Istanbul

 Man, I seriously don't even know where to start. At all. This was such an incredible trip and probably one of the cooler experiences I've had in life. It was a total whirlwind and we did so incredibly much. Kristina and I met up with Candy and Amy at the airport around 5 pm on thursday and were going straight until we left (stupid early) monday morning.

I think that we saw too much to honestly try and explain it all so I will go with general feelings and impressions of Istanbul. Other than that, I took wayyy too many pictures, so I put too many on here as well, but Istanbul was too beautiful to not.

I guess to start off with general impressions I was most amazed at the hospitality there. I assume a large part of that was the fact that we spent a lot of time with locals, and therefore weren't just annoying toursits.

The first day we spent walking around the old part of Istanbul and saw the Haiga Sophia/Blue Mosque/Cisterns/Grand Bazaar. All along the way we would stop in at shops where Amy had friends, and literally everywhere we went we were offered Tea or Turkish coffee. Naturally, it is considered rude to not accept their hospitality, so over the course of the day we had something like 5 teas and 2 coffees. Though they were all super super good. Turkish coffee is intense, but right up my alley. Though I definitely ended up drinking coffee grinds 80% of the time.

 Beyond the hospitality of the shop keepers, all of Amy's friends were ridiculous. They literally wouldn't let us pay for things. Sometimes we could slip some money in here and there, but most of the time they took care of it. They were so so generous and were insistent upon doing so. We were their guests and they wanted to take care of everything. Its a super big change. The amount they took care of us was incredible. Whenever we would walk places they would always kind of protect us with an arm or what not. It was a really interesting experience. But I am so thankful to all of them for taking such incredible care of us.

The weather was beautiful most of the time we were there (minus a freakish down pour while we were waiting to get into the Topkapi palace) and the views were incredible everywhere we went. Istanbul is known as the city with 7 hills, so it really lends itself to incredible views. Not to mention I could never get bored of having views of water.

Now this may be my ignorance, and probably is, but I had absolutely no clue how huge Istanbul is. Its a city of approx. 16 million people and seemed to keep going on for ever. It's hard to judge it, but on the map it really just looks like a dot. It actually wraps around the Marmara sea, so when you are standing on one side of the sea you can point to the other side, and it's still Istanbul. I typically have a really good sense of direction but I was all types of turned around.

Additionally, Istanbul is the only city on both the continents of Europe and Asia. Amy lived on the Asian part, so I can now say I've been to Asia, which is pretty cool.

 The 3 ish days we had there were absolutely incredible and I really do want to go back, but for much longer, and not just to Istanbul.

We went to this funny little place called Miniaturk that had miniatures of all the famous monuments in Turkey (including the airport...). It was pretty cool to see all the places we had seen in real life, but I was absolutely shocked at how many incredible sights there are in Turkey in general. I really feel like I need to go back and spend a month just driving around and exploring.

It was so cool to be in an entirely different society. I loved my time there, but question if I could ever live there on my own. Amy is pretty damn impressive to have done so. Its a beautiful place, but it does sound like it could be really unsafe. It was crazy the comments that Amy would make in passing that are shocking to us, but normal life to her.

She talked about how they bring out the riot squads for the football (soccer) games because fans are so intense and insane, they literally kill each other.

Culturally, it was so different. Especially due to the Islamic religion. One night Erhan took us into a mosque at one of the prayer times and explained everything to us while the prayer was going on and it was all so interesting. It's incredible to learn more about something that I really don't know much about. I barely know anything about christianity, let alone Islam.

Overall, it was an incredible trip and experience in general and I really can't thank Amy and Erhan for showing us around. They really made the trip all that it was.

Relâcher

Relâcher, it's what the weirdo yoga teacher here always used to tell me to do. Apparently I moved to quickly for his liking. He's more into the zen yoga, not the Vinyassa flow I have practiced before. Anyways! I feel like that word nicely encapsulates what I have been doing lately. Which is... Well nothing! 

 The weather has been kind of gloomy and drizzly which just adds to how nice it feels to stay in bed. I've also been trying to study some for my remaining final, which doesn't add to the unproductive nature of my days. Its funny, I have done most of the necessary touristy things in Paris, so I've been spending a lot more of my time just hanging out in my neighborhood at the local cafe and what not. I really like my little neighborhood and its nice to feel at home here.

So it may have been an exaggeration when I said I have done nothing. I have done final things that I needed to cross off my list. For starters, I finally went up la Tour Montparnasse. It is a 59 story building in Paris that everyone hates because it ruins the otherwise perfect skyline of Paris. It towers absurdly over all of the normally 5-7 story buildings that mark the face of Paris. In fact, it was after the completion of Montparnasse that Paris ruled that skyscrapers were not allowed to be built in the city center. A rather wise ruling. There is something a little gross about standing looking at the beautiful eiffel tower and seeing this massive black building in the background. 

But regardless of how ugly it makes the sky-scape look, it sure has great views of the city from it! I haven't been up to the top of the Eiffel tower, and now doubt that I will, but its cool to see the city, and all the sites I can recognize from above. Plus from Montparnasse you can see the Eiffel tower (duh), but that's cool. 

After hanging out on the roof for a while, we decided to go to dinner at our favorite restaurant, but had some time to kill so we wandered over to the Luxembourg gardens to just hang out for a while. It was quite peaceful and relaxing and just generally nice to get some time just hanging out with people while I still can!

We then walked to Chez Gladines and had some wonderful, cheap, decadent french food. The place literally never disappoints. Its too damn good.









Mark and I then planned to visit the Georges Pompidou Centre the next day and see the modern art exhibits. It was cool and bizarre, as I believe modern art should be, but realistically the stuff is just wasted on me. I enjoyed it, but I sure as hell don't understand any of it.

Side note. It may be ignorant of me (or rather, probably was) but I had absolutely NO clue that Picasso wasn't that old. I definitely thought he was from a time long long ago, but no. He died in 1973. What? Blew my mind. Anyways, it was cool to see some of his work as well, but just continually makes me question what the hell was going on in his head. He must have been one hell of a strange dude....

The little struggs.

This past week was somewhat similar to the one before it. In that I didn't do anything too eventful, just kind of living life. Which really isn't as much fun to blog about. But I suppose here I go! 

Last weekend a friend from USC was in town and I got to spend a day exploring with her which was fun. We went to the usual spots like the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the champs-elysees which was cool. We then went into Angelina's for some of the famed hot chocolate and pastries. I clearly got over the trauma from last time. Anyways! We were sitting there and I was wearing a SC hoodie, because those are literally the only mid-layers I brought. Some guy then walked by and was like I like that logo or something as clever, and it turned out that he was a Marshall Alumni from the class of '83 or some such. Small World for sure. 

Emily and I were going to go to the cinema museum to see the Tim Burton exhibit but the line was absolutely insane and we ended up dumping that idea and just walking around the park area by the museum. Its pretty cool to still be finding parts of Paris I don't know at all. The place we were in was the Bercy area and there is a big sports arena type thing there. There was also a graffiti-filled skate park which was mostly being used by BMX bikers or people on rollerblades. Who knew that was still a thing?

 I had another final on tuesday, meaning I have 1 final and 1 project still due, so to celebrate being done Supply Chain Management I went to Disneyland Paris with 7 friends. It was pretty fun and a little weird. Its so strange being in a place that is so similar to one at home, but so far away. Like you would find yourself in certain parts of the park and I would completely recognize it from Disneyland in LA last summer. It was kind of comforting. There weren't too many huge rollercoasters, but we rode all of them and space mountain twice. The second time we rode space mountain I was sitting in the first car of the coaster and when I got off at the end my face was filled with tears from the wind on the ride.

The picture to the right was from the Small World ride which I still can't believe I got talked into going on. The ride is annoying, the dolls are pretty creepy and that damn song just gets stuck in your head forever. Either way I did enjoy their representation of LA being next to both San Francisco and NYC.

Finals week

This past week was probably my hardest week school-wise that I had in my time in Paris. I had a written final, an oral final, and 2 big group presentations. All of this meant I had a pretty boring week. Besides studying in parks, it was quite tame.

Last Saturday was the school's big final party that was put on by the BDE or their equivalent of the students union. It was kinda flapper girl type theme and was a decent party, but we were all left a little disappointed. All the students had talked about how they had strippers at the school parties, and not that I particularly wanted to see the strippers, but there is just something about being able to say you went to a party, at your school, where there were hired strippers. But alas, I still can't say that. Sigh. Either way it was nice to hang out with people and release some stress before the rough week ahead.



Monday was Rodrigo's birthday so a few of us got together and had dinner with him for that. It was also super nice.

I don't really have much else to report on. I'm starting to get all stupid nostalgic though. I still have a month left, and have only been here 3 months, but I feel like I'm about to leave. It's rather dumb on my part. I really like it here, and other than getting to see people back home, I don't really think I want to leave. Maybe that will change though.

Now for one of my repeated quirky thoughts. I know I've shared this with some of you, but still... I would generally say that I am an animal lover. Growing up, I wanted to be a veterinarian for the longest time, but like everyone else, I'm not super fond of pigeons. They are gross and always around and just icky in general. Plus they are just straight up stupid. Like they are always walking in front of you or won't move when you are about to bike over them. Stupid. So I have this slight compulsion when I'm walking to try and kick them. I don't know if I want to teach them a lesson, or if its just my competitive side trying to see if I would actual be quick enough to kick one, but its always a tempting thought. Especially when there is a slow one walking right in my path, I always think to myself 'I could totally kick that one'. Now all of this is a pretty weird thought, especially because I'm pretty sure if I ever actually did kick one I would feel like a total asshole and feel really bad about it.

Anyways, I have a few more finals and projects, but this semester is wrapping up pretty quick. In my mind it is Istanbul, Rome, Venice, Prauge then home. Super weird.