Report from Moldova: Turkey, the whole shebang

    It  was a crisp January morning when I awoke and, if not sunny as well, there was light diffusing through the thin cloud cover. Today is Christmas morning, if you are Greek Orthodox, and therefore today is not Christmas for me, but I think I'll do what I can to get in the holiday spirit (I'm wearing a red hat...)
    I landed at Chisinau International Airport on January 5th and missed the last mini-bus back to Чадыр-лунга. I arrived at site yesterday afternoon and promptly went on my first run in two weeks. I got in a solid hour (it was rather painful – realized the thing about running is that you can't just up and quit for two weeks and expect to be tip-top immediately) but, over the course of my vacation, my site went from rainy and muddy to frozen solid. While this was definitely an advantage from the perspective of my lower-most, shoe-wearing appendages, it was really cold. At one point, I went to scratch my neck and couldn't feel anything, so I assumed I was feeling my jacket – turns out it was my neck, it was just numb.
    I have been significantly more bored in the last couple days than I was in Turkey – surprise, surprise. I gave myself a day of unpacking, movies, reading and rest yesterday and would start on some more productive activities today – like studying for the LSAT's, which I may or may not be taking in June -  but, today is Christmas and from what I have gleaned, it is primarily going to involved walking from house to house, sampling wine, followed by a big dinner at the Grandma's house.
    Instead up summing up the latter part of the vacation, I'll just give a brief description of the whole thing – everyone get out your maps! Every number represents a leg of the journey. It takes many, many legs to create such an epic period of travel – or something...
1.    Left for Ialoveni on December 2nd, where I met my old host brother Victor and spent the night, sampling Cognac and all the foods I missed from that region of Moldova.
2.    Headed to Patrick's site, Pitusca, on Wednesday and stayed the night with Zan where myself and a few other volunteers had a Christmas eve celebration. The night ended with a chili-eating contest with myself and  Mike Mathers. I won.
3.    Took a scary mini-bus to Chisinau, where Mike, Pat and I waited around for our flight at the Peace Corps lounge (I ate McDonalds). Flew to Istanbul and found our hostel. Ended up meeting a group of Americans and Canadians and celebrated Christmas with them by drinking beers and smoking Hookah (I felt like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland).
4.    Took off that morning for Izmir. The mode of travel was a ferry across the channel and then a train to Izmir. We found a terrifying hostel in Izmir and naturally decided to sleep there. This was also the first day/night we tasted some terrific Turkish food. The three of us basically pointed to dishes and the owner brought them to our table.
5.    Left for Selcuk that morning. Arrived and checked out the ruined city of Ephesus, ate some kebabs and went to the Museum. After the museum, we took our first Turkish bath, which was sweet; that is if you like seeing your dead skin come off in rolls, while a burly man with a mustache treats your body like a muddy SUV. That night the owner of our hostel, Muslim, prepared some mezes (appetizers) and demonstrated how to properly drink Raki. Later, we went to the strangest bar I have ever seen in my life. The general idea was that you order a beer, you sit, a woman comes and sits next to you. If you talk to her, you buy her a $10, much smaller beer. Apparently some gentleman ...cough... make some sort of a verbal agreement during the conversation...
6.    We left for Cappadocia the next evening and spent the 12-hour bus ride attempting to sleep.
7.    Arrived in the big C at eight in the morning and promptly got into another bus for our tour. Because of the snow, we missed out on a beautiful hike through a gorge, but it was a very interesting area of the country none-the-less. We spent the night in the best hostel yet. We were the only people there. (I also forgot to add that during these last three days we ended up meeting a guy named Juan who hails from Buenos Aires, Argentia. We just tended to refer to him as “That guy” (like, “Hey why is that guy over there yelling a scarf salesman?”) and he was the best haggler I've ever met, not to mention he tended to live like a cat. As in, all he did was eat and sleep and speak with a funny accent.))
8.    The next morning, the sun was out and we lounged around sipping on coffee and eating the breakfast prepared by the host. Around noon, we decided to get shaves and partake in our second Turkish bath. I forgot to mention that we met three Italian women in Selcuk who also headed to Cappadocia. Our plan was to meet with them, but we couldn't find them. The three of us sat getting scrubbed down in the bath saying things along the lines of; “Man, what if those Italian girls were here...that would have been awesome!”
9.    We took another completely horrible overnight bus straight back to Istanbul. We got in pretty early on New Year's Eve and took naps. That night we went to a party at our hostel, which was fun.
10.    We spent this day (rather over-hung) walking around the city and eating.
11.    Today we saw many of the sites, including the Topkapi Palace (90 carrot diamond and all) and the Blue Mosque.
12.    Today we did more sight-seeing – the photos I post will do a better job of describing everything – and then went out to eat with two other travelers. We actually ended up running into the Italians again at the restaurant and were supposed to meet them for a drink. Mike and I ended up back at our hostel rather late, drinking tea, when they came in to find us. It was weird.
13.    More sight-seeing followed by dinner and dancing at some weird club. I hate dancing. We were with the Italians and two of their friends. I've decided that Italian people are the coolest most stylish members of the world community. There language sounds cool, they dress cool, the men even have cool facial hair! (Whereas mine is pretty shifty.)
14.    Our last full day was spent sight-seeing and eating fish at the fish market. It was delicious and fresh, fried-up in front of us and served on a bed of greens and onions, with rolls. The sardines had a light batter and you could basically pop the whole bony fish in your mouth and crunch it down (my stomach felt funny later that day). We saw the aqua-ducts later on and then went out for a dinner and glimpse at the Taksim square bar-scene. We happened upon a bar with an great band rehearsing and doing sound checks. Later we found a metal bar called 'Old School' and stayed to listen to rock and sip on $3 beers.
15.    Spice bazaar and home...Damn!

I after re-reading the schedule, I think days 11 and 12 are actually one day, but the auto-formatting on WORD is impossible to use, so just do the math yourself.

    So, that was basically it. I'm back in Moldova now and getting ready for the new semester to begin. I'm hoping this will bring a change to my mood because, while the prospect of my 2 years wasn't daunting while I was counting down the days to visit Turkey, it is a bit more difficult now that I am back. I try to divide it into semesters; one down, three to go.
    I spoke with my brother Willie last night and he is worried about the 6 months he is about to spend studying abroad in Budapest. I told him that I've already completed what would be his entire stint abroad and have three times as much to go, so... yeah. I am definitely excited to have him come visit me and REALLY excited to meet him in Budapest before we fly home for Michelle's wedding. Oh and Ness, get a job and buy a plane ticket. :-) Just kidding...
    If anyone is still reading this jibber-jabber, I'd like to throw some verbal thanks towards everyone who sent me things.
    Michelle, your pants are coming in very handy, what with the cold weather and, because it is so cold, my sweat dries or freezes while running, so I don't really have to wash them!
    I got some DVD's and a book on Russia from my brothers – are they hinting at something?
    Grandma, the shirt you gave me is awesome and the book is weird...
    I'm listening to the I-pod player right now Mom and Dad and the passport holder actually came in handy; I just carried all my ID's and passport in it the whole vacation.
    Oh, and I just realized that I always speak to my dog in Russian. I wonder what language he speaks, you know? Maybe he hates Russian...
   
    Всего хорошего и с празником; пока!