It's aaaaaaaaaaliiiiiiiiiive!!!!

What an appropriate title the day after Halloween, which I've always found horribly underrepresented in Europe! Look at the morals we teach our American kids! Be creative and dress up and we'll give lots of candy! I think its a celebration of creativity!

So anyways now that I've lost my original following of people reading this blog (if any existed in the first place) I've decided to resurrect my blog because I should be documenting my life in BERLIN!! I've broken this post into a few different pieces to summarize the past two months here.

The Magical Arrival in Berlin

For those who don't know, when I returned from my study abroad in Berlin in 2010 I had pretty much decided to move to Berlin as soon as I graduated from Whittier. I was obsessed with anything German/Berlin related. So now you can imagine how exciting it was to return to Berlin after two years... pretty monumental, orchestra's playing to my walk down the street, beer flowing freely from fountains, and friendly Germans everywhere asking me to live with them for less than 200 euros. 

Flash back to reality.

Actually reality wasn't so different from that. I arrived in Berlin dead tired with two enormous bags and somehow made it to Sibel's house in Kreuzberg where Sibel and Caro were waiting for me. Dearest Sibel graciously let me stay with her until I found a place and Caro was hanging out in Berlin looking at apartments as well. As soon as arrived we had about an hour of chatting about the summer then Sibel announced we were going to go out with some of her friends! Party on the first night! Of all places we went to a Mexican restaurant which was probably some of the best Mexican food I've ever had abroad. Best being relative in this case, its still nothing like real Mexican food. Anyways we hung out with Sibel's friends from the south of Germany. During dinner I had a real moment when I realized I'm really going to have to commit to this German speaking thing. Ha, so yeah I've been trying and its actually really nice to speak German and feel semi competent in a language. 

Here's a photo of the mini GetMa reunion in Berlin on my first night back.

                                                 It's me, Sibel, Caro, and Martina

The Urban Nomadic Lifestyle: Living on People's Couches in Berlin

After a week at Sibel's I got an offer to stay at a friend's of a friends for the month of September. I decided to take the offer because finding an apartment in Berlin can (and IS) a horrible trial of you hopes and dreams. I lived for a month in this really nice place with really great people. There were three other girls and one guy, all German, who were also all students. It was really nice to live with them, but unfortunately at the same time I had to continue looking for another apartment for the rest of my time in Berlin. For the month of November I got lucky because old friend from two years ago let me watch her house while she was in Maliasia for two weeks. 

Germany, along with many European countries, have these online websites where students or other people put up ads for rooms in their apartments, you email them about yourself, then if they like the sound of you they email you back, you meet them in the apartment mostly so you can both see if you like each other. After this process they either call or email (or if they're assholes, don't speak to you again) to let you know if you can live there or not. I did this process FOURTEEN TIMES!!! FOURTEEN TIMES! FOURTEEN TIMES I traveled around Berlin, met someone new, pretended to be cool, hung out, made small talk, tried to seem fun, listened to their personal stories and then was rejected. Hooooorrrrriiible. The whole process was extremely depressing. Finally about a week ago this nice guy Marwan said I move in with him! Hooray! Actually today around 8pm I move into my new place! Hooray! I have a home in Berlin! Tonight I'll get keys to real place that I can really sleep in! Yay! But yeah this entire time I've been in Berlin I've been living out of suitcases, sleeping on the couches, floors, and beds of friends, and basically nomadically traveling around the city. Let me tell you, I have some great friends.

Dult: Where all German Stereotypes Come True

When I was in Germany in 2010 I traveled around Europe, but didn't really do any inter German travel, something I plan on fixing during this year in Berlin. I've been to Leipzig and Dresden and Berlin. That's it. So when Sibel said she was going to visit her boyfriend in Regensberg in the south of Germany, Bayern (AKA Bavaria) to be exact, I decided to join.

There's so much Bayern hate in Berlin because Bayern is seen as super conservative, super Catholic and super wealthily. Perhaps best summarized as the anti-Berlin. There are also a lot of people from Bayern in Berlin and Berliners (probably half correctly) blame these Bayern people for the raising prices in Berlin. Bayern is basically the Texas of Germany. Bayern is really proud of its unique history and cultural traits and, just like Texas, Bayern also tried to succeed from Germany at one point. It also has some of the only real national pride in the whole of Germany (WWII really squashed that. Flying a German flag here has multiple meanings) But Bayern has enough pride for all of Germany. Wilfried Scharnagl, a real current politician, just released a book this September called Bayern Kann Es Auch Allein, roughly translating to Bayern can also go alone. 

That being said, ALL, or almost all, American stereotypes of Germany come from Bayern. Perhaps this is because it was part of the American sector of Germany after WWII or because they're such great stereotypes. 

Dirndls: 

Think dirndls, lederhosen, silly hats, beautiful villages on lakes, and of course maß (of liters) of beer!

Lederhosen:   

Silly hats: 

Beautiful scenery:

Maß of beer:

Naturally I didn't want to miss a chance to see this great part of Germany. It also helped we'd get to drive down in a car and stay at Sibel's boyfriend's dorm which made the whole trip extremely cheap.

This particular weekend in September in Regensberg also happened to be Dult, the volksfest of the town. Now volksfest are these great historic peasant celebrations all over the south of Germany which are basically town fairs based on wine, beer, and carnival rides. The most famous volksfest would be the Octoberfest in Münich. Yeah, super great. 

Five of us in one car drove the five hours from Berlin to Regensberg and immediately got ready and went to Dult. I was seriously tempted to buy a dirndl, but they're ridiculously expensive (I mean check out this website, C&A Dirndls 80 euros is cheap!). Unfortunately I didn't get one but I did braid my hair and wear a dress, I tried! Sibel, on the other hand, was raised in Bayern and had a great purple dirndl and her boyfriend Kerem bought some lederhosen online. So amazing. What was really great is that it was almost like Halloween because it was totally acceptable to wear these volksfest clothes on the bus, metro, and just walking around.

Here's Sibel and Kerem in their outfits on the bus

So we got to Dult and walked around the fair area and had some weiß wurst (white hot dogs) and then headed toward the beer tent. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't an enormous tent FULL of drunk Germans dressed in dirndls and lederhosen singing all the words to horrible 80's songs. EVERY DREAM COME TRUE. Seriously though, not having a dirndl on made me stand out. It was so great. The tent was full of long tables and every bench was full with people standing on the benches singing and drinking. Seriously, so great. There was even this like 16 year old German guy near us with his entire family (mom, dad, grandpa, grandma) getting drunk as a family in traditional German dirndls and lederhosen singing to the music.

Our Maßes of Bier

                                     Jake, Me, Caro, and Goksu with our Brezels and Bier!

We had two maßes and then decided to go out dancing. This might be the weirdest part of the night because we went to a club to keep dancing and literally 2/3rds of the people at the club were still wearing their dirndls and lederhosen. So crazy! In a public place! I wish I had some photos of that because it was so funny that even in "normal" place the volksfest clothes were still acceptable. 

Regensberg itself is actually a really cool old city in a way Berlin just can't be. Regensberg began as a Roman city and early on it gained independence from the Catholic Church for economic reasons. It had all the beautiful little roads and a beautiful old church. Jake actually spent his study abroad year in Regensberg so he knew all about the city. Even cooler perhaps is that in WWII Jake's grandpa was in Regensberg and helped rebuild the bridge we're standing on in the photos below.

Cro: Speaking to the Heart of Teenage Germans Everywhere

And last but not least, it wouldn't be a real post from me if I didn't leave you with some music. Here's Cro, my new favorite German singer/rapper. I really like his music videos and silly lyrics that I can understand a lot of if I pay close attention. I don't care if he's angsty and immature, he's so catchy and helping me learn German!

Here's my favorites:

Am Ende

So I hope this was a successful up to date post of my life here. There's still so much more to say about German bureaucracy, the fun of GetMa, my month long German language course, and of course about simply being back in Berlin after two years. So I'm sure there'll be much more to come... if anyone reads this any more. Bis später!

Procrastination Getting Out of Hand

So here's some of my nostalgia photos that I've taken recently to remember funny little things about Ankara.

Serra, Martin, Caro, and Diruba on the terrace for Jake's birthday.

Coffee breaks at the math kantin

So tired, so hot.

Delicious Turkish breakfast with Tugba.

My sneaky photo of the inside of a dolmus. This is a nice dolmus by the way, my favorite is the really old 1960's style one.

Caro at Cati in the sunshine.

Tiny balcony party at Martina's

Beautiful  Yüzüncü Yıl

More of the apartment blocks of Yüzüncü Yıl.

The no mans land between Yüzüncü Yıl and the campus gate. This is where I was almost attacked by a street dog once but managed to yell loud enough to scare him. Proudest moment in Turkey so far.

All the pickled goodies at the grocery store.

Cuddley couples in the girls kantin

Devrim and watermelon party.

Breakfast at Caro's.

Wonderful smelling clothes on Caro's neighbor's baloney.

Dancing Germans.

Walking Germans (still in Yüzüncü Yıl).

More apartment blocks in Yüzüncü Yıl.

Typical delicious food from Cati.

The wonderful library and Martin with his short shorts.

Maybe I'll write a read post sometime, but for now I hope you enjoyed the photos. 

Things to Remember

My time in Ankara is coming to an end! Neiiiiiin. Even worse is that I have serious finals. I'll have written something like sixty pages before finals are over. Yeah I've moved into the library and I feel like Tugba doesn't believe me that I've been researching and writing for the past two weeks.


Anyways I started to get sad about leaving and took some pre-nostalgia photos to remember important things like people leaving their trash under trees to be picked up at night, dried mint that's put on all food items, and the wild dogs who seem to have died in the sunshine. So in leu of my sadness I'm going to do something boring and just for myself on this blog: I'm going to make a list odd things to remember about Turkey.


--Martin's saying "the yabanci obstical" refering to our gigantic presence in small places like the dolmus.
--The fact that there's no safety rules in Turkey. There's constant pot holes on the sidewalk, no railings on high stairs, no screens on windows in the library on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floor, rusty nails and sharp pieces of metal to hold things together. And somehow this has become slightly normal for me.
--Nescafe, EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME
--"Kimlik?!" AKA showing my ID to get into METU, the fortress
--Cati, the best place to take a three hour library break.
--The fact that METU is a zoo full of the best kept wild dogs and cats, not to mention the random pigeon that can fly into the classroom.
--"Hocam," which literally means "my teacher" but is used for literally everyone at METU, everyone from the kantin man to the administration people to professors. It was adopted at METU in the 70's as an attempt to break down the class and status barrier between everyone working at the school. Now its used for literally everyone.
--The cuddling couples at the girls kantin who can't go into each other's rooms because all the dorms are gender segregated.
--Dolmus and city buses going like 60 mph on the freeway, not taking turns slowly, and pretty much just throwing people around in all directions.
--Speaking of buses, how men always let me sit down even if they're closer to the seat or have been on the bus longer than me.
--The math kantin and the women there who thinks I'm nuts for getting like 5 Nescafes in one day. It was finals, okay!
--People drinking in devrim, the stadium on campus.
--The shitty/amazing apartments of Yüzüncü Yıl. 
--The 14 year old boy who runs the bakal in Yüzüncü Yıl from whom we buy beer.
--Trash collectors with these HUGE rolling bags.
--The pazar on Wednesday and Sunday in Yüzüncü Yıl. The people are really friendly and the fruit is so cheap and amazing.
--Getting the stare down every time I go to Ulus.
--The tezye, AKA Turkish aunties that are everywhere. They're these hilarious old ladies usually walking around with at least two grocery bags. I need a photo of this, but think old wrinkly lady in a flowered headscarf wearing a bag dress and walking arm in arm with her 18 year old nephew. Okay not hilarious, but so Turkey to me.
--Music like this. This is sort of the traditional plus pop category. Also possibly the best video to watch if you've been to Istanbul. Seriously, this video has so many things it in that represent Turkey to me. 

 

--And like this. Maybe my favorite Turkish song, and definitely my favorite singer. Look at her dancing at 0:48 and try and tell me she isn't the best. Also check out her other song Bu Mudur, I literally know at least 70% of the words to that song. I actually sang Bu Mudur at a karaoke bar with Jake and Dan...

--And this: the Britney Spears of Turkey. I might actually know all the words to this one haha. Also maybe a video for people who think Turkey is somehow uniformly conservative and full of headscarved women:

--Here's a little "alternative" Turkish music. Weird video, but great chorus, aka try skipping to 1:03.

--Also this, something a little more traditional. A song I think I've heard at least 20 times since coming to Turkey.

Haha well that turned into a lot of music videos, but there it is. I'm sure I'll think of more things to remember soon! Somehow this whole last semester just flew by!

Foucault!

So because this blog is mine and I can do whatever I want on it I just wanted to share my new hero: Michel Foucault.


I feel like its a bit of a cliche to say that grad students love Foucault, but let me just say that his concepts of power BLEW MY MIND. So good. I read this article "Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique" by Thomas Lemke (here's the link to the pdf: http://www.andosciasociology.net/resources/Foucault$2C+Governmentality$2C+and+Critique+IV-2.pdf) and oh my god, it was so good. It totally made me rethink the way I frame my academic arguments and possibly more importantly it made me rethink power. Foucault claims it is not important prove that there are differences between the reality of autonomous individuals and the coercion (laws, violence, war) of the government, but what is interesting and significant is how individual citizens form a compromise and conflict with their government’s laws. This is the compromise between what the government has decided is rational and how autonomous individuals interact with this definition of rationality.


I'm using these theories for a project on racism in Germany. Ah I love school.


I also love Foucault.

Bahar Şenliği!!!

 Here's the main stage in the stadium. Yeah, almost all the photos I took are blurry.

Spring Fest is a magical time once a year when every Turkish university host open air concerts for five days. Clubs from the school raise money and invite famous Turkish singers to play huge amazing concerts in the stadium. During the day there are local bands, student club tables, and food stands all around the fest area and people generally just hang out listen to music and drink. Its the Turkish equivalent to Spring Break in the US... except instead of giving students time off they make this huge party on campus and classes are still in session. The best part is the WHOLE university is involved and everyone attends the big concerts at night.

At METU the first night of Spring Fest is basically a ritual of remembering METU's radical past and its role in the 1970 and 1982 coups. METU in the 60's and 70's was a bastion of Marxism and radical liberalism. As previously posted, a student in the 70's painted DEVRIM (REVOLUTION) on the huge stadium and it eventually became part of METU's identity. To honor the radial METU past and to inspire people to continue questioning all forms of authority, students from the Student Revolutionary Marxist club light candles in the shape of DEVRIM on the stadium grass before the first concert begins. A friend told me this was because the first spring fest held at METU was led by the Marxist club who raised the money themselves to have the festival for 10 days. After the Revolutionary Marxist club lights the candles they run into the audience and wave huge banners of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and young Turkish revolutionaries who were killed in the military coups. Then they sing songs of solidarity while throwing their fists in the air. Its gets really emotional. Pretty crazy, but totally awesome. People set off lanterns with candles in them and its a whole sea of lights and students. Then the concert begins and everyone just dances and dances.

(I didn't have my camera that night so this is from http://imageshack.us/f/27/devrim.jpg/)

From the second day: A ton of people.

And us too.

The whole weekend was wonderful and really showed me how awesomely radical METU is. One student club stand had life size pictures of President Erdogan, the minister of finance and another Turkish political figure and people walking by could pay to throw eggs at them. Jake, Kamila, and I participated in the LGBT parade that walked to the school's registar's office yelling at them to recognize the LGBT club and saying that they would not do their military service (military service is mandatory for all Turkish men, but if you are gay you can avoid this by giving the government photos of you having sex with other men and then consenting to an exam where military doctors 'check' to see if your anus has been penetrated... yeah pretty horrible). In the end a friend, Köray, climbed up the side of the stage with the LGBT flag. So great. Basically I love METU now.

That's Köray holding up the "Here Comes the Prostitute" sign. This is in front of the registar's office.

 The fest was really really awesome and something the US should totally do. I mean, I free concert on campus by famous singers where everyone is happy and celebrating their school? Pretty wonderful and a lot of fun.

My dearest Getma friends.

11 People in an 8 Seating Van

Cyprus!

Getma takes over Cyprus.

In the bitter coldness of January, Buğra convinced 10 out of the 13 Getma members to go to Cyprus with him. Buğra is from Cyprus and is affectionately referred to as the "father" of Getma. He's not actually in the program, but he's dating Goksu so he's always around. He grew up on the North side of Cyprus, the section that is controlled by the Turkish government. 

For those who don't know here's a short history of Cyprus. Cyprus was part of the Ottoman Empire, but the majority of the population was Greek. The British were given Cyprus by the Ottoman Empire as a gift in return for British military support at the turn of the century and it eventually became part of the British Empire. After WWII the Brits were kicked out, but then there were a series of wars in which Turkey and Greece fought for control over Cyprus. Greece thought it belonged to them because the majority of the population was Greek and Turkey thought it was there's because it had been part of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey invaded Cyprus on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots and war began. Eventually a line was drawn and the Turkish Cypriots were forced to move to Northern Cyprus and the Greeks in the South. Clearly there's still some problems and lots of left over resentment. Cyprus is still divided into two parts based on the 1974 Green Line that the UN patrols. 

Nice picture of the Division. Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe. 

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738306000521)

So, we just went on a nice holiday trip because Buğra grew up there and could show us around. He very graciously put together a trip for us which involved renting a van and planning visits all around the island.The Getma domluş has to be the highlight of this trip because we managed to fit 11 people into an 8 seating van for a 5 day trip around an island.

Interestingly enough, in order to fit everyone in we divised a plan to put all the big people in the back seat and the little people in the front seat. The result? Germans and Americans in the back, Turks in the front. Whhhy are such big people??

Here's a nice photo of us crammed in the car. That's Caro sitting on my lap. Actually it was really hilarious. At all times there was one person sitting on all the others laps either laying across or sitting on one of us. In the front seat there was two people sitting on other people's laps. Haha at one point Jake was laying on all of us drinking a beer and commented, "Literally everything were doing right now is illegal in the US." Ah, so true Jake, so true, but so it goes in Turkey where the rules can be bendy. 

So much fun with big people in the back of the van.

We sang lots of songs and listened to lots of Cypriot music while driving around for literally hours sometimes. So much love in the Getma domluş. At one museum, Martin said, "I bet people are wondering how so many homeless people of different nationalities managed to get to Cyprus," because 11 ragged looking people emerging from the Getma domluş must have looked pretty ridiculous. Ah definitely one of the best parts of the trip was Getma bonding in the domluş.

Here's one of the songs on the casette tape we listened to all week haha.

Visting Lefkoşa was another great experience. The divided captial city is really really interesting. It looks and feels like a small old Turkish city on the North side, then on the South side its suddenly very European. All of Germans were so sure that it was more European, while I was more convinced it just looked Mediterranean--then I saw a handicap lift, a super modern bus station, and garbage cans everywhere. Alchoal also happened to be extremely cheap in Lefkoşa which meant I got to try this really great beer called Keo. Its a locally produced Southern Cypriot beer that is really really good. One of my favorite things about Lefkoşa was this old Church which had been converted into a mosque when the Ottoman's invaded. It is so clearly a gothic cathedral that they just slapped on some minarets. I love it.

Getma wandering the streets of Lefkoşa.

Here's the North Turkish side of border. (above)

Here's the same street just across the border in the Southern Greek side.

Great gothic cathedral with some minarets. 

Inside where they've added a mihrab, the corner which faces Mecca, and just covered up all the old Christian art.

Keo, the great Southern Cypriot beer. That's Buğra on the left then Martin, me, and Jake.

We were staying in Girne on the Northern coast of Cyprus and one evening Buğra thought it'd be a good idea to mangal, aka grill some lamb on the beach. So we set up a rectangular looking grill and ate TONS of food. It was so nice to have a real bonfire at the beach and make our own food by the water. It was really lovely.

Mangal on the beach.

We also went to Kormakitis, a Maronite village in Cyprus, which is an interesting place where an ancient Christian group, the Maronites live. They're one of the oldest Christian groups in the world and centuries ago some moved to Cyprus from what is now Lebanon. Its a really interesting village and we were lucky enough to come on St. George's day weekend so we got a really wonderful tour of this calm quaint village that tries to maintain its interesting heritage and culture.

The Maronite village. It was so tiny.

During the trip we visited Buğra's family. His grandmother was a sweet old lady living in Güzelyurt who served us these very soft carmalized walnuts while we looked at her old photos. We also met Buğra's mother and father at their house in Girne which is actually heaven on earth. Their house has a HUGE garden where they grow everything from oversized lemons (seriously look at that photo!) to peas and avocados. Ah, when I get older and have a million dollars I'm moving to Cyprus and into Buğra's parent's house. It was so nice of them to have us over and they were so generous to share their lovely house with us.

Largest lemons I've ever seen. This is Buğra's family's garden and my future home.

Cypriot coffee with Buğra's parents.

Eventually we ended up in Iskele, the long skinny part of the island. There's no big cities in Iskele, just little villages and beautiful beaches. We spent the whole day on Altinkuma (translation: Golden Sands), a beach with almost no one on it in the middle of no where. Ah, talk about heaven.

In the end I'll remember this trip for the Getma domluş, singing along to ridiculous music, cheap beer, missing lunch in order to save money, eating nuts and dried fruit like it's a meal, being so sweaty hot in the car, and reaching a whole new level of comfortably with the Getma group.

Cyprus will definitely go on my list of best trips ever. 

SPRING HAS ARRIVED!

So somewhere baby Jesus is angry at me for not keeping my lent promise, but hmm yeah all I can say is that things got busy. Just to list a few things I got really sick, Duncan came to visit, I went to Cyprus, and classes got super interesting. I should probably address all of these things in separate posts, but right now I'd like to talk about the SPRING! Its so sunny and wonderful here now! As I type I'm sitting barefoot in the grass in the bright sunshine. The library is right behind me haha.

Speaking of the library, I'm really excited to be in one class in particular, "Family, Marriage, and Kinship Dynamics in Turkey". In the course we discuss the different way family is understood in Turkey and the way its similar to worldwide perceptions of family. Actually sometimes its a bit depressing, so goes sociology when you realize we're all doomed to influenced by our social upbringing. One well expressed view on family is from Pierre Bourdieu's article, "On the Family as a Realized Category," in which Bourdieu claims that family structures are a series of obligated affection and affective obligations. Basically family is a circular relationship where you feel emotionally attached to your family and simultaneously are expected to preform certain duties for them and vis versa. I thought it was a very well articulated understanding of the complicated power structures embedded in the family.

As expected, the differences from American family life are most interesting to me. Its really a cool experience being a foreigner taking a class on Turkish family. I'm the only one who doesn't understand the social references, but it does makes it more fun when they ask me about stereotypes of Mexican immigrants in the US and suddenly I'm an expert. Actually that would be false, our professor studied at University of Texas, Austin and worked in Mexico, so I'm pretty sure I'm not the real expert, just the cultural one. Anyways I've learned a lot about Turkish culture such as women in Turkey are extremely shamed after divorce. Divorced women become threats to the monogamous relationships of couples. They are expected to wear modest clothes and devote their lives to their children. Not exactly typical of American where roughly 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

What should be really cool about this class is that I'm finally going to do real research! Hooray! My final project is on the duel lives of gay Turks. In the US, if you're gay its almost socially required that you come out to your family members and friends to be fully accepted in the gay community. In Turkey this is not always a viable option. Many gay Turks never tell their parents about their sexuality, but sometimes a few family members know. My project is on why gay men keep their sexuality from their family and how it affects their relationships with their families. I'm really excited to finally do real interviews, especially because I'm in Turkey and the whole topic is so different from my understanding of gay life.

Yeah so that's it for now. I'll have more to share, especially about Duncan visiting and the amazing Cyprus trip, but I should probably go write a proposal for the project I was just talking about.

Goodbye beautiful grassy outdoors. Ah those purple trees are everywhere!