Project Turkey

2010-05-10T10:53:00.001-07:00

final day

2009-06-19T22:23:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday, we had an all-day tour of "old town" Istanbul - saw the columns in the former Hippodrome area, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia, and the Topkapi Palace. I think we all agree that the Hagia Sofia was the highlight of the day. (The picture is of the inside.)

In the evening, we were able to stop by Ali's carpet shop, and spend sometime getting caught up with him (friend of the guys' from last year). Several made a few last-minute souvenir purchases, but no carpets. Pretty sure none of us had room! :)

Late that night we went to the airport to camp out for our early-morning flight on Thursday. Was a great time for us to re-cap, drink a lot of coffee, catch up in our journals, and maybe sleep for an hour or so.

Thank you all for keeping up with us while we were gone! The trip truly was amazing, and has given each of us a lot to think about. Now that we're home, we can tell you the rest of the stories in person. =)

-Randa

Istanbul

2009-06-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

We got home last night, but I wanted to write a bit more for anyone who may be still reading the blog. :)

Our time in Istanbul was packed! Hard to see such a huge city in only a few days, but we managed to get to most of the important things . . .

On Sunday, we saw the archaeology museum, took a nap in the park, and watched the whirling dervishes. Monday was the boat tour of the Bosporus, and a hike up to a castle overlooking the mouth of the Black Sea. In the evening, we headed over to Uskudar for ice cream.

Abigail and I were also able to spend some wonderful time with Sena and her friend from work. Was pretty hard to say goodbye again.

Tuesday had us touring the Dolmabace Palace, hopping the bus to Ortakoy for what should be world-famous waffles, and spending the evening on Freedom Street.

-Randa

Saying Goodbyes

2009-06-13T16:26:00.001-07:00

So sorry we haven't written about everything this past week. I returned to Antalya on Tuesday night, and we've been quite busy ever since! We all have made some excellent friends, and it is hard to realize we're leaving them in a few hours.

On Thursday, Mike, Abigail, & I stopped by the English school we've been helping this past month. We thought it would be the last time to see our teacher-colleagues, but we were happy they planned another time for us to meet - breakfast on Friday. One in particular is very dear, and we loved having the extra time with her. That has actually happened a few times (not the breakfast part, but an additional good-bye). Many have asked us to return next summer to see them again, and each of us wishes we could answer with a definite "yes!"

Today (Saturday), the whole group got to meet with our Turkish-language teacher one more time. Even though I was only able to attend one class, she and I are still good friends. Her skill in teaching and her love for her students are so evident. Wish I could have gotten to know her better! I think someone else has the group picture we have, but I can share one that Abigail and I took with her.

Besides catching up with the friends, one highlight for me this week was getting to see the opera Aida. It was performed at the theater in Aspendos, which is the most complete of all ancient theaters in the world.

Early in the morning we head to Istanbul for the final days of sight-seeing! I hope we are able to update you more during that time. :)

-Randa

Yes, we are still here! :)

2009-06-07T10:23:00.001-07:00

So, our group is officially pathetic at keeping up with the blog. :) That's ok- it means that we have been busy! Before I forget, I must say that I had an awesome experience this past week. I got to visit Turkish hospitals! One day, my Turkish friend took me to visit a government hospital where her mother works as an OR nurse. It was such a neat experience! Another day, I spent 4 hours in a private hospital. I got to tour the entire hospital, which was pretty cool, as well as shadow some nurses on a floor for a couple hours. On top of that, I got to teach some of them more English while they taught me more Turkish. :) It was a very good experience, and I am hoping to go back this week.

Goodness, there is so much I could write, but not enough time to share. Wednesday morning, our Turkish teacher, Gul, invited us over to her house again for our lesson. Then, on Friday we spent the entire day with her again. This time we visited Myra, which is also Lycia. We got to see the tombs engraved in the mountains, plus the whole city surrounding it. St. Nicholas was also the bishop in a church there. After that, we drove to Demri where we got on a boat. We then sailed to see the "Sinking City" which was pretty cool. It was a tremendous day with Gul. We are officially finished with our Turkish lessons now, but she has taught us so much! She calls us her children. :) We are definitely going to miss her.

Another neat experience was that Noah, Mike, & I got to teach the English class this past Wednesday night. We had such a fun time with the students, and they all did really well! Every day we have been visiting our different Turkish friends, and it has been so much fun! I can't believe that we only have 1 more week here in Antalya. Time is going way too fast...

by Abigail

Awesome day

2009-06-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I am sitting in a Starbucks waiting for an email from my English teach
letting me know whether or not I am going to class tonight. I had both
a Turkish and an English class today. I had great talks at both. I am
learning a lot about Turkey. After class Rusty and I went to one of or
friends and talk to him for about 2 hours. We talk about Turkish
culture, government, religion, and language. Our friends are so
patient as we practice our Turkish. Well I have to go. Hoscakal (bye)

By Jonathan

Weekend Adventures!

2009-05-31T12:40:00.001-07:00

The past few days have been very busy! We have been continuing our Turkish lessons with Gul. I am definitely not one of the fastest learners of our team, but we have had a great time learning. On Friday, Gul invited our class over to her house for our lesson. She also wanted to serve us some traditional Turkish food. Our lesson went well, but I have to admit, I think our brains are becoming overloaded- at least mine is. :) I now appreciate even more what it takes to learn a 2nd language. After our lesson, Gul served "manti" which is a dough that is boiled, then sauce is put over it. The sauce is a very different taste than any American food, but it is really good! We also had another Turksih dish, watermelon, and baklava. Baklava is amazing! I think our entire team likes it way too much. I won't mention names but some of the male members have polished off a half pound of baklava 4 days in a row! Anyway, we all had a very good time with Gul, and she has been wonderful with answering all of our questions about Turkish culture. Not only did she invite our team over to her house on Friday, but as president of the Women's International Club, she also invited us to their tour trip today. We got to enjoy an afternoon on a boat in the Mediterranean. Our trip took us to Side, another ancient city of Turkey. Again, it was amazing to see the architecture and imagine what it would have been like to live back then.

Another exciting adventure for us last night was that we got to watch a Turkish club futbol game: Anatalyaspor vs. Ankara. Anl & Coray, some of our friends from English school, invited us to come to the match with them. The game was incredible! Antalyaspor won 1-0, and we all had a great time together. It was so much fun watching the Turkish fans- they are incredibly loyal! We all joined in on the Turkish cheers and ate lots of sunflower seeds. Afterwards we took our Turkish friends out for icecream. Overall, it has been a great weekend!

By Abigail

ali the backgammon player

2009-05-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

this morning awakened us to a refreshing breakfast of scrambled eggs, juice, fruit and bread. we caught the bus to our language school, where our lesson flew by. we have been covering everything there in fast forward; today's main topic was present progressive tense verbs. afterward, jon, nate, and i (rusty) went to an english lesson where we were able to interact with the students there. we talked for quite some time about sports, differences in culture, and many other random topics. later in the day, noah and i were able to spend time talking to and playing backgammon with ali. we have had many opportunities to talk to him in the past few weeks, but today we were able to learn the most. i think he is the only person i have ever met with 165 cousins. he has also taught us how to play backgammon well, which is a very loved Turkish favorite.
our day ended well as the five of us guys were able to help a local man in bailing out his boat. it was entirely filled with water and we we able to tilt it far enough to get the water out and then we shoved it up on shore. they were very thankful and we were able to learn a little bit about some other Turks who were helping. three of threm were univeristy students; they were studying journalism, public relations, and i do not remember the third's major. we are appreciative of any chance we get to practice out limited knowledge of Turkish though.

the first picture is of the barber that cut both mike and my hair, the latter is of Ali.

portakal suyu - orange juice

2009-05-27T11:11:00.001-07:00

it has been so long since i have posted that i do not know where to begin. i am excited about all the things happening here, how much i have been able to learn about culture, language, etc. i cannot say that this city is what i expected it to be. so many things are similar to the U.S. on the surface, but there are many layers. riding on the buses through town can be quite interesting; one can never know how long the ride will take since the drivers stop for anyone who flags them down. this is nice for catching buses though, since you do not have to be at a bus stop. i have been able to spend quite a bit of time with a few Turks, mostly over a backgammon board. it is very interesting to see the differences across the town. there is a distinct tourist area, which i don't spend too much time in. i enjoy walking through the more Turkish areas. i will say that i miss peanut butter and colby cheese. not together mind you, but yellow cheese is something that you do not see around here. the amazing variety here makes up for it though. gule gule! (bye)

group pic from Saturday night

2009-05-27T02:56:00.001-07:00

a few more...

2009-05-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

Our Friends

2009-05-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

1. Eli, our Ukrainian Friend

2. Our Turkish friend, Tuba and her daughter, Emmena

3. Fahri & Billur (Fahri took us to the waterfall)

more pictures still coming

2009-05-25T14:40:00.001-07:00

Hello again!

The past few days have been sooo great! And, seeing that Noah has just posted about them, I'll not repeat all of that.

Today, Abigail and I spent several hours with one of our friends and her little girl. Her daughter was quite shy at first, but as soon as she realized we were going to a park, she jabbered away the rest of the afternoon. Abigail had fun "racing" her as we walked along the sidewalk.

We later met up with Mike so we could visit our souvenir shop friends. Fahri had taken us to the waterfalls last week, and he seemed to enjoy the pictures we gave him from the outing. He and his wife wanted to take a few more pictures together, so they dressed us up a bit. :) They also listened to the little bit of Turkish we learned in language class this morning, and invited us back to practice our new phrases every day.

The group picture (minus Jon, since he's the one taking it) is from our extremely cool dinner on Saturday night. We sat outside on platforms that were actually over the river. The food was great; the company and conversation even better!

-Randa

Never mind, the pictures are not loading now. I'll try again later.

The last few days...

2009-05-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been fast and furious! Friday seemed kind of
disappointing as I had not really been able too meet anyone who spoke
English all day. Apart from getting some funny pictures, Mike and I
both felt the day had been disappointing. However, between the time we
started home and the time we actually reached our bed, we made three
new friends who spoke English. Two of which we learned a lot from.
They were able to share with us about life in Turkey for people our
age, as well as set up times to meet again!

Saturday we went on a little group outing for the day. We saw some
pretty awesome sites, but my allergies were terrible. It made the day
pretty hard to enjoy, so I was pretty withdrawn all day. I was able to
get some great shots though that I've enjoyed looking back through. I
also got some pretty sweet team shots.

Today we started English lessons with Gul (pronounced kind of like Gu-
el), which means rose. She is awesome, and, most importantly, patient!
Then this afternoon I went to one of my Turkish friends and practiced
with him. It was a good time. Tonight I also got to go with Randa,
Abigail, and Mike to then English school. That was an awesome time of
interaction with other students. I can't wait to see the group again!

by Noah

2009-05-25T12:57:00.001-07:00

A couple of my pictures are sideways again. Sorry! I didn't realize...

Hope you like the pictures though. :)

2009-05-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

1. Bay at Phaselis

2. Randa & Abigail

Even More Pictures

2009-05-25T12:48:00.000-07:00

1. Noah & Mike at Perge

2. Bath house at Phaselis

More Pictures!

2009-05-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

1. Some of our English class friends

2. Minaret of a Muslim mosque

3. Aspendos Colosseum (Mr. T in the background)

Pictures!

2009-05-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

1. Nate being diligent

2. Noah being lazy

3. Duden Waterfall

Rainy Day & Boat Ride

2009-05-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

For the first time since we've been here, it rained for a good portion of the day. After walking around in 80-95 degree weather, today's 65-70 degree temperature was rather chilly! However, it was a nice change to have a cool breeze for the entire day.

Randa, Mike, & I headed out to the English school again this morning to meet with a new class. After getting off the bus, we stopped and bought "profiterol" which are like our cream puffs. They were AMAZING- drenched in chocolate and Randa was practically drinking the chocolate syrup that they were dipped in (she might kill me after she reads this) ;) Once at the school we got to meet 4 new students who were very friendly and fun to interact with. Our conversation went well, and afterwards they asked us if we would like to go visit the harbor with them. Of course, we agreed. After walking all the way down to the harbor, we stopped to enjoy Turkish tea (cay) and cappucino at a litte cafe. Randa then had to leave to join Nate & John, so Mike and I stayed with our friends. We had a wonderful time: we got to go on a boat ride! Our friends greatly enjoy doing this, and they seemed thrilled to have us enjoy it with them. The scenery was beautiful! The mountains were showing through the fog which was absolutely breathtaking. The waves and wind brought much laughter to our group, not to mention trying to help each other with English and Turkish. After arriving safely back to shore, our group stopped and ate some food at a harbor restaurant. By that time, it was raining pretty good and our walk back up to the center of town managed to get us soaked. :) It was fun though! We left our friends at that point for the evening.

Mike & I then went on a search to find the karate place we had seen the other day. Our search took us awhile, but we like to say that we weren't lost, we were just exploring! We did manage to find the place, and we actually got to watch a little over an hour of a karate class. We had happened upon this karate center a couple days ago, and the owner knew a little bit of English. Come to find out, he is a national and international karate champion. Our night ended with another adventure of trying to find the right bus home. It took us awhile, but we got back safely! :) It was a very good day and we are looking forward to spending more time with our new friends.

By Abigail

SELALE!

2009-05-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

This is the Turkish word for waterfall- exactly what Randa, Mike & I got to enjoy today. We went to Duden and Kursunlu waterfalls with our friend, Fahri, from the souvenir shop. Each of us were excited about our trip today, but we also were not quite sure what to expect. All I can say is WOW! Today was definitely our favorite day so far!

Our day started off meeting our friends at the souvenir shop at 11am. The husband then started us on our journey for the day. We picked up snacks at a store similar to Aldi's and then went in search of the right bus to take us to Duden waterfall. When we arrived we were surprised to find an absolutely beautiful waterfall only a few miles outside of Antalya. We could hear the sound of the water pouring over the falls as we walked along the road outside the fence but we could not see anything until we got inside so we had no idea what to expect. Once inside the gate and after a short walk the three of us stopped dead in our tracks when we first saw the falls. The crystal clear water was rushing over a cliff some 50 feet to a cool blue pool below. The falls seemed pretty big to us, especially for being so close to town, but apparently the locals (they are the only ones allowed to) still dive off the cliffs into the falls. There is a cave that goes behind the falls and we were able to hike down around to it so and get some pretty cool pictures.

After waiting almost an hour to get on our next bus we made our way to a different set of waterfalls about 40 kilometers outside Antalya. The drive throught the country was beautiful as we passed numerous orchards and large vegetable farms along the way. It was really neat to see life outside the city for a change! It seemed almost like a completely different world and yet both the country and city are very much intertwined with each other.

Kursunlu is actually a series of waterfalls inside a national park. The falls themselves were certainly stunning but it is the forest that surrounds them that really sets them off. Once again glass-like water cascaded off the cliffs but this time it was multiple falls forming serveral pools that all continued to meander down the mountain. The water was clear enough to easily see the fish swimming below. As my friend Fahri led us down the paths in the forest we came upon what was once the president's home - built on the bank of the river. Several large trees support the house and in fact the house was literally built around one of them. The view was phenominal! If you had wanted you could've jumped from the porch into a pool of clear blue water below. Absolutely breath taking! We walked across the river one final time taking in the beauty of it as we went and then climbed back up to an old, abandoned restaurant. Fahri sat us down and we ate the snacks he had brought as he told us about his family and the shop he used to own in the park. We learned a lot and it was really great to get outside the city.

We came back into town and had tea with Fahri and his wife at their shop. It was fun to interact with them and again we larned more about their shop and the city of Antalya. Dinner was next on the agenda before heading to language school to help out with english. We spent over two hours there just talking to Turks about anything and everything. They were very friendly again and happy to have us there. It was a graduation night and so there was a bit of a celebration and we ate Kisir (a Turkish mix of different things, similar to rice and some spices is the best I can think of to describe it) and Icli Kofte (I have no idea what this was but Randa said it was pretty good). One of the students is married and was kind enough to give us a ride home after class; driving in Turkey is always fun but at night in a car is even more exciting!

No questions asked, today was a wonderful day, perhaps the best day we've had yet! We are planning on heading back to the english school in the morning to help out again and hopefully meet some new people and make some new friends. Can't wait!

Mike and Abigail

good morning from Turkey

2009-05-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

i just finished eating breakfast this morning: scrambled eggs and potatoes which noah cooked. the past few days have been thought provoking ones for me. thankfully, they have also provided me with the time to think. i was able to sit and read on the coast of the mediterranean yesterday; i thought that was a fitting end to the day. yesterday, in Turkey, was Ataturk day. it is kind of like a july fourth for them, but we used it as a time to reflect, which we did in various ways throughout the day. i will not go into too much detail as to events, since i am sure several other of us have. noah, nate and i are about to head out for today's itinerary, so i must go. i hope all is going well at home.

My Thoughts So Far...

2009-05-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

At this point, we have been in Turkey almost a week. The first several
days we were total tourists--taking pictures everywhere, wondering
aimlessly, paying too much for things. It's awesome to finally be
getting a feel for the city, even making it like home. I'm sure we
still look like total tourists though, haha.

I've met some people through two of the local language schools. I'm
hoping to interact with a few of their students. If they can show me
around and teach me about the culture, I can help them practice
conversational English. The schools teach grammar, reading and
writing, but it appears that conversational English isn't emphasized
as much. This is where the language school face the biggest challenges
as few actually offer native speakers as teachers.

I've also made some friends and a local cafe called Paul's Place, run
by a couple who moved from California! For those of you who know me,
you would know this excited me a great deal! It was nice to meet
people I understood ;-) I'm looking forward to going back there this
week.

There also may be a chance for us to take some formal language
training. We've been working hard on the language on our own, but I
think this would be very valuable!

Wish you all could be here! Turkey is marvelous!

by Noah

Team Pictures

2009-05-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

By Noah

Tuesday (May 19)

2009-05-19T13:09:00.001-07:00

Sorry, it took me so long to write my first post. Let me start with yesterday. Yesterday Nate and I went to the North side of the city--up the hill. On the way we stumbled across a large crowd celebrating Ataturk Day (which was today, Tuesday). After 15 minutes of watching, 3 girls asked us where we were from. When we told them we were from America, they instantly gathered 15-30 of their friends around us. They were asking us questions and practicing their English. They also taught us a few words in Turkish. After 5 minutes of questions they wanted our autographs, so for the next 15 minutes we gave them our autographs. Then they started giving us their autographs (see the pictures attached). Several of the kids gave us flowers and some of the girls kept saying that they loved us (better watch it Chelsea and Rachel they are trying to give you both competition). When we left the festival several of the kids followed us up the hill where we saw one of the most amazing sights this trip, the actual size of the city; it is huge.

Today was Ataturk Day. As a group we went into town to see if there were any festivals; we, however, could not find any. Then we were told that the celebrations were being held at the stadium, so we had lunch and then went over to the stadium to join the festivities. As good college students (especially guys), we found the food very quickly. We tried several amazing tasting foods which have names that I either do not know how to spell or did not know the name of. After walking around the park most of us sat back and watched some local boys play a game of keep away soccer. After a few minutes Rusty and then Nate joined the game as the rest of us watched and laughed with the local boys as Rusty and Nate played (they actually did very well). We ended the day with a good meal of chicken and a time of fellowship as a group.

By Jonathan