April is Here

I have had a pretty exciting two weeks since my last post.

I finalized plans for the spring break and I made it to Istanbul at last. I also worked out my Service Learning project, and figured out what I have to do for my class grades.

It is April and the weather has really perked up. So has the pollen count. Today I saw a wall of pollen so thick it looked like a sand storm. Obviously I ran for my Claritin and so far I have not turned into "allergy kid."

The Service Project Project:

   I won't get to do anything like I imagined before coming here. But I have accepted the limitations and am appreciating what I do get to do. It really isn't much. I still go to some of the other classes and "assist." This usually means hanging around and talking to other students. Sometimes I help put together irrigation or with measurement taking for the student projects.

Classes:

   UPDATE! I finally understand. The classes are the least important part of Study Abroad, and it is better for me to forget about them. My grades will be solely dependent on term papers, due… at some point. I am going to try to get them mostly finished in the next two weeks. I am allowed to send them in from home, but who wants to spend the beginning of summer break working on finals?

The Return Trip:

   My plans for early May have totally changed. I am scrapping the Greek islands idea entirely. It is not very easy to plan a trip to the islands on your own. It would also be awful traveling on and around the Greek Orthodox Easter. So the replacement plan is even more ambitious!

   I will head first to the southern side of Cyprus. There are beaches and Greeks - and it is an island - so it is pretty close to being in the Greek Islands. After a few days there I will jet up to Edinburgh, Scotland. I am ready to see some good gardens, so the Royal Botanical there should satisfy my cravings. After taking in the garden-scapes, I want to head to the nearest Scotch distillery. Glenkinchie is nearest to the city. It looks like I can get a free tour and a free sample if I can find a way out there.

  After all that, I will take a short flight over to Dublin. The Guiness brewery is top of the list there I think. The real goal of the Ireland stop is to get out to the west coast. I will bus to Lisdoonvarna to catch the beginning of the Burren in Bloom Festival. There will hopefully be some good hikes, incredible sights, and of course lots of flowers. After all that, I should be ready to come home, right?

   The best part of the last couple weeks, and definitely one of the high lights of the semester, was my trip to Istanbul. 

Istanbul, The beginning:

   I have been trying to make this trip since I got to Greece in January. It never seemed to work out, and I kept having to put it off. Obviously I was a little excited to get there at last. I convinced the American intern to come with me, and we snagged bus tickets for a good price.

The Docks

   I took classes off to spend a day in the city. I bought some bread and snacks for the trip, picked up a bike chain to keep my stuff not stolen in the hostel, and visited the Thessaloniki Photography Museum. There was only one exhibit, but it was pretty cool. It was a history of the city and photography in the city. I was interested to see how the city had developed since the early 20th century. It was good to visualize the major events that have shaped the city. For example, there are picture of Ottoman Thessaloniki, and picture of the FIre, and then pictures post Greco-fication (removal of minarets and other vestiges of Turkish influence). It was remarkable how little the city has changed since the 1930s. The shots that stood out to me the most were a series taken of an execution. The first imaged was of three men were lined up before their graves, and the set culminated with their contorted bodies laying on the ground. it was pretty powerful seeing the frozen expressions of those men speaking their last words, cigarettes in mouth, and hats cocked.

   After a big dinner in Thessaloniki, we caught an overnight bus to Turkey. It was a 10 hour ordeal. I really mean ordeal. The border crossing was excruciatingly long. First we had to stamp out of Greece, then we had to drive to the Turkish side, where we stood in a long line only to find out we had stood in the wrong line. So we stood in another line (ok so it was just us in the second line), and bought our visa stamps. Of course the border crossing happens at just before 3 a.m. We arrived in the city exhausted and opted to take a cab to our hostel. Well, we took a cab to near our hostel.Then we found a public restroom! Only it cost 50¢ per person to use. Revenue maintains the public spaces.

   We managed to find out hostel without too much trouble, and promptly passed out. Everyone else in our (mostly empty) 30 bed dorm was just starting to wake up.

 

Hostel Street