Monday, May 21st

We arrive at marina in city of Bodrum and board the Gulet. 30 meter sailboat with all the trimmings. Everyone is amazed at how luxurius the accomodations are. A master bedroom and 6 smaller bedrooms with a bunkbed and a single and a bathroom with shower in each room. we have a dining room below deck with a small bar and a large fridge for bottles of booze. On deck is a large dining table for all 18 of us and clean & comfy cushions & chairs at the back and front of the boat. this is the very definition of good living.

we take pictures and roam around the boat making discoveries of fantastic lounging opportunities and eventually settle into rooms to unpack and unwind. We motor out of the marina and find a cove to drop anchor after about an hour of travel. None of the students are quite sure what to do at that point. We don't really know the etiquette of the sea. Not sure if we can jump off the boat and swim, or if we need some signal that we are anchored and safe from the captain. We sort of mill about and look down into the clear blue water and amazing hillside and rock formations.

Then, like a sultan appearing in the doorway of his palace doorway, our professor walks up on deck from below wearing nothing but a speedo and a basket hat. He steps over the railing on the back deck where we are all standing and watching. He is about 10-15 above the water from that point. He flings his hat back behind him onto one of the deck chairs, and then reverses his motion and jumps out from the boat and executes a half-tucked canonball as he yells "weee!" as he crashes into the water. After that moment, the whole class became giddy and relaxed. People run for their bathing suits and bikinis poste haste and begin jumping into the water from various places on the deck. any place is good and well-received by the crew. there are high and low spots, safe and scary spots, and even a set of stairs to simply walk into the water.

The water is clear and blue and just a bit too cold to stay in for a long time without staying active. we swim all afternoon and eat a big dinner on the back deck dining table. we have a personal chef that cooks up divine dishes and serves one after another. Once again, this is the very definition of good living. This is gonna be a good week.

Saturday & Sunday, May 19th & 20th

Get off the bus in Bodrum and take shuttle to Yalikavak. Quaint hotel there that is a 2 minute walk to Aegean Sea. It is overcast and dusty from tons and tons of construction. fitting scene to arrive in because this is the very reason my professor brought us here. the construction in this town and the other 10 towns along the coast of this peninsula are experiencing an overload of construction over the past couple of years. the tourism sector is exploding here and it is getting out of control. we are here to help come up with ways for the municipalities to keep the development under control and maintain their small town character while still benefit from the economic boom that comes with the construction and tourism. It is a bit overwhelming. but there is time for that later. for now we are just gonna get acquainted with the towns and act like tourists. no complaints about that. we go for a swim in the clear blue water with rocks and seaweed below us. I eat a bland and borderline nasty chicken sandwich for lunch. not gonna make that mistake again. It seems that the best items to eat from restaurants in this country are vegetarian pizzas, vegetarian omelettes, lamb gyros, and fresh seabass. no chicken sandwiches.

Friday, May 18th

Leave Istanbul hotel on shuttle bus. driving out of Sultanameht neighborhood was pure insanity. driver would weave in and out of lanes using his gut feeling rather than the rear view mirrors. One time I watched him speed up and jump into the right lane in front of a mac truck while he was looking slightly to the left lane. might have been anticipating his next move. In order to drive thru downtown Istanbul you apperently must be part grand master chess player and part jedi knight....or just one crazy bastard. I hoped our driver was the former and not the latter.

We arrive at the bus station and wait for our bus in the rain for about 20 minutes. no big deal. some people could sit inside and stay dry while the rest of us took turns getting rained on while we kept eye on our bags. lots of luggage by the way. 14 girls on a three week trip to europe in the spring. lots of luggage. bus arrives and the accomodations are great. public coach bus that looks like something a group of american senior citizens would travel around in. better than greyhound. no movies, but snacks and beverages. we also brought along a big, cheap bottle of red wine that tasted like old cough medicine. the stuff had bite.

a quick ferry ride over the Marmara Sea...or the Boshorus...or the Aegean...I don't know...don't have a map in front of me at the moment. then it was 14 hours down the coast to Bodrum. I think we left Istanbul at 9pm and we arrived in Bodrum sometime around 11am. lots of wine, lots of reading, and a wee little bit of sleeping upright.

Asian Side of Istanbul

Ferry across Bosphorus to the Asian side of Istanbul on Wednesday, May 16, 2007. Pretty cool to be able to visit two continents in one afternoon. The class ventured over to this side to have dinner and visit a small mosque. Of course, there were ample lamb dishes to choose from at dinner...and little else. After dinner we visited the mosque and were verbally assaulted by a local muslim man that was sitting outside the entrance reading what was probably his Quran. He asked one of the girls where she was from and when she responded that she was an American he called her evil and he called her a bitch and spit on the ground in front of her. He walked away cursing under his breath and we all sort of froze for a second. We weren't sure if we should heed his advice. David then walked up to the entrance and got the same question from the man. David told the man that he was Canadian and the man nodded in approval and walked away again to the corner and his Quran. After David walked in I decided it would be probably safe for at least one of us evil Americans to check it out. I told the girls that were assualted that I would go in real quick and come right out and see if the angry muslim man would do anything. I walked in to find a quaint little room of prayer with a modest dome overhead. This place did not feel like a tourist attraction like the Blue Mosque or the Haghia Sophia. It felt like a place of worship. I walked right out of the mosque and after I put my shoes back on and began walking away, the man told me to "get the fuck outta here". I nodded in his direction without saying anything. The man seemed to be justified in his anger at our presence in his house of worship. I did not belong inside. I wish he would have been more articulate and benevolent in his attempt to keep us out of his house of worship, but we are smug and arrogant Americans that have been exploiting people and resources of other countries for years and years and years without so much as a please or a thank you. Why on earth should this man say please or thank you to us?

Bodrum, Turkey

Bodrum

Turkish Bath

I walked into the turkish bath with my male professor and eight of my female classmates. 30 Lira flat fee at the door. The girls were all ushered thru a side door, while my professor and I were escorted into the front room, which seemed to be the main lounge. Along the sides of the room were personal locker rooms for each male. I was shown to my room and given a key for my door. Inside the locker room was a little 2'x6' bed, a side table with an ashtray, a small mirror, and a couple of hooks on the wall. One hook had a red patterned towel hanging from it and the rest of the hooks were empty. On the floor there were clean shower shoes. I took my clothes off, wrapped the towel around my waist and put on my shower shoes. At this point, I wasn't quite sure what to do. My professor was still in the locker room right next door to mine, and I hadn't seen him leave his room. So I thought I might need to wait there in the room for something to happen there. I laid down on the bed in my little red towel and shower shoes and waited. After a couple of minutes the attendant noticed me laying there and he laughed his ass off at me. He opened my door and pointed at a door and motioned for me to go thru. When I enter the room a blast of hot steam hits me in the face. It is easily 100 degrees inside. I stammer thru it and find a circular room with a large stone disc in the middle of the room. Along the perimeter is a step up to large stone bowls that sat underneath ornate faucets that poured scalding hot water. There were a couple of gentlemen laying flat on the stone disc in the middle of the room getting scrubbed down by other gentlemen. Everyone was wearing the same little red towel. For a moment I had a thought that each man that entered the bath had to scrub down the man in front or behind him. I've never scrubbed down another man. And I just don't think I have it in me to do it. I don't care what country I'm in. Luckily, my professor entered the room shortly after me and gave me the gist of what was about to happen. And we would not be scrubbing each other down. We both laid down on the stone disc and relaxed for about 20 minutes. After I worked up a serious sweat and was on the fringe of passing out, a turkish gentlemen with balding grey hair and a little red towel introduced himself to me and motioned for me to lay down on my stomach. He filled up a bucket of scalding hot water and dumped it on me. He then grabbed a wash cloth and somehow turned it into a huge bubble of soap suds. he began scrubbing my body forcefully and mechanically. Arms, back, and legs. My whole back side, then I flipped over and he did my front. Dead skin came off of me in large nasty brown chunks. There was so much of it that I think the scrubber was sort of disgusted. He grabbed another bucket of scalding hot water and dumped it over me. Next came the rub down. Arms, back, and legs. My face was pressed against the stone slab and he was working my arms and legs so aggressively that I yelped in pain over and over again. At one point, he put me in a sort of shoulder lock and pulled my elbow back across my back until yelped an octive higher than the regular yelp. When he was done he motioned for me to sit up and he dumped a bucket full of ice cold water over my body. I almost fainted. We washed me down one last time and motioned for me to get up and walk out of the room. On the other side was a towel room and bunch of toilets. I stumbled around in a daze and found myself in a private shower. There was shampoo and hand soap in there, so I took a cold shower. When I walked out of the shower there was another man in a little red towel waiting for me. He motioned me over towards him and he offered me a large dry towel. I tried to take it from him, but he wouldn't let me. He motioned for me come closer to him. When I did, he wrapped a clean, dry towel around my waist and draped another over my head. He gave me a smile and pointed toward the door. I walked out and found myself in the main lounge that I begun this little experience in. I found my locker room and changed into my clothes. I looked into the mirror and saw that my face was beat red and my eyes were so bloodshot that I couldn't see a difference from my beat red face. My body felt like silly puddy. I could barely stand up. It was the most intensely serene moment of my life. I floated out of the locker room and melted into a couch in the main room. I stared into space and swayed in the breeze. I danced on the clouds and swam in the sea. I drifted off into nothingness and materialized in the stillness. I drifted away.

Rooftop Sunset

Rooftop Sunset

Sketching the Palace...and Dozing

Jana and Christine at Sultan's Cafe

Katie and View of Sultan's Cafe

Sultan's Bathroom

View From Topkapi Palace

Topkapi Palace Gate

There's A New Sultan In Town

Thousands and thousands of tourists descended upon the Topkapi Palace yesterday, May 17^th, 2007. A giant wall with a massive gate surrounds various courtyards and soldiers barracks, concubine quarters, eunuch quarters, and of course, the sultan’s private palace for he and his family. The views of the city are unparalleled. The ornate buildings with beautiful domes supported by magnificent columns are everywhere you look. This palace is worthy of the most prolific sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The palace was constructed when the Ottoman Empire was at its peak of power and possession of land. The 15^th & 16^th centuries saw the lands in modern day Italy, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia fall under the power of the great Ottoman sultans. A sprawling empire that included a good portion of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the middle east, and Africa. But it all came to an end after World War I when the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and the modern nation of Turkey was established under the great Ataturk. I suppose this palace was converted into this museum shortly after that. Which is tragic in my opinion. This palace should be the home of a great and powerful leader. I believe it is time to declare this palace for myself. I will take over the sultan’s quarters and fill the baths and pools with fresh water again. I will invite my 12 female classmates to stay in the concubines’ quarters. Our professor can function as eunuch. My family can all come and stay with me in the palace. And I shall rule this land with great wisdom and benevolence. And they shall call me Sultan!

Sultan Josepherus the Fantastical!

I will drink red wine and be fed grapes by my concubines while they carry me from room to room in my great palace.

Haghia Sophia

Classmates

Rooftop bar at Hotel

The Blue Mosque

Water Pipes and Raki

Last night a couple of us went out for a late dinner in the neighborhood. Seven pretty girls and me. The waiter was a stocky Turk with dark, leathery skin and a perpetual five o’clock shadow. He wore all black clothes and a black bandana. One of the other waiters drifted over later in the meal and casually mentioned that our waiter is the Kirk Douglas of Turkey. I don’t quite know what that means, but it seemed to make sense. He was a good waiter. Overly friendly and very pushy when trying to get us to order more, but not menacing and overbearing like the street merchants. As the dinner moved along and we ate and drank, the waiter got more and more friendly with us and couldn’t stop talking about how lucky I was to be dining with seven pretty girls. We were all in good spirits and enjoyed his attitude and we joked back and forth with him. When it came time for the bill, he had got us into such a good state of mind that when he offered an after dinner water pipe, we took two. A couple of 3-foot tall glass water pipes were placed on the table and filled with tobacco; apple flavored and cappuccino flavored. They were very tasty and were not harsh like cigarettes. I had a glass of Raki with the tobacco. Raki is sort of the unofficial liquor drink of the Turks. It tastes a little bit like Jeigermeister. It affects you a little bit like tequila. Needless to say, after a couple of puffs from the water pipe and the Jeiger/Tequila-ish drink, I was feeling pretty mellow. My wooden chair felt like a marshmallow under my arse.

After dinner a few of us were feeling pretty good and decided to keep the night going. We went to a little bar in the neighborhood and drank tall glasses of the local beer. They only seem to have one kind of beer here. And it just so happens to taste just like PBR. Ain’t that a good thing. Of course, our waiter is uber-friendly and hangs out with us quite a bit. Eventually, he ended up sitting at our table and hitting on one of the girls. After awhile, he convinces us to go with him to another bar where his buddies are hanging out. He tells the girls there will be good music and dancing. Exactly what they want to hear. I’m tired and drunk and I don’t really trust the guy, but what the hell.

We recruit one other Turk from the bar and we set off walking for the new place. On the way over, the new Turk tries to put his arm around one of our girls…the one girl in the group that just so happened to grow up in New York City…which was an unfortunate coincidence for our new Turkish friend, because her New York nature kicked in, and as soon as his fingertip touched her shoulder, she wheeled around to escape his touch and in the same motion swung her purse around with her momentum and used it to whack the guy right in the balls. The guy tried to laugh it off and we attempted to continue on.

We show up and they are blasting American Top 40 hits. There are about 10 Turkish men there and one girl. So when one American male walks in with 5 girls, every head in the bar turned and stared in our direction. We waste no time in securing drinks and hit the dance floor. Two girls dance with strange Turkish men, one girl dances with our waiter, and one girl is sober and functioning as our chaperone. That left one girl for me. We danced and drank till the wee hours of the night.

Haghia Sophia

I am in awe of this place, but I can’t take the time to reflect on that feeling because I am constantly bombarded with street merchants and run-away taxis. This constant assault on my space and my privacy makes the solitude and quietness of the mosques that much more enchanting. When I stepped into the Haghia Sophia I felt my breathe being sucked out of my body. Not only that, I forgot to even try to resume breathing for several moments as I walked thru the 50 foot entrance doorway. The entrance way was large enough for a herd of elephants to run thru. I can envision a king of kings entering this place and being humbled for the first time in his life. The massive entrance way then opens up to the main room by way of 50 foot side doors and a 100 foot main door that was said to be used by Emperor Justinian riding in on his white horse to be greeted by a full court. The grandiose hallway and gargantuan doors are altogether dwarfed when passed thru on the way to the main court room. I never could have dreamed that one simple room could be so large. A multitude of domed ceilings and super archways all form around and converge on the central dome. Looking up at the central dome gives me a sense of inverse vertigo. I am dizzy and my knees waver and almost buckle. It is said that when the dome was first completed, that when looking up at it on got the sense that they were glancing up into heaven was smiling back at them. 2,000 years later I feel myself smiling back at heaven.

The Beginning

Woke up at 830 this morning to shower, shave,and set off for the journey toEurope. Dave was already up when I gotintheshower, prenteindingowork onhisthesis. Although, he may have really been working at it because there was a certain apathy and frusraion inhis demeanor. Meanwhile,Iam fll of pinn & winearer. I’m excited and I’m ready to taste the wind and smell the day. I grab my bag and pronounce todave that I am on my way out the door. “Dae!”, I say. “I’m outta here!” I’m going to live my life!” This usually incites a chuckle from dave when I tell him I’m going to live my life. A bit of an inside joke about living in clorado. Everone is always so serious about their extracurricular activities there. You can’t juske go for a bike ride. You have to do a 30-mile road climb to Evergreen. You can’t just go skiing on a Saturday afternoon. You have to get up at 4am and beat the traffic on i-70 and drive to a secluded spot near a resort and hike to the fresh powder and make jokes allday about the losers that buy lift tickets and ski at resorts with the Texans. So whenI tell dave that I am going to live my life, that means I am about to get radical Colorado style and no one better get in my way. And the funny thing is, I am not sarcastic today. Today I am actually about to get radical. But dave is writing histheisis. He is clearly not as fired up about life today. So when I say”dave!” I’m outta here! I’m going to live my life!” He responds with a “yep…later.” But I can’ be bothered by his aptathy. I say, “Okay! And I’m gone. Cath the zero bus to MarketSreet Station at 930 am. Cath the Af bs to DIA at 1025 am. Check my bag. Got some sort of black grease on my pants somehow. Srange because I’m not frying anything at the moment. Hell, I’m not even in a kitchen. I’m a the god damn airport. Ph well, I can’t be bothered. I’m living my life. If I get a little black grease on my pants for no reason while I’m standing in the baggage checkin line, then so be it. That is hardcore. I’m traveling so hard core today that I got black grease on my pants from just standing in the bag check line. That is living. I’m living my life right now. I check my bag, hustle thru security, inhale a sanwhich,and obard m flight to Chicago o’hare. 130 pm flight. Arrive at 5pm central time. Immediately board plane to franfut, germany. Flight takes off at 630pm central time. I sit next to a cool grandma on her way to Prague and Austria to see where her parents grew up. I also sit next to a cute grad student from Texas State. Yes, I’m in the middle. Sleep is not an option. Pot roast for dinner with instant mashed potatoes, carrots & peas I’m feeling festive so I order a glass of wine. A cheap cab from California. I’m on my way to Europe and I’m drinking a wine from California. lame. So much for festivity…ness. We eat dinner, watch two movies, and the sun begins to rise. Strange. It is 130 am central time and we are being served a light breakfast and watching the sun rise. I skip the meal and attempt to sleep one last time and eventually give up and start writing this blog. We arrive in Frankfurt at 9:30am local time. It is 3:30am for me and my body is crashing. I have to spend two hours in the check in line and then attempt to order some food before I board my flight to Istanbul. My mind is so warped from the jet lag that when the cashier speaks to me in German, I respond in French...And I only know five words in French. But she understands French so we were alright. I sit in the airport for 3 more hours in wait for my last flight. sit and watch the same half hour German program on the tv in the lounge in an insomniatic daze. never actually fell asleep. Just stared into nothingness. Finally, I get on that last flight and sleep the entire 4 hours to Istanbul. I wake up when we land and I feel refreshed and excited. It is 6pm Turkish time and it feels normal. Might not have jet lag issues. I find my luggage and my hotel driver and get to the hotel very quickly. I meet up with some classmates and we immediately go explore the city. We eat a decent fish dinner, but nothing spectacular. This city is crazy. It is like San Francisco on steriods and crystal meth. Crowds everywhere. Taxis barreling down thin windy streets with no regard for pedestrians. Street merchants urging anyone and everyone to buy their goods. People. People. People. Every which way you turn you bump into someone else. We cross a bridge that runs over the Golden Horn. The inlet that connects the Marmara Sea to the Black Sea. Gigantic mosques everywhere. stray cats everywhere. a spectacular view of the bridge that connects Europe to Asia. Deep blue water and gorgeous views in every direction. Spectacular.

Testy Testy

This is a test blog for the email notification service that I attempted to set up. Hope it works. And I should also mention that I won't be bringing my phone with me on this trip. If you want to have a dialogue with me at some point over the next six weeks, anyone should be able to post comments on this site, or you can email my gmail account. Just in case internet action don't work, I am going to pass along some Turkish phone numbers to my brother, my sister, my dad, my roommate dave, and my ma. If there is an emergency you should be able to reach me thru them.

Side Note: This trip has already gotten off to an auspicious start and I haven't even left town yet. Last nite I met up with one of my travel companions to discuss logistics and have a couple cocktails to celebrate the end of the semester. We met up at the Front Porch in Lodo. It was flip a coin nite, so every time we order a round the bartender flips a coin, and if you call it right the drinks are on the house. Somehow we never lost a flip. It was magical. And it got to the point where we were ordering the craziest drinks in the house because we knew we were going to win the flip. But that is when things began to spiral out of control. We lost count of how many drinks we had been served and how much of what kind of liquor we were pouring into our bellies. And as my Shoffner clan likes to say, I do believe we were over-served.

After a couple of hours of winning coin tosses and talking about irrelevant things like platform diving and flip flops instead of travel logistics, we attempted to vacate the premises. I gathered my wits and headed for the door. Katie, my soon-to-be travel companion, did not follow me because she could not find her purse. Uh-Oh. We search every nook and cranny in the bar to no avail. The purse was stolen.

An excellent beginning to our trip, me thinks. We haven't even left the country yet and we already had a purse stolen. Well, I suppose that is one less thing we'll have to worry about while we're traveling. Can't get your purse stolen on the road if it was already stolen at home. So we got that going for us...which is nice.

Onward and Upward!