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Published: April 25th 2008
Spring by the Fortress
Near my favorite spot to take pictures. Rumeli Hisari is the castle, and the FSM Bridge is in the background. And spring is all around.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 awesome side effects, in Istanbul, there are multitudes of purple blooming plants, so there are abounding aesthetic rewards to your bodily inconvenience.
There was also a Culture Night, organized (in theory) by a variety of colleges and institutions in the Istanbul area, but if you looked at the audience, it was mostly people form Bogazici, and both the MCs were our buddies, so... it was mainly organized by our exchange commission for us. It was very cool, with whirling dervishes, an Ottoman Military Band (a marching band that played tunes/dressed up in costumes from Ottoman times, as well as
Arts and Sciences Building with Spring
Where most of my classes are. The picture was taken in the morning... in the afternoon, the lawn is covered with students. a variety of other Turkish music and food. On a side note, I can now do a little Turkish folk dancing.
One of the interesting parts of the night was a visit/speech by the major of Istanbul. He arrived a little before dinner, and delivered his speech, which took three people to translate, as illustrated by the picture. He stuck around for a little bit, and demonstrated some traditional Turkish art, where it looked like paint was places on top of water, and then your object (ceramic or paper) was pressed down into it to get the image. His turned out pretty well.
There is more to say about culture night, but I have some last-minute planning things to take care of before Spring Break, which has been an insanely complicated thing. Click the link to see a basic map.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/europe/turkey/
Originally, Josh and I were planning to leave tonight (Friday night) and go to Gallipoli, Troy, Izmir, Ephesus, Bodrum, and Antalya, then fly back to Istanbul Thursday so I can meet Dan that afternoon. To make a long story short, there was a bunch of complicated things going on, the exchange trip was canceled last
The Speech
Translating the mayor's (blue tie) speech was difficult. It started with Sevgi (right), then went to Hakan, bounced between them for a while, and then ended up with this guy on the left, who I assumed was an assistant of the mayor's. night, and one evening (last night) of unexplained laughter, goofy shenanagins and complicated planning for several hours.... but out of the chaos emerged a crazy-fun new trip with a total of eight people. So the plan now is...
Leave for Ankara tomorrow morning via train, go from Ankara to eastern Turkey, bum around there for a few days seeing ruins and Diyarbakir, a bunch of villages and mountain sunrises and stuff, then book it back to the Aegean side to see Izmir and Ephesus, and then I fly back to meet Dan while the rest of the group puses north via bus for two more days. It's a good trip, and I can take a day sometime and do Troy, and hit the Bodrum area some other time with some other people, so I'll get to see a lot more of Turkey this way. It will be cool.
May is also the time for visits, with Dan, Billy, Karl and Luthien all making appearances this month. That's it for now!
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Arey
Brian Arey
No link
Apparently I can't hotlink stuff. If you really want to see the map, you'll need to copy/paste the link into your browser, or search for one yourself. Sorry!