On Packing for Trips

I've had the privilege of extensive traveling - I've been to seven countries outside my own, and I've been to many places in my home country. I'll be out of town this weekend, so I'm going to be writing on THINGS I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT PACKING.
Firstly, I think I've set an unreasonable standard for myself. When I went abroad (the Turkey and Greece trip) in January 2014, I was impressed with how well I had packed. I decided to embark on a two-week trip with my duffel bag weighing 9.25 pounds. Don't believe me? Here's the proof in kilos:

if you can't read the little red number, it says "4.2". Kilograms.

So, with a 4.2-kilogram bag to be used over the course of two weeks, I have set myself a new Light-Traveling Standard to be reached every time I leave home.

How is this attainable? READ ON!

1. You don't need a new pair of underwear for every single day.

One thing I learned on that two-week trip is the value of camping underwear and small amounts of laundry detergent. Camping underwear is designed to dry quickly and be very lightweight - if you get caught in a rainstorm, the underwear can dry overnight. If you're NOT backpacking, you can still get clean underwear. Just buy some reusable, travel-size bottles (usually found near the hairbrushes and hair ties, and sometimes in the "travel for $1" section), pour in some laundry detergent, and use a few drops in a sink full of water. Alternatively...

2. Doctor Bronner's solves everything.

Doctor Bronner's is an all-in-one cleaner - it's concentrated enough to clean pretty much everything. Three drops on a washcloth is good for a face wash. One small squirt in a sink is good for small-time laundry detergent. It's available in most drug stores near the body wash, and can substitute for your body wash, shampoo (if you're daring), laundry detergent, and probably a lot more. I didn't bring it abroad last year, but I wish I had.

3. Look up what you'll be doing.

I am one of the least-planning people to ever not plan things. It does help, though, to know generally what you'll be doing and what the dress code might be. You don't need to bring a pair of heels when you'll spend most of your time at archaeological sites - unless there's some kind of archaeological gala at the end of your trip. If there are several events that would merit dressing slightly better than normal, then bring a single nice outfit (ONE dress or ONE button-down and FLATS), and dress it up in different ways. If you feel comfortable with little to no makeup, then limit what you bring - sometimes, just a bit of eyeliner will work wonders. If you feel like you CAN'T be presentable without your full face of makeup on (which is totally fine), then try and only bring the materials for a simple day-to-day look, and maybe one standout item if you need to look really snazzy really quickly.

4. You probably only need one pair jeans.

Seriously. I know it sounds gross, but if you're not going to need a fancy outfit, then you don't need to bring more than one pair of trousers. Be careful about what you do in your jeans, and it won't be too big a deal. Just bring a few different lightweight shirts, and it'll be fine.

5. You don't need to bring your whole bathroom in three-ounce containers.

I am guilty of this. You don't need many hair products aside from water and a comb and something to clean it with. You don't need lotion, unless your hands get super chapped without it. If you do, buy some scented lotion and ditch the perfume. If you bring full-sized toothpaste, see if you can share with your roommate (I know it sounds weird, but it saves a lot of space). Travel size contact solution can last for three weeks (yes, really), so you don't need a huge container of it.

6. Be versatile in your wardrobe.

When you're only wearing one pair of jeans, this is kind of a given. Bring items that are lightweight and/ or can layer, and be thematic. Blazers are super versatile and can make any outfit look good, so if you need a jacket you can use that. If you bring two short-sleeve shirts and two long-sleeve shirts, you have eight days' worth of shirts. (4 shirts worn individually, and 4 combinations of shirts). If you need more variety than that, bring a few different jewelry pieces and a lightweight scarf. DO NOT BRING EXTRA SHOES WITHOUT NECESSITY.

7. Be versatile in your leisure items.

If you are going somewhere specifically to sit with a good book or a craft project, then you can go to your couch, or maybe a cabin in the middle of nowhere. If you AREN'T leaving to write the Next Great Epic, then you don't need much entertainment - read, puzzle, and sleep on the plane. Headphones are always useful, just remember the charger.

The end of Break

Well, once again, it's super late and I'm unsure about what to post about. Though this week has been quite nice - I've gotten a lot of things together, including summer ideas (the internship didn't work out) and other day-to-day things. I've also caught up on sleep, which is nice. I've also explored a lot of recipes that can be made in mugs. (Lime cake (based off of lemon cake because we don't have lemon extract) is good).

I think the main thing I need to realize is that I need to break out of my shell more. I know that's a really strange statement to make, but I think I've had a perpetual issue with shyness. I don't talk to people sometimes, even though I sometimes want to. I know my mother, at least, is frustrated with it and wants it to stop because it can sometimes hinder things (why don't I just go into the business office and ask about internships? IF I DO, THEN MY STOMACH WILL DROP OUT OF MY BODY AND I WON'T BE ABLE TO DIGEST ANYTHING AND DO YOU REALLY WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY INEVITABLE DEATH?). Knowing me, I'd much rather do stuff alone - a consequence of being an introvert, I guess.

As an example of how much we differ on this: Earlier in the week, she proposed the idea that I travel a lot over summer break to work on my writing and have some stories to possibly pitch to travel writing companies when I get back. I got excited and started looking into flights to Europe (fun fact: it's apparently really cheap to fly to Oslo).
I was thinking that she wanted me to do the whole discovering-oneself-as-one-treks-alone-and-learning-self-confidence type thing. She had in mind that I would find a tour group for college students and sign up with that. Neither one is wrong, per se - it just depends on what is right for the individual. For my mom, it would be great to have a group that's already planned and ready to go; half the adventure is meeting the people and seeing the sights with the group she's sharing it with. That's perfectly fine - if that's your adventure, go for it.
Though that can be fun, I think I need to take a different. For me, I think it would be a bigger adventure to fly into Oslo without any Norwegian in my head and to figure out my way from there. There's no way to conquer one's fears than to do it when there's absolutely no other choice. Isn't that what my mother wants, anyway - to let me be able to talk to people better?

There's a lot of different ways to travel. Traveling in a group is more of an extrovert's thing; since I'm an introvert, going around alone is better for me. There's nothing wrong with either or even a combination of both. I understand that going in a group allows for more accountability, but sometimes the leap is part of the growth. No matter what I wind up doing this summer, I hope to be able to open up more.

On weddings and stuff

Firstly: I know I've changed the formatting a little. I've been procrastinating a bit on homework by trying to figure out how to do a little bit of HTML - then I realized that HTML is not necessarily something one can just do, and have that just be the end of it.

But HTML code is not what I'm trying to talk about today. I'm here to talk about WEDDINGS! (and by WEDDINGS, I mean the wedding I went to this weekend). It was my cousin getting married, and it was something that has been a long time coming. Most people, after all, can't say they married the person they had a crush on in fourth grade. Most poeple can't say that people argue about who REALLY got them together - and who can say, really, because they met in the fourth grade - thirteen years ago. One account is that the older sisters were the masterminds, because they were good friends and, in their high school logic, wanted a way to become SISTERS FOREVER. The best way they could think of to do it was to make their younger siblings get married - but they should "wait until they're in high school, because then it'll last." It was another person who actually confirmed that each of them liked the other. Personally, I think it was whoever asked the groom to dog-sit when he was in middle school - because nothing is more casually romantic than saying, "hey, do you wanna feed my neighbor's dog with me sometime?"

The wedding itself was nice. The ceremony barely lasted 30 minutes, which was a pretty good amount of time. At the reception, there was a candy bar - not as in 'one singular Hershey bar,' but as in 'a table full of candy.' And it was great. Later in the reception, the flower toss resulted in the flowers landing near my feet. I picked them up, and then passed them off to the five-year-old in the crowd. Why? She wanted them, and she was far less likely to shove them into a suitcase twelve hours later and leave them to die, resulting in nothing but sad memories, laundry that no longer needs to smell good, and a lot of leaves and dried pollen in her clothing.
Also, had I kept them, there might be some more pressure on me for the next family wedding. See, the last wedding I went to was that of the bride's older sister. I caught the bouquet then, too. If word got around that I got the flowers at this wedding, then I would be expected to get them at the wedding of the bride's younger sister as well. I don't want that sort of pressure. I also don't want to be expected to get married before I've traveled the world at least twice.

In an airport

Well, here I am, sitting in an airport, waiting for a flight to Florida for my cousin's wedding. This is my first time flying alone, so this has been kind of an adventure - if only for the fact that the route from school to the airport - a new way for both my ride and myself - was full of the perils of going on a left exit and then a right exit.

I think the part I was most nervous about was security. Not for any major reason - well, maybe because I hardly look like the photo on my driver's license anymore, so they might have gotten suspicious. That's not the reason I was a little nervous - it was because I was unsure how I would explain my knitting.

Most of the time I don't get nervous about taking my knitting on planes anymore - security issues with needles have been relaxed in recent years. But I'm not familiar with this airport, and I'm not sure how strict they'd be. If they pulled out my knitting, what would I say?

"What is this?"

"… my math homework…"

"How is this mathematical?"

"… um… it's a 3-D representation of a concept in non-Euclidian geometry?"

I feel like that answer would either merit me leaving or more security getting called. Or my math homework getting confiscated. Or me possibly missing my flight as I bungle an explanation on what non-Euclidian geometry is and why I am knitting it.

Anyway, boarding is soon, so I'm out. Farewell. 

On Big Things

I recently had a cause to put together my resume, and I've noticed something about things like that: there is work experience and there is life experience.

I didn't have a real job for most of high school.  So far in college, I've only been able to knit a few things for a sale.  It's safe to say that I haven't had Official Work Experience since 2012, when I worked at a summer camp at my dojang.  When I look at the Work Experience part of my resume, I feel kind of lame - one of my biggest fears is that I'm going to get trapped into a vicious cycle where my lack of work experience, especially in the field where I'm applying, prevents me from getting hired.  Generally speaking, companies that need writer-type people don't hire people who are lifeguards, camp counselors, and/ or knitters.  Even if those people are blogging novelists who can translate Homer.  (I think I'm learning that translating Homer might not be the most important life skill I acquire in college).

At the same time, I've also noticed that there is another kind of experience - the kind that doesn't go onto your resume.  What the hiring committee might not see is that I'm a second degree black belt, I know classical Greek, I can knit in two different directions (I'm assuming that the hiring committee might not even know that there are multiple ways to knit... but that's not the point), that I hiked to Machu Picchu and haggled at the Grand Bazaar in the same summer, or that I've been to seven different countries.

I don't think a resume says everything about a person - I don't know if it's supposed to.  At the same time, I think there should be more room to provide more context for someone's abilities - maybe the reason I didn't work the summer of 2011 is because I was traveling to Europe, traveling to help people, and learning how to act.  Work experience is important, yes, but so is life experience.  Hopefully everyone gets the chance to go out of their hometown - and if they do, they should take it.


Do I wish that I had given up one summer of travel for a summer of building my resume or something similar? No.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have stories.  I also wouldn't have the following pictures.

On travel

Firstly, let me apologize that I have started writing this post at 10:30 PM on Friday, but better super-late on Friday than never, right?

Anyway, today's post is going to be a bit about traveling, as you probably guessed from the title.

As you faithful readers know (all two of you), I recently got back from a trip to Greece and Turkey, as part of a travel course. Half of it was choir tour, which was cool, and the other half was Early Christianity, which was also cool. The course was interesting because of the sites we went to; places like Delphi and the Parthenon have been on my bucket list since I was around 12.

  

(for those of you who want photographic evidence that yes, I was there)

Anyway, while being at the Parthenon was one of my favorite experiences of the trip, I think one of the more valuable experiences I got was how to deal with people. We were a varied group - extroverts, introverts, fraternity guys, sorority gals, fraternity gals (yes, hi, I do exist), people who are easy to travel with, people who have never left the US, and a bunch of other things that I don't feel like categorizing right now. Some people I didn't really feel like I could bond with; others were really nice but were solidly in another group.

This is not my first time out of the US; Greece is the seventh non-US country I've been to. (Canada, Guatemala, Switzerland, Italy, Peru, and Turkey are the others). I'd like to think that I've become a fairly decent traveler - there was a time in Switzerland where I was a jerk to everyone and irritated all the time, but there were a lot of factors going on in that (and do not attribute it to biology, because the trip managed to land on the three weeks I wasn't on my period); other than that, I think college has taught me a lot about how to work with people. 

But my college experience is far from over, and I don't think I've met every single personality in the world. This trip, however, has shown me several.

First is an extrovert that I didn't know how to handle at first. I've roomed with an extrovert before - I spent an entire year with that person in a fairly good and comfortable relationship, and we're still in touch though we don't room together. This extrovert, however, is constantly chatty - not necessarily in a bad way. Where I might write or think deep thoughts in order to process emotions, she talks aloud; my feelings are put down in pen, hers are put out . She's not necessarily a bad individual; the important thing to note here is that as an extrovert, talking is her emotional processor. It took me a few nights to realize that just because she was talking, she wasn't necessarily talking to me.

What I'm trying to say here is that a protip for introverts on working with chatty extroverts is that, unless their words are actually biting in nature, they don't really mean to annoy you. It's important for you to mention if you really need them to be quiet for a while; it may take a while to explain why you're so quiet or, like my roommate on the trip, they might have an introvert sibling and know exactly what to do when you ask for some head space.

The second major type of person I learned to work with is very vocal in her opinions. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to speak up when you don't think something is working with you, but sometimes I could hear her negativity very easily. When she sat down and actually talked something out with people, she was fairly reasonable about trying to point out the positives - even if the only positive she could find was something like "well, I'm glad I tried, now I know I don't like this food," or something. Protip for everyone: try to bring in the positive and the negative into an analysis of something.

The third kind of person I encountered regularly was similar to the second, but far girlier. The second had been in the army for several years; when it comes down to it, the second girl knows how to tough things out. This third girl does too, but I only learned that through talking to her. She once wondered why people think she's stuck-up and rich when she grew up on a farm and has had several jobs over the past few years, often working a few over the summer in order to supplement her tuition. She's hardworking, but not necessarily in the army-strong way. I think the reason she often gets mistaken for being in the 'sorority trope,' for lack of a better term, is in the way she presents herself. When I say she has a full face of makeup on, I mean that she rarely leaves the room without foundation, concealer, blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow, lip gloss, and mascara. While I could easily learn a thing or two from her about how she get her eyeliner so damn precise, I think she's also someone from whom I learned a bit about self-presentation. People are going to make assumptions about you based on how you present yourself, and I'm glad that I realized that I present myself in about the way I want to be seen.

In all, I think this trip taught me as much, if not more, about how to deal with people as I did about ancient sites around the Aegean Sea. Both are important lessons.

Back in the USA!

Well, I've made it back from another reasonably good trip abroad.  I need to catch up on some posts on TravelPod (the blogging platform we used for class when we were in Greece and Turkey), but that should happen shortly - if only because the blogs must be completed by tomorrow night.  If you want to see what I was up to when I was doing the travel course, go check that out over there.  I have a link in my last post, I believe.

Anyway, now that I'm back, it's interesting to see the differences among cultures, and also the similarities.  Greece and Turkey obviously have more in common with each other than they do with the USA, in everything from length of history to kinds of food to even the coffee (there is a strong, bitter coffee in both countries that is served in a small cup with the dregs at the bottom; the Greeks call it Greek coffee and the Turks call it Turkish coffee), but that doesn't mean that there aren't things that are similar to the US.  For example, when we went out in a social context with some Greek high schoolers in Kavala, we did two rounds of bumper cars before going ice skating, and then we went for coffee (or hot chocolate, or alcohol in some cases).  There are hookah bars in a lot of places (particularly in Turkey, because that's a Thing That People Do).  Personally, if I go for hookah, I'm just there to talk to people; for me, the smoke smells good, but I don't want to inhale it too much.  I did try it a bit, just to say for sure whether or not I like it, and my conclusion is that the atmosphere is more my thing than the actual smoking.

It's hard to pick my favorite archaeological site, because we went to so many.  Going to the Parthenon was absolutely amazing, because it was something that I've really wanted to do since middle school.  One professor at our school is the director of the Agora excavation, and he was able to give us a behind-the-scenes tour of the place, which was also really cool.  Going to Greece especially was really cool for me: it's one thing to hear about these places in class; it's another thing to read about them in Ancient Greek; it's altogether a separate event to actually be there in person and to see each of the places that I've heard about so often.  My dad asked if I could check in with the Oracle of Delphi about the winner of this year's Super Bowl, but the Pythia wasn't around for predictions that day, unfortunately.

You may be wondering whether I'm going to be posting my journal here later; unfortunately, I am not.  Half of this is because we did so much that I just didn't feel up to writing a blog AND a journal for the entire second week.  The other half is that it turned into something that had more of my personal thoughts - things that I wouldn't want people to see (for example, off-the-cuff opinions of people that aren't the most flattering, because I was writing in the journal in order to vent off the negativity).  So, unfortunately, y'all are going to have to go check out my TravelPod blog if you want to go check what I was doing.

At any rate, it's good to be back in the US.  The trip to Greece and Turkey was a wonderful experience, but it's nice to not be moving around every few days.

"If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well enough to travel." - Sir Vivian Fuchs (Entry 24, Day 15)

"Travel not only stirs the blood... it also gives strength to the spirit." - Florence Prag Kahn (Entry 23, Day 15)

"Travel not only stirs the blood... It also gives strength to the spirit." - Florence Prag Kahn (Entry 22, Day 14)

"I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts." - Herman Melville, "Moby Dick" (Entry 21, Day 13)

Once again, college. I'm sorry.

"Not I - not anyone else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself." - Walt Whitman (Entry 20, Day 12/ 13)

COLLEGE

"Not I - nor anyone else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself." - Walt Whitman (Entry 19, Day 12)

10:46 PM; car

Yes, I know, I switched pens.  I lost the other one , somehow, in the last five minutes.

Anyway, the museum we went to was really cool.  It had to do with various technological developments - from the printing press and typewriter to the progression of planes, trains, and cars.

(pause for Friday planning)

We saw a video about the NASA trips to Saturn and its moons.  we were the only ones there for the film, which was in Turkish without English subtitles, so Begüm had to translate for me.  The rest of the museum had English sides to the info cards, so it all worked out fine after the film.

We left the museum around 1:00 or 1:30, and went to the Miniatürk museum.  We had lunch at the cafe there, and then we walked around to see the displays, which were really cool.  They were all laid out outside, and they're all plastic scale models of the major sites in Turkey with audio descriptions available.  There are places like Maiden's Tower in the Bosphorus, but also like Cappadochia and Ephesus and stuff.  It was really cool.  Paths connected each of the 'sites,' which are on plots of grass and blocked off with rope, like in normal museums (except for the water-based ones, like the Maiden's Tower; they have a pseudo-Bosphorous - an actual body of water - where the Maiden's Tower was place).

My apologies for my atrocious handwriting.  ....this, will write when we get back.

"Make voyages! Attempt them... there's nothing else." - Tennessee Williams (Entry 18, Day 12)

Thursday, 22 August, 2013; 10:30 PM; Waffle Line

Yep, we're standing in line to get waffles, because we're cool.  it's way after dinner, so this is dessert, I guess.  I'm excited.  I'm splitting one with Genesis, though.  I don't think I can handle she sugar otherwise.  (change: I'm stealing bits of others, because splitting won't work).

So this morning, we went to Istanbul with Hülya.  I don't recall the name of the museum we went to, but it was really cool.

"Make voyages! Attempt them... there's nothing else." - Tennessee Williams (Entry 17; Day 11/12)

Thursday, August 22, 2013; 12:46 AM; our room

I fear that this must be very brief, because we have to wake up before 9:00 tomorrow.  Well, today.  Whatever.  This etry is for the 21st of august, so... yeah.  I might not hit the page count; if I don't, I'm sorry.  I'll make up for it at some point.

This morning was fairly uneventful.  I woke up at around 9, had cereal for breakfast, painted my own nails, hung out on the balcony with my iPod for a while.  I was the only one awake, so it doesn't count as being antisocial.

I woke Gen up at 11:00 ish, just so I could have someone to talk to after a while.

After she was properly awake and showered and stuff, we hung out in the living room for a while.  Buse was up by 1:00; Begüm was up around 3:00.  At 4:00, all of us except Buse went to the pool and swam around a bit.  I remained radioactively pale.  It's rather unfortunate.

After that, we came back and made fried chicken and salad for dinner.  Buse and I played piano for a little bit.  I had a flashback to a piano recital when I was 7 - one of Buse's books has Bach's Minuet in G.  Muscle memories die hard, especially when established young.

When Hülya arrived, we all had a brief, joking discussion on how we should make sure to get the ferry back from Princes' Islands when we go - apparently (jokingly) there are vampires and werwolves on the islands.  We decided that Buse would be the bodyguard, because she's seen the most episodes of True Blood, so she knows best how to fight them.

Starting at around 11:15, Günay, Hülya, Gen, Buse, and I had a really intense game of 51.  We didn't play the full 11 hands - we only gout to around 8 before we decided we were tired enough to want to go to bed.

I WON!  The point is to have the fewest points, and I had 150.  Buse had 160; Günay had 168.  It was all really fun.

I was established in the first round as the biggest competition, because I made Gen, Buse, and Günay all get the 100-point penalty for not opening their hand by the time someone closes.  Günay is really competitive in n amusing sort of way.  He calls the Joker "JoJo" and ill frequently say something along the lines of "Where's my JoJo?  Where's my friend?  Hülya, do you have my JoJo?  Are you split between JoJo and me?" (that last bit was only once or twice, and definitely in a joking manner).  He frequently would talk as he inspected his hand, his cigarette wagging in his mouth and everything coming out in a really amusing manner.  It was hilarious.

In all, I think this evening has been one of the most memorable, because this evening we laughed the most.  It was the first time I've hung out with the whole family together, and it was great.

Now, sleep.

I should have written before.  Oh, well.

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving." - Lao-Tsu (Entry 16, Day 10)

Tuesday, 20 August, 2013; 10:30 PM; living room, host family

Today has been long and exhausting.  We woke up early to leave by 9 or 9:30 (which is two hours earlier than we've been waking up previously).  Then we went off to the pharmacy where Hülya (the mom) works.  There, we ate breakfast.  Genesis had her fortune told by Hülya in the dregs of Gen's Turkish Coffee.  The way you do it is to flip the cup over when you're done with the coffee and wait for the bottom to go room temperature.  Then you look at what's on the cup's bottom and what's on the saucer.

After some inspection of the cup and a bit of translating, Gen learned that in six months, she will meet her true love on a long train ride.  They will share a romantic moment on a rainy night where the moon is a crescent.  Gen will also lose a close friend and will need to get two Evil Eyes, both of which are going to break.  Her mother also needs to be cautious about men her own age.

We concluded that Gen needs to be cautious around her friends and plan train rides around the lunar calendar.

I'd be more willing to do this sort of thing if it did not involve taking the caffeine equivalent of a double shot of espresso.  I can barely handle a single shot of espresso.

After that, we took a walk and several metro rides to THE GRAND BAZAAR.

Lemme tell you something: that place is HUGE. THere are several different areas: the spice area smells really good, the ceramics area is an explosion of color and pattern; the jewelry area, obviously, glitters; the scarves are obviously just as bright as the ceramics.  we didn't really see the carpet area, because if the four of us pooled together our available amounts of Lira, we'd probably be able to purchase something the size of a small placemat (or a table runner, if we haggled a lot, and only in Turkish, because they double the price for English-speakers, since 1:2 is about the dollar-to-Lira exchange rate). I spotted some really cool notebooks, too, in one of the stores.  I had Buse ask the price of them; 45 Lira is apparently a bit expensive for notebooks of that size (admittedly, when I went further notebook shopping, since I want to get one for my boyfriend, I found out she was right, but still.  I didn't see any Evil Eye notebooks anywhere else).  If I get a chance to go back, I'm getting a notebook.  If not, then my apologies to my boyfriend; he's going to get the standard, boring gift of Turkish Delight.

Apparently, just outside the Bazaar, which is closed-in, is an open-air bridal/ wedding area, which is also huge.  (Keep in mind that when I say 'area,' I mean several blocks worth, both inside and outside the bazaar).  Not only is this an area for dresses, it's also like the Buy Stuff From the Wedding Registry Area.  You'd think that a country where 99% of the citizens identify as Muslim would be kind of modest about some things, but lingerie is just as openly hung here as anything else.  we also spent at least an hour in a cheap jewelry shop.  I didn't buy anything.

In all, all my purchases before 2:00 included one mug.  It's a very nice mug.  I like it a lot.

Then we went to lunch.  The thing about the US is that, when doing 'ethnic' food, they only do it one way.  Kebaps are only served on a skewer and disregard the kind we had today.  It was mixed meat, build-your-own into toasted Pita bread.  As always, it was delicious.  We sat on the second floor and had a nice view of the street and the Golden Horn.

While we were there, one of the sisters called someone on the street a 'f*g,' as she was pointing him out in the conversation.  Gen and I were both surprised; that's not a term that LGBTQ friends hear lightly, at least in the US.  The sister said it wasn't as bad here; she, at least, greets her fiends in a joking, 'hey, asshole/ whore' sort of tone, and calling someone by that term she had just used was just a way to point out someone slightly different from the rest.  Sure, this guy was a tourist with the ends of his hair bleached, but that was the first time I'd heard her use the term.

It could be a cultural difference in connotation, but I feel like it could be something else, just by observing the way that she and her sister (and Gen, to an extant, by hanging out with them al summer) talk about themselves - eating until they're full and calling themselves 'fat' or 'glutton' or things like that.  Sometimes I want to talk sense into them when they say that.  IT'S FOOD. YOU HAVE A FUNCTIONING DIGESTIVE SYSTEM.  YOU CAN EAT UNTIL YOU ARE FULL, UNLIKE BILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.  I'd feel like I was crossing some sort of line if I actually said that, though.

After lunch, we visited the New Mosque, which was pretty cool.  I didn't have as much context for it as some of the other mosques we've been to, so I couldn't appreciate it as much as the others, but it was still cool.

Then we walked to Taksim, where, after almost an hour's stop in Starbucks, we went on a Quest for Notebooks.  It was fun, and took us to small stores dedicated only to notebooks and pens (of the drawing sort, too), which is AMAZING.  We also went to a small bookstore.  I was tempted, but the danger in remaining there would be that I would later have a full capacity to speak Turkish and also an empty wallet from ALL THE TURKISH BOOKS I would buy.  I wound up with two notebooks; sadly, neither of them are any that James would appreciate.

Then Buse and I headed out to meet Hülya; Bergüm and Genesis stayed on to do some more shopping and meet up with Buse and Bergüm's dad later.

In all, today was fun.  Another slow day ahead, but I'm looking forward to it. :)

"If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears." - Glenn Clark (Entry 15, Day 9)

Monday, 19 August, 2013; 10:40 PM; Host family's living room.

Today, I learned several things.

1. Turkish soap Operas are... interesting.  I'm still trying to figure out whether I like this show or not.  It's a formulaic plot of "who slept with whose former fiancée/ spouse, who is this girl in love with, who is feeling guilty for stabbing the FMC in the uterus" type of shows (though I don't entirely understand why someone stabbed the FMC in the uterus).  I also don't get why the girl's former fiancée keeps bringing her flowers.  You'd think he'd get the hint after the third time he saw her put them in the dumpster.  Wait... no... she's keeping them this time.  Also, the ad break went during the Epic Romantic Stare on the Balcony.  The funny bit was that it was an ad for a set of fried eggs that were placed kind of like eyes.

2. Supermarkets are a good place to learn languages.

3. Ketchup is spelled similarly in Turkish.

4. 51 is a fun card game.  It involves trying to get rid of all one's cards in a manner that is difficult to explain.  It's called 51 because you have to have the cards you're trying to open with add up to 51.  You can open with 3/4 of the cards of a certain number (three eights, for example), but if it doesn't add up, you can't open.  You'll frequently need to open with multiple sets.  The other way to do it is to have a streak of numbers in the same suit.  Jokers are used if necessary, though if someone clears their hand and you still have one in your hand (aka not on the table), then you get a penalty. You also get penalized if you discard a card that someone else could use (like the fourth eight) and if you start to open and then realize you can't.  Also, Ace of Spades (incurs a penalty if you have it in your hand). All of those are a 25 - point penalty.  If you don't open by the time someone else clears their hand, then you get penalized 100 points.  The game uses two decks of cards; everyone gets dealt 14 cars; the person to the left of the dealer starts.  There's an upside-down pile that you draw your cards from.  The discard pile is face-up; you can draw from that, but only if it means you can open something with it.  That doesn't apply to the first person, who starts with the card face-up.

5.  Apparently, the adults in the house can get super competitive over a game of 51.

6. Bergüm, we learned, can play computer games until four in the morning, and then sleep until almost four in the afternoon.

7.  Coca-cola has way less sugar here than it does in the US.  In a 330 mL, there's 37 grams of sugar; in the US, it's at least 45.

That's basically what we did today.  Gen and I woke up at around 11and had a breakfast of Nutella and bread.  We tried to put honey on it, too, but Gen accidentally dropped the jar. Since it's glass, it broke.  We cleaned as best we could, but we still had to tread with caution for the rest of the day (Part of the issue is that it's frequently considered impolite to wear your shoes indoors, so we normally go barefoot).

At around 2:00, I learned to play 51.  I'm terrible at it - once we played with penalties, it quickly became clear that I would lose miserably (I kept putting away usable cards and not being able to open my hand before Buse cleared all of hers) (A/N: I would like to point out, for the record, that this has as much to do with Buse's being excellent at 51 as it does with my noob status).  In all, I as around 300 points behind Buse by the end of it all.

As previously mentioned, Bergüm woke up at around 4:00.  After she arrived in the living area and we wrapped up the card game, we all sat around and didn't do much.  I did a bit of reading, messed up my samurai sudoku, and did a little bit of writing.  For some reason, I was able to start in a new world (writing-wise) today.  Normally I stick to the ones I've already created, but this was a weird and unexpected combination of dystopia (not really) and DnD classes.  The setup is one of the darker things I've written.  The speaker is being hazed into this organization by participating in this underground revolution.  It has to be underground because if they get found out, they'll be found guilty in a ten-minute trial and wiped from existence.  Like, each of their names will be erased from the ledgers of their landlord, their grocer, the brothel, and the public library.  All debts will be erased, and mages will remove them from the memories of everyone except their mothers, who will be forbidden to speak of them.

I don't know where I'm going to go with this, but I like it.  I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that it kind of reminds me of 1984.  (I wasn't a huge fan of the work at the time I read it.  The only things that got me through it were patience and half a pound of jellybeans).

Ah, well.  It's not as bad as the time I had to read 80% of Wuthering Heights in a day.  That wasn't fun.  Wuthering Heights is obnoxiously dense.  At least Jane Austen has some sort of adaptability!  And Jane Austen, if experienced as an audiobook, is actually pretty good!

Conclusion:
If you ike dystopia, read George ORwell.
If you like character developmment in your romance novels, read Jane Austen.
If you want a super-massive brain fart, read Wuthering Heights.

"It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are." - Joyce Carol Oates (Entry 14, Day 8)

Sunday, 18 August, 2013; 9:49 PM; Host family's iving room.

Well, I've finally made it to my host family's house and met everyone.  They're all super nice.  genesis was an exchange student on a summer program a few years ago; she's from New York - she and I are the same age (she just finished her first year at NYU).  Buse and Begüm are the two sisters (and I just got Buse to spell their names so I didn't mess them up); Buse is going to start high school soon (she's hoping to go to a German school, since it focuses on sciences), Begüm is finishing up at an Italian school (that might be one that focuses on the humanities, but I'm not sure).

That's the interesting thing about schooling in Turkey: high school is almost like undergrad college in the US, and University is like getting grad degrees.  Turkey produces some of the youngest doctors in the world because of this system - they're done with their essential relevant sciences by the time they go to college, so they can go to their specialty right when they go to college.  Sometimes I wonder why the US doesn't do that, but Gizem said yesterday that some students could say the same about the admissions process in the US.  Maybe if the two could get meshed together, it would work out for the best.

The major events of today have mostly been coming to this house and having dinner here.  All the people are really nice.   The girls keep going on a bout this card game called 51.  Apparently it's addicting.  I'm just waiting for my tutorial on the matter so I can see for myself.

Right, Gen is back from showering, and Bergüm brought in water... I think we're waiting for Buse to go shower before we start.  Or maybe w're just waiting for Buse to finish watching Teen Wolf and... never mind.

I apparently just made up a new word - 'creepertude.'  It's when people are being very creepy.  Maybe.  I dunno.

Also, Genesis spoiled what happens at the Red Wedding (Game of Thrones).  I have been told that revealing the Red Wedding events is revealing the events of the Super Mega Epic Spoiler of the series. Now I know the Super Huge Twist at the end of the series, and I'm not even a real 20 pages into the first book yet.  Thanks, Gen.

(If any readers want to know who dies, it's EVERYONE YOU LOVE AND CARE ABOUT AND EVERYONE YOU HATE AND EVERYONE YOU ARE AMBIVALENT ABOUT.  THE REST OF THE SERIES IS A LIE.  That's the most spoiler-free spoiler I can come up with in the Game of Thrones universe).

I really need to get into GoT more.  It would save me a whole lad of hassle, like having to go "BLAH BLAH BLAH" and plug my ears whenever Alex and Sean go on about GoT, or getting kind of mad at Genesis about spoiling the Red Wedding.  (If your'e reading this, Gen, I'm still working on forgiving you about it).

I'm not sure what to say right now.  The four of us are hanging out in the living room.  I've taken a few breaks (from writing) to talk to people about stuff (like talk to Gen about the spoilers), but not much of consequence happened today.  Boring, I know.

Well, on the way, we stopped at one of the largest malls in Istanbul.  Gizem and I didn't get anything except some water at Starbucks, because we were waiting for her dad to pick something up.

We did stop at one place before that.  We went to a smaller mall that's open-air (the top level is, at least; all the shops have glass windows and roofs, but there's no universal ceiling to the walkways).  We didn't do much shopping there, but Gizem did stop at this one place called Watson's.  I'd call it a pharmacy type place, but it's not, really, because you can't fill meds there, and places like CVS have snacks and stuff, too.  Watson's is basically the entire personal care area of CVS, but a lot bigger.  Soap, shampoo, cosmetics, nail polish, toothbrushes, lip balm, all that sort of thing.  They have way more of it than CVS would ever stock, because it's a specialty store. I didn't think you could have that much of those specific items in one store.  Obviously, there's the places like Bath and Body Works, which do just the lotions and some air fresheners and stuff, and there's the outlets just for cosmetics, but this is like... this is not either of those.  Really, it's like personal care in CVS exploded into a premises bigger than it ever would have at CVS.

Right, enough about Watson's.  We didn't even do that much there.  Why did I spend so much time describing it?  I think I'm just trying to fill space, at this point.

To summarize:

1. my host family is really nice.
2. my host cousin makes really good crepes.
3. don't ask Genesis what happens at the Red Wedding.
4. Istanbul has rally big malls.
5. Some of these malls do not have proper ceilings on the top floor.
6. Watson' is basically the Personal Care Store of Everything You'd Possibly Need To Take Care Of Your Body (except maybe tampons.  Didn't check for those).

Wit that, I'm going to conclude this entry.  Goodnight.

P.S. Gen and I are on the top floor.  It gets kind of warm, but the view from our balcony is great.

"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Michael Proust (Entry 13, Day 7)

Saturday 17 August, 2013; 10:59 PM; Host family Family's house

Today was quite interesting.  Gizem got the day off from her internship (she's studying architecture and is doing an internship in that field), and she went around the city with me.  It really makes a difference to go around a city with someone who actually knows something about it.  For example, we spent a good amount of time on the street where we were on Tuesday (the one that leads up to Taksim) (A/N: actually, this is what most of the locals actually call Taksim.  That is the street name.  When people asked me, 'have you been to Taksim?', they meant to inquire as to whether I had been to this market street), but Gizem and her friend, Aja (sp?), didn't go to any of the major stores - they knew where to turn for all of the small offshoots of shops of small trinket-type items that are still cool.

Today was also nice because I got a solid ten hours of sleep, and it was completely okay.  Of course, that and the post-dinner coffee will mean that I probably get a solid four hours tonight, but it was worth it.

Anyway, at breakfast I learned an important way to eat bread and eggs.  If the eggs are fried but the yolk is still gooey, EAT THE YOLK WITH THE BREAD FIRST, so it won't get all gross all over your plate.  I saw Gizem doing it this morning, and I realized just how genius it actually was.

THe way to eat bread, aside from with egg yolk, is with this Turkish milk-based spread and honey.  It's really good.  I wish Americans had Turkish food.  REAL Turkish food.  Can't we all just move to Turkey?  (Actually, no, I'm pretty sure the Turks would hate it).

Anyway, we went to the same street where the group was on Tuesday to meet up with Gizem's friend whose name I can't spell but is really nice.  After we met up with her, we passed a school (the one that Can and Mert described as a high-school Turkish Harvard, because you need practically full marks on the entry exams to get in), where people were staging a nonviolent protest.  Gizem's friend explained that it was a protest of the jailing of some people from the Taksim Square protests.

She also explained why people were doing the Taksim protests in the first place.  Apparently, the government is favoring a select number of people for benefits of some sort.  They say it's because these people are good Muslims (or something to that effect), but there are enough people who are equally fit under those terms that people are starting to get fed up with the whole thing (as in, "I DO THOSE THINGS! WHERE ARE MY BENEFITS?").  Initially the protest started with just some people in the square, tying to draw attention to it.  That happens a lot with political protests in Turkey, apparently - people try to draw attention to things, but it dies down after a few months.  The difference this time is that after the protesters went to their tents and square and went to bed one night, the police came and set fire to the tents.  Not many people died, thankfully, but still - there were kids in some of those tents.

Anyway, that's what made this not just another protest, I think - people aren't liking what's going on.  As far as I know, the people in jail weren't acting too far outside of the law, if at all.

After the protest explanations and the small shopping, we went to a cafe to get a snack.  Even lentil salads are really good here!  It's ridiculous!

I think I've been more daring with food since I've ben here - if you told me two weeks ago that I'd be having a lentil salad and enjoying it, I'd give you a weird look and tell you to keep telling yourself that. But today I had a lentil salad, and it was great.

After we paid, Gizem and I left her friend and went to Istanbul Modern - a museum for modern art.  Some of the pieces were actually really cool.  There was one really long textile that had a photo of cigarette smoke woven onto it (for lack of a better term).  There was also a film with two tapes running side-by-side - one of the daily comings and goings of home life, and the other of news footage of protests and bombings.  It's kind of saying 'people are oblivious' and 'life goes on' at the same time.

After the museum, we took a ferry to the Asian side and back again.  We saw the Maiden's Tower and Princes Islands on the way.  Gizem said that she didn't know why the Islands were called that, and the guidebook didn't say.  the story of the tower is kind of interesting, though.

So a king learns from a fortune teller that his daughter is going to be killed (A/N: some say that it was a prophetic dream that she will be killed on her eighteenth birthday).  What does he do?  BUILD A TOWER ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RIVER.  (okay, not in the middle, but but far enough away that if an assassin were to swim out there, they'd be too tired to do much except wheeze and groan upon arrival, and then they'd probably wouldn't have the energy to get back).  Anyway, the princess lives in the tower for a few years and doesn't die from direct assassination.  In a true twist of fate that normally only happens in tales like these, she does die, because someone manages to hide a venomous snake in the fruit bowl that was her meal one day (they took food out to her every day).  The moral of the story is that you can't escape fate, because Fate will find a way to stick a snake in your fruit if it has to.  If Fate has to stick a snake in your fruit, it probably means you're going to die alone in a tower in the Bosphorus.

On that happy note, I'm going to bed.

Good Song: The other woman?  By...???

"I sought trains; I found passengers." - Paul Theroux (Entry 12, Day 6)

Friday, 16 August, 2013; 10:53 PM; Host Family's House

Okay, that heading is a bit of a lie.  Im really at the Host Family's Family's house - that of their uncle, aunt, and cousin, Gizem (not sure I spelled that right).  Anyway, they're all really nice.  The mom kept giving me extra food during dinner - that's the culture here.  Pace yourself.  Being told you eat well is a compliment, but's also one of those things that you get asked about by inquiring family members. Gizem's grandma called during dinner and apparently asked whether I ate well.

(later, after hanging laundry)

Anyway, Gizem and her parents are really nice.  Gizem, for example, just brought me some tea.  The idfficult is, of course, that Gizem's third language is English (her second is French); she and her dad have to translate for her mom.  In all, it's worked out all right.

But now t tell about the rest of the day.

We woke up at 6 AM with six hours of sleep. We had to rush to make sure everything was where it should be by 7:00, but the bus was still haf an hour late.  Most of the ride to Edirne was spent asleep or trying to imitate it.  It's a three-hour ride, so we were able to catch up well enough.

The first place we went was founded in the fifteenth (or maybe sixteenth) century as an affordable hospital and med school. They even offered free meds on certain days of the week.  They also had inpatient care for people with mental or physical issues ranging from epilepsy to depression to melancholy to lunacy, and designed the inpatient area to be avery acoustically sound - the hospital used a lot of music therapy as treatment.  They even used different styles of music to treat different things.  I wasn't familiar with all the styles, so I can't say which belonged to which issue (I also can't remember any of the names of the styles).

After that, we had lunch at a meatball place.  Sean had liver, which I don't totally get; it's not necessarily that the liver is bad, it's just that the meatballs are really good. 
(Also, just wanted to say again how SUPER AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL the family is.  Just had the whole discussion of What Time To Wake Up Tomorrow.  We decided on the 9-10 range.  I can work with that.  Also, Gizem said that she just read the host family letter I had to write in April and she said she really liked it.  That makes me very happy :) ).

Right.  After our 2:00-ish lunch, we went to two mosques.  I don't recall the name of the first one, but it was interesting for two reasons (that I recall):
1. there were a lot of domes in the courtyard and they were ALL PAINTED, and they were each different from the ones on either side (I think they matched from across the courtyard, but it was still really cool).
2. There were a lot of domes inside, too, and THOSE were all unique, too, as well as the corners of the dome (well, the corners in the space below the dome). Some were honeycombed, some were fluted, all were really coo.  There are also carvings on the wooden shutters (for lack of a better term) on the windows in all the niches; those were all variations on the same pattern as well.

Backtrack for a second: before we went to this mosque, we went to a small bazaar (we went to one before lunch, too, and I got YARN. It's all acrylic, but still).  At the bazaar after lunch, I got two head scarves and some bracelets for some friends.  Mom had a mixup with the seller of the bracelets.  She wanted to buy a keychain; she thought he was asking 15 Lira for it (about $7.50), when he was really asking 1.5 Lira ($.75).  Obviously, $7.50 is a bit pricey for a keychain, so she tried to bargain it to 10 Lira. He seemed really confused, and eventually he had to pull out the exact amount from the change drawer to show her that 10 Lira is not what he'd take for a keychain.

Back to later.  The second mosque we visited was called the Old Mosque.  It was built in 1414 and was one of the original mosques in Turkey.  In style, it actually resembles some of the mosques in Egypt and that area.  It's really cool because the names of Allah and the prophets are written right onto the stone, not painted onto tile and hung up.

After the Old Mosque, we went and dropped Alex off at the place where she would meet her family.  However, the guide seemed to have thought that both Sean and I were going to the Asia side, so he said both of us would be dropped off with Can at the ferry.  We met Can, and he said Cemre told him that he only needed to handle Sean's passage (I thought that too).  After making a few calls, he sorted it all out, and we figured out what was going on and whom we had to meet where, and there I met Gizem and her dad, and it all worked out fine.  HUZZAH!