Dinner and A Movie

Mardin was abseloutely amazing.  We got back yesterday afternoon.  I have so many pictures and stories, but I'll wait to write them once I have the pictures loaded to go along with it.

Tonight was a perfect night.  Cameron, Casey and I met our friend Zeynep in Levent to see Slumdog Millionaire (it just came out in Turkey on Friday).  What a wonderful movie!  I am in love with the actors, music, cinematography, and of course the story.  Afterwards we went to a great kebap restaurant that Zeynep's father owns.  For mezes (appetizers), we had this salad with this sort of pomegranate dressing and lahmacun (a tortilla with minced lamb and tomatoes and parsley).  For the main course I had very good lamb kebap with yogurt and garlic and eggplant and Cameron had the most delicious lamb and eggplant kebap.

I am so full and happy now and also ready to get some sleep!

Turkey Trot

It's been almost a week since my last post due to being sick and trying to keep up with school work at the same time. The "sickness", most likely caused by the food here, has hit no less than five of us in the past week. I think I'm better now, until I eat out again that is...

Other than be sick and go to class, I haven't done too much in the past week. Here's a quick recap: Monday I made it about half-way through studio with a 102 temperature before I decided to go back to the apartment. I spent the rest of the day and night in a half-sleep state. On Tuesday I slept through my first class, but made it (a little late) to the afternoon lecture on Mardin. The rest of the day and night I worked on a project to "read, experience, and map Taşkişla" (our school building). None of us quite knew what to do, the project description was quite vague. I ended up doing a few sketches from around the building and a couple small maps. The class this was for was at 8:30 am on Wednesday morning, a four-hour lecture class! They didn't end up taking up the project, so I have another few days to add to it. Here are some pictures I shot of the courtyard at school and the views from the 3rd floor balcony.

After class I went to the Nike store with Chad and Adam to pick up some work-out clothes so I can start exercising at the gym on the main campus. Then we went to a place for lunch that had the best menemen (egg, cheese, meat, pepper, tomato dish I'd mentioned before); they served it with tortillas made by women sitting in the front window who are rolling out the dough. After that I went back to studio to finish a model of the site that my group had begun after I left on Monday. When I got home Jamie had made vegetable and chicken stew. It was so good!

Shortly after that I started feeling sick again.

Fast forward to Friday morning and I was feeling much better. I didn't do much yesterday. I didn't actually leave the apartment at all. It's been very cold and very rainy here for about almost a week straight. I did make tzatziki sauce though!

Today a group of us went out to get menemen at the restaurant I went to Wednesday. I was a little scared to get it again, even though it was so good, so I tried to order a dessert instead. I'm not sure if they waiter said they didn't have it right then or that I couldn't have any that early. Either way, I ended up with just some tea, which was fine with me as I'd already eaten lunch. We went to a new market I hadn't been to yet after that and I got a few different chocolate bars. It's a fairly well-sized market, not nearly as good as the one in the mall we go to though.

For the past week I've been struggling with which site to choose and what to put in the existing building. This morning I finally got it. A wine and cheese shop. Wine is made in the region Mardin is in and cheese is made in the city itself. The shop will be more tourist-oriented, tourism in Mardin has shot up in the past few years. There will be a shop attached to a tasting room as well as a restaurant/bar with a music area. If I have space I'd like to have the cheese made on-site. I'm excited to develop this.

We picked up some pastries from the market earlier for the birthday party we're having for John tonight in our apartment. It's going to be a "classy party," so we are all getting dressed up and drinking with our pinkies extended all night. That's all for now.

Oh, today when I was out it was insane the number of people on the streets selling flowers and people carrying flowers they were given or about to give. It was really pretty. Happy Valentine's Day!

The Stress Begins

It's been a little hectic the past couple days. The internet not working well at the house or school, not having the programs I need on my laptop for studio, and the saga of getting my new debit card mailed here after my account was hacked has all added up to a good bit of stress.

Other than those things, life as a student in Istanbul has been great. Tuesday morning we had Urban Morphology; a grad student lecture class taught in English. We all packed into a tiny classroom for the first part of class. Apparently none of our names were on the list, so they expected to only have about 24 Turkish students; our group doubled that number. After the general course introduction we moved to a larger classroom to begin the day's lecture, which was given as a powerpoint presentation with one of our two professors reading the slides in good, but somewhat choppy, English. After the first couple of slides, the power went out. Lucky for me, I was in the front row and could therefore see the laptop that the powerpoint presentation was on and take adequate notes for the rest of the class period. The course seems like it could be interesting: the study of city form, mostly coastal European cities like Istanbul; however, it was hard to comprehend the whole of the lecture. I don't know if it was how the slides were written or not having my ear keyed in on our professors' accents yet. I looked up issues of the Urban Morphology journal online when I got home, literature our teacher mentioned in class. I found an article on Istanbul's urban morphology, written by an I.T.U. professor; I read the first part of it and took some notes. It helped me understand the idea of the course a lot better, and it was really interesting.

After class on Tuesday I bought some drafting supplies at the school supplies store, came back and ate lunch, then went back to school for studio work-day. We have three potential sites in Mardin for our project: a family house, an inn-type building, and a bazaar. Our task is to design the interior space, keeping the existing building's shell and interior walls, with whatever proposal we want. That is my assignment for tomorrow: come up with proposals of what could exist in these sites. Two of the sites could become really great museums, I think, but museums can be tricky because there is a certain amount of restraint needed on the part of the architect so that the artwork is given a perfect background. I also thought about a mixed-use hostel or hotel and visitor's center. Anyways, I'll quit brainstorming here, and get back to my account of the past few days.

In studio I spent most of my time figuring out a software I could download (for free) to view .dwg files, which is the format of all of the documents we've been given on the sites. Most people have autoCAD, but OSX (mac's operating system) isn't supported by autoCAD, so I turned to AutoDesk's free student downloads, but got lost in the many options. Eventually, I realized that Adobe Illustrator (which I have) opens .dwg files for viewing. Today I found out that I can download a free student version of VectorWorks, similar to autoCAD; this eliminated a good bit of that stress I mentioned in the first paragraph. I just need to scan my student ID (which today I found out I can do at school) and e-mail it in.

This morning we had architectural contexting, taught by one of the assistant professors who is helping Tarik's studio class. This seems like it will be a lot of fun. Each week we are given a place (assignment) in the city to go explore and document. At the end of the semester we will make a video of all of our findings. Today we explored our campus. Our professor took us to see the two libraries, computer lab, and supply store.

After class I waited by the door downstairs for two hours on the FedEx man. At 11:30 am I decided to call it quits and went upstairs to enjoy my two lira sandwich from the restaurant across the street.

^ complete with chicken, french fries, lettuce, green peppers, and tomatoes

Tonight I cooked lemon spaghetti for Jamie and Cameron. It turned out well for eyeballing all of the measurements. Here's the link to the simple and good recipe. :)

Someone outside is making a noise every 15 seconds that sounds like a loud cough, although I'm sure it's a word; it can be a noisy night-time (and day-time) street that we live on.

Time for me to continue work on these proposals due for studio tomorrow. Instead of having class at school we are traveling to Koleksiyon, a trendy, upscale interior design shop that may (if we make a good impression) fund our trip to Mardin. www.koleksiyon.com.tr

Waiting for School to Start

We haven't done much over the weekend. Friday night a few of us went to a bar near the fish market off of Istiklal. It was a lot of fun. We went to the top floor, which will be great during spring, because the whole roof is just an awning that folds back. Our group hunkered down in a cozy corner booth with 4 lira beers- a pretty good price for Istanbul. After about an hour a group of twenty or so people came in and moved all the tables out and the dancing began. The music was mostly American songs from the 1990s, but they still had decent beats.

When I got home I called Walker to see how his flights had gone. He said they went well, but the ride to the airport was quite an adventure. He and a British man were the only passengers on the shuttle to the airport. About a mile away they came to backed up traffic and tons of people in the streets waving flags (Turkish and one they didn't recognize). A man knocked on the door and he and the bus driver spoke in raised voices for a bit. Then the bus driver told them they would have to walk the rest of the way! So, Walker and the British man got out and started maneuvering their luggage through the mob of people. They got to the airport alright, just a little shaken. When Walker got to Atlanta and was able to use the internet he found that the people were awaiting the return of the Turkish Prime Minister who had been at an international debate in Davos; the other flag being waved was the Palestinian flag. You can read the whole scoop here.

Saturday Tarik came to visit. We all sat in Nadim's large room down stairs and drank tea while Tarik gave us an update on what we would be doing this semester. We'll be split between two studios: Tarik's and another Turkish professor's. Tarik's studio will be a vertical studio; it will have all of the I.M.I.A.D. grad students in it, us (fourth year students), and third year students. I'm not sure if the other professor is doing a vertical studio as well. We'll be going to Mardin at the end of February, where three potential sites for our project are. I'll know more about it all tomorrow. We go to campus tomorrow morning to get introduced to everything, but after that studio will be held in the afternoons on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

Saturday evening I went out with Christine, Nick, and Tula (one of our Finnish apartment-mates) to find a large supermarket Nadim had said was about 15 km down the road. We walked for a long time, never finding the market, and decided to stop and eat at an Italian restaurant. Tula and I had tasty spinach and mushroom omelets. Most of our group headed back to the bar last night, but I decided to stay in and try to get on a good sleep schedule. I watched the first episode of the series Durham County, a Canadian TV show that was on TNT. It's about a homicide detective and his family who move to a new town across the street from a murderer and his family. It was pretty eerie.

Nothing has gone on today. I've been doing laundry, and we watched the movie Pineapple Express on someone's laptop. A few of us just got back from an Italian place down the street. I got spaghetti with cream sauce, which turned out to be mostly olive oil and pretty tasteless. Oh well. Time for me to get my laundry out of the dryer and get ready for bed!

The World's View

I just discovered that we get the Al Jazeera - english version television channel. Right now a man from Pakistan's government is speaking. It's good to hear the world's view. It will be interesting for me to hear Obama's first months in office through international voices.

Last night I had a disasterous cooking experience. Walker and I decided pasta would be good for dinner. I had a can of domates salçası, which I assumed to be tomato sauce, but was actually tomato paste. I've never made spaghetti sauce from scratch, and wasn't sure if tomato paste was the main ingredient in tomato sauce. I added a fresh tomato, some water, pepper, and thyme; those being the only spices we had on hand. The result was not too good; very bitter. Unfortunately I had already piled our plates of pasta high with the sauce. We ate as much as we could and then turned to bread with Nutella for dinner. I think I will stick to pasta with butter and salt, like I used to always eat when I was younger.

I watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on TV last night until I fell asleep on the couch.

In the next few days before Walker heads back home we are going to try to see the rest of the Istanbul sights. We're planning to visit Prince's Islands, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Basillica Cistern, Grand Bazaar and Egyptian Spice Bazaar. Maybe the trendy shopping malls north of here as well.

It's Greek to Me!

I now get the meaning of that phrase. I've never seen words I knew less how to pronounce. But luckily for me, most people in Greece speak English also.

Monday our group of seven made it to our train. The 9:00 pm Dostluk/Filia "Friendship" Express from Istanbul to Thessaloniki. It was totally worth the 50 Euros, even if it had just taken us in a circle. The cabins were cozy, perfect for an overnight train ride. we even had a flip-open sink. From what I hear, the two WCs at the end of the car weren't too pleasant, but luckily I survived the ride without having to go. It was cool to see the outskirts of Istanbul diminish into empty land. With our little sink I was able to get ready for bed and even sleep!... Until we hit the border. Three knocks on our door in the middle of the night for leaving Turkey. Once to pick up our passports, once to hand them back with the 'exit' stamp, and once when we were visited by the customs man who demanded, "Where are you from?" After at 20+ minute stop we were on our way again and I was asleep again, until we hit Greece customs. The whole routine was repeated. I awoke feeling fairly well-rested with bright sun and a chilly cabin. Walker had the window down to take uninterrupted pictures of the Greek countryside. I washed up and got ready for the day but missed us coming into the city of Thessaloniki because I fell asleep again in the seat.






We got out of the train station clueless except for Jamie's friend's e-mailed guidance and a free map of the city. We found a nearby restaurant at which we refueled and pondered the map, figured out our bearings, and headed for the water. It was a beautiful scene. The water seemed to fade into nothingness. Through the fog you could barely seem some larger ships on the water.

The White Tower, a main landmark in Thessaloniki.

After relaxing by the water we went to find a decently-priced hotel. Thirty Euros for two people seemed to be the cheapest we would find for two people per room (and that's with sharing a shower and toilet with the others on the floor). Our room was the bare-minimum and our floor's toilet was quite gross (but it was okay because there were two other floors whose toilets were comparably cleaner). We did have a TV with news channels covering the inauguration. All of it was in Greek, but we got to hear some of Obama's speech through the news anchor's translations.




We split up for the day. It was hard to navigate even a group of seven through a large city (and I'm told Thessaloniki is the second largest in Greece). Walker and I ventured down the road our hotel is on, which seems to be a main thoroughfare. We found a great place for pizza and dessert, Eσtia (or something similar to that with Greek letters). It was well-priced too! Then we wandered around taking pictures of the ancient (well, really old at least) buildings/structures that were mixed in with the more modern-day buildings. Imagine walking down a street in NYC and all of a sudden you see this:

There were so many cats wandering around the grounds of this rotunda.

There was graffiti everywhere, on every building.

One street we went down was lined with orange trees.

The tower you see in the background is some modern building; it looked out-of-place to me.

While the others went to a fast-food type Greek restaurant, Walker and I dined on this delicious meal. We each had a salad with some of the best cucumbers and tomatoes I've ever had. Walker had veggies, wrapped in chicken, wrapped in bacon on kebabs, and I had grilled fish.



Although we weren't able to find Atatürk's birthplace (something I was looking forward too), we all agreed we'd seen all we knew to see in Thessaloniki. Cameron and Jamie found a 14 Euro train to Athens, so we planned to head there Wednesday.

Wednesday morning the rest of the group headed to get lunch while Walker and I were still in the showers. We were supposed to all meet at the train station, but somehow we missed each other. Walker and I waited there from about noon until three, never seeing the others. We eventually decided to book a hotel, spending another night in Thessaloniki, and catch a train out in the morning because any train we got at that point in the afternoon would spit us out in Athens after 10:00 pm to find a hotel/hostel. So, we are in Emπopikon hotel for 50 euros a night. It is worth it! Free breakfast, internet (that sometimes decides to work), bathroom in our room, and nice towels. Did I mention that the towels at the last hotel were stiff as a board? After checking in we did nothing. Walker said he was feeling achy and cold. It turned out he had a fever of 102 even after Advil. Maybe it's good we didn't travel to Athens yesterday. We went back to the excellent dessert shop last night and got some Powerade from a street vendor.

Walker still has a fever this morning (Thursday) but is feeling a bit better. We plan to take the seven-hour day train to Athens where the others are (they e-mailed) staying at the hostel: Athens' Backpacker.

I really like Thessaloniki. The people here seem very nice and tend to mind their own business. No street vendors or other salesmen shoving goods in your face or dragging you into their restaurant. I'm interested to see if Athens is as enjoyable.

Food and Fighting

Today was begun with a another late start. Even though I had fallen asleep around midnight, I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed until 2:00 pm. Walker and I went out for food. We stopped at Simit Sarayı one of a chain of internet cafes that has fresh-baked pastries, some sweet, some filled with feta cheese or stewed veggies. Then we walked across the street to get portakal suyu (orange juice), delicious and freshly squeezed.

After that we walked down Iştiklal, looking for a place to eat a meal. Iştiklal is a pedestrian-only street and always very packed with people. Every now and then a side street crosses Iştiklal, going out to the roads that do have traffic. As we were walking up to one of these side street crossings, we heard commotion coming from down the side street on the right. All of a sudden a mob of many teenagers/twenty-somethings came running out onto Iştiklal. We and everyone walking around us stopped dead in our tracks. There was noise of glass shattering and I saw the neck of a green glass bottle fly in the air. Walker and I quickly turned around and walked back up Iştiklal the way we had come from as police sirens started going off (there had been a police truck at that crossing, which may have been the target of the mob's rush). A little ways up the street everyone looked like they were going on about business as usual and we could no longer hear the commotion. I'm not sure what had gone on there. Just a gang of teens protesting the police or running away from a crime scene, perhaps.

We turned down a side street a little ways away, still hungry for a meal, and were beckoned into a restaurant by a man holding the menu. The food looked good and reasonably -priced and the menu was in English as well as Turkish, so we headed inside. We were taken to a tiny back room on the upper floor that had four tables and a alcoholic drink-prep area. The other three small tables were occupied by three other couples, cuddled up next to each other. One of them sucking on a hookah; I had thought I'd seen a sign for nargile outside. Upon realizing we had never gone to the ATM and only had 35 liras between us, we ordered based on cost. Walker got chicken and mushrooms and I got chicken şiş kebap. The chicken was good and served with french fries, grilled tomatoes and peppers and shredded lettuce. It was awkward sitting in the tiny room with the other couples, mostly our age, hugging and kissing each other constantly. I read somewhere that young couples usually find a secluded spot in a restaurant to spend time together because public affection is frowned upon here and I assume many households have strict rules for boys visiting girls. After asking for the hesap (check) we left and came back to the apartment, both feeling tired from breathing in the nargile smoke in the room.

This week Walker and I plan to join a few others in our group who are taking an overnight train to Thessaloniki, Greece to spend a few days touring. We can leave from İstanbul's train station at 8:00pm and arrive in Thessaloniki at 8:00am the next morning.

Not sure what tomorrow holds yet, but that's all for tonight. I'm going to try to get to bed early.