The Highlights: Cappadocia

The Highlights: Weeks 4-5 (The School of Seven Hills)

The Highlights: Week 3 (The Southeast)

Oh what's up, Tigris river?

Panorama of the Mesopotamian Plain. Pretty sweet.

Frisbee selfie at the Tigris river!!

Mor Gabriel Monastery in Tur'Abdın

A matchstick model of the monastery 

Kind of "Mines of Moria"-esque

Where I am now. The top of the dorm building I'll be in for 5 or 6 more weeks

The Southeast

After an amazing week of travel in the southeast of Turkey, I am back in Istanbul at Yeditepe University. I'll wait a day or two before I write a post about my first impressions here. Sorry about not posting anything in a while. It's been pretty busy over here. As you could infer from the title, I'd like to talk about my trip to the southeast. Pictures soon to follow.

Last Monday, the cohort and I checked out of our hostels and got on a bus to go to the airport. It was snowing when we were leaving which was pretty awesome to me as a southern Californian. We flew out of Istanbul to Diyarbakır and got on a bus to take a quick tour of the city. The first place we stopped was at this huge wall surrounding part of the city. The wall is the second largest man-made wall after the Great Wall of China and it's made of black basalt so it's pretty awesome. After that we drove around some more and eventually got to our hotel. While we were driving around, I noticed that there were a lot of worn down, abandoned houses. It reminded me a lot of Ensenada and some parts of that city. It was pretty crazy seeing such a big economic disparity between Diyarbakır and Istanbul, however, it was nice to see a part of Turkey that wasn't super touristy. We were only there for about a day and a half and then we left for Mardin.

It was really, really cold when we got to Mardin. We checked into the hotel and went to dinner after getting settled in. It was really foggy the first two days we were there so I didn't do much. After the fogged cleared though, it was beautiful. Actually, beautiful isn't the right word. It was...incredible. A few friends and I walked up to the top of a small mountain and hung around there for a little. We could see the Mesopotamian Plain right in front of us and we were all awestruck by the view. While we were in Mardin we went to go visit a few monasteries and that was really cool. It was weird to me as an American that something could be that old. Two of the monasteries we went to were both over a thousand years old. Crazy. The buildings were beautiful and I'm still processing everything I saw there.

I did notice that while we were in the southeast I was getting stared at a lot. People kept asking me where I was from and what my ethnicity was. At first, I was more than a little annoyed by it, but I realized that there probably aren't a lot of Asian people that go to the southeast of Turkey and when they do, they're mostly tourists. After I realized that, it still made me kind of uncomfortable but there was nothing I could do about it so I just moved on.

Overall, the trip was a great experience. I learned a lot of cool things, saw a lot of cool things, ate some good food, and hung out with some cool people. One thing I think this trip definitely helped with was bringing our group closer together. There were some solid bonds forged on that trip, both between certain people I wouldn't have expected to become friends and the group as a whole. It was great for me bonding with some people and I'm getting closer with some of the group which is so much fun. However, I do really miss my friends and family back in the States, but as they say, abscence makes the heart grow fonder.

In the eternal words of Porky the Pig, "Th-th-th-that's all folks!" Thanks for reading, everyone. I'll try to post more often. Blessings upon you, dear friends. Until next time.

In Christ,
Ethan

The Highlights: Week 2

From the Hagia Sophia, Grand Bazaar, around Istanbul, Turkish class, and hanging out

The First Test

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Merhaba, friends! I hope you've all been well. There are a few logistical things I need to get out of the way. First off, I know I haven't established a set day to write posts and there's somewhat of a reason for that. My hope and plan is to have a few entries a week so that I don't only always give you the highlights or this impression that I'm always doing fun stuff and you should be really jealous. I do really want to share my journey with you all and I think one way for me to do that is to tell you about things that happen regardless of if they're good/fun things or not. Secondly, I'll be going to southeastern Turkey for a week (starting next Monday so I'll be out of contact for that period of time. Now that that's out of the way, let's begin.

There was a pretty normal rhythm to this week, as far as a second week can go in Istanbul. We would have Turkish class in the mornings and have the afternoons free doing whatever we wanted. I spent a lot of the afternoons wandering around the city. One of the many things that makes Istanbul different from other major cities is that in Istanbul you can be walking down a busy street with a lot of different shops on it, but a few streets away could be something that was built hundreds of years ago (that's still taking some getting used to). Honestly, I haven't been doing a ton of tourist-y stuff since I've been here. I've been to the Grand Bazaar a few times and that's always an adventure. There are hundreds of shops in the Bazaar and even more people walking through it every day. The shopkeepers are used to seeing tourists there so myself and others in my group are trying to prove to them that we aren't as tourist-y as we may look by speaking Turkish when we can and haggling with them.

We had our first test of the semester yesterday, and that was an adventure in itself. We've only been learning Turkish for 8 days so no one was really sure what to expect, but it didn't end up being that bad. I did pretty well but now I have to put it into practice by speaking Turkish to shopkeepers and other Turkish people. We're done with our intensive Turkish class but we'll still be having classes a few times a week when we get to the university on the Asian side.

The test informally marked the end of the first leg of our trip. Like I said earlier, our group is taking a week-long trip to southeastern Turkey and after that, we'll be staying at Yeditepe University on the Asian side of Istanbul. This weekend we're all trying to squeeze in as much fun as we can before we start the rest of our classes. Today I went to the Hagia Sophia and walked around there for a little while. It is being restored or something right now so there was scaffolding taking up half of the bottom floor. Other than that it was incredible. It was so beautiful and full of history. It's crazy to think that emperors walked around there hundreds of years ago. After that, a few friends and I went to a hamam (which is a traditional Turkish bath) and it was amazing. We got scrubbed down and massaged by some old Turkish men. Great stuff.

Well, friends, that's all I can think of for now. Sorry if this is doesn't make any sense. I'm still getting used to blogging. Anyways, blessings upon you, my friends. Thanks for reading! Until next time.

In Christ,
Ethan

The Highlights: Week 1

These pictures are some of the highlights from my first week in Istanbul.

The "New" mosque

The Grand Bazaar

The view from the terrace of the hostel

A bridge along the Bosphorus 

The First Impressions

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So it's about the end of the first week and what a week it's been. After sporadic power naps and some questionable airline food, I arrived in Istanbul on Monday evening 13.5 hours after leaving the US. A few friends and I took a taxi from the airport to Galata Tower and walked to our hostel from there. The rest of the group came a few hours later.

It seems like I've been here for a long time since I've done so many new things since being here. On the cab ride from the airport to our hostel, there weren't a lot of things that were obvious markers that I was in Istanbul. Besides the cab ride itself (which I'm not used to taking), the only two things that I wasn't used to seeing were the mini soccer fields that people could play pick-up soccer in and some really old buildings and things like that. On our first full day, we went on a scavenger hunt around the city and, once again, there wasn't a lot that was super different from how things are in the US. We have to take public transportation to get around which is weird to me as a Southern Californian. Other than that Istanbul is just like any other major city but with a lot more history and awesome things.

We had our first few Turkish language classes this week, which has definitely been an experience. We're only doing those classes for the first two weeks so we'll only have to focus on that. Learning a new language has been more difficult than I'd like to admit but I haven't had to do it for a while so it makes sense that I'm having some trouble. Also, we've only been learning Turkish for 3 days so I guess I shouldn't expect to be fluent in it by now. I digress. Although it's difficult, it is really cool trying to use what we learn while we're walking around the city and interacting with people.

In terms of the cohort, I don't really know anyone on the trip that well, but after these first few days, I'm excited to get to know them. It's been really fun exploring the city with them and I'm excited to see what wonderful things will come from these new friendships.

Overall, I love this city and my cohort. This semester will definitely not be without its fair share of challenges and struggles (if not more so than other semesters), but there are so many opportunities for growth on this semester and I can't wait to see what the Lord will do with me on this trip. I know a lot of this has been pretty general/vague/cliche but there's been a lot to process so it's kind of difficult to articulate.

As always, blessings upon you, my friends. Thanks for reading.

In Christ,
Ethan

The First Step

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello and welcome to you all! This is blog is going to be a way for you all to know what is going on while I am abroad as well as a way for me to externally process my thoughts. I feel like I should warn you now, I do have a tendency to get all stream-of-consciousnessy when write/type out my thoughts like this and I'm brand new to blogging so pardon me if it seems like I don't know what I'm doing (because I don't). Also, I'm a big fan of clichés (as you'll soon find out) so be prepared for that. Hopefully, some of this will be coherent and maybe even thoughtful. With all this in mind, let's begin.

It's been almost a year since I got accepted to this program and the chance to study abroad in Istanbul for a semester. It's been even less time since I started the orientation seminar class to start preparing our cohort for the trip, and even less time than that since I finished the orientation seminar class. One might think that with all this time I've had to think about this trip I'd have some sense of how I feel about it. That is not the case. Am I excited to have this wonderful opportunity to study abroad on the other side of the globe? Of course I am. Am I nervous that I'll be in a country and culture that I'm not familiar with, in addition to not knowing the language? Yes, I am. Yet, there are so many other different feelings and expectations that they all sort of cancel each other out. I don't know how to feel or what it will be like. I consider myself to be pretty easy going and adaptable so I feel like I'll be fine, but my parents want to make sure I'll be safe and have everything I need, which makes me feel like I'm underprepared (but thanks anyways, Mom and Dad).

My suitcase is basically all packed though (just a few more things to throw in) and most of the goodbyes have been said. My flight leaves on Sunday evening so I do have some time tomorrow to double/triple check to make sure I didn't forget anything. As excited as I am to go, I do wish I had more time so say goodbye to my friends and try and prepare myself more (if that would even be possible). Time has a tendency to fly by when you're not paying attention to it and I guess I really haven't been. But ready or not, worried or not, this trip will happen and I'll just have to deal with it as best I can. I remember hearing the phrase, "The first step is always the hardest" and that seems to have an element of truth to it so I'm going to use it. I have no idea what it's going to be like. I have no idea if I'm prepared. I have no idea what is going to happen. But this journey is a new chapter in my life, just like every single day, and in order to try and find out these things and the answers to some of my questions, I need to take the first step (see what I did there) knowing that I have God and my friends and family supporting and praying for me. Thanks for reading.

Blessings upon you, my friends. Until next time.

In Christ,

Ethan

P.S. The cohort and I will be doing a social media fast for the first month so I won't be using Facebook or Instagram. However, I will have access to email so you can reach me at etpark@westmont.edu or check back here for updates.