Expatiperro

First off, apologies again for my lackluster blogging habits, and for leaving you all hanging about my time in Istanbul. I could write several posts about just my last few days there, but given that I'm short on time (for reasons that you'll discover soon), I'll just say that it was a wonderful break from my life in Barcelona, which put my teaching life behind me and gave me some perspective on my previous 9 months there. In my two weeks of travels, I met a lot of great people, drew up some future travel plans based on their advice, and had a fantastic time exploring Istanbul, one of the most fascinating places I've ever visited.

And now I'm back in Barcelona, soaking up my last full day as a resident of the city. My bags are 95% packed; my furniture is nearly all sold or pawned off; and I'm putting off taking down the posters on my wall until he last possible moment, as seeing bare walls would really make my impending departure that much more real.

The most frequent question I get asked when people know I'm going home is whether I'm sad to be leaving Barcelona. I really hate this question, not because it isn't valid (I would certainly be curious as well), but because any straight-forward answer would be too simplistic and leave out most of my real feelings. So the result is a rambling, convoluted mess of an answer that reflects my own unsettled thoughts about my feelings. Of course I'm sad to leave Barcelona- my time here has been one extended adventure since I arrived in September, and I'm just getting to the point where I feel like I know- really KNOW- the city and could almost call myself a local. My job here was engaging and interesting, with the added benefit of allowing my to support myself on 20 hours a week of work. The friends that I've made here are some of the closest people in my life, people from whom I've learned an immense amount. In short, I wouldn't trade my experience living in Barcelona for anything in the world.

So am I sad to leave the city? Yes. But I'm also excited to go back home. One aspect of living abroad is that when faced with a different culture and set of habits from the ones that you're used to from home, you end up reflecting a lot on your old way or life, and and you challenge your preconceptions on how the world, and by extension you, should work. Through this process, you realize one of three things- I really like things in this new country; I really like things in my old country; or I like things from both countries. Not to sound like Uncle Sam, but after nearly a year in Spain, I've come out feeling more American than before. I miss BBQ ribs, weekday afternoon baseball games, and the undeniable convenience of American shopping. I miss friendly, positive attitudes, a sense of destiny, and the belief that tomorrow will undoubtedly be better than today. And most of all, I miss my family, my friends, and my home.

This year has been an incredible learning experience. Among other things, I've learned how to talk constructively to children, and the related fact that kids are not dogs; how to manage my own finances; and how to live independently, and in a foreign language to boot. I've developed a new-found appreciation for European style; expanded my pork-related cooking repertoire by 800%; and come to enjoy shopping in open-air produce markets. I've conquered the manual transmission (in a medieval Italian city!); discovered my inner interior designer; and realized that the best way to learn a new language is to make a continuous fool of yourself for almost a full year.

There's a lot more that I can write now, but I'm off to prepare for my last Barcelona experience. And this one's a doozy- the first concert on U2's new worldwide tour. Sure, the new album kinda blows, and we'll be sitting too far away to see or hear much of anything, but at least I can take solace in the fact that when Bono closes the show with "Beautiful Day" (which he just HAS to do), he'll be singing it just for me. And what an end to my Barcelona year that will be.

I'm back on the roof of the hostel after my third full day in Istanbul, and it's about time I write down all of the incredible things I've seen here before they all blend together and it's too late.

The Hagia Sophia, on the other hand, is no letdown at all. Yes, from the outside it looks like a pile of bricks and butresses (built to keep the dome from falling in for the 4th time) and I was expecting the inside to disappoint, but what it lacks in outside appearances it more than makes up for with its interior. Simply and crudely put, its GIRNORMOUS- which is especially impressive considering that half of it is taken up by floor to ceiling scaffolding due to restoration work. If Istanbul is a place where East meets West, then the Hagia Sophia is the collision point- built in 540 AD under a Christian Roman Emperor, you can still see 1000 year old mosaics on the walls and ceilings; turned into a mosque after the Muslim conquest in 1450, there are huge panels with Arabic script hanging from the walls. I could keep writing forever about how breathtaking it is, and pictures don't really do it justice- the only way to get the full picture is to see it yourself.


My last big stop on the first day was the Bascilica Cisterns, which outdate the other two but are a new addition to the tourist route, having recent been discovered and restored only 20 years ago. Basically, what is it is a huge underground water storage room, but built with way more craftmanship than it really deserves. Columns pillaged from Roman temples; column bases made out of Medusa faces; beautifully vaulted ceilings; dim lighting to make it all seem even more mysterious; and best of all on a hot day, 65 degree temps. Props to Alex and Andrea for giving me the heads up on this- the Bascilica Cisterns definitely rival the other two destiniations on the day.


On the way back to my hostel for the day, I made one last stop- the little Hagia Sophia, a church-turned-mosque built at the same time at its big brother. But unlike the real Hagia Sophia, this one was free of the tourist hoards- or really any tourists, for that matter. It had also just been restored, so the inside as perfectly preserved, with painted Muslim designs on the ceiling above columns still displaying the monogram of the Byzantine emperor who built it. In addition to being quiet and clean, it's also an active mosque, which led to a really cool moment: taking pictures of the interior of the mosque while someone was praying (which sounded vaguely like a Jewish prayer), putting the amazing acoustics on full display. Sadly, the moment was interrupted when the caretaker decided that that it would be a perfect time to vacuum the floor. Oh well, it was cool while it lasted.

Day two and three, next up...

Why hello there. It's been a while, hasn't it? I feel that I owe you all an apology, but instead of that, I'll jump right into whats been going on in my life the past month (and flesh out the title of this post a bit).

Springtime in Barcelona has been fab. The weather's turned from intermittently sunny and warm/overcast and cold to a steady partly cloudy and 75 degrees, to the extent that I don't even need to look at the weather forecast to know what I'll need to wear. I've been taking advantage of the weather to do the things I've neglected to do up until- tan at the beach, play ping pong on the outdoor tables scattered around the city, lunch on sidewalk cafes. The company on these activities hasn't been bad, either. I've made a handful of new friends, including David, an American who's here on a research fellowship to study linguistic nationalist movements, but he seems to spend most of his time wandering the city and tempting me with new adventures. My super-cool friend Elena also stopped by for a week on her way back from a semester spend doing research in rural Senegal. I can't even begin to imagine the culture shock that she must have experience on her return to civilization, but part of what makes her super-cool is her cheery disposition and positive attitude, and it was great to catch up over tapas, the riots on Las Ramblas after Barça won the European Club Soccer Championships, and day trips to the countryside.

On the job front, I'm happy to report that I no longer have one. I gave my boss three weeks notice in mid-May, and I was let go at the end of that month after he found my replacement. I expected that I'd be a little more upset about this than I actually was, but at the same time, I haven't found ti that liberating, either. I suppose that just living in Barcelona and working 20 hours a week is liberating enough; additionally, with my clock ticking down on my time in Europe (just three more weeks left), it was a matter of time before my employment had to come to an end.

Now that I am uncommitted and independent, I'm backpacking around Europe for the first time since I've moved over here. I spent three days in Oxford, England, visiting my close friend Jason, who's there doing a Ph.D. in politics. I was taken aback at how much I liked Oxford- it's the prototypical university town, a mix of Yale and Hogwarts, and about the only place where college students can live in a real castle. Jason showed me a fantatic time, taking us punting (think Venetian gondoliers, but without the uniforms or class), allowing me to peek my heads into all the Gothic colleges around town, and introducing me to such Oxfordian pursuits as formal college dinners and pints at The Truf (the pub where Bill Clinton didn't inhale).

And after a 12 hour trip, I now find myself in Istanbul, looking out at sunset onto Asia across the Bosphorus, listening to the evening call to prayer being sung from the minarets of the Blue Mosque. I can't really give too detailed of a description, since I haven't wandered far from my hostel yet, but so far, the striking things about the city have been its minarets, flags, and water. Flying into the city and driving into it, you can see hundreds of slender and elegant minarets piercing the sky above the city, and the mosques that they're attached to are made of overlapping, seemingly floating domes. Turkish flags are everywhere- this country is as nationalist as it's made out to be- and from the roof of my hostel I can make out four GIANT one about 5 miles away. And water- it's hard to say strongly enough just how much the Bosphorus shapes the city, both in its layout, and in its character. Orhan Pamuk, in his memoirs of growing up here, writes that the Bosphorus is the oul of the city, and from my 6 hours here it's hard to disporve that claim. Once I walk around tomorrow, though, I'll be sure to check it out in more depth.

I'm in a great state of mind now, refreshed by my time in England (being surrounded by English was such a treat), and ready to dive into another culture. If you have any tips on what I can do here, don't hesitate to let me know.