Lejing-Istanbul-Week 4

The fourth week in Istanbul was the last week of the semester at Koc University. Students moved out gradually, and the campus became really empty and quiet.

On Saturday night, Pareesa and I met an Indian girl, who came to the university for the Model UN conference. She was a representative of G20. We chatted for a little while.

The next day morning, I met more people. They were here for the English Language program. Two of them were from UK, two from California. I took them around the campus and had a great time with them chatting.

Turkey seems like a really diverse place with people coming from different parts of the world and speaking different languages. I really appreciate the opportunity to meet some of them.

(Sorry, there wasn't any pictures.)

Pareesa-- Week 8 Istanbul

Wow, this is my last week in the city and I honestly cannot believe I have spent two months here. Time flew by, and I have had an extremely eventful and interesting time here. I definitely learned many lessons of patience between the language barriers and cultural differences. There have been times when I have been frustrated and homesick to the point of breaking down, but I have learned to brave through-- and work on my patience even as I return to the US. Because I only have a few days left, I still wanted to get through some things on my to-do list.

Topkapi

The past weekend I went to Topkapi Palace. I don't have many pictures of it, since most of the artifacts interesting to me did not allow for photography. I saw many of the Holy Prophet's personal items--preserved from hundreds of years ago! There were also items of other prophets in the palace. In these chambers, I could hear the Quran being read by a hafiz over the loud speakers. I really could sense that , even though the palace is a museum, it is a holy sight all the same.

One night, I found an arts group which takes a group of 15 people, once a week, to an authentic sema. I joined them and we were taken to this hidden monastery and were able to witness a real ceremony of the whirling dervishes. It started off with a sermon (in Turkish), then some praying and chanting, a small snack, and finally ending with the dervishes whirling to Sufi music played by the musicians of the group. These people are followers of Rumi (who is buried in Konya and is the leader of Sufisim), his painting was in the center of the hall and was the final face the dervishes bowed down to when ending the ceremony. I don't really understand the rituals of Sufism (whirling, singing, playing wind instruments), but I do think the ceremony was extremely beautiful nonetheless. Rumi's followers were really emersed in it and I could feel their passion in their chanting, singing, and dancing. It will be something I won't forget. Since it was a religious ceremony I hardly took any pictures and don't feel right sharing them online, but I hope I have described it will enough. 

This week has been really stretching on since Ramadan has started, but in my last few days I hope to see whatever else I can of this city.

  

Until next time, görüşürüz Istanbul! <3

Pareesa Istanbul week 7

This week we ventured to Cappadocia and Konya!
Cappadocia was by far my favorite place to visit-- the town we stayed at was so storybook-esque.

Goreme Open Air Museum

 The town was pretty small and surrounded by these rock formations and valleys. Most of the shop owners catered to tourists and there were a bunch of hotels in the area. Despite all of this, the place had a very local, down-to-earth Turkish feel that I haven't quite seen in the citylife of Istanbul.

Sun rise

Best Meal EVER!

Allaeddin Camii, Konya

After two nights in Cappadocia, we bused to Konya. After a three hour ride, we ended up in "Turkey's most conservative city". Though most women were hijab-clad, NOONE knew English, and there were close to no tourists, I felt like I was in the real Turkey so to speak. The other cities I visited have been so influenced by the country's booming tourist industry and western culture-- I felt that this city had remained untouched. After a night in Konya, we flew back to Istanbul!

Pareesa Week 6 Istanbul

This week I finally got around to going to two of Istanbul's prime tourist attractions: the Basilica Cistern and Aya Sofia.

I thought it was really interesting to see a mosaic of Jesus alongside calligraphy 

 There was construction going on in half of Aya Sofia but the building was still huge despite the closed off section. The stature of the building on the outside does not reflect its enormous domes within.

The cistern

You can't tell here but the cistern was extremely crowded! Luckily, there weren't any people near a particular section called the "wishing pool". By it, there is a pole with a hole in it and-- according to the internet (haha)-- if you stick your thumb inside the hole and try to make a complete circle with your index finger, your wish will come true. Needless to say,  I gave this a shot--and succeeded!

Rainy Besiktas

 The open air cafes by the sea at Besiktas were soaked by the huge downpour this week! This was the first time I experienced Istanbul with less than perfect weather.

Sunset of the Golden Horn

Pareesa- Week 5 Istanbul

Week 5 consisted mostly of me wandering around Istanbul and ending up at various mosques to offer daily prayers. I find the architecture is pretty much the same with all the mosques but with a little bit of color variations. I enjoy going to these buildings and seeing the rows of people line up and move in unison. In the bustling city, there is always a moment of peace to seek solace in here.

Near Kabatas

kilicali pasa Camiii

domes of the Yeni Camii (New Mosque)

The New Mosque is by far my favorite--it may not be as well known as the Blue Mosque or the Suleymaniye but I'm still biased to it. Infact I remember during my second week in Istanbul, taking a short break from the sun here--and dozing off for a bit. Since then it has been one of my favorite places to go to!

Catherine Denton: Week 7, Madrid

Rutina: Costumbre o hábito adquirido de hacer las cosas de forma mecánica y sin razonar.

One of the leading Spanish dictionaries describes a routine as a mechanical habit that often lacks reason. And that’s precisely why I avoid routine—with 3 months in a city as diverse as Madrid, settling into a “routine” is dangerous and waste of an incredible opportunity.

I try to make sure no two days look the same, but I can give you an idea of what I’m doing this week. It should give a comprehensive perspective of my life here.

7:45 AM, Calle del Arenal 100 meters away from the Operá Metro stop:

The only thing that’s superior to a Calle del Arenal morning is a Calle de Arenal evening. Although the morning lacks the street music and the sound of “la gente,” in the morning the sun peeks through the curtains of my giant walkout window, making visible the tropical Spanish travel posters I have pinned to my sunset yellow walls. Welcome to my room. I live on one of the liveliest streets in Madrid, Calle del Arenal meters from the el Teatro Real, one of Europe’s most famous Opera houses. My first month I lived in another apartment that was in a nice area near Salamanca, but it was far too quiet. The apartment on Calle del Arenal provided the perfect remedy—every time I opened my window, it was a sensory experience with the sounds of the street, the view of the stunning Spanish architecture, and the feel of the “aire libre.” I quickly get ready and head to the Metro.

A view in the morning from my window

9:30 AM, Av. Llano Castellano, Grupo Cortefiel

I would say one of my most “routine” like practices at work is my relationship with our inexpensive espresso machines. When I arrive, I usually head straight to the machine and about 15 minutes later, I return for a second cup. My desk is part of a cluster of four. Our cluster, and the cluster adjacent to us, makes up the heart of international “franquicias.” Each of my coworkers is assigned a region—MENA (Middle East, North Africa), Asia, South America, etc.—and is responsible for coordinating logistics with the franchisees there and analyzing sales by season and year. It’s always interesting to listen to my coworkers on the phone with the franchisees. Alberto quickly switches to speaking near-perfect English when he hears another non-English speaker on the line, and Oaxanna often speaks in Russian.  I’ve been doing a lot of work for Naomi (Asia and some of Eastern Europe). Dozens of pivot tables and spreadsheets later, I have almost finished my report analyzing the Spring Summer 2014 sales and the 2013 v 2014 sales evolution in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This project has taken almost a week, and it’s gratifying to hear “muy bien” once I finally finish it. She promises to give me an even more complicated report the next day.

franquicias internacionales (aka my cluster!)

1:10 PM, el comedor de Grupo Cortefiel

Right around 1 PM, most of my office heads down to the cafeteria for lunch. I try to sit with a different group of coworkers every couple of days in an effort to get to know more of my office of 60 in a building of almost 1000 . Today I’m sitting with another girl from franquicias and a guy from visual merchandising. One is from San Sebastian and the other Barcelona. We chat about my past weekend in Barcelona, including Gaudi’s architecture and the beach nightlife. After about 45 minutes of lunch, I usually say “hasta luego” to most of my coworkers as they go to smoke.

5 PM, Calle de Límon

After work, I head to the apartment of friend and classmate, Elias. Elias is a 26-year-old renewable energies engineer from Lebanon. Fluent in Arabic, English, and French, Elias is eager to better his español. Elias and I met in a class I took my first month here. It was a Spanish class 3 hours a week at an academy in the area. The class had recently ended, and we both realized that a more intensive class would be more beneficial. Our solution came in the form of Javier, a teacher at one of the academies in the area. Javier was the brother of one of my friends/conversation partners. When I was talking with his brother Miguel about my class situation, he immediately recommended Javier as a potential solution. Since we were taking private lesson outside of the academy and I was a friend of his brother’s, the price per hour was much lower than such lessons inside the academy—it actually was cheaper than a 5-8 person group class for the same duration. We started class, and I knew immediately I liked his style as he engaged us with dialogue and challenged us with new vocabulary. 2 hours later, the class concluded. We all said “hasta mañana,” considering we would be seeing each other the following day—class was 2 hours a day, Monday-Thursday.

10:10 PM, some sports bar near Puerta del Sol

I meet up with one of my conversation partners, Jhonny, to watch the US Belgium game. I never thought I’d be rooting for my home country in 2^nd rounds rather than my current country of residence. But that’s a great example of what I’ve learned about being here—have very few expectations. Mostly because 9 times out of 10, you’re wrong. Reality is far better than those initial expectations.

Playing with my conversation partner's hedgehog!

Just another gorgeous night in Madrid

Kledia | Week 6 | Tirana, Albania

The work week was pretty similar to other weeks. We had a few small translations to do about different activities and events that are happening around the country. One cool thing about doing the translations is learning about the different events that are happening and it gives us a chance to check them out as well. We also had meetings with different directors about working on some new stuff for the official tourism website and trying to come up with ways to promote Albanian tourism on social media, but to the Albanian diaspora.

We explored Tirana a little bit more and because it's World Cup season we decided to go to this huge park were there are big screens that show the game. Hundreds of people come out and see these things. We decided to go to the USA vs. Germany game and we brought our American flags with us. We were the only American fans that we could see in the whole area, it was crazy! People took our pictures because they thought we were tourists from the US and people spoke to us in English. It was a really funny moment for us to explain that we're Albanians, we just live in the US. Our photo even got featured on the website of the park!

Then over the weekend we visited Kruja. It's the city were one of Albania's greatest national heroes, Skanderbeg, made his stand against the Ottomans in the 1400s. His castle has fallen apart and only the base walls stand but now it has been rebuilt into a museum. It was a very cool place and very well taken care of. There were a lot of foreign tourist groups visiting the museum which was really nice to see since we are working in tourism. We got to talk to one of the museum guides and he was really excited to learn that we lived in the US and he was telling us that it's up to our generation to keep Albanian history alive -- especially to the kids, like us, who've been raised outside of Albania. 

 

Ashley Connelly, Week 5, Madrid

Hi everyone,

I can't believe it's been another week! Time has been flying even though this past week was slow and relaxed. On Monday, I visited the suburbs of Madrid with a friend from work. We went to his house in Majadahonda (which I still can't pronounce correctly). While my friend was showing me around, he mentioned that he thought Majadahonda was similar to how Americans live. Although Majadahonda definitely embraced the strip mall vibe of suburban American life, the neighborhoods were too apartment-complex like to embody truly the American way. The main element Majadahonda was missing was space which I've noticed to be a major difference between Spain and the States. Here, everything is smaller, closer together. Even in the suburb, we were able to conveniently walk from place to place- something that is unimaginable in my hometown. The difference in size is hard to explain. It's something you have to experience  and observe firsthand to understand.

Temple de Debod

Royal Palace from Temple de Debod

In addition to exploring the suburbs of Madrid, I ventured to a couple parks around the Royal Palace and re-discovered the area where I spent a lot of my time during my vacation to Madrid two years ago. First, I visited Temple of Debod. With an amazing view of the Royal Palace, Temple of Debod is mainly known for its replica of Ancient Egyptian ruins. At Temple of Debod, I dabbled in the local pastime of sunbathing and I think I'm finally at the base color of Spaniards.

Royal Palace from Sabatini Gradens

Sabatini Gardens

After Temple of Debod, I walked around the Royal Palace and the Plaza de Oriente. Seeing the grandeur of the Royal Palace and the beauty of the accompanying gardens was a great reminder of the history of Spain. A lot of people I meet here like to remind me the United States has no history, but the youth of the States doesn't sink in until you're standing in front of such monumental places.

Plaza de Oriente

Church where I went to Easter mass

Finally, I walked around Opera and Puerta del Sol and re-discovered many places I visited during my time here during high school. I re-found the Convent where the nuns iron the clothes of the pope and make cookies in the mean time. I also found the church where I attended Easter mass. Even though I am not very religious, it was an amazing experience and it is rewarding to be able to situate my prior experiences with my new knowledge of Madrid.

Nabeel - Istanbul - Week 6

Post Taken from Personal Blog:

http://nabeelinturkorea.blogspot.com.tr/2014/07/to-mediterranean-coast-of-antalya.html

__________________________________________

To the Mediterranean Coast of Antalya

Hello all I am sad to say that this post will mark the last of my posts about my experiences in Turkey. I am currently writing from my dorm room in South Korea one week after I left Turkey. I've been a little preoccupied so I have neglected my blog quite a bit until now. Anyway I would like to devote this post solely to sharing my pictures from my holiday in Antalya. Hopefully I will be a little more succinct than my previous posts.

I spent 4 nights and 5 days in Antalya. I was on the same itinerary as one of my friends from Ozyegin University, an Italian international student named Massimo. We spent a majority of our time staying with another international student from Switzerland who is originally Turkish so his family had a lovely home a stone's throw away from the coast. This made our trip very frugal. Basically our days were spent on the beach and our nights were spent walking around the old town, AKA Kaleici.

On our first day we went to a public beach (Lara Beach) that was really crowded and the beach was pretty full of trash. I did not take any photos of this beach just because I felt it was just like any other public beach around the world.

The next day our Swiss host showed us a much cleaner and emptier part of Lara Beach between the big tourist hotels of Antalya.

We found the famous strip of restaurants with umbrellas overhead in the Old Town area of Antalya. We ate here a few times during our stay.

Caught this wonderful family taking a selfie in front of some old gate :) 

This is from a cliff overlooking Konyaalti Beach. This beach is a stone beach so it was pretty difficult to walk bear foot on but laying on the rocks was pretty therapeutic because they were so smooth. I napped for a good 2 hours on this beach.

These cliffs were great for swimming and the view was excellent but it was extremely hard to find a place comfortable enough for soaking up the rays. I wish I had brought goggles with me because it seemed like a great place for snorkeling.

The rainbow at the bottom of the waterfalls. We were walking along the coastline in search of these famous waterfalls named Duden falls. It was definitely worth the extra mile.There was also a bridge were you could walk right over the delta of the falls. 

So that's all I could share with you from Turkey. Please keep your eyes out for my posts about life in South Korea. If you want to hear more about Turkey just shoot me message and I'll be more than happy to tell you everything I could not fit or explain on this blog. I'll be writing to you soon!

Kelli in Madrid: Third Post

My most sincere apologies for having neglected the blog for a few weeks now. I’ll compensate by making sure I cover all the essential bases of the events since the last entry.

(Disturbing mixed messages on American culture)

Chapter One: The Language Factor.

As everyone promised me, it does all get easier. I’m sitting in that same rooftop cafe from which I wrote the first post, with a breathtaking view of the mountains, suburbs, and desert surrounding Madrid. And now instead of wanting to block out all the Spanish around me and covering it with familiar childhood country songs, I am confidently eavesdropping on the debate next to me about governments controlling the outcomes of the World Cup, though I still find it hard to care enough to actually sit down and watch the games. At least I’m aware enough to know Spain’s already out and the US still in. Don’t quote me on that. But the point is, I generally get what’s being said the majority of the time. Though it still takes an active mental effort to listen for the direct and indirect object pronouns and which way the verb is conjugated and in which tense, and often by the time I’ve successfully achieved that I realize the train of words left without me. It’s often more nerve-wracking to say basic expressions like “someone’s in here!” when someone knocks on the door of the bathroom or “we’re out of toilet paper” because I never know the most natural way to word it. But after a while you catch on to the fact that everybody generally words something in one order. I know I sound ridiculous most of the time, but I guess you just have to own it because while you’re still learning you have no other choice but to not speak at all and be the loner in the corner.

(Like this guy.)

Even after over a month living here though, I still can't help but often feel as if I'm walking up to people and sputtering complete gibberish. As if you're jumping off a diving board blindfolded and feel certain you'll land on cement. But you're surprised and quite pleased to find it's water when the recipient of your nonsense babble actually responds to you like a normal citizen. It's a repeatedly odd and uncomfortable process every single time you try out another expression. Mental cross-training is the most accurate analogy I can muster, because you need to exercise every facet of learning the new language. As my friend Laura the Spanish major says, sure, she could probably pick up any newspaper here and recount you what it's all about but when it comes to striking up conversation - man were we unprepared from the start.

Chapter Two: My Cumpleaños.

I turned twenty in Spain. My host family and I were actually watching “El Juego de Tronos” (Game of Thrones, if you didn’t yet guess it) at the moment of the European inauguration of my birthday, and if I remember correctly I was mobbed by kisses on the cheek and pulled by the lobes of my ears twenty times. Normal is relative, I suppose, since my family always went with the traditional birthday spankings and cakes that are actually just rectangular ice cream. Then after they'd all gone to bed I Skyped from the quiet confines of the bathroom with my own parents, grandparents, and cousin who were still just having dinner.

(Blurry but legit)

That afternoon I ran with our dog. She's slowly becoming an athlete. Then came back super sorprendida (surprised) that my host mom had made a special birthday lunch and cake for the occasion. Fast forward past working and then I kinda sorta went out that night and around 5AM was taking my usual half-hour late-night stroll back to the central bus station, the only form of transportation available past 1:30 despite the fact that Madrid could easily challenge New York in the realm of cities-that-never-sleep. I was sung the feliz cumpleaños theme song at least four times by packs of drunk adults. And that special day was to be followed by a semi-national four-day weekend, due to a Catholic holiday on Thursday and the "puente" (means bridge) that gives us Friday off. Which leads us to...

Chapter Three: BARCELONA!

This was our first trip as the full gang of six Michiganders, and we took full advantage of that four-day weekend by taking the seven-hour commute over to the renowned metropolis of Barcelona. It fascinates me how little civilization there really is to see when taking the winding highways to these destinations so far, because a lot of people have given me the impression that owning vast expanses of land in Europe is a very rare thing. I was rather thrilled to see some John Deere equipment scattered far and in between throughout the countryside. And the windmills! So much wind power being used here, I've been impressed. For both the trip there and back, we hitched rides through a website called BlaBlaCar, something I wouldn't seriously consider using back in the US. But in Europe it's a perfectly reasonable and the most cost-effective form of transportation to carpool with strangers, and both of our drivers were very kind and made sure we were comfortable the whole time. They also picked us up and dropped us off at the most convenient locations for us. I'm impressed by the idea of it and would like to see how effective it could be in the States, though based on what I've heard about how extremely extensive and expensive the process is to obtain a driver's license in European countries as opposed to our handing them out to any teenage punk with a quarter brain, I'd be less reluctant to trust the average European driver with solid reviews than an American.

Anyway, on the subject of the chapter's title, Barcelona was quite the beautiful, happening city. Certainly more modern than Madrid, it had much wider streets and newer buildings. The metro there seemed to be to some degree slower, less intuitive, and farther spread out in terms of location and arrival times. But I wouldn't be the expert because I basically walked the whole weekend, which I'd only recommended crazy people to do. The tourist attraction highlight I suppose would have to be the Sagrada Familia, an absolutely enormous cathedral whose design was taken over by Gaudi -yeah, that guy whose last name we English speakers use but haven't actually heard the reason why - back in the 1880s. You would think you'd just stepped into the Candy Land Ice Cream Castle. The trip would have been worth it just to finally be at a beach, and to now be able to claim to have swum in the Mediterranean Sea. More hours spent walking than sleeping on that trip, that's for sure.

Chapter Four: The Internship.

So I'm starting to actually feel like a functional and social member of my new workplace, once getting over that initial week of fears to casually talk to the people. In retrospect, that fear was uncalled for because most of them are students around my age are also "haciendo práctica", or doing internships. Took me several weeks before I actually got that expression right. I could go on for hours on words I consistently used without anyone having corrected me before I realize later how ridiculous it probably sounded to them.

But the first major task I had involved translating a 30-some-page rules handbook for an international Iberian-American design competition put on by my workplace, from Spanish to English of course. I'm sure everyone envies that, but in all serious I truly enjoyed getting to write in my mother tongue at work and actually still learning Spanish in the meantime. Then I spent a few days compiling a newsletter of event info and learning a bit of Photoshop, and now we are figuring out how to create a website with an inventory of all the past products for this year's participants to refer back to. I appreciate that practically every day at work I'm offered coffee and snacks, and the schedule is super flexible as long as we get our projects done.

Chapter Five: Because What's A Blog Post Without A Food Chapter.

Waiting for dinner. I thought it was challenging back at my dear co-op Luther House when dinner wasn't served until 7:30, but some nights I'll have barely eaten throughout the day and by the time 10:30 rolls around there's a 50% chance it's ready. But I've started to subside these issues by doing more grocery shopping (read: jars and jars of green olives, cucumbers, Pringles, and an even cheaper version of Ramen noodles). Groceries are such a great deal in Spain, even with the conversion rate! Maybe it's because I got used to seeing the rip-off small-portioned prices of the restaurants - although that is from a college student's perspective, and an American's at that since our portion sizes are rumored to be three times larger than necessary. But I'm really glad to have my breakfasts and dinners included by my host family, especially since being cooked for at night exposes me to dishes I otherwise more than likely would never have tried/made for myself.

One night when we weren't all eating together though, my host brother handed me a bowl of long green substances and proceeded to inform me that they were "aguilas" (eels). Since I had never before tried such cuisine, you can only imagine my excitement. And if you can't, refer to the following:

In my defense, it's easy to be gullible when you're constantly surrounded by novelties. But it turned out to be green spaghetti.

Oh, I also ate lion sausage!

Check up soon since this weekend's my first foreign Fourth of July AND my friend Laura and I are planning to go camping with the bulls. Peace out, cub scouts.

Mucho amor,
Kelli