Vacation, Part Three

Happy Republic Day, everyone! Today is Turkey's big national holiday, and everyone is filled with lots of Turkish pride. There were supposed to be celebrations and fireworks this evening, but I think the bad weather has postponed them until tomorrow.

EDIT: The fireworks happened after all! They were pretty awesome:

 

Not the greatest photo, but shows the Bosphorus Bridge being all lit up and basically looking like an explosion:

Back to the vacation! Paul and I finished our time in Selçuk and took a minibus to the nearby Kuşadası, mostly known for being a port of call for many cruise ships. As such, it's designed for tourists to get a taste of Turkey in the few hours they spend there. This means lots of overpriced food and shops, and many aggressive salespeople. Blech. Our hotel was quite nice, though, and had fantastic views from the rooftop bar and a balcony in our room:

We spent the first evening wandering around the touristy areas trying to find food, and then enjoyed some drinks on the roof in absolutely perfect weather:

In an uncharacteristically trusting move, I asked the hotel to arrange ferry tickets to Samos, the nearby Greek island. This was my chance to exit and enter the Turkey, for reasons hinted at in the post below, and also a chance to check out a pretty island. Unfortunately, we were too trusting. They gave us the wrong time for the ferry departure, resulting in us running to the pier in the pouring rain, missing the ferry by about 30 seconds. I was furious and upset. The hotel owner felt bad, though I think he believed that we had misheard the time rather than the mistake being on their end. I think I will do these sorts of arrangements on my own from now on.

It continued to pour for most of the day and I started coming down with a cold, so we didn't do anything exciting. In the evening the weather was beautiful once more, so we ventured farther from the shore and found an amazing restaurant called Sare. It looked way out of our price range, but the prices were totally reasonable and the food came in ridiculous quantities. We finished the night with some baklava and beers.

The next day was extremely exhausting, especially with my sickness in full force. We spent about 7 hours taking a minibus to a train to a plane to a bus to a ferry to arrive back in Istanbul in the evening. We got some cheap and tasty Turkish food near the hotel and were constantly approached by cute cats who wanted some food. One kitten was bold enough to jump on to Paul's lap, who unfortunately had to remove him due to allergies. Even Paul admitted that it was totally adorable, though.

Saturday was mostly spent at a genetics conference hosted by my lab, where Paul and I got to feel like cool scientist folks. It was full of interesting talks and brilliant people. We didn't do much else, since I was still quite sick, but we did get to have a nice jaunt through Taksim in the evening to give Paul a taste of the Turkish nightlife.

It's hard to tell from pictures, but the crowds of people behind him go on and on and on:

It was a nice ending to an awesome week!

Edirne

I'll finish posting about my vacation this week, but I'd like to take a break to talk about my weekend. Yesterday I took day trip up to Edirne, a city which lies near the Greek and Bulgarian borders. I did this mainly so that I could cross over to Bulgaria, because...I wanted to see beautiful Bulgaria? That's my official story and I'm sticking to it. Contact me privately for more explanation.

I took Metro, one of the largest bus companies in Turkey. I must say, buses here are pretty luxurious. The seats are comfortable and equipped with individual entertainment systems like fancy planes have, with movies and TV shows to choose from. There's a "bus host" who serves drinks (soda and tea) and snacks. It was a very enjoyable 2.5 hour ride up to Edirne.

The city is lovely! It has a much more laid-back atmosphere than Istanbul does. Very pretty mosques, lots of pedestrian-only streets to shop/eat on, and a really nice river running through it.

Unfortunately, I didn't give myself all that much time to sight-see. I had a mission! I hopped on a minibus (the preferred mode of transportation in smaller Turkish cities, it seems) to Kapıkule, at the Bulgarian border. The Greek border is actually much closer to town, but there is no public transportation to get there, probably because of the poor relationship between the two countries. I realize now, looking at maps, that I could have probably walked there.

The border area is much larger than I thought it would be. It's designed for cars, so walking through alone feels very strange and earns you many funny looks from border guards. There's like 7 or 8 checkpoints to stop at, the roles of which were very unclear to me. Some of them would ask prying questions (in Turkish) and I responded with my pre-prepared answers:

-Where are you going?
-To Bulgaria.
-Why?
-I want to see it.
-What are you doing in Turkey?
-Sight-seeing, shopping, seeing friends.
-You're not working?
-No, just a tourist.

The guards all seem to know the truth, and laugh it off and send me on my way. They've seen this act plenty of times and mostly just find it amusing. I tried to be friendly and charming at each step, and I think it worked well. The Bulgarian side doesn't ask many questions, though they were pretty friendly to me. I didn't know a single work in Bulgarian and felt bad that I didn't even learn how to say "hello" or "thank you" beforehand. After a mile or two of walking through border checkpoints (really, it's that long) I found my self in Kapitan Andreevo. It was, uh, smelly. Clearly many cows nearby. My apologies to any Bulgarians who read this- I'm sure the border town is not a shining example of your country.

After a few moments of wandering around, I went right back through border control, to the amusement of the guards who had just seen me. I was nervous about facing the most important of the guards, the one who would actually decide to let me in to Turkey or not. Fortunately, he was a friendly young man who was eager to tell me about his life and show me some funny Youtube videos he was watching on the official passport-scanning computer. Oh, internet lulz: bringing cultures together. He asked me some more prying questions, and I continued with the whole "Turkey is awesome and I want to see more of it!" thing. However, he didn't seem willing to give me a fresh visa, and my Turkish was not good enough to understand why. After about five minutes of being stressed out and confused, he grudgingly minimized his Youtube video and looked up the regulation he was referring to. I think it had something to do with a new rule that Turkey is trying to push through but has not yet done. He decided that whatever it was didn't matter, and so I got my fresh visa sticker and entry stamp. Hooray!

After a long and awkward wait on the side of street outside of border control, I hopped on a minibus back to town for some speed sight-seeing before heading back. I took a nice walk across the pretty Meriç river:

I've become a big fan of liver lately, so I tried the local style of liver preparation, which everyone told me was delicious. It was! It was deep fried, which I wasn't expecting, but still tasted great. I also just realized that one of the best liver restaurants in Istanbul serves Edirne-style liver, and is in my neighborhood. Mmm...

More vacation posts to come! I'll be talking about the big failure of a plan that necessitated this Edirne trip. I'm kind of glad it worked out this way, though, since I don't think I would have had the motivation to check this town out if not for those circumstances.

Vacation, Part Two

On Tuesday we woke up bright and early to catch a ferry to a bus to a plane to a train. Yes, we conquered all major forms of transportation. We arrived in our destination, Selçuk, in the late afternoon and began the search for the hotel we had booked. Many of you know that I plan things very precisely. As such, I had directions in my notebook, along with maps, addresses, and phone numbers for everywhere we would stay. However, I wrote my directions with respect to the bus station rather than the train station, which was actually about 2 blocks away. So when we started walking in the direction of the hotel, we didn't see any of the streets and landmarks that I had written down. As a result, we kept walking (with our luggage, in the rain) for a mile or two, much to the amusement of the locals. We ended up in a very rural area, and decided it was time to ask for help. We made our way to a gas station and explained the situation as best as we could, given that they didn't speak English and I barely know Turkish. They seemed pretty amused by our plight and called the hotel for us to tell them to pick us up. While we waited, we joked about how funny it would be if the hotel guy came by to pick us up on a scooter or tractor. The reality was even better- an older gentlemen peddled up to us on a bicycle. When he saw our bags, he looked a little disappointed and said he'd bike back to town to get a car. The absurdity of the situation made me laugh so hard I actually cried. I think it's one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it was definitely one of the most memorable stories of our vacation.

The hotel was wonderful! Probably my favorite of the four we stayed in. Our room had a view of a Byzantine castle:

We spent the evening exploring the small town, which was a very pleasant place. It was a bit touristy due to the proximity to Ephesus, but still had a nice small-town feel to it that I loved. For dinner, I tried liver for the first time and it was delicious:

The next day we went to the ancient city of Ephesus, which was the point of our whole expedition to this part of Turkey. It was as awesome as I had hoped.

Most of the ruins are completely open to visitors- you can walk/sit/jump on them as much as you want. It was paradise for me. I have more pictures of this place than I could ever post (about 100), but here are some good ones:

Nike, the goddess of victory:

Giant theater:

On the walk back to town, we stopped by the ruined Temple of Artemis. It used to be one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, but now it's mostly some rubble and a column:

In the evening we hopped on a bus to the nearby Kuşadası for the next leg of our trip, which I'll talk about next time. For more pictures of the journey, you can view the Facebook album here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062768&id=1135710488&l=70b29227be

Vacation, Part One

I'm back from a wonderful week traveling around Turkey with Paul. Overall it was an excellent week, despite sickness, rain, and some failed plans. I have far too many pictures, so I will put a bunch online somewhere else. That will probably be facebook, but I'll try to find a way for you non-facebook people to view the album.

Paul got in late Saturday night and after some taxi shenanigans we made our way over to the nice little Cosmopolitan Park Hotel. The two brothers who own the place were super nice and spoke adorable broken English. We were really boring on Sunday, since it rained heavily for most of the afternoon. We managed to venture out to Ortakoy for the evening, where we had a nice meal and enjoyed a very crazy dessert. Ortakoy is populated by little stands selling waffles, with a wide selection of toppings. Ours had sprinkles, chocolate, caramel, and hazelnuts.

It was delicious and overwhelmingly sweet.

 We spent Monday afternoon hanging out around the old city tourist sites, taking the obligatory Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya pictures:

D'AWWW:

We went up to my University to meet the labmates and take in the awesome views of the Bosphorus:

In the evening we went to my house to meet my host family and enjoy a big home-cooked meal. We had a confusing mix of languages at the table: I would speak English with Paul, Paul would speak Spanish with Deniz (host brother), and Deniz would speak Turkish with his mother. Fun times!

That's all for this post. The next part will get into the real meat of our vacation: our trip down to the coast to see Efes and Kuşadası.

Failing

So, I wrote the following post earlier today, when I felt like it was the end of the world. I've since calmed down a lot, after it was explained to me that this happens every few months. And while it technically is due to something I did, it wasn't necessarily something I did *wrong*. Anyway, enjoy the melodrama!


I want to hide under a rock right now. It finally happened. That thing I've been dreading most since starting in my lab has finally happened: contamination. Half of the cell flasks are now ruined, probably negating a couple weeks of work. Since I'm the only one who actually works with the flasks and makes the solutions, it must have been something I did. No one knows exactly what, but for now I'm basically prohibited from touching anything. I pride myself on my lab abilities. My sterile technique has always been perfect: I've done microbiology, genetics, brain surgery- never had any problems. Now I've lost the respect of my labmates, and I don't even know what I did wrong. I spent a half hour hiding in the bathroom so no one would see how upset I am. Great way to start the week!

On a lighter note, it's been two whole months and things in general have been wonderful. I love the family I'm living with. They care for me like a daughter, but give me all the privacy and freedom I want. Plus, delicious free home-cooked meals every day. This weekend was mostly spent window shopping in my neighborhood and the hip Taksim area. I also participated in a free ebru (water marbling, as I mentioned in an earlier post) workshop, where I got to make my very own masterpiece:

As simple as it is, I'm really proud of it. I've never been an artistic person, so making something pretty is a big accomplishment for me.

Boyfriend will be here in less than a week! I'm ridiculously excited. Expect a dearth of posts during that time, then lots of interesting posts with pretty pictures afterwards.