How was Christmas?

That was certainly an interesting Christmas!

I guess we could have expected that, but still we were a bit disappointed that it turned out the way it did!

Ok i start at the beginning! We invitet some friends over to celebrate Christmas together with people from everywhere we thought that would be awesome, from Germany, Turkey, Algeria, Italia, Ungarn und co. but then all of a sudden some of our other volunteers burst through the door, totally drunk and tried to make the party fun in their point of view, well that did not exactly work cause no one really enjoyed them being there. So someone told them to leave which they actually did.

Still it did not feel like the perfect Christmas-we needed some time to get over that interuption and to establish a new Christmas spirit.

But in the end we DID have great food thanks to Laura and the algerian guy that wants to tramp to India lol, and nice music as well as a nice get together with our friends!

The tree did not stop blinking and tumbling over but since it was just an old plastic tree and no real candles it was quite funny! killed by a falling plastic tree that would be an interesting story to hear hehe

So we also drank some Glühwein and enjoyed that very much, it reminds the germans of our Weihnachtsmarkt just too much! So that was kinda great, i was surprised that i did not feel homesick at all, but i guess that i was in Germany 3 weeks ago is partly the reason and that it did not feel like Christmas as well!!!

Thanks to my parents by the way, i got the greatest Christmas gift ever!!! The will pay part of my ticket to Israel so i hope it will work out and i will be going to Israel to see my friends there and volunteer a bit in Spring :)

Ok our guest left around 2 o´clock, Laura and i started cleaning up right away and it did not take very long and now the appartment looks pretty again! Then we sat down with Fatih, the presents under the tree how its supposed to be and opened presents! And then it finally felt like Christmas and it was 3 o`clock by that time so actually it was closer to american way of celebrating that ours! hehe

Oh and i almost forgot before the party started, we went to a catholic church, owed by the Embassy of the Vatican and they even had a guest from Italy there yesterday some famous Cardinal or something, it was very interesting!!!

So we came too early and watched the choir practice for like an hour and then the service began!

Later that night after we finished looking at our presents, we watched LOVE ACTUALLY cause it is THE christmas movie and the best one ever, we already watched it 3 times but we planned to watch it again on Christmas Eve so we had to follow our plan at least once cause we always end up doing something different! but for once we stuck to the plan!!!

Merry Christmas-have a great 1.Weihnachtsfeiertag!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

its christmas eve and i sit here at the office, well right now its like in the morning but still its CHRISTMAS and we actually celebrate the 24th in germany so thats whatwe will do! Lots of volunteers will be coming over today! and we will have a nice christmas dinner, Glühwein and some Christmas music :)

So iam already excited, laura and i were walking down the streets with our Santa hats today, everyone was looking at us hehe

SO all i can say right now is: MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! even though its not the right country its still what you do what it depends on so we will enjoy christmas very much, because we realized that you miss it more if you dont have it and we got the real thought of what christmas is about since also miss our family and friends very much!!!

but with some christmas cookies the right company and some music it will be just great and our friends back home might even think about us and giveus a call??? you never know :)

Right now iam dealing with my litte accident yesterday lol i almost cut off my fingertip while cooking, iam just a bit clumpsy, but it just hurts a bit and it only means that someone else will have to do the cooking :D so smart move , right?

Iam sure it will be awesome! and i will never forget this christmas- this first one i was on my own :D

and iam so glad i got Laura and my other volunteer friends!

So i wish you all the best for christmas and i promise you i will spread the christmas spirit here!!!

Love, Greta

P:S: just because its christmas and on christmas you tell the truth!!! hoho

My lovely trip to Germany

I also should write about my lovely short trip to Germany!
great idea GRETA!!! ich dachte mir nur die ganze Zeit was für eine Schnappsidee!!! and i was right!
Iam so broke now cause i got to Istanbul at like 10 pm and wanted to board my following plane but guess what that did not work, because iam in Turkey for more than 90 days not without having received my residence permit yet! So i was like "shit"! When Rasmus went to Georgia he had the same problem, so i already knew what was going to happen. They asked me to pay a fine of fucking 340 TL!!! Otherwise i wont be able to enter the country anymore! I tried to explain to them that i live here and have to come back but they did not exactly care and took me to some room, i was kinda scared and no one really spoke english except for the people that told me to pay the fine.
Well and in the end i was paying of course, i just wanted to go home and leave that city behind! WEll but guess what! THEY DONT TAKE damn credit cards so i had to withdraw money! nice really just expend the amount of money on my credit card cause i got it right? well i dont have any money anymore. So i met those guys while i was taking out themoney and i just told them all my lifetime story and they were just cracking up and i could not even be mad at them because actually its quite a funny story if it not would have been my money or at least not as much!
What the hell are they even going to do with my money???

Well so i boarded my plane and was soooo happy to be out of there! Landed in Berlin at 2.30 am great time to get on a 1h bus ride. Then i had to take another one, walk through the woods to my house- since i did not have enough money anymore to afford a cab! And finally made it home! Crashed on the couch and slept until my parents woke me up in the morning wondering why iam not in Turkey!
Cause i surprised EVERYONE , steffi was the only one that knew i was coming! :)
Elena too freaked out, i´ve also seen, Luise, my old clarinet teacher, Sara (she cut my hair lol) Charlotte, Astrid, Max and my other Florida friends! i love that place!
And the main reason why i came! The AFS CAMP!
i must say Turkey is really good for me iam much more relaxed now and i dont freak out anymore because things dont work that great anymore, its all about non-formal education its all up to them what they get out of it, if they want to participate and gain something they can if not well not our problem!
So i actually had fun even though they could have driven me nuts and kinda did :) but it was nice to see them how they changed from the beginning and how their german got better or not !

well all in all it was a stupid idea to come to germany but nice at the same time, i mean i had fun, i´ve seen some of my friends and family and got in the christmas mood, so what else do i want? it was my CHRISTMAS present i bought myself it just got a bit more expensive than i thought, and the fine was even more than i paid for the ticket that is kind of ironic! but oh well!

Now iam back in Turkey and i did kind of miss it! Since Laura and i have so much fun here! and spread the christmas spirit around!!! We are even going to have a christmas party in a bar later this month!!! AWESOME!

Der 27. November war ein besonderer Tag im Leben der beiden offensichtlich, nicht türkischen Mädels, Greta und Laura.
Geplant war der Kurztrip nach Mardin, einer schon von vielen Leuten gehörten, sehr schönen Stadt im tiefen Osten der Türkei. Um 16 Uhr verließen wir Ankara: Vor uns lag eine 14 Stundenlange Busfahrt, viele interessante Bekanntschaften, Desinfektion am laufenden Band und schließlich eine Ankunft in einer Stadt, die man nun nicht gerade „Metropole“ nennen konnte!
Wer uns beide Mädels kennt, der weiß, dass wir nicht gerade das Ebenbild von zwei Türkinnen sind: Beide mehr oder weniger blond, jedenfalls hellere Haare, nicht unbedingt die stillsten eine von uns ziemlich groß, also im Allgemeinen recht auffällig. Nun, das haben wir auch bei so ziemlich jeden Stopp gemerkt. Sobald wir aus dem Bus stiegen folgten uns die Blicke nur so und wir fühlten uns auf Schritt und Tritt beobachtet. Bei einem Halt, war es tatsächlich soweit, dass sich zwei Kerle durchgerungen haben uns anzusprechen. Der Clue in der Türkei: Wenige Tuerken können Englisch. Irgendwie fragt man sich da natürlich auch, wieso sie einen ansprechen, wenn es höchstwahrscheinlich zu keinem Gespräch kommen wird.
Nun, Greta hat es doch mit ihren vereinzelten Türkischkenntnissen geschafft ein kleines Gespräch anzufangen. Als sie nach ihrer Nummer fragten, erwiderte sie nur „ihr kriegt sie später!“. Die beiden lachten wohl etwas, doch klein Greta schien dies nicht weiter zu irritieren. Sie waren wohl auch auf ihrem Weg nach Mardin.
Später im Bus, erzählte mir Greta um was es in dem ganzen Gespräch ging und war schon fast etwas beglückt, dass wir ein paar türkische Kerle in Mardin kennen, denn dies kann durchaus sehr nützlich sein. Bedauerlicherweise musste ich ihr mitteilen, diese beiden schnieken Burschen seien nicht Teil der Passagiere unseres Busses. Nun, das war der Punkt, an dem sie realisierte, wieso sie lachten als Greta meinte sie würde ihnen ihre Nummer später geben.
Tja, in dem Moment schien es nicht weiter dramatisch, aber später wären wir doch über ein wenig Hilfe erfreut gewesen…
Die Türken scheinen es mit der Sauberkeit, zumindest in Bussen sehr wichtig zu nehmen. Ab und an gibt es was zu Trinken oder auch Süßigkeiten, aber vorher müssen die Hände jedes Mal, so schien es zumindest, noch desinfiziert werden und der Lufterfrischer darf auch nicht fehlen.
Wir haben also ca. 14 Stunden nach Mardin gebraucht und kamen gegen 6 Uhr morgens dort an.
Nun, erwartet hatten wir: Eine schöne Stadt, mit netten Leuten und leckerem Essen.
Angetroffen haben wir: Eine tote Stadt, nicht gerade atemberaubend, ein Haufen Vieh, dessen letzte Stunde geschlagen hat und ein Polizeiauto, welches uns schleichend folgte.
Ja, das war ein Spaß. Im Prinzip hatten wir ja keine großen Vorstellungen von Mardin, jedoch schien uns die Situation etwas suspekt: Der Busfahrer lässt uns irgendwo an der Straße raus, kein Busbahnhof in der Nähe, wo wir vielleicht hätten schlafen können, um dann schließlich ,zu einer humaneren Zeit, nach essen zu suchen.
Unsere Verzweiflung machte sich übrigens immer durch große Lachausbrüche mitten auf der Straße bemerkbar.
Das war der Punkt, als wir uns Achmed und Jamal zurückgewünscht hatten.
Wir entschieden also einfach den Berg hochzulaufen. Kurz darauf machte sich ein Polizeiauto bemerkbar. Es schlich an uns vorbei und wir hofften einfach nur es würde weiterfahren, welches es auch von Zeit zu Zeit tat, aber von Eile war da nicht die Rede. Ab und an blieb es auch stehen und wir entschieden unauffällig an ihnen vorbei zu laufen, aber wie gesagt, bei uns war von unauffällig nicht die Rede! Wir schafften es im Endeffekt trotzdem, dachten wir zumindest, bis sie uns wieder einholten. So ging es eine Weile und ganz wohl war uns dabei nicht. Nun, schließlich hielten sie irgendwann an, fragten wo wir her seien, wir antworteten natürlich ganz freundlich und schon war der Spaß vorbei. Sehr strange….Zunächst waren wir also nicht ganz so angetan von dieser angeblich so schönen Stadt Mardin, wobei die Landschaft rundherum tatsächlich sehr schön war, aber was uns die nächsten Tage erwartete, war einfach der Hammer, zum verzweifeln und zum wegschmeißen.

The first week that Laura in Turkey was! NO time for her to relax and get to know everything because Ramus B-day party came up. Her second day in TUrkey and what can i say except for full house???
But before we ended up at his party we had to go to a cocktail from our work, that was hilarious actually!
So many people showed up in a location called the Drunk Pub, but it was an awesome bar and we met some interesting people and some of our lovely volunteer friends showed up as well!

Auch am Montag und Dienstag wurde noch viel darueber geredet und so ziemlich jeder eingeladen, der je, mit Rasmus, Greta oder jeder anderen Person die noch an der Party beteiligt war, in Kontakt kam, so kam es mir zumindest vor.
Nun, im Endeffekt kam es fuer mich doch anders…
… Greta und ich mussten zunaechst noch an einer Art Empfang teilnehmen, waehrend Rasmus befreit war, um seine grosse Party vorzubereiten. Nun, bei dem Empfang gab es kleine Snacks, Freigetraenke, Musik und jede Menge Zeit mit neuen Leuten in Kontakt zu kommen. Waehrend einige die Freigetraenke nutzten, unterhielten sich wiederum andere mit internationalen Bekanntschaften und viele schwangen heftig ihr Tanzbein.
Nun, ich gehoerte zu denen die ihr Tanzbein schwangen und so traf ich auch zugleich zwei sehr nette Maedels, mit denen ich den Rest des Abends zu „pretty Woman“, „Mambo No. 5“, „Butterfly“ und lauter anderen Liedern tanzte, die mich an meine Kindheit erinnerten.
Nun, ich blieb laenger als gedacht bei dem Empfang, waehrend Greta sich schon frueher zu der eigentlichen Party von Rasmus gesellte. Ich tanzte lange mit den Maedels und mit ein paar Bekanntschaften, wie dem so genannten „Mr. Magic“, mir schon bekannt aus Gretas Erzaehlungen und anderen Tuerken, die man dort so antraf. Inzwischen war es zu spaet, noch zurueck in die WG zu fahren, da sich die Party inzwischen schon in den IF Club verlagert hatte. Daraufhin ging es also mit dem Taxi auf zum Club, wobei die roten Ampeln fuer die Autofahrer eher eine Art Dekoration war, die eben in den Strassenverkehr gehoert.
Im Club gab es erst einen DJ, spaeter kam noch eine live Band.
Irgendwann war es dann aber Zeit und es ging nach Hause, aber wie wir wissen ist Greta sehr kontaktfreudig und hatte somit noch 5 Kerle im Schlepptau, die alle bei uns pennen wollten und dies auch mehr oder weniger taten.
Nun, also zusammenfassend kann man sagen, meine ersten 3 Tage waren sehr anstrengend, aufregend, spassig, im Endeffekt also: voller Leben, wie die Tuerken auch!

One Day Antalya!
Better than nothing and one day of sunshine is still enough to be happy!
Then coming back to Ankara where itis cold and rainy is not very nice! But it feels like home lol!
So Cem, a volunteer from our friends organisation came with me since Rasmus was sick and stayed at home. I was not feeling that well either and i still dont but well someone has to sit at those stands right?
So we left friday night (13.11) and arrived after a 9 hour busride in the morning. Had to find our way to the hotel A 5 STAR HOTEL! with an amzing view!
We did have some time so we were sitting in the sun enjoying the day and talking and listening to Seksandört lol
there was even a nice little waterfall near by!!! in the middle of the city lol!
So the rest of th day we spend at the hotel talking to people asking them to sign up for a student exchange there werent many high school students around so we mostly talked about EVS and a lot of them were really interested!
Then i met Earl and the nice councelling lady again!
"Even the flags are happy-happy flags" i love Earl he is so funny i hope he will send his kids on exchange maybe to Turkey?
So after the fair we took a look at the old part of town, ate , walked around and slowly it got a bit colder and then at like 9 we took the shuttle to the otogar and left at 10pm ... back to Ankara.
Not before i was told my brain does not properly works lol but thats just cause we were really tired and just could think straight anymore! lol Nach Müde kommt Albern!!! so true, so true!!!

IZMIR!!!

Last Thursday and Friday i spend in Izmir, it was quite fun, we went there for an Infofair in the Hilton Hotel in Izmir.
And a stand in Miriams High School!
Well i start with Wednesday night, we went to Mr Magics birthday party in a bar called qube or something in Ankara, our bus left at 23.59(yeah iam serious iam not kidding), but since it was a birthday party and lots of alcohol were passed to us, i was not feeling to great on the bus, but still managed to get some sleep it was an 8h ride to Izmir!
Too bad, that we had to leave the party, then we got to Izmir at 8h in the morning and were wondering where our friends was, who was supposed to pick us up, we called him and apparently woke him up !!! lol cause he was still sleeping.
Then Rasmus and i walked around Izmir a bit, walked along the shore and drank a coke, hung out in the Atatürk park and enojyed the sun. It was sooo great, it was freakin cold in Ankara when we left and then we got to Izmir and the weather was just right, so we were sitting on a bench in the park, hanging out, and felt asleep and even got a bit sunburned... in NOVEMBER!

After that we went to the Hilton Hotel, quite a fancy place, passed out flyers, talked to high school students about exchange and walked around the fair a bit too. I met this very strange turkish guy that apparently loved Amerika that much that he wants to stay there for ever even though he was promoting a very expensive languagecourse/university exchange...just for the sake of the money not for the youth exchange-wrong intention!

well anyways, after that we went to the friends friends place and later to a bar, quite interesting... listening to 80ties and 90ties music and later changing to turkish 80ties music! But i must say that iam not a very big fan of that music lol!

So the next day we went to Miriams school, built up the stand and hung out at the school until after the lunch break. Miriam was sooo excited to see us and we were too and she basically dragged all her friends to our stand to make them intersted in YFU! she is very good at promoting!!!
After lunch we left, since we did not manage to put a workshop together a bit unorganized the whole meeting.
Then we did some more sightseeing! And a bit of shopping until we tried to go back to the appartment and pick up our stuff, but we just could not find it, so some guys showed us the way, but since they did not know where to go either they were walking through the streets with us searching! very nice guys we finally made it!
got our stuff and went to the otogar! where out french friend was waiting to go on the bus with us back to Ankara for the International Drinking Seminar!!!
Taking place in Ankara! That was about it -my Izmir trip!

Cappadokia

I just came back from Cappadokia the next between Halloween and the 1st of November and i must say considering all the places i have been to so far in Turkey this was one of the best! The landscape is just amazing, i have never seen anything like that before. You felt like you took part in one of the LORD of the RINGS movies! And i have even been to Minas Tirith lol!
We spend three days in Cappadokia which is actually quite a short time but afer awhile of seeing rocks and caves you kind of need a brake of that even though it really looks beautiful so i would say 3 days was just perfect!

We spend the nights at this artists house. We know a friend, who knows a friend who helped us to find this place. So we stayed in his atelier where he does his paintings and art stuff and it was quite a comfortable room for the 5 of us, and it was for free!!!
The only thing to complain - well iam German and we always complane so dont take this in a negative way! Would be that we only had a woodstove so we always - to keep the heating going - had to put new wood on the fire and of course all of us were asleep during the night so when do we wake up? - at like 5 am because of the cold lol! But it was an experience i dont want to miss !

And we did not exaclty have a bathroom until the second day when our host let us use his shower! But that is another story!

We have been to all kinds of places-and we had a Lonely Planet! Which is just the best guide i ever had! So if you wanna go somewhere my only advice is to get a Lonely Planet!

We went to an underground city , where Christians and later other People hid in the mountains. And for the first time in Turkey i went to more Churches per day than mosques!

There are quite some pretty churches around in Göreme which is a world heritage site in Turkey! And it is beautiful but sooo crowded because that is the place for Tourists to go!

And who did we meet there? A group of Rotari guys - some of them we already met in Ankara.

That was and interesting coincidence!

We hung out in the little village we stayed in ( Ortahisar) and drank wine, tea and consumed others stuff - plaing traditional board games with the locals.

We even had a live concert in our little room. Our host and one of his musican friends came over at night and asked if we would care for some traditional turkish music, and of course we would love to hear it.

So they came in we drank some wine and they played and sung for us. Very nice people but the thing was all of teh others fell asleep very soon so i was the only one left awake and me too i was sooo tired

but i thought it would be very impolite to sleept too since they were kind of my guests. So i stayed awake lol. They got the hint that i was freakin tired to so the thanked us for letting them stayin their own house hihi and left!

This was a very special evening!

Other than that we drove around, got lost a couple of times, went to a very nice lake in güzelyurt which means(nice countryside or something like that) and i just could have hung out there all day, it was an old church ontop of a hill and we had a great view down on the lake and there was a herd of sheep down there it was like a painting very idyllic!

But we had a tight schedule and had to move on to the next site. i really dont remember all the places. BUt it was was something very special this place !

And Linda and Rasmus even rode on a camel! If that is not something else then i dont know!
The last evening we spend in Göreme Restaurant in Göreme of course lol

and ate - and as if the coincidence earlier was not enough some of our volunteer friends from Ankara walked in! That was just hilarious! Later that night we went to a Halloween party in a bar called Fatboy! Very intersting people there! But we moved on and met a real Flintstone decendent in Flintstones Cave Bar!

So that was a great end to a great trip and we ended up taking a bus at 1 o´clock going back to Ankara. Me sitting next to a very nice guy - a tourguide and he asked me if i want to join him on a trip to Syria , well up until then i thought he was quite nice but now i dont really know!

Well we got to Ankara at 6 am and all i could do was go to bed and had a good nights sleep!

What a lovely day!!!

Iam very happy today! First I actually have something to do, some people are coming over later and we will talk about a project we intend on doing, second the weather is lovely! I went outside wearing a sweater and had to take it off because it was too hot J and the sun is shining! …”Guten Morgen, guten Morgen, guten Morgen Sonnenschein, diese Nacht blieb dir verborgen…” J @ Steffi da musste ich an die NBT denken lol!
Oh and finally the third thing not forgetting to mention that! My Dad called meJ that totally caught me by surprise, since I have not talked on the phone with anyone from back home until now. Except for like a 1 min conversation with Sara yesterday just to find out how much Aldi-talk charges for a call to Turkey but that does not really count. So it felt really good to talk to my Mom and Dad for a change!
So right now I am sitting in the kitchen enjoying a good „Linsensuppe mit Spätzle“ and waiting for my guests to show up! J I am still on german Time lol und ich muss geduldiger werden, das habe ich auch schon festgestellt, ich bin einfach noch an den hektischen deutschen Alltag gewöhnt! Aber wenn ich heim komme, werde ich ganz entspannt sein! (hoffentlichJ )
And I am really looking forward to tomorrow, because I found a Tandem Partner, I am going to teach her German and she in return will help me with my Turkish and as if that would not be enough, I am also going to see another part of Ankara! So even though I am a bit disappointed that the YFU Infofair was moved to another weekend and not this one, I am still having fun this WE!!!
So hope to hear from plenty of you people! So I don’t feel lonely :D
Miss ya all!
P.S. Der Online-Funker kommt!!!

Wow thats so great! it looks like iam having a long term guest over soon :D
Selma loved your application, Laura!!!
as soon as i send it to her she was looking through the stuff and about to talk to Eylem about it! So she is already preparing the documents! i hope the new date suites you as well, the short term EVS is supposed to be between 22.11 and the 18.january!
What do you think???
Iam very excited right now!
even though the Workshops havent started yet iam really looking forward to seeing Laurachen!!
Oh and by the way i almost forgot- iam talking part in the YFU evaluation meeting of last years outbound students iam really looking forward to that as well! Rasmus and i are putting the program together just now but unfortunately most of it will be in turkish cause the kids can express themselves much better in their own language, but we will see it will still be nice to hang out with them!!!

So write some comments please....

Istanbul-Canakkale-Gökceada-Bursa

Merhaba guys,

nasılsın? Iyiyim! Which means how are you, and iam fine! My Turkish is quite bad but its getting better I try to find a tandem partner so we exchange English and Turkish!

So I am in Turkey for almost 2 month now and still I experience new things all the time! It is not as if I already know how the country works! Even the people still surprise me!
Travelling through the country is a lot of fun, and the landscape is amazing! I´ve just came back from a little journey! I must tell you! Rasmus and me, we went to my friends house in Istanbul with a very, very slow night-train! It was so cheap! We only paid like 15 € for 500 km! Well it took 8 hours so that might be the reason why it was so cheap lol.
So we spend the weekend at Luis house and walked around the city, amazing 15 million people live there but it still is a very interesting place unlike New York which I honestly did not like that much!
We have been to the blue mosque which is a very pretty building and nice and cosy inside because they have carpets!!! Well and the Hagia Sophia which used to be a church so it is much different from the other mosques. And also the Grand bazaar is quite an interesting place and totally orient style!
I love it here and people are very open, whenever you look lost, people just stop to help you. In Germany they would just ignore you. And people even invite you from the streets to share food and tea which is very nice because a lot of them don’t even know English and they still help you!!!

So on Monday we had to go to our EVS(European Voluntary Service) On Arrival training in çanakkale, which is a city close to Troy. And guess what, we stayed in a 5 star hotel with sea view out of the windows!!! It was amazing, a pool, a Haman, sauna and sooo much food! But i must say didn’t gain much from the training concerning the content and we basically knew all of it because we have been on exchange. But still the meeting was quite fun, the trainers were nice and awesome to meet all of those new people. OF course most of them were German. ITs always like that no matter where you go in the world i will always find my germans lol.

But all in all i must say it was great meeting all of them and hopefully we will all meet up again soon!
Well the meeting was finished on Friday so Esther (a friend of mine, from Germany as well), Rasmus (the Danish guy I live with) and I decided quite spontaneously to go to an island before going home. Gökçeada (Imbros in Greek) used to be a Greek island but now its Turkish and not far from çanakkale, so we took a ferry over there and met a band on the bus, who helped us find a place to stay! Later that night we went to a tentparty to see the band perform their Turkish folk songs it was quite fun! It seemed like the whole island met up there!
SO the next day we went to a salt lake on the island, you don’t even have to go to the black sea to get that great peeling for your skin, we saw that same stuff at the saltlake (tuz gölü)and it did not even stink as much as the peeling mud from the dead sea :D
The taxi driver, whose name was Machmut by the way, took us to find the “famous” waterfall on that island. Well we couldn’t really find it at first, even though Machmut hiked up and down the hills with us, it took us an hour and a half to get there and we had scratches all over our legs but we found it!!! And it was beautiful, so our friend the taxi driver hiked with us all the way up there that was quite nice! And believe it or not on the way back we found a trail which let to the waterfall and would have been a much easier way to go! Well so we did some sports that is ok as well!
Because of the hike we missed our ferry so we stayed an extra night and celebrated a Turkish wedding, the whole village met in the center and put up some chairs for the old people to sit and everyone else was just dancing on the streets! And later they handed out cake to everyone we even got a piece! And Turkish folk music everywhere it sounds quite hilarious! You got to listen to it!
But that island we went to has quite a few Greek influences you kind of notice whenever you walk around even the music that the taxidriver listen to sounds more greek than turkish lol.

Very early the next morning we took the ferry back-with the band-and took a minibus to Bursa which is half way back to Ankara. On the way we were chased by the police :D , the driver was going to fast so we had to stop and he argued with the police but we could go on, and met some Americans on the bus who used to live in Turkey and now came back to travel and see friends, very nice people!
After awhile we got to Bursa-met some people who helped us buy tickets for the way home and then took a walk around the city to the yeşil camii (the green mosque) a very beautiful building but I would consider it to be blue rather than green lol (and it also used to be a church I think). So later that night we got on the bus and made

it home around midnight after a 6 hour busride! We are very lucky that we live like 5 minutes by foot from the bus terminal!

So I must say we already have done quite some travelling here in Turkey and it is always very nice and easy to meet new people we have some people in Bursa and Canakkale now where we can come and stay! And EVERYONE here in Turkey has facebook its crazy!!! Oh sry i dont want to generalize but it seems like that.

So I hope you liked my little report and hope to hear from you as well!!! Anything exciting going on?

Görüşürüz! Greetings from Ankara!
Greta

finally i got a blog :D

I am in Ankara for almost 2 month now and i figured it is time to start a blog to stop those stupid mail chains trying to stay in touch with everyone! so i hope i can figure this out and share all the things i experience in my little middle eastern adventure with you!!!