The Black Sea Region

May 19, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

Our second group trip- and my final trip- was a five-day exploration of the Black Sea region in northern Turkey. Which means it was really a 600-mile bus ride of craziness, laughter, and amazing cities that most tourists have never heard of.

The worst part of this trip was the first thirty seconds of waking up at 5:30am to catch the bus to the airport. We flew Turkish Airlines to Sinop Airport, a tiny airstrip with a terminal that doesn’t even have a bathroom, and proceeded to the nearby city. 65,000 people live in Sinop, located on an isthmus that is also the most northern part of the country. At first sight, it looks like a tourist town, and really should be that way, except that it gets very few tourists (and zero international tourists) outside of the occasional cruise ship. It has water on three sides, a downtown located within a castle with restaurants and shops, and several small historical attractions that can entertain for a day...

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Stockholm

May 10, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

This was the first trip outside Turkey I planned, and the last place I plan to travel to before the end of the semester (90% positive). It was also my favorite city, out of the nine or so places I have visited so far. I had heard a lot about Scandinavia and its culture, and I wanted to see for myself what the differences were between it and the rest of Europe- and Sweden didn’t disappoint.

Getting to Stockholm is easy enough. Land at Arlanda, take the express train to the Central Station. I happened to be staying in a hotel right on the next floor above the platform, but the station is within 10 minutes walking distance to the rest of the central city. City hall and the Royal Palace are just down the street. The city was much smaller than I expected- under a million people in the city area, which is less than my neighborhood in Istanbul, which means it was a very walkable weekend, and walk I did.

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Venice

May 02, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

I didn’t intend to travel this weekend until I got sick earlier in the month, which caused me to miss my trip to Berlin. I came with the idea of visiting as many different countries as possible, and I couldn’t bring myself to accept the thought of one less than before. I was fortunate to find a set of cheap Turkish Airlines tickets to Venice on a last-minute notice.

I always imagined returning later in life to do an Italy trip- starting in Venice and working my way down the coast. However, with all the attention on recent environmental news, I wanted to “see” Venice for myself in case anything happened to the city- just being cautious! Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to see everything this time around, I designed a quick “hit-and-run” trip lasting a total of 36 hours in the city.

Getting to Venice is surprisingly easy. After the flight, the best way to get to your hotel is by water bus, as there are no roads. Following the signs to the docks, I found myself on a 90-minute boat ride around the lagoon, which would have been pleasant had it been daylight. Since the city is so small, it was about five minutes from the dock to the hotel.

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Elevators

May 01, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

One of the many strangely weird things about Istanbul are (some of) the elevators.

How can an elevator be weird, you ask? You push the button, the elevator doors close, and it goes up/down, picking up people along the way, right? Well, in Turkey, elevators- if the building has them (most new buildings do, especially those with more than four floors)- don’t exactly act that way.

In the US, elevators work entirely based on the direction they are traveling in. If the elevator is going up, it will continue to go up until it reaches the highest possible floor it needs to go to, to drop someone off or pick someone up. In Istanbul, for all of the elevators I have had the pleasure of riding on, the direction is only a part of the consideration. Here, the order in which the buttons were pushed matters. If you push down, and someone two floors up also pushes down after you, the elevator will stop to pick you up, and then continue upwards to pick up the other person.

This means that you select a floor below, the elevator arrow indicates it will descent, and then all of a sudden your stomach sinks to your knees as the lift rises. It was quite confusing at first but you get used to it after a while.

Unfortunately, my Monday morning class is in Galata, which has nine floors and two tiny elevators, and getting up or down can be quite the rollercoaster sometimes.

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Madrid

April 24, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

It’s been a month since I last left Istanbul and I was starting to feel a little cabin fever. Thankfully, the first non-Turkey trip I booked (in February) was scheduled for this weekend, and it’s one I’ve been looking forward to for a while: a visit to my roommate in Madrid.

With just a population of ~6.5 million people, Madrid is a very tiny city compared to Istanbul, but it would have been a great city to spend a semester in. It’s vibrant, full of culture, and it has a fully developed transportation system. SU Abroad has somewhere between 100-200 students in Madrid each semester, and I saw why it is such a popular destination.

This was the first time I flew an international carrier other than Turkish or AtlasGlobal. Iberia actually offered the least expensive flight at good times, and I took it. Considered a mid-range haul, it was fully catered and, seeing that Madrid is Iberia’s hub, we get to land at a fancy new terminal- the nicest airport terminal I have ever seen, even if it contained miles upon miles of walkways and escalators.

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Temperature

April 17, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

There’s a little issue that’s been cropping up more and more frequently lately, and like traffic, I’m starting to think about it all the time: temperature.

Istanbul is generally warmer than New York or Massachusetts. The snow stopped falling around the middle of January and it’s been in the 50’s and 60’s for a month, maybe a little longer. As it starts to hit the 70’s and even 80’s (two times already and a third on Tuesday), you would think Istanbul would be in summer mode. However, residents here aren’t even using the word “hot” yet- and that’s an issue.

Republika (our dorm) has heating and cooling, but it’s a central system, which means you can only control the fan speed. Because they don’t consider the temperature to be “hot” yet, the building is still using the heater. Particularly at night, when the temperature drops a bit, the lobby is blasting hot air and if you hit the switch in the room, you get a dose of it too. We don’t know when they’ll switch over, but we look forward to that day- our rooms are a bit too hot at night. Thankfully we have windows (a luxury in this building) and the rooms never get direct sunlight.

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Ortakoy street food

April 15, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

I mentioned it earlier in the semester, but one of the most magical things (to a college student) in Istanbul is the abundance of cheap, delicious street food. Some of it could kill you (don’t eat the mussels), but for the most part it’s safe and a fantastic pick-me-up that can be found on literally every corner.

By accident or on purpose, every neighborhood in Istanbul has unique types of street food. While something like simit can be found everywhere, fresh squeezed juice stands are particularly abundant in Kadiköy. Beşiktaş has a higher-than-average amount of honey balls. Turkish Delight- or really tourist’s delight- can be found in Sultanahmet among all the other touristy things. As for our neighborhood (Ortaköy), two particularly tasty treats are centered here: kumpir and waffles.

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The President made me late

April 14, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

When Erdogan is in Istanbul, it’s a nightmare for anyone trying to commute between the two neighborhoods. Not only are there lots of police, but his motorcade (as well as any visitors) shuts down the road, forcing traffic to the side as they fight their way to their destinations. For us students, that means the fastest way to class is on foot- which you might not realize before setting out on your journey. So the excuse “The President made me late to class” is a valid one.

I will admit that the motorcades are pretty cool and worth the hassle. Additionally, you know whether or not he’s here in advance because security gets really tight around the entrance to his palace and traffic slows to a crawl. Therefore, as long as you pay attention and know what to look for, it’s very difficult to be taken by surprise.

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Getting sick

April 07, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

So the day after my last post, I contracted one of the most unpleasant non-life threatening diseases I have dealt with in my 21-year life: the stomach flu. It’s a combination of every other disease in one and incapacitates you for at least a week. But it did get me thinking about an important topic: what it’s like to get sick here.

Illness while abroad isn’t rare. Almost everyone contracts something related to the change in diet, climate, or jet lag. Longer-term sickness however, can be especially unpleasant, because anything familiar is not readily available to you. You could be lucky and be in a 5-star resort somewhere similar to the United States. Or, you could be in a hut in the middle of the jungle. When you travel, you roll the dice.

Turkey is a relatively easy place to get sick in, mainly because of their widespread pharmacy system. Like their US counterparts, they stock all kinds of prescription and over-the-counter drugs for all symptoms and ailments. However, they also all have a licensed physician that’s able to diagnose you on-scene. For those of us who don’t speak Turkish, it’s some miming and pointing, but it’s a fairly easy and accurate process.

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Produce

March 31, 2016 / Nicholas Papantonis

In an early post I mentioned the bazaar- the labyrinth of twisted, narrow streets lined with small shops selling everything from fish to antique furniture. One of the mainstays of the bazaar is the produce section, featuring an array of fresh fruits and vegetables piled high to catch passing eyes.

Fruits and vegetables are taken very seriously in Turkey. They’re a major component of the Turkish diet, to the degree where most dishes are primarily composed of them. Thanks to the country’s warm climate, many are grown fresh in the countryside and transported quickly to the city streets for selling. Because of this localized process, produce is cheap and largely grown with limited pesticides or industrial modification. It also allows the tiny stalls to carry the season’s crops weeks before it hits the supermarkets.

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