Ali made some real progress today. She told our professor her name was Ali, not Alice.

This is sort of a real post.

Last Sunday we ran the 8k "fun run" of the Istanbul Eurasia Marathon. When I say "we," I mean a whole mess o' exchange students from the US (and one from Dublin!) and about 2,000,000 Turks. If you imagine that scene in LOTR TT when the Orc (or is the Uruk-hai? I mean, they turn away when Gandalf shines the light from his staff, but they were made by Saruman, so I guess maybe it was a mix?) army is descending on Helm's Deep, it was sort of similar to that... except for the smell, I imagine. And I doubt there were really cute Turkish kids at Helm's Deep.

The race started at 9:30, so that means we had to get up at 5:30. God I wish that was a typo, but we had to catch a 7 am shuttle to A DIFFERENT CONTINENT to make it there in time. I hadn't met some of the exchange students we were running with, so the ride over was a good chance to test the limits of my small-talking capabilities. I figured that if I enjoyed their company as rain made the already-way-too-early morning even more annoying, I'd probably enjoy it even more under more favorable conditions. Turns out I was right.

The registration for this race had ended a few days before I found out about it, so we were just going to scab it (is that a real term?) and see what happened. Andrew (from Indy) said that we wouldn't be able to cross the finish line and might get kicked out, but it didn't end up going down like that. What we perceived to be a well-organized and unique race (remember that word) was apparently perceived differently by the Turkish. I say this because whereas the previous "fun runs" that I've participated in have had, say, people running, this one was more a chance to hang out with your friends and family on a Sunday morning.

No really, it was like being on a very busy sidewalk that happened to be 6 lanes wide. People were walking both directions, vendors were selling food and umbrellas, and this guy was there:



The IEM is the only marathon in the world that spans two continents, and since the 8k follows the same route, many people take this opportunity to stage photo-ops on the Bosphorus bridge. It's closed the other days of the year, meaning that even the rain couldn't keep the throngs of Istanbulites away. Despite the crowd, cramps, and rain, Andrew and I decided to actually run the 8 god damn k's, and were rewarded with a medal, a too-big-for-me t-shirt, and a certificate of completion at the end. Not bad for an early morning. If you ever think you can't cover 5 miles at once, realize that that thought didn't occur to this woman:



It was really a great experience, one that I'll remember for a long time. Other stuff has been happening, but most of my time is spent thinking of ways to battle the Turkish bureaucracy, or playing handball. TEAM handball. Like you used to play in PE, but now with really big guys who use strategy and stuff. I'm easily the worst player on the court at all times.

Man, this blog really sucks.

But do you know what doesn't suck?

Being asked if you're ambidextrous during a warm-up drill.

uhhghghhg.

The Hagia Sophia is the coolest building I've ever been in, and I've been to Peoria.

After a month here, my roommates busted out a box with hot plates, pans, and cooking utensils. Then they went out and bought a whole bunch of food. I see some fried egg sandwiches in my very near future.

Had there been a syllabus for my modern Turkish history class (there was, but only one copy, and she doesn't really plan on making more), it probably would have looked like this:


ATA 405.1 - The History of the Turkish Republic for Foreign Students

Professor Sevtap Demirci

• MA (Bogacizi University, Istanbul)
  
• MLIP (Cambridge...Cambridge University... University of Cambridge...)
• Ph.D. (LSOE... and Political Science)

Office Hour
Thursday, 3-4 (notice: this coincides with my coffee break, so please only visit me if you'd like to drink something with me. I multitask).

Course Description
This class covers the period of Ottoman and Turkish history from 1839 (does anyone know why that date is significant? Hmmm, anyone? 1839.... no? Tanzimat. Westernization. Tanzimat.) to 1938. No, 1939. No, 1938. So... about 100 years. Why is 1938 significant? Anyone? Anyone? Ataturk's death. Mustafa KEMAL ATATURK. I will teach this class in literally any way you would like- presentations, discussion, lecture. I assume you're all very familiar with the subject matter already, so all of these methods are valid.



Required Readings
Please select a book and read it.
There are no weekly readings.
Do the readings before class so we can discuss them.


Schedule
Week 1
This week we'll go over the syllabus, determine who can and can not speak Turkish in strange and vaguely humiliating ways, change this class from 15 people to 60 people, and show how little preparation is required to teach this course.

Week 2-12
Whatever is on my mind at 3 pm on Tuesdays. Theoretically, we will cover these subjects:

1. Ottoman Empire
2. Political, Economic, and Social Structure of the Ottoman Empire
3. The Eastern Question (does anyone know what this is? Anyone? No, American students, but good guesses! It happened after World War I and occupied European relations with the Ottoman Empire for the next 150 years! What's that? Oh no, it came to an end after WWI, obviously. It began in 1774.)
4. Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (After WWI, we can no longer talk about the Ottoman Empire)
   
5. Efforts to prevent the Decline of the Ottoman Empire (But somehow, this part comes after WWI.)
6. WWI (Someone say the word armistice! I will look each and every one of you in the eyes until you say the word armistice!)
   
7. Period of National Struggle
   
8. Lausanne Peace Treaty
9. Kemalist Principles

We'll probably be able to cover all of these topics in only 2 hours a week, with at least 1 hour devoted to me fluttering around the room.

We'll have our final a few weeks before the end of the term, and then our final in January. Oh whoops, I mean mid-term. We'll have our midterm, then one class period, then our final.



Grading
Midterm - 50%
Final - 50%
Total - 100%

so...

Midterm + Final = Grade
because
50% + 50% = 100%

Wait, let me show you that on the board. Are you students familiar with dividing by 2?

Class attendance - extra credit
Class Participation - extra credit

If you are studying abroad this semester, let me know. Oh wait, "for foreign students" is in the name of this class? So you're all studying abroad? Please wait one second while I disregard that and complain about how registration works at this university.




Should be a good semester.

READ WELL, ADORING FANS

It's possible that on an overnight bus ride, wherever you are at dawn is the most beautiful part of the trip. However, it's just as possible that a perfectly clear morning in rural northern Turkey, with mountains silhouetted against a silent sky, fails all explanation. Welcome to Sinop.




Sinop is a small town along the Black Sea. It's not really a tourist destination, but Ali and I decided that we wanted to go somewhere along the Black Sea, and this place looked nice. An overnight bus ride from Istanbul's Otogar (this place is ridiculous, by the way. It's a bus depot for a country that relies heavily on them, complete with convenience stores and restaurants. Imagine a gigantic parking garage with like 100 businesses operating out of it. Thousands of buses. Mind-boggling, really) put us in Sinop at about 9. We got ripped off by a cabbie (for the first time!) and found a small hotel. The duder there was about 140, really nice, and patient with our miming / complete ignorance. We tooled around the port for a few hours, took a nizzap, and hit the town. First stop: prison.


Sinop's Fortress Prison for Redundant Criminal Crooks existed in some form since the 7th century BC before closing down in 1997. Now it's a tourist attraction, although I should be very clear about this part- it's some buildings you can walk through. Place was weird. The rooms were either not cleaned out or poorly decorated, entire buildings lacked signs or explanations, and for a place as big as this prison, there was no one working. Like, no security. No custodians. Just people wandering around, apparently peeing everywhere. Oh yeah, the place reeked of urine. That was its redeeming feature.

In reality it was kind of nice. Ali and I walked around for a while, speculating as to the various uses of these torture-chamberesque rooms, wondering about what Turkey considers "tourist-worthy." Here are some pictures:



Those don't really communicate anything other than "Jesus Tom, you should learn the basics of photography." But yeah, Sinop Fortress Prison... we spent like 3 hours there.


We were still exhausted, so it was a pretty early night. The next day our plan was to explore these waterfalls about an hour away, but we realized that there was a big hill just asking to be climbed. This was one of the better decision we've made, as it afforded us these views:

Pretty dope, right? To get there we had to trespass on some farmer's land, which may or may not be owned by the government. All I'm saying is some military guy whistled at us from a guard tower. Sinop kind of juts out from Turkey, meaning that the Black Sea borders it on both sides. An island connected to land, basically. Which one of you will be the showoff who tells me the proper name for that in the comments section? Swaney? I think it's going to be Swaney.

That night we took another overnighter (why do Turkish people like this? It's kind of cool, but maybe not for how often we're doing it) back to Istanbul. All in all a successful weekend, and we certainly learned that we can travel without too much worry. People were nice, interesting, and engaging despite our complete lack of Turkish. Classes start tomorrow and I'm pretty excited to get into a routine. These last 3 weeks I've felt in limbo between summer and college, and am ready to fall hopelessly behind in schoolwork. Yeah, 11 week semester.







Oh, and regarding that last post: I guess I'll explain a few pictures in each of the next few posts, starting with the ones i'll forget soonest / are the most interesting. Here we go:

TURK KASI! This is the ultimate team I'm playing with. Maybe half ex-pats, half Turks, half jungle, half stack, 100% rewarding. These people play with the passion that got me playing in the first place, and it's so refreshing to watch 30 year old men and women fall in love with the game, throw terrible forehands, and gleefully chase a 175 gram piece of plastic all over a piece of crap rock pit that calls itself a soccer field. We play once a week from 2-7, which works out well for me. I didn't come to Istanbul to play ultimate, but when I'm not traveling, it's nice to go out there and run for a bit.

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There are a lot of stray dogs here. What's weird is that Istanbul has many of these dogs tagged to show that they're up-to-date on their shots, so you shouldn't be worried when one of them bites you. What? That's some weird logic. These "freedom dogs" have been known to bite, but usually only when they travel in packs... which is after dark... on my campus. Whatever, it's better than putting these dogs to sleep, I suppose. But anyway, a lot of these dogs are sassy. I've spent an unhealthy amount of time trying to take pictures of them, and will soon begin assigning them voices. Many of you know what I'm talking about. The rest of you will find out eventually. There are also stray cats, but they tend to be sadder.