Pretty uneventful really. I had to research the bureaucratic structure of Aikido in France, which is possible the most boring topic in human history. Fortunately, I was able to take Aikido classes with an awesome Greco-Malagasy man, Gaston Nicolessi. The paper (in French) was due on the same day as the presentation (in French). I only finished the paper at midnight the night before it was due, and had to totally BS a presentation at 8am the next morning. I got away with it by incorporating a lot of technique and not doing all that much talking.
After that, all the students from the language class got to go to Collioure, a sea side resort only a few miles from Spain. While there we took a hike along the Spanish border in the Pyrenean Mountains. At the end of the hike, I ditched the group and walked to Portbou in Spain. I got lost in a stream bed surrounded by millions of thorny plants. After escaping and nearly shredding my clothes, I ended up on the wrong side of a quarry. Rather than going back, I climbed into it and eventually worked my way to an industrial train station that stood between me and the town. I eventually found a tunnel (for cars and with no pedestrian shoulder) that went all the way under to the other side. Once there, I bought a ticket and came back.
Once back, I went with my home stay mom and two of the kids to visit her grandparents in the country. It was surprisingly fun, and they REALLY seemed to take to the fact that I am part Greek. The Grandmother even called me “The Greek”, kinda funny really. After that, I spent an awkward last few days with the family and then left for Paris. The hostel there was a piece of crap, so I spent as much time as possible sight seeing. It was hard to avoid the restaurants and cafes of Paris, but I was pretty much out of money, so I lived off of the grocery stores. I got to see a bunch of great sights, but most importantly, my home stay dad from Dschang was there, and I got to hang out with him and his brother-in-law for the afternoon.
I then took the Chunnel to London, and was promptly kicked “aux couilles” by the exchange rate. London was immensely uneventful. I stayed in a hellish Easyhotel and spent everyday but Sunday at the archives taking pictures of war crimes related stuff.
The hotel room was hellish because it had no window, no phone, a non-functioning TV, and was about the size of a bathroom (if you think I’m kidding, try staying in one).
My last adventure was coming home. I took the Chunnel back to Paris for a flight to NYC, but there was a train workers strike against President Sarkozy. All of the trains were stopped except for one (and only one) that was going to the airport. Unfortunately, the train was on a different track from the normal airport service and they were only announcing the change in French. I can barely understand train station announcement in English, so I consider myself to have been very lucky to catch which track I needed to go to. I had literally just stepped onto the train before the doors closed and we were off.
At the airport, I found out that the flight was overbooked and the not everyone would be able to go, at least not that night. Fortunately, I wasn’t someone asked to wait, and 7 hours later I was in NYC. It was then that I discovered the Air France had LOST MY LUGGAGE!!! Yup, they lost pretty much all my clothes and my second digital camera (I lost the first one getting out of Cameroun). I know many lost luggage stories have happy ending, here’s mine: In Cameroun, I lost about 20 pounds, so none of my clothes fit me anymore anyway. As long as Air France cuts me a nice fat check for everything, I’ll be happy.
Well, that’s about it. There and back again, a Humanities Student’s Holiday.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Istanbul
Hello Everyone,
Keeping in mind that it is entirely possible that no one actually reads this anymore, I’ve decide that give an update on my continued misadventures.
The semester abroad ended almost 2 months ago, but I’ll summarize what happened any way.
The second to last weekend in may, I went to visit Istanbul to see Tim Sparklin who was flying in from Cairo. I left Toulouse on a Friday afternoon, stopped in Frankfurt, and then arrived in Istanbul in the middle of the night. I then had a sudden moment of panic. There are two international airports in Istanbul and Tim and I hadn’t specified which one we were going to. Also, neither of us had cell phones and I didn’t remember the name of our hotel. But I didn’t really start to panic until I realized that there were no incoming flights from Cairo.
I considered my options. I could head into the city, try to find an internet café and check which hostel we had a reservation for. I could wait and hope that there was something wrong with the “arrivals” screen. Or I could go to the other airport, and wait there. I choose option 2, mostly because I was too exhausted to do any of the others. Fortunately, I choose wisely. Tim’s flight simply hadn’t been added to the list yet (even though many others arriving after it had been).
Tim and his roommate from Cairo arrived, we got out cash, and took the train into town. Between the 3 of us, we spoke at least semi-fluent English, French, and Arabic, but no Turkish. We arrived at our hostel at about 7:30am and had to struggle not to fall asleep. I knew well that I only had three full days in Istanbul.
We walked down to the Sea of Marmora and ordered tea at a little restaurant. As we were leaving, two Turkish men overheard Tim and Greg speaking Arabic and invited us to join them for another round of tea. We had a rather odd conversation. One of them spoke Turkish, a little English, and a little Arabic, the other spoke only Turkish and Arabic. Out of the three of us, we all spoke English, Tim and Greg spoke a little Arabic, and Greg and I spoke French. (and yes, it was just as confusing in my head at the time) I couldn’t understand about 85% of the conversation, but I did catch the topics of where we all lived, what we were doing in Istanbul, and Hilary Clinton. The man who spoke no English referred to her while making a rather descriptive hand gesture, which made me laugh. I noticed an interesting cultural feature of Turkish conversations; every time the man wanted my attention, he would tap my forearm. A little odd, but not creepy.
Afterwards, I asked Tim what the man had been saying about me. He told me that the man kept saying “but he must be Turkish, look at his beard”. That was the start of it. I have never had so many people ask me for directions in my life, and all of them speaking Turkish. Seriously, what about me made everyone on the street assume that I was one of them? I should work for the CIA, as I seem to be able to fit in anywhere. This chameleon like ability did have an advantage though. Downtown Istanbul is about as commercialized as it gets, and their touts are very aggressive, however, I found that if I walked with a simple look of disinterest people would leave me alone. It was actually kind of funny. The three of us would be walking single file through a crowded marketplace with me in the lead. I’d walk by and be ignored, and then Greg and Tim would get pounced on.
Any way, during our stay we were able to visit Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, Galata Tower, Remnants of the great wall, the grand bazaar, Süleymaniye Mosque, and the Basilica Cistern. Also, we saw twirling dervishes and went to a Turkish bath, which was, well, really gay. If someone had told me a year before that I would one day pay good money to be scrubbed, slapped, de-toweled, and meowed at by fat old Turkish men, I would have told them that they were nuts.
Looking back, it’s surprising how well we did. No one got lost or robbed. And since a lot of the names for food are the same in Arabic and Turkish, we got by at restaurants too. It must have been an amusing sight to see two westerners shouting out the names of random vegetables in Arabic to their Turkish waiter.
On Monday afternoon, I left Tim and Greg and took the train back to the Airport. From there I flew back to Toulouse by way of Frankfurt again. I arrived after midnight and let myself in without disturbing the family.
Keeping in mind that it is entirely possible that no one actually reads this anymore, I’ve decide that give an update on my continued misadventures.
The semester abroad ended almost 2 months ago, but I’ll summarize what happened any way.
The second to last weekend in may, I went to visit Istanbul to see Tim Sparklin who was flying in from Cairo. I left Toulouse on a Friday afternoon, stopped in Frankfurt, and then arrived in Istanbul in the middle of the night. I then had a sudden moment of panic. There are two international airports in Istanbul and Tim and I hadn’t specified which one we were going to. Also, neither of us had cell phones and I didn’t remember the name of our hotel. But I didn’t really start to panic until I realized that there were no incoming flights from Cairo.
I considered my options. I could head into the city, try to find an internet café and check which hostel we had a reservation for. I could wait and hope that there was something wrong with the “arrivals” screen. Or I could go to the other airport, and wait there. I choose option 2, mostly because I was too exhausted to do any of the others. Fortunately, I choose wisely. Tim’s flight simply hadn’t been added to the list yet (even though many others arriving after it had been).
Tim and his roommate from Cairo arrived, we got out cash, and took the train into town. Between the 3 of us, we spoke at least semi-fluent English, French, and Arabic, but no Turkish. We arrived at our hostel at about 7:30am and had to struggle not to fall asleep. I knew well that I only had three full days in Istanbul.
We walked down to the Sea of Marmora and ordered tea at a little restaurant. As we were leaving, two Turkish men overheard Tim and Greg speaking Arabic and invited us to join them for another round of tea. We had a rather odd conversation. One of them spoke Turkish, a little English, and a little Arabic, the other spoke only Turkish and Arabic. Out of the three of us, we all spoke English, Tim and Greg spoke a little Arabic, and Greg and I spoke French. (and yes, it was just as confusing in my head at the time) I couldn’t understand about 85% of the conversation, but I did catch the topics of where we all lived, what we were doing in Istanbul, and Hilary Clinton. The man who spoke no English referred to her while making a rather descriptive hand gesture, which made me laugh. I noticed an interesting cultural feature of Turkish conversations; every time the man wanted my attention, he would tap my forearm. A little odd, but not creepy.
Afterwards, I asked Tim what the man had been saying about me. He told me that the man kept saying “but he must be Turkish, look at his beard”. That was the start of it. I have never had so many people ask me for directions in my life, and all of them speaking Turkish. Seriously, what about me made everyone on the street assume that I was one of them? I should work for the CIA, as I seem to be able to fit in anywhere. This chameleon like ability did have an advantage though. Downtown Istanbul is about as commercialized as it gets, and their touts are very aggressive, however, I found that if I walked with a simple look of disinterest people would leave me alone. It was actually kind of funny. The three of us would be walking single file through a crowded marketplace with me in the lead. I’d walk by and be ignored, and then Greg and Tim would get pounced on.
Any way, during our stay we were able to visit Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, Galata Tower, Remnants of the great wall, the grand bazaar, Süleymaniye Mosque, and the Basilica Cistern. Also, we saw twirling dervishes and went to a Turkish bath, which was, well, really gay. If someone had told me a year before that I would one day pay good money to be scrubbed, slapped, de-toweled, and meowed at by fat old Turkish men, I would have told them that they were nuts.
Looking back, it’s surprising how well we did. No one got lost or robbed. And since a lot of the names for food are the same in Arabic and Turkish, we got by at restaurants too. It must have been an amusing sight to see two westerners shouting out the names of random vegetables in Arabic to their Turkish waiter.
On Monday afternoon, I left Tim and Greg and took the train back to the Airport. From there I flew back to Toulouse by way of Frankfurt again. I arrived after midnight and let myself in without disturbing the family.
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