Gobble Gobble Part II

The second half of my Turkish journey was spent mostly on planes and buses and more buses, but the in-between was entirely worth it. On Tuesday, we flew from Istanbul to Antalya, a town on the southern coast of Turkey, and then took series of three different buses through gorgeous mountain roads with occasional views of the sea before finally arriving at our destination--the Bayram's Treehouses in the tiny village of Olympos.

Our stay in Olympos could not have been more different than our experiences in Istanbul. The mere 36 hours that we spent there were filled with exploring 2nd century BC ruins, lounging on the beach in the sun, night swimming, playing with the stray dog that adopted us, chatting by the fire with the myriad other interesting travelers, and, best of all, sleeping in a TREE HOUSE. If this isn't paradise, I don't know what is.

Our distinguished tree house.

Gabby and our adopted stray dog, Qirsh. He was very
concerned for our safety and barked incessantly anytime a
stranger tried to come anywhere near us.

Lura and I on the beach.
(Courtesy of Gabby Arens)

Gabby and I climbed to the top of the ruins aka up a
mountain (in skirts and sandals no less). 
Greatest view on earth. 
(Courtesy of Gabby Arens)

Gabby, exploring the ruins of Olympos.

After our brief stay in Olympos, we headed back to Istanbul for one last night of whirlwind adventure. Gabby's family friend's sister-in-law, Akca, had graciously insisted that we spend our last night with her and her boyfriend Ercan in their apartment in Chihagir (Istanbul's equivalent of Greenwich village) instead of in a hostel. We had the greatest time with them--we drank tea at an itty bitty cafe overlooking the water, ate a delicious kebab dinner in Taksim and dessert right next to the Gallata Tower (so beautiful at night!), and went dancing until the wee hours of the morning.

View from Akca's living room window!
.

Sunset tea overlooking the Bosphorus?
Yes, please!

Ercan, Akca, Lura, me, and Gabby in Taksim. 
They have a silly device on the side of the street that
takes your picture and then emails it to you!

The next morning, we awoke to the only sunny day in Istanbul of our entire trip. After some exploring of Chihagir and Taksim, we went back to the Grand Bazaar to visit our shopkeeper friend "Dennis" (I don't know what his name really is, but it sounded kind of like Dennis) who calls us his angels and then hopped on a plane back to Amman. 

It was so weird to go to Turkey after being in Jordan for two months. Men and women hold hands in the street. People go from bar to bar with open beer bottles in hand. I even saw women's shoulders and collar bones, ya haram! But at the same time, it felt familiarly Middle Eastern. It was such an amazing intersection of cultures that I could have spent weeks wrapping my mind around it all.

The other thing that really hit me while I was there is how unbelievably lucky I am to have learned English as my first language. All four of us were a little shell-shocked when we got off of the plane and realized that we didn't know a single word of Turkish. But just about everyone we met could speak at least a couple words of English and many signs had English translations, so we were able to get by. I can't imagine trying to do everything we did if no one spoke our language. Needless to say, I was very happy to return to Amman where I can carry on a decent conversation with a taxi driver and say "thank you" without a 15 second struggle...

Gobble Gobble Part I

My epic Turkish spring break began with a very, very early morning flight to Istanbul and ended with a very, very late night flight back to Amman eight days later. Everything in between was magical. My three travel companions (Gabby, Lauren, and Lura) and I somehow managed to score a week of being spoiled by Gabby's Turkish Microsoft executive family friend. Really. We led charmed lives. For four days, we lived by ourselves in his gorgeous house outside of Istanbul with a trusty private driver to take us wherever we pleased; took long, warm, glorious showers; and had a housekeeper that fed us breakfast every morning complete with the most delicious homemade sour cherry jam on earth. Then, on his recommendation, we spent two nights in a TREE HOUSE on the southern Mediterranean coast, followed by a final night in his sister-in-law's apartment overlooking the Bosphorus and located in what can only be described as Istanbul's answer to Greenwich Village. I still can't figure out how this was my life.

Luckily, our first hour in Turkey did not end up setting the tone for the rest of the trip or prove to be an accurate first impression of our driver, Oral. After he picked us up at the airport, we arrived at a nice-looking house with an adorable garden, piled out of the car, and were ushered inside by a housekeeper-looking woman who didn't speak a word of English. The four of us, exhausted, had collapsed on various pieces of furniture in the living room when the woman suddenly thrust a phone at Gabby. On the other end, a very confused woman demanded to know who we were and what we were doing there, awkward. Oral had misunderstood the directions and brought us to the wrong house. Fortunately, despite the initial snafu, we eventually located the correct residence, were fed many delicious things, and discovered that Oral is in fact an excellent, good-humored, patient, guitar-playing, cupcake-providing driver that just happens to have a somewhat problematic sense of direction leading him to frequently solicit the advice of random taxi drivers.

And now, some photographs (many taken by the lovely Gabby Arens, because her photography skills are far superior to my own):

A rainy day at the Blue Mosque.

A very small Meredith in a very large Hagia Sofia.
  (Courtesy of Gabby Arens)

Our trusty private driver and model, Oral.
.

Gabby in a shop near the Grand Bazaar.

The Agora Cafe, in Taksim--Istanbul's
version of Times Square, where we listened to
amazing live Turkish music and every person
in the crowded bar sang along to each song.
(Courtesy of Gabby Arens)

Ferocious at the Dolmabahce Palace, home of Ataturk.

Lauren, Lura, and I eating the most delicious breakfast at
Assk Cafe (love in Turkish) overlooking the Bosphorus.
(Courtesy of Gabby Arens)

Ortakoy, a neighborhood of streetside
jewelry vendors, amazing street food,
and beautiful dusk views of the Straits.

Me plus street waffle covered in chocolate
chips/Nutella/strawberries/pistachios
equals heaven. Concurrent to
Gabby's marriage proposal.

The crew--Lauren, Gabby, Lura, and I--in Ortakoy. 
After the baked potatoes, before the waffles,
both with more toppings than food.

Boat cruise on the Bosphorus! (Courtesy of Gabby Arens)

Other Istanbul Take I highlights not captured on film:
-Steaming hot tea in top-floor cafes overlooking different parts of the city
-Oral keeping track of the number of times I tripped over uneven pavement/my own feet/other obstacles (approximately 7 after four days)
-Going to a real (not touristy!) Turkish hammam (bath) and getting soaped up with a Power Rangers magic pillowcase
-Playing games with the housekeeper's granddaughters
-Trying to negotiate the purchase of a bouquet of flowers via charades and a calculator
-Visiting Istanbul's Microsoft headquarters (twice!)
-Being serenaded by Oral's guitar on our last night
-Lauren accidentally setting off the house alarm trying to get a glass of water in the middle of the night
-Running into other groups of CIEE students all over the place!

Stay tuned for the next part of the trilogy--Olympos and the Litany of Bus Rides!

"Why is the rum gone!?"--Captain Jack Sparrow

Wadi Rum, that is! (Haha, I am so clever.)

Wadi Rum

Last weekend, I went on an overnight trip to southern Jordan to explore Wadi Rum--the desert valley made famous by the film Lawrence of Arabia.  It amazes me that a place with so little flora and fauna can be so unbelievably gorgeous.  We were there for a mere 24 hours, which was just enough time to get a taste of the area's beauty before being whisked back to the hustle and bustle of Amman (and midterms, yuck).  The most surprising part of the trip for me was realizing that the term "desert" can indicate quite a wide array of landscapes.  Last summer in Egypt, I went on a trip to Siwa (a small oasis town near the Libyan border in the middle of the Sahara) where the desert takes the form of vast, sweeping sand dunes for miles and miles all around.  Wadi Rum looks absolutely nothing like that.  Instead, it consists of flat, packed earth stretching as far as the eye can see dotted with areas of loose, drifting sand and enormous, wind-withered rock formations.  It was simply stunning.

The first afternoon in Wadi Rum, we all piled into the beds of old, rickety pick-up trucks and zoomed around the desert in a generally unsafe but very entertaining fashion.  We stopped at various points to clamber all over the aforementioned rock formations and drink in the expansive views from the higher vantage point and, later, to watch the sun set behind the distant mountains.  After it got dark, the old, rickety pick-ups dropped us off in a "Bedouin camp" (aka a super touristy, super cliche, not at all realistic recreation of a real Bedouin camp with a full buffet) for the night.  The high point of evening was not the camp itself, but walking out into the desert to lay under the stars and contemplate life.  Perfection.

Clambering on rock formations in an unsafe manner.

Me and some desert.

Sunset

The next day, after waking up to the sun streaming into my Bedouin tent, the moment came that I have been anxiously awaiting since the minute I first considered traveling to the Middle East.  I RODE A CAMEL.  Her name in Arabic was something that sounded sort of like "Gouda"... you know, like the cheese.  I felt a little weird about that, so I renamed her Eleanor.  She was perfect (and pregnant!!).

My partner-on-camel, Gabby, with Titan, Eleanor's esteemed husband.

I loved absolutely everything about camel-riding--the sun on my back, the slow lurching movement, the faint sound of Arabic music emanating from our guide's cell phone.  Throughout the ride, I was alternatively reminded of the McKinley Middle School rafting trip (?!) and concerned that the sand people (a la Star Wars) might stage an ambush as any moment.  Without dispute, it was one of the most beautiful, peaceful, self-contemplative experiences of my life (which is probably why it reminded me of the rafting trip).  It only fell short of perfection because I felt a little awkward that our guides walked along next to us for three hours while 85 American college students rode their camels.  Womp womp.

Ahmed and Ibrahim (our guides), Eleanor, and I
after the arduous journey.

And now a brief round-up of other news:
-If you've been following the news coming out of the Middle East at all, you may have seen that the protests in Amman became violent for the first time last Friday, resulting in one death and approximately 100 injuries.  Never fear, I was in the middle of the desert when all of this was going down and am perfectly safe.  If you are interested, I recommend this post from my friend Betsy's blog for a fair, straightforward account of what happened.
-Yesterday was my 21st birthday!  It was pretty low-key because we're in the middle of midterms, but it was still lovely because my host mom made me a delicious chocolate cake, the whole family sang me "Happy Birthday" in French and English (but strangely enough, not Arabic?!), and a couple of the neighborhood CIEE girls showed up to study for our Islam in the Modern Context midterm toting a box of my new favorite Jordanian desert--ma'amoul. 
-Next week is my spring break and in just over 24 hours I will be on my way to Turkey!  We're going to hang out in Istanbul for a couple of days and then head south to Olympos to stay in TREE HOUSES.  I had been planning to go to Syria and Lebanon, but recent developments caused me to scrap that plan.  Safety first and all that jazz.  I'm disappointed, but the tree houses will undoubtedly make up for it.  Stay tuned!