Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Turkish Excursion!

Greetings from Kuşadasi, on the shores of the Aegean Sea!

We've just finished the fourth day of our Turkish excursion, but it certainly feels as if we've been on the road for much longer.  Spending hour after hour on a cramped, knee-crushing tour bus will tend to stretch out your sense of time.  Apart from the hassles of large-group transportation, so far, the trip has been amazing, full of new experiences and moderately sketchy adventures (e.g. swimming in the Aegean Sea at night, hiking through ancient ruins, maybe wandering out of bounds and getting whistled at by a security guard, etc.).  Many of us were sad to leave Istanbul, which proved to be a fascinating, exciting city to experience and explore. 

On Sunday, our first day of excursion, we spent over 7 hours on the bus in transit from Istanbul to our various tour sites and to our final destination in the fishing village of Assos where we spent Sunday night.  First, we visited the battlefields and graveyards of Galipoli on the shores of the Dardanelles.  Galipoli was beautiful, somber, and surprisingly intense.  From Galipoli, we traveled for several hours to the alleged site of the ancient city of Troy, the famous city of Homer's Iliad.  To be honest, Troy was a bit underwhelming.  The remaining structures are in poor shape despite ongoing excavation efforts.  All of it seemed a bit dingy: we expected something epic, but unfortunately, the real Troy failed to live up to the epic expectations set by the Iliad.

After our first day of excursion, we bunked down in the town of Assos, a charming, peaceful fishing village on the shores of the Aegean.  Aristotle lived in Assos for a number of years circa 350 BC, and he even established an academy there.  St. Paul also visited Assos on his third missionary expedition through Asia Minor between 53-57 AD.  Thanks to Professor Langerak for all of the historical background relayed in this post (even though we don't have any class during excursion, we're still managing to learn a bit)!  The entire group took a late night swim in Assos, which was a wonderful experience for us.  Hopefully we didn't encroach to much upon the peace and quiet of our fellow guests...

Many of us were sad to leave Assos.  Our current accommodations at the Batihan Beach Resort in Kuşadasi are far from charming.  In fact, it might be safe to say that the Batihan is the complete antithesis to charm, peace, and quiet.  This place is like a cheap, trashy, dingy, Mexican-esque, Miami Beach rip-off for vacationing Europeans.  So far, we haven't been able to find a single non-fluorescent light in the hotel; the whole place is bathed in a sickly light.  This place is like the J.C. Penny's of hotels; everyone seems desperate and there's way too much going on.  It would make a perfect setting for a creepy murder mystery novel or a grade B horror/slasher flick.  In short, the place gives all of us the "heebie-jeebies".  We are all sick and tired of eating at the greasy, gluttonous buffet, getting stuck in the elevators with scantily clad grandparents, walking across the thin beach littered with more cigarette butts than sand, and listening to the incessant, Euro-trash techno house music, which blares from the poolside speakers long into the night.  Needless to say, we are all excited to move out of here.

In spite of the shadiness of our current hotel, our tours over the last three days have been excellent.  On Monday, we visited Pergamon, an ancient Greek city located 16 miles (26 km) from the Aegean Sea on a promontory overlooking the north side of the river Caicus modern day Bakircay.  Pergamon was very cool.  Check out this picture of our group gathered at the acropolis of Pergamon!

 
After Pergamon, we traveled a short distance to the Asclepion, an ancient medical center where patients received basic psychosomatic treatments.  The "doctors"/faith healers of the Asclepion employed a variety of psychological techniques including whispering subliminal messages and interpreting the dreams of their patients.  The success rate of the Asclepion was said to be very high, but Professor Langerak pointed out that the center would only accept patients that had a good chance of being cured.  Here's a picture of the main grounds of the Asclepion!



Yesterday (Tuesday), we visited three different sites including Priene, Miletus, and Didyma.  Alexander the Great lived in Priene for a number of years.  The city is built on steep slopes that used to overlook the Aegean Sea before the sea receded to its current shores.

After Priene, we traveled across the valley of the Maeander River to Miletus, an ancient port city that used to be one of the wealthiest cities in the entire Greek empire before the Persian invasion.  Miletus was also the home city of some of the first Greek philosophers including Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximinies.   Here are some pictures of the stadium at Miletus, which used to host plays and gladiator games!

Group in the Miletus Stadium

Miletus Stadium

For the last leg of our Tuesday tours, we visited Didyma, home to an incredible temple to the Greek sun god, Apollo.  We'll let the pictures speak for themselves; the place was unbelievably preserved and insanely huge.

Front steps of the Temple to Apollo


Inside the Temple to Apollo



But, our adventure today might prove to be one of the best highlights of our entire semester, or at least of our time in Turkey.  We spent the day cruising the Aegean Sea on a private yacht, taking long swims in pure blue water, leaping into the water from 25+ feet up on the top of our ship, snorkeling, lounging under the sun on the top deck, sprawled out over piles of soft pillows.  In a word, today was sublime.  Some of us may have swallowed too much saltwater, and some of us might have failed to apply enough sunscreen, but apart from some sore stomachs and burnt shoulders, today was pretty close to perfect.

Tomorrow morning, we leave the awful Batihan Resort for another long day of touring to Ephesus, Pamukkale, and Aphrodisias.  We'll spend tomorrow night in Konya followed by two nights (Friday and Saturday) in Cappadocia.  Excursion has been most excellent so far, and even the hangups and annoyances of long bus rides and seedy hotels will eventually morph into hilarious stories; if we can escape Batihan without getting axe-murdered by a Euro-trash serial killer sporting a mullet and a Speedo, it'll be pretty easy to look back and laugh about our brief stay in beach resort Hell.

Until next time,
Luke P

Saturday, September 11, 2010

A Day in the Life

Alarm goes off at 7:45 a.m.  I check Gmail and Facebook on my laptop, and often times I get a quick chat in with some Oles who are still up doing homework.  It's a new day here, however, so I have to get ready for school.

I take a shower that's either too hot or too cold.  (Sorry-- I don't mean to sound like Goldie Locks.)  As I get dressed, I hear the daily metronome of "IYI... IYI... IYI..." (eee-yuh).  It's a man walking down the street selling a Turkish favorite called simit-- a circular piece of bread with sesame seeds on it-- from a tray balanced on top of his head.  "Iyi" means "fine" in Turkish.  I look out my window and see two Turkish flags blowing above a statue.  I can guess who it depicts; nine times out of ten the statues here are of Ataturk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey.

We set off for school in groups.  On the way out we apologize to the Superdorm desk workers for our noise.  "Affedersiniz, Amerikaliyim!"  ("Sorry, I'm American!")  The walk takes about 25 minutes.  The first half of the walk is through our neighborhood (called Ucaksavar).  We pass by various vendors, some bakeries, cafes, and a bunch of dogs.  At some point Stumpy, a dog with a big Yellow Lab body but very short legs, meets up with us and walks us to class with his big curl of a tail in the air and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.  We're amazed he hasn't been hit by a car yet; we ourselves are in constant fear of being run over by the crazy taxi drivers or constantly-honking Turks.

We enter the gates of Bogazaci University, and walk down a long hill.  The view is surreal.  We see the Bosphorous, with a few boats cruising along.  It has a very beautiful ("cok guzel!") mix of buildings and trees lining the coasts on each side.

Every ten paces or so we pass a cat, who have each become familiar (whiskered) faces.  We take some winding paths through the dense thick of trees to arrive at the Ataturk Building, where our classes are held.  Like our President Washington, Ataturk is a popular name for streets, buildings, etc.  Our favorite cats meow at us from the benches they're lounging on, and a striped grey one named Alex tries his best to sneak into the classroom with us.

We've had class with four different professors so far.  The wisest and wittiest, of course, is Professor Ed Langerak from St. Olaf.  In his class we discuss religious toleration and individual freedom.  We've started reading the Qur'an, which I'm ashamed I haven't read before, and a book by Reza Aslan called "No god but God", which I highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about Islam.  Our Bogazaci professors so far have been Professors Sevket Pamuk, Binnaz, and her husband Zafer.  All three are brilliant scholars.  The handsome Pamuk, whose brother won a literary Nobel Prize, taught us some broad Middle Eastern geography and history.  Binnaz is our expert on women's rights and secularism in Turkey.  She also gave us the kooky Turkish language lessons.  She's a controversial, liberal debater here in Turkey-- we realized her fame when a cab driver recognized the name on our way to her house.  Zafer gave us a very detailed history of the Ottoman Empire.  Turkish professors have a different pedagogy from most of our Olaf ones.  It's usually a constant stream of information, with little or no discussion, and us trying our hardest to keep our eyes open.  (Past TIMErs, you forgot to mention to us that we have class from nine to four every day!)

We grab lunch at the canteen and eat outside on a shady bench.  The view, again, is a spectacular panoramic of the Bosphorous.  Cats come by and pester us for food; we reward only the cutest or friendliest.  Around one o'clock we hear the harmony of call to prayers echoing across the water from all the mosques along the coast.  "Is this real life?" echoes across our bench.

After classes we might sit at a cafe and try to get some reading done.  (Socializing inevitably trumps studying.)  We are pretty good at becoming friends with our waiters and waitresses, and often times the restaurant owners as well!  (We're rewarded with free tea, or cay.)  To a certain extent we rely on our hands and their broken English, but our small knowledge of Turkish has been crucial in showing them that we're trying hard to communicate.

"So where should we go tonight?"  We rarely spend a night in the Superdorm.  It's off to Taksim, the party district, for some Efes and hookah, live music and meeting locals.  Or the Old City for some bazaar shopping.  We've also enjoyed various museums, from Turkish modern art to Ottoman archeology.  Dinners are a highlight of the night, as we often have to order a Turkish dish having no idea what it could be.  Usually it's a good surprise!

We get back to the Superdorm and squeeze in some necessary homework time.  We've had four tests in the past two weeks!  We're lucky to get in bed by 2 a.m.  The city sounds of dogs barking, cars honking, and wind blowing are no match for my heavy eyelids.

Siz seviyoruz! (We love you all!)
-Josef Lorentz and TIME 2010

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Switchin Perspectives


Hello, all!
What this blog really needs (perhaps in addition to a few more posts) is a woman's touch, so I thought I'd swoop in to save the day with a new post. On Thursday our group took the bus (hooray! we're officially public transportation savvy!) to Dolmabache Palace, or "Istanbul's Versailles". It was absolutely stunning. Well, the outside of it was. The Palace ended up being closed, so we posed for a couple pics, tightened up our Teva straps and set out on the thirty minute walk to Istanbul Modern, a contemporary art museum. The museum was an impressive collection of mediums ranging from sculpture to photography to costume collection. And the air conditioning felt great. After the museum we crossed over the Galata Bridge and made our way to the Spice Bazaar, a bustling market where shopkeepers offered us sample after sample of Turkish Delight. Despite the daunting crowds at the market, we managed to lose just one person, and this was only because she was temporarily distracted by spotting an old high school boyfriend of hers wandering through a nearby stall. But these things happen, and we managed to reconnect later in the evening. So while Nandini was busy re-creating the iconic scene between Carrie and Aidan from this summer's Sex and The City 2, a few of us others set out in search of dinner, settling for a little place on the Galata Bridge where we spent the meal shouting over the crashing waves and squinting against the brilliant sunset reflecting in the Golden Horn (Note: Life is rough. Plz send care packages). The night soon drew to a close, and we hurried on home to the Superdorm, eager to tuck into our hefty stack of reading for Friday's political science exam. Our academic studies are going well, our experiential exercises are even better, and we hope all is well with you.

Until next time,
Sarah