Merhaba Everyone!
Today is day 7 of our trip
(including the travel days) and the experience has already been incredible, we’ve
been through all kinds of experiences and seen many incredible sites. What
continues to impress me about this country is the weather as it seems to be the
same every day, cloudless and sunny at about 75-85 degrees. One of the most
impressive things, however, is how brilliant the sun is here. We were told to
bring sunglasses before we came, and I am glad that I did, because I have never
seen the sun so bright. Well, enough with the conditions, I’ll go ahead and
tell you about some of our recent experiences and my own reactions to some of
them.
We just
wrapped up our three-day stay in Izmir and we got to experience some really
unique cultural experiences. The main highlight to our stay in Izmir was that
we got to stay in the homes of Turkish families. Dan, Eric, Logan and I had to
pleasure of staying with Hal, his wife and his daughter. They were very kind
and generous to allow the four of us to come and stay with them for three days
and show us the everyday life of a Turkish family. One of the biggest things that
I noticed while we were there was how similar their way of life is to ours in
America. They wake up and get ready, eat a nice breakfast and read the
newspaper, then head off to work to get the day going. When we return in the
evening we 
While
we were staying in Izmir we got the chance to experience the bazaar and all
that goes along with that. One of the most unique aspects of the bazaar is that
there are no price tags on most of the little shops, so haggling and bargaining
is something that you have to get good at. The cool thing is that the
shopkeepers actually want to haggle with you, so asking for prices and
reasoning about them are things that you actually want to do. You do have to be
careful in the bazaar though because a lot of the shopkeepers try to help each
other out by sending you to other shops and if you give in to that then you can
be stuck running around from shop to shop for hours. So another thing that you
have to pay attention to is your body language; all of the shopkeepers
automatically targeted us because we were foreign and your body language could
really give you away if you weren’t careful. Even as much as slowing down to
take a glimpse at some merchandise was enough for them to approach you with a
deal, even if you didn’t want to buy anything at all. After a while we learned
to keep our eyes ahead and keep walking along if we weren’t interested and at
times we would feel rude for being so short with some of the shopkeepers, but
we had to keep in mind that that was the way the bazaar worked and these
shopkeepers experience this on an everyday basis. One of the really cool things
about the bazaar was how all of the shopkeepers knew some amount of English.
This is really important for them as they know that tourists can more easily be
pressed into a deal than a Turkish person, and for that reason they all know a
little bit (or a lot) of English so that they can talk their customers into a
deal.
Being in
Izmir was a great experience as it helped me to learn more about the everyday
Turkish way of life and I got to experience and try so many new things in these
past three days. I am excited for what is in store for the rest of the trip and
I am so glad that we still have 2 more weeks here in Turkey! Next stop is
Kusadasi for a 5 day stay with trips to Philadelphia, Patmos, Ephesus and many
others.
Thanks
for checking in!
-Reuben-
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