Bodrum Weekend!

Let's take a trip to the past... meaning March. The last weekend in March, we went down to the south of Turkey to an amazing city called Bodrum! Bodrum is probably even more modern that Izmir is. It is a sea town and there are no apartments, just really big beautiful houses. It looks a little like a Greek coastal town, because all the buildings are white and Bodrum is right on the sea. 

Our journey started on a bus! Annie and Riad came down from Bursa to spend the night on Friday, and then Saturday morning, we got on the bus to go to Bodrum. The trip took about 4 hours and I spent most of it sleeping. Buses here are nice to you, meaning they give out free water and tea and snacks. It's not that bad, just rather uncomfortable. 

When we got to Bodrum, we were welcomed by the Rotary club who took us down to the seaside where the Rotary was sponsoring a cultural fair. There were people from different countries selling food and souvenirs from their countries to benefit Rotary International. There was a lady from the US selling cookies and all of us Americans had to buy a couple. They were very good! Then, Rotary took us to a castle on the seaside. This castle was built by the Crusaders so it was really old, yet still wonderfully preserved.

I had so much fun wandering around the castle. I really do love castles. After the castle, we headed down to a boat and took pictures on it for fun.

Then we went to stay with our different Rotary families. I stayed with the family of the girl who is coming to District 5060 next year. She took me out that night to meet her friends at Starbucks and see the docks at night. Bodrum is really beautiful!

The next morning, we had a big brunch with the Rotarians and then went to a museum with many models of sailing and fishing boats, as well as a HUGE collection of absolutely beautiful seashells. I forgot my camera so I don't have photos, but they were breathtaking. Then, sadly, we had to say goodbye to Bodrum. We took the bus home to Izmir, where I celebrated Easter with my family. It was probably one of my favorite trips since coming here.

At the castle

America!

Ailem! My family

The awesome American girls

Monica :)

Protests!

Hello. I've finally finished school, so that means I have all my mornings, afternoons and, after dance, my evenings school and obligation free! I'll tell you all about school later. I've got a lot of catching up to do, but today I want to start with something that has been happening here recently. The nationwide protests in Turkey. Now the fact that I'm writing this means that I'm alive. I'm alive and cooped up at home because of the craziness of the protests happening not 30 minutes from my home. 

But this:

is what my city looked like on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in protests of the Turkish government's policies. I'll try to explain.

In the city of Istanbul, there is a place called 'Taksim' and in Taksim there is a park. This park is the only green place left in the center part of Istanbul and Taksim is a well known hang out place for the Turkish people. The government decided that they would demolish this place and build a shopping mall and mosque in its place. This made a lot of people very angry and they organized a peaceful sit-in at the park to protest the demolition. On the morning of the sit-in, police entered the park and began to use tear gas and rubber bullets to attack the protesters. They beat them and tried to drive them out of the park. This action sparked a full blown demonstration by the Istanbul city against the government. The government has also banned the advertisement of alcohol, tried to ban the sale of alcohol within 100 meters of  any school, mosque or government building, has put a ban on any public displays of affection causing protests in Ankara, has pushed for the building of more mosques than are needed and has tried to make the government more religious. This has infuriated modern Turks, who refuse to give up the secular freedoms they have had for the last 80+ years. The protests against the park's demolition turned into nationwide uprisings against injustice. Let me say though, that all the protests started out peacefully. No harm was done until the police attacked the people. In Izmir, government buildings were broken into and I heard that a few were burned.
When this first started, the government put pressure on the new channels and so none of the demonstrations were broadcasted. A few days ago, the new people began to show footage and cover the uprisings because the word spread through social media like wildfire. My facebook is covered with posts about the things going on in cities around the country. The government tried to block the internet but they were unsuccessful. We want the world to be aware of the crimes the Turkish government is committing against its own people.

Now again, I'm home and safe!! I'm not going out there until it calms down a bit and who knows when that will happen. Please educate yourselves and your neighbors about the things happening, and pray that a solution may be found soon!

Monica

Manisa Weekend

The word for this weekend- Hectic. Manisa is a smaller town about 30 minutes from Izmir. Why then, you ask, did we spend a weekend there? Well Manisa is famous for this candy stuff called Mesir Macunu. It contains about 41 different spices and so if you have a head cold the candy will supposedly cure it. It was made for a Sultana by order of the Sultan at the time and it worked. So, they decided that once a year they would throw this candy to the people so that the common person could be cured. So that's why we were in Manisa: to be a part of this once a year tossing. The catch: TONS of people. We arrived Saturday, went to a concert and spent the night in Manisa at Rotarians' houses. Then Sunday morning we had breakfast and then walked in this parade with the Mania Rotaract and ended up in front of the mosque where they threw the candy. The thing was we were supposed to be in the mosque but we weren't and got caught in this mob of people, mostly men, who were all scrambling and pushing each other to get this candy. Thankfully, no one got hurt and the Rotaract kids got us out of there pretty fast. A few of us did end up with candy though, and once we'd all had something to eat we were fine. The day actually ended really well, so I'm not complaining. I'm not sure I'd try that again though. 

:) Monica

During the Turkish concert

At the end of the day, we were smiling :D

Denizli/Pamukkale

I'm on a writing kick right now, which is odd considering it's 3am Sunday morning. So I'm going to catch you up on some of the trips we've been doing. So about 5 weeks ago, our group traveled to the Denizli area and we saw some pretty cool stuff. First, we traveled to a town called Aphrodisias which has a lot of really amazing old ruins. The whole area was green and just beautiful. The only downside was it was raining a lot of the time. There was an old stadium where they held races so it's long like the chariot stadium in Ben-Hur. Naturally, we all had to race as well. Torvald won. The next day we went to Hierapolis which is an ancient city where people who had incurable diseases were sent to pass their last days. See there were healing waters where people went to be cured, but people who had diseases that couldn't be cured by the waters were sent away because the people who ran the waters didn't want the people getting healed to lose faith if some were dying. So they sent those incurable people to Hierapolis, and so there are a lot of graves there.
Then, we went to Pamukkale where they have the hot springs. They have a pool that you can swim in, and so we did. The hills of springs is really beautiful! The last place we visited was the ancient city of Laodicea. This city is famous as one of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation. They are in the process of digging it up and preserving it, but they say it will be bigger than Ephesus when completed. The trip made me realize that Turkey is packed full of artifacts and old cities just waiting to be discovered and dug up. It is amazing to think that there is all of this history here and yet a lot of people don't know about it. Hopefully more people will get the chance to see all of this history.
Catching up,
Monica

The gang at Aphrodisias

Hieropolis (complete with graves in the background)

Swimming in the hot springs

On the terrace

Laodicea

Faces in Aphrodisias

The stadium I mentioned.

 I would also like to mention that this is HUGE. Simply enormous 

Statues from Aphrodisias

Oh right, we saw snow. It decided to snow on us on the way to our hotel and so we all had to get out and be in it. It was Felipe's first time seeing snow, but all of us were pretty much screaming with excitement :)

Easter

So Easter Sunday was celebrated just a little differently from all the Easters before. I was in Bodrum with the exchange students both Saturday and Sunday morning and so there wasn't any church or getting up early or anything like that. But, it was fun in a different way. Annie and Riad were staying the night at my house and Annie knew all about Easter, being from the US. We put on summer dresses and at dinner we told my family that it was Easter. They were really intrigued and my sister mentioned that she wanted to dye eggs as I'd told her about that before. We boiled some eggs, but first my family took us out to eat Turkish style waffles. Then, we went back to my house and decorated eggs. It was both Riad's and my family's first Easter and I think they liked it. I was really happy that we got to decorate the eggs and that I had friends to celebrate with :)

Monica

Ice cream, fruit, chocolate.... what more could you want

Annie and I

Riad and my sister

 

 

Top right: My host mom and sister

Bottom: My eggs

All the eggs :)

Letting go

So for any of you who are still reading this, you will have noticed that I haven't posted in a while and mostly that's because I get busy or feel lazy. I'm sorry for that. I've been going through a lot lately: mentally and emotionally and there's a lot that I've discovered about myself and what I believe. It is safe to say that I will not be the same person when I get back to Quincy, Washington. I've had to let go of a lot of 'demons' that have been following me around and that I could never notice until this exchange.

If I had the chance to be in high school again, or the chance to be at my 'age-grade' level, I never would. I'm so thankful that I'm not there. High school is an illusion. You think, and are somewhat told, that it will be one thing. You think that it will define you and make you the person you will be. Actually, high school is just a bunch of hormonal teenagers who don't know anything and try to feel superior because they all believe the lies fed to them about high school. I can't say I wasn't one of those people. I thought it would be different, and it ended up brainwashing my realities. Honestly, high school was terrible. 

I couldn't see it then, I don't think anyone can. You only realize how bad it was until you are away from it, but still carrying your school demons. The demons that tell you what you wanted to hear in high school now can't cope with being in the real world. You have no filter in high school. You say what you want and the adults around you aren't too hard on you because after all, you really don't know who you are; but the world doesn't work like that.

So I'm letting go. I'm getting rid of all the nasty high school demons that I've been unintentionally carrying around. 

1. 'High school was fun.' No it really wasn't. I came into high school from being homeschooled and I had zero social skills. Did that make me different? Yes. Did it make me abnormal? No. But I never realized that. I should have, but instead I tried to fit in (which means I didn't). I nearly gave up what I had always believed in to 'fit in' but thankfully God didn't let me do that. On the outside I was one thing, but on the inside I was a different thing. Looking back today I shouldn't have ever done that. It left to many wounds because almost no one understood me, and nearly all hurt me. 

2. 'It will make you the person you will be.' Yes and no. High school has given me horrible trust issues that I may never get rid of. I don't feel comfortable around people my own age. Honestly, I get along much better with adults. Now, I have to be able to interact with people my own age, of course that's unavoidable. I just wish that people then had listened more. Then again, God's got a plan and there's a reason that's happened and is done. High school is not allowed to define me though. It may have affected the way I see some things, yes. However, it's not allowed to be my only ground to stand on. I have my whole life ahead of me and if all I do is hang on to the doubts from high school, I'll never be able to stand. 

I've messed up a lot, but then who hasn't. Who can say that they've never had a point in their life where they think they could never fix things. Hitting rock bottom is sometimes a good thing. Sure, it's going to be really, really hard to get back out, and maybe you'll lose some friends, trust, your job, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your current lifestyle or your former security. It's the things that you gain from hitting the bottom that will be the best for you. You can gain peace of mind, sanity, your ideals, and more than likely you'll find who you are. It's those things that will make it worth trying to fix everything. You just need to remember what's important and hold on to that as hard as you can. Find people who will be there for you in everything and those are your true friends.

That was really general, but that's what I've actually been going through lately. I'm going to start digging myself out now, which I can assure you won't be easy, but I've got a lot of awesome people who are here for me. I won't be alone; I never am. 

Letting go..... the hardest thing, but it's worth every minute.

God bless,

Monica

100 days

Today I only have 100 days left. Every time I think about leaving Turkey, I start to tear up. It's going to be really hard to leave, and it's crazy to think that I'll miss Izmir this much. I'm going to try to do something new each day I have left. We'll see how far I get haha! 

Monica