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| Back from Turkey and much recovery is needed. Now, don't get me wrong, I am quite glad that I went; this is definitely a place that you should see at least once in your life. For me, however, once might just be enough. I have been places where people try their hardest to sell you something you truly do not need, but Istanbul is so far beyond what I expected to find. If France's national pastimes are striking, condescension and infidelity, Istanbul takes the prize for mastering of the art of ripping people off. I have many stories to tell to reinforce this claim, but I think I would rather focus on the good times we had...before I forget them.
Istanbul has so much history that, being on the opposite spectrum from what one would call a "history buff," I could not retain it all. I'm sure if you care enough, though, you can look it up for yourself. Our hotel was situated neatly between two prominent landmarks of the area: the Hagia Sofia (I'm not entirely sure that's spelled right) and the Blue Mosque. The Hagia Sofia is a museum now, but ol' Blue on the other side treated us to nice long prayers over her loudspeakers five times each day. The first being at too-early-in-the-morning-for-me o'clock. Not that it wasn't cool to be able to hear them. In fact, the Blue Mosque had quite a bit to say for herself. One day a tour guide took us around the city to show us only a fraction of what there is to see, including a visit inside the Blue Mosque. It was quite beautiful: the ceilings domed and covered, like the walls, in beautifully painted tiles. She was built by a 14-year old sultan to compete with the mosque across the way. You know, proving his manhood batiment-style. But we were in and out rather quickly, ushered out by our guide without her telling us much.
A more substantial portion of our time was dedicated to meandering around the Hagia Sofia. She was built as the world's very first cathedral, then turned mosque, and now functions as a museum. This place was full of mosaics that had been plastered up when it was turned into a mosque, but are now being revealed. However, Peter accurately noted that whoever was doing the unveiling did not care much for preserving the works. Our guide told us that many of the tiles in the mosaics had been "lost" during the removal of the plaster. Now that just seems careless and a bit lazy to me. If you want to preserve it, at least you could try to put it back together, or not make them fall apart in the first place. Regardless, it was an impressive place.
Yikes, this is it for now. Registration from abroad is a terrible mess, and I need to get ready to wade through mine.
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Everyone speaks Russian here, and it's really very strange not knowing
a single word to say to anyone. I've never had that happen before, and
it's a strange feeling. All I can say is the name of the currency, and
that doesn't really count.
I met the Lachance's housekeeper today, Jimilla (I don't know how to
spell it, but that's how it sounds), and she was really very nice. She
brought me some flowers and told me how she heard all the time that
Peter was happy with me, so she knew I was a clever and sweet girl.
She's also decided she wants me to learn a few words in Russia. She
had me say good-bye today, and that was it. I don't know that I've
ever met anyone who was that happy to see me. She's bringing her
daughters here on Wednesday so they can meet Peter and me. It's pretty
fun.
There's also a pretty big gym here for the ex-pats. Peter's been
playing squash there with his dad, and his mom has a personal trainer
there. Peter also decided to tell his mom that I wanted a massage
while I was here. Well, I told him no such thing, he's just always
worried about my back. Needless to say, I have an appointment with a
large Russian woman on Wednesday. And apparently Sveta doesn't speak a
whole lot of English. She understands Hard, Medium, and Soft.
Hahaha. This is a situation I never thought I would face. I'll let
you all know how it goes.
But Peter's dog, Moose, is soft and fluffy and very sweet. If you take one thing from this post, please let it be that.
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| Deep Breath. I am going to take a break from freaking
out over the fact that there are at least nine, count 'em NINE, errors on my
transcript that I don't know how to fix from abroad to tell you about why I am
in Asia!
Our Spring Break just started, and Peter and I have two wonderful weeks
off. So we here in Azerbaijan
visiting his parents. I have never been this far away before! The
traveling hasn't disappointed, either.
Yesterday was our first full day here (happy belated Poissons D'Avril, by the
way), but it was already packed with fun stories. For example (on a
personal exciting note), I had pickles, REAL pickles for the first time
since leaving the States. Hallelujah! I was so happy, I think I
almost cried. I hope I can bring a jar or seven back with me.
Anyway, more about yesterday.
In the morning, Peter and his dad went to the ex-pat gym to play squash while
his mom and I had tea and toast and looked at photos. When they got back,
we all walked down into town for lunch at a small restaurant that serves
American-style food and movie posters from the U.S.
written in Russian papering the walls. It was fun trying to guess which
movie was which. Near the entrance was a stack of prop shipping boxes
marked with a tasteful "HANDLE WITH CARE: FAGILE"
We walked around a bit and browsed the two pirated CD and DVD shops that we
plan to visit again today (plus two or three more times before we leave).
Apparently our bags will be filled with pirated movies and pickle jars for the
trip back.
When we came back, I went to work on my schedule for next semester. Peter
was downstairs helping his dad clean off the motorcycle he bought a while
ago. Peter went for a ride, SCARY! (the traffic is
frightening here)
I have not yet gotten back to my grandmother on this, but Azerbaijan
(for your information, Emaw) is located near Georgia
and Russia.
It's off the Caspian Sea and is northwest of Iran.
It's kind of a gray spot on the map continent-wise, apparently. But I
have been told with 93% certainty that it is part of Asia.
So, Asia it is. At least in my mind.
We will leave for Turkey
on Thursday. Istanbul is
supposed to be beautiful right now, the flowers just coming into bloom.
It should prove a memorable trip.
And speaking of memorable trips, allow me to take a step back to Friday and our
trip to come here.
Things went off, relatively, without a hitch travel-wise. I know, boring.
But stay with me, I promise it will get better. We left Montpellier
Friday evening, stayed in Paris
Friday night, and left for Azerbaijan
Saturday afternoon. I am honestly amazed at how bad airplanes in France
smell. Every time someone opened the restroom door...wow. I can
only liken it to sticking one's head directly into the seat of a
port-a-potty. Needless to say, it was ripe. For entertainment, we
watched the reflection on the airplane window of the boy in front of us playing
a game on his Nintendo DS where we would pet a puppy. The we wished we
had a real puppy to play with. At least then, that smell would be
justified.
The room in Paris was actually
quite nice, surprisingly. We had stayed there once before when Peter and
I managed to strand ourselves in Paris
because of a time misunderstanding for our train (a different story, which I
will get to on a different day). Now, I said 'surprisingly' because our
first encounter with this hotel was not a pleasant one. The room was
small, dingy, and a fair bit disgusting. Oh, but that was room 45. This
time we got the room right across the hall. Which was twice its size,
and four times its cleanliness. Though there was some spooky knocking in
the middle of the night every ten or so minutes. And Peter had a
spine-chilling nightmare about a ghost from the Victorian times who was chasing
his friend and then stared directly at Peter. He said it felt like
someone's real ghost had snuck its way into his dream.
Regardless, we made it through the night and onto the plan in one piece.
Though the airport was quite the adventure.
It started with a crazy shuttle ride to our terminal from the hotel. The
driver followed the completely reasonable path of Terminal 2A to 2C, then 2E,
2F, 2D, and finally arriving at our destination of 2B. Hey, why not?
Once there, though, we did not have much trouble finding the check-in
gate. And, although we were there a good hour-and-a-half to two hours
ahead of time, the line at the gate showed that most of the other passengers found it just as easily. They already stretched well past the four neighboring gates for other flights. We were actually pretty lucky to get there when we did. The line doubled in size about 20 minutes after we arrived. Most of the people around us spoke Russian and another language I could in no way understand. Except for the French family in line right behind us. The one that did not realize that Peter and I could understand them very well. The one that complained about us, Americans and the English in general (they couldn't tell which we were), the other people around us, and the shops in the airport. Just to name a few of their preferred topics of conversation. My goodness, I don't think I have ever heard such unhappy sounding people in my life. Well, of course we could not just stand there and take that! No! We had to mock them a bit in return (at least to ourselves), in as many languages as we could manage. We found a few phrases in Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, and of course English that were fun to throw around. Needless to say, we were in very good moods. And there was actually no sarcasm in that statement. We really were rather cheery, and everything was much easier to handle in that mindset. I would normally be really offended and retreat a bit into myself with the type of animosity that manifested itself in the family behind us. Instead, it was all very funny. And then came the finest moment of them all. We made it up to the woman at the desk, and she asked us if we spoke French. With our answer being yes, we proceeded to hold our entire conversation in French, without once messing up, might I add. The shining moment was walking past the family again, who had heard the whole thing. That's right, very angry family! We understood you! That's right, look down at the floor, avoid our gaze in shame. It's these small victories that keep me going. They got over it in at least 30 seconds.
And it seemed our good moods paid off in more ways than one. Once we made our way into the waiting area for the plane, a young man came over to talk to us. He had recognized another American accent, and wanted to talk to a few fellow compatriots. Our Virginian friend told us that he was on his way to Azerbaijan to get married to a woman he had met there. He saw how happy we were being together and wanted his bride-to-be to see what an American couple should apparently look like. She hadn't met many other Americans, and he believed we would be good examples. Good thing we were not stressed that day. We usually are when we have to travel. He ended up inviting us to his wedding and reception. A real Azeri wedding! Imagine that! It sounded like a great oppurtunity, so Peter and he exchanged e-mail addresses, and he gave us a number at which we could reach him. His wedding is coming up soon, and I hope we can make it. The timing might be a big issue as I'm not sure when we are coming back from Turkey. At the very least, he wanted to get together and have us all meet. So at least we have that to fall back on.
So it was the most interesting airport encounter that I have ever had. Not that I have had that many. But still, how exciting! And what a story.
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| Happy Saint Patrick's Day! The day when everyone's Irish. Go celebrate! Do a jig. And other things of that nature.
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