Favorites and Most Memorable Moments

Since coming back from Turkey, the question I keep hearing again and again is, “What was your favorite thing about Turkey?”

Honestly, I’m never quite sure how to answer that question. There were so many positive aspects of my time there that it is hard to say. Making new friends and having crazy, hilarious, and awesome adventures with them would probably be my favorite memory, but that experience is not unique to Turkey, though I’m sure some of the situations we found ourselves in were. Of course seeing many historical sites, such as the Hagia Sophia, was amazing, especially for a history buff like me. And finally, just the experience of being a different country, culture and language I found to be much more thrilling than it was terrifying.

So, more for my own memory than anything else, I’ve gone all David Letterman and have  compiled three Top 10 lists to remember the moments, places, and sites which most stuck out to me, along with a few comments. Enjoy!

Top 10 Most Memorable Moments

1.      Hostel in Jordan (funny looking back on it, bad at the time)

2.      Getting quizzed by a 32 year old Turkish pot smoking, mechanic about being gay (hilarious both now and then)

3.      Getting yelled at by the Crazy Bitch Lady of Koc University (pretty funny and soooo ironic)

4.      Thinking we got left behind in Taksim Square and not having enough money to pay for a taxi back to Koc (kinda funny now, super scary then)

5.      Floating in the Dead Sea and seeing Petra  & Beirut (amazing)

6.      Going to Bosnia (very moving and as it turned out, timely)

7.      Having lunch with the villagers in the Black Sea Region (wonderful experience)

8.      Opening two bottles of wine in Cappadocia with a nail and my boot (hilarious)

9.      Our favorite cab driver in Istanbul (too much fun)

10.  Too many random nights out at KBox, Riddim, Hawaii, Rock Bar, or some other bar or club in Taksim to keep straight (sometimes good, sometimes bad, always memorable)

(Bonus)Marianimal’s Turkish Presentation (She knows what I’m talking about)

Ranking of Places I Travelled and My Memories of Them

1.      Istanbul: this place is the automatic winner, since it was my home for 4 months

2.      Beirut: beautiful city, friendly people, and lots of fun, not that many sites though

3.      Rome: very close behind Beirut, beautiful architecture and history, didn’t go out because it was a family holiday

4.      Sarajevo: beautiful city with a tragic past but friendly people

5.      Black Sea Region: beautiful country and incredibly gracious people

6.      Jordan: great sites, crazy people

7.      Cappadocia: really cool and beautiful, but so far away

8.      Eskisehir: far below Cappadocia, nice looking city, but little of historical value and not much fun either

9.      Sofia: seemed boring and unwelcoming

10.  Ankara: by far the worst, incredibly boring with far fewer sites that you’d expect in a capital city, however, the people were very friendly

Top 10 Sites

1.      Hagia Sophia (Istanbul)

2.      Vatican (Rome)

3.      Petra (Jordan)

4.      Cappadocia (Turkey)

5.      Blue Mosque (Istanbul)

6.      Chora Monastery (Istanbul)

7.      Dead Sea (Jordan)

8.      War Tunnel Museum (Sarajevo)

9.      Topkapi Palace (Istanbul)

10.  Jeita Grotto (Lebanon)

Final Moments in Turkey

June 13^th

As I write this, I’m sitting in Ataturk Airport in Istanbul right, waiting for my 6:30 am flight to Rome and then back to Boston. Surprisingly, I haven't broken down and cried yet, though I’m sure if the immigration officer in Boston says anything along the lines of, “Welcome home,” I probably will bawl my eyes out. Istanbul honestly feels like home at this point. The past few days have been spent visiting a few remaining unvisited sites, saying goodbye to the Hagia Sophia, gift shopping, and saying goodbye to friends. It is hard to believe that it has been four months since I arrived in Istanbul. I can remember clearly waiting for hours for our pickup in the Starbucks in the far right hand side of the airport, seeing people selling bananas in the middle of the highway, and hearing the very strange song “Barbara Sreisand” playing over the bus radio.

That day I remember thinking, “What exactly have I gotten myself into.” Now I know and it has been the best experience so far in my life. I love Istanbul, I love Turkey, and I love the Turkish people. I had a chance to see historical sites that I had read about since I was ten but never dreamed I would actually get to see. I made friends with people from across the world who I would never otherwise have met. For every time somebody tried to rip me off, there were five other times that a random Turk welcomed me to their country, helped me find something that I had lost, or gave me food or drink and then refused to accept my money.

I have grown so comfortable in this country that it feels like home. It is going to be weird going back to small-town suburbia, to actually understand what the person sitting next to me on the T is saying, and to actually have choices of what to eat besides Turkish food. I’m still not sure how smooth the transition is going to be; we’ll have to wait and see.

This is not the end of this blog. I’ve still got plenty more to post on Istanbul and Turkey, including travel tips, must see sites, and districts of Istanbul. Depending on how much free time I have, this may take a week or months. Once I’ve said everything that I can about Turkey, I’m going to keep up blogging periodically, about life, travels, politics, and whatever else I feel like. I’ve found this process to be very therapeutic and it’s a great way to capture memories. Whether anyone besides me actually reads these posts is unimportant (but thank you for reading if you do!).

War Criminal, Plain and Simple

Ratko Mladic

Less than a week after I came back from Bosnia, it was announced that Serbia had captured one of the most wanted war criminals from the Bosnian War, Ratko Mladic. This event made me even happier that I had gone to Bosnia, because it allowed me to see and hear for myself the destruction and pain that this man had helped to create.

After his arrest, Serbian ultra-nationalists in both Serbia and Bosnia called for his release because he was a “hero.” Whenever I heard people saying that, I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of the stories my hostel owner, Jasmina, had told me about the Siege of Sarajevo. She remembered constantly having to duck and run across the streets whenever she went outside because there were always Serbian snipers who would shoot anyone that they saw. She told me, “Now I understand in war soldiers kill soldiers, and that is fine, but I cannot understand how someone can shoot an unarmed woman or child. To me, you have to be crazy or something to do that.”

One of the times I was walking through Sarajevo, I came across this monument in a park. The monument consisted of a fountain and two twisted pieces of glass in the middle. Next to the fountain, were revolving metal cones with the names of birth and death dates of people. I didn’t really look too hard at the names because honestly, when you see a bunch of names, especially if you cannot even pronounce some of them, they all kind of glaze together. But as I continued walking, I saw a sign pointing in the direction that I had just come from and it said in Bosnian and English, “Monument to Murdered Children.”

1500 children died during the Siege of Sarajevo, not to mention the thousands more who were killed in other cities and towns across Bosnia. Anyone who thinks that a man who led the army that deliberately killed most of these children is a hero I think is just as crazy as the ones who actually pulled the trigger.

Monument to Murdered Children

The names of the children killed in the Siege of Sarajevo

Beautiful Bosnia, Besieged Bosnia

May 23-26

May 23^rd is a holiday in Turkey (Youth & Sports Day), meaning that we had an extra long weekend starting Thursday. I took this opportunity to travel to the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. When I was about eleven and twelve, I was fascinated by the conflict that occurred in Bosnia and read many books about it (normal I know). For those of you who don’t know, between 1992 and 1995, a three-way war started for control over the country between the Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs, and Muslim Bosniaks. About one hundred thousand people were killed, many in “ethnic cleansing” massacres such as the one in Srebrenica where eight thousand Bosniaks were murdered by the Serbs. Since I was so close to Bosnia, and because friends of mine who had been told me that they loved it, I decided to spend my long weekend there.

I travelled alone, which turned out to be pretty relaxing because it meant that there was no pressure to constantly have a plan or know where I was going. That doesn’t mean that the trip was without stress. The biggest stress was getting there. I had booked the cheapest plane ticket that I could find, which entailed flying from Istanbul to Belgrade, Serbia, and then to Sarajevo, but with only thirty minutes between my flight was supposed to land in Belgrade to when the next one was supposed to take off to Sarajevo. I was a bit nervous about missing my flight to Sarajevo, but I just figured that when I landed in Belgrade I’d grab my carryon and then rush off the plane with to my next flight, boarding pass in hand.

You can imagine my horror when, at the airport in Istanbul, the man checking me in told me that I had to check in my carryon as baggage because the flight was too full to allow my carryon AND he couldn’t print out my boarding to Sarajevo, I would have to get that in Belgrade. The entire time I spent waiting to board the plane and while we were flying I kept going through different nightmare scenarios in my head of how either my baggage, myself, or both would not make it to Sarajevo. When we landed in Belgrade, I’m pretty sure I pushed past a number of other people on the plane and then bolted through the airport up to ticket counter and blurted out, “I have a flight in less than 30 minutes!” The ticket lady was clearly amused by my desperation, but she stayed calm and said, “Sarajevo?” and then printed out my boarding pass. I then raced to the terminal, where it turned out the flight was delayed 45 minutes. I have never been so happy for a delay in my life!

When my plane landed in Sarajevo and stepped onto the tarmac at 10:45 pm all that I could hear was crickets chirping. It kinda made me wonder about my decision to come here, but fortunately, that doubt left soon after. My hostel owner Jasmina was waiting at the airport and we drove in her husband’s taxi to the hostel.

The hostel I stayed at was called Hostel Enjoy. It’s in an apartment complex, with one 2 person bedroom, one dorm style bed room, a room for the toilet and another for the shower. Pretty basic, but the water was always warm, the toilets worked and at most it was only a 10 minute walk from the city center. Also, it’s probably one of the cheapest hostels in the city. But what makes Hostel Enjoy special is Jasmina, she is not only one of the most gracious hostesses you will ever find, she can also give you an authentic sense of what Sarajevo was like during the war.

On my first full day in Sarajevo, Jasmina first took me out to breakfast, her treat to me, and we drove to the War Tunnel Museum. During the Siege of Sarajevo, this 800 meter long tunnel was the only means of supply and communication for city for nearly three years! While we were there, Jasmina told me about the history of the tunnel, how hungry everyone always was and she told me her own story. She was originally from Croatia but came to study in Sarajevo in 1991. For the first seven months of the siege, her family in Croatia had no means to contact her and had no idea whether she was dead or alive. Finally, a UN peacekeeper was able to give her a mobile phone and she was able to talk to her sister to let her family know that she was okay. Her sister couldn’t bear to tell her that her parents had both been killed in a Serbian bombing; she didn’t find that out until 1995. Stories like that can be found all around Sarajevo and Bosnia. I was quiet for a real long time after she told me her story, it still blows my mind that these sorts of things could happen in my lifetime.

Map showing the Siege of Sarajevo

After the War Tunnel Museum, I went to the Historical Museum of Bosnia. It is a pretty small museum with just two exhibits, one on the war and siege, the other on the history of the Bosnian people. However, it was only 3 or 4 Bosnian KM to get in and again, the exhibits helped to bring home the tragic history all around you.

After the museums, I walked through the city. Sarajevo is a surprisingly small city and very walkable, you can see just about everything worth seeing in one to one and a half days. There are actually two “old cities” in Sarajevo. The City Center looks like turn of the 20^th Century Europe, with classical architecture and numerous cafes and restaurants. This is where many of the older historical sites, like the Latin Bridge, where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, the event which started World War I. Then there is the Turkish Quarter, which is what Sarajevo looked like during Ottoman times, with copplestone streets, small shops and mosques. If you’re looking for souvenirs to buy and cheap Bosnian food, this is the area to look.

 On my second day I took a three hour bus ride to Mostar. Mostar is most famous because it is the home of a 16^th Century Ottoman bridge which was destroyed during the war and became a symbol of the tragedy of the Bosnian war. Driving through the Bosnian countryside is beautiful, but you also notice some signs of nationalism that isn’t as apparent in Sarajevo, which is still more multi-ethnic. You see Serbian and Croatian flags flying from farmhouses and the road signs change too. Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs all speak a variation of the same language, but Croats and Bosniaks use the Latin alphabet while Serbs use the Cyrillic alphabet. In Sarajevo, you see almost no signs in Cyrillic, but outside of Sarajevo, most of the signs are in both Latin and Cyrillic.

Mostar Bridge

Mostar is a lovely little town, again with many restaurants, shops and cafes, though it does have a very touristy vibe. The Ottoman  Bridge, which was completely restored in 2004 after years of work, is in the center of the Old City. The bridge can seem unremarkable to a casual observer, it is necessary to know the history of the bridge to appreciate both its beauty and its symbolism.

After coming back from my day trip in Mostar, I did a little more walking around Sarajevo and then went to bed early because my flight was at 6:30 the next morning. I really enjoyed Bosnia and would highly recommend anyone interested in going. You should probably plan out a whole Balkans tour of Croatia and/or Serbia as well, because Bosnia is a little small to justify going to if you’re coming all the way from the US. It is very cheap there, I spent about $150 the two and a half days I was there, and that includes food, transportation, and the hostel. Also the people were very proficient in English, perhaps a legacy of the English speaking UN and NATO peacekeepers that were stationed there.

Roman Holiday

May 16-19

Over the weekend of May 16^th, I travelled to Rome to visit my family, who had flown out from Boston to see me. I had always wanted to go to Rome and the chance to see it on someone else’s dime was too good to pass up!

After flying into Fumicino Airport, I took the train into Rome where I met up with my parents, brother and sister for the first time in three months. They had rented an apartment right in the middle of the old city, literally two blocks from the Coliseum. One thing that I really liked about Rome was how it seemed that whole sections of the city had been preserved overtime; in Istanbul it’s more like they have preserved historic building, but the neighborhoods around them have all changed with the times.  

Although we were only in Rome for three days, we still managed to cover all the must-see sites. Rome is a city with about one thousand churches, half of which are named Santa Maria Something or Other. If you are into seeing old, beautifully decorated churches (and you should be if you’re in Rome), then just pop your head in any that you pass on the street, they’re all free and mostly open to the public when mass is being held.

Trevi Fountain

We were within walking distance of the Coliseum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and the Roman Forum; of course, we saw all of them. My personal favorite was the Pantheon, I guess I just have a weakness for really old churches with beautifully decorated interiors. The Trevi Fountain was also really cool to see. Honestly, the Coliseum was a bit boring, interesting, but seeing it from the outside honestly gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like. The Roman Forum also was interesting but a bit boring; my biggest problem with it was it was that the headphones you can buy to tell you what everything is will cover several different buildings at a time so it’s hard to keep track and impossible to summarize to other people.

One of my biggest gripes about Turkey is the lack of non-Turkish food available. While Turkish food is good, I’m used to having the choice of Vietnamese, Chinese, American, or of course, Italian food. It was lovely to be in a country with delicious pasta, coffee, wine, and gelato! My brother was pretty disappointed though, because the only Italian food that he wanted in Italy was chicken parmesan and one restaurant in Rome that we went to had it. He was very disappointed! I should warn you about one restaurant we went to. I can’t remember the name, but I do remember it was literally across the street from the Coliseum. We had read a few good things about it in a book or website so we went to it after the Coliseum. The food was good, but we wanted some appetizers and our waitress suggested this single plate that could feed the whole table. It was very good, however, when we got the final bill, they had charges us 25 euro per person (there was 5 of us) just for the appetizers. Yeah, rip-off.

On our final day in Rome, we saw what undoubtedly was my favorite site in Rome, the Vatican. Whether you are Catholic or not (and I am), you have to see the Vatican if you are in Rome. We arranged a small group tour with one of the many tour agencies that Rome has where we were with about fifteen other people and listened to our tour guide through headphones so she didn’t have to yell. Highly recommend you look into one of these groups to show you around the Vatican because the amount of art and history in the Vatican Museum is both beautiful and staggering. We saw various rooms and exhibits, the old private quarters of the Popes, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peters Basilica. You are technically not allowed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel; though most tourists were ignoring that rule I chose to follow it out of respect and also to not damage the paintings with the flash. No matter how much you read about the Sistine Chapel or see pictures of it in books, online, or on film, nothing can compare to seeing it in person. This is where a tour guide becomes crucial because they are able to tell you the story of how it was made and also what each intricate detail means. St. Peters is also an amazing site to be held, by Church law, no Catholic church can be larger than St. Peters and our tour guide claimed that 50,000 people could fit inside the church! I have to admit, it sometimes makes me uneasy seeing so much wealth in the hands of men who have made a vow of poverty, however, I suppose it is okay so long as it is for the glorification of God and not man.



Altar at St. Peters



The Most Boring Capital City Ever: Ankara

May 10-12

I travelled to Ankara, the capital of Turkey with a Dutch exchange student for a project on disability in Turkish universities. We went to Ankara to interview a prominent disabilities rights activist who lives there.

There are many options for someone who wants to go from Istanbul to Ankara or vice versa. You can take a bus, fly, or take the train. We chose to take the overnight train where we got a room with two pull-out beds. It actually was surprisingly comfortable, I would recommend it to anyone who doesn’t feel like flying and is less than 6’ 4” (I’m 6’ 3” and just barely fit in the bed).

We left Istanbul at 10:30 pm Friday and arrived in Ankara around 7 am. Ankara is not a very aesthetically pleasing city, some people would call it soulless, I would not disagree. Wherever you are in Istanbul, you get this sense of energy and excitement that is missing in Ankara. We asked several Turks in Ankara if they liked it and all of them said no.

Since the interview was not until later in the afternoon, we decided we wanted to see the sights. The most famous attraction in Ankara has to be the mausoleum of the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Turks have a (obsession) love of Atatürk that puts America’s love of the Founding Fathers to shame. That is exemplified by the mausoleum which dominates the Ankara skyline and is meant to resemble an Ancient Greek temple. The complex is on a hill and surrounded by forests and gardens. Admittance is free. Both the mausoleum itself and the grounds around are massive and imposing. Anyone travelling through Ankara has to see it, not so much for its natural beauty but because of the tremendous importance Atatürk has played in Turkish history and psyche.

We then travelled to the Anatolian Civilization Museum where we were meeting our interviewee, Claire Ozel. She is an expat who married a Turk and then became the head of disability services at Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara. She insisted on giving us a tour of the Museum before the interview, which was a good thing because although the museum has an extensive collection of Ancient Anatolian artifacts, there is a real lack of labeling to let you know exactly what you are looking at.

Ironically, the best thing about the museum wasn’t the exhibits (though they were interesting to a history buff like me) but the tour group of little kids that was also visiting the museum while we were there. At first they stared at me, then they pretended to take photos of the exhibitions I was standing next to, then they worked up the courage to ask if they could take my picture, and by the time we were leaving they were posing with me. I swear, there was one point where I had about six twelve year old Turks having their picture with me at the same time!

This little event is a good example of how different Ankara is from Istanbul. In Istanbul, you see all kinds of people who are blond, or Central Asian looking, or fair skinned and who are all Turks. The Turks in Ankara, on the other hand, look much more Anatolian or stereotypically “Middle Eastern” and they are not as used to seeing foreigners. I definitely felt more like a foreigner in Ankara than in Istanbul, though I’m sure I stick out in both cities.

Anyway, Claire took us through the Old City of Ankara, which overlooks most of the newer city and is where you get some authentic culture. We had lunch and discussed with her the situation of disabled Turks in universities. It was really interesting; it is easy to tell that the U.S. gives disability inclusion much higher importance than Turkey does.

I will say that after leaving Claire, I felt really good about the trip. We planned to take the fast train early Sunday morning and be back in Istanbul before dinner time. Sadly for us, all the fast train tickets were sold out, so we had no choice but to take another night train for Sunday night, meaning we wouldn’t be back in Istanbul until Monday morning and would have to spend another day in Ankara!

 This was where the trip went downhill for me. We spent an hour looking for a restaurant to have dinner in; apparently they like to keep their restaurants hidden in Ankara. The next day we had to check out of our (shitty) hotel by 10:30 am, so we then wondered around the city for the next few hours looking for sites that we hadn’t already seen. There were no good ones. We spent about two hours sitting at a park bench doing homework, because that was the most fun thing we could find to do. You cannot understand the relief that I felt when we finally we able to board our train around 10:30 pm and finally leave Ankara behind. I would only recommend going to Ankara for a day trip, trust me when I say that that is more than enough to see all that is worthwhile.

The one truly redeeming quality that Ankara has going for it is how nice its people are. From the student who paid for our bus fare and refused our money, to the guy barbecuing chicken in the park who unprompted brought us some of his food, to the Kurd who insisted on buying us tea and practicing his English with us, the people of Ankara showed us some great Turkish hospitality!