Holy cow!

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"Wooh, study abroad! It's like going back to middle school, except middle school is another country!"
-Mackenzie Houck

Oh man, it's so long since I've written here--and what a so-long-since-I've-written-here it's been! I've been so busy/without internet access since I last wrote here I've not had the chance to do do so--or even, for much of it, take a minute to breathe and reflect on what's been happening. Short(ish) run-down:

1. Vacation to Black Sea coast (remember that?) fell through because we didn't want to take the risk of driving around Turkey. We decided instead to take a bus to Isparta, and then to a town next to Turkey's second (or fourth? it was unclear, actually) lake, both of which are named Eğirdir.
2. Vacation in Eğirdir was relaxing and fun. Me, Frank, Dan, and Kendra swam in cold lake water, drank cheap beer, ate fish, fell asleep on top of a castle, walked around, talked to rowboat owners, finished Samurai Champloo, smoked nargile and drank tea, hung out and picked apples and went to the local market (where we bought winter-wear aplenty) with the hostel owner named Ibrahim and his amazingly cute daughter Tuba, and finally, took a bike trip up a mountain.
3. This bike trip warrants its own bullet-point. After some mulling, I decided to go with the rest of the crew on a day bike trip to a cave that goes a kilometer into the earth that Romans and Greeks used as a temple. Müslüm, who worked at the hostel, told us that the ride would be "a little bit hilly," and that the cave would probably be open. Unfortunately, when he said "a little bit hilly," he meant we would be riding up a fucking mountain. Like, literally, up a mountain, which was way more intense of a ride than I was up for. After getting to the top-ish we hung out with some farmers at a park on the side of the road and tried to communicate using our limited Turkish. After the mountain it got rather beautiful--flat-ish central Anatolian plains under imposing mountains, fields of poplars, all that stuff. The experience of biking through that and seeing it made the trip worthwhile. Anyway, after 15 miles-ish of biking we got to the cave, only to realize it was closed on Mondays. Thanks Müslüm. So we had a lunch of eggplant and beans and rice in a restaurant in the small town there, which was some of the best-tasting food I've had in Turkey. Then we biked maybe 5 miles back toward Eğirdir before we decided to hitch a ride back since it was getting dark out and I, and I think at least Frank, were pretty done from biking about 20 miles. We swam in a mountain of apples that the apple farm left on the side of the road, waiting to put them in trucks to take them to market. Until the guy drove down the hill, up onto the shoulder, honked at us in a real "get the fuck off my apples, you punks!" kinda way, and drove away. Anyway, we hitched a ride from some farmer in his truck, who asked me in Turkish if I liked heroin for some reason.
4. We left that night in order to be back for the Republic Day celebrations. I thought Republic Day was on Tuesday night--I saw the sign for the celebrations, thought the math added up to it being on Tuesday, and thought that made sense since we had Tuesday night and all of Wednesday off. But I was wrong. So Tuesday was spent sleeping and recovering and making sure I was up on my school work.
5. Wednesday, my friend Mackenzie, who is teaching English in France this year, arrived on her All Saints Week vacation. She arrived at around 4; she was promptly overwhelmed by speaking English to everyone, meeting a large number of people when we went to the lookout point on campus to watch the fireworks (which were just okay from Campus, unfortunately), and the difficulty of finding vegetarian cuisine in Istanbul. She stayed in to plan her trip while I went out to celebrate Republic Day. I watched some of the Turkish pop concert in Beşiktaş square, getting off the bus on my way to Taksim when I saw it going on as we passed through Beşiktaş. It was pretty intense and goofy and enjoyable, as you will hopefully be able to see from the video above. Oh yes, it was a Mustafa Sandal concert. Anyway, I went to Taksim to realize that not so much was going on and that everyone I knew who was there had left already. Bummer, man. I came home and my room mate Uygar was watching a television program about the history of the Republic and its future. I asked him if he was proud to be a Turk on Republic day and he said he was not, but that he was very proud of the early Republic and what Mustafa Kemal Atatürk did to form and re-form the country. He, Mustafa, and myself got into an awesome and insightful conversation about Turkish politics and society and their attitudes towards modernism, Turkey's place in the world, religion, the headscarf debate, the ruling AK Party, and other things.
6. Since Mackenzie has been here it's been kind of a whirlwind of doing cool Istanbul stuff with her, including the $4 Bosphorus tour (highly, highly recommended--absolutely do it if you ever come to Istanbul), the Hagia Sofia (which was absolutely amazing and which I need to go back to alone some time--it lived up to my expectations as literally one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Istanbul), seeing the breathtaking view from the Galata Tower (which has a hilarious sign at the front desk: "T.C. bilet, beş lira / Ticket, 10 lira; the first half of it says, in Turkish, "ticket, five lira." I knew what was up and asked for the discount but the guy refused me, hah), the Grand Bazaar (which wasn't quite as grand as I was led to believe), seeing the Blue Mosque together, and a crazy weird Halloween that involved her dressing up in my clothes as Courtney Love and a bunch of us exchange students wandering around Taksim conspicuously becostumed. Since then I've barely had time to even do my homework. It's been a whirlwind.

Life just doesn't seem to slow down here, hah.

Tonight perhaps I should or will go to the overnight election party hosted by Democrats Abroad. Results called at around 4 AM probably, breakfast at 8, no class until 3PM! Or maybe I will do my homework, hah.

Videos and pictures for all this madness coming soon!

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