Intrepid traveling

In the wake of the death of an single American woman traveler in Istanbul, more people than just my mother were worried about my rash and quick decision to travel to Turkey. Guided by not much more than a cheap plane ticket and loose (or as I like to put it, developing) plans, I went for it anyway.

The one, the only, the Turkish breakfast

Ten days in and typing this blog post from Istanbul, I am absolutely certain that it was a great decision to travel here. Even better was making the decision to arrive in Turkey with nothing more planned than having a place to stay for the first few nights. A day in to having arrived in Istanbul, I met up with a few friends that are living in Turkey to discuss what options I have for traveling within the country... and at the end of the night thoughts of Southeast Turkey were pulsating through my mind.

To give a bit of background to Turkey, it has played quite a large role in history throughout the past thousands of years, harboring both Homer's Troy, Mt. Ararat, where it is said that Noah's ark landed, and may significant sights in between. It has also housed several different empires (Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman) throughout the ages. To say the least, Turkey offers a wide array of cities and historical sites to visit.. too much for a two week trip.

So I had to focus on one area, and Southeast Anatolia was it. I want to mention that it was near the Syrian/Iraqi boarder just to displace concerns of its proximity to these places because all of the cities that I visited were still hours away from any news-worthy happenings and completely safe. What came from my travels instead was wonderful friendships, a new appreciation for kindness of strangers, and insights into a new (for me) country.

Whirling Dervishes

Here was my itinerary (I promise to expand on it in later blog posts):
Istanbul -> Diyarbakir -> Mardin -> Sanliurfa -> Konya -> Goreme -> Istanbul

Morning Balloons over Cappadocia

First stop: Istanbul

Just a quick little blurb on why Turkey is on my list of places to visit:

I can distinctly one spelling quiz in the third grade where we were asked to spell the word 'Constantinople.' I knew it was a city name, but I wanted to know where it located and what significance it had. As I looked up a map of Turkey, searching for where Constantinople was said to be located, I remember being horrendously dismayed that the city was now named Istanbul.

However, I do remember looking at the landscape of the city and still being amazed the strategic placement of its foundations, precariously located on a strait between both Europe and Asia. Already at the age of 9 or 10, I knew I wanted to discover the city and it's long history.

Semester's end

A bit different from the semesters in the States, mine has just ended this past weekend (yes, weekend- there was an exam on Saturday). Also in comparison to the general semester in the States, regular class work and midterms/papers don't exist to keep you on your toes the whole semester...with the exception of a few presentations here and there, it's all very relaxed right until the end, where one exam determines the grade.

Now that I'm officially on break (until April!), I've had some time to reflect on my past semester and tie it together to my overall goals in Environmental Ethics. Having completely no background in philosophical teachings, this semester allowed me to find major themes and direction, along with developing my German (a major goal).

As with this major, this semester was a smattering of different subjects.. some were more focused on Philosophy and Ethics, whereas I used others to simply broaden my vocabulary and terminology (and to boost my confidence in German). For those curious, here's a list of the classes that I took this semester:

-The Normitivity of Nature and Nature of Normitivity
-Ethical Problem Areas at the End of Life
-Physical Geology
-Environmental Philosophy (In English!)
-Environmental Economy
-Discussions on Environmental Ethics
-Societal Structures and Frameworks
-Resource Strategy: Education for Sustainability
-The History of Stuff: Nitrogen

Admittedly, the first few months of the semester were rather difficult and hard to grasp and I had to reassess my learning style; German was still flowing back to me and concentrating on lectures took an extreme amount of effort. Towards the end, luckily, connections within all of my classes started appearing and a foundation started to form. I'm still shaky with identifying specific philosophers and their theories, but that's an undertaking I'm looking to involve myself with next semester. Until then, it's travel time in Turkey and Italy!