That Time I Went to Asia (a.k.a. Istanbul)…

Day 3 (The “Were we really up until 3 in the morning?” Day)-

So the next morning we got up in a dazed state of exhaustion just in time to watch the afore-mentioned high-schoolers get on their charter bus on their bus and drive off as we ate our yummy included hostel breakfast. If looks could kill none of those kids would have made it to the bus. Apparently no one in the hostel slept that night.

Playing through the pain, we made our way to the Museum of Archeology which is actually a complex of four museums which house the various artifacts from the corners of the former Ottoman Empire which was quite expansive indeed. Highlights included the world’s oldest peace treaty (signed by Ramses II), the world’s oldest love poem (on a cuneiform tablet), the Alexander sarcophagus (remarkably well preserved relief depicting Alexander the Great), several mummies, lots of pottery, a pavilion entirely dedicated to decorative tiles, and lots of other cool stuff. We knew, however, that we were over-saturated when we wandered from case to case only pausing when we saw something shiny or bones. We never even made it to the fourth museum which had Islamic art because we were too tired to try and find it.

After another sesame bagel break we walked to the Grand Bazaar which was very cool and difficult to describe. There are lots of stands very close together and every merchant tries to use his limited English to lure you to buy his scarves, souvenirs, jewelry, tea, t-shirts, leather, etc. This was a little intimidating at first but was eventually hilarious. Here are some of the funniest things that were said to us...

“Angels. Angels. Angels? . . . Charlie needs you.”

“Are you from China?”

“My favorite is … she! (points at Sarah).”

“Hello. How are you? *is ignored* I am fine. Thank you.”

Merchant 1: “Hello children! Here we have children’s prices!” *ignored*

Merchant 2: “What?”

Merchant 1: “Children’s prices!”

Merchant 2: “Oh my god!”

So maybe you had to be there. But it was funny. After thoroughly browsing for a while we decided to take a refueling break. We found the Turkish version of Starbucks and I tired Turkish coffee which was in fact a lot like mud when I got to the bottom of the glass. It was surprisingly mild though.

Feeling sufficiently reinvigorated we wound our way through a maze of streets down the hill to the Egyptian Spice Market. This was actually probably my favorite part of the trip because it was a chance to see real Istanbul. You know that you have at least temporarily left the tourist zone when none of the merchants know enough English to even try to talk to you. It was amazing to see just how vibrant the city really is. Once we made it to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar we were pleased to see that it was less touristy than the Grand Bazaar and less overwhelming. We looked around at all spices and things. There were also booths selling beautiful lamps. I bought a green one.

We strolled along the shore of the Golden Horn for a little while, checking out the boat tour prices (Tessa haggled a guy down to free!) before heading back to the hotel. We had dinner at the hostel where by now some of the staff knew us. The guy who served our breakfasts named my “Nothing” because I always ordered nothing to drink with my breakfast. That night we chatted with a guy named “Cha-Cha” (he said “Don’t you dare ask if my sister is name “Tango”) who told us all about rich old English women who marry young Turkish men. After drinking our obligatory tea (how do you turn down free apple tea from a guy named Cha-Cha?) we excused ourselves to go collapse in our beds.

That Time I Went to Asia (a.k.a. Istanbul)…

Day 2 (The “Did we really just visit all of that?” Day)-

The next day we got up early, eager to see the sites. We started with the Hagia Sophia with is a former basilica built by Emperor Justinian which was turned in to a mosque when Constantinople was conquered by the Turks and was finally turned in to a museum by Ataturk. The structure is dominated by a giant dome which covered what was the largest enclosed space in the world for several centuries. It is huge. There are also a wonderful mix of Islamic art and features from when it was a mosque and Byzantine Christian mosaics from when it was a church which were covered with plaster during the Ottoman Empire and therefore conserved. There is even a spot where you can see the graffiti from with some Vikings scratched their names in to the marble in the 9th century. The giant disks where added during a restoration in the 19th century and are inscribed with the names of Allah, Muhammad, the caliphs, and Muhammad’s grandchildren. They are also huge. It’s pretty cool. We spent a good hour and a half just wandering around admiring the mosaics, staring in awe at the dome, and making friendly conversation with a museum guard who was also a student who wanted to practice his English. He pointed out the Viking graffiti, which we might have missed completely.

Then we tried to go to the Blue Mosque (also know as the Sultanhamet Mosque) but were turned away because it was too close to prayer time. So we visited the Hippodrome which was the center of Ancient Constantinople and has two obelisks (one Egyptian and one copy I think) and a serpentine column which was originally in Delphi. Then we headed to the Basilica Cistern which is a large underground cistern that Justinian built to provide the city with water. There isn’t much to see but it was still very cool because it is dark with lit columns and water dripping everywhere and creepy mood music. There are also two giant Medusa-head column bases and no one knows why they are there. There are also giant fish.

Finally we headed back to the Blue Mosque and after taking off our shoes and covering our heads with our scarves we went inside. It was huge and beautiful, very similar to the Hagia Sophia except the entire interior was covered in decorative tiles in amazing designs. While we were there was also a man reading from the Qu’ran which sounded beautiful. It was very interesting.

After that we grabbed some lunch from a sesame bagel-type-thing salesman, which was delicious. Then we walked over to the Topkapi Palace which is one of several Ottoman Palaces in Istanbul. It was in the middle of a large park over looking the Bosphorus and included lots of exhibits on the Ottoman treasury (wow), the kitchen of the palace (the Ottoman’s were fans of Chinese porcelain, who knew?), and the imperial carriages. There was also an exhibit of religious relics collected by the Ottoman Empire over the centuries so we had the opportunity to see Abraham’s sauce bowl, Moses’ staff, David’s sword, Joseph’s turban, Muhammad’s footprint, Muhammad’s sword, and several of Muhammad’s beards. This was, needless to say, very interesting. Sadly the palace harem was closed since we got there too late. Guess we’ll have to see that next time.

At this point we were tired from walking around all day so we went back to the hostel to rest for an hour or so before going to a restaurant around the corner from our hostel. The owner of the restaurant was very courteous and waited on us personally. We had yummy bread with yogurt and dill sauce and I had a fantastic eggplant kebab. We also tried some traditional Turkish tea and it came in three flavors: apple, orange, and normal. It was all delicious.

We went back to the hostel, hoping to go to bed early but were disappointed to find that our hostel had been invaded by a large group of Korean high-schoolers who started running from room to room, yelling, shrieking, slamming the bathroom door, and stamping up and down the stairs (which were right outside our door) at 9 at night. They apparently were leaving the next day and therefore had no intention of going to bed. We finally opened our door and gave them dirty looks at 3 in the morning after none of us had been able to sleep for several hours. This didn’t work. It was a long night.

That Time I Went to Asia (a.k.a. Istanbul)…

Day 1 (The “Did that really just happen?” Day) -

Tuesday morning Sarah and Tessa and I got up at 3:40 in the morning and took the train to the airport so that we could catch our 6:40 flight to Istanbul. After being more thoroughly processed by a German border agent as I tried to leave the country than I have ever been processed entering France (only time I have ever been asked for my residency card), we got on the plane and settled in our seats for our three and a half hour long flight. The first hour and a half were uneventful and we all fell asleep. About half way through the flight I woke up and was reading my book when I suddenly realized that all the people around me were standing and staring behind me. I turned around and realized that the elderly gentleman sitting across the aisle one row behind me was experiencing some sort of medical emergency. It was a little scary but the flight attendants and two doctors on board soon had everything under control. Our captain also quickly announced that we would be making an emergency landing in Bulgaria. So after a hasty descent over the Black Sea we found ourselves on the tarmac of the airport in Burgas, Bulgaria. The Bulgarian EMT’s evacuated the gentleman and after about 45 minutes of paperwork and refueling we took off again and were soon in Istanbul. The flight attendants gave one of the doctors who had basically saved this man’s life a giant bag of Haribo candy as a Thank You gift. We though they should have given her free flights for life.

Once we arrived in Istanbul we were surprised to find that there were about 4 inches of snow on the ground. My first thought was, “This can’t be Turkey- it’s covered in white stuff!” Alas, it was Turkey. So we bought our nifty-looking tourist visas and went through customs and caught a shuttle bus to downtown. We then spent about an hour experiencing Turkish traffic and thinking that we were going to be killed by reckless drivers in the hilliest city I’ve ever seen which had just experienced a rare snow storm. But we didn’t die. We arrived at (what we thought was) Taksim Square and proceeded to try and find the best way to take public transportation to Sultanhamet (the neighborhood of our hostel). We quickly found a Metro stop and consulted a map. After concluding that we needed to take the funicular which was supposed to start at the stop where we thought we were, we spent 20 minutes walking around the block looking for the funicular. We finally tried to ask the guy who was selling Metro tickets (a second time) but as he was in the middle of explaining to Sarah in Turkish a random lady showed up, took the directions from Metro man and told us, in English, to follow her. Assuming that it was a scam but thinking that it was still our best option, we decided to follow, provided that she didn’t lead us down any deserted streets or tell us to get in to any un-marked vehicles. We then spent 15 minutes following this short woman (who looked kind of like a leprechaun) as she ran around asking various people directions in Turkish and darted in and out of traffic and every couple of minutes turned around to gesture to us to run faster. Finally she led us to a Metro stop that was actually Taksim Square (turns out the first one was down the street from Taksim and a different stop) and even helped us find the funicular and buy tickets. But before we could thank her profusely (or even monetarily) she led us to turnstile, watched us go through, and turned around and disappeared in to the crowd. Grateful and still a little overwhelmed we took the funicular to the tram and finally reached Sutanahmet. We then spent 20 minute tramping around the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia trying to find our hostel. I should add that during this whole process we couldn’t even pull out the map before random people on the street would ask us if we needed help. At first we were creeped out and assumed that people were trying sell us things or scam or harass us but after one guy pointed us to the Tourist Information Office and told us to “Enjoy Istanbul!” we realized that most people were really just trying to be helpful and friendly. So we eventually followed someone’s directions and found the Hostel and collapsed on our beds. We just stared at us each other. An emergency landing in Bulgaria? A Turkish leprechaun/fairy godmother? Really?

Being famished, we decided to check out the hostel restaurant which was delicious and cheap. Some English-speak at the table next to ours gave us his English-language newspaper so we caught up on the news before heading back to our room and relaxing for a couple of hours. That evening we ventured out but soon realized that after dark is not a time when groups of unaccompanied females walk around. Even in an area as touristy as Sutunhamet. At least in February. Feeling safe but very conspicuous we decided to go back to the room and catch up on our sleep so that we could do lots of site-seeing the next day.

That Time (Before) I Went to Asia (a.k.a. Cologne)…

Our trip began last Saturday when Julia, Tessa, and I took the train to Paris and the Metro to Charles de Gaule Airport. We discovered that French airport security doesn’t care of you take liquids just so long as you drink the liquids before you leave the security area. We had uneventful flight to Cologne and after struggling with the train ticket machine Julia used her German skills to ask directions and we soon were at the train station where we had planned to meet our friend Sarah who is studying in Erlangen, Germany. While waiting for Sarah’s train to arrive we ate the first of what would be many pretzels. They were a day-old and sort of stale but very cheap and still delicious. Sarah arrived and we found our hostel and discovered that our roommate was already asleep so we decided to just to go bed.

The next day we woke up and discovered that our roommate was in fact a friendly Finnish guy who had just finished studying in Switzerland. We chatted with him for a little while before heading to the Chocolate Museum. We spent the next three hours learning more than we ever wanted to know about the cocoa bean, drooling while watching chocolate be processed, and watching German Ooompa-looompas. There were free samples. It was beautiful. The best part was watching the expressions of the German children as they watched the chocolate. I’m told I looked similar. Then Tessa and Sarah and I went on a walk while Julia visited with a family friend who lives in Cologne. We walked around and saw lots of shops and churches. Then we met Julia back at the hostel and found some dinner. I decided to be authentic had Wiener schnitzel and the local beer. It was delicious which is saying something considering how much I don’t really like either meat or beer. We then went back to the hostel and hung out until our new roommate showed up and was a middle aged man at which point we decided to go to bed.

The next morning we got up and went to the cathedral, which is called the Dom and is considered to be the best example of High Gothic architecture in Europe. The British were even asked to not bomb it during WWII so it managed to survive relatively intact. It was indeed very beautiful. We climbed the 500-some steps to the top of the tower and enjoyed the lovely view of industrial Cologne. We then descended and did some more walking. We found some more pretzels and the 4711 house which is where cologne was invented. There was a glockenspiel. It was mildly exciting. We tried to visit a former Gestapo prison but it was closed. We did end up finding a Golden Ford Fiesta that was some sort of weird German art. We also went to the Roman-Greek Museum and stared through the window at a large mosaic depicting Dionysus. After deciding that we had pretty much exhausted what Cologne had to offer we went grocery shopping and bought ice cream cones. Then we made some pasta for dinner at the hostel kitchen which was delicious. Then we went to bed since we had to get up early the next morning to go to Asia…

...not Constantinople.

I am going to Turkey!

Woooo hooooo! So since I have yet another vacation next week and since Juli left and since Tessa's computer broken I had no choice but to become the unofficial Trip Planner. So I indulged myself in a long-time dream and planned a trip to Istanbul. I did some research, (both on the internet and by word of mouth) did some convincing, and now we are going! Hooray!

Here's the official itinerary:

Saturday February 16th: Flight from Paris to Cologne, Germany. Spend 3 days in Cologne checking out the sights, hanging in a backpackers' hostel, and spending time with our friend Sarah Manley who is studying in Erlangen, Germany and who therefore can act as our translator.

Tuesday February 19th: Flight from Cologne to Istanbul. Flying in to the farther away airport and therefore flying to Asia! Exciting, no? Spend 4 days looking at the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Great Bazaar, and a couple of Ottoman palaces. Maybe cross the bridge to Asia. Avoid being scammed by aggressive carpet salesmen.

Saturday February 23rd: Flight from Istanbul to Cologne at 3:40 in the morning. Flight from Cologne to Paris at 7:00 at night. Get to Istanbul Airport the night before to avoid catching sketchy Turkish taxi at 2 in the morning. Break the Center for International Program's Study Abroad Handbook Rule #12: Don't spend the night in places of public transport. (Is it really spending the night if you don't sleep and you leave at 3 in the morning? I don't think so.) Spend 13 hours in Cologne taking turns sleeping on a bench before finally flying back to France and collapsing in to a hostel bed.

Spend Sunday showing Sarah around the Franzreich (France) before coming back to Clermont-Ferrand on Monday.

So I hope to have some amazing photo slide show to show after I get back. Hope everyone is doing well in their various parts of the world and that the glacier that appears to have drifted over Michigan melts soon.

Dear America,

Please stop shooting people.

Thanks.

Yours,

Carolyn

The inevitable political rant...

Every French person I meet likes to ask me whether or not I think Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton ( 'illary!) will become the next president of the United States. Since many of the French people stop listening after I explain that it's more complicated than they think I thought I would burden you all with my opinion. Here goes...

My favorite candidate was actually John Edwards. I'm a sucker for a good speech and Edwards is an excellent orator. He also cares about poor people and is not afraid to admit it. Which I find endearing and refreshing coming from an American politician.

When Edwards dropped out (and even before, when it was clear he was never going to win a significant number of delegates) I thought that I didn't really have a preference as to whether it would be Barack or Hillary. But as time went on and Hillary gained more ground, the sinking feeling in my stomach has begun let me know that deep down inside I really want Barack to win.

Here's why:
Hillary is so easily defeat-able. There are too many people in America who hate her with a passion and an ardor that I can't even begin to understand. One of these people would be my father. How do I know this? In the election of 2000 my father told me that if both Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won their respective elections we would move to Australia. See? I told you I didn't understand.
Hillary was once on the board of Wal-mart. Wal-mart is the source of all that is evil. I can't vote for someone who received a pay check from them.
Hillary is old. I'm tired of old people messing up the country. Move along, people. Let our generation have a turn. Maybe then someone will really do something about the environment. Or the fact that America is the only developed country in the world that doesn't provide health care for its citizens (and yes I know Hillary tried to do the health care thing. I don't care.).

So really I mostly like Barack because he's not Hillary. But that's how the system works. I don't care that Hillary is married to Bill. I don't care that she's a woman. Barack is young. He has a sense of humor and he doesn't speak like an idiot or like my patronizing elementary school principal. His kids are cute. He never supported the war in Iraq and supports diplomacy with Iran. He believes that climate change is "one of the great moral issues of our generation" and I know that most of my generation would agree. He wants to regulate CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation)'s. His candidacy has forced America to have serious conversations about race in this country. Seriously, the more I read the more I like this guy.

And now that I have publicly proclaimed my support for him I have probably doomed him to a slow, drawn-out, painful political death. I should shut up now.

Thanks for reading this far, if you made it.

Please just don't vote for McCain. I know he looks like a centrist but he's actually quite scary. He wants to solve our environmental problems by building nuclear power plants. He still thinks America is a "shining city on a hill" (way to reference the original Jonathon Edwards).
Don't you even dare vote for Huckabee. He doesn't believe in evolution.

I'm done now.

One last thing. How can you not vote for this guy?

I love Thursdays!

Today was the first busy day that we've had in the last two weeks. It was a relief to be doing things again. I was starting to despair that I would never be able to function as a human being (much less a college student) again.

• This morning I had my personal meeting with M. Faure where he humbled me by helping/making me correct my grammar exam. He didn't believe me when I told him that no one had ever taught me the future anterior tense so I had to explain that I've actually only studied French for 3 years before my arrival. Also, thanks to a mis-edited email from Amel, I also had the privilege of trying to explain to him what "I miss you like a motha effa" means. That was awkward.
  
• Then Tessa and I mediated a session of "English Conversation" which is like a make-up/extra-credit class for ESC students. It was actually a lot of fun. The two girls who came asked good questions and we tried to explain the election craziness and they even laughed at some of my jokes. It was almost like having French friends except they get academic credit for showing up.
  
• Then we had our first Philosophy class. Our teacher is a philosophical genius and there are only four of us in the class so we were all pretty nervous. It turned out to be a lot of fun, I thought. We discussed "L'existentialisme et un humainisme" by Jean-Paul Sartre.
• Then we had our Arab world class which was fun. We talked about differences between the Arab world and Western civilization. It was a little repetitive since that's what we talked about last week but we got to watch a movie so whatever.

Yesterday Tessa and I went to her ICRP which basically means we sat and chatted and drank tea with a woman who runs a group for immigrant women. She was really nice and she invited us to go to a moving with the group on Monday so I think we'll go to that.

There is actually currently an international festival of short films going on right now in Clermont-Ferrand. I haven't seen any of the films yet, maybe we'll go tomorrow or Saturday. You can tell who are all of the festival-goers though because they walk around town with messenger bags with the festival logo on it. The whole atmosphere kinda of reminds me of Art Fair except it's much more spread out and instead of consisting of a crowd of yuppie Ann Arbor-ites who pretend to be European, it's a crowd of Europeans who just are what they are. (No offense, I love Ann Arbor-ites! And Art Fair!... But let's not kid ourselves.) Here's a photo of the festival's logo...

News!

Good news! The Arab World professor doesn't hate America. He turned out to be very nice and even told Tessa and me that we could do our presentation in English. We of course politely declined. Then he asked us why we wanted to take the class and told us that he thought there were simply lots of misunderstandings betwwen the Arab wolrd and America. We of course politely (and enthusiastically) agreed. Tessa was even quick thinking enough to throw in a comment on how much we hate George Bush. Good thinking Tessa!

Bad news! John Edwards dropped out. Hopefully this just means that he has a secret aliance with Obama to become his VP...

Good news! Sarkozy got married! Surprisingly, French people are actually very blasé about the whole thing. I think they're tired of reading about him and his life.

Bad news! The wifi at my host parents house is still broken. And the wireless at school is unreliable. And I'm currently out of NPR podcasts.

Good news! My host family and I made donuts yesterday. They aren't actually donuts but are instead tiny pieces of dough that are lightly fried. More like sweet corn chips really. They're for mardi gras. We also made crepes Saturday night. My host parents let me try to flip one of them

Bad news! I am bad at flipping and the crepe went flying across the kitchen.

EDIT: FANTASTIC NEWS! THE WIFI AT HOME IS WORKING AGAIN! YAY!

...good times.

Happy Birthday Dad!

For everyone else's amusement, here's a photo of the e card that I sent him...


yuck yuck yuck. or as they say here, huhn huhn huhn.