Constantinople!

---

Hello dear friends and family,

I’m embarrassed to look at the last time I wrote on here, it has been so long. Without rushing through everything too quickly, let me give a little update about the past two months ☺

First off, the somewhat lazy schedule I had before is no more. I started volunteering once a week in Padova at an organization called XENA where I lead an English conversation table for two hours with about ten Italian adults, who are probably my same age or in their early thirties. XENA is a global connections grassroots volunteer organization that works on integrating people from different cultures with Italians in Veneto region, and also provides overseas volunteer opportunities for Italians. I used to participate in the Spanish conversation tables at the UW, so I had an idea of what these sessions should be like, but it really began to take shape after the first session once we began to know each other better. Now I look forward to it every week as a highlight because, first of all, they’re all really amusing (one night a guy named Filippo teased another of the guys who is from Siciliy by bursting into the Godfather theme song), secondly, we decided that since we’re all coming from work when we meet at night, that it’s a good idea to bring food and drinks to keep up the energy (meaning that we each bring a choice of cheeses, meats, one dessert like tiramisú, and a prosecco or wine), and thirdly, they are all really opening my eyes to another local perspective of Italy. They know so much about their country that they love to share with me and especially enjoy talking about Italy’s cuisine. I tease them that we are more like an eating club than a conversation group, but hey, their English is definitely improving no matter the title. The Sicilian guy, Giovanni, joked that all Italians can of course make perfect pastas because they were given their first pot at age 3 to work in the kitchen alongside la mama, hehe.

Besides this volunteer work, I decided to sign up for an Italian course. It’s not as intense as I’d like it to be, but it’s all I could afford with my schedule, so I basically go once a week for two hours in a nearby town called Tencarola. It’s technically a course for any foreigner to Italy, so the teachers don’t speak any English and the other four of my classmates come from countries like Russia, Brazil, Egypt and Pakistan. To further practice Italian, I signed up to meet twice a week with a semi-retired Italian language teacher for an “intercambio di lengua” where we informally split our time together speaking English and Italian. I’m practicing more grammar but also getting through the book “Twilight” in Italian, and she’s trying to read some Charles Dickens. A bit of a contrast, eh?

Besides those things, at the end of October I went to Istanbul, Turkey by myself for 5 days. It’s a long story to explain why exactly, but basically I can technically only stay in the European Union without a visa for 3 months, and Turkey is still not a part of the EU but it’s a close neighbor to Italy and it was cheaper for me to go there for a short vacation than to return to the States and come back to Italy to continue working until the end of December.

Turkey is one of those countries that I had never really planned on going to, and had only known one person who had been there, but it ended up being one of my favorite trips I’ve done since being overseas. A few things about Turkish culture that I had read beforehand: that there are innumerable carpet and ceramic shops lining the streets, that these shop owners love to bargain with customers while serving them countless cups of hot tea, that Turkish people are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. My first time in a Muslim country and by myself, I was ready to be on my guard just in case. Better to be safe than sorry, right? However, I met some of the nicest Turks there, who offered their shops and homes as my own, and showed me around some of the city. One guy in particular, named Haman, was especially generous in his time with me and “found” me on my first day in Istanbul while I was looking for my hostel to check in to. It happened as I was walking through a park, stopping for a moment to read the directions to my hostel on a piece of paper, and then I heard a guy say in English, “Hey, do you need help?” It was a bright and sunny afternoon and there were tons of people around (tourists and Turks), but I was immediately on guard that I should lose this guy, I’m ashamed to say. I couldn’t help that I was nervous because it was my first day there and I hadn’t received much advice about the safety of Istanbul yet. Anyhow, Haman must have seen this on my face, because he continued, “I’m really not trying to bother you, you just looked like you needed assistance and I’d be happy to help you, I’m on my lunch break now. Are you from the United States? I was in Chicago not too long ago”. Well, we ended up having a great conversation back at his carpet shop and I had some fabulous hot apple tea with him for an hour before finally continuing on to the hostel, which happened to be in a great location downtown in the Sultanhamet district, right between the Aya Sofia Mosque and the Blue Mosque. It was a perfect afternoon, because there was no schedule I had to keep whatsoever. Over the next couple of days we met again and I learned a lot from him about Turkish carpets and rugs, since his family had been in the business for about five generations. He did try to sell me one at the end, but I could honestly (and without feeling any guilt because we were friends by then) say that I couldn’t afford one at this point in my life (they cost 100 euros at the very least for a small carpet, although are amazing quality and beautiful).

Another reason why I loved Istanbul was that the city’s architecture was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Silhouettes of temples lined the city’s skyline, parks were green and dotted with flowers and elaborate fountains, and bright red Turkish flags with tiny white stars decorated the Spice and Egyptian bazaars (markets). Plus the weather was sunny and warm, and Istanbul is located right on the coast. My hostel, like many others in the area, had a rooftop terrace that looked over the city and where you could enjoy a drink and a meal at night.

But what made the trip complete was meeting my friends Charli, Adam, Christine and Matt at my hostel. That is, a British girl, a Polish guy, and an Ozzie couple. Charli and Adam weren’t “together”, but had randomly decided to travel for a week together after their 3 month diving internship had ended in Croatia recently, and Chris and Matt were just traveling as a break from their “real jobs”. Anyhow, it’s hard to explain, but we just clicked. Same kind of attitude towards traveling, laid back, not afraid of sarcasm, looking for a good time. We wanted to see and do things in Istanbul, not just go out and party the whole time (which many people do there also). Charli and I became especially close friends after going to a traditional Turkish bath together (such a cool experience!) which is basically like a small spa treatment involving first a massage and scrub on a marble slab by a Turkish woman, and then a soak in a hot pool of water, all in adjoining, domed underground chambers. After your massage you can sit in heated towels in the waiting room on small couches for as long as you want, and we had a good girl-to-girl chat of course. But with the others we did a lot of sightseeing to the mosques and the bazaars, and also did first rounds of drinks in our shared room before heading out to dinners on rooftop terrace bars or finding a good kebäp and corn stand on the street. One night Charli and Adam and I went to a hookah (shisha) bar too, which was good too. I sorely miss all of these guys, and of course who knows when we’ll meet up again although we all promised to host each other in our countries if the others ever made it there. My time in Istanbul was amazing because of them.

Then, only a week after I returned, my parents arrived in Italy for two weeks! They came in on a Friday, we rented a car, and drove off to spend the first weekend away from Montegrotto Terme, taking a mini-trip to Lago di Como (the Como region is well-known for its appearance in movies like Ocean’s 11, and it’s where our good friend Nuccia was born ☺). It felt just like I was a little kid again on a family trip, haha. On the way home we stopped in Verona and the small town called Soave known for its white wines. In Soave we had a perfect wine-tasting experience in a small enoteca where the shopowners were an adorable elderly couple who gave us many different samplings of their favorite wines and supplemented those with appetizers of prosciutto and bread with olive oil. Then we had to rush back to Montegrotto Terme where we’d be having an early birthday dinner for Cecilia’s mother and my friend Michael would be joining us by arriving by train soon. That’s when the night got a little crazy (of course, once Mike got involved :P). It really wasn’t his fault, because the trains went on strike halfway through his trip to Montegrotto from Vicenza (where he lives), so he was stuck in Padova. Should have been an easy solution to go pick him up at this city’s train station that was only a 10 minute drive away, right? Ha. We spent the next hour and a half getting lost on the way there, and then getting even more lost on the way back. This is really one of those stories that you had to be there to really understand the complete sense of being lost that we felt, but also how hilarious it was… It was nighttime and we couldn’t get straight directions from anyone, and kept running into the most bizarre situations. At one point my dad just drove in circles in a roundabout to give us a break from taking the wrong turns! My dad was madly trying to avoid the crazy Italian drivers, I was jumping out of the car to ask in Italian for directions, my mom trying to talk to Mike after not seeing him for years. Mike really got a preview of my family under stress, let’s just say that ;-) But the night ended well with a short performance by me, Cecilia and Gioia practicing Gioia’s English, a three-course dinner (ending with Cecilia’s homemade tiramisú!) and good company.

Okay, I’m rambling way too much… still too much to write about... Going back through these memories is making me remember more and wanting to document all the good moments. My bad. I’ll continue on in the next entry. As always, hope everyone is doing well ☺

---

Photos

The Spice Bazaar
Decorated with the Turkish flag for an upcoming holiday

Lunch boats on the Bosphorous
These boats were constantly moving up and down from waves made by other boats, but that didn't stop the men inside from frying up and flipping fish for yummy fish burgers.

The crew
Cheers, mate!

The Basilica Cistern
Old Turkish ruins located underground in a lake of water

Mom and Dad have arrived :)
In a cable car on the way down to Como from a small town called Brunate, where they had their first spritz drink at a bar (and loved it, I should add!)

An intercultural dinner of sorts
A French-Italian friend, an Italian family, an American family with a Peruvian daughter (me), a U.S. soldier..

Comments

[Mom]

Thanks
I tell you, bug - you are a great writer. I enjoyed reading this.