The trip is quickly drawing to a close. Finals are upon me, and while I know I should be reading, I can’t help by try to find ways to procrastinate. May has been a time of continuing great experiences. Starting with Spring Break and the exploration of the majesty eastern Turkey, it transitioned into visits by a number of friends, allowing me to share part of my life here with them. Each had a very different experience, and each will take away something very different from their brief stays here. As friends visited, and as school let out in the US, [View Full Entry]

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Spring Break was phenomenal. So much so that I have no idea what all we actually did. There were about 15 of us, from a variety of countries. We left Istanbul in a rented tour bus on Saturday the 26th, arriving in Ankara that evening for a huge dinner at the parent’s apartment of one of the exchange commission members. The apartment was part of a complex a little removed from the city, and was on top of a hill so the view was spectacular. After dinner, we got back on the bus, and drove through the night to get to [View Full Entry]

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Wow, it's been a while. Since my last post, I've been busy. Most of my time was taken up by taking midterms, studying for midterms, and planning planning my Spring Break trip and figuring out my schedule for when friends visit and stuff like that. I'll get to that in a little bit, but I want to add a few pictures. Spring came with a huge vengeance to Istanbul in the last week or so. The plants, finally used to the increasingly nice weather, exploded in blossom, and allergies kicked in. Unlike springs elsewhere, where your nose gets clogged with no [View Full Entry]

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Videos! (Only two, they take soooo long to load, but there are more, trust me) [View Full Entry]

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I made my first day trip out of Istanbul today, traveling west to the city of Edirne. The trip lasted all day, and I took over 200 pictures… so this is a very quick summary of some of the highlights. Since we visited several mosques, including the one usually designated as the most impressive in Turkey (Selimiye Mosque), I took many videos in the style that you have all come to know and love. Since it is late, and I need to get some reading done for an upcoming midterm on Monday, I haven’t browsed through my videos yet, but have [View Full Entry]

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As mentioned in the previous post, the taco night last Friday was a success. However, it was hard to get all the necessary ingredients, as Turkey is located absolutely nowhere near Mexico. Turkey has ground beef, so we got that taken care of easily, and one of the staple meals here is called a dürüm which, as far as I can tell translates to “wrap.” It is some kind of meat (chicken or lamb, usually) and veggie combination (like lettuce and tomato) rolled up in a tortilla-like piece of bread. Basically, the point I’m trying to get across is that they [View Full Entry]

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Aunt Janet asked me to take some photos of my classrooms and such so that her second graders could see them… so here they are. They were hard to get, as I usually got to class, started taking notes, and forgot about pictures. I also tend to sit way up front and a little to the side… which mess up the angles. Also, it is weird to take pictures during class, so I tried to take a few and then put my camera away, which usually resulted in a few frantic shots of varying quality. The classrooms aren't that different from [View Full Entry]

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Well, I should have posted this a while ago, but for those of you who are wondering, I got all my paperwork and stuff done on the 22nd of March, meaning that I am now a legal resident of Turkey, and have actually received my public transportation student card, so I can go places cheaply. It was good to get all the paperwork done with. And it only took two months! Registration for classes next semester (at St. Olaf) are today, so I’m going to be looking into that this afternoon. Last night a small group of us cooked for Hakan [View Full Entry]

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I am long overdue for some kind of update, though I haven’t really traveled around anywhere, or done much earth-shattering exciting activities, or traveled anywhere really far out or interesting. What I have been doing is hanging out with people. Back on March 22nd, I visited went with a few friends to explore some of the archeology of Istanbul, housed in a museum complex. It was a huge gathering of buildings, and we only managed to visit one, which included some artifacts from Anatolia (basically, mainland Turkey). It was pretty cool, and we got to see some of the artifacts dug [View Full Entry]

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I finally got out to see Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque today. There was a group of us out late last night watching a movie with some Turks, and on the way back Josh, Emiel and myself were organizing our trip to Hagia Sophia for today (Saturday) when two other people chimed in that they hadn’t been either. Because we were out so late, we decided to wait until noon today before venturing forth. Unfortunately, Istanbul is apparently in the midst of renovation and restoration of many of its historical sights, which isn’t supposed to be finished until 2010. This [View Full Entry]

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