If you read my previous post, then you got a pretty good summary of all I’ve done in the two weeks following the midterm other than Plovdiv, classes, homework, flute, yoga, reading for fun, and occasional dinners with friends. (I will talk about the happenings of the most recent, third week since the midterm in another post.) It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, though. As wonderful as the journey with Eric to Plovdiv was, it was also unbelievably tiring, and it took me many days to fully recover and be okay with normal amounts of sleep (~7 hours) again. A conversation I had with Eric on the trip also kind of disrupted my normal life, but in a different way. This conversation was mostly about religion, with some philosophy and physics thrown in (so pretentious, I know!), and Eric, as a theology/religious studies major and devout Catholic, did most of the talking. I asked all the questions, though – we only had that conversation because I was so curious (not because Eric was proselytizing), because Eric was so generously open and willing to share his knowledge and beliefs, and because we had nothing else to do on the long night bus ride out of Istanbul before we got tired enough to sleep. The reason this conversation kind of disrupted my normal life is because Eric explained what he believed and why he believed those things with such eloquence, thoughtfulness, and surety. I was impressed but not personally affected until several days later when I thought to myself, if someone asked me what I believed spiritually and why I held those beliefs, I could not give as well-thought-out, well-defined, or confident explanations as Eric did. Even though I am not part of an organized religion, I found myself wanting a better-defined value system by which to lead my life, rather than just kind of making it up as I go along, which I’ve been doing so far (and which might have some worth in its own right, I think). Concerns such as these aren’t solved overnight, of course, and I have to do some more thinking on the topic. However, the other day I did sit in a café and try to clearly define my values and reasoning in my journal, and it made me realize that I am not quite as directionless as I can sometimes feel.

My other sources of sadness: loved ones back home and the program’s fast-approaching end. For the sake of my loved ones’ privacy, I won’t say much other than that hearing about their struggles and being half a world away is heartbreakingly difficult. The hard part is that while the program’s end should help eliminate this source of sadness, I will only really be with loved ones for two weeks – one in Evanston/Chicago, and one in Cary, NC – before jetting off again, this time to Spain. As I said to my suitemate Keri last night, everything requires sacrifice. I definitely don’t regret this trip to Turkey, but, as the cliché goes, you can’t have it all. Keri reframed that cliché in what was, to me, a beautiful way. She said, “There are an infinite number of things you have to say no to in your life, and, relatively, such a finite number of things to which you can say yes. Therefore, the yeses are so very precious, and if you think about it that way, you can be more grateful for the yeses you do have.” This applies to things both big – spending a summer in Turkey instead of being with loved ones in the States, doing psych research, etc, etc – and small – going to dinner with my friend Amanda the other nnight instead of doing things like yoga, writing more of this blog post, reading for fun, etc, etc. I imagine that what Keri said can seem like just another version of “be grateful for what you have,” but for some reason it helps me more than the “be grateful” phrase in my quest to stop mourning so much the things to which I’ve said no.

Finally, the course’s impending end. I will be happy to stop having to wake up at 7:45 five days a week, do homework every night, take quizzes every week, etc, but I will be sad to face the reality that this wonderful stretch of learning Turkish is finite. (How easy it is to believe in the infinity of things – summer, college, even life.) I am also sad because I had unrealistic expectations for how good at Turkish I would get. My unmet expectations are not the fault of this wonderful program, but rather the fault of my naiveté. But surprisingly, with just a little bit of effort I have been able to, most of the time, focus more on how far I’ve come than how far I have to go. I am also choosing to reframe this impending end by celebrating what’s come before – new friendships, new trips and experiences both big and small, building relationships with my father and extended family, and SO MUCH improvement with Turkish – and what will come after – a week at my family’s Turkish summer home on the Aegean Sea, having my dad around with whom to practice Turkish, time with loved ones in the States, and then my semester in Spain. All these yeses seem so infinite and perfect right now, but when I remember the larger infinity of my nos, I actually feel greater peace, gratitude, and an ability to let go of the illusion of control – the illusion that every experience to which I say yes will always be better than all the experiences to which I say no. Not all the yeses were, are, or will be perfect, but in my opinion they all have something to offer, and they all are precious in their finiteness.

Before you read this, I should warn you that I wrote most of it over a week ago. Today is August 1, and I have tweaked a bit to update it. I didn’t post it right after I wrote it because I wanted to add pictures, which takes 30 min to 1 hour (don’t ask me why – just take my word for it, haha). I apologize for the delay!

Since last I posted, I’ve had many fun adventures, big and small, but I’ve also had some moments of deep exhaustion, sadness, and other difficult feelings. Today is Sunday, August 1, and the program ends, unbelievably, on Wednesday, August 5. For me, endings are always sad in some way. However, they also provide occasion to celebrate what came before and what will come after. In this post I will summarize my most exciting adventures, and in my next post I will try to condense the thoughts/reflections that have recently been on my mind.

In my last post, I talked about spending my second weekend with family and being given my first Turkish novel by Ertuğrul Amca. Since then, three weekends have come and gone, and the fourth is halfway over. The Friday before the first weekend I had my midterm, which was challenging but manageable. The best part of the midterm was that everyone was done for the day at 11:30am, earlier than we’ve ever been done. I sautéed vegetables in my kitchen with my friend Eric, relaxed for a bit, and then went to explore the neighborhoods of Ortaköy and Beşiktaş with my friends Amanda and Peter. We walked  A TON, went inside the beautiful Ortaköy mosque, found Yıldız Park, a giant park in the middle of Istanbul that amazingly makes you forget you’re in the city, found an adorable café/bookstore (two of my favorite things) called Minoa, had a delicious meze (appetizer), fish, and rakı dinner, and found a place where each of us could get the dessert we most wanted (sup, aka chocolate pudding, for Amanda; sütlaç, aka rice pudding for me; and güllaç, a rosewater dessert, for Peter). We ended the night by celebrating the birthday of Daniella, one of the women in the program, at a bar in Beşiktaş. Daniella had done an English-teaching Fulbright in Turkey years ago, and for some reason one of the women who did the same Fulbright with her was back in Istanbul for the summer and came to the bar. And best of all, she was a Northwestern alum – small world!

The next day, I went with Eric to Chora Church (Kariye Müzesi), a former Byzantine church in Istanbul. The mosaics depicting religious scenes were some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and even though part of the church was closed off for renovations, it was definitely worth visiting. Then we found part of the old stone Istanbul City Walls that have been around since the 3^rd/4^th century. Finally we visited Zeyrek Camii, which, after the Hagia Sofia, is the second largest Byzantine religious building remaining in Istanbul. Parts of the Zeyrek Mosque were also under renovation, but the building is stunning and the view from the hill it’s on is even more breathtaking. It was a fun, tiring, and totally worthwhile day. Sunday I finally stayed in for most of the day and relaxed.

Monday the 13^th was the first day of a blissfully-short three-day week; we had Thursday and Friday off for Bayram, the end of the Muslim Holy month of fasting, Ramazan. I knew I would spend most of the long weekend with my dad and Ertuğrul Amca in Istanbul, but first Eric invited me on a “day” trip (37 hours!) to Bulgaria, and I jumped at the chance. The trip to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, deserves a post of its own – suffice it to say that it was a crazy, fun, unforgettable, and unbelievably tiring journey. I’ll write about Plovdiv in my next post, but for now I will jump ahead to the actual start of the weekend – Friday afternoon when my dad and Ertğgrul Amca came to pick me up from my dorm and take me to Kadiköy for the rest of Bayram.

After they picked me up on Friday, we went to what was once the richest neighborhood in Istanbul to visit my great-aunt Fikriye Hala, my father’s father’s sister. She’s almost 90, but she’s perfectly fine living alone, and she served us tea and fantastic homemade pastries and I was so happy to see how well she’s doing. After that visit, Baba, Ertuğrul Amca, and I took the ferry across the Bosphorus to Kadiköy and had İskender Kebap for dinner. The next morning we made two more family visits – one to Mubeccel Teyze, my father’s mother’s sister, and the other to Faik Amca, my father’s father’s brother. They are both around the same age as Fikriye Hala, but unfortunately neither is doing quite as well as Fikriye is. It was obviously still nice to visit them, though.

On Saturday night Ertuğrul made the most delicious dinner – pilav (a Turkish dish that is basically white rice with a ton of butter, and in some cases, including this one, is accompanied by potato slices that get crispy at the bottom of the pot) and a beautiful lamb stew. After eating we walked down to Fenerbahçe, strolled through a park, sat by the Bosphorus at sunset, and then ate ice cream at Mado. It was a pretty fantastic day.

Sunday afternoon I returned to my dorm, and just a short while later I left again to go see the Basilica Cistern in Sultanahmet with friends. The cistern was built in the 6th century – it was dark, cool, huge, and had 336 marble columns. My favorites were the two Medusa’s head columns; nobody knows why one head is sideways and one is upside down. While in Sultanahmet, we stopped by a Mado (of course) and I took a cool picture of rooftops from the fourth floor. Then we decided we might as well also visit the Blue Mosque. That mosque is absolutely stunning – there is a reason why it is so famous. The only problem was that it was the last day of Bayram, and that meant Istanbulluns who had left the city were returning from vacation, and those who had stayed were out on the streets celebrating the last day of vacation. I have never seen such crowds, not even in the touristic Sultanahmet area, but it was still a fun afternoon.

So there you have it – the highlights of the two weeks following my midterm. Since I have written enough for one post, I will share my reflections in my next post. Then comes Plovdiv, then my most recent week of adventures. Thank you for bearing with me, and iyi akşamlar!