hi all,
Iyi bayramlar! Happy holidays. The whole of Turkey (or at least the ones that are not self-employed) has had the last week off of work. For me it was extra happy, because Phil came to visit me again.
This time we did less sight seeing, and more relaxing. And (important!): sinterklaas had found a way to drop of his gifts even in the heart of Istanbul. With two other Dutch girls (from Utrecht even) we had a nice diner at the terrace, a sinterklaas-first for me.
But, all good things come to an end and so I have eaten my last pepernoot already and Phil is back home. But I realised that, eventhough I am missing you all a lot, I am happy that I am not going home myself yet.
So, with Phil gone, and most of the exchangestudents out of the country for dazling bayram-trips (Syria, Kuweit, Black-sea, Cracow) I decided that I too was entitled to an adventure and what would be more fitting when your house has no heating or hot water: I went to the local Hamam (see picture). It was a tiny place, with one room for undressing, which also housed the registar and had the two hamam-ladies having breakfast in it. I decided to not go completely naked, which I later, when other girls started entering, found out to be a perfect guess. I washed myself for a while, with nice hot water from a bucket, while sitting on a big hot stone in the middle of the small hamam. Then the friendly, big and (almost) naked lady came back in and ordered my friendly to go lie down on the hot stone. She completely scrubbed and washed me and I got an amazing oil-massage. All without a word of English, but she was nice and I decided to just surrender. It was an amazing experience, and it has both a modern and an ancient feel to it, because it is such an old and elaborate ritual, while at the same time it also resembles a modern spa. After one and a half hour I was outside again, reborn!
With this being my warm-adventure, let me tell you about my icy-cold adventure: a day in Ankara. Every Turk I know adviced me against it, but I wanted to see the capital. I decided one day would be enough and bought a night-train ticket there, to buy another one for the night of the morning I arrived. Ankara was less boring and depressing than everyone had told me, but it was so much colder than I expected! Dian, I forgot your head, so I immediatly had to buy a new one, not nearly as nice as yours, but otherwise I would have lost my ears (and mind) I think.
Well, thanks to my ever-loyal Lonely Planet, I managed to see 2 interesting museums, the biggest mosque in the country and Ataturks mausoleum. The mosque was facinating, cause it was huge and busy (a 3-double funeral and friday-afternoon prayer) and very new. I never saw a mosque with its own parking-garage underneath.
Ataturks mausoleum was also impressive. On top of a huge hill it is surrounded by all sorts of memorial buildings and a huge underground museum about the War of Independence. Considering all the poo-haa that he is usually surrounded with, his actual tomb was beautifully simple in a big empty hall.
Then I figured I had seen enough, had walked enough and was cold enough, so I got my self a big cup of hot chocolate and read my book on the history of Turkish nationalism in the starbucks.
Now I am all ready and rested for my last 3 weeks of school. 3 weeks! My parents are coming for Christmas and Sara is coming for New Years. I am very excited for all of this and hope they will fall in love with Istanbul as well.
Then, the 24th I will already be heading home again. I know I will be ready then, but for now I want to try and really make the most of these last weeks.
I wish you all an amazing Christmas and New Years where ever you are going to be,
bayram-greetings from here,
xx sacha

Re-doing my tourist visa

This morning I returned from my little weekend trip to Yunanistan (Greece). I left friday evening, after my sociology mid-term test (only one question: 'was Durkheim a male chauvinist pig?', unbelievable!). I was not too enthusiastic at first because I was going all by myself, so I brought some books, but I immediately met a nice girl who was also going to Thessaloniki, to re-do her visa. The bus dropped us of early in the morning, luckily not too far from the city centre. Linn, the girl I met, had the address of a guy that lived in town and we ended up couch-surfing that evening at his place (see picture). He was very nice and took us around town the first day. It was nice to walk next to the sea. We saw the big statue of Alexander the Great and many, many Orthodox Churches, in which people were very actively praying and kissing the icons. Also in neighborhoods were you in the Netherlands would see a mosque (more newly build houses) or completely no religious buildings, there were now newly erected churches (see picture). But there were also very old churches, old city walls and towers and a very nice ethnological museum that we visited the next day. Sunday evening we left in the sleepers-train, which was very comfortable. At 3 o'clock we had to get out and show are passport and buy the visa we had undertaken all of this for. This morning I arrived in the middle of Istanbul with the train, it was very interesting to see the city just all of a sudden begin in the middle of grasslands and than slowly evolve into this massive colossal metropolis at the end of the train-line.

Well, that was my little visa-adventure. Not too much of an adventure, but I liked it. 

The winter has really started here, or at least, it is very gray, but still not cold. Hope you are hanging in there at home. Enjoy Sinterklaas's company!

xxx sacha 

Yes they did!

hi all,

just a few pictures from the Democrats Abroad event I went to with some US-exchange students here. It was a lot of fun, very interesting to have CNN on. I didn't get home before 5 and completely overslept for my classes today, but it was well worth seeing this historical day. I can recommend all the clip of Obama's victory-speech: beautiful! I really really hope he can deliver. For me it is not even so much what he literally promises as for policy-points, but more the fact that so many Americans were willing to vote for someone with his message. It is amazing to see the hope of all these people. That they are choosing for a positive and open view to the world, for a fundamental change, and of course, for an African American president. I can almost not even imagine his face as the face of the US. But it is now! Some commentators said that this is the best thing to happen for their international image, after the winning of WW II. 

Well, anyway, just to show how it was to follow it here. I hope you enjoyed it too. 

x sacha

Having visitors in Istanbul

sorry for neglecting my posts, but  here is a new one:

so much has happened! Of course the visit of Phil and Arie and Anneloes was the highlight of the past month. It was really nice to hang out together and we saw a lot of the must-sees of this beautiful city.  Traffic was horrible the day they arrived, so I was way to late to pick them up from the airport, but we found each other and even were on time for the Jazz concert that I had tickets for for that evening. It was really gezellig, and it was a good way for me to realize how special this city really is and how much I had already seen of it and how much there still was to see. It was a nice homely and familiar bubble to be floathing around in for 10 days.  And I could even treat my guests to a powercut and a cockroach, so they now know all the daily details of my stay here. 

When Arie and Anneloes left Phil and me left for the Kapadocia region. Beautiful! Since the 4th century Christian communities have lived there (in the centre of Anatolia) and carved their houses and churches etc out of huge rockformations. (see pictures). It was really cold there though, and I was happy that Phil had brought my wintercoat. We had a nice hostel and met some funny people. The region was beautiful to just hike through, as we did in the afternoons. And there were some spectacular caves that were turned into museums that showed the real cave-dwellings and even an entire underground city. They think the city went about 28 floors deep, but we could only go down to the 6th since it was otherwise too dangerous. We even went on a tour (hilarious, never felt like such a tourist), but it was absolutely worth it because we got to see lots of things that we would otherwise not have seen. The food was really nice, much cheaper than in Istanbul, but not any bars or anything like that. 

Then we left for Konya, the most religious city in the country, about the size of Utrecht. It had a nice relaxed atmosphere, and we found a decent hotel. The city doesn't get many tourist, but it does receive many many pelgrims, since it is the Mevlana capital of the world. Mevlana are the whriling derwishes, the mystic movement of Islam. That it was more concervative we noticed imediatly when having lunch. We went into a little soup/doner-place and I noticed people kept staring at me. At first I thought it was because they are not so used to western tourist, but then I noticed I was the only girl in the whole place. The staff of the tiny restaurant was very normal to us, but all the other people kept staring. When two girls entered I was relieved, until I saw them enter a basement-room that had a sign 'aile-oda'. I knew 'oda' means 'room', and the dictionary told me that 'aile' means 'family'. Then I remembered that, in places where they have such a room, women are expected to take place there. Oops! We based ourselves on the reaction of the people working at the restaurant and not on that of the guests, so we stayed where we were, cause otherwise we had to move all our plates etc. But it made it clear that we had to be a little more careful with where to sit next time. 

That evening we went to a cultural centre where the Derwish gave a performance/service/training-session. In a huge indoor-dome, filled with locals and pilgrims and a few western tourists, we could watch them. There were a few Derwish that were obviously very important and they led the ceremony. There was music and a men singing in Arabic. Honestly, I think that language is designed more for being written than for singing, or at least it sounded very difficult to do. But it did bring the dancers in trance and us too a bit. The dancing was magical. The men dancing were a group who were in training, I think. It was impressive how smooth everything went and how concentrated they were. Even the youngest ones, about 10 years old, were focussed, and even the oldest ones, about 60, were gracious. 

Back in Istanbul Phil and I took it really easy. Seeing an amazing exhibit on Dali, studying a bit and just enjoying each others company. 

Now Phil went home and for me my student life has really began, since up to now it was just one prolonged holiday. Midterms are coming up and essay deadlines are approaching. But I guess it is good, since I need to stay in some what of a shape for UC next semester. 

One of the things I did recently that I really liked was writing an article for the UC-newspaper, the Boomerang. It will be out in not too long, so if you want mail me or phil and I am sure one of us can arrange you a copy. 

Well, that is about it. Oh, and of course Turkey celebrated its 85 years of existence. The best fireworks I have ever seen! So impressive, first a huge light-show over the whole Bosphorus, which made it look like they hung a huge softly glowing spiderweb over the city. Then it changed into greenish stroboscope lights flashing franticly over the skyline. And than: the fireworks! Like the 5th of May in NL, or the 4th of July in US, but then from 9 different places along the river! Very very impressive. I got stuck in traffic, of course. This was the evening after I dropped Phil of at the airport. But it turned out alright cause at the moment I had enough of the bus that didn't move, and got out to walk the rest home, I found myself at the best spot to watch the show. 

I am halfway through my stay here now, and I still feel very very lucky to be here. Because even though we did not have electricity the last three days (no warm water, internet, light or fridge!), and even though it is sometimes exhausting that all of the social things at the uni are in turkish, and even though I would love to have a normal beschuitje kaas or a pepernoot, and even though I miss you all a lot... it is still the most vibrant and gorgeous city I have ever been in and I am still enjoying it every day, finding out new things to see, eat and do. 

I hope you are all happy where you are,

xxx sacha

ps: the last two pictures are from a small adventure I had today on the 2nd and 3rd 'Prince Islands'. It was super nice to be out of the city and into a fresh and green surrounding. It was super windy, but it was extremely refreshing and exactly what I needed before school starts again tomorrow.

Hi everyone,

Finally some more pictures and a little story. University has started, and I am enjoying my first week of holiday already this week! This is because the Ramadan has ended. What an experience. Certainly the last three days, when Mia and I joined the majority of people here and also fasted. So, up at a little for 5 and eating as much as we could before it was 5.25. That was when we heard the first call to prayer and went back to bed. Until 7 in the evening, no eating, drinking, sex or smoking and even after the fast was broken with an iftar meal, no alcohol. Since we had no class or major activities it was not as hard as it must have been this month for the other people fasting, but it was still difficult enough, but more during the day then at the end of it. 

But now all is over, and it is Fitr Bayrami (sugar festival) and everyone is either out of town visiting family or with family out in the streets. So, even though many people left it is still very busy at the public places. It is nice to see so many families, much more children and women then normally. People here are so friendly and attentive with children. Most of the students went traveling, but I stayed in town, partly cause I had stuff to do, partly to save money for when Phil, Arie and Anneloes will be here in 2 weeks. I've seen some museums (see pictures), made use of the almost empty roads when running and read some interesting things for school.  It has been very relaxed and quiet. It is far more of a normal life then being a tourist that needs to sqeeze the most out of every minute. But yesterday I went out dancing and we ended up in a club on a open terrace on the 7th floor. The music was of course bad again, but with the lights of 'Istanbul by night' at my feet and a sky full of stars over my head, I could not help but feel so extremely lucky to be here. 

The weather has shaped up again to, it is back to the 'normal' 25 degrees, so that is good, cause Mia and I were a bit intimidated since we did not bring that many cold-weather-cloths.

Anyway, next week the university starts again. I have 7 courses, of which 2 are in drawing and yoga, so these won't be too much work. The teachers are generally very nice and more lively and humorous then what I am used to in the Netherlands, so that is nice. My drawing teacher does not really speak english so that is good to practice my tiny bit of Turkish. Just like today at the hairdresser, who also did not speak a word of english, and if you look at the picture you can judge for yourself if this language barrier lead to something good or bad. 

All the best from this beautiful city,

sacha

hi everyone,

a few pictures again. I am very happy with the park I have just a few streets away. It is such a nice place to sit and study some verbs and vocabulary. This weekend was not too adventures. Went to a party friday, with a bunch of Erasmus students, which was nice. Today I went out to discover another neighborhood on the Asian side of town, since I am hardly ever in that part. It was pretty nice, many small shops and restaurants. I also bumped into this fellow on the right, a genuine Amsterdammertje! The way back was the best though, since the sun had set and the big mosques were lit up, creating a very very beautiful skyline. 

They are still working in my street, building a house from scratch and also putting in new pavement on the street. So it is super dusty and noisy everywhere. I feel sorry for the guys who are building the house, since they live in a little hut on the buildingspot itself. I figured they are maybe from the countryside, or something. They work 7 days a week, start around 8 in the morning and often go on till 11 at night!

Tomorrow all hell is supposed to break lose traffic-wise. Because then, millions of students are starting school and university again. In one of the articles I posted a link of, it explains that the municipalities will offer free public transport for the first 3 days of the week, in order to lift a bit of the busyness.... We will see...

So, that is all really. Iyi gunler! (Enjoy your day)

Sacha

hi guys,

with my language course half way done already, I am not experiencing many touristic anymore. So not so many pictures and stories, but more the daily life of Istanbul. For those who are interested in that I put some links at the bottom, for some nice articles about how it is here with Ramazan, what traffic is like, etc. etc. I really like them usually. 

Ramazan is quite the experience. Today I walked past my favourite lokanta (small restaurant) and there was a line of 50 people standing outside, because the call to prayer could come any minute, meaning that they could already order and then be right in time to start their iftar meals to break the fast. 

The weather was cooler lately, but today was hot again. Tomorrow I am going to tourist another new neighborhood, and my new housemate (Mia, form UC) will also arive pretty soon. 

Enjoy the links to the right.

x sacha

hi everyone,

Phil told me that today it was hotter in Utrecht then it was in Istanbul! Good to hear you have nice weather too. I put up a few new pictures. Yesterday it was 'Republic Day', when the Turks celebrate their victory over the Greeks in 1922, after which Ataturk founded the Republic and started his secular reforms. Everywhere we were, masses of big Turkish flags. I have been meeting more and more Erasmus students, and on Republic Day a big group of us headed for the beach about 1 hour outside of Istanbul. Especially the big group of German students was sensitive for this all this hyper-nationalistic energy. But on the beach itself we did not notice anything at all, and I was relieved that we fitted in perfectly with the locals who were also wearing bikini's. 

Tomorrow my language course starts, and I can't wait to get to know more about the Turkish language, and meet some new people. I am pretty happy in the end that I am not in the Erasmus course, since it is pretty massive, and now I will also meet some non-students.

I hope everyone is doing fine, with starting up there schools and jobs also, although most of you are already working again.

Hope your weather lasts for a bit,

love, sacha

Some more pictures, these are all of sunday.

I went into a beautiful mosque on the older part of town. After that I went to the Basilica Cistern, a water reservoir built in 532, that kept water that came from the Black Sea, via a 20 km aquaduct. It is huge and is held up by 336 columns! It could hold upto 80.000 cubic metres of water. Then I went home with  the boat. If you see the last picture up with a view from a  boat, there is a strip of green on the right, right above the water. The first building then is a little square block, I live 2 streets behind that block (which is a high-school).

So, now you know where I live, and seen some more pictures, hope you enjoyed it.

tea-suger-a-dream: my first Turkish steps

hi everyone,

I made it! my first steps were a bit rough, but now with all my stuff in my perfectly-situated room I feel fully landed.  

My first impression of Istanbul was not such a friendly one. With well over 20 kilo's of lugage, a sticky 35 degrees and no clue of were to go I headed for the metro. Confusingly the tickets are coin-shaped, so it took me a while to figure out that I had really bought them. I was occupying two seats with all my stuff and a older guy made a fuss about in Turkish and made me stand with everything in the middle of the metro for the rest of the busy ride. It took me a while to find a place, ended up in a girls-only dorm-room, that was very nice. 

I quickly befriended a guy who seemed to family to all t he restaurants, barbers, and hotel owners around the hotel. I ended up playing bagamon with  him and his friends. They told me how to say 'thank you' in Turkish. By now I know it should be 'tesjekur ederum', but they thought it was help me to say 'tea-sugar-a-dream'.. haha. Later some other french tourist joined and we danced till 1 and then went for some beers and they sang songs with their guitar. After a few songs I realized I had not even been in the city for more than  10 hours and realized how tired I was, so I went to bed. The next day I visited the impressive Blue mosque, then I packed my stuff and went to my new house. 

My housemate Mahir is a very nice guy, very friendly and relaxed. The neighborhood is very nice and quiet, only they are redoing the streets so that is dusty and noisy. I put some pictures of my room and the view (they took out the road, only one car was still parked on it so they left this one car like an island). I put my stuff in my room and got settled a bit. Then we went out for dinner, I have the feeling that eating out is very normal here, also for lunch. The food is usually not too elaborated, but nice. And I figured out pretty quickly that keeping up with my vegetarian preferences is going to be impossible, definatly for as long as I don't speak Turkish. We went for a drink and the begamon board came out again, and I am learning the 'kneepjes van het vak' so my tactics are getting better by the day. I am happy I knew the basics already since it is a fun and easy way to spend time with people and get to know them, and it is hugely popular around here. 

We ended up meeting the people from the day before again at the 'world (?) famous' Taksim square. That is the place to be at night and it is super busy and big. We saw super nice live Turkish music and had some beers and Turkish raki (kind of like the greek 'uzo').  The musicians were really really good, and first I thought I had a Turkish Stef Bos in front of me, but later when people who requested songs got more drunk it turned into more of a Turkish Andre Hazes. 

Today I have just ventured into the neighborhood in which I will be living: Besiktas. I could not have wished for a  better area to live in. The direct streets surrounding me are quiet (no mosques in the morning at 6 with 'allah alleahakbar'), but lots and lots of nice shopping area and restaurants and bars just three blocks down. Also lots of bus-connections and a ferrydock. The neighborhood's symbol is a eagle, so everywhere there are impressive eagle statues. And they are also the home of one of Turkish best soccerteams: BJK. There is a ringroad that fits exactly around the stadium. Because of all the hills, on one end of the ring you are on 'groundlevel' next to the stadium, on the other side of the ring you can look into the stadium and see the game! So crazy with all the hills in this city. 

Well that is a (maybe too) detailed account of my first impressions. I am going to be a tourist for a week more. Then on the first, like most of the students in NL, I am starting my language course. That will take two weeks. After that the Bogazici university has introduction and my actual courses will start. 

I hope (and am pretty sure) that The Netherlands is less sticky and hot, hope all is fine.

my baklava-love, Sacha

hi everyone,

just posted some new pictures. The powwow was the best. A celebration of native americans from all over the country. I still don't quite know what they were celebrating, but they were remembering their ancestors and spent quite some time commemorating their native american veterans who had been in the US army.  There was a small crisis because someone had dropped a ornament of eagle feathers, which apparently is a big deal since they are holy. And native americans are the only ones who can own eagle feathers in the whole of the US. So there was a public apology towards all the leaders of the tribes, and they had to shake hands and agree that it was fine for now. For the rest they had different dance competitions and groups that were performing music. Well, I really enjoyed everything and now we are just chilling out for the evening. I hope everything is fine with you all,

see you all later,

Sacha

hi everyone,

today it is time for a new post. We have done a lot and I feel I am getting used to the weather. It is a bit hard to estimate how hot it is because everything is in Fahrenheit degrees, just like the miles and the pounds are different.

So far, everything has been great. It is nice to get to know Phil's family better, and I even met many (many!) cousins and aunts and uncles and also Phil's grandparents on the 4th of July, which is one of the biggest holidays here. It is probably comparable to queensday in the Netherlands, but then there is a massive parade instead of a fleemarket. We were even in the parade (which is kinda like the Dutch avond vierdaagse on its last day, with marching bands, etc), because the whole family was handing out vans with the information on the company of Phil's parents.  

Phil, me and his sisters have picked over 17 kilo's of strawberries. We have been out on the boat of Phil's parents. Their house, by the way, is massive, has a small private beach to it and lies in a really nice green area! I have driven a car (while it is not allowed, we found out), went shopping in a massive mall (everything is has a bit lower price then here, and is on top of it in dollars! so that is really nice). Yesterday morning, we had a hot air baloon ride over the area, which was super nice. I saw some town and one of the twin-cities. The food has also been good, this morning I had blue-berry-pancakes for breakfast, so that was special.  I really appreciate that there is usually a way for me to eat vegetarian even. 

The people so far, have been nothing but cheerful and friendly (especially waiters and shopping-personal is incomparable to their Dutch counterparts), and it is nice to get a chance to correct our Dutch stereotypes of Americans. Yesterday, at the 4th of July, phil had an uncle and aunt over that have a 20 year old son who will leave to Iraq with the army in a few days. It lets you see a different side of the story when you get to talk to people like that, who are actually experiencing this war in reality. 

We have many more plans, and his parents have warned me for the camping trip that is comming up (1 week of hiking and canoeing with only 2x a shower, and all food will be dried or powdered). But for now, I will just try to get some pictures up here so you guys can see.

I hope you are having a good time and nice weather too, have a hertog jan or a broodje kaas for me,

love sacha

first blog

Hi everyone,
With a full summer, a promising fall semester coming up, and my parents complaining about my communication-skills. It thought, to keep things easy: I make a blog. And, to keep things even more easy: it will be in english.
So, I hope to post pictures and stories here, so that everyone where ever they may be in this world, can see what I am doing. And, most importantly, can tell me what they are doing!! Because if I am correct, you can post comments etc. So, I hope this blog will be fun for all of us.
Enjoy it,

Sacha