On Request

Day Four... The uber-expensive museum visit, a sea of greenhouses (not for cold but for hail..) , and Mattie and I swimming in the Turkish Dead Sea (not THE Dead Sea).









Day Three... Mattie and the Dr. Seus tree, John and St. Nick himself, a gorgeous tiled floor, the (drowsy?) chaperone, the Brazilians (also can't leave the house without a flag or three hundred), a telephone booth, and more islands.








Day Two... a waterfall, me as a cactus, some sa-weet columns (yeah.. I didn't think they were that exciting either), the Mexicans who can't leave the house without their flags, a couple of crazy techies admiring the backstage, and some beautifully blue water.







Day one (from the last to the first.. I'm too lazy to rearrange).. the Necropolis, the Girl from Kansas, Crazy Canadian and Abla (Mattie), the God Light, Two Polar Bears and a Floridian

Photos.

I'm lazy..
Mid-trip update.

Me, Mattie, and Carly being a statue in Pamukkale

Sooooo this would be me in Aspestos Theater. Soon afterwards I codirected a small play that had the Korean tourists giving us a standing ovation.

Soo! This would be me and the Brazilian who starred in the play. Isn't she adorable? I wish I was Latina.

Sooo more when I have a stable internet connection.. Just thought I'd wet your appetite!

Loooove yooooouuuuu!
Maeghan

Travel Itenary

So.. Here's what I'll be up to for the next 9 days:

25th January: Istanbul – Pamukkale
Drive to Pamukkale.

26th January: Pamukkale - Antalya
After breakfast, swimming possibilities in Hot Springpool at the Hotel.
Leaving the Hotel to visit the city, Plutonium, Theatre, Bath and Gymnasium.

27th January: Antalya
Full day excursion to Perge- Aspendos , before leaving visit the Old Harbour of Antalya and then continue to the Acropolis of Perge, drive to the City of Aspendos to visit the Agora, The Basilica Fountains, and the Theatre.

28th January: Antalya - Kaş
Drive to Demre where Father Christmas was born , visit the Church of St. Nicholas. Drive to continue to Kekova for a boat tour.

29th January: Kaş - Fethiye
Departure from the hotel, visit Xanthos, later drive to continue to Fethiye, arrival early in the afternoon and visit the Dead Sea. (you can bet that I will be swimming!)

30th January: Fethiye - Bodrum
Tour of Dalyan by boat. Afternoon arrival in Bodrum visit the castle of Bodrum and Yacht Harbour.

31st January: Bodrum – Kuşadası - Izmir
Visit Didyma and then continue to Ephesus Tour visiting the ruins of Ephesus, and The Museum, Virgin Mary. Afternoon drive to Izmir.

01st February: Izmir - Çanakkale
Pergamon Tour, visiting Acropol, Asclepion, Theatre, The Agora and Ancient City of Pergamon.

02nd February ; Çanakkale - Istanbul
The Troy tour, and then crossing Dardanelles by ferryboat and drive to Istanbul Gallipoli to visit the trenches from World War I during the Canakkale War between Turk’s and Anzacs and Allied Powers.

Okay.. does that not sound SUPER packed? I have a feeling that I will want to visit some of these places again and spend more time exploring. I mean.. we cover sooo much in such a little amount of time. If the İstanbul tour was any indication most of the tour will be rush-rush-rush! But I can't wait to see this all. Many of my classmates haven't seen as much of the country as I will see on the two trips (there's one in May that I will go on as well).

See you next month!
-Maeghan

Class 11 -D Skip Day?

So.. between both Emily's class and mine there were 4 people at school today other than us. So I just went to Emily's classes (since Merve went to some other class and my room was *completely* empty) and we of course have gym together anyways.

So we get there before the boys (there were 3 boys from her class at school today) and ask for the soccer ball. The only soccerball. Which forces the boys to play with us. YES. I played soccer. With the scary boys (as in if I'd like my face to stay the way it is I wouldn't play goal with them, although they're nice and go easy on us girls). And it was soooooooooo much fun. Made my day. EASILY. I mean.. we got laughed at alot, but whatever. So Emily and I suck at soccer? We actually broke a sweat in gym class. And interracted with her classmates who usually don't acknowledge her. So it was all in all a great experience. I am just thrilled.. can you tell?

Eeeee!

And then we were going to watch The Goonies in her English class but we couldn't get the computer to work, so we went for a walk. And Sean lent the movie to me so it's all good. I'll watch it tonight.

And since today is my parents' birthday, I called home (I'm now at -20 kontor.. dang!) and later went on webcam with my parents. Which was really nice. I'd have liked to have talked to my brother too, but the timing was so convinient and besides.. it isn't his birthday yet.

So yeah. That's life here. One of the exchange students, Mattie, is going home next Friday. Rather than going to her 7th host family (9th if you count the two families who she got ready for who never picked her up) she is done. And so she'll be leaving, which will be really, really sad. Mattie is the student I'm closest to (emotionaly, definitely not geographically!) so it'll be wierd for her to not be around.

*sigh* This is all. I leave for a Western Anatolia Tour on Sunday. 9 days of partying with the other students. Our chaperone is one of the Rotex, so we'll pretty much be able to get away with everything (this has me thrilled because an adult would never let me swim in the Dead Sea this time of year... fear of death by getting cold, down to "oh my gosh you need to wear socks in the house!"). I'll probably blog once more before I go, but I can't promise anything.

Love you lots and lots and lots!
-Maeghan (a measurement of awesome!)

My Bus

I told you it was fancy.

JELLYFISH!!!

Woah! So this is post #100, eh? That is somewhat surprising, although I don't actually know why... Today's post is about life in my favorite trans-continental city! (this is a joke, since İstanbul is the only transcontinental city...) I mean, where else do you wake up in Europe and decide "Hey! I feel like seeing a film in Asia today!"

Karakoy... fishers and big red boats! In the background you can sort of see the bridge. The Europe-Asia one.

Anyways! Today. I got up and my host mom said that her friends were meeting so she would drive me to where I was going for the movie, so I got to go back to sleep for another hour. So we drive to Karakoy. I want to be in Kadıköy. Little misunderstanding. (Get an idea of pronunciation from that? "ara" and "adı" are similar enough to cause confusion.. ) BUT luckily, there is a ferry from karakoy to kadıköy so I still get there at the same time I had planned to meet Julaina. Oh, and on the boat I kind of went picture-crazy. I've taken the ferry several times before, but I don't do it frequently enough for it to not be exciting. Heh! I could totally tell that everyone thought I was a tourist, snapping photos, grinning like an idiot, and wearing an İstanbul hoodie.

I like this photo because of the reflection in the glass. I am not very photogenic today, but I'd hate for you to forget what I look like. (Note- Kathle and Laura, check out my bag!) Also you can see my sweater! Sort of..

On a boat in the Golden horn, on my way to the Bosphorus. Asia here I come!

So these are the jellyfish. I didn't even know we had jellyfish! But I looked over the edge (because it just isn't the same to ride *inside* the boat, you have to ride on the deck!) and there they are! These see-through floaty things. I was excited. You can't see them very well here but they were super cool. You will all just have to come and watch the jellyfish with me in İstanbul some day. Can you imagine? "Yeah, I'm taking a trip to İstanbul this holiday!" "Cool, what all are you going to see? The Blue Mosque? Topkapi Palace?" "Naw, I'm going for the jellyfish!!" *stare*

Twilight was... disappointing. I didn't expect it to be better than the book, but from the ads it at least looked decent. I mean, I guess it was okay, but I don't need to see it again. (Unlike Australia, that was good!) The cinematography was cool and artsy but sometimes I felt like it took away from the story. And speaking of story. This film was definitely made for people who had read the books since they definitely left important information out. Like the fact that Alice can't see Bella in her visions?! Hello? I bet anyone who hadn't read the books was asking "If Alice knows the future, how come she doesn't realize that Bella is walking away from her to impending doom?!?!?" Yeah. And Jasper's hair? He's not a mad scientist.. he's a vampire.

And all you Twilight lovers? They absolutely butchered the meadow scene. The whole "So what you're saying is I'm your brand of Heroine?" line? Yeah.. Never happened. It followed the book. Things happened like they were supposed to, and in the right order, but there was nothing in between, so it felt really choppy. Like no lead up to anything, it was just like..

(Plot Spoiler!!! But if you've read the book it's okay.. Linda!)

Bella comes, Edward hates her. Next day he isn't there. Then he is and he's being nice to her. Then the day after that he saves her from the car. Then the day after that is the whole dress-shopping and Edward saves her from creepy men thing. Then she figures it out. Then she confronts him. Then meadow scene. Then she visits their house. Then the baseball game. Then fleeing Laurent. Then she leaves Alice and Jasper and nearly gets killed. Then the hospital. Then prom. Woothappyending.

(Done Plot Spoiling!!!)

Like a plot outline.. So that was my main complaint. Also, though. He sparkled weird. And GAAAH the meadow scene! Also, I would have liked more of my favorite character- Alice. And actually so would John. Heh. So I went with three girls and three guys. I sat beside John and Juliana, but Ju was talking to the other girls in a Spanish-English-Portuguese hybrid thing, so John and I talked. And I got to hear all about how Alice was hot. And Bella too. No "Ah! Edward Cullen!!" which was kind of amusing. I don't really like people in movies anyways, so it's all good.

Oh! But there was this one part where Edward was talking about being able to read minds. He and Bella are in a restaurant after the whole dress-shopping thing. And as he's talking the camera is panning across people at other tables. He's telling Bella what they're thinking of. "Sex. Money. Sex. Cats." And when he says cats ALL OF US lean over and look at John and start laughing! Every one of us!

You see, John loves the cats. All of them. I mean, after 5 months here you think he'd get used to seeing so many all the time but he ALWAYS points them out and stops to pet them and stuff.. and they adore him, which is hilarious. By the way, he read the first book! Hehe! And after the movie we stopped in a book store to look for the second in English.. no luck.

So after the movie we met a couple of the guys who didn't want to see the movie (why ever would that be?) but John and I had to leave because we live in Europe. Dang. So together we took a ferry to Beşiktaş and from there I walked to Taksim to catch my bus home. Hooray for adventure!

Sorry.. I realized that I just wrote A LOT. But I'm also too lazy to go back and shorten it. Heh!

Love you all,

-Maeghan

Ben Annem Bir Melek

Last night my class got together at Sefa’s family’s restaurant. It was sooo much fun. And the food? Delicious. Amazing. Possibly the best food I’ve had since I got to Turkey. (Although Mattie and I did make really good fajitas…) Plus, the simple equation of life here:
Turks + Music = Dance Party

Seriously, how often have you gone to a restaurant and had people stop in the middle of a meal to get up and dance? And yet here it has happened almost every time I’ve gone out to eat. What ridiculous good fun. Everyone sang along to the music all night as we dined on

Pictured: rice, chicken, kofte (Turkish meatball), funky pull-apart bread with assorted dips layed out on the table
Plus: dolma (a green pepper stuffed with rice and meat), fruit, and Turkish pizza (It’s a tortilla with ground meat essentially and I put lettuce, tomatoes, and lemon juice on mine)

Afterwards, most of us took a servis bus back to the school. We didn’t leave until well past midnight, and I planned to take a taxi from the school to my house. My host mom texted me around 11 asking me to text her when I was on my way home so when we left I told her we were on our way to the school. When we arrived she was there to pick me up! At 1 am. I couldn’t stop thanking her. I did not expect her to do that, and had told her earlier that I would take a taxi. When I thanked her for, like, the 100th time, telling her she didn’t need to do it (this was coming into the apartment at quarter to two in the morning) she replied “Of course, I love you.” Awe! So, ben annem bir melek. My mother is an angel. It’s the name of a TV show here, and I always think of her when I see the name because

a) she is one, and
b) Melek is her name

It is very weird because I do not feel like I know my family very well, what with the language barrier (trust me, I may speak some Turkish, but nowhere near enough to really get to know someone) and yet I know that of all the things I will miss coming home, Melek and Güner will be #1 on the list.

Today we had a meeting with Ishil at her office, so this morning Mattie and I went to a shadow puppet show(!) in Taksim (pictured above). It was brilliant. The puppets were so detailed and colourful (even though it was a shadow puppet show!) and it was very well done. One of the puppets was a city person and the other was a town person. The city one kept saying things and the town puppet wouldn’t understand. Conversations were continually like this-

“Do you like music?”

“Pardon me?”
“Do you like music?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Music- do ra me fa so la ti do”
“barosofaleenati?”
Then half of it was puppets dancing to different kinds of music. There was this well-known fiddle piece (you’d recognize it if you heard it but I don't know the name), Swan Lake, some tango, classic Turkish, etc. It was super cute. And the little kids in the audience would get up and dance all the time. Which was adorable.

Tomorrow I may go see Twilight (since it just came out here!) and I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll like it, although I like most movies (much to Laura’s chagrin) so chances are I won’t be wasting my money, and besides! I’m going to see it with one of my favorite Brazilians.

Adios!
-Maeghan