Expatiperro

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.