Hike. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Trabzon.

Sleep Poem Lols

I love my bed. My pillow is heaven's silk seat cushion. Class beckons but its call is muffled through the overwhelming serenity between my sheets. Oh the glory that my small twin beholds. It's deep purple color sends my mind far away into an unconscious dream land of red wine and fairy dust. How I wish I could fly, oh but I can and all I have to do is close my eyes. Just ten more minutes please.

Travel Bug

It's been a while since I have actually stayed in Istanbul over the weekend. I actually figured out that one whole month would pass by the time I am not traveling over a weekend and am actually in Istanbul over a Friday and Saturday. I left for Florence on April 5th and will be returning from Izmir on May 5th, the weekend following my trip to Izmir I will finally stay put in Istanbul where I will remain until flying out for my travels after finals end. This upcoming weekend I am traveling East in Turkey to the town of Trabzon along the coast of the Black Sea nestled in the Pontic Mountains. This trip is the final CIEE group trip indicating the close approaching end of semester. Trabzon will be the farthest East I have/will travel in Turkey and am really excited to see the cultural and environmental differences.

I talked to a few of my Turkish friends about my upcoming trip and they included me in on a Turkish inside joke about people from the Black Sea region. Similar to how the United States holds the misconception that people from the South are dumb hill-billies, Turkey holds the misconception that people from the Black Sea are dumb and backwards thinkers. My mentor Ufuk sarcastically said "rather than having street signs that say 'the nearest gas station in 3 km' their street signs would read 'the nearest gas station 3 km back' because people from the Black Sea are known to be illogical." I didn't think the joke was that funny but his broken English attempt still made me laugh.

Trip Itinerary

25 Nisan Perşembe

20:00                     Bus leaves from bus stop at Koç. (Do not be late as we can’t miss flight!!!)

22:25                     Anadolujet Flight TK7230 leaves from Sabiha Gökçen airport to Trabzon

00:05                     Flight arrives in Trabzon. Transfer to Çoşandere Hotel in Maçka:

                               Hotel: Çoşandere Hotel, Sümela Yolu Üzeri, Maçka

                               Ph: +90 (462) 531.1190 www.cosandere.com

                              

26 Nisan Cuma

08:30                     Breakfast at Çoşandere hotel

09:30                     Bus leaves for Sümela Monastary

10:00-12:00        Visit Sümela Monastary (this involves a 1km trek uphill)

12:30                     Group lunch at Çoşandere Hotel

13:30                     Bus leaves for Çamlıhemşin

15:30                     Arrival in Çamlıhemşin.

                               Hotel: Otel Doğa, Şenyuva Köyü

                               Ph: +90 (464) 651.7455

Evening               Group dinner and relaxation at hotel. Chat by the fireside with Apo Aydin (local muhtar) and Uğur Biryol (local guide).

27 Nisan Cumartesi

08:00                     Breakfast at hotel

09:00                     Leave hotel for day-long trek around local villages

12:30                     Group lunch in traditional village house in Ortan Köyü

17:00                     Return to hotel

Evening               Group dinner and relaxation.

28 Nisan Pazar

08:00                     Breakfast at hotel and check out

09:30                     Bus leaves for Trabzon

11:30                     Arrive in Trabzon. Meet guide İsmail Köse for city tour.

12:00                     Visit 13^th century Haghia Sophia Church

13:30                     Group lunch in Akçabat (small coastal town near Trabzon)

15:30                     Visit Atatürk Köşk and walk in center of Trabzon with guide

17:30                     Free time. (We will not meet for dinner so grab something if you like).

19:00                     Meet bus for transfer to airport

20:30                     Anadolujet flight TK7299 leaves for Istanbul (snack will be served on plane)

22:15                     Arrival at Sabiha Gökçen Airport. Transfer to Koç

00:30                     Arrival at Koç. İyi geceler!

Happy Children's Day!

Happy Children's Day from Koc University! 

April 23 

Turkey National Sovereignty and Children's Day

"This festival was started in 1920 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, who recognized how important children were to his country's future and dedicated this day to them. On this national public holiday, Atatürk is honored with special services in Ankara, Turkey's capital city, at the monument built for him. Afterwards a children's program takes place in which children from around the world wear festive traditional costumes and dance and sing. In Istanbul, a similar celebration is held in the national soccer stadium."

"In Turkey, Children’s Day has been celebrated on April 23 since 1929. It originated from the first gathering of Grand National Assembly on April 23, 1920, during the Turkish Independence War. After the Ottomans were defeated during World War I, Turkish land had been occupied by some countries. Ataturk, an Ottoman commander, broke his ties with the dying Empire and started the war for independence. After years of fighting Turkey won full independence. Turks consider Ataturk to be “The Father of Modern Turkey”. After the war, Ataturk refused the role of Sultan or King and established a modern Republic instead. He gifted April 23 to the children for the country, so that they would cherish the independence that cost so much, but at the same time walk the path of “Peace at Home, Peace in the World." Every year on April 23, the seats of Parliament are held by children, and a child becomes President for a day. The child President delivers a speech on national television."

Drawing Class

First we learned how to measure and draw line.

Exam One: Organic Form  "Rutabaga"

Midterm Project: Bottles & Composition  

Finally we started learning how to shade and render...

And now we are so far into the semester I already have to start planning my final project. The teacher is calling it "Garden of the Self" and we have an entire month to work on it. 

Giovanni

Giovanni was the hostel owner of Giovanni's Home where we stayed for four nights in Naples at the end of our Spring Break trip through Italy. He was the highlight of my time in Naples. Upon our arrival he gave us this huge spiel about Naples and what to do and the history of the city. He was born there and loves every square inch of it. 

The map he gave us was color coded with highlighted paths through the city. He showed us where not to go, where we have to go, and went above and beyond the normal duties of Hostel managers. He was so sweet and concerned for our well being. A very modest man, he has won loads of awards from Hostel World and Trip Adviser for his outstanding hostel and hospitality. For two years in a row he won "Best Hostel in the World" out of some 35,000 hostels listed on the site. The hostel is just some little converted apartment home in the center of the city, but that's not why he won, he won because he himself is awesome. 

One night he cooked the whole hostel a delicious pasta eggplant cheese meal, served wine, and entertained the crowd by playing guitar and harmonica. 

His smile is killer. He calls us his family and made it feel true. 

The Potato Man

One of the friends I made in Olympos at the hostel we called the Potato Man when identifying him during conversation. His real name is Shakir. He introduced himself to me as Shakira. The only hard facts I could get him to admit about himself was that he was a professor of Biological Engineering at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara and he has two children. Every time I saw him he was sitting by the fire if it was lit or sitting in the bungalows if the camp fire hadn't started yet. He was always drinking Raki. His balding white hair was pulled into a short rat tail braid at the base of his head. And every night he ate potatoes for dinner. He cooked them by letting them roast next to the fire's flames for hours. He shared them with everyone after dousing them heavily with salt and the free single-packs of butter from the restaurant connected to the hostel. He was quite friendly and a little crazy. 

I first met him when I was buying a bottle of water from the bar and he recognized me as the girl who took a funny picture on the beach next to the "Warning: Falling Rocks" sign. Later when I was socializing in the bungalow with some Germans and an Australian he came and asked me to sit by the fire with him and his friend who also works at the University. They claimed to be professors of life and ranted on and on about why Olympos is their favorite place to visit. They claimed to be Buddhist but would giggle after each claim which in my mind discounted their claims. He went on rants about why studying the past was silly but then insisted that in order to discuss modern government one must first start 400 years back. I didn't know what to think but he definitely left an impression. After a while I retreated back to the bungalow to hang out with people my own age who didn't seem to be on the brink of a insanity. 

OLYMPOS

We slept in a tree house.
We swam in the Mediterranean.
We climbed through a forest of Roman ruins.
We sang Turkish songs next to the raging camp fire.
We hiked to the mystical Eternal Flames atop Chimera mountain.
We met awesome friends and made amazing memories.
I love the southern coast of Turkey.

OUR TREEHOUSE HOSTEL:

http://www.bayrams.com/En/

THE MEDITERRANEAN:

THE ROMAN RUINS:

THE EPIC SCENERY:

THE ETERNAL FLAMES:

(NIGHT)

THE ETERNAL FLAMES:

(DAY)

Hiking up the Chimera Mountain

Cluster of flame niches

They have been burning for thousands of years. 

Flame niche puddled with water from rain the days before, Natural Gas was bubbling up from the rock through the water. 

THE WILDLIFE:

Roosters crowed every day at sunrise and sunset.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

TURKEY in Turkey

Wildflowers everywhere you look.

Biggest Dandelion in the world.

There was such a strange mixture of plant life ranging from cactus to palm trees to waxy flowers attributed to climates like Hawaii. 

Wild lambs ear? Or some kind of plant in that family. Bushes of this stuff were everywhere on the rock faced mountain.

A beetle made his home within this wild poppy. Wild poppies also were everywhere. 

Revelation

When writing an email to my awesome Auntie Val I had an "aha" moment (as Oprah would call it) about the diminishing frequency of my blog posts. Thanks for the inspiration Aunt Val! There will probably be a shift in the subjects of my blogs soon and hopefully an increase in frequency because of it.

My message went a little something like this:

I am so happy that you are keeping up with my blog posts even though lately I have been slacking on their frequency, it is just now that I am in the routine of things here the blog topics don't jump out at me anymore. A lot of the time I am just eating food at the dining hall, going to class, chatting with friends, buying groceries, doing homework, and lots of other boring things that I figure no one would really care to read about. And then when I do finally do something of interest, for example all of my traveling, I am way too overwhelmed with information to choose what to say and exhausted from the trip to write it all down... the traveler's dilemma. 

There are so many street dogs and cats here I love it. On campus I have this one special dog that I call Shadow (he is known to others as Jack) and he is a cute skinny black mutt of a creature but has the sweetest face and likes to patrol campus over by the northern dorms. I also have this one special cat that I call Sebastian, he is white with brown and grey large blotches, his whole tale is grey and that is his identifying characteristic. He will trot right up to you and plop over onto his belly as an obvious invitation for you to give him a nice rub down. However recent events have developed that lead me to believe that Sebastian is actually a Sabrina because, as reports from my friends tell me, his belly has swollen up something large with hints of pregnancy! :) I hope the rumors are true and a litter of adorable little kittens are running around in the common area soon!

I am very excited to read that book you have mentioned, I don't know what it is particularly about deafness and sign language that intrigues me so much but whatever it is, I love learning about it. People keep asking me, "oh what do you plan on doing after you graduate next year?" and I just stare back at them dumbfounded that I have reached a point in my life where this question is even realistically proposed to me. I find myself drawn to the idea of grad school but for what subject I don't know. I plan on taking a year or more off after graduating from UNCW and going through ASL interpreter school (or whatever it's called) and paying my own way through grad school working as an Interpreter. 

When I was in Rome and we were looking for the Trevi Fountain we first passed by the Memorial to the Unknown Soldier and were following behind this one cute deaf couple who were signing the whole way down the street. It brings the biggest smile to my face when I see deaf couples together, especially this particular couple because they must have been in high school. Such triumph and courage. 

Italy: The Outtakes

I didn't pack warm enough clothes for the fist morning and ended up looking like a crazy homeless lady with all of my mismatched patterns. 

I don't know why but there were sooo many postcards for sale featuring the  loins of statues.  This one was my favorite. At first glance I thought it was a sheep's face. 

Cat statue. Cat love. I love cats. Cats rock. This is a cat cut from rock.

This is Caroline laying down in the Piazza before the Italian Police came over and told her she wasn't allowed to lay down on the street. So she transitioned into a reclined seated position. I guess this is a law so they can yell at homeless people. I thought it was funny because we got scolded but the teenage-looking boys next to us drinking beer had no problems. 

Rome is weird. 

Taylor only brought one pair of shoes to Italy which were her Moccasins  Poor thinking on her part seeing as we were spending ten days straight doing not much but walking. Her shoes were dead by the end of the trip and needed to be thrown away. We tried lending her our sneakers but me and Caroline both have huge feet and Taylor's normal sized feet were swimming in them so she had to tough out the trip in her Moccasins the whole time. She was a trooper though and hardly complained. 

Instead of going out to the bars the two nights we spent in Rome we drank wine at the Trevi fountain and the Colosseum  The two sites were even more astounding at night. 

Taylor got pooped on by a pigeon. 

Since Pompeii was so huge we decided to spring for a tour guide, but we got to the site so early in the morning it was taking a really long time for the English-speaking tour group to fill up so we got antsy and settled on the audio guides instead. I hate audio guides, they are boring.  

We got a 12-pack or oranges from the grocery store for the weekend and the first orange I opened took me by surprise in that it was a deep red/orange/brown color. Thankfully we were in the hostel and another girl staying in our room told us that they were indeed fine oranges to eat and that we were actually lucky to have gotten such a good bunch of blood oranges. I didn't get a picture of the prize blood orange before we all ate it's red glory but managed to snap a picture of another one later in the day when we were sun bathing in a park.