27 Caftans

The Moroccan host-mothers dressed their American girl/dolls this past Friday.  All of the best jewelry was brought out and matched with their corresponding caftans.  Caftans are the traditional dress robes for Moroccan women at special celebrations-- such as the wedding several of us were about to attend!  Now don't they look beautiful?

So you're probably wondering how we got an invitation to a Moroccan wedding.  Well, the bride is simply our sociology professor's husband's sister-in-law's sister.  (I think I got that right...)  Unlike Owen and Vince, we didn't need a false pretense to show up.  Moroccans love wedding crashers!

 Although the invitation said 9:00 p.m., we left for the wedding at 9:30.  "Arrive at 9:00 means arrive at 12:00 to a Moroccan," Fatima informed us.  Sure enough, we were some of the first guests to arrive.  Our arrival was announced by the deep-chested singing of four women.  For the first time during my stay in Morocco, the sound made me feel like I was in the idea of Africa that Hollywood (read: The Lion King) instilled in me.  The four women resumed their chorus when each group arrived.

Before the bride and groom arrived, the gifts arrived.  Boxes strolled in (via the tops of men's heads) containing traditional gifts: perfumes, jewelry, money, teacups, and shoes.

Finally the bride and groom were brought in.  Each sat in a big white carriage on the shoulders of six strong men.  I say 'strong' because they had to hold the carriages for multiple dances, some of which were 45 minutes long!  Professor Langerak pointed out that the dances conjured images of courtship rituals.

 

The exhausted bearers:

The bride's mother encouraged us to dance along with the other guests.  Kate stole the show with the Moroccan dance moves her host-mother makes her practice every day at breakfast.  After a few hours of dancing I realized that the box of tissues on each table was in fact for sweat, not tears.  (Mom, I'm sure you still would have managed to cry!)

Mint tea-- which the locals call Moroccan Whiskey-- and small snacks-- which the Minnesotans call treats or bars-- arrived at our table throughout the night.

Two video cameras captured the whole event.  We would appear on one of the room's six screens as the cameramen made their rounds throughout the room.  We Americans couldn't help but smile and look at the camera, though the other guests sat completely still with serious frowns and distant stares.  This footage, as Kate and Bri were fortunate enough to discover a few days earlier, is edited into an hours-long movie for Moroccans to show their guests.

The live music and dancing continued until morning.  We arrived home to a sunrise over the Medina.  (Please note: Ed and Lois have always told us their bedtime is 9:00 p.m., but they were the two most lively at 7:00 a.m.!)  We couldn't have left the wedding any earlier because we would have missed these amazing events:

The bride changed her whole outfit (caftan, jewelry, makeup and hairdo) four times.  The groom changed as well, but all attention was on the bride.  Each of the five outfits had its own carriage and ritualistic dance.  Sister dearest, please don't get any ideas.

Kate noted that we never heard a public announcement (i.e. vows, toasts, introductions) throughout the whole night.  The signing of the marriage papers is a separate event, so there may be words exchanged there.

The bride receiving henna on the marriage throne.

The bride being unveiled.  Her dress was then pinned into the carriage for another dance.

The bride and groom cutting the cake.  Does this look familiar?

Overall we give the wedding an A+++.  For those of you wondering where the other half of the group was, ask for a blog post on their weekend in Spain!

Bslama!
Josef Lorentz and TIME 2010

Made it to Morocco!

Greetings from Fez!

First of all, apologies for letting so much time pass between posts; we've all been extremely busy since the end of our Turkish excursion.  The last half of our Turkish excursion was very satisfying.  After leaving the dreadful Batihan Beach Resort, we visited the ruins at Ephesus, probably the most impressive set of ruins in Turkey.  Much of the site has been restored over the years.  Here's a picture of our group in front of the restored Library of Celsus in Ephesus.

Group at the Library of Celsus in Ephesus

From Ephesus, we traveled on to Konya, an important city for the mystic sect of Islam, Sufism.  Konya is the site of the tomb of the famous Sufi poet, Rumi, which is one of, if not the most important sites for Sufis to visit.

We spent the night in Konya, and once we were rested up, we traveled to the region of Cappadocia, famous for it's bizzarre, surreal landscape.  Cappadocia, located in east central Turkey, is a pretty incredible place.  Cappadocia's distinctive landscape is the product of volcanic ash deposited by ancient, now dormant volcanoes.  Over the centuries, wind, rain, and rivers have sculpted the rock into a variety of surreal forms, including the famous "fairy chimneys.  "Distinctive" is probably too light of an adjective to describe this place.  I don't think any of us have ever seen any naturally formed scenery that comes even close to this place.  My descriptions and even my pictures cannot do it justice.  It's like a hopped up version of the Badlands, literally the Badlands on psychedelic drugs.  Exploring Cappadocia was probably the highlight of excursion for the majority of the group.  Here's a couple of photos to give you just the palest sense of this place:

Goreme: City in the Rocks

Ash Rock Spires

Some of our group and our excursion guide, Aida, in the Underground City

From Cappadocia, we had a long bus drive to Ankara, the capital of Turkey.  In Ankara, we visited the massive mausoleum of Ataturk, the first president of Turkey.  We also visited the Anatolian Archeological Museum, which was apparently voted the best museum in Europe in 2006 (surprising, since Ankara is located in Asia, not Europe).  Regardless of the status of its dubious awards, the museum was still quite fascinating.  It probably had the most impressive collection of ancient artifacts of any of the museums we've seen so far, maybe with the exception of the Archeological museum in Istanbul.  Professor Langerak was particularly enthralled by the museum's exhibits; the museum staff had to kick him out at closing time.

After spending the night in Ankara, we set off on the final leg of our bus travels, bound for Istanbul.  We made it back to Istanbul in the early evening.  Our flight for Morocco departed at 6am on Wednesday, so our last night in Istanbul was dedicated to hasty re-packing and light sleep.  Even though our flight time to Morocco wasn't nearly as bad as our first set of flights from the U.S. to Turkey, Wednesday ended up being an extremely long day.  Ultimately, I think our travels to Morocco deprived us of just as much sleep as our travels to Turkey.  Nonetheless, we were able to rest up well on Wednesday night.

On Thursday the 1st of October, we toured the Arabic Language Institute in Fez where we will be taking all of our Arabic and Sociology courses during the next three weeks.  ALIF is beautiful; the courtyard has a wonderful garden and many of the classrooms are decorated with intricate mosaics and plaster-works.  After our ALIF orientation, we set off on a tour of the Medina, the ancient walled city of Fez, with our guide Ali.  The Medina is extremely confusing, a bewildering network of narrow, twisting streets, innumerable turns and side alleys.  Ali gave us some particularly apropos advice in regards to navigating the Medina; "To learn, you must lose your reason.  To learn, you must lose yourself".  I wouldn't be surprised if Ali had dabbled in philosophy at some point in his past.   

In addition to Ali's wise words, highlights of our Medina tour included a visit to an old-school textile shop and a tour of the Dar Dbagh Chouara Tannery, which was featured on the Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" and on ABC's "The Amazing Race".  According to Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs", working in the tannery is supposed to be the third hardest job in the world. We were able to survey the tannery from a terrace high above the tannery vats, and even from that elevated vantage point, the smell was nearly overpowering.  If they can bear the stench, I'm sure many of the girls on the trip will venture back to the tannery to haggle for some high-quality leather bags. 

Last Friday morning, we had our first Arabic class.  We are learning the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, known as Darija, which actually means "dialect" in Arabic.  After a lecture in the evening, we met our host families for the first time.  I'm sure many of you already know, but for those of you who are out of the loop, all of us will be living with host families for the duration of our stay in Fez.  All of us elected to stay in the Medina; living in this baffling labyrinth is sure to be an unparalleled experience.

After a week, all of us are still alive and kicking, surviving our home stays and our classes in style.  Fez is far different from Istanbul and Turkey.  This place certainly has a greater degree of character, manifested most obviously in the strange sights and smells of the Medina, which can be nearly overpowering at times.  I hope we can embrace Ali's advice; Fez and Morocco will be a place that challenges us to 'lose our reason', to get out of our comfort zone in order to learn something new.  I'm sure it's gonna be a fun and wild ride!

Until next time,
Luke P

P.S. I'll try to post some pictures of Fez within the next couple of days, mainly in order to give all of you a feel for the insanity of the Medina.  Stay tuned!

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

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

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

Merhaba Istanbuldan!

Hello from Istanbul!  Here's a picture of our group gathered near the Hagia Sophia, the original cathedral of Emperor Constantinople.  Hagia Sophia was the largest mosque in the world for over a thousand years!

The group is in good spirits as we continue to settle into our new surroundings and accommodations.  We spent Sunday evening exploring Taksim square, one of the most popular areas in Istanbul for tourists and Turks alike.  We've had our crash course in the Turkish language, which has been a hilarious experience with all of the midwestern mispronunciation and other humorous confusions that are a part of learning a new language.  We have our Turkish exam this afternoon after the first meeting of our political science class.  Wish us all luck!

Time to get back to studying!  Allahaismarladik (God stay with you)!

Made it to Constantinople

We made it!  The whole group is safe and sound in Istanbul, arriving without any problems beyond the discomfort and stress of overseas air travel.  We are checked in at the Superdorm on the residential campus of Boğaziçi University, which will be our home until we venture off on our Turkish excursion beginning on September 19th.  We are in for a busy time in Istanbul.  Tomorrow, August 28th, we have a full day tour of the city, which is sure to be fascinating.


Just wanted to let everyone at home know that we all arrived safely.  Hopefully we can all banish the last remnants of jet lag with a good night's sleep.  We'll make sure to post another update as soon as our energy stores are back to full charge!