A Photo Recap of the Last Month

Let's start with some flashes of my life for the past 30 days:




this pic was taken on a night "touring" the old city with the newly arrived bogazici exchange crowd. don't know how this happened with the light, but i like it. shortly after i took this picture it started to POUR buckets of rain. it was awesome :).

the next two shots are from tyler and my trip to greece - well, more accurately a trip to the border. my visa was expiring so i had to go renew it by crossing the border, and ty and i decided it would be funnest to walk from turkey to greece. it was fun, except we had no time to actually chill in yunanistan. the walk through "no man's land" between the borders was so beautiful and picturesque we didn't even know what to do with ourselves.

the most ironic picture i've ever taken:

this is a view from an awesome hangout spot on my campus. if it has a name i don't know it, but it's awesome and we've spent quite a few evenings here enjoying this amazing view of bogazici koprusu and the strait.


the black sea and a lovely restaurant that kaan took me to. we literally spent 5 hours here just talking and enjoying the relaxing, chill atmosphere.

a typical night out in taksim with the crew: tyler, myself, daetan, paul and ruth.

THE best caffe latte i've had in turkey:

melisa and i on our girl date to the asian side (uskudar). we went to one of my favorite restaurants, dilruba, and enjoyed a top notch quality meal, an amazing view and each other's wonderful company. and afterwards, in amazingly typical turkish fashion, our waiter walked us all the way to the ferry. lol.

ruth and i :).

why have i not blogged for 30 days? well, i've been sort of rebelling against my blog and just indulging myself in experiencing life without too much reflection; and/or i've been reflecting on things i dont quite feel like blogging about. but i'm back!

the new big thing in my life is school. since it's started up, i've been reallyyy absorbed in my coursework. my primary goal for coming to bogazici was to expand my coursework (breaking free of the relatively limited selection at ucsd in near eastern history), i'm trying to take advantage of the unique opportunities i have here to learn in a different environment, from different perspectives. that's definitely happening. i feel myself pushed to think in new ways, and the challenge is exhilarating and of course, exhausting. i've included a pic below of school (stolen from melisa!) and i promise to take a few pics of my view from the classroom i spend most of my time in...


yeah, i definitely spend most of my time in class or reading and preparing for class. the second big use of my time is VOLLEYBALL. i just made the bogazici school team, sort of. since i'm leaving second semester i can't compete with them, but i'm setting for them as they train, and the girls are so great and sweet. i loveeee having a team again and though its also exhausting, its 100% worth it.

okay thats all for now. better, more consistent blogging to come. toodles!

birthday blogging

Hello all!!

I write to you from my pension terrace in Patara, Turkey. It has been an amazing week of “solo” adventuring for me. While I left Istanbul as a lone traveler, I have been so fortunate to make excellent company at each stage of my little getaway. In Olympos at the treehouse pension we were staying at, by some crazy stroke of good luck, I ran into Dilan, a friend of my new roommate in Hisarustu. I was standing in line with friends from the gullet cruise, waiting for dinner when all of a sudden Dilan walks past! Turns out Dilan is staying in Olympos for a few days, studying for her TOEFL and GRE exams. Since I, as usual, had no plans and no idea what I was doing, I decided to stay and hang out.

This turned into an excellent decision and a great night. I dined with Dilan and Selim, another PhD student at Bogazici, over which we discussed our various research interests and practiced my Turkish J. After dinner I did some significant catching up on the news (finally watched Obama’s healthcare speech - a 45 minute speech that turned into like an 1.5 hour exercise bc of the internet connection lol) and afterwards we set off for the beach:

a little love from the ancient inhabitants of olympos:

The olympos beach was beautiful at night, and I think more beautiful than in the day. (I spent most of the day at the beach, too, jumping off some small cliffs with Simon the Aussie), The moon was amazing, and the beach is flanked by 2 grand mountains…it was (as most of the trip has been) so surreal, so movie-like and somewhat unbelievable. Our little gang on the beach that night was an eclectic mix: Dilan, Selim, Zeynep, Matthias, myself and a few others who we had med at the pension. We walked and talked about some very interesting ideas until 2, when Zeynep, Selim and myself made the trek back to the pension. While I’d planned on heading to sleep, Bayram (the owner of Bayram’s treehouse pension) and I ended up chatting about Olympos, why and how treehouse pensions became such a big deal there, how he started this place (at 17) and how it boomed into this amazingly successful business. At 3, I called it a night and went to bed.

The next morning I decided it was time to move on. I picked Patara, having seen this amazing stetch of beautiful coastline from my gullet cruise days earlier and wanting to return. I said my goodbyes, boarded a bus and set off. There were 4 other travelers to Patara - Parisians making a 3 week tour around Turkey. We ran into each other later that day at the beach (of course the first thing I did after arriving at my pension was leave for the coast), and shared a few drinks and laughs about my ridiculously broken French.

I shared my evening with a group of 7 Cambridge students who are touring this side of turkey in their studies of Ancient Civilizations. Nick, Sophie, Sas, Alex, Alex, Steve and Antony. Nick, Sophie and Sas graciously extended an invitation to dinner, which I accepted. We trekked through Patara (one of the smallest towns I’ve ever been in - INCLUDING JULIAN, CALIFORNIA) to find dinner at the Flower Pension. The 8 of us enjoyed an amazing casserole and I was absolutely riveted in conversation through the entire dinner. Fresh faces, new questions, new stories…I was challenged in a refreshing way to explain my experience thus far in Istanbul, to summarize my thoughts, feelings, reactions to Turkey. They wanted more extensive responses to typical questions, and asked me more than anyone else thus far. So I re-started the explorative process that had otherwise been occurring almost exclusively in my journal. Needing to vocalize and articulate my thoughts about Istanbul’s atmosphere, it’s unique predicaments, about my personal experience in the city - all of this has catalyzed and invigorated my thinking and thoughts about Istanbul and me in it.

When we finished dinner, it really started to pour. Our waiter (in typical Turkish hospitality) volunteered to drive us home though the storm. A long game of poker and sleep were next in order.

In the morning I set off for a run to the beach. ONCE I arrived, it began to pourrrrr downnn. Like I haven’t been in rain this strong in a while. The beach café staff was warm and welcoming, as were 2 lovely Swiss ladies who obliged to give me a ride home (after, of course, I had enough good fun playing in the rain J). My French kicked in again - though dotted with Turkish. It is sooooooo hard to switch language gears!!! I couldn’t stop thinking in Turkish - couldn’t find the words in French and kept accidentally saying “evet” instead of “oui,” asking questions in Turkish rather than French…it was really an lol event.

Anyways I requested to be dropped off in the town center (slightly ashamed to ask for a ride up the hill to my pension) and so had to make a trek through the town in no pants (mine were far too wet and I had to take them off). That was fun….

At home, I cleaned off and the sun came out, so I just suited up again and headed for the beach again! Met up there with the Cambridge kids, and sort of spent the day learning a lotttt about Oxbridge. I really can’t even express how fortnate I feel to have made such great company…each of them has a wonderful, interesting distinct personality that is so much FUN for me to observe and absorb. After catching my first proper, beach sunset in months, we walked home.

And I spent my evening turning 20, brushing up on some history, relaxing in the cool of my pension and feeling quite content.

On this new decade:

I feel empowered. I feel more capable than I ever have, and excited for the decade of adventuring that lies ahead. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I’ve spent the majority of my last month in Turkey with 26 and 27 year olds. I am now more aware of my youth and also far more comfortable with it. In a new, confident way, I accept and embrace where I am in my life, and who I am in the world. Finally, I feel comfortable in my own body, comfortable with my mind and thoughts, and capable of whatever lies ahead.

While being alone on my birthday is a teensy bit sad, it is exactly what I wanted to do. To leave Istanbul and its 24-7 energy, noise, its 20 million people. To get away and figure out what was going on with me before Wednesday rolls around and I am again immersed in new everything at Bogazici. To move without dodging people on the streets, to sit in quiet, peaceful solitude and enjoy quality time with myself.

All of this being said, I miss you all and love you very much. And I am looking forward to a much-belated birthday celebration full of the people I love the most.

chess games

hey everyone!!! i write to you from a little internet cafe in kas, in southern turkey on the aegean coast.

i left istanbul on saturday night by hopping on a bus to fethiye. i'm all by myself, and this trip is definitely a leap of faith on my part, having no experience truly traveling alone. i was determined, though, as previous blogposts have expounded on, to get to this coast before summer weather expired. SOOO i got to fethiye on sunday morning with the plan of sort of lazing around for a few days and then taking one of these "blue cruises" to olympos on tuesday. however, once i got to my hostel in fethiye (which was an adventure in itself), tuna (the owner of the hostel) made some calls and discovered that the "company of choice" was booked until thursday...UNLESS i got on a cruise THAT DAY. since i was totally planless, i was just like, ok sure whaever, hahaha. so in 10 minutes there was someone there to pick me up for this cruise. got onto the boat and i've been "cruisin" (hahaha) ever since! *note: i'm not talking about like a cruiseline princess/celebrity cruise or wahtever - this is a nice little boat that fits about 15 ppl.

some shots of my uber surreal life from the boat:

near oludeniz:

where we docked for night one:

today's first stop with a turtle sighting (that i couldnt get a picture of)!

a rare picture of me in the pristine waters of the southern aegean:

and to, perhaps belatedly, get to the title of this post. somehow chess has come back into my life over the past week. my friend from tomer, a saudi named mohammed, has been urging me to play chess with him for a while and despite my incredible insecurities i caved on thursday evening. we sat at haciagolu, ate lahmacun and pulled out his chess board. the reason i've been SOOO hesitant to play chess is because, well, i dont have any moves! i dont remember any of the strategies, playing styles or anything that my dad taught me years ago...and without a long-term plan or any kind of idea about how to tackle the game, i dont even want to start.

my life is sort of like this. i'm pretty obsessed with long-term plans, big picture life maps, etc. but this game of chess reminded me that long term plans are crap. things evolve, change, and half our lives we dont really have control over. how my opponent moved shaped what my choices needed to be, what life gives me is what i need to fumble or deal with the best i can. turned out that i could hold my own against mohammed (and my latest chess partner stanislas - a russian/kazak/german on my cruise). just need to trust myself, take a leap of faith even when i dont have a long term plan. just take things one step at a time. having realized that this is basically the theme of my little vacation to the turquoise coast, i thought i just had to share it with you. so yeap there it is! learning life lessons while floating around on the gorgeous southwestern coast in turkey, missing all of you and hoping to hear from you soon.