John & Jill

Jill & John - they go together like french fries and ice cream.

London Summit

Ataturk Day of Rememberance

November 10th is Ataturk Rememberance Day. At 9:05 PM the whole city goes still to remember the precise time that Kemal Mustafa (Ataturk or Father of the Turks) died 48 years ago.

Avrasya Maratonu

Looking back at the bridge with everyone coming across.

The neighborhood of Ortakoy (known for its baked potatoes), on the European side.

Looking South over the Bosphorus. Witness the great smog line, though otherwise absolutely gorgeous.

Looking North up the Bosphorus.

Giant, angry cigarette running with Alex. The motto of the race was "sigarasiz bir dunya icin kosuyoruz" - running for a cigarette free world.... roughly.

Turks piling onto a passing truck.

The Asian coast looking South towards the Golden Horn.

Me on the Bosphorus Bridge, the first bridge, with thousands of other Fun Runners.

The starting line on the freeway. They closed traffic going both directions on the bridge for most of the day which caused huge traffic problems throughout the city because there are only two bridges over the Bosphorus - but it was really awesome for us!

Morning sun on the freeway as Turks line up to run.

This morning was the 28th Annual Intercontinental Istanbul Eurasian Marathon! I didn't run the marathon - I just did the 8K. Actually - I didn't even run the 8K - I walked a fair bit because I took pictures the whole time.

The race started in Asia - which meant getting up at 6 to get downtown by 7:30 am to catch the service buses that drove us to Uskadar and the race starting line. From there we ran across the First Bridge - one of two bridges in Istanbul - which was incredible because it may be the only time all year when pedestrians are allowed on the bridge, normally it's forbidden. It was a beautiful day too which was nice because yesterday it was storming/snowing/blizzarding all day and hovering around freezing. Today was sunny and clear!

The route went across the bridge and ended up in Taksim Square where we got our free t-shirts and medals! Woo hoo! The whole race had a really fun, festive atmosphere and was full of families and thousands and thousands of Turks. There were at least a thousand policemen on the route, and tons of men selling water and simit and tons of Turkish flags and soccer songs. It was so great to walk the normally hazardous streets/freeways of Istanbul with so many people!

Snow!

When I woke up this morning, I looked out my window and immediately lost my breath.

It was snowing! Big white flakes were streaming through the grey sky, and it looks incredible. It's still blowing like a banshee and now there's snow dancing everywhere. It hasn't begun to stick since the thermometer is hovering right around 1/2 C but it's been going pretty steadily for at least an hour and it looks incredible out - and Istanbul feels almost quiet.

Girl's Night

Jill, Anna, Megan, Erin, Amy, Asyegul, Anne and one iBook.

So when it's storm out, we stay in and watch episodes of Project Runway on the computer that Jill bought off of iTunes and eat ordered-in manti and cookies from the pastanesi down the street. Mmm!

Kokoreç

This was my dinner, kokoreç - standard Istanbul street fare. It's lamb entrails wound around a spit and slow cooked and then chopped into tiny pieces and put into a sandwhich with tomatoes and chiles. Suprisingly good!

Tirmanis (Climbing)

I got to go climbing twice this week. It's hard to see in this picture, but there's a bouldering gym back in that room. This gym is on the 4th floor of a random building in Taksim that has several fortune tellers, a bar/cafe, club, and flea market among other things. This gym is just bouldering - a back room lined with plywood and holds made by the guy who owns the gym. It was fun to get out again - and see climbing Turkish style. It's quite similar but definitely has a distinct Turkish flair - aka random, disorganized and great.

National Turkey Day!

Istiklal Caddesi (Independence Street - this is the main street in Taksim where we go out often on the weekends - it has a lot of bars and dance clubs - and this week flags!) decked out in flags for Oct. 29th. Every major thoroughfare in Istanbul has flags strung across it - millions and millions of flags everywhere.

The Second Bridge. You can't really see it in this picture but it has HUGE flags on it - like 6 stories tall or more. There was also apparently a light show at night too but I missed it.

The school outside my window - at 7 am all these people showed up in the courtyard and the marching band played really loudly and there was lots of cheering and literally hundreds of Turkish flags - and then they just marched off down the street - everyone, families, kids, passerbys - and then they came back like an hour later. There is amazing nationalism in Turkey.

The South Gate to South Campus at Bogazici University .... more Turkish flags.

Whoa - MORE Turkish flags! This is my dorm decked out with Turkey-power. Every single office building or tower has a flag like this (or bigger or more than one) on it. It's crazy.

Baltimorians

The whole happy family!

Jill's parents and older brother came to visit for a couple of weeks over our Bayram holiday and I got to hang out with them at the Grand Bazaar and a through a couple of neighborhoods in Istanbul which was great. They even let me follow along with them to a great Indian dinner in Sultanahmet where we had a great converstation with a Canadian living in Ankara and had a whole series of interesting coincidences. They were great to meet - thanks again Jill's family!

Josh (aviators) and Mary Jo (weird flute thing used to tame snakes) in their awesome apartment/hotel in Taksim.

Halloween!

Halloween is not celebrated in Turkey, which is kind of sad for American exchange students studying here. Halloween's non-existance is a phenomenon in itself given how much Turks seem to like their sugar. Turkish students at any rate seem to subsist on a steady diet of almost pure sucrose: sugar spiked tea, sugar drenched desserts, sugar infused candy bars and the odd simit. Simit don't have sugar. But students eat them - to be fair I had to add that. Oh - and their mother's cooking. And cigarettes - but I don't think those are a food group...

Anyway - this particular Halloween I am actually glad I'm too old to trick-or-treat/it doesn't happen in Turkey because I would definitely get blown into next Sunday if I went outside. Well - I already was outside a fair bit today (go figure the second flood comes on the one day a week I have classes all day and on three separate campuses) but if I went outside again today I'd probably have to do it naked because I have no dry clothes left.

So that's a bit of an exaggeration, but when I say that the water coming from the sky is blowing parallel to the sidewalk I'm not stretching the truth one iota. And I'm talking about the small amount of sidewalk, where it exists, in Istanbul that's actually flat. It's so windy there are white caps on the puddles and the rain is blowing up under the umbrellas. It's an umbrella slaughter out there - I've seen more dead, blown out umbrellas today alone then all the rest of my life combined - including movies.

Everything that could possible be wet is wet and everything that wasn't nailed down before the storm started yesterday is at least in another neighborhood if not drifting off to sea. If you had a hundred bottles of paint that were all gray and dumped them out on the floor that's what it looks like outside.

It is so awesome!!

Most of the Time

We had a great time - but this is what we did most of the time - sit around, talk, eat, and drink tea. Lots of straight, black, super-strong Turkish tea.

The Canyon

Looking farther in

Inside the slot canyon

Looking out

Looking in

After our hike Monday Alex and I hiked another kilometer or so down into an amazing canyon. It narrowed to be about 15 feet wide at the lowest part with walls that were over a hundred feet on both sides. It was really quiet inside and the sheer size of it was incredible.

Monday

On the trail

The top of my head - as evidence I was there - right after introducing Turks to the deliciousness of carrot sticks in peanut butter.

Monday, while a group of 6 attempted the Demirkazik summit, the rest of us took a day long hike in to a beautiful valley - there was supposed to be a lake but we couldn't find it. It was incredible, the lack of lake not withstanding, and we made up for it with snowball fights.

Knots

Emrah and Emrah B. leading knots

After rappeling all of Sunday the older group members taught everyone else how to tie knots.

The Belt

Morning craft project: Functional and hip braided cord belt for those belt-forgetters in your camping party.

The Village

The 8 tents of our "village" for three nights.

Eggs

Onur, Alex, and 10 eggs cozy in their egg suitcases. Yes. Egg suitcases.

See - eggs!

Sky

Tent Group 6

Me, Alex, and Onur: Tent Austrokahve!

There were 22 of us on the trip, broken down into 8 tent groups. Our group:

Hande/Handan (ageless): me (my Turkish names - there is some dispute apparently about which is more appropriate).

Alex aka Iskender (27): American Cal grad studying for his masters in Political Science at BÜ with the ability to find peanut butter in Turkey.

Onur (23): Undergrad in Business Administration with a penchant for English cuss words and vast amounts of meat, and sugar.

The Hike In

Almost there...

Somewhere around 2300 meters

Hiking with sheep

Looking back down into the valley

We hiked up from the valley floor to the shoulder of the mountains just below snow level, passing through a flock of sheep and stopping to speak with their shepherd.