Sofia, Bulgaria

This last weekend we decided to go to Sofia, Bulgaria since we are both on duty at school next weekend (holiday weekend), so we won't be able to take advantage of the three day weekend. Our trip started very early on Saturday morning. On Friday night we had a student call to arrange a taxi to pick us up at the school to take us to the airport at 3:40 am for our 6:00 am flight from Sabiha Gokcen Airport to Sofia. We received a call at 2:55 am from the taxi and all I could communicate was that they were supposed to come at 3:40. We received another call five minutes later from the security guard telling us our taxi was here. I told them we needed the taxi at 3:40 so the security guard had them wait. There were only eight people on our flight so the check-in counter didn't even open until 4:45. We took off on time at 6:00 am from Istanbul and landed in Sofia at 7:10. We went straight to the hostel to drop our bags off and after sitting down with one of the staff at the hostel and having her walk us through the map of the city we decided to do the day-trip to the Rila Monastery. We left for the trip at 9:45 with two girls from Australia and an older Japanese couple. It was about a two hour drive to get to the monastery in the Rila mountains, but the drive was very scenic...at least for when we didn't fall asleep. We probably picked one of the best days of the year to visit since the sky was clear blue and the trees in the mountains were in bright fall colors. We first hiked up to a cave where Saint John of Rila spent many years of his life. After the cave hike we went back down to the monastery and spent a couple hours walking around and having lunch. We ate at a traditional Bulgarian restaurant where we had Shopp's salad (a Bulgarian specialty) and potatoes with cheese (fries with shredded goat cheese on top). Katie had chicken wrapped in bacon for her main course and I had the pork mixer which was five different kinds of pork. The pork mixer filled the entire plate and I could barely finish. The meal was awesome. After our time was up we rode back to the hostel, again falling asleep in the car. When we got back we did a little walking around the city before heading back to the hostel for dinner. The hostel offered both free breakfast and a free spaghetti dinner with beer. We even got our room for half off since we booked a private room, but they overbooked so we chose to stay in a six bed dorm, so it was a pretty good deal with the meals included too. We talked for a while after dinner with two Australian girls and a girl from Vienna, Austria before we headed to bed. The Australian girls were headed to Istanbul the next day and were planning on taking the train (about 12 hours overnight), but we told them the flights were only a little bit more so they ended up booking a flight instead. The next morning after breakfast we followed the map and walked around the entire city with another girl, Sita, from Vienna who we met at breakfast. We saw all of the main attractions, the most famous being the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. For lunch we went to a pizza place that was really good and after lunch Sita and Katie had coffee in one of the big parks since it was such a nice day. The city center wasn't that big so we had a few hours to spare before dinner, so we decided to walk around the mall before heading back for spaghetti again. After dinner we went to the airport with the two Australian girls for the 10:15 pm flight home. We sat on the runway was 45 mintues because of heavy traffic but landed at 11:50 in Istanbul and rode a taxi home. We were exhausted, but it was a lot of fun.

As a side note, Sita said if we ever come to Vienna to let her know and she will show us around. She said one of the best times to visit is around Christmas when all of the Christmas markets are open, so maybe we'll go a couple weeks before Christmas since we'll be spending Christmas with Brian and Steph in Turkey.

Istanbul Marathon

Last Sunday, I ran the 9k at the Istanbul Marathon with the gym teacher and some kids from the school. This is the longest distance I have ever run at one time and I was amazed when I crossed the finish line and was shown my time of 39 minutes! That's just under 7 minutes per mile. I guess all of the sports I'm playing at the school are keeping me in a lot better shape than I thought...The race started about a kilometer before the Bosphorus Bridge on the Asia side of Istanbul. This is the only time that you are allowed to cross the bridge on foot so it's a pretty big deal and there were tons of people doing the 9k for that reason. It's pretty cool that we got a certificate when we completed the race that said we ran from Asia to Europe. The last half of the race winds it's way through the Beşiktaş area before finally finishing in between the Beşiktaş futbol stadium and Dolmabahçe Palace. It was a very nice run. Next year I would like to run in the 15k...unless I can get myself motivated to train for the whole marathon.

Where I'm From

As an introductory lesson with my 10th grade students we read George Ella Lyon's poem Where I'm From. After reading and analyzing the poem, students were assigned the homework of creating their own Where I'm From poem. The poems they turned in were truly amazing, especially for a non-native speaker.
As a side project, I went through each student's poem for a line or two that I thought stood out. Then I pieced them back together to create one class poem. This is what we came up with.

Where I’m From

I am from the smile of friends as they smile having seen me.

I am from the infinite “what if?”

and the countless nights without sleep.

I am on my own yet never alone.

I am from the symbols of good and the smiles of conformity.

I am from all my hopes and disappointments.

I am from the balls of my father and the womb of my mother,

from anything you likes.

All the paradoxes and decisive acts,

which are actually uncertain thoughts.

I am from the sound of wind

and the leaf that the wind brings

I am from a Lego figure between plastic bricks.

I am both missing and thinking.

The clock sounds tik tok tik tok all the time, never stops.

However the day will come that everything is lost.

I am from deep beneath the ground.

I am from a happy good-bye.

By Mrs W 10^th Grade class

I have mentioned before that my students are fantastic and I wanted to share a little bit of them with you.

You can find the original and more information at http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html.

That's Turkey...

We have almost been in Turkey for two months and I have yet to give you the good stuff about our adventures at the school, Gebze and Istanbul. I am short on time, so I'll give it to you in list format, in no particular order.

• Turkey seems to have its own sense of time. First, this year's school calendar isn't completed yet. Things could change at any time, and I am sometimes informed about meetings after they occur. Just a couple days ago repair men came in to fix something in the bathroom. They said they would be back later. There is still a huge hole in the wall.
• The students here brush their teeth probably nine times a day. I have heard that it is a peer pressure thing - you don't want to be the kid with bad breath. Therefore, when walking down the halls I am met with at least a dozen kids brushing their teeth and talking to their friends at the same time.
• Afiyet Olsun. This is one of the first Turkish phrases anyone who visits Turkey will learn. It is used anytime anyone is eating or drinking anything, and is a wish for good health.
• Speaking of drinking - tea is everywhere. You are offered tea just about anywhere you go and you'd be crazy to turn it down. Not only is it a sign of hospitality, it is delicious.
  
• The concept of a line is still catching on here. When we go into the bank or Turkcell it is completely normal to have someone interrupt you at the counter.
• As Peter (another English teacher) pointed out today, people in Turkey drive like they would walk. If you need to move over you just do it. If passing requires you take up two lanes... no big deal, and if you passed your turn just go ahead and back up on the highway.
• Shops in Gebze. First of all there are two grocery stores (not including the new and awesome GEBZE CENTER) in Gebze that are not religiously opposed to serving alcohol, and many, if not most, women in Gebze are covered. Due to these facts, Eric and I find it extremely comical, and somewhat confusing, that there are handfuls of sleazy lingerie stores around downtown Gebze. AND that these same covered women are shopping in them.

That is all the time I have for now. I have to get some grading done for my fantastic students. I really am loving them!

Beer

With your host Eric Squirrel Wyrowski

Istanbul, Belgium and the Netherlands

This is a little long, but we had to get everything in....

Final week of Ramadan = Our first vacation!

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Katie: We packed up and headed for Istanbul for the day/night so we could catch our flight out of Ataturk Airport the next morning. Getting into Istanbul was an adventure in itself. From Gebze there are various ways to get into the city, but all of them require multiple modes of transportation and a lot of time. First, we hopped a ride with our friend Peter into Gebze, which saved us from getting a cab. From Gebze we took a train to the sea on the Asia side where we hopped on a couple of ferries to get us to the Europe side. After we got off the ferry we wandered around trying to decide if we could manage the train/tram system, or if we should try to walk. We ended up settling for a confused cab ride (that was my decision and it cost us extra money – my fault). The rest of the day was spent exploring the touristy spots and wandering the streets of Sultanahmet. Some of the touristy spots included Hagia Sophia, the Underground Cistern, walking the Hippodrome and wondering the outskirts of blue mosque (we weren’t properly dressed for the inside). They were all amazing, but the Underground Cistern was our favorite (This is where Allie and Frank had their date on the Bachelorette...). At sundown we settled in at the park between Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque to witness the breaking of the fast. This is pretty much a giant picnic that begins after the final call to prayer. You would think that it would be a loud celebration, but when the call to prayer ended it was very quiet – everyone was eating! We only got a taste of what Istanbul has to offer, but I have no doubt we’ll be making many trips into the city over the next couple years.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Our day began very early with a shuttle to the airport at 5:30. I could spend the next couple paragraphs complaining about stupid people not being ready for the shuttle and causing all kinds of frustration… but I won’t. When we arrived in Brussels around 10:30 AM, we made a beeline for Grand Place. This is where the Belgium Beer Festival took place. AWESOME! Eric claims this was the best day of his life, but anyone who knows Eric knows that he makes this claim on a weekly basis. However, this is one day that should not be dismissed completely. The location alone was spectacular. Also, as if Belgium beer isn’t tasty enough, Eric got to try one of the rarest beers in the world.

Eric: It is from one of the trappist breweries (there are only seven left in the world and six of them are located in Belgium). They only bring eight cases each morning and it is usually gone within 10 minutes, but we heard from someone that they were bringing a small amount at 2:00, so I went and stood in line for a while and ended up with my hands on one of the chalices of liquid gold.

Katie: Needless to say, we had a good afternoon. After a late lunch we headed back to the train station and continued on our way to Amsterdam. Once in Amsterdam we took a tram to our hotel (insert link). This place was crazy! We arrived at the hotel around 8:00 exhausted, and with the resolution that Amsterdam would have to wait until tomorrow.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Eric: There are one and half bikes for everyone one person in Amsterdam. Bikes are everywhere! Therefore, on our first full day in the city we decided to take a bike tour. Our bike tour took us through the countryside outside of the city. We visited an old, working windmill and a farm where they make cheese and wooden clogs. The cheese was incredible, so we had to buy some of the smoked cheese to take back to Turkey. After the bike tour, which lasted about four hours, we had lunch at a small Italian café in the Jordaan neighborhood (on the west side of Amsterdam). Most of the rest of the day was just walking around through the city. We walked around the Red Light District during the day, but also returned later that night before our late dinner. The Red Light District is a very interesting place…

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

To start the day we went straight to Anne Frank’s house (Anne Frank Huis) in order to beat the long lines. It was a very sad place, but very interesting at the same time. On our walk from there to the tram stop, we decided to see what all of the fuss was about and have a pancake. The pancakes we had may have been the best I’ve ever had. Next, we visited the Vincent Van Gogh museum, which contains the largest collection of his paintings in the world. The Heineken Experience followed and it was awesome! It is located in one of Heineken’s old breweries within the city and allows you to walk through the entire brewery, but it isn’t like every brewery tour. The entire tour was interactive which is what made it so interesting….and to finish the tour we each received two glasses of Heineken Extra Cold. We wanted to have some authentic Dutch cuisine after having the authentic Dutch beer and what better way than to have a cone of Vlaamse Frites….french fries drench in mayo! I loved it, but Katie opted for the mustard. Just like the day before, we did a ton of walking around the city again and turned it in early to be well rested for our early departure the next morning.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Wednesday morning in Amsterdam started just like Monday….breakfast from a corner bakery. We boarded a train to Bruges, Belgium after that. Our train only went as far as Antwerp so we had to get off and switch trains there, but it turned out we had to switch trains again before actually arriving at our destination in the early afternoon. From the train station we had about a 15 minute walk to get to our hostel in the city center. We dropped our bags and headed straight to Belfry Tower which is located in the very middle of the city at the edge of the market square. We grabbed a bite to eat from one of the cart vendors in the square before making the 366 step climb to get to the top of Belfry Tower. The stairs went straight up and the passage was VERY narrow…when you were going up and someone was coming down, one of you would have to get as flat against the wall as you could to allow them to pass. It was an exhausting climb, but the view from the top was incredible as you had a view of the entire city.

After our descent, we continued our walking tour to the Basilica of the Holy Blood and then on to the Church of Our Lady. The Basilica of the Holy Blood claims to have a cylinder of Jesus’ blood from a crusade to Jerusalem in the 12^th century. It is kept behind a silver tabernacle. We couldn’t take and pictures, so here’s a link if you care to see it…http://www.sacred-destinations.com/belgium/bruges-basilica-of-holy-blood.htm. The Church of Our Lady is home to Michelangelo’s “Madonna with child” and is one of his few pieces to leave Italy.

We walked along one of the canals (hence Bruges being called the Venice of the North) en route to our next stop, De Halve Maan Brewery, the only active brewery left in Bruges. We had one beer here and continued on our journey. Later in the day we went to De Garre. De Garre was difficult to find since it’s tucked away in an alley, but they have an awesome beer called Garre and this is the only place in the world you can have it. The rest of our evening was more walking and a few more beers along the way.

Thursday and Friday, September 9 and 10, 2010

We hopped on a train to Brussels in the morning and arrived in a little over an hour. Our long walks around Brussels gave us ample time to see just about everything. We visited Manneken Pis, Grand Place, the European Parliament, and Federal Parliament. We also went to the top of a parking garage that gave a great view of the city, including the Atomium which we didn’t want to take the 25 minute trip outside of the city to see. The parking garage tried to give us a pretty good scare….we were on the 10^th floor of the garage and got in the elevator to come back down, but as soon as the doors closed the power shut completely down. It was pitch black and all I could hear was Katie hyperventilating. I tried to use my phone as light to look at the buttons but that didn’t even give me enough light. Luckily the power came back on about 20 seconds later and we made it safely to the bottom. I have a good feeling Katie won’t be going to the top of any parking garages anytime soon.

For dinner on the first night we heard about a place that served traditional Belgian cuisine called Fin De Siecle. I had a dish called stoemp-saucisse (sausage and mashed potatoes) and Katie had what we think they described as cow cheek and mashed potatoes. Whatever it was, it was incredible and the stoemp-saucisse was equally tasty. The servings were so big that we managed to finish only about 2/3 of our plates, and at that time we felt like we were going to explode. The serving of mashed potatoes I was given with my meal was equivalent to what a family would have set out for Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner we hit up a couple different bars to enjoy some Belgian beer.

On Friday we started the day with a traditional Belgian waffle, covered in powdered sugar at Mokafe. After that, we headed to the Cantillon Brewery for a tour. They are a lambic brewery and only brew their beer from October – April. The reason for this is because they don’t add yeast to their beer…they allow this process to occur naturally during the night and the best time to do this is when it is cooler at night. They actually keep the beer on the top floor in a huge, open pan with the windows open overnight. They then let the beer ferment in barrels for a minimum of three years. We did get a few samples at the end and they beer is very acidic and sour. It tastes more like a wine/champagne would taste, but it was still very good. You probably could’ve guessed by now, but we did more walking in the afternoon to see the rest of Brussels. We bought chocolate, had more beer (I managed to have all but one of the trappist beers…Achel is the only one I had a hard time finding), and had some good Italian pizzas for dinner. Saturday morning marked the end of our trip and we headed back to Istanbul.

Overall, it was an exhausting trip, but it was just the right amount of time and we have now been back for a little over a week. Katie just completed her first week of teaching and I have a ton of students coming up to me every day and asking if we will be playing American Football. So far, everything is great here. We will probably take a trip this weekend to somewhere close, even if it is just going into Istanbul for a day or two. We’ll keep you posted on everything we do. I am also pleased to announce that we will have our first official visitors in November…J.J. and Paul will be coming for ten days. We will definitely be going to Greece during that time, so J.J. will finally be able to stop talking about how bad he wants to go there. I’m just as excited…

Good News: The day we arrive in Brussels is the last day of the Belgium Beer Festival.
Bad News: The day we arrive in Brussels is the LAST day of the Belgium Beer Festival.
Regardless, we are very excited for our first vacation while living abroad. The plan is as follows -
Days 1, 2, 3 stay in Amsterdam. I should probably say "night 1" in Amsterdam, because day 1 is going to be spent in Brussels absorbing, literally, as much of the beer festival as we can.
Day 4 stay in Bruges, Belgium (Venice of the North)
Day 5, 6 Brussels, Belgium

You may be wondering why we are so excited to make it to Belgium for the beer... or maybe you're not! The truth is beer options in Turkey are slim-pickings. Due to strict import laws on alcohol in Turkey, the average Joe has only a handful of options when purchasing beer: Efes, Efes dark, Tuborg (whatever that is...), and Miller Geniune Draft (this sells for a woping $12/6pck.) I didn't buy Miller for $6 in the US; I am sure not going to spend twice the amount on that crap now. The Efes is pretty good for light beer, but that doesn't mean we're not going to jump at the chance to spend a day soaking up some good old Belgium beer.

Apart from planning our upcoming trip we have both been preparing for the student's arrival and the beginning of the school year. I am especially feeling the pressure because I am teaching Hazirlik Listening and Conversation (8th grade or the Prep. year), 9th grade, 10th grade and 11th grade. That is a lot of planning!!!! Wish us luck and keep us in your prayers as we prepare for even more changes in our lives.