Photo Post!

Okso. Mom's going to kill me. But I love this picture. And I thought I'd offer it as proof as to how windy it was at Sunion.

Πω πω! Άργησα!

So, I've been MIA for a while now... the past couple of weeks have been totally crazy. Between my mother and my aunt coming to visit and midterms and a four-day school field trip I feel like I haven't been going under 100 miles an hour since last Friday. It was very frustrating to have the only serious work I've had to do all semester to coincide with a family visit. But as of the time of posting, my midterms are all done, and grades are out! And my family is gone… But so much has happened since the last time I posted. And things happened before the last time I posted that I haven't written about!  I'm going to have to try to write today and tomorrow, but I have another class trip starting very bright and early Thursday morning, and an entire presentation to prepare beforehand, so we'll see how that plan goes.

So, my mother and my aunt were here for 10 days. Highlights:

1. Not having to pay for dinner!
2. The temple of Poseidon at Sunion
3. Weekend trip to Crete.

The first one I should think is pretty self-explanatory.  Though because my mom is as in to food tourism as I am we had some particularly good meals.  In particular, I learned that octopus isn't necessarily tough and chewy.  We had some amazing seafood in general actually, which was fantastic because most of my friends here will only touch seafood in the form of fried calamari.

The temple of Poseidon was majestic.  Our tour left just before the sun set over the ocean, so we missed what's supposed to be the most beautiful time there.  But the soft light right before the sunset was perfect for taking pictures of the monument.  And there was some serious wind.  Not omg-my-hair-is-getting-out-of-place wind, but my-course-veers-off-to-the-left-when-I-walk wind. It is a perfect for a temple dedicated to the god of the sea.

This doesn't quite capture it since you can't see the sea in the backround, but you get the idea.

Crete was a little disappointing, a large proportion of museums etc. were closed because it was the off season.  This main consequence of this is that we were very Greek and had very many coffee breaks.  But, I did get to see the palace at Knossos, an archaeological exploration that I was unexpectedly involved in.  I was in the middle of writing a paper on the similarities between wall paintings found at Knossos and those found at Santorini.  Seeing reproductions in situ made my work seem more relevant, and conversely, the research I'd done helped me better appreciate the site itself.  I taught (my mom) and re-taught (my aunt) τάβλι (backgammon) in a bar, while locals played it around us.  We had a gorgeous bus ride to the next city over from our hotel, during which I got to have some very needed mother-daughter time. I received further evidence that I should never drink frappe, because it invariably makes me skittish and nervous and vaguely paranoid later in the day.  And I hung out in a playground by myself for a bit and met Denisa and Laura, two adorable Cretan girls with whom I could barely communicate, but they were so happy to have me, they almost made me miss my plane.

Having my family here made me realize, among other things, that I'm not exploring Athens to its fullest.  I've had a pretty negative view of the city.  I've mentioned here that I feel awkward, and sometimes unsafe, here as a single woman.  I was disappointed by the nightlife, I always thought time abroad in Europe would be oft punctuated by awesome techno dance club experiences, but noone in Greece dances...  I'm going to most of the monuments and museums here with class for free, so I haven't gone to any of them on my own.  And it has rained every weekend I've been here.  That's not a short list of grievances, but its certainly not enough to write off the city entirely, so I'm making an effort not to.  On Sunday, after our field trip I went to the temple of Olympion Zeus with one of my roommates and her boyfriend, and went out for crepes for lunch.  In the evening I went out to a small movie theater with some kids I'd gotten to know better on the trip.  They're not from Pomona, which is shocking if you see how I've been spending my time here, but they're from Chicago, so they're still people that I could meet up with after the program is over, which is sweet.  We saw The Visitor, which was fantastic.  And even though it was an American film, it still felt like a distinctly Greek experience.  They had the typical concession fares, popcorn, soda, and candy, but it wasn't nearly as much of a ripoff as in the states.  And juxtaposed next to carbonated soft drinks were Bacardi Breezers, wine, and beer.  So as I slouched down in the front row of the theater I got to share some popcorn with a friend and sip on a Stella.  It was positively cozy. Until... halfway through, at a very tense moment, the film reel stopped!  I panicked for a brief moment before I realized it was for intermission, which is just a euphemism for cigarette break.  Oh nicotine addicted Greeks...  I am starting to love you so.

You actually can go back to Constantinople, from Greece at least.

So. I am a terrible blogger. I have been slowly writing this post for a week now. I got sick, and then my mother and aunt came to visit, and had midterms, so I just haven't updated. But now its done. Though I don't have any pictures right now because I didn't take any digitally. I only brought a disposable camera with because I was worried about travelling with my digital camera. I'll steal some from my travel companions soon though, and share. If you want a quick recap of the weekend, since I've been so slow, here are the main things I learned on my trip:

1. Getting to new cities at night is awesome.
   
2. Hostels are the best way to travel.
3. I am wicked bad at bargaining.
   
4. Being naked can be fun!
5. Excoticizing things really can ruin them.
6. I'm pretty bad at hookah.
   
7. Food tourism is my favorite part of travel.
8. Istanbul is freaking baller!

So yeah, as suggested by item 8, my trip to Istanbul was really really fun. I was there from Thursday night to Sunday night, and it was definitely not enough time. I really really want to go back again in my life.

We got there after dark, it was around 9 once we had gotten through customs. Our hostel had an airport pickup service, but it was expensive, and we had to book it well in advance to get it. So instead we took public transportation at night, which was somewhat difficult. We got a LOT of directions that were just points in a general direction. Then we turned a corner and Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque were just in our faces, lit up, surrounded by birds. It was totally awesome. We eventually made it safely to our hostel, and got heckled by our first restaurant owner on the way there. At essentially every store and restaurant there's someone standing in the doorway trying to entice you to come inside. When they see a group of clearly foreign tourists though, they get a little... creative. We were regularly called beautiful girls, sexy girls, spice girls, Shakira, and many more. This one particular guy at the restaurant on the way to our hostel called out to us from across the street EVERY time we walked by. It got fairly annoying.

Our hostel was rated the best in Istanbul by one service or another for something like 4 years running. Its the first one I've stayed in, so I don't have anything to compare it to really, but I loved it. It definitely helped that we didn't sleep with strangers and had a cheap room entirely to ourselves since we were a group of 6. But the staff were really nice (particularly the night desk guy), we met some really awesome people (read: cute English boys) and had evening activities pre-planned for us in a city where we didn't know the night life.

However, we didn't spend our entire time in the hostel. The first day we went to Topkapi palace, the Egyptian spice bazaar and a tour of the Bosphorous. We also went out to our only real sit-down dinner, saw a belly dancer brought in by the hostel (I wouldn't be surprised if she moonlighted as an exotic dancer, she was not classy) and hung out with the aforementioned cute British boys at the hostel. We decided against going out to a club with a cover charge with these boys, which was a little disappointing but necessary given how much we still had to do in the city.

The next morning we set out early to try to check out the little Aya Sophia. It was the practice, small-scale version of the bigger famous one, which is now a functional mosque, but it looked like it was closed. We saw the Blue Mosque which was fantastic for many reasons not the least of which was that we got to walk around in socks on its warm carpet. The big Aya Sophia was not as impressive as I had been led to believe, but the Basilica Cisterns were way cooler than I thought they would be.

Then we went to the Grand Bazaar. Some guy the day before had told us not to shop at the Grand Bazaar, because it wasn't a good deal. We didn't take his advice, but we totally should have. When we went in to some of the shops the next day I definitely saw multiple things that were much cheaper, but that's ok. I mostly bought presents for other people, but I also bought myself a backgammon board! It was the one thing I wanted for myself. I was a little too dedicated to getting one really, and I bought one fairly hastily and I'm pretty sure I got ripped off, which was a little depressing when I realized it.

But then we went to the Turkish bath to relax. Turkish baths are fantastic. I only had the slightest idea of what I was getting into. I almost don't want to say what is was, if there's any possibility that you're going to go to one yourself, I feel like you shouldn't read this. It's more fun to go in a little confused. But, anyways, we had to strip down, which for me included my glasses, which meant I couldn't really see anything, and we had to wear this giant croc sandals. We went in to a huge, hot room. It had a huge hot slab of stone in the middle, with a bunch of half-naked women on it. Emphasis on the half naked. We had thought that we were supposed to totally strip down, I definitely didn't want to look like a weird tourist too embarrassed to disrobe. But we were pretty much the only people there not wearing underpants. Trying to fit in can often backfire. But it was liberating! I mean, I didn't have glasses on, so I couldn't really see anyone else in the room, it helped me not be embarrassed about who could actually see me. And the women there, particularly the workers, were so comfortable with their bodies. And then we were bathed. In this warm warm room, when it was cold and rainy outside. It was lovely to be pampered when I'd been worrying about organizing travel. They scrubbed us down, I could see the dead skin just flying off my body. Then they soaped us up, and the way the did it was the best part. They filled up what looked like giant pillowcases with soapy water and air and then twisted it closed. Out came huge clouds of fluffy white soap. It totally engulfed me, got in my mouth and up my nose. It freshman year foam party all over again! And then basically gave us a massage. And then we laid down on the hot rock and got warm and dry. It was lovely.

One of my friends had been sitting in Starbucks for over 2 hours because she knew she wouldn't enjoy the bath. So eventually we had to go back in to the cold world. After spending some time at the hostel we went to a Whirling Dervish show. We didn't quite understand before we got there that it was really just at a restaurant, so we ended up paying for dinner on top of it. The whole thing just felt very commercial. Someone at the hostel the next day said that when she went to see the whirling dervishes in the states she could feel the energy in the room change when they started dancing. That wasn't the case at all here. It had the air of a performance, rather than anything religious. And honestly, its not even that interesting. They spin. My English/GWS friends had a very extensive conversation about how we had "exoticized" and ruined it. I don't know if that's exactly why, but they were at least partially right. I have never felt so much like a dirty tourist in my entire life.

The rest of the visit was not quite as interesting. We smoked hookah at a awesome local bar by the hostel (and I was wicked bad at it). The next day we walked around the Asian side. The best part of that was probably our 50 cent sandwiches. The food there was awesomely cheap. And awesome. It really became evident that food tourism is my favorite thing. Trying new food always always improves my mood. But yeah, all in all, I loved Turkey.