

I apologize for the enormous gap between this post and the last one, but I promise I have a good excuse: my parents came to Turkey!  They were here for almost two weeks, which was wonderful.  We even managed to eat turkey on Thanksgiving!  Turkey lunch meat, that is - so not quite the same as we would have had at home, but with family here I had nothing to complain about.

Not exactly an oven-roasted turkey with all the trimmings, but turkey nonetheless

The Friday after Thanksgiving we traveled to Izmir, which is a city on the western (Aegean) coast of Turkey.  Because of Kurban Bayramı, or the "Festival of the Sacrifice" commemorating the Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (one of many stories connecting Islam to Judaism and Christianity), we had a full four and a half days to spend in the area.  We started out in Selçuk, one hour south of Izmir, which we used as a base for exploring Ephesus, St. John's Cathedral, the Isabey Mosque, and other sites.

Ephesus, which is mentioned a few times in the Bible (see Acts 19 or Ephesians), is an ancient city full of well-preserved and incredibly interesting baths, houses, and other public buildings like the Celsius Library.

Celsius Library

Probably the most impressive part of the city was the Great Theater.  This was the site of the infamous silversmiths riot that broke out after the Apostle Paul condemned idol worship sometime during the 1st century AD (see the Book of Acts).  It was kind of surreal to stand on the stage of the enormous theater (which seats approximately 25,000 people) and imagine angry mobs chanting something along the lines of "Artemis is great!" for three hours straight.  Unfortunately we were not prepared to make any speeches of our own, but I did have the experience of being engulfed by a Japanese tour group while they sang the Japanese national anthem.  I learned that the acoustics truly are very good...I was just disappointed that I couldn't sing along.

Our tour of western Turkey also included a stop at Pamukkale, which is a mountain of terraces formed out of calcium deposits from the (still-flowing) water.  Visitors are able to walk up and down the terraces and through the pools of water (barefoot), something that we agreed would never be allowed in the US.  On top of the terraces there were ruins of another ancient city.  Although this city wasn't quite as spectacular as Ephesus, it did have several impressive structures including a very large amphitheater.

Mom and Dad at Pamukkale

Our final stop was Aphrodisias, another well-preserved and very interesting ancient city between Pamukkale and Selçuk.  We arrived a bit late in the afternoon, but I think we were all glad to have stopped; there was virtually no one else there, and seeing the moon rise over the Temple of Aphrodite and surrounding mountains was a pretty amazing experience.

 

Temple of Aphrodite and Moon

My parents were in Istanbul for another week after we returned from Izmir, which gave us time to see a lot of the main sites - Topkapı Palace, Chora Church, Rumeli Fortress, and many others.  We toured my campus, ate large quantities of delicious Turkish food, and browsed the many colorful bazaars.  I think one of my favorite parts about having my parents here was being able to take so many çay (tea) and baklava/tost/éclair breaks at little cafes all over the city.  As much as I love living in the dorm with my roommates, a long weekend in an apartment in Sultanahmet was incredibly relaxing and provided a great opportunity to spend as much time as possible with my family.

It was definitely hard to see my parents get on the tram to go to the airport after being together for almost two weeks.  But I'm so glad that they were able to come for such a long visit, and I'm excited to see what happens during the rest of my time here.  I really can't believe that I've already been in Turkey for three and a half months!  It seems like it was just yesterday that I was riding through the city in a taxi from the airport and feeling incredibly disoriented and nervous.  While I can't say that I am any kind of Istanbul expert - very far from it, actually - I have definitely learned a lot and generally feel significantly more comfortable (less overwhelmed) in this huge city than I did when I first arrived.  I'm excited to see how that increases over the next couple of months.

I don't think I have the time or the space to recap the past couple of weeks in this post.  Hopefully, though, that will come in the next few days along with more photos on my Flikr page.  Until then - iyi geceler!

Celebrating Turkey

October 29th is Republic Day (Cumhuriyet Bayramı) here in Turkey, which celebrates the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.  For this occasion the flag concentration level in Istanbul reaches an annual high (there are already Turkish flags everywhere, but for Republic Day even large buildings are completely covered in enormous crescent-and-stars) military parades roll through the streets, school is cancelled, and the government sponsors an impressive fireworks display after the sun goes down.  Several other international Boğaziçi students and I joined thousands of Turks down by the shores of the Bosphorus to watch the show, which featured cascades of light pouring off of one of the intercontinental bridges as well as crescent and star-shaped explosions which drew lots of cheers from the crowd.

Fireworks over the Bosphorus

This past Tuesday, November 10th, was the 71st anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's death.  Ataturk (or "Father Turk") led the fight to establish a Republic in Turkey, finally succeeding in 1923 after the disintigration of the Ottoman Empire and years of internal struggle.  It's a bit hard to explain the importance of Ataturk to the Turkish people and the absolute reverence with which they treat him.  His picture is literally everywhere at all times - in small offices, stores, private homes, on cars, and even in my dorm.  People have a deep respect for this man that is quite different from and, in many ways, greater than the respect Americans have for important historical or current public figures.

Not only is the date when Ataturk died important, but so is the exact time - 9:05 AM, to be precise.  Having heard that "Turkey stops" at this moment, we got up early and headed down to Dolmabahçe Palace, the place where Ataturk died, to see what that actually meant.  Entrance to the palace was free for this occasion and everyone received rosettes with Ataturk's picture on them to pin to their shirts.  The experience was pretty amazing; at exactly 9:05, everything - people, cars, boats - came to a complete halt.  Then came the sounds of every fog horn, car horn, and siren in the city wailing out over the Bosphorus.  The sound was very sad and, combined with the stillness and silence of everything else, a bit unnerving.  But it really enforced the fact that Ataturk, though he's been gone for over 70 years, still plays a huge role in the lives of the Turkish people.

We are now in the heart of midterm exam and paper season here at school and so far it hasn't been too horrible.  The weather has been very cold and rainy, though, which I suppose is good in that it encourages studying (or at least procrastinating indoors).  Hopefully this weekend will bring some sunshine and more adventures!

Becoming Legal Aliens, Turkish Style

We knew even before arriving in Turkey that the process for becoming legal residents would be a difficult one, but I don't think we fully grasped the extent of the craziness that is the Turkish bureaucracy until we had lived here for a few weeks.  The longer we stayed in Istanbul, the more we could see that this was not going to be a simple matter of going to the police station for a day to get a few papers stamped.  Here are the rules/events that eventually led to us boarding a non-stop bus for the Turkey-Greece border (more on that later):

1. You must apply for a student visa before arriving in Turkey.  This visa will expire after 30 days...good luck!
2. The international/exchange office in Turkey will help you in obtaining the necessary documents (ie a residency permit).  It will attempt to provide you with the paperwork needed in order to complete the process within 30 days.  You are responsible for getting print-outs of all of the forms, however.  In color.
3. Wait, you have to make an appointment?  And all the appointments are filled until 40+ days after you arrived?  Well, maybe they won't care about that whole 30-day restriction thing.  That's probably just a general suggestion, anyway.
4. Okay, you've made an appointment - great.  Make sure to get there very early in the morning so you can take a number and wait in line.  "Appointment" in Turkish actually translates to "first come, first served."  It's one of those "cultural differences" things.
5. Welcome to the police station!  Now that you've made it through security, given your camera to the guard to babysit for the day, and waited in (possibly) the right line, you can come back after 4.  Yes, 4pm.  You have an appointment for 8?  No, we changed our policy yesterday.  We only help students after 4.  But we are open until midnight, which is convenient since it will definitely take at least 6 hours before you will be able to speak with someone and an additional 2 to find someone who can translate.

Okay, that's about how it went.  Except we weren't too keen on taking the bus/tram one and a half hours each way back and forth later in the day...then again in two days to pay (the pay station is, of course, only open until 3) and maybe, just maybe, pick up the permit on a third day after that. 

This is where the part about hopping on a bus to Greece comes in!  After being thwarted by the Alien Registration Police, Adrienne and I made the slightly impulsive decision to go to Greece for the day to attempt to get tourist visas (which are valid for 90 days).  We successfully navigated to the enormous bus station in Istanbul, bought tickets for the 2.5-hour ride, and embarked on the next stage of the adventure:

Greece or bust

Our feelings about the situation

Buses are really the main form of transportation for getting just about anywhere in the country.  Unlike in the US, they are quite comfortable and very clean, and, as an added bonus, have "flight attendant"-like employees on-board who distribute hand cleaner, hot beverages, and snacks throughout the journey.  Edirne, the place we were aiming for, is a smallish town on the Turkish side of the border.  When we arrived at the bus station there we found a cab that could take us the approximately 20km to the passport control station.  This border crossing was pretty much in the middle of nowhere and therefore very quiet.  Everyone else was going through in cars, but we were able to walk up to the office, get our passports stamped, and pass the rest of the half-mile or so into Greece on foot.  It was kind of a strange experience to walk from one country to the other, but it's definitely fun to be able to say that we spent about 45 minutes in Greece!

Welcome to the Hellenic Republic!

The town on the other side of the border was very quiet - no restaurants open and only a few locals out and about, hanging laundry and chatting with friends.  We wandered around for a little bit before making the trip back to greet the now-familiar guards, who stamped our passports and sold us our highly anticipated tourist visas.  We made the most of our location by exploring Edirne for the rest of the afternoon.  The town was once home to a significant Jewish population, and the old synagogue (which at one time had a congregation of 20,000+) is still partially standing.  There is also a magnificent mosque in the center of the city; it was nice to just sit inside for a while and enjoy the peacefulness of the space.

Interior of the Selimiye Cami

The Dome

Overall it was a good day.  I now have an increased appreciation of everyone who makes it through the bureaucratic processes to settle in a new country (any country); I'm sure that the problems we faced are not isolated to Turkey and that, relatively speaking, we had significant advantages (the financial ability and time to find an alternative, the passports to make it across the border and back, and enough patience and humor to make getting through it all not only bearable, but fun) over many other people who must transition to living in a foreign place.

On the agenda for the next few days: Republic Day tomorrow (akin to Independence Day in the US), Halloween, and the Istanbul Book Fair!  Oh, and some studying and paper-writing as well...

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out the new photos on the right!

Intercontinental Wanderings

Istanbul is known as the "city of two continents," but there is actually only one day each year when a person can travel between them on foot.  Last Sunday was that day, so of course we had to take advantage of the opportunity to cross one of the two bridges connecting Asia to Europe.  The reason for the bridge being open was the Istanbul Intercontinental Marathon, which was advertised as being (not surprisingly, I guess) the only intercontinental marathon in the world.  We weren't able to officially register, but we decided to head over to Taksim Square at the ungodly hour of 6AM to try to get on one of the shuttles headed for the start line on the Asian side.  Luckily no one was checking numbers and we made it across the Bosphorus without any problems.  The starting area for the 8k Fun Run was absolutely crazy - someone was handing out free Turkish flags, a van was blasting Turkish pop music, and the crowd was the most diverse and enthusiastic I have ever seen at any kind of running event.  When the race actually started, we had to kind of shuffle along at first because of the size of the crowd and the fact that most people, it seemed, were concentrating more on the "fun" part and less on the "run."  There was one guy carrying an enormous deck umbrella (it was raining) and another selling Simit, a sort of Turkish bagel, in the middle of the course.  Like many things we've seen so far, we just had to laugh and say "only in Turkey!"

Adrienne and I halfway between Asia and Europe

Crossing from one continent to the other was kind of a surreal experience.  The bridge was very high and afforded great views of "our" side of the city; it was hard not to want to stop every few feet to take another picture.  At the finish line we got medals and t-shirts, which will be nice reminders of a very fun adventure.  Unlike in the US, where actually wearing a "fun run" medal as an adult seems a bit silly, everyone here (regardless of age) put theirs on immediately after finishing the race.  So we did, too, and wore them with pride:

"The Other Side of the Night"

One of the best aspects of living and studying in another place for an extended period of time is that you're not only able to see the "tourist" side of that place, but the lesser-known, local side as well. So far this has meant that I've been able to do a lot of things (like going to one of my Turkish roommates' band's concerts in a music club in Taksim, for instance) that have definitely made my time here more special. Last week, a couple of friends and I went to a photography exhibit that we had read about in one of the English-language dailies (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/). The photos were taken by a taxi driver in Istanbul who works the night shift and, over the course of three years, has used his access to the streets after the sun goes down to photograph the "darker" side of the city. The images of poverty-stricken, homeless, or otherwise vulnerable people were pretty intense and at times hard to look at, but they served as good reminders of the huge contradictions that exist within Istanbul between rich and poor, modern and developing.

Going to the photo exhibit was also interesting because it was in an area of the city where earlier in the day about 6,000 people had marched in protest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank meetings being held in Istanbul. Although we were there after the streets had been cleared of the protesters themselves, we could definitely see the results of their actions - smashed windows on nearly every bank and many other businesses, angry red spray-painted messages on walls and doors, and lots of police in full riot gear. We felt safe, but there was a definite tension in the air; it was the first time I (and the friends I was with) had seen firsthand what violent protest can lead to - and it wasn't pretty. The issues surrounding the IMF and World Bank are definitely complex; though a lot of economists and other observers have recently written that some of the IMF's policies did more harm than good during the recent economic downturn, it's hard to deny that both organizations have done a lot of good over the past 60+ years. Turkey itself had to enlist the help of the IMF not all that long ago during its own economic crisis, so hosting the annual meetings is a huge symbol of how far the country has come since then.

This past weekend was pretty relaxed. On Friday evening a few of us went down to Sultanahmet to see the Hagia Sophia, which was absolutely incredible. The first Christian service was held there in 537 AD (after two previous churches built on the same site were destroyed by angry mobs) and the building went on to be the largest church in the world for over 1,000 years. When the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453, the church was converted to a mosque and was significantly remodeled to fit Islamic custom (mosaics were plastered and painted over, minarets were installed, etc). In 1934 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (more on him later) converted the building into a museum. Fortunately, extensive restoration work has been done on the church/mosque/museum over the years to reveal many of the gorgeous mosaics depicting Jesus, the Virgin Mary, angels, and other important Christian figures. Seeing elements of both Muslim and Christian religious traditions in such a huge and ancient place is really amazing - I will definitely be back!

Classes are going well, and learning more Turkish has been VERY helpful. The language is so completely different from English, especially in its grammatical structure. Making sentences sort of feels like scrambling the words into an almost completely unrecognizable order; hopefully this process will become more natural over the next few weeks!

I hope all is well at home (MN) and wherever else you are when you're reading this. I can't believe that the Twin Cities got 4+ inches of snow, especially when it's been sunny and 25 degrees (Celsius, that is!) here :) It did start to rain this evening, if that's any consolation, and should continue to do so for the next few days. Make sure to check out the new pictures in my online photo album and to leave a comment if you want to...until next time, iyi geceler!