"I wish to be as 'big' as the statue in the main square..."

So I'm trying to play catch-up a little bit... there is so much to talk about and not enough time in the day to do it. But anywho, I left off on Friday afternoon. That night, I ended up in an Italian hospital. Before you get too freaked out, it wasn't me who needed the attention... apparently Jeremy is allergic to pesto sauce, and had a pretty bad reaction when he took two bites. He eventually turned almost purple (like Violet from Willy Wonka) and got hives and had swollen everything... yikes. So Ryan and I took him to the hospital, where two ladies working with Martin's son came and met us to make sure everything was OK. He ended up being fine, and got out for free. Hooray for Socialism (in this one isolated incident where we got to take advantage of someone else's tax dollars)!


What a baby. Stop complaining.

Saturday morning, we woke up and headed to the Verona train station around 8:00 AM... good preparation for classes, as we've since discovered. We got on the train without any trouble, and nobody even checked our tickets. Everyone here is just super trusting, apparently. We got to Verona around 11:00 AM, and immediately ran into the problem of our group being way, way too large. There were a good 15 of us, and we discovered pretty quickly that even deciding which direction to leave the train station was a problem. So we split up to go find somewhere to eat, and let me just say that despite the slight odor, Venice is an incredible, incredible place. I'm still not quite sure how they built it/ flooded it/ made a river running through the whole city, but... bravo, Venetians. Just look at the view from the first bridge we crossed:


Stunning.

So anyways, we just spent a lot of the day walking around and looking at all of the amazing buildings. We considered a gondola ride, but they were pretty expensive and we could only go two at a time. The hardest part was honestly just navigating through all of the tiny streets that have no particular names or indications of where to go... we finally found our way to St. Marco's Square, where the basilica and bell tower are. Wow. First of all, I just want to congratulate the Imagineers at Walt Disney World for what an amazing job they did at replicating the tower in the center of the Italy Pavilion at Epcot. Despite being a bit smaller, it is almost an exact replica (by appearance). It's still cool to see the real thing in person though. And the Basilica, though we didn't get to go inside (stupid tourists... the other ones clogging the entrance, i mean), was by far one of the most intricately designed buildings I have ever seen. The frescoes, the statuettes, the doors, the roof... all of the attention to detail is astounding. I would love to have an afternoon without all the other people around so I could study all of the art and history that's located on the outside of that one building, but unfortunately, I haven't mastered Sabrina the Teenage Witch's ability to stop time yet. I'm still working on that one.


Am I in Epcot or in Venice? Obviously Venice, but... you get my point.


I'M SO ARTSY. But seriously, the Basilica makes its own good pictures.

Also, while we were in the square, a parade started to go through St. Marco's square. It was all of these people dressed in Renaissance era garb, just walking through the square. Everyone was included, including the peasants, the townsfolk, the knights, the king, the jesters, along with sword jugglers and flag twirlers. I didn't realize sword jugglers were so prevalent back then.


This looks dangerous. Clearly their mothers were not as protective as mine.

We also visited the Peggy Guggenheim Collection located off of some random side street in the Academia side of town. Because the art is all modern, there was some weird stuff.... but a lot of it was very, very cool. Not to mention the fact that there were multiple pieces of Picasso and Pollock throughout the museum, among others. Even if I didn't totally understand some of the paintings, just being in the presence of works like those is humbling. One cool thing that was in the museum was a tree dedicated to Peggy from Yoko Ono that is reserved for wishes. There was a small basket with slips of paper and pens next to the tree, and you write a wish down and put it onto the tree. There was a wide range of wishes, some meaningful, some not so much. The one we enjoyed was in French, but a French man read it out loud... you can guess from the title of the post, but the note referenced a statue in the courtyard of a man with a very, very large member. So that was good.


Aw.


Kind of blurry, but... silly Frenchmen.

The rest of the day was pretty laid back, and a large part of our initial group headed back to Verona. We stayed for dinner though, and found this amazing place located on the water. It was a beautiful, ridiculous view of the Grand Canal. I got a seafood risotto that was pretty good, but some other people got bigger meals that were really good as well. I was a little jealous of some of the other meals (Erin's lasagna... mmmm) but mine was pretty good too. All we really needed was the view though, as lame as that sounds. I'm really not trying to sound annoying about it, but half of the time I'm here I feel like I'm living someone else's life... it's hard to be unhappy eating dinner on the Grand Canal in Venice for the night. Insanity. Also, apparently I didn't take a picture of the view? Sometimes I question what the hell I'm thinking. Or not thinking, I guess.


Seafood! Risotto! Peas!

So anyways, we finally left Venice around 10:00 PM, and played games all the way to... not Verona. Apparently the train had a stop in the middle of Verona and Venice, which we didnt realize. It all worked out in the end, but it was interesting have the train conductor come onto the train and tell us that we were at the end of the line... in not Verona. But we made our connection, and everything was fine. Our connecting train was an overnighter that smelled of BO and feet and we had to stand, but it got us to where we needed to go. So, great success.

That's the end of this story... I'll have another post soon about the soccer game on Sunday, and then classes. We have a wine tasting tonight, so that should be pretty cool, and this weekend... FRENCH OPEN!!!! I can't even tell you all how excited I am... I'm accomplishing one of my 7 or 8 life goals by going this weekend. I already have my ticket for Friday, and am waiting to get my ticket for Saturday. It's like Christmas, but plus my Birthday and Easter and Kwanzaa. So pumped.

I miss you all and love you!

"I would totally marry the rhino..."

So I normally don't start with a picture, but just look - that is the view of Verona from the top of my apartment building, the Residence all' Adige. Granted, this is from one of my friend's balcony, but still - the fact that that view exists anywhere around us is pretty dang cool. Also, I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but in person you can see the Alps in the distant background. And I don't know about you, but when I think of the Alps I think of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate, which isn't really relevant... but I do love both looking at the Alps and enjoying a fine mass produced hot chocolate. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

But anyways, the past few days have been wild and crazy in every way. We all loved Istanbul, but I think by the time Thursday rolled around everyone was pretty ready to get to our main destination of Verona, Italy. I haven't talked about Turkcell much, but it's the major cell phone provider in Turkey, and had this weird mascot that was EVERYWHERE - not to mention the little children dressed in weird costumes hanging out with business professionals and looking slightly mischievous in all of the ads. Was it weird? Yes. But did they make their impression on us? You betcha. Here's us saying goodbye to our little Turkcell friend at the Istanbul airport:



Then... VENICE! Which wasn't totally exciting because we had to get on a bus to go to Verona, but still. I'll get back to Venice in my next post. But the bus ride was enjoyable enough... i would say about 97% of the people slept the whole time, but the three fun ones on the bus (Erin, Ryan, and me) played "Marry, Boff, or Kill" the whole time, and it was a pretty enjoyable experience. And finally, we get to Verona. The apartment is pretty nice... we don't have the nicest by any means (ahem, Arleta and co.), but compared to Turkey this is a 5 star place. We have a kitchen, two beds, a futon, and a cool balcony. For some reason I didn't take any pictures, but I'll put some up in my next post about Venice.


Hilary couldn't handle how much fun we were having... but then again, she also couldn't handle keeping saliva in her mouth. We all have our struggles.

That night, we went to dinner at a restaurant in the main square of Verona, Piazza Bra. It was kind of a free for all, with all kinds of stuff to grab. Unfortunately, the food area wasn't so big and there were 60 of us, so that made for an interesting attempt at getting food. I ended up getting gnocchi, some chicken, zucchini, various vegetables, a salad, and a few deserts... all included in the price. I was also able to legally enjoy the wine, and it was pretty good... I got the red, but I tried the white and it was excellent too. Mom, you would love it here.


Look at us, pretending to be cool in an Italian restaurant. Unfortunately, a change of location does not equal a change of reputation. Sad.

The next day, we hung around and then went on a tour around the city. Martin, the guy who is in charge of the program, did something to his leg (I'm assuming something related to cage fighting) and couldn't take us on the tour like he normally does, so his son Richard did instead. SO COOL. We started off at the Arena, which was built, you know, 2000 years ago. On top of that, the road that leads to the Arena also goes straight to Rome - apparently, the saying about "All roads lead to Rome" has a historical basis. If you walked down that road for about 72 hours, you would arrive in Rome. Crazy! Then we got to walk around the little downtown area of Verona, where all of the buildings where built in the middle ages, which is considered still kind of new here. A lot of people missed the tour because they took the bus too far and got confused, so there were only 13 of us... but it was still fun, because everyone that was there was so pumped about everything. It's just overwhelming to be surrounded by so much history, and walk on the streets that people walked on thousands and thousands of years ago... it's almost incomprehensible. We got to see a lot of cool things though, including Dante's square, some cool little churches, various important buildings, a grave for the barbarians that lived in Verona BEFORE the Romans came in, and even Juliet's balcony (which, lame. Shakespeare never even came to Verona, so somebody just decided that their balcony would be a cool place for tourists to come and look at and crowd the street outside and pretend is romantic. Boo on you, person!) There was a lot more to the tour, but it's been a few days now and I'm having trouble remembering. Also, disappointingly, I left my camera in the room accidentally, so I didn't get any pictures really... I have a couple from the night before, so I'll post those and pretend that they were from the tour. Don't be upset.


The main bell tower in Verona. It's too pretty to make a joke about.


A shot that I'm sure no one else has ever taken. I'm original, dammit!

So I'm going to cut this off and do a new post about my trip to Venice, and then maybe another one about classes and things. I've been so busy the past few days I haven't even had time to breathe. But I've got exciting plans for the weekend... I'll tell you all about them at the end of the next post. Suspense!

"This is great practice for when I'm going to be on the Amazing Race!"

Sorry it's been a few days... I've been so exhausted when I've gotten back to the room that i've been taking naps in the time that I normally would have been able to post. But I'm back, so you can simmer down now. Sheesh.

Anyways, the past few days have been interesting, to say the least. As far as the "structured" activities have gone, the program could use a little work. It's their first time ever coming to Istanbul for the program, and I think that the things they planned turned out a little bit different than they originally thought. That said, here's the recap:

On Monday morning, we had to get up at some ungodly hour so that we could take an hour long bus ride to Sabanci University, which is located closer to Ankara, but is still kind of in the middle of nowhere. None of us were really sure what we were going to do at the University, and as it turns out, the people running the program didn't really know either. As it turns out, Sabanci thought we were coming so that they could convince us to come to their graduate program, and the people running our program thought we were going to learn more about university life in Turkey. Fail. So basically, we sat in a dungeon-like basement room and listened to three people go over basically the same powerpoint three separate times, and then three more powerpoints just because we were all so interested. And by that I mean they took our tears of boredom for tears of happiness. It's a Turkish thing. So all that said, not the best way to spend an entire morning in a foreign country. The buildings at least looked interesting, seeing as they were straight out of Future World at Epcot. Except this Epcot is the one where fun goes to die.


Sabinci University, where I plan attending for graduate school. Said no one.

Luckily, dinner that night made up for the lack of fun that was had earlier. We wanted to find a restaurant with live music for something kind of different, and were recommended to an area of town about 15 minutes away, located on the edge of the Bosphorus. So 8 of us took a cab over to the town, and it turned out to be a really cool place. We never actually found the restaurant with live music, but we did find a restaurant that turned out to be amazing. After so many meals of kebabs and things with strange textures, we were all craving something a little bit closer to home. We sat at a big table in the main room, and everything was bright and clean. The waiters spoke good English, the food was great, AND they could split the check. What could be better? Plus, the restaurant was located right on the water, and the view across the Bosphorus was truly amazing. It was definitely my favorite night so far, no question. Awesome.


Oh hey boat, I see you.


SEAFOOD RISOTTO SO GOOD


The amazing view from my seat in the restaurant.


The mosque on the edge of the Bosphorus, and the brosephs.

As it turns out, we spent the next morning in the same town we ate dinner in the night before. There was no actual plan for being in the town though, we just took the bus over and they kind of said "go for it, kids." So we milled around the same place we had explored the night before, and wasted a few hours before heading back to the hotel. After a brief nap, a huge group of us went out to Taksim Square, the main street in the city that Jeremy and I explored the first day. We just kind of walked around, poked into stores, and even found a Catholic Church, which was pretty cool just because it's so rare. The Catholics in the group went in, and lit prayer candles. After that, we decided it was time for dinner. Because there were so many of us, and so many opinions on what to do, we just kind of drifted into two groups and ended up eating at a pseudo-italian place that was actually really good. I had a turkish inspired pizza (that i forgot to take a picture of... i was way too hungry), and even though some of the people were different than we normally hang out with, still had a really good time.


The waterside mosque in the daytime.


The Catholics in the group hanging out with Pope PJP 2. The heathens had to wait outside.

Today the morning activities got back on track, mainly due to the fact that Betty, our tour guide, was back in our lives. Her name is actually something long and Turkish, but as she said, "my friends call me Betty." I don't know why that's silly to me, but... it is. Anyways, she was the same guide we had the first day of historic touring, and she's just really funny and nice and we all cheered for her every time she got on the bus. We went to the markets, including the spice market and the grand bazaar. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find that much that I fancied for myself or for other people, so I only ended up with a couple of things. There's just so much of everything, that it all kind of starts to look like junk after a while. I'm sure there were some hidden gems there, but we just didn't have enough time in either market to find them. The Grand Bazaar in particular was insane... my friend and I decided that if our task on the Amazing Race had been to find a particular shop in the bazaar, we would have failed and been the last ones on the mat. Sad, but true. We ended up getting pretty lost, and the shopkeepers were ridiculous, but it was still a cool experience. I would definitely recommend it for someone with less claustrophobia and more patience.


A shot of the Bazaar, where I plan on setting up a stall that sells recordings of my burps... my one true talent.

Then came the Bosphorus cruise. The weather has been pretty overcast and cold today, but it was still really cool to be out on the water, just chilling between Europe and Asia. The city is so hilly, and it's such a different sight than anything I've seen in the US. There are houses covering the hills, and there are so many different types of architecture and design for all of the buildings. Unfortunately, we couldn't hear much of what Betty was saying over the loudspeakers because people were talking, but it was a good way to end the day, and the planned activities in Istanbul.


BETTY! I want to keep her in my pocket so she can guide me around Istanbul when I get lost.


A really cool castle we could see from the ship.

After we got back, we still had to eat lunch... so we ran to this place we'd been eyeing called "Waffling," and I don't know whether or not there are placed like this in the US, but if so, I must find one and make it my wife. Basically. you get a waffle, smear it with stuff, put fruit in it, and eat it like a taco. Mine had nutella, bananas, strawberries, and kiwi. I think if you were to take a bite out of an angel, that's what this tasted like. I'm not sure how helpful that analogy is, but... you get it.


Catch me on the next season of "The Biggest Loser," this fall, Wednesdays at 8:00 PM on NBC.

So tomorrow we get up super early to fly to Verona, and I'm excited. Istanbul has been crazy and a lot of fun, but I'm ready to get settled in for a little bit. By the time of my next post, I'll be in Italia! Hope all you kids are doing well, and as always, I miss you all. Hoşça kal, Istanbul!

"This mosque smells like feet"

I just want to start off by saying the title for this post is in no way meant to be irreverent or disrespectful... the mosque was beautiful to look at and a cool thing to experience, but as we all noted - there was a distinct smell of feet. But I'll get to that later.

People started trickling into the hotel yesterday right as I woke up, which was around 11:00 AM. Luckily, the first person to get here in the morning was Jeremy, so I didn't have to hang around awkwardly by myself trying to make small talk while people get settled... there's plenty of time to exercise my small talk skills at other times. So Jeremy and I started to walk around the city a little, and ended up walking all over. Unfortunately I forgot my camera in the room for that excursion, but there was so much cool stuff. We had bagel sandwiches for lunch (the bagels are different here though, so... yeah) and walked around some more. We ended up walking through the extremely busy part of town where all of the businesses and shops are... I was amazed at how many American stores there are here. Honestly, on the main street we walked down, there were 4 Starbucks. On one street. Because that's necessary. Also, we did get a lot of looks, because clearly we were American. And Jeremy was wearing his US Postal Service Shirt, which probably didn't help us look inconspicuous. This one guy was insistent on giving us a tour, and ended up giving us a "tour" to his shop where he and his "cousin" attempted to sell us a $150 tiny rug. And then we had a knife fight.


The main street on our side of town.

So dinner ended up being a lot of fun... once everybody got in we walked down to the restaurant in the part of town Jeremy and I had spent a lot of time. We got to sit upstairs, and it was pretty fun... I liked the people sitting at my table, and it was the birthday of the girl sitting across from me, so all the waiters sang "Happy Birthday" to her in Turkish and our table got to eat the awesome cake that came with it. Everyone else was jealous of us. But let's be honest, that was the case before the cake too. The rest of the food was good - I seemed to get pictures of things that look gross but tasted good. I'll get better food pictures soon Mom, I swear.


A picked over plate of appetizer food. Tasty, right?


The birthday girl and her surprisingly awesome Turkish cake. You're just as jealous as everyone else... I can tell.


The other side of my table.


The cool side.

So anyways, the rest of the night was fine... most people went to bed, but there was a small party on the other side of my floor. I tried to sleep, but sound apparently travels well enough for it to sound like they were on top of my bed. And then my roommate (the one I don't know) clearly wanted to make a terrible first impression, so he decided to come in the room at 2:45 AM and drunkenly skype with literally every member of his family for an hour. So I got to listen to that. Then the other roommate came in and immediately started snoring in a way that i can only describe as "raping my ears." So all in all, a good night's sleep.

Today was amazing... there are two distinct parts of Istanbul - the new side, centered around Taksim square, and the old side. We're staying on the new side where the majority of the population lives, but we spent all of today with a tour guide on the historic part of town, across the bridge. Fun fact: Istanbul is the largest European city with about 12 million residents... who knew? Also, being in a place like this really makes you realized what an infant of a nation the US is. I mean, you know it, but it's different when you are standing in front of a structure that was built in 15 BC by the Egyptians and sent to Istanbul when they were both under the Roman Empire. Crazy.

So we visited four places in the old side of town... the Topkapi Palace, the Church/ Mosque of St. Sophia, the Hippodrome, and the Blue Mosque. I'm sure I've already forgotten some of the details from the tour, but I'll try to do my best. Deal with it.


A view of the city from the bus.

The Topkapi Palace was beautiful... it's a museum now, but it's where all of the sultans throughout Turkey's history have lived. It actually used to be considered it's own mini - city, with 4800 residents that either belonged to the court or worked for it. It's a sprawling complex, with dozens of courtyards and cool stuff. The 4th biggest diamond in the world is there, among a bunch of other artifacts that were kept in the Sultan's treasury. Just walking around was really cool, and there was an amazing view of the Bosphorus Sea, which is apparently considered the most important sea in the world, strategically speaking. Russia likes to think they own it, but Turkey knows what's up. They have immediate control, seeing as it surrounds almost all of it. Anyways.


The view of the Bosphorus from the Sultan's terrace. I like to call it "My new bedroom."

Next was the Church of St. Sophia. It was commissioned in 532 AD by the Byzantine emperor Justinian... You know, the guy who the word "justice" comes from. It was really old really cool, and had a lot of awesome mosaics that the muslims had covered up with plaster but some of which have now been reexposed. It started off as a Christian Orthodox Church, hung out for about 900 years, was converted into a mosque, and now is just a museum type thing. The work on the walls is incredible.... if you want more details, that's what Wikipedia is for.


Oh hey mosaic Jesus made out of Gold. An oldie, but a goodie.


Next we ate lunch. Standard Turkish fare... it was pretty good though. Baklava = good.

Then to the Hippodrome, where the romans held horse races in like the 300s. About 1400 years before the founding of our country. Give or take. It's a nice courtyard area now, and that's where the giant Obelisk resides, next to the imitation obelisk some turks built later. It's way less cool. The main one is made out of pink granite, and was erected in 1400 BC by the Egyptians and sent over once Istanbul became capital of the Eastern Roman empire. Crazy.


SO OLD. And look, hieroglyphics! Clearly, "Eagle Hawk Eyeball Mosquito Staff" means "Stewart is Awesome." They even knew back then.

Finally, we went to the Blue Mosque, the largest operating mosque in Turkey. It is also the only Mosque in the world to have six towers around it, because the sultan who commissioned it was an egotistical 14 year old. But then again, if i could have commissioned a giant church when I was 14, I'm not sure I wouldn't have done the same thing. It was pretty cool because the guide told us all about Islam, which I was embarrassingly ignorant about... but now I know. You have to take your shoes off to go into the mosque, so clearly the smell of feet was afoot - not to mention the sheets some girls had to wear to cover their arms and legs smelled like a mixture of BO, feet, moth balls, and decay. Mmmmm. It was a beautiful building though, and again - the attention to detail in all of the tiles is incredible.

So now we are back at the hotel and have the rest of the day off... I'm about to take a nap and then shower before we meet up with some people for dinner at 7:15. Our group was split into two for the touring today, and I think about half of us are going to dinner together - I can already tell a lot of the people I'm going to get along with, which is cool - and the people we expected to be tools kind of met our expectations, so... no loss, i guess. But all in all, I like everybody I've hung out with so far. And that's a good sign.

Haha again, that was crazy long... If you made it this far, I'm impressed. Again, thanks for reading! I miss all of you, and will keep you posted!

IT'S HAPPENING!

So I have officially spent my first afternoon and evening in Istanbul... It's hard to believe that it's already here. That said, I guess I'll recap from the beginning (not that I've done that much yet, but... pretend like you care).

The first plane ride was neither terrible nor awesome... Apparently when I sign up for a plane ticket, there is a special notice next to my name that says "Seat this guy next to an obese man always," because seriously? Both flights? Anyways, we had individual screens for our seats where we could choose what we wanted to watch. Because I wanted to keep things lighthearted, I started with The Reader (the Kate Winslet movie). That was pretty good, but after that my choices were limited - Twilight or Paul Blart: Mall Cop. I decided to give Kevin James a chance, and in all seriousness that movie was more depressing than The Reader (but for very different reasons). Also, they had an episode of 30 Rock, so at least they got something right. The food was... food. Because I was in the back, they ran out of trays for the last 6 of us, so they found some extra fish meals from business class. Hooray. But it was edible, and at 9:30 at night if I'm still hungry, that requirement isn't even steadfast. Anyways.

I slept for most of my layover in Frankfurt... it was kind of an awkward amount of time. The second flight was much better, I had TONS of leg room because of my seat being next to the emergency (which someone should tell the lady at the Lufthansa desk that that does not, in fact, count as a window seat. Because there is no window on the emergency door). But the new obese man was a very friendly German, so that was good.

The taxi ride was ridiculously long, but it was a good way to see a lot of the city. It's weird, because it's like there are multiple towns almost in the city of Istanbul, each with a slightly different style of architecture and whatnot. The part I'm in is neat, and I think is one of the busier parts of the city. The streets are really narrow though, so it doesn't feel like a big city. It's cool.



So then I went out to search for dinner, and ended up around the corner from the hotel at an open air restaurant cafe thing... I got a salad (HUGE, and there was lots of mint leaves in it) and shish kabobs with roasted vegetables... the meat was seasoned really well and cooked well, and all of the vegetables were good. If I was better I would have taken pictures, but I already felt awkward enough eating alone. Sorry Mom.

Then I walked around for a little bit, and now I'm back at the hotel, of which I've put pictures up. It's nice - for some reason I get two beds... not that I need the second bed, it's just kind of cool that I get it. Because I'm selfish.

But it's almost 11:30 now, and I'm beat from traveling... tomorrow everybody else in the program gets here, so that's exciting. And after looking at how much I've written, I'll keep it way shorter next time. Thanks for reading!


My Room!


The shower isn't enclosed at all... so water gets everywhere. Silly turks. Also, the toilet has a bidet. I thought those were just a myth.