Istanbul->Cappadocia->Olympos.

We have had a whirlwind schedule and no time for the internet, but now we have safely arrived in our very own treehouse!

We are staying in the ancient city of Olympos, and are soon going to walk 500 meters down to the beach and the Roman ruins there. Tonight, there is a tour to the eternal Chimaeran flames that have been burning here as long as anyone can remember.

We just arrived in Olympos this morning after taking a night bus from Cappadocia. Our itinerary so far has consisted of:
Istanbul, 4 days
Night bus to Goreme (Cappadocia), arrive 8 am, 9 am- 5 pm full day tour
Next day: another full day tour. Return 6 pm, 8 pm get on an overnight bus to Olympos.
After 3 transfers, arrive in Olympos at 8:30 am.

In Cappodocia, we saw churches, underground cities, and huge fairy chimney rock formations that have been created from erosion. After massive volcano eruptions thousands of years ago, a thick layer of lava rock lay over all the valleys, with basalt boulders sprinkled on top. The lava layers eroded away, but the lava that was under the basalt boulders was protected and so did not erode as quickly, leaving behind what people call the fairy chimneys. The Hittites from 1800 bc to 1200 bc first settled the land and started building caves into the rock, followed by centuries of people who kept adding settlements!

The underground city we visited was incredible- carved by hand into stone, centuries of people added layers to the city and added features to protect it from invaders. There were holes in the walkways that were covered when the normal inhabitants walked around, but the cover was removed when attacked so that attackers would just fall through the ground. They also had stone handholds cut into the rock to place one of their people in the image of Jesus being crucified, as a prayer to God to make them successful in defending their city from invaders. It was unbelievable, I can't imagine how long it would take to carve out so many floors (16 I think?) all by hand.

our guide uses a boy on our tour to demonstrate how they would use someone to represent Jesus:

We had two full days of tours and they were fantastic. We got to see so many different areas and we met some wonderful people as well.

I could barely sleep on the night buses, but the amount of things we are getting to see has been worth it.

Here are some photos from Cappadocia! Oh yes, and while we were there we got to sleep in a CAVE hotel! Jordan is sitting on the terrace here:

Istanbul

Driving through Istanbul at midnight the night of our arrival, we couldn't see very much. Finally, as we neared our hotel, the Blue Mosque came into view, glowing eerily in a white glow with birds circling around it, a hazy crescent moon in the background. In the morning, walking up to the rooftop of our hotel, I was stunned by the view. The two most famous monuments in Istanbul, the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya, emerge out of the surrounding landscape in epic proportions behind our hotel, with the sea of Marmara stretching endlessly in front of us. The other side of Istanbul is across from us, with landmasses in the distance and a rock formation that reminds me of Haystack Rock standing alone in the middle of the sea. The temperature would be stifling hot, were it not for the refreshing sea breezes that sweep over you wherever you are in the city. The wind is never too strong, just enough to cool you down. Ahh...

Istanbul has been difficult for my brain to capture, as I see elements of different countries and I unconsciously try to place Turkey among them. I'm trying to view Turkey as its own entity, but the brain always wants to categorize and compare. I see elements of India, Romania, Italy. The Turkish people are some of the nicest people I've ever encountered. I taught myself some basic Turkish phrases on livemocha.com and when I speak Turkish to people, they light up and are very surprised that I "know Turkish." It has really opened doors to talking with people, even though most people in Istanbul speak English, because they appreciate it so much. I know this because people always start a conversation about it- asking me how I learned it, testing my phrases, and helping me learn new ones. The Turkish I speak to people has received remarks of astonishment, as from what I've been told most tourists don't even try to say phrases like hello or thank you. When I first looked at Turkish it looked ridiculously hard, but it's actually completely phoenetic and predicable if you only learn a few odd letters.

I was talking to my dad on the phone on the rooftop terrace today, and I'd just finished telling him about the Turkish hospitality we've encountered when an old man from the next terrace waved me over and handed me a hot chay tea across the railing. "On the house!" he said, and I gratefully accepted. There was no motive for doing this, as it's quite obvious that I'm staying at this hotel, he just wanted to be friendly. Before I came to Istanbul I'd hear people joke that everyone wants to sell you a carpet, but I've found that stereotype to be completely untrue. We've only had one person ask us to visit their carpet store, and though outside every restaurant a man is waiting to welcome you in if possible, if you say no, they say, "have a nice day!" A striking difference from India seems to be the way you are expected to interact with waiters, hotel workers, etc. In India, ideas of caste and positions in society are very much still felt and it would be considered odd and awkward to strike up a conversation with most restaurant waiters or people providing services to you. In Turkey, the people I have met treat me as an equal, and conversation comes easily and naturally. One of my favorite new friends, Gurcel, is the breakfast server at my hotel. When I asked him if he was the owner of the hotel, he beamed and touched his heart, saying, "Does it matter? I feel like the owner of the hotel, because I love my job, so is it important if in reality I own it or I do not?"

At breakfast, I sat down with two of the hotel staff and we talked about Turkish politics. The national election is on June 12th, and both of my new friends (Rohat and Gurcel) are voting for different parties. There are about 50 parties, they said, and Gurcel is voting for the secular party while Rohat wants the Kurdish party to win. He is Kurdish, and says that while many Turks love Ataturk for having created a secular government, he was also extremely nationalistic, promoting Turkish identity at the expense of minorities. Though about 25% of Turks are Kurds, Kurdish is not an official language and people used to be thrown in jail for speaking it.* A Kurd can become president, but he has to deny his Kurdish identity to do so.* I'd heard that the Kurds want a separatist state, but Rohat said that not every Kurd does- many love Turkey and want to live there, like him, but he also does not want to deny his identity. He wants a new constitution that will fully accept Kurds.

* I have no internet while writing this post, so I haven't checked any of these statistics or facts. I apologize if any turn out to be a bit off, I can edit this later. I have only a few minutes of internet in which to copy and paste this into the blog!

Tonight we ate 5 lira ($3) wraps with chicken or beef grilled on a stick with lettuce, tomatoes and chilies that we bought from a man cooking out of his cart down the street. These were just as good as the restaurant food we've eaten! Mmm, Turkish food. Our stomachs have been a bit off, and we've been drinking bottled water, but we are also adjusting to the new cuisine. I think the pictures will speak for themselves, I'll do a separate food post later, but here was one delicious dinner:

Today we visited the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi palace, and planned our itinerary for the rest of the trip with the help of an amazing Turkish travel agent. As I wrote in the previous blog post, I thought that we'd only really be able to see Istanbul, Epheseus, a Greek island or two, and Athens and Delphi. This is because figuring out Turkish transportation seems really difficult (I've heard train and bus websites are most easily accessed in Turkish) and it can take a lot of time to get to each place. Well, this guy whipped out an INCREDIBLE itinerary for us. We are getting to see everything we would have wanted to see in Turkey, but didn't think we'd be able to. In addition to what I already described, over the next two and a half weeks, we will also get to:

*be awed by the faerie chimneys of Cappodocia and sleep in a cave hotel
*see gorgeous ruins in Olympos and sleep in tree houses on the beach
*go to the white calcite shelves, hotsprings and Roman pools of Pamukkale
*Stay one night each on the Greek islands of Samos, Mykonos, and Santorini
*A three day cruise from Olympos to Fethiye, stopping every two hours to swim, look at underwater ruins, & caves

It's an unbelievable amount of sight-seeing for the time that we have, but we are accomplishing this by taking a couple of night buses (Turkish buses are apparently extremely comfortable). All of the places I listed are on the map on the upper right hand corner of this blog.

at the Blue Mosque

At the harem at Topkapi Palace

I had many more photos I wanted to post, but the internet is very slow here and each one takes me 5 minutes to load. More later!

Love,
Molly

a rough itinerary

In three days Jordan and I will be flying to Istanbul!

On our way, though, we stop over in Paris, and I plan to make the most of my 1.5 hours in CDG airport. I can’t wait to speak French to everyone that I can reasonably talk to in such a short time while attempting to keep my status as an American undercover. I’ve been mistaken for a European in the past, but I think my bright green Chacos will give me away this time.

Then we have a three hour flight from Paris to Istanbul, arriving on the afternoon of June 6th. Even though Istanbul is extremely cosmopolitan and Western and the “hippest city in the world” right now according to Lonely Planet, I’m hoping to get a strong taste of Islamic culture, art, and architecture. Turkey has a secular government, and Turks are very proud of this fact, but 99% of Turks are Muslim and I cannot wait to visit mosques, museums, and generally see how religion may (or may not be) intertwined with all other aspects of life. According to a Turkish tour guide featured on a Rick Steves podcast (yeah, I love Rick Steves, what can I say) you are far more likely to see people in Istanbul talking on cell phones with their finger in the other ear to block out the sounds of the Call to Prayer than you are to see people walking to a mosque. But as I am always in search of all things ancient, I’m sure Istanbul will not disappoint me given its incredibly rich history.

We will be in Istanbul for a week, and then we plan to travel down the Aegean coast (hopefully by way of ferries as well as buses!) to Ephesus. Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, but is well known for being the second largest Roman city in the Roman empire, and the largest city in the world in the 1st century BC!! The city also housed one of the original Seven Wonders of the World, the Temple of Artemis, but this was destroyed in 401 AD, darn. The extent of the ruins is absolutely enormous, and I wonder if I’ll get to see remains of the gladiator graveyard which was discovered in May 2007. I absolutely can’t wait for Ephesus.

Next, we will likely hop across to a nearby Greek island and begin our adventures in Greece. We haven’t yet decided which islands to visit before we end up in Athens for the last two days of our trip; we are going to go with the flow, and make spontaneous decisions on where to travel! I’ve been doing a lot of general reading, but there are so many amazing places to see that it is difficult to narrow everything down until we get there and have our options realistically set before us.

Our last “certain” plan is to visit Delphi while we are in Athens. Delphi, which houses the ancient oracle of Apollo!!! I absolutely cannot wait to visit Delphi; thinking about the Oresteia makes me shiver.

I’ve studied so many ancient Greek authors in my classes over the years, and being a philosophy major, have fallen deeply in love with Plato. It will be so surreal to visit the places where all of these stories took place.

I feel so lucky, and so grateful to Jordan’s parents who are sending us on this graduation trip!

More to come after we hit the ground in Istanbul.

Love, Molly

Last post on India

Hi everyone,
I'm making no promises that this blog will continue to be updated because there is just too much going on here! Every day is full of Hindi classes, lectures on agriculture, religion, or economics, exploring & shopping with friends, and time with my host family. My program travels a lot, too- we've visited several places in India (rural villages, slums, Ranthambore National Park, schools set up by NGOs) and I am never alone long enough to be able to process my thoughts and revelations into anything that I would want to post on this blog.

That being said, here's a quick update on my life right now. Today the director of the Prime Minister's office, Devinder P.S. Sandhu, came to Jaipur to give us a lecture! This guy spends 4-5 hours a day with the PRIME MINISTER of India, Mr. Manmohan Singh. The lecture itself was kind of an elementary introduction to India and development that wasn't particularly useful- he began with a powerpoint slide about Star Wars and Hindu gods (?!) and tried to relate it to how India is so accepting of diversity. Ha. He also talked about India's parliament and his philosophy for development, using an elephant analogy for slow and steady progress, ugh. Nothing revolutionary, but it was still exciting to meet one of the most important men in India.

I'm leaving Jaipur tomorrow with my friends to visit Pushkar, an ancient Hindu pilgrimage city. We've booked a hotel by the Brahma temple and will stay there for the weekend, exploring the ghats, the temples and the big bazaar. We'll try not to get ripped off by the ridiculous priests that try to take $1000 rupees in exchange for "blessing your family."

Next week, my program will be traveling to Bikaner and Jodhpur to visit a few NGOs, I'm not sure yet what we are doing. Once we get back, we'll have a major Hindi exam and then leave for our 1 week mini-internships with several NGOs that the program picked out. I'll be going to a small village outside of Varanasi with 3 other girls to intern with an NGO called Kiran, a center for "education and rehabilitation of children and youngsters with different abilities." You can look up the organization at kiranvillage.org.

I chose Kiran because my Independent Study Project will also be focusing on children- I'm hoping to study an organization that works with Delhi's street children called the Salaam Baalak Trust. http://www.salaambaalaktrust.com/inside.asp But everything is still in the beginning stages of planning, so nothing is certain yet!

I'm leading a synthesis discussion of this week's readings and excursions tomorrow, so I should go prepare- oh and just as I'm typing this my host mom is calling me for dinner! It's 9:52 pm, this dinner time is pretty typical. We are having dal, chapati, this egg dish thing, a cabbage potato dish, and a stewed spicy cucumber dish that is actually much better than it sounds. My mom is an amazing cook.

Much love,
Molly

Videos & A Wedding

Videos

Here is a video of a fairly atypical rickshaw ride, since there was almost no traffic on this particular day. A contrasting video will follow unless I think it will scare my parents too much. :)

A video of a traditional Indian dance with men in short jingle-bell shorts!

A video taken on the bus from Jaipur to Delhi. This is a pretty good representation of daily street life on the less-crowded streets of Jaipur.

and, a link to the latest photos on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3947629&l=9722a25d9d&id=695125193

I added wedding photos from the wedding I went to last week with my host family. It was my host brother's best friend's brother's wedding. He is a Hindu Brahmin, and he married a Sikh girl from Punjab so there was lots of excited gossip about the cross-religion match. It is still fairly uncommon for people to marry outside of their castes in India. My host family is Bengali, so my mom Sheela is searching in Kolkata and West Bengal for a bride for my 24 yr old brother Sanket (aka Tillu, his nickname in the house). She is just searching for options, though- he will have the final say after he meets the different women she has picked out for him.

New Host Family!

I'm sitting with my host brothers (Pinnu, 17 & Tillu, 24) right now in the living room of my new house in Jaipur! My host mom also just got back from the market with their servant Kesna, who is 16. It is extremely strange to have a servant in the house. Apparently Kesna is from Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, and his mother was going to sell him to earn money for the family a few years ago. Somehow my host parents found out about it, and took him in as a domestic servant, which is a much better job than the sort of work he would have been sold into. According to my brother Pinnu, he is treated more like another member of the family than as a simple servant, but there is still a very big division between my "brothers" and Kesna that is difficult to get used to. While my host parents and bros speak English, Kesna only speaks Hindi, so I've been trying a little to talk to him. My Hindi definitely needs some serious work, though. The first day I was here, I looked up the word for "brother" in my Hindi-English dictionary. I tried to say hi to my brothers but my entire family burst out laughing. They said I had just called my brothers my "maids"- the word "maid" is almost exactly the same as "brother." They still laugh hysterically every time they think of it.

Both of my brothers are studying to be accountants, and they are exceptionally sweet and fun to be around. Pinnu just came back from his friend's house, and while I was writing my paper, he told me (secretly from his mother) that he had had a few drinks. He started playing his favorite songs (Jack Johnson, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin) and fake-singing in an obnoxious voice. I think I am lucky to have Jenna as a sister, she would never run around the house shouting the lyrics to Nirvana songs. But Pinnu is adorable and I feel so comfortable in my new family.

My mother is searching for a wife for Tillu, who will hopefully be married sometime next year. We listened, laughing, as his mom talked on the phone to someone who had called proposing their daughter as an option for Tillu. Oh! My host father just burst through the door with a rose for his wife! "Happy Valentine's day!" he shouted and gave her a hug and the rose. They are so cute. The dad speaks fluent French with the most excellent Indian accent, and so we talk in French a lot of the time. When we watch the news, my family tells me about terrorism and government in India, (the mother was also a political science major!) and every night we all watch the Indian version of So You Think You Can Dance or Hindi soap operas on TV. I have been learning more about Hinduism from my Mom, and our house always smells like incense and the delicious food she cooks with the help of Kesna.

We celebrated Shiva's birthday the other night at this gorgeous Hindu temple nearby in Vaishali Nagar. I was the only white person I saw as hundreds of Indians streamed into the temple grounds to bow before Shiva and bring him offerings. Actually, it is very unusual to see any Westerners in Jaipur, even though it is a major tourist city in India. We are always surprised to run into people from other countries.

Tomorrow I'll take the autorickshaw to school with 3 other girls for our Hindi lessons and a lecture on women's rights in India. I have fallen in love with this country, and I feel so comfortable walking the streets here, even by myself, in my new Indian kurtas and salwars. My friend Jessica and I explored the streets and neighborhoods for 2 hours this morning, and 3 friends and I took rickshaws around the city to shop for Indian clothing yesterday. While the most dangerous part of living here is probably the traffic, even crossing the street has become much more relaxing and it's actually fun, a word I never thought I would use to describe the swerving cars, motorcycles and autorickshaws. But there are definite laws to Indian traffic, and once you figure out the hierarchy, crossing the street is extremely easy- no one is out to kill you.

I'm off to finish my 3 pg paper on the City Palace in Jaipur...they have clothing on display belonging to Sawai Madho Singh I, a king who weighed 550 pounds at 6.6 feet and had 108 wives!

Hello Jaipur

Shri Niwas Guest House, Jaipur

I'm sitting alone in my 3 person room after an absolutely lovely day. I still haven't seen a mosquito but today I was able to add peacocks and pigs to the growing list of wild animals I've seen in India.

We were literally dropped off in different parts of Jaipur today after another orientation lecture on gender and safety. My group was 2 boys and 2 other girls and our driver left us directly across from the colossal pink Raj Mandir Cinema.It was my first experience walking the chaotic streets of India without any adults! We'd been given a scavenger hunt. Some of the tasks included finding a tailor and asking the price of a woman's salwar kameez (the long shirt/pant combo worn by many Indian women), finding a cyber cafe and asking about internet rates, and finding 2 international banks that accept our debit cards, etc.

It was incredibly overwhelming at first, as we had to be careful at all times not to 1) get run over by an autorickshaw, motorcycle, or car 2) dodge the cows and dogs scavenging for food 3) gently refuse the child beggers' requests for money (I even saw several 2-3 year olds begging) 4) not fall off the sidewalk because it is often decayed, jaggedly cut up, or hiding huge holes and 5)avoid the constant stares of many men. A few pulled up their bicycles to stop and blatantly stare at us. Or, if they're teenage boys, they'll animatedly talk about you in Hindi while pointing enthusiastically. We are learning to avoid eye contact, wave, smile, or begin a conversation with all unknown men, because to do so is culturally inappropriate on the street and can suggest sexual intentions. This is especially important because according to our program directors, there are still stereotypes of Western women being very easy for sex. There's a ton of Western media in India, and we've seen several tourists dressing completely inappropriately for India. We very rarely see any tourists though, which we love.

But don't get the wrong impression- India is a gorgeous and very welcoming country and we are learning more about the culture(s) every day.