Study Tour Orientation

In two short days I'll be in my way to Istanbul, Turkey! Today in class we had an orientation in preparation for our week long study tour starting Sunday. The area that is now the Republic of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic. After Alexander the Great's conquest, the area was Hellenized continuing with the Roman rule which transitioned into the Byzantine Empire. Starting in the 13th century, the Ottoman Empire ruled until the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues initiated the Turkish War of Independence and modernized Turkey. Atatürk, known as Father of the Turks, was the republic's first president and introduced many radical reforms with the hopes of creating a new secular republic. This was a very brief history of the Republic of Turkey, and I look forward to emerging myself in the history and culture in just a few short days.

Class finished around lunch time, so I met up with Hannah and Lindsay to grab a bite to eat. We went to what all the Americans call the glass market. There is a building near the Nørreport bus station with glass walls that has several food shops inside. There is everything from fruits and vegetables, chocolate, cupcakes, bread, various sandwiches and salads to bath products and unique, homemade knicknacks. I went to a sandwich stand that Hannah swears by. I got a small salad which meant I got to choose three different salad options. I had potatoe salad, pear, sun dried tomato, and Swiss cheese salad, and tuna salad. Even though it was a small, I was still completely full and satisfied after our meal.

After lunch, Hannah and I decided to go back to the Living Room to sit on our computers and relax for the rest of the day. Hannah's mom made her famous chocolate chip cake and mailed some to Hannah. So even though I was completely full from lunch, we still couldn't resist eating one slice of her cake. But with cake that good you can't stop after just one slice. I couldn't believe how much her mom sent, so we had to quickly put it away before we gained 20 pounds on the spot. 

For the rest of the day I decided to clean my room. I didn't necessarily decide to clean my room, it was more of a necessity. There were dishes in the sink, laundry thrown on every surface of my desk, chair, and bed, and I still hadn't completely made my bed since being in Norway. It's amazing how getting sick can really put you back a couple of days.

I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until Lindsay saved me by asking if I wanted to make dinner. It was refreshing to get out of my messy room, so we walked town to the store to pick up some fish and vegetables. I wasn't particularly hungry after our big lunch, but I managed to eat a little considering I would need the energy for the rest of the night.

Kenneth is in town visiting Lindsay, so we were going to meet up with him and his buddies at LA Bar where they spent their first night together. On route, we sat at the bus station waiting 20 minutes for the bus to arrive. We played music and line danced to pass the time, typical Americans. Reading the bus schedule, it appeared that another bus wouldn't arrive for another half hour, so we changed directions and went to catch the train. A block from the bus station in the opposite direction, we see the bus pull up. Of course the bus comes right as we leave. An interesting start to a long night. 

It was a fun night at LA Bar with dancing and chatting with the occasional drink. Towards the end of the night I started talking to two of Kenneth's friends, Tobias and Søren. When you say "Tobias" it sounds like "two beers" so that was a conversation starter all by itself and I couldn't even come close to saying Søren's name correctly. They were quite the jokesters, and it was fun chatting with them, never a dull moment. Like always, we managed to stay out after the sun was beginning to come up and didn't start heading home until 5am. Our adventures continued in the train station when we meet an interesting character while waiting for the bus. His name was Bennifor from the block, the same block as Jenny apparently. He claimed to live half is life in the Bronx and the other half in Denmark. He said he looked 39 but was really 28 years old and wanted to be 50 so he didn't have to do anything. He was an architect working in Shanghai and was in Denmark on vacation. Not a word of this ridiculous tale was true except possibly his age, but it sure made our wait for the train go by much quicker.

You couldn't even call it a midnight snack, it was more like breakfast at 6am before taking a 6 hour nap. But there we were in Hannah's room at 6am enjoying breakfast. My room was on loan for the night to a friend that had company, but didn't have the privacy of having her own room. So we decided to have a slumber party in Hannah's room more or less. Hannah was eating yogurt, jelly, raisins, and cereal. It was an interesting combination and I decided to give it a try. I used my spoon to add yogurt to a bowl and I was debating how I should add the jelly. I didn't want to use my spoon because it had yogurt on it and I was too lazy to just wash the spoon. I attempted to pour the jelly straight into my cup, but as I'm waiting for a bit to come out, the half full jar of jelly plops into my bowl of yogurt. Still a little silly from the night before, we had a good laugh and improvised by dividing the jelly between Hannah's bowl and back in the jar. Needless to say, we finished the jelly by the end of the night.