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