Istanbul'in guzel resim

Some better pictures of Istanbul. Above is me and Morgan in one of the mosques we visited... note my really bad attempt at covering my head. Oh well

So in Turkey... and im going to go ahead and make a sweeping generalization but deal for a minute... EVERYONE drives like a maniac... the speed limit is insanely high but people dont follow it anyways... this is in the back of a car with no... get ready... SEATBELTS... haha... we always pile like 5 in the back and two in the front but thats just the way it works.... take your heart pills mom, theres worse things
Another picture from our cruise of the Bosphorous
View from the ouside of galata tower (pics from on top of the tower in the last entry)
Whirling Dervishes!!!! This is actually a religious and cultural practice of the Alevi people of Turkey that has become a huge tourist attraction. We have leard a lot about the Alevi in Turkey who have been persecuted and the subject of a lot of discrimination... If you ask me they are pretty freaking cool. They make up about 20-25% of Turkiye's population.

This is another picture of the band that played in the cistern whilw we drank cay and watched.... It was really eerie music but it definelty added to the vibe under there

Thats all for now
love u all

İstanbul'u çok seviyorum

"I love Istanbul a lot"



This is at 7:30 am on the ferry from the Train station after arriving in Istanbul... dont judge, im not a morning person and it was windy. Haha.

Anyways, we had a 4 day trip to Istanbul an took the night train with sleeping compartments.. it was pretty relaxing. The train took 8 hours and apparently the bus only takes 5 from Ankara to Istanbul but our trip leader thought the train would be a better experience and it was. We got on in Ankara and woke up with all this beauty around us.

Istanbul is now officially my favorite city (hi lucy!) (not that Ive been to any others internationally) but it was absolutely beautifulThis is a panoramic from the tp of galata tower.. a huge old tower from which you can see the whole city
me and my friend shireen on top of the tower


We also went out to a turkish pub for my friend rachel's birthday
Turkish people and Americans... theyre all students at the school Im going to (middle east technical university) Gotta go, more later

We also took a cruise of the Bosphorus because it was such a nice day out

These are just pictures from Ataturk's Masoleum (Ataturk is the founder of the Modern Republic of Turkiye)... I thought they were cute... Dont tell the Turkish that they recreated the lincoln memorial haha....

Continued from beloww....
I know you all are worried about me and taking care of my uhh... addiction in Turkey... so dont worry... ive found the trick

Turk Kahvesi... turkish coffee is amazing! Haha.
This is from lunch in a house/restaurant in Ulus (a more traditional part of ankara) one day with our program.
Gozleme and mutlu... one is like turkish quesadillas but with cheese or spinach or potatoes or meat in it and the other is like turkish tortelinni (i dont know how to spell that) with yogurt sauce. The yogurt here is awesome.







This is on top of the castle in the citadel... Really cool.. wole view of the city but kinda scary when u go to the top


I went up there but i was too afriad to get my camera out when i was at the top so i took it from below.. haha... the one on the left is boys playing soccer below.

Morgan and I made a silk scarf using marbeling (Ebru) with permanent dies in a water pan and then dipping the silk in and it comes out with the pattern. Pretty cool looking and we got it for free!







Anyways... the formatting is all messed up on this and i have turkish class in twenty minutes so more later! But as you can tell its been amazing and ive had more fun then I could ask for so far... but i do miss all of you. Especially my mommy!
Tonight is my friend here's birthday and were going out after class and then tomorrow we are taking the night train to ISTANBUL!!!! Yayyy... soo excited.

I had one class today but I start my other class and normal schedule next week. Im taking differential equations and abract algebra at Middle East Technical University or (Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi in turkish)... then im taking my two turkish classes and one culture class with my program.. Diff. Eqs. seems like it will be easy but well see about the other one...

Love you all... im proud of you if u read all of this!
Christine (P.S. My Turkish name is Pelin... like sarah... kinda... haha) kisses

Hellooooo everyone

Sorry it took so long but here goes:

Turkey is great as Im sure all of you heard. I was a little scared when I first got here b/c i couldnt communicate AT ALL... However, Ive been taking intensive Turkish class now for about 2 1/2 weeks and its getting a whole lot easier. Not EASY to communicate mind you but fun and Turkish people LOVE to help us out... especially b/c half the time me and my friends walk around it is blatantly obvious that we are American... so everyone tries to give us directions/tell us we are beutiful/laugh at us. Its amusing. The only annoying part is that Turkey has never seen a black person most people have no hesitation to stare...

Sooo... on to the good stuff... my dorm is awesome and my roomate is tight too.. her name is Elif... the first letter of the arabic alphabet and a really popular name here.

Speaking of which... turkish is a really cool language.. ive leanred so much about the history of Turkey, the modern republic of turkey, Ataturk, the language, the Ottoman Empire.. the huge amount of ethnic/social/religious sects in the country.

Fun stuff... me and my friends on the program joined a group called ERASMUS... i dont know what it stands for but its the european exchange student group (a big program in the middle east and western europe) and basically the group sponsors parties everynight at clubs and pubs and hookah bars around the city and provides the transportation too. needless to say, my friends and I end up running the parties b/c europeans just dont dance like americans... were cool

Ok now stuff for the family....
Ative English is the place where i take my turkish classes and its in a section of the city called "kizilay" except the i's dont have dots on them... its a turkish leter that sounds like "uh" oh and "ay" sounds like "eye" just in case u were wondering... Well this part of the city also has Ankara's largest mosque Kocaptepe Camii (camii meand mosque)... Oh and also c's sounds like j's in turkish... ANYWAYS... this is the view of the mosque from my turkish class on the sixth floor
Thennn we went to the mosque
And for my family who i know will be saying they want pictures of me This is me and my two friends jessie an morgan outside or turkish classes on valentines day


For some cooler stuff... we leanred in class about a thing called a gecekondu... This translates litterally to "house bulit over night".... Well for decades people in the Southeast of the country or smaller towns (the southeast tennds to be the more traditional/religious/rural/conservative part of the country) have been moving to bigger towns like ankara or istanbul for jobs, more opportunities, etc... well there is a little leeway in the law that says that if you can build four wall and a roof overnight on unowned property then you can have it. Sooo people would move with their kinsman/family/neighbors and get the first part up in one night an then keep building. Well needless to say some of these houses are pretty precariously built... and the people were traditionally not given many rights in the towns they moved into... so these areas developed into "slums" an were disregarded and almost feared by the rest of the city.... So now there is a gentrification process going n that is "relocating" these people into large high rises in the city (people live in apartments.. not houses in the city unless they are INCREDIbly rich or poor)... you could relate this to american cities only the apartments are MUCH higher and everywhere... i have only seen one neighborhood of houses soo far.... anndd ankara is reallly hilly.


So without further ado... these are one neighborhood of gecekondular in Ulus... a section of Ankara. Including some adorable boys local boys that were following us around