exploring - american style

There is another american girl working at the hostel now. Her name is Lydia. She's Californian. We get along really well and have been hanging out a lot. She's as enthusiastic as I am about seeing the real Istanbul, so the  past few days we have been venturing off the beaten path of the tourists onto the worn back alleys of the Istanbullus. Each neighborhood is like its own entity, with its own flavor and spirit. Two days ago we wandered an area called Kasimpasa, near Tarlabasa. It is a beautiful neighborhood with beautifully crumbling ottoman and rum houses. They are in a way cookie cutter buildings, but each is painted a different color and has its own way of falling apart. We were mesmerized to say the least, which when you think about it, is kind of strange. The people here live in these buildings. It is their home, not history. Today we went to Kumkapi and Yenikapi, areas near the old city. They are quite similar to Kasimpasa, but all their own. We found wonderful desserts and I finally bought a rug. We also saw the little Ayasofya, which is now my favorite mosque that I have seen here in Turkey (the Mevlana mosque is a close second). Its inevitable when walking through the neighborhoods to find little boys playing soccer in the street and that is exactly what we found. There were two boys, no older than 5 or6 and we spent almost half an hour playing with them and chatting about the Istanbul teams. The older boy stated that he would one day play for Galatasaray! Again tomorrow we are off to find more of the beautiful places and people of Istanbul. I am running out of time - only 2 weeks left - and I want to make the most out of my time here. Return with no regrets. I know I won't, but better safe than sorry!

I want to love it all

The fun ıs comıng to an end and I can feel the enjoyment slıppıng away from me. Havıng left Lorenzo thıs mornıng on my way home to Istanbul, makıng a few stops along the way, I realıze how much easıer ıt ıs travelıng as a paır. Not only dıd he save me from the sun wıth hıs sun screen and from excrucıatıng walks wıth hıs Vespa, but hıs company made travelıng so much more enjoyable. After 16 days, attemptıng the steep and barefoot clımb up to the pamukkale travertınes and the long hıke around the expansıve Hıeropolıs ın nearly 100 degree heat was near ımpossıble. I walked around wıth a towel over my head the entıre day. Attractıve. My trıp wıthın a trıp was wonderful. I have seen so much more of Turkey than expected and the range of culture and lıfestyles that I found along the way was one of my favorıte thıngs about ıt. We hopped from the tourıst plagued locales to large, busy cıtıes, to ınvıtıng and famılıar vıllages. I dıdnt realıze ıt at fırst, but when emergıng from the small vıllages along the coast to the seasıde tourıst trap of Fethıye, there was a bıt of a culture shock. Very unexpected. When first entering the world of old women all dressed in harem pants and their tied back scarves making gozleme on the roadside, children playing and riding bikes everywhere, and the general warm hospitality that was ubiquitous in this area, we were excited. We felt awakened by this atmosphere. All of the pensions we stayed at were run by families, who we ate dinner with, chatted with, and ventured to the beach with. At the end of this we found Fethiye, a smaller, but busy bayside summer destination of tourists and commercialism - completely devoid of gozleme. What is this place. Our initial impression told us to turn around and head back to where we came. But, unfortunately, this was not a possibility, so we sucked it up and enjoyed the little bit of beauty we could find in the place - a wonderful Lycian tomb and a very delicious doner. From here back to Istanbul, it was only downhill. My line through Pamukkale and Ephesus to Istanbul was suffocated with ridiculous tourists and locals pulling you in every direction to advertise their services - hotels, tours, buses, food. It was not a pleasant way to end my trip. Although I absolutely loved Pamukkale and Ephesus through the haze of the tourism industry, I was ready to return home to Istanbul. I am now glad to be back, but I think I came to love the southern shores a bit too much. Perhaps it was the setting...or the situation (or maybe I'm not so much loving the outrageous amount of native english speakers in the hostel at the current moment), but the past few days I have really wished I could go back to the south for the last three weeks of this spectacular summer.

Il ragazzo Sulla Vespa

12 days I have spent outside of Istanbul, traveling from the strange landscape of capadoccia to the slow bustle of Konya and onward along the mediterranean coast through beautiful natural ravines and over plummeting cliffsides. My eyes tell me it's unreal every day. Every day I seem to get more used to it, yet every day i find something more beautiful than the last. 12 days is 2 days longer than I had planned and I'm a few from the end. Starting with Goreme, I have stopped in 8 different towns of varying size and tradition. Each has had something or someone special to share with me. I can't possibly choose a favorite. Traveling alone was also part of my plan, being as I am here by myself. However, I was fortunate enough to have met Lorenzo in Istanbul, who was headed for the same trek as I was. I was even more fortunate to find that I enjoy traveling with him. I don't mind so much wandering alone into unknown places, but it is immensely better with someone else (especially when that someone is Italian). As is obvious from the title, his trusty Vepa carried him all the way to Turkey. How Italian. The vespa can't carry both of us between cites, so I have been busing it across turkey and meeting him at every stop. I would say I've just been using Lorenzo to practice Italian, but I would be lying. He has been very fun to travel with. He doesn't mind aimlessly wandering through endless amounts of ancient ruins and he love tukish tea as much as I do, (many days we have upwards of 7 cups) so I think I will stick around with him a few more days before he ventures back to Italy. Don't be surprised if i don't return home for the semester. Between the thought of staying in turkey and the temptation of hopping the big, blue pond to Italy, having to return to America honestly makes me sick.

what in the world are fairy chimneys?

So far my mini trip from Istanbul has been great! I'm currently in Konya. I got here this morning from goreme, a town in the capadocia region. I was really expecting capadocia to be completely overrated, touristy, and really just boring. More of the same everywhere you went in the area. I was wrong. It is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The landscape reminds me the American southwest in the background of fairy chimneys and rock cut Byzantine churches. It's really incredible, this place. The first day I was on my own and just wandered around goreme, one of the towns in which people live in houses carved from the rocks. Today they are all hotels. I met a really nice Turkish man who is a guide and we chatted for awhile an then he got me a really good price on a hot air balloon ride. Wait. What? Hot air balloon? Is this real? I don't think I have experienced such a thing before in my life. It wa incredible. The next few days I saw the rest of capadocia with an italian guy I met in istanbul who was there at the same time. Hes been really helpful with my italian. I think i spoke more italian than english yesterday. We went to an open air museum. Basically a valley with more cave homes and churches you can climb around on and hike through. Really beautiful. We climbed more than one mountain and a rock cut castle for some awesome panoramas. Then went below ground to an ancient subterranean city. Again, what? The hostel I stayed in was great as well. I stayed in their large dorm room, essentially 20 small matresses lining the walls of a big room on the roof with porches on every side and a terrace. Being a small town, at night the sky is so clear. I did not want to leave capadocia, but I needed to move on if I am going to see everything I want in this short amount of time. So this morning I arrived in Konya, a large and conservative town south of goreme. The home of Sufism and the mausoleum of rumi. I met an Italian girl on The bus. She was The most talkative person i have aver met and The most forceful. We saw The mevlana museum and an old masque together and Then she left. Im currently sitting in a café on a hill named aladdiin, listening to the call to prayer, drinking way too much tea. It's nice, but I don't so much like Konya. After I see catalhoyuk tomorrow, I'm heading to Antalya. Mediterranean here I come!

Tour de Turkey

Hopping on an overnight bus to Capadocia tonight. 12 hours. I'll be gone for 10 days and don't know if I will be able to update this, so I'll most likely post when I get back.
Ciao

an apple tea a day keeps the doctor away

Again I've been neglecting this. Too many distractions. My research is going well. I have had a few really great interviews the past few days and I've seen quite a few new things as well. I went to Asia again, but a different part. More residential, less party. It was very quaint and familiar - homey. A beautiful place to watch the sun set behind the European continent. I went over with Julien - we had actually meant to go to the busier Kadikoy, but it was a last minute decision to hop on the ferry...and we chose the wrong one. But all was well because we found really cheap baklava and we saw dolphins. Yeah, dolphins in the Bosphorus. Whoever said the Bosphorus isn't awesome? It was dark at this point and we were headed back on the ferry, but we spotted the sleek, dark bodies pop through the waves a few times before they disappeared in the direction of the black sea. We also saw fireworks  in front of the Bosphorus bridge. Color overload.
The rest of the weekend was relaxed. I went to Tarlabasi again on Sunday. There is a large market set up on Sundays. We walked through it and found a koftecisi (like a buffet) and had some delicious, really cheap food. Lamb kebabs, rice pilaf, and soup for 10 lira...are you serious. I'm never leaving. If only for the food. Today I tried the fried mussels. I thought it was calamari, but it's actually mussels. Mussels are everywhere, but are sold from stands, fresh in the shell on every corner in Istanbul. The fried ones are harder to find. I actually stumbled upon this place by the Grand Bazaar while looking for some lentil soup. I decided to give it a shot. A good decision.
I didn't work until 1 today, so I decided to get up early and go to the Archaeology Museum. Despite being awake until 2 the night before, interviewing Hakan, I made it up by 8:30. The museum was not crowded, which was nice, but I was so tired. It was hard to focus. The museum was great though. Such beautiful things  in a beautiful Ottoman building on the beautiful Topkapi palace grounds. After, I walked around the Sultanahmet/Sirkeci area. There are lots of shops here with all the typical Istanbulesque things to buy. I went into one of the stores just because I was curious as to how much carpet shoes cost - 80 lira...hmmm. The man who told me the price spoke english fairly well and we ended up chatting for about an hour. He showed me all of his shop and told me the historical significance of everything (I told him what I was studying). We had some apple tea and he talked about his home town - Konya, which I am planning to visit this coming week. He was really nice and I told him I would be back. Maybe if I visit enough I can get a really great deal on the carpet shoes!
I think I will leave on Thursday or Friday for Goreme/Capadoccia with Jelena, croatian girl and these two aussie girls. I'm excited to finally see some other parts of Turkey!