And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?

I am now undertaking the serious task of being a tourist in my own town. It helps that I've been away for a year.

Weirdest things so far
*Drinking fountains, with water you can drink out of
*You can drink the tap water
*Dollars are bills, not coins
*Free refills
*Cars that stay in their lanes
*Cars that stop for pedestrians
*Driving for the first time in a year
*Grocery stores
*Even small children speak English
*No one cares about football, of the soccer variety

Highlights
*Burrito with pork! and guacamole
*Sushi
*Cheese, cheese and more cheese
*Cheese grits
*Carrboro farmers market with delicious cheese
*Contra dancing
*Tukey's victory over Croatia
*Seeing my friend's baby

so what happens now?

Unlike a tall tale, in this story the moral goes first. The third time’s the charm. Double checking can get you into trouble. Always triple check!!!

Because when I looked at that piece of paper for the third time I saw that the arrival time in Munich was 9:30, and that my flight was actually departing in five minutes. Not thinking, I ran to the check in desk to ask what I could do. Unfortunately, planes are not trains that you can hop onto one minute before they depart (and I have done that). And because my ticket was a frequent flyer ticket, using three different airlines to get home this was not going to be easy. That and the fact that I had not slept and had not eaten anything in a long time. After Turkish Airlines was very unhelpful I burst into tears, called mom and William, and then pulled myself together. The Lufthansa people were even more unhelpful than Turkish Airlines, refusing even to open my itinerary on the computer.

And so I found a pay phone, and for the first time used that pay phone card I had bought so very long ago. After calling Ian, I spent a long time on the phone with USAirways. Yes they could get me home eventually, but I would have to pay a change fee, and they would also have to redo my flights to Scotland. What stupidness! I was cancelling, but then they couldn’t rebook me on the same flights. And so now I fly into and out of DC.

Luckily, Liz is still with her family in Manassas, and she is going to pick me up at the airport. Unluckily, I had to pay another $130, and I was going to need to be at the airport the next morning at 4:30. As William said, I guess I really wasn’t ready to leave the airport. After making my plans I went in search of food. On the down side I couldn’t get anything to eat for an hour. On the bright side the place had free wireless internet.

I decided that I was staying in the airport, because it would have been too hard to get back the next morning, and wrote something to that extent on facebook. And so later a worried Collette called me, and I reassured her I was fine, although feeling more stupid than I thought possible.

Around 5, my friend Katie called me. She had also been on facebook. I live right next to the airport she said, and I have the car today, I can come get you. Bored and exhausted, I said yes, and by 6 I was in a place with a bed, a TV, a friend, a cat, and real food. We talked, watched phantom of the opera, had soup and dolma, and I slept. Sitting now in the Munich airport, I have many many miles to go. And likely won’t even be home tonight, as the drive from DC takes 4 or 5 hours. But I do feel like I am ready to go home now, and incredibly lucky to have been taken in for the night. And, after my friend Amy called me worried last night, I have to say that facebook is incredibly pervasive, and well, it can have a positive effect once in a while.

But always triple check!!!

A moment of unbelievable stupidness

I’m not sure where to start, where the craziness of the last day began. I think I could put it down to the fact I was sick for the entire month of May. The upside – I learned the word for tonsil. Perhaps because I got too tied up doing both the set and the lights for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And then after that was over got food poisoning. All three of them resulted in me not seeing anyone for over a month, including my mom and William who got there in the middle of all the craziness.

And so the two weeks of June before I was to leave were absolutely crazy. I tried to see everyone, and mostly succeeded. I spent the weekend in Saray at my friend Huma’s family’s summer house, near the black sea in the European bit of Turkey. We fit 14 of us into the house, grilled a lot of chicken, some of which was a bit too pink to be eaten, went swimming, watched as the neighbor’s house caught on fire and people frantically ran around waiting for the fire department to come, and generally had a fantastic time breathing village air and doing nothing.

When I got back on Monday my couchsurfing friend Tom started staying with me. He stayed with me the first time on his way to Iran to hang out and learn Persian, and now they had told him he could no longer renew his original visa, so he would have to leave the country to get a new one. Told the easiest place to get a visa was Istanbul, he took a 48 hour bus, only to find out it was going to take much longer than he thought. And so he was staying with me again. My friend Cat was about to leave for the states, and so the three of us spent most of three days together, walking, attempting to not die while biking on the islands, and eating/drinking.

My German roommates left Thursday night for two weeks on the black sea coast. I had to say goodbye to Cat on Thursday as well, and then Tom took the train to Bulgaria Thursday night. I had very little time to feel lonely however, as Friday I went with mom, William and the students along the golden horn to Eyup, and was then taken out to a wonderful dinner. I’ll spare you the details. And somewhere in there I finished the school year, playing lots of Taboo, Jeopardy, and giving away American candy to most of my kids, who thought that was the greatest thing ever.

Saturday was frantic shopping at the bazaar, saying goodbye until September to friends there, trying to spend as much time with mom and William, and having another wonderful dinner, this time in Tunel. I feel like I am making up for all the parents weekends I never really had in University since I was living in the same town as my family.

Mom and William left early Sunday morning, and I went to the Moda Cay Bahcesi with my roommates to eat borek, drink tea, and watch the view, which, this morning, included dolphins. In good brunch form we stayed two and a half hours, and then I ran off to return my Joseph CD to Eric, the fellow Asian side person of my show, who gave me rides, advice, and lots of help, and then to Taksim to see Joanna, who was in the US, married her Turkish fiancée, and then, a week into their honey moon, decided that they should not move back to Turkey, but should stay in the US. And so she was back to get the cat. Although she did mention that if McCain were to win, they might give up on the green card for the moment and move back to Turkey. At 6 I was back on my way to the Asian side.

I got to the house to find that Ulas and Orcun had gone off to find our kittens. Half an hour later they came back with one of them, saying that next weekend they would get the other. I guess that kittens hadn’t wanted to be caught, and had been running away. The one they brought was orange and white, terrified, adorable, and a very good diversion from beginning to pack. Already feeling like I didn’t want to leave Istanbul, this just made it harder.

And then it was time for football in Bostanci at 9:45. Turkey was playing the Czech Republic, and they were tied in the group. The winner of this game got to advance, and if the game was a tie, it would go to a shoot out. Tension was high, and people got increasingly frustrated as the Czech goal keeper, who we dubbed bumblebee, kept saving all of the attempts that Turkey kicked his way. Sixty minutes in and the score was 0-2 Czech Republic. And then Turkey scored, and again, and again. And then the goalkeeper got red carded for hitting a guy in the head, and one of the regular players had to become the goalie, because all substitutions were used up. But there was not enough time left for the Czech Republic to take advantage of the situation, and Turkey won. And I won – I had predicted the score to be 3-2, and won an Efes Pilsen, Turkish team shirt. After the first three games, everyone I was with had a t-shirt, and the guys at the bar just loved all these foreign women who were so into football, that they took photos with us.

Traffic was absolutely insane, people hanging out of cars, sitting on cars, standing on cars, running down the street, and all of them were waving Turkish flags, even the covered woman who broke off a tree branch to make a pole for her flag. So it was that returning at 1, playing with the kitten until 2, I began to pack at 2. That and wait for my laundry to finish drying. I was not just packing my things for the summer, but packing up everything else in my room to leave in a corner, as someone else will be living in my room for the summer.

On double checking my ticket a few days ago, I realized that my flight was not at 7, but at 9:30, and so was able to take public transport to the airport. I left at 6, got a taksi to the iskele, took the fast sea bus across the Sea of Marmara, and then the airport bus from there. After going through security, I opened my itinerary for that third look and took off running.

My first fight in Turkish

The next day I enjoyed a shower in a shower with an actual bathtub (in my house you shower onto the floor), and then we had a lovely breakfast in the garden. Afterwards we took the dolmuş back to Denizli. The first thing to do was to attempt to cancel our train tickets and get bus tickets instead.

So we went to the ticket office in the train station. We went to the woman and explained that we wanted to cancel our tickets. It said on the back of the ticket that with last than 24 hours notice we would be penalized 20% of the fare, but would get the rest back. We gave her our tickets, and my card. But she wanted a recipt. I said I didn't have one, but I had the tickets and the card and your trains are always 4 hours late but you haven't changed the schedule and you need to give us our money back. After calling in her supervisor, she said if I got a copy of my passport she would give us the money back.

So we walked accross the street to the bus station, where we bought tickets back to Istanbul, and, after asking them for a camera, which Cat corrected by asking for a photocopy machine, I got a photocopy of my passport. Back at the train station the woman got out a binder, wrote this long thing on the back of my passport photocopy, and then tried to run my card. After one try, she decided it didn't work because it was only a bank card, not an actual turkish credit card with a chip in it. To fully explain herself she got out her credit card with chip to show us. We explained that we had bought the tickets with my card, and if their machine wouldn't put the money back on it it was their fault. She said it was too bad. No she could not give us cash.

By this point we were really mad. We went outside the office, and then went back in to ask her if she could put the money on her card because she had one and give us cash. No she said, that is forbidden. But if we found someone else with a card she could put it on their card and they could give us cash. So we walked out and started to ask. At the station cafe they sent us accross the street to a bakkal. At the bakkal they gave us a funny look and sent us to a lokanta. At the lokanta we got a funnier look and they sent us to another lokanta. At this lokanta the guy actually understood what we wanted, and took out his wallet to show us that his card was the same as mine, without chip. After asking one more time we realized that this was not Istanbul, most people didn't have credit cards, and if they did they were not going to give them to a couple of foreign girls. We went back, determined to occupy her office until she gave us the money. We called some people to get advice and went back in

To find that the shift had changed. We gave the tickets, my card, and the passport copy with letter to the new guy behind the counter. He tried to run my card, it wouldn't work. He called in his new supervisor, who ran Cat's american credit card through until it worked. Easy. No problem. It was possible all the time.

After winning our fight, we felt tired but victorious. And we had the problem of what to do with 10 hours in Denizli. Conclusion - there is nothing in Denizli. We at some doner, walked around with all our stuff, wasted an hour and a half in the internet cafe, sat for two hours in a pastane after eating not so good profiterol, found the cool market area after it was entirely closed, and then finally walked to the place with the famous Denizli roosters. When we got there there was only a statue of a rooster and it was pouring. We ate some food, sat in the place as long as possible, and then returned to the bus station for our overnight bus.

Arriving in the morning, I changed in the teacher's bathroom, ready to start my monday morning after not sleeping on the bus.

Pamukkale

Deciding that we had been in Istanbul for too long without getting out, and that we needed to be tourists for a bit, my friend Cat and I decided we needed some K/Catherine Zamanı - K/Catherine time, and so we headed off for Denizli and Pamukkale on the 5:30 train Friday evening. I had bought food at the deli, Cat had brought a bunch of American junk food her mom had sent over, and we were set to go. Two hours into the train ride, a couple of guys got on. One was a naval officer, the other a student of geology. From the beginning the naval officer, ufuk, monopolized the conversation, and likely due to some of the weirdness involving heirarcy in Turkey, we heard very little from the student, Uğur, during the trip, although he did often try to feed us.

I fell asleep early and was expecting to be woken up a bit before 9 as we were entering Denizli. I was woken up at 9, but it was only by Ufuk coming back into the compartment, and then later by the conductor wanting his sheets back. It was only just before noon, three and a half hours late, that we finally arrived in Denizli. Not thinking about the ride back, we just wanted to get to Pamukkale. On our way into the dolmuş we were harassed by two different guys, and feared for the worst. When we arrived in the village below Pamukkale (which means cotton castle) however, it was dead. Almost no life. The restaurants were all completely empty, and as it was just past noon, I had expected them to be full of people eating.

We walked around, very hungry and falling apart, before getting some lahmacun at the recommendation of a guy who seemed nice and was running a sort of tea garden that had no food. The lahmacun was good, and it made both of us less grumpy. While sitting there, we looked in the guide book and decided on a place to stay. After asking directions from a couple of old guys, we were met halfway down the road by a guy on a scooter from the venus hotel. They must have called him, although we were perfectly capable of getting their on our own. The place was a large pink house with balconies, a great garden, and adorable rooms, and so we decided to stay.

Emptying our backpacks slightly, we returned back to the enterance of pamukkale. We walked up a sort of gravel road for a bit, and then reached a sign instructing us to take off our shoes. So now the list of places you may not where shoes in Turkey is Mosques, houses, and Pamukkale. Pamukkale was formed by lots of hot calcium loaded water ran accross the hill, and as the water cooled the calcuim fell out and coated the rocks. It created lots of pools called trasterverines, which are amazing. They used to be full of water, and the place used to be even more white, but with a huge boom of tourism in the 80s and 90s, much was destroyed. Now they have taken sharp measures to try to protect the area, including making people take off their shoes. We we walked up the hill, making little ouch noises as we stepped on tiny ridges of calcium. At the top it was much more red, hopefully from bacteria or algae. At the top were also hoards of tourists from tour groups. Most of them are brought in to the north entrance, so that they do not walk up the hill. At the top we sat down by some running water, and stuck our feet in. It's warm and full of calcium and supposed to be healing.

Pamukkale is not a new formation. The romans also had the opinion that the waters were healing, and so they built a city at the top of the hill. The city is named Heropolis, and the ruins there are amazingly well preserved. My favorite bit was the theater. It's a huge amphitheater that is mostly intact.
Unfortunately, they did some restoration work, and now you cannot get to the stage. I had heard that the acoustics were amazing, and really wanted someone to be standing on the stage saying things, to see if I could hear them. It would be really amazing to put on a roman play there.

In addition to the theater was the main road, a holy pool, with the remnants of columns that is now full of swimming germans and russians, a temple of apollo, and a spring that lets out poisonous gasses. There is also a very impressive cemetery. I guess not all the people who came to the city were cured. Some of the tombs were on the white calcium pamukkale. The poppies were in full bloom, and I am positive that Cat got tired of me saying, so pretty, çok güzel. Yes, I know there are many other adjectives I could have used.

On our way back to the village, the place was much more quiet, as most of the tourist groups had gone home. It also got cold as the sun started to go down. We sat for maybe a half an hour with our feet in the warm water, until an official looking guy took out the dam, and the water slowed to a trickle. There was also a policeman with a whistle and a big stick that was attempting to keep people in a certain area, and coming after them if they passed the line or if they wore their shoes.

The bad part of having our feet in warm water that long was that they were much more sensitive to all the ridges and gravel on the way back down. But the sun was setting, and it was spectacular. By the end we were both wearing our coats, but had our pants rolled up and were carrying our shoes. Against the background of white it was pretty funny - like being barefooted in the snow.

We returned, exhausted, and a bit sunburned to the hotel for dinner. The food was fantastic! The best mercimek çorbasi ever, salad, a plate of different vegetables, and then kebab. At the end I thought I was never going to get up. Cat also befriended a dog named fındık (hazlenut). She was small and black, while the large white dog was named Çilek (strawberry). We ate sitting at a table in the garden.

Intending to just go up and watch TV and sleep, we got distracted talking to the guy who ran the hotel. He convinced us to stay for tea, and told us that he had had 400 tourist girls, but was now engaged so we didn't have to worry about him. However, his brother was there, who had studied Ottoman at university and had never been with a tourist girl, and had I had a Turkish boyfriend yet. That should have tipped us off, but we stayed, had instant pomegranate tea, and the cousin showed up. The brother's name was Yusef, the cousin Bekir.

We sat in the main room, discussing university, the various merits and disadvantages of the american and turkish university entrance system, and the system once you enter university, basketball, football, being a teacher, etc, and then they suggested that we go see the lake and pamukkale light up at night. Cat and I wanted to see it, and put our stuff upstairs, giving them time to discuss. They concluded that it was far to walk, and therefore they should take us on the motorscooters. And now I am afraid I have also gotten Cat addicted to motorcycles/scooters.

Anyways, the seemed to have thought it was a date. The whole thing was very amusing, and good turkish practice. Yusef, the guy who picked me, told me I was cute and asked what I thought about him. I told him I had not decided, which got a laugh. And then we turned down an offer to go to the disco and went to sleep.

Adventures in Art

I feel as though ever since I got to Istanbul I have been surrounded by photographers. There are of course my two roommates, but I we have also had numerous guests. Charlie is a photographer, as is Filip. Orçun's friend, another photographer is currently staying with us.

Ingo, in particular, has really helped me to expand my idea of art, and of beauty. He takes objects most would consider trash, and sees the beauty in them. Plastic on a building being restored, trash on the beach, wrappers tied to a tree for wishes, a dirty dish rag, all of it can be beautiful if looked at through Ingo's eyes.

I have watched him take numerous photos, but two of his photos have involved more adventure than the others. The first was nearly two weeks ago. I somehow ended up with a four day weekend, and so we spent Friday exploring Üsküdar. Mostly this just involved walking and walking. We visited an old abandoned mosque, and found the theater. Ingo had mentioned that he wanted some motor oil for a photograph he was working on, and as we were walking we passed a car shop. So I decided I would just go in and ask.

When we walked in the man in charge was on the phone but he motioned us to sit. I think he was a bit surprised when I chose the chair closest to his desk, instead of letting my guy take it. When he got off the phone I started my question, the same way I have started many requests - Thıs is a really weird question, but do you have some motor oil we could have. Not really knowing the word for motor oil, just the word for oil I managed to convey what we wanted. I explained right away that Ingo wanted to use it for a photograph because oil looks so colorful when you put it on water. Although I am sure they were thinking the whole thing was highly amusing, they were polite enough to agree with me, and a short while later a guy came back with some slightly used motor oil in a plastic water bottle.

Then we were offered tea. The only thing was apparently the boss man didn't realize that they were out of tea when he offered. So we sat and I tried to converse while we waited. I remember discussing cars. They all agreed that Mercedes, or just German cars in general were the best cars. Of course we discussed the weather. Football. What I was doing in Istanbul. How all Turks want to go to the US but here is a weird american girl that came to Istanbul to work. When we were just about to go the tea was ready, and the boss man sent out one of the other guys to buy some biscuits. So there I was, surrounded by guys, drinking tea and eating biscuits in a car repair shop with half a bottle of free motor oil in Ingo's backpack that they would not take any money for. Ingo has finished the photograph now. Always better to have a story to go with the photograph. And I am sure we provided the amusement for the week.

Adventure in art number two. This weekend Ingo and I went to the first of the prince's islands - Kinaliada - which means Island with Henna, perhaps named because of the red sandstone that they mine from the island. The island is much different from the other islands. The others are covered in pine forest, but this one is covered in very dense short vegetation - mostly bushes. Perhaps it burned, perhaps it is due to the stone, the wind, I am not really sure. We set out with my backpack full of picnic food, Ingo's full of his camera, and walked. Two hours and half of the island later, I decided we had found the picnic spot and I was not going further until I had eaten. Ingo had to go look around the corner, but when he spotted some plastic blowing in the wind decided that this could be a good picnic spot, and then he could take a photo. The spot was beautiful - a view of marmara and not a house in sight. Well, unless you looked around the corner to see the sprawl of Istanbul.

The food was fantastic, better because it was eaten outside with a view. I think picnics definitely make my top 10 list of favorite things, perhaps they are even in the top five. So food finished, I looked at the view and Ingo started the business of photography. It was only when I saw him pick up the object that he was photographing that I told him he needed to photograph it in the air - not on the ground. It was a tree branch, sort of resembling a harp, that had gotten tangled in white plastic. As I held it and looked up it felt very might like I was at a wedding and holding a veil in the air. Before, all I would have seen was old dirty plastic. Ingo tried to photograph it, but concluded the spot was not right.

So we walked down the hill we had climbed before I declared a halt for the picnic, and then started scrambling up this slope that was covered in medium sized rocks (not very small rocks) It was sort of like the place was just waiting for an avalanche. Up we went, climbing over purple rocks, red rocks, striped rocks, rocks with lichen. But that spot wasn't good either and so we left the backpacks and went all the way to where some short trees were growing. Ingo went first and I followed with the veil and tree branch harp. At one point Ingo yelled my name and I looked up to have a rock tumble past where my head had been a second before to instead hit my food before thundering on.

Ingo put his object in a tree and I sat there and kept the plastic uncaught. Occasionally Ingo would move to get a better angle, and every time he did, I found a small avalanche go past me. The worst of it whacked me in the elbow. But neither I, nor Ingo, nor the camera tumbled down the hill, although we all tried at one point. Sitting perched on the hill, defying gravity, the plastic looked amazing against the blue sky, water and the trees. A police car drove past on the road below, saw us and stopped. One can only guess what was going through their heads. They waited a while, and then we breathed a sigh of relief when they drove on again.

Inching my way back down on my butt, I thought I might be crazy. But turning around and looking back, the plastic blowing in the tree still looked beautiful.

My First Earthquake

I am happy to report that I have survived my first ever earthquake. It occured at 20:53:32 on Wednesday, March 12 while I was in a cafe eating soup with Ingo and was 4.8 on the richter scale. I didn't feel a thing. I actually had no idea until a teacher asked me about it at school the next day. Anyways, Istanbul is located on the North Anatolian fault, which is similar to the San Andreas fault in California. I any future earthquake exeriences are like this one.

Plumbing Nightmares and Ice Cream Orgasms

My plumbing nightmare started on Thursday night, and at the moment my house is without a working toilet. Unfortunatly, during this period Ingo had two guests visiting and I had one. My guest was an absolutely wonderful girl named Charlie, another couch surfer. From the moment I met her at the boat on Wednesday and she appoligized for being late because she had gone the wrong direction on the tram, I knew I liked her.

After managing to get her stuff up my hill and my stairs, we went to Beşiktaş, to visit Filip, Marten, their hosts, and their newly aquired hamsters, in what is possibly the messiest flat I have ever been to. But since it is filled with good people, I can let that slide. Omer was once again making frying fish. He does a good job, but it seems to be the only thing that he can cook. It was a rather crazy night.

The next day we went to visit Heylibeada. Filip and Marten were planning to leave for Ankara, but Marten came down with the flu, and so Charlie, Filip and I went to the islands with a backpack full of picnic food. The boat to the islands is about an hour, and Charlie, who has a tendency toward sea sickness got a little green. I fed the seagulls, and Filip and Charlie tried to photograph them. Sea gulls seem to be very difficult to photograph though.

Once at the island we took the road straight up the hill, stoping to swing on the swings. We found a really cool ruined chapel thing, that had a skull and cross bones on it, as well as other more pagan looking carvings and greek letters and continued on up the hill. We stopped at what the sign said was a sanatorium but now was full of guys, likely fire fighters, playing volleyball. A guy came out and talked to me but I really had no idea of what he was saying at all. We went down the hill to what looked like a beach, but was really dirt, and after making friends with the dog sat out on the pier for the best picnic ever!! After the picnic I laid on the pier and had fun taking sideways and upside down photos while Filip went wading and exploring.



Unfortunatly, one cannot sit on a pier in the sun forever, and so we continued on around the island, seeing the water deliver carrage and some fantastic views. It wasn't so long a walk, and about an hour later we were back at the iskele. We pondered staying longer, but as there was a boat leaving in 20 minutes, decided to go back to Kadikoy. Charlie discovered that sitting on the side was better for avoiding sea sickness, and it was too dark to photograph sea gulls. In Kadıköy, Filip headed to the train station to buy his tickets to Van, and Charlie and I went home.

We looked at facebook photos, and she cooked me an excellent dinner. Except when I went to wash the dishes, the water went through the sink and onto the floor. Time to call the plumber, especially since the faucet for the shower was beyond the point of just dripping - it was a steady flow.

The next morning Orçun called me about 10 to tell me the plumber would be there in 20 minutes. He looked at everything, sent his assistant running out for materials, and fixed the kitchen sink. While he was working, our neighbor from the first floor came up and started yelling at him. I didn't understand and thought the problem was that he had shut off the water. He yelled back and said it wasn't his fault and she went away, only to return a bit later to yell some more. At this point Charlie was up and a bit intimidated by yelling neighbors.

But the sink was working so I did a mountain of dishes and then Charlie took a shower. While she was in the shower we had three women come in five minutes to tell us not to use the water. And so we stopped using the water. Then, as we were leaving to go to the market and school, a woman asked us to dump a bucket of water on the floor and in the toilet in 5 minutes so I went up all the stairs to tell Ingo, only to be told that it was no longer necessary when I got down the stairs again. This time I called ingo.

The market was fabulous as usually, and the sixth graders were on better behaviour as usual, and I was so happy I bought some flowers from the roma women at the iskele on my way home. To arrive and be asked to once again pour water down the toilet. After one bucket, the woman decided that it would be better if she did it. Later another man came to look and told us we needed to talk to our unetici.

Still not able to use the water, Charlie and I left to aviod any more problems. We went to Taksim, and I told Orçun about yelling neighbors and water problems and how I was at the limit of my Turkish - could he please find out what was going on. It was our six month aniversaries - mine of being in Istanbul, and Charlie's of leaving home, and so we had a date and then met some couchsurfers for beer.

Turns out the water pipe that runs through the building had somehow broken while the plumber was fixing our sink. Fortunatly, they decided it was old and would have happened anyways, and so we did not have to pay for the repairs. But no water for Saturday. Filip left Saturday morning, and Charlie and I went to Ortaköy to look at the crafts market, and eat Kumpir (the best baked potato ever, filled with stuff), and a waffle, also filled with fruit and chocolaty goodness. Instead of going out that night we decided to stay home and watch When Harry Met Sally, giving inspiration for the title.

Sunday morning at around 10, four guys stormed into the flat, set the toilet in the hall, and pulled out the biggest drill I have ever seen, with a drill bit to match and started making a huge amount of noise in my flat. It wasn't until they had moved downstairs that I could see what they had done. The tile was ripped up, and there was a hole down into the flat below.



After not showering for too many days, Charlie and I decided to get over our modesty and visit the hamam in Üsküdar. We had not counted, however, on the anti-AKP protest that was being held by the Turkish Communist Party. There were tons of police, and no busses, dolmuşes, or mini busses, making it very difficult to get anywhere. Stinky, and dissapointed, we decided instead to photograph the protest. I was a bit nervous at first, but there were no problems.



After that we walked up the sea side, had a cup of tea at the Moda çay bahçesi, I learned some Welsh, and then we went to Ali Usta - the best ice cream place in Istanbul. And because of When Harry Met Sally, and the fact that we were substituting with ice cream, we decided to document our orgasmic ice cream experience. The place was pretty empty at the beginning, but by the end we were getting some funny looks. It will remain one of my favorite memories ever I think.


We went back to the flat so Ingo could leave (someone had to be there to let in the plumbers), Charlie packed up, and I walked her to the bus office. It was really sad to see her drive off, but I am sure that our paths will cross again.

As the toilet was still in the hall, I spent that night with Hande, who is frantically working on grad school applications. Which brings us to the time I started this entry.

I am happy to report that Charlie has gotten safely to Greece, Filip to Iran, and that as of Tuesday night we have a working toilet, and can use our water again.

SNOW!

I'm finding it a bit difficult to get my head around, but two weeks ago today (Tuesday), we were in our second day of a snow holiday. By tuesday the roads were all slushy, but on Monday Orçun and I went sledding on the hill next to the moda tea gardens. We were sledding on syrian plastic bags, looking out at the sunset, hayasofia and the blue mosque. Sledding really doesn't get any better.

A week later I was sitting in the tea garden, right above my sledding hill with Filip and Marten, drinking tea and watching the sunset, with not even a hint that it had ever snowed.

The snow started on Saturday, and when I got back from beer in Bostanci about midnight it had started to accumulate. Not wanting to risk the snow being gone in the morning, I made a snowman at midnight. Sadly, when I went outside to get my camera and went back out the head had been destroyed and I had to make a new one. Yay for snowmen!!

After making my snowman I was not at all feeling like going to sleep and so I wandered around Kadikoy. Near the fish market I ran into a couple who said hi to me in English. They told me I looked so delighted by the snow that it was obvious that I was not Turkish. We almost went sledding right there and then, but were missing something to sit on.

Sunday I met Char, a UNC student beginning her time abroad at Boğaziçi, and experienced Istiklal Cadesi in the snow. It was falling so fast that within minutes my coat was white. The roads were covered (making the bus ride back a bit worrysome) and causing school to be closed Monday. Bringing me back to the begining of this out of order blog entry.


A snowy view

of course, another train

Belgrade, Serbia


I must be crazy. After getting back to the Asian Istanbul train station Sunday morning, I went to the European train station Monday night, bought my sleeping car reservation, some Turkish Delight for my hosts, and boarded the one car on the train that was going to Belgrade. It was a pretty empty car - and no one really spoke English or Turkish - just serbian. Before even leaving Turkey, I was once again back to speaking with my hands. Now that I am able to communicate most things that I want in Turkish, I had gotten used to not needing to speak with my hands to get things done.

The conductor made up my bed, and at 10 the train left and I went straight to sleep. I was woken up about 2 in the morning, and put my coat on over my pajamas, and walked out into the fog, down the stairs and under the other tracks to the station where I waited in line to get stamped out of Turkey. But before they would give me back my passport, I had to fill out a survey about my time in Turkey. Where I had stayed, how much money I had spent, etc. The whole thing was entirely surreal. And then they got on the train to make sure everyone had been stamped out. Why they can't just stamp you out on the train like most other countries is beyond me. One stop later the Bulgarian officials came on the train, stamped us into Bulgaria, and then I was allowed to return to sleep.

The next day I woke up when we stopped in Sofia. I ate lunch, then went out to explore. It was when I got out of the station to see the very distinctive front of the train station, I realized I had been here before, running to catch a train in the summer of 2005, and making it literally a minute before the train left. No such stress this time, and the train continued on. At the border between Bulgaria and Serbia one of the guys actually searched my entire bag, and we continued. We got into Belgrade late, at about 9:20 local time, and I couldn't find Petra. So I got money, and after several tries bought a card to work in the pay phone (stupid turkcell doesn't work outside the country).
Unfortunately I couldn't get the phone to work, and only found petra at around 10, when I realized there was another section of the train station. She had been frantically looking for me for 40 minutes. I felt horrible. We took a tram and then a bus to her house. It was really great to see her again! Her mom (who speaks no English and is originally from Croatia) fed us both the most amazing pizza ever (eaten with Ketchup - and for the record Petra did eat it with Ketchup, something I am told she never does) I tried hard to stay awake and be social, but around midnight gave up and went to sleep on the bed that pulls out from under Petra's bed - a trundle bed I suppose.

In Petra I have found a fellow sleepyhead, and so we were not good at getting up early. Around noon we made our way downstairs and her mom had made breakfast. First was a sort of french toast, eaten with sour cream and ham. That's right - real ham!! and then crepes with nutella and jam. mmmmm. After breakfast we headed out so that Petra could give me a tour of the city. We decided to walk to the center instead of taking the bus, and half way there stopped at the newish tea house that sells all sorts of different kinds of tea. I had really nice green tea, a welcome change after so many glasses of Turkish tea. Then on to see Petra's high school (depressing looking) and primary school (full of happy looking kids with flowers on the window).


Next on the tour was the Temple of the Holy Sava. It's huge and still under construction. Sava is the name of one of the rivers that flows through Belgrade (the other is the Danube), and is also the name of their patron saint. At first I wasn't impressed by the temple, but the inside is amazing. The entire space is open - no pillars or anything and at the moment very simple. I hope they keep it simple and don't over decorate it, because at the moment its beauty is in its simplicity. We also visited the small older church next door, with walls and ceilings covered in paintings. Petra pointed one image out to me - The ottomans burning the remains of Saint Sava so that people would not know where to pray.

Next we bought sushi, and walked down the main pedestrian street to Kalemegdan fortress. As Petra put it "American girl coming from Turkey enjoying in Japanese food with a view on the Serbian river and city from Kalemegdan...classical example of a multicultural experience.:)" From the outside, I thought the fortress looked pretty small, but it's huge. We walked the grounds, went into Saint Ruzica's Church, and did a little bit of exploring as it got dark. Petra knows an enormous amount about the fortress, who the statues are of, who the paintings are of, and about her city in general. She made a fantastic tour guide, and put up with lots of my questions.


Our last stop was Skadarlija, the cutest cobblestone street, lined with lots of nice and cute restaurants. On the way home we stopped at Petra's favorite coffee shop - Coffeedream for fancy coffee. I had a cinnamon latte (No starbucks in Belgrade!) and it was super and we sat there and talked for forever. I feel like I have found a friend to whom I could tell anything. And who I can walk arm and arm with down the streets.

Back at Petra's house we ate the lentil soup her mom had made and then, concluding we were too tired to go out, watched The Notebook which had me crying the entire second half.