Kerkenes and Hattusa

On Wednesday September 15th I moved from my host family to temporary dorms at the Middle East Technical University (METU). This was bittersweet. I was sad to leave my host family who had been so welcoming. And yet I was excited to start my one-week orientation at METU and meet all the international students. There are around150 international and Erasmus students (European exchange students) from all over the world; including, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, etc... I moved into my permanent dorm on Monday September 20th. I share a small room with a bunk bed, two desks, mini fridge, closet, and bathroom with a shower. My roommate is a Turkish girl from Istanbul, who studying food engineering. So far everything is working out great.

I had the option for the weekend to go with all of the exchange students to a beach town on the Mediterranean for 200 lira or to go visit an ongoing excavation site near Yozgat (a city five hours East of Ankara). There is an ongoing joke here among the Pitzer students that I like ancient ruins. Of course, I chose to go visit the excavation and ended up spending only 20 lira!

On Thursday afternoon I arrived at Kerkenes (the site). It is an ancient Iron Age city that had been burned around the 600 BCE. The city is very peculiar because of its location geographically and chronologically. There is not much known about the 600s in Anatolia so the findings in Kerkenes may unlock some mysteries. The Anatolia region is considered the western peninsula of Asia, which is most of Turkey. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I stayed with METU professors Geoffrey and Françoise Summers. I stayed in their “dig” house on their eco center. While I was there I was able to visit the archaeological site atop a mountain engulfed in clouds twice. I also was taught to cook on a solar stove and oven. All in all, it was a great learning experience and I met a lot of really interesting people who had excavated and traveled all over the world.

On Sunday morning Professor Geoffrey gave a tour of the Yozgat museum (where many of the Kerkenes findings are held). I joined the tour and met a group of 10 Americans professors who were heading to Hattusa and then back to Ankara in the evening. They invited me to come with them, so I did. Hattusa is an ancient Bronze Age city and the capitol of the Hittite Empire. It was very well excavated and beautiful! The group got back to Ankara around 8:30 pm. A very nice women gave me a ride back to METU – where I ate a vegan pizza, skyped, and went to bed!

Today, Monday September 27th is my first day of classes. It has been a tedious and long process of getting approved to take classes. I had to email and meet with many professors. Today I will get a form signed by the president of the department, the secretary, and professors. Then I will take it to the international cooperation’s office who will send it to the registrar's office. By the end of the week my schedule will be finalized and I will post my classes so you can see what I am studying!

I have been posting photos of my various adventures on my facebook. There are currently three albums that you can take a look at.

I hope you are all doing well!

Photo 1: An entrance gate and road to the city of Kerkenes.
Photo 2: Solar oven and stove.
Photo 3: A row of gods etched into a temple wall in Hattusa.

Athens and Aegina

I am going to try something a little different for this blog. Instead of typing a massive paragraph I am going to tell my story through the photos that I took. But first I must explain that last week I had a five-day break. Spur of the moment, my friend Cydney and I decided that we would travel to Greece during that time. So we booked a ticket and left the next day. To do this we took a bus to Istanbul and an hour flight to Athens. The rest of our friends traveled to Eastern Turkey during the break. They survived, but the areas they traveled to were not the safest and their plans were not very clear. In Greece we explored Athens and the small island of Aegina. Here is my trip through photos:


We arrived in Athens at 9 AM on Wednesday morning. We found the Athens Backpackers hostel and had lunch. Getting off the metro for our hostel we could see the Acropolis!

Cydney and I bought passes to see seven of the ancient ruins in Athens. We then proceeded to climb up to the Acropolis and walk to all seven sites.

From the top of the acropolis we could see two mountains. The next day we climbed those mountains and went to a flee market, where I bought Greek sandals. The first mountain we saw was Filopappos Hill (which had these ruins), and the second was Lykavittos Hill (which had the Church of St. George). From both mountains you could see the Acropolis and the entire city!




On Thursday night we had dinner and stayed with our friend Melanie. Melanie is a Junior at Pomona and studying abroad in Greece. On Friday we went with Melanie and some of the people she is on the Greek program with to Aegina. It is a smaller Greek island about a 45 minute ferry ride from Athens. We spent two days and one night exploring the island. The first day we went swimming and hung out on the beach. The second day (Saturday) we went to the Temple of Aphaea (Zeus’s daughter's temple) and a huge Greek Orthodox church and monastery. Then it started to rain heavily and we went back to Athens.




Saturday night we had dinner and walked around Athens. Sunday was Cydney’s birthday so we slept in and walked around through the flea market again. We also went to a fancy ice-cream shop, where everything is handmade.

Sunday night we had dinner with Melanie and friends to celebrate. Then Cydney and I went back to the hostel for the night. We had to go to sleep early on Sunday so that we could catch a 4:30 AM bus to the airport on Monday morning.

To conclude, Greece was amazing! The people were very kind and laid back. The atmosphere of Athens was so nice -- life there goes at a great pace: not too fast and not too slow. It was a great break from Turkey, and the food was delicious. If you go, I would definitely recommend eating zucchini balls and spanakopita. In general I recommend Greece as a place to visit to anyone with strong knees and looking for a great historical place to relax!

Istanbul (Last Weekend)

I apologize for the delay with this post. I actually wrote this a week ago, but have been traveling and have had little internet access.

I must preface this post to say that I took over 350 photos in Istanbul and I literally have 1,000 words to describe each one. Did you do the math? This is going to be a long post. I will break it down though and only talk about the mosques in this post and then the other historical sites and experiences at in a later post (I also went to the underground cisterns, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, and some historical neighborhoods).

I spent two days in Istanbul and have decided that I must go back! It is a six-hour, 20 USD, bus ride to Istanbul from Ankara, which makes it really convenient to get there. We took a night bus there on Thursday and arrived on Friday morning around 7 or 8 AM. We then took a metro and a tram from the bus station to Sultanahmet. Sultanahmet is the central area of Istanbul where the most famous Mosques reside. As soon as we got off the tram and I saw the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia) and almost cried.


Emperor Justinian built the Aya Sofya during the Byzantine Empire. Originally it was created as a church. When the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Aya Sofya was converted into a mosque. When this happened many of the original mosaics were covered and the stone crosses in the walls had been etched out. There were also many additions to the already enormous building, including the four minarets that surround it. The Aya Sofya is so big that it could fit the Statue of Liberty inside! Today much of the Aya Sofya has been restored, so you can see both Christian and Muslim icons. It is absolutely breathtaking! It is as if the US Capitol building dome had been replaced because of fire damage -- It remains stunning. In 9th grade at University Prep I did a report on the Aya Sofya, which contributes to why this place meant so much to me. I was literally in awe when I saw it. I am also obsessed with architecture and ancient ruins and this was the one place I had to see in the two days! Like most of Istanbul when you walk inside the Aya Sofia you can actually feel the spirituality and the history. Thousands of people walked the steps I walked inside and around the Aya Sofya, and I am not just talking about other tourists! It was remarkable!

I could continue typing about the Aya Sofia and how amazed I am, but I will move on. I actually went into the Aya Sofia on the second day of our trip. On the first day we entered the Blue Mosque. It is another amazing mosque across from Aya Sofia. It is still in use as a mosque and when we went inside many people were getting ready for afternoon prayers. Before entering they had everyone take off their shoes and had females cover their legs. Although it is an active mosque the crowds made it feel less special to me (I went to the Aya Sofia an hour before it closed; the sun was setting and I could roam without crowds). However, the tourism cannot take away from its beauty. The entire rotunda of the Blue Mosque is covered with painted tiles. The Blue Mosque gets its named for the many blue tiles that adorn it, however its real name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.

What is truly amazing about Istanbul is that there are so many detailed mosques literally across the street from each other. There are thousands of them! I cannot believe that all of them become filled, especially because today Istanbul is so secular and filled with tourist attractions. Yet somehow they do and they are all stunning. Besides the architecture, one of the neatest things about the mosques are the calls to prayer. In Ankara I hear the call to prayer from usually one, maybe two mosques depending on my location. In Istanbul you hear the call to prayer from multiple mosques. It is almost an echo of melodious Arabic words being sung over the city. After one voice stops another one begins and then another. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they are in unison. It has become apparent that the best Muezzen (call to prayer singers) are sung from mosques in Istanbul. The prayer goes off five times a day and it is always a beautiful symphony of voices.

If there is one place I recommend that you visit in Turkey, it is Istanbul!

P.S. It has been a week since I actually wrote this post. In that time I have traveled to Greece! It was awesome! I have many photo's and stories that I will fill you in on later!

True Story:

There are about 40 fish in the fish tank at my host family's house. Ayse explained that she bought male and female fish and that some of them had babies. Right now I am watching an aggressive goldfish chase after a lot of the smaller fish. He is especially going after a pregnant fish and a white fish! I leave the house at 10:15 PM for the metro to the bus station, so that I can catch my 12 AM bus to Istanbul. I am so excited that I am actually watching fish fight!

Pazartesi ve Sali (Monday and Tuesday)

Monday:
I had a five-day weekend! Monday was Turkey’s Independence Day, which meant no school! Ayse’s youngest sister, Hava, was visiting the family. On Monday we had a pretty lazy morning; we watched parts of the holiday parades on TV, watched some Turkish soap operas, played with the children, and relaxed. Around 3PM we packed up Hava’s car and went to a buyuk (big) park. My host family does not have a car so this was a treat. I do not know if having barbeques on Turkeys Independence Day is a tradition like the one we have on July Fourth but the day was very reminiscent of an American Independence day celebration.

At the park we picked out a covered picnic table and set up. The family hung a hammock up so that the baby could rest in it during dinner. Then Erden (my 7-year-old host brother) and Nisa (my 4-year-old host cousin) went off to play in the park with Hava’s husband. The park had a mini Great Wall of China for them to play on. I stayed with Ayse, Hava, the grandmother, and the baby to prepare dinner and play volleyball. We cooked green peppers, eggplant, and chicken in an outdoor oven. Then we waited for sundown and to hear the evening prayer projected from the mosques so that we could eat (the children and I had already started). We also had salads, breads, water, coca-cola, etc. (Quick Tangent: I explained in a pervious post that although I don’t like soda I drink it when they give it to me. Well, I see tons of commercials on the TV here for Coca-Cola. Most of them say something about Coke being a great treat on Ramadan… Advertising’s best? The park was filled with tons of families and they all had Coke and they all waited for sundown to eat.)

After dinner we walked along the lake at the park until we reached a small amusement park. Hava, her husband, Erden, Nisa, and I went in a paddleboat around the lake. I sat in the back with Erden and Nisa. At the beginning Erden would not stop crying! He clenched my hand and was very scared. I don’t know how to say “don't worry” or “its safe” in Turkish so I just kept rubbing his back and saying “tamam,” which means okay. Eventually he brought his head out from his lifejacket to look around, but the entire time he kept holding my hand. Hava and her husband directed us under a waterfall again and again, which didn’t help with calming Erden down, but they were having fun. I tried to explain what the Big Dipper was to my family and they thought I was crazy for pointing at the sky until I finally found the word for constellation in my dictionary.

After that we left the park and went home. We got lost, but eventually found it. Everyone showered. The children had coco puffs for dessert and passed out. All the adults stayed up drinking tea, eating sunflower seeds and tea crackers, talking, and watching the recaps of the World Cup Basketball games (the games are in Ankara and Istanbul and USA won their first game). Around 12:30 AM I was exhausted and went to bed.

Tuesday:
I woke up to the sound of children running around the house and the sun shining into my room. Around 11 AM Cydney’s host family came over for brunch, making our little apartment packed! Cydney and I did our homework while the family caught up (remember that Cydney’s host mother is Ayse’s sister). Then I went in the car with Hava and Cydney’s family back to Kizilay. I explored and bought snacks. It was a pretty low-key weekend.

When I got home for dinner the cousin (third visitor) was back working on the computers. We talked a little about Israel. The 13-year-old cousin and the visitor said that they thought Israel was a threat and aggressive. They also told me that Israel killed babies. I am not joking! I even pulled out my computer and used Google to translate sentences to make sure I heard them correctly. This negativity was very interesting to me. Amhet thought it was fascinating that I knew Hebrew and had not said anything negative. I knew going into this trip that I would hear anti-Israel sentiment. Although I have not heard anything negative about Jews, I guess for the first time in my life I feel like I have to conceal a little piece of me. It is a bit unsettling. However, I feel as though the prospective of the Turkish people is very important for me to learn. As a political studies major, it is an integral part of the reason I chose to come to Turkey. I have been to Israel and it is clearly a place of great importance to me, however choosing to go back to Israel for a semester abroad would not necessarily give me a new prospective or outlook on the way the world works. Being in Turkey allows me to be a better-informed student and citizen of our world. Originally I was looking into going to Egypt to study abroad for a crucial alternative view on the middle east… it is a good thing I am not there because they are having a major blackout! In Turkey I happen to be going to the “Harvard of the Middle East” (over one million people apply to the Middle East Technical University a year and only 1% are admitted). Anyway, there are a lot of interesting politics going on here right now, which I will go more in detail in a later post. I am glad I am here and you should be too! This is allowing me to grow and learn in ways that I could not from a classroom at home. Plus, there are some awesome people here and beautiful places to go! I can’t wait for what I will hear, see, smell, taste, and learn next! Tonight I head to Istanbul!

P.S. The photo at the top from (left to right): Hava's husband, Hava, Nisa, Ayse, Grandmother, and Erden. The photo in the middle (left to right): Grandmother, Hava, Baby Adren, and Ayse.