My life in Gurusaday

England

2008-03-01T00:57:00.002+02:00

I've been here for a while now... enjoying it, despite what other people might think...trying to grow up a bit, despite returning to the previous student status....

Istanbul

2007-09-06T09:36:00.000+03:00

My last days in Eskisehir

2007-09-06T09:17:00.000+03:00

My long, exhausting and wonderful journey in the East of Turkey

2007-07-06T10:31:00.000+03:00

After a few days of rest and work (again) I finally managed to find some time to tell you about my awesome trip. Why awesome? You'll see... I had two weeks holiday from school so I decided to make the most out of it. So I signed up for the South-Eastern Anatolian Tour organized by AIESEC. And since I was in the "neighbourhood" I spoke with Emre to travel together somewhere.
So...on Wednesday 20 June Ivan, me, Esteban and Adina left from Eskisehir and went to Gaziantep to start our trip.

Yes, we traveled with Batman!!!! Uhuuuu! :) Now who else has travelled with a super hero before? (But this is actually the name of a city in the East of Turkey.)After 13 hours by bus we arrived in Antep at 4 o'clock in the morning, slept for one hour in the bus station (cause the bus to the city were not working yet) and then at 5:00 we started walking towards the city. We thought that would be easy but after walking for half an hour we abandoned the idea and took a bus. We went to Gaziantep University and from there we contacted AIESEC Gaziantep. We left our luggage in their office and went to visit the zoo, which is supposed to the the 3rd biggest in Europe. Well...everybody told us different statistics so...I am not sure whom to believe. But the zoo was very nice indeed: huge, very clean, big areas for animals, the animals were well taken care of .... thus it took us about 4 hours to see it all and I am sure we still missed some things. But we did pet the camels and kept the smell for the day (at least Ivan did :))In the afternoon we went to Çağdaş to taste the best Baklava in the world...believeeee me it was amazing... have never tasted anything better...and remember that I am not exactly a sweet tooth. I also had "havuç baklava" (carrot baklava) because everybody drove me crazy that once I am in Antep I MUST taste it and since last time I did not....

In the evening I met Ali, finally!!! I went with him and Emre and had some tea and talked. İt was pretty awesome to meet again after all this time. Friday, 22 June we met early in the morning in the AIESEC office and officially started the tour. First we went to the archeological museum, where we saw a lot of mosaics that had been discovered in the archeological sites around Antep. Then we had baklava again and we went straight to Rumkale. I had been there before with Emre, when I visited him in October, so I won't insist on the topic.

But...since we were on a boat....why not remember "Titanic"?...Everybody took a photo like this afterwards.

From Rumkale we went by boat to Halfeti where we had lunch (fish) and on the way back we stooped at the castle (It was in Rumkale Castle that they found John's Epistole of the Bible) and climbed up to the highest tower of the castle.

From there you could see both sides of the mountain and the lake and river Euphrates. In the eveing we arived in Adyiaman, had dinner (dürüm...too much bread in it, if you ask me, and everyone else), went to have a shower and at 1:30 a.m. we were back on the bus heading to Nemrut mountain to see the sunrise. We arrived there at 4:00a.m., froze for about an hour in the cold and very windy weather and once the sun was up everybody took photos very fast and ran down the mountain back to the bus as we were all frozen. But the mountain was beautiful, despite the cold. Up there you could see big size statues of gods, placed there by the King Nemrut. Next on the list was Dyiarbakır, a place with city walls similar with the Great Chinese Wall.

Unfortunately we could not stop there and only drove through so I won't bother posting a photo as the quality is not great. But after we went to Hasankeyf, a historical site where people used to live in caves (similar to Kapadokya) and where you could see the ruins of one of the oldes stone bridges in the world.

Next, Mor Gabriel Monastery, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the country. (It seems that there were a lot of Christians over here a few hudred years back...follow my story and you'll understand better...)
In the evening we went to a small restaurant, had traditional food and danced on traditional music.
And then....sleeeeeep....everybody collapsed since we hadn't really slept in 2 days. When we arrived at the dormitories there were no blankets, no bed sheets and no pillows..basically there was nothing there, not even hot water. after 5 minutes they brought us bed sheets. I put my sweater under my head and fel asleep instantly. In the morning I saw that everybody had a pillow except for me. The girls told me that they tried to wake me up when the pillows had arrived but I didn't even move.:)
Early in the morning we visited the Archeological Museum of Mardin (not that interesting...mostly a bunch of all pots...no offence to those that like history...but seeing that at 8:00 in the morning is not that appealing) and had breakfast on a small terace from where you could see the border with Syria.
Last but not least we went to Şanliurfa to see the Holy Lake.The legend says that King Nemrut wanted to burn prophet Abraham because of his Christian belief. When Abraham was put on the fire he started praying to God and God turned the fire into water and the wood into fish. The lake still exists and it is said that if you drink water from the mosque next to it, all your health problems will disappear. It is also said to be bad luck if you touch the fish. I drank the water, didn't touch the fish and got dressed into an Eastern Anatolian traditional outfit (the legend said nothing about it but I did it anyways, just for the fun of it:)) And that was the end of our AIESEC trip. We returned to Antep, I met Emre and the others went back to their own cities. This was our last photo together before going our own ways. (around 50 people ... )

The next morning, 25 June, at 9:00 a.m. I started my trip with Emre.Where to? Kapadokya!

On the way there we stopped to see a cave church and I climbed for a better view...I basically climbed everywhere I could throughout the trip. We went by his car so he had to drive for 6 hours to get there. Any problems on the way? Nope! Any problems once we got there? Yeap! We hit another car and ruined the car's mirror. Good start! :) But once we got the problem fixed we stopped to take a photo with "The Three Beauties", the most famous fairy chymnies from Kapadokya.We decided on staying in Ürgüp as everyone told us that the place is cheaper and not far from all the touristic attractions. So....Melis Hotel: Ottoman style room, swimming pool, breakfast...not very cheap but affordable.

26 June: We booked a tour with an agency so we went with a guide to visit the Underground City and Ihlara Valley. The guide told us that it is believed that around 2, 000 people used to live in the Underground city. My personal belief is that there were around 2,000 people when we went there to visit it (very crowded!!!). And I think the people were pretty tiny back then as the tunnels were quite low and we all had to adapt our psines to them.

Ihlara Valley was very nice. It is a canyon and we walked through it. There were some monasteries there also but our guide advices us to skip them as there are so many aorund the area that we might get sick of them....that guy really knew what he was talking about! We had lunch there (fish) and talked with the other tourists (A very nice American guy, 2 Australians, 2 Coreans and....2 Indians, from Mumbai). And then we went to Selime Monastery because it was one of the biggest in the area and carved in the mountain. I think the doors were added later though :)
In the evening we bought some kapadokyan wine and enjoyed it by the pool. Very tasty wine and very cheap (since we bought it directly from the source:)).

We also wanted to go for a baloon ride but when the hotel manager told us that that will cost us between 120 - 150 Euros EACH, we dropped the idea. But we did wake up at 5:00 a.m., drove to the valley and watched them rising to the sky. Amazing view, probably even more amazing from the baloon. As soon as I'll manage to get myself a proper job I will go back there and go on one of those rides.
We returned to the hotel and despite thinking that we could not fall asleep again, we did! When we woke up we went sightseeing on our own. We went to Zelve and saw some more caves. After all the caves, the most interesting thing we found there was a miller's wheel. And of course I started climbing again...Very very sunny and very hot. We visited Göreme Open Air Museum afterwards. Fuuny fact: I didn't have to pay anything because I am a "student" but he had to pay...of course we split the cost. But the thing was pretty funny still. A lot of churches over there...But still very beautiful. However, after this one we decided not to see any more churches or monasteries:) So we went for a camel ride instead. It last it for about 10 minutes, same as the elephant ride we had in India, but it was a looot cheaper.
And then...to change the athmosphere: UFO museum....now that is something that not many people know about....E.T. was in Kapadokya also!We had lunch in a traditional place and we chose to eat some food from the place. What was it? I am not quite sure, a mixture of meet and vegetables. But it wasn't the food itself that made the dish attractive but the way of cooking it. It was prepared in a seald clay pot. Once it was ready they would bring it to your table and you had to break the pot in order to get to your food. It was quite of a show. Obviıously food for tourists and not for the locals. But it was funny hitting a clay pot in order to eat:)In the evening we went to a fancy restaurant and we saw Mevlana dancingdifferent traditional folk dancesa belly dancer and a fire dancer. I joined the dance at one point and they took me and turned me into a bride...hmm...is that a sign?Then I had to choose my future husband. So three men came one by one in front of me showing me how strong they are. But I said NO to each of them (because the dancer next to me told me to :)). After they brought Emre and got him to do push ups :))army style again...sorry about that Emre :)))

Overall the night was amazing. We got to dance some more. we watched the dancers jump over fire in the garden and drank some more Kapadokyan wine.(not as good as the one we had bought.)And that was the end of our second day there.

On the third day, 28 June, we didn't do much since we had visited most of the interesting place on the first two days. But we did go to a pottery factory and they showed us how they were making the pots. And then the guy got me to make a pot also. ("Ghost", since we are following the movie theme:))

I think the guy really wanted to get me as dirty as possible. First he put clay all over my face (because it was the first time I was making a pot and because I didn't say NO :))), then he got me to put my elbow in the clay, in order to give the shape of the plate, "granpa style".

But I did a great job and...here you go...anybody wanna buy it?
We went to Caravan Seray afterwards. There, in the evenings, you can also see Dervish dancing. The place used to be a hotel for the poeple that traveled on the Silk Road.
We stayed in the hotel later on, stayed a little in the swimming pool, went to play pool, backgammon and...relax....we had seen everything there was to see.

The next morning we left at 10 o'clock, back to Gaziantep. We tok a different route so we stopped for 2 hours in Mersin, because I wanted to see the Mediteranean Sea and palm trees. Here are the palm trees: And here is the Sea. Who is the girl? I have no idea! She came to us and asked if she could have a photo iwht me. I agreed and asked for her camera. She didn't have one! She wanted to have a photo on my camera! OK! We took the photo and asked for her e-mail address to send her the photo later on. She didn't have one! Hmmmmm.....So now I have a photo of a girl that I don't know and that I have no idea what she actually wanted.Hmmm...weird people.We were only 60 km away from Antep when we had the flat tire. That is little said actually. We were going with 160km/h when we hit a small rock in the road and our tire just went ...booom....fixed it, took a photo and continued the drive :)) And that was my trip in the East of Turkey. After we arrived in Antep we didn't do much because we were mentally tired, phisically uncapable of moving and financially unable to go anywhere:)

My best trip in Turkey!

Dancing

2007-06-06T19:01:00.000+03:00

The other day I was walking home from work and this is what I saw:

The university exams are over so I guess this was a nice way of expressing their joy :)

No more Senor de Bonfim

2007-06-05T09:58:00.000+03:00

When I put the bracelet on my wrist more than a year ago I had three wishes:
1. to find a good second traineeship
......result: I am in turkey right now
2. to get into a good master programme
......result: in september I will go to Leeds for a one year master programme
3. I wanted to feel accomplished and happy with what I am doing
.....result: last night ı was in cafe with some friends and at one point I looked at my worn-out braceletand thought to myself: I am happy with what I am doing and how I am

Result: last night my bracelet broke.....do you understand now why I believe in coincidences?

Senor de Bonfim

2007-06-03T10:36:00.000+03:00

Do you see that tiny this blue bracelet that I am wearing on my wrist?

More than a year ago Joao gave all of us the Senor the Bonfim bracelets. How are yours? Mine is still standing:)...It looks horrible and I have a feeling that it will break very soon. So I thought I should save its memory in this virtual world.

Disco night

2007-06-03T10:09:00.000+03:00

Last night I got really bored of staying in the house and talking so going to a club seemed like the best idea. Well...it was the best idea...it had been a while since the last time I had some fun. The only problem is that now my feet are killing me. So...last night we went to Buda, a nice club with a even nicer open air dancing area. there is however one thing that ı still don't like in Turkey. The fact that there isn't actually ANY dancing area. there are round high tables everywhere and everybody dances around the table. But, what can you do? You are in a different country so you need to adapt to that country. Therefore we danced around the table just like everybody else.

They are from Poland and they are Erasmus students at Anadolu University. Who wants to go to Poland?
Party time!!!!! Pop the confetti!!!

Exploring Eskisehir

2007-05-29T09:14:00.000+03:00

The other day Emre sen me some photos of some old houses from Eskisehir and asked me whether I had seen them. Well, I hadn't!!! So I decided to learn more about the city I am in, no matter how small it is. So we got a big map and started exploring the streets. So far we had managed to cover half of the map and we found ourselves outside of the city twice. The experience was really nice so for the next few days we'll be busy seeing the other half of the city as well.

Boredom in Eskisehir....(???)

2007-05-24T12:59:00.000+03:00

Life around here seems to be so tremendously boring lately that some of the trainees felt the need to complain to AIESEC about it. Here goes the complain. Let me know what do YOU think about it....

Hi my family in Eskisehir,
I can not pass without participating in this discussion in which I have a lot of things to say. I think this problem about boredom that every trainee in Eskisehir is facing has a very DEEP cause. You can imagine what I mean. I just want to tell you that we can solve our problem very easily going everyday to Hayal, Buda, 222 among other bars that Eskisehir has. But why don't we make a stop for a second and think about these following points:
1. I have seen very nice groups of young people sitting on the grass in the beautiful parks that Eskisehir has. Why can not we do the same? And remember that we have our super colombian star Ivan who can play his guitar with us and we can sing and chat together having really fun drinking some beers... ohh sorry!!! I remember we can not do that in Turkey <--- This is one of the other causes which we are soooooo bored!!!!!! We can do nothing here...i.e. I asked that it will be very nice to make a party in the AIESEC office's garden with our own country's music and guess what? As you know the answer for this question I always feel repressed every time.
2. We can prepare other kind of sports activities. Billiard and bowling are not the only 2 sport activities in the world. No, Believe me! it's true...
3. Everybody is thinking about summer, AIESEC tours, more trainees are coming and it will relieve tremendously our routine, sedentarian and unadventurous life. And everybody should be ready to assist to every tour to know as much as we can this paradise before going to our countries. Kutan we are waiting for the Monthly Activity for Trainees which you promised to sent us last Friday but as we can understand that you have been very busy with other AIESEC activities at least I think we can have it for the end of this day and let's think about how can we improve it too. I don't like so much to prepare about short, medium and long term activities because you never know what can happen in the future but at least we can have a reference about what we can do or not.
Thank you for your attention my family and GOD BLESS YOU
Esteban

International Day at Anadolu University

2007-05-09T11:08:00.000+03:00

Yesterday was the first ınternational Day organized by the Erasmus office of Anadolu University. Every country representative had his/ her own stall. You could thus taste food from various countries, paing a flag on your face and take photos with the foreign students. At the same time there was a traditional Turkish percussion band, a rock band and a body percussion band.

Spring festival

2007-05-07T14:37:00.000+03:00

Now that spring is finally coming the universities around the country are organizing various festivals. On the 2nd of May I was walking slowly back from working, listening to my headset when I started hearing some drums which I was possitive that they weren't coming from the music on my CD. I turned and ...I saw some angels coming in my direction. Right behind the sweet angels was a little devil, followed closely by Xena, Terminator, X-Man and other fictitious characters. The spring parade had come to town!!! I followed them closely ...so..I will let the photos speak for themselves:

Children's day - 23 April

2007-05-07T14:32:00.000+03:00

Every year, on 23rd of April, Turks celebrate Children's Day. On this day there are parades with children dressed in traditional outfits, dances and many other things. İt is also a day off for all governmental institutions. We went to the stadium to watch the big show that children from all the schools have prepared. There were around 100 children there, wearing various outfits. each group had a short dance, trying to impress the parents from the audience and the authorities from the official seats. It was impressive to watch all those little people moving at the same time, as a result of weeks of practice.

23rd of April is also the day when the new government of Turkey was founded so, while in one part of the city there are big groups of joyous children, on the other side, in front of the town hall there was a presentation about the Ottoman Empire.

Easter 2007

2007-04-10T10:37:00.000+03:00

One more year has passed and I celebrated another Easter away from home. Unlike last year , this time Orthodox Easter coincided with the Catholic Easter so we could all celebrate together. Since it was a big problem cleaning after the Christmas dinner we decided to go out for celebrating Easter. We did make red eggs but we were going to eat them at someone's house. But let me tell you the story in detail:

We all met in our favourite place in town, Saglik restaurant:me, Alina and Adina (Romania), Tania (Kazakhstan), Hamdi (Tunisia), Vlad(Moldavia) and a friend of his that I don't know,Zaneta (Poland...Konrad knows her:)) and two of her friends(one Polish and one Turkish), Esteban and Ivan (both from Columbia...Ivan had arrived the day before so he was still jet lagged:)) and last but not least Nena(Macedonia). So these were all the people... We had a very nice dinner...everybody ordered some tasty food and felt like dieing after eating.

After dinner we started walking to Dincer's house (he is from AIESEC) to eat the red eggs. Some people walked faster, some slower but eventually we all got there. Well...almost all...because we lost somebody: IVAN!!!!..Poor guy...his second day in town and already lost.(Remember the trip to Vishnupur and our Kazakhstani friends? ...yeap...the same:))...so nobody went to look for him because we knew we couldn't find him as we had lost him on the most crowded street in the city. But he outsmarted us and after one hour found the @office. Smart guy!

In the meanwhile, in Dincer's house we had a great time eating red eggs and telling funny stories. Hamdi made us all laugh as usual with him impersonations of people. I will upload some of them one day so you can see what I am talking about.

So I had a great time on Easter and I hope you all did the same!

Life around here

2007-04-08T10:28:00.000+03:00

Well....as some of you might know I have finally managed to get a camera so I should probably upload some of my own photos now...

Life here is normal..nothing fancy nothing surprising anymore....check for yourselves:

Birthday! (1.03.2007)

2007-03-11T14:55:00.000+02:00

So...one more birthday away from home. Well....this has probably been the best birthday I've ever had. I got two cakes (hehe), one at work and one at home, drinks, lots of presents and, most importantly, I had friends by my side. We started at my place, had something to drink and I opened all my presents. You are probably wondering what I got. Well...earings, jewelry box, stuffed teddy bear (usual stuff for girls:)) and...manti (a type of Turkish food that I can't really explain but that I really enjoy). The best one however was a bottle of Tunisian liquor which I still have (and it still has liquid inside... yeah, yeah... I know....last year I would have finished it alone ...this year everybody helped but we didn't manage ...hm...).
Afterwards we went to a bar, listened to nice live music, played darts and enjoyed the beginning of my 25th year.
so...once again..Happy Birthday to me! :))

The world's last rickshaw-pullers are battling against extinction

2007-02-04T16:36:00.000+02:00

Feb 1st 2007
KOLKATA, From The Economist print edition

Some very poor men, perhaps 18,000 of them, went on strike in Kolkata on January 24th to protest against a ban on their livelihood, ostensibly imposed for their own good. Much good may it do them. The Communist government of West Bengal has long wanted to outlaw rickshaws, of the original man-pulled variety, that now exist only in Kolkata. Last December it did so, on the grounds that man-powered transport was inhuman. But what else are the thousands of rickshaw-wallahs, in one of the world's poorest cities, to do?
Beg, is the best guess of a group of rickshaw-pullers on Debendra Ghosh Road, a typically crowded alley in central Kolkata. Like most of their fellows across the city, they are migrants from Bihar, India's poorest and third-most populous state. Earning around 150 rupees ($3.50) a day, with an average fare of 20 cents, they are not flush. But with an annual income of a little over $1,000, after paying rent on their rickshaws, they make roughly double West Bengal's average. “I may not like it, you may not like it, but I have children to feed,” said Mahendra Paswan, a rickshaw-wallah for 26 years, with bare feet, a blue-check lungi, and six offspring in school.
West Bengal's government sees the rickshaw trade as an outworn symbol of the colonial yoke. “A disgraceful practice that flourished when the British lorded over the people,” is how Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the chief minister, has described it.
The rickshaws are used by Kolkatans of all classes, especially in streets too narrow for taxis. But the chief minister, despite his Marxist mantra, has been furiously opening the state to business over the past six years. His vision, which includes making West Bengal one of India's top three producers of information technology by 2010, is apparently incompatible with the herd of “human horses” on Kolkata's streets.
The rickshaw-pullers are going down battling. When the government started destroying unlicensed rickshaws a few years ago, they formed themselves into a union to fight the ban. “We are all faced with ruin,” lamented Mr Paswan, who fears that cycle-rickshaws, which the government says it wants instead, are even more arduous to operate. In the meantime, Mr Paswan can offer a pleasant trot across Kolkata, an excellent way to view the city's fine colonial buildings.

Pearls of the trainees in Eskisehir

2007-01-25T22:10:00.000+02:00

"Yours is mine and mine is yours." - Hussy (Tunisia) ...I wonder what he meant...hm....

Bursa

2007-01-23T10:02:00.000+02:00

Last Monday I went to visit Bursa.( Sorry I didn't write sooner about this but I have been lying in bed with germs inside me for the past week.)

Going back to my story... me and Ann, we left on Sunday evening from Eskisehir, took the 6 o'clock bus and by 8:30 we were in Bursa. The bus ticket to Bursa was only 12 YTL but we decided never to take Nulufer buses again as the smell and the service made us appreciate the fact that Bursa is only 2 hours away. (Don't take me wrong when I say the service was bad...the guy was very nice and helpful it was not his fault the tea was crappy as heel and the juice was even worse. )
We arrived in Bursa at 8:30 and took another bus (2YTL) to Anca's home where we were to spend the night. Nothing interesting so far as we went to sleep the moment we got there, whic was around 9:15....
We woke up early in the morning and started our journey in the city at 7:30. First thing first: we took a but to the centre (Zafer market) and after 45 minutes we got there. Anca adviced us to go there because there is a park on top pf a hill there from where you can see all Bursa. Perfect! Stairs: climb, climb, climb, arrive up, turn around....and admire the nice morning fog that was covering the city...as I was saying: perfect! :) But...in that park there was the tomb of Osmas Pasa, the founder of the Ottoman Empire so all the climbing did pay off in the end. We had a tavuk tantuni (chicken sandwich) somewhere and headed for the big mosque, Ulu Camii. The mosque was really nice and it is the only mosque in Turkey that has a fountain INSIDE. İt must be impressive seeing it during praying time: the prayers backgrounded by the sound of water.

From the mosque we went to the covered market looking for karagoz dolls. Bursa is known for the Karagoz dolls shows. These dolls are made of transparent leather, then painted and used for puppets shows by placing them behind a piece of white cloth and with a bright light to enable them to be seen from the front. We entered a small shop as I wanted to buy a doll as a souvenir but I gave up when I saw the price (20 - 40 YTL, depending on the size) and decided on a nice book mark instead. The shopkeeper instead that we sat down and had tea in his shop as we were his first customers. He was really nice and we bough some small perfume holders as well and took photos with his shop.

The Lonely Planet told us that there is nothing much very interesting to be seen İN the city but that there is a small village up the mountain not very far which looks very traditional so on our way we were. walked for about an hour to the bus terminal, which gave us the chance to see more of the city as well. From there we took a Dolmus (small bus) to Cumalıkızık (the village in question). The village was GREAT!!!! Indeed very traditional looking with small twirling cobble streets and lots of cats on the roofs of the houses. We had lunch at the restaurant that the LP recommended: very nice!!! We sat on cushions on the floor and took photos of everything around us (photos to be added later on :)).
We walked around the village, we were followed by some kids and we went on swings enjoying the view and the afternoon sun.
Unfortunately as I had classes from 7 in the evening we had to take the 4 o'clock bus back. While waiting for the bus to arrive to the otogar we enjoyed some seker castani (chestnuts in sugar) and agreed that they are indeed delicious and Bursa SHOULD be proud about it.
Next time I go to Bursa I wanna go to the small village by the sea.

"Midnight caller"

2007-01-14T10:32:00.000+02:00

I was really tired last night so despite being Saturday night I stayed home and fell asleep in front of the TV. So around 10-11 I went to my bed... I was just having a nice dream...can't really remember which one when the phone rang:

Caller: Konrad
Time: 3:20 a.m.
Reason: "Sweet dreams are made of this....who am I to disagree....I travel the world and seven seas..."... ?????

... thank you Konrad! :)))) My flatmate jumped out of bed because she though something happened (she slept with me last night). :))

Christmas and New Year

2007-01-14T10:10:00.000+02:00

Christmas

Last year I was in Darjeeling for Xmas, with a real Christmas tree, lots of rum and John Lennon's "Happy New Year".

This year... we organized a dinner at our place. There were 14 people there (yeah, I know!!!! big crowd), pork salami (very good one, brought from Romania), a lot of Romanian wine (red and white), Tuica and Visinata (also Romanian drinks that make you forget your name) and a nice Christmas tree (which we improvised out of our coats hanger :)). Since we wanted to give presents and there were too many of us we had Secret Santa: drew a name out of the hat and gave a present to that person only. What did I get? Credit for my phone :))))). I am always out of credit so it was the best present for me :). When we finished eating and drinking (better said when we felt we couldn't eat anymore, we could drink more but the drinks were over) we went to a club and danced until 3 o'clock. The music wasn't that great but who cared?! At 4 we returned home and finished the food that was left on the table...we looked like hungry dogs, chewing on chicken bones :)

Funny fact: During dinner we turned off the lights, used candles and played carols. I was eating, enjoying the wine when the song changed: "So this is Christmas.....and a Happy New Year....." ... perfect!

New Year

The New Year wasn't that great. Some trainees went out of town so there were only 7 of us this time. We had dinner at our place... not as fancy as the previous one but nice enough to feel that it is for a special ocassion. Afterwards we went to a club (the cheapest one that night) and spent the rest of the night there.

Funny fact: Midnight was approaching....the new year....people started counting... 4... 3... 2... 1.... Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!! jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.... our faces: :O (wtf???)...

so...Happy New Year and Merry Xmas... Buy one and get the second one for free :)))) Now I can say that I had my cultural shock!

Merry Christmas for the Darjeeling gang!

2006-12-24T12:46:00.001+02:00

One year has passed but the memories remain....let's remember the Christmas we had in Darjeeling!

:)))

2006-12-23T12:40:00.000+02:00

I was looking for something related to Christmas and I found this..... :)))))))

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-23T12:10:00.000+02:00

Happy holidays everybody!

Getting my visa and seeing Istanbul (12 - 17 December)

2006-12-21T14:23:00.000+02:00

After four months of waiting they finally approved my one year visa so I had to go back to Romania to get it. I took a week off from wok, bought a lot of instant soups as gifts for the people back home and I got on the first train to Istanbul.The entire trip was a rush for getting the right means of transportation, but things always turned out alright in the end. I met almost all my friends in Romania, had some beers and than took the train to get back to Turkey. My intention was to spend half a day in Istanbul before going back to Eskisehir. Why only half a day? Let me draw you, briefly, my one week trip to get the visa:

12 Dec.: 13:00 - train Eskisehir - Istanbul
17:00 - arrived in Istanbul, took the ferry to cross Bosphorus to get from the local train station to the international one
22:00 - train Istanbul - Bucharest
13 Dec: 17:50 - arrived in Bucharest after having spent more time in customs than on the move
18:00 - train Bucharest - Iası (my city, for those who don't know that)
23:45 - arrived in my city
14 Dec: 2:00- went to sleep after talking with my parents
5:00 - woke up and chatted with my momall day- spent it meeting people
23:30 - train Iası - Bucharest
15 Dec: 6:00 -arrived in Bucharest
9:00 - went to the Turkish Embassy to leave my passport
13:00 - went for a movie cause I was bored (movie: Eragon, quite nice "Lord of the rings" style)
16:30 - went back to the Turkish Embassy to get my passport back
19:00 - met Cezar and went to his place (...I had to sleep somewhere :) )
16 Dec: 13:00 - train Bucharest - Istanbul
17 Dec: 12:00 - arrived in Istanbul- spent the day sightseeing
22:00 - missed my train to Eskisehir
18 Dec: 1:00 - bus Istanbul - Eskisehir
6:00 -arrived home... finally

So as you can see I spent more time on the train or bus than doing or seeing something.
Now...let me describe my day in Istanbul because that is the most interesting part of this whole trip.On the train back from Romania I shared the compartment with Richard (half Brazilian, half Dutch...interesting coincidence, ha? :) ) and he was planning to see Istanbul in half a day, same as me. So we decided to join forces and go sightseeing together.We left our luggage at the reception of a hotel (5 YTL...hmmm...but better than carrying it around the whole day) and started our tour of the city. The first things on our list were Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque (which I didn't understand why was it called blue....the only blue thing on it was some ceramic on the top).We didn't manage to enter because it was praying time...well...Richard didn't manage as they had already let me pass, thinking I was Turkish (I will never change my hair colour back to normal again...too many advantages :) ), but they stopped him. So we went to the foreigners' entrance but it was closed. :(We didn't enter Aya Sofia because it was 15 YTL for foreigners and everyone had told me that it was not worth it. So we took a nice walk along the tram line towards Grand Bazar. As it was Sunday almost half of the bazar was closed. We didn't buy anything from there as the clothes were expensive and the souvernirs ugly :). So we kept on walking till we ended up in front of Galata Bridge. As until then the food that I got Richard to taste had been either expensive or bad or both, I told him that he MUST have nargile while in Turkey. But the places under the Galata Bridge were very expensive so we dropped the idea of watching the Bosphorus while smoking. We walked to the Aqueduct of Valens and then to Fatih Mosque. Both very nice looking in the artificial light(the night had come in the meantime).What came next? An elma nargile of course (apple waterpipe), followed by beer. What better way to finish the day? :)

Ankara - 1.12.2006

2006-12-21T12:12:00.000+02:00

This was a one-day trip we decided to take on a Friday, as it is our only day off. Thusrday killed me (as usual, since I have to be at school almost from 9 to 9), so when I got home I was dead tired. But there is nothing Domates çorba can't cure. :)
We stayed up talking until 2:30 a.m. as our train was at 3:00 a.m. and we slept on the train to Ankara (we even have photos to prove it:) ) and at 7 o'clock we arrived in Ankara.

First thing on the list was Atatürk's Memorial (Anıt Kabir), which we reached after having taken a bus and walked around for a while, only to discover that we were there too early and that we had over half an hour to spare. So we used this time to have some hot çay and use the toilet of the cafe we had the çay in.
The Memorial was indeed spectacular and should be on every tourist's list. You walk up the hill for about 15 minutes to end up standing in front of an alley bordered by high pillars whinch remind you of Greece. The monument itself makes you think of Greek architecture. I believe it must be a very peaceful, kind of mysterious place to be in. Unfortunately for us, it was probably the "official" day for school trips, as the place was swarming with kids (noisy and nosy)... so much for the peace and quiet. But overall, the place was impressive.
Further on, we wanted to see Kocatepe Mosque, so we walked to Kızılay and reached it from there. Again, a bit of bad luck... we arrived exactly at praying time and as it was Friday, the place was very crowded, people RUNNING to enter the mosque... so we had to wait for this to finish before we could enter. This mosque is one of the largest in the world (according to the Lonely Planet) and as it is quite new the whiteness of the construction has not yet been touched by the passage of time. There were only a few people left inside so we got to take lots of photos (funny fact: a women came to us to take a photo with the foreigners and with her sister-in-law., the sister-in-law was a tall man with beard....hmmm).
Next on our list was Atakule, a 125m tower, with a revolving restaurant on the top, which offers a 360 degrees view of Anakara. After all the walking we decided to have dinner there. Even if it was really expensive (about 15 dollars for a meal), the view compensated for it. That plus the revolving system which allowed us to have a complete view of the city. If you are ever in Ankara don't miss it.
Overall, the day was really enjoyable and despite our sore feet we came home happy.

Summer of 2005

2006-12-09T10:11:00.000+02:00

My philosophy in life is to live in the present and enjoy it as much as I can.
However I cannot help comparing (especially lately) my present experiences with the past ones. I guess we all have some moments in life that we cherrish more then others. So... for every Gurusaday citizen here comes "Summer of 2005" again... for the old times sake.

Romania

2006-11-28T10:35:00.000+02:00

Since I made no presentation about Romania I thought you all might like to learn a few things about my country...so here it goes:

Party life in Eskisehir

2006-11-28T10:09:00.000+02:00

OK ... So ... I've been complaining in the beginning about the party life around here. Well...It's been improving a looot lately... After Bayram to be more precise. I know most of the clubs around here now and Saturday night is dancing night now so life is improving. However I decreased my drinking habbits and trying really hard to quit smoking (my flatmates probably don't agree with this :) ) ... So I am kinda on the right track to becoming normal ... Is that good or bad...will you guys love me less if I won't drink more than you anymore? :)

Other news... as some of you might already know cause we talked on the messenger... the nice thing about AIESEC here is that we have country presentations so... The other week we had "Columbian night" (latin music and dancing...shocking some new members from AIESEC when we started dancing "our way"). Last Friday there was another theme party...this time "Indian night" presented by the Indian trainee and ... MEEEE! yeap! I told them I will take part in the Indian presentation and no Romanian presentation from me :))) It turned out really nice!!! Monty (the Indian trainee, who is Punjabı) wore a turban and kurta pyjama, I wore my sari and Adina (the other Romanian trainee) wore my kurta... we danced on an Indian song (no "Kajra re" guys :( ) and cooked gobi alu with bryani...

It's been a while...

2006-11-14T19:14:00.000+02:00

well...last Saturday we had a birthday party...Esteban's. Rememeber Esteban? No? Than just read the prevoius post.:) I wasn't really excited about going but in the end I decided that I had nothing better to do anyways and it would give me a chance to have a beer. So...I went. ..... It was REALLY nice. WE first went to a bar, then we ended up at someone's house and we finished by going to a club and dancing till 4 in the morning... I left at 3 though cause ....I WORK ON SUNDAYS:((
hm...nothing else really happened to me lately... the only thing I talk about with the people here is work so if you wanna know details check my blog about teaching in Tukey.

Bayram

2006-10-31T10:12:00.000+02:00

Well... Bayram finished and so did my one week holiday. I spent three really nice days in Gaziantep with Emre and then I came back to Eskisehir to "enjoy" the rest of my holiday. If those three days with Emre just flew by, the other 4 days kinda crawled. There were only three trainees in Eskisehir, me being one of them, so ...kinda boring. But... we played a LOT of backgammon and drank plenty of çay (tea). No interesting events though. OK, maybe a small funny fact...just to entertain you a bit

We have a new trainee in town, from Columbia. He's quite nice, very Latin and the other day we had a short conversation... which I wish had never occured.

We had just returned from shopping(we bought juice and fruits and bla bla bla) and since I had had like ten cups of tea that day I RAN to the bathroom. Now...since most of you lived in Gurusaday you will probably understand how important it is to take a shit and how important it is to have a peacful and quiet atmosphere. so...here goes:

Esteban (Columbian trainee): Micky, what type of juice do you want? Apple or peach?
Micky: I don't care!!!
Esteban, after 2 seconds of thinking: When you say that you don't care do you mean that you'll have what I will have?
Mıcky: I really don't care!! Whichever you want!!!
Esteban: So you want apple or peach?
Micky, a BİT angry: APPLE!!!
Esteban: So...
Micky: Listen, do you think we could have this conversation a BIT later? Please!

The conversation sounds normal right? WEll... it would have been normal if I hadn't been sitting on the toilet getting ready to take a shit when the conversation started with the closed door between us. :)

Gurusaday reunion...meeting Emre

2006-10-25T12:11:00.000+03:00

If Emre was the first one to leave from India and the the first one to say goodbye to, he is also the first one that I'm meeting after the Indian experience (except for Bebe of course, but let's stick to people from other countries cause that is more difficult to accomplish).

So, on Sunday evening I got on the bus and after a 13 hours trip I got to his town, Gaziantep.It's been really really nice to meet Gurusaday again and the first night to stayed up till 3 o'clock chatting and chatting and smoking so the next morning we were a bit sleepy and coughing.

Yesterday we went to see the "baraj" built on the river Eufrat and we shook our bodies on the river. Don't think dirty! We rented a boat for a short trip around the lake and the engine was so shaky that it shook the entire boat and everybody on it so once we got of it we were walking a bit weird and not very straight. And last but not least last night we went to a friend's house and we opened a bottle of very nice Romanian wine, two bottles of Raki and several bottles of beers so after a few drink...(quotting Emre's sister): I started speaking a bit more Turkish and the rest of the guests started speaking more English... so you can imagine how it went...in one word I have a "bit" of a hangover right now. Now... I will give more details further on, once the vapours of alcohol vanish from my brain completely.

Noroc! Şerefe!

Bazar

2006-10-12T10:10:00.000+03:00

I went yesterday to the main bazar wanting to buy a pair of work shoes and a pair of slippers as I had left mine in Gurusaday. What did I end up buying?
- a pair of black shoes for work
- a pair of slippers for the house
- a pocket mirror
- a pair of trousers to wear inside the house
- three pairs of ear-rings
- two pairs of thin socks to wear with my new pair of shoes
- an elastic for the hair
- a nail polish
...
so... if you ever decide to come to Turkey and go to the bazar do not fool yourself that you will only buy one thing...it is absolutely impossible...

One week

2006-10-09T15:24:00.000+03:00

It's been a week now since I arrived in Turkey and so far the only thing that I can complain about is one of the trainees but he is not living in my house...luckily.

Anyways... this week was really fun. Friday and Saturday night we went to a club: "222" where you can smoke nargile and listen to Turkish traditional music. They handed out tambourines so everybody could play along with the band. It was really fun although a bit expensive. But as long as I do not go there every single day I can afford it once in a while...it is really worth it.

The other day I bought myself a two-ways ticket to Gaziantep. I will be going there for Bairam, the end of the fasting period that is going on right now over here. Why go to Gaziantep? Because that is where Emre lives and I look forward to meet him again. I cannot believe that one year ago I was crying because Emre was leaving, thinking that I might never meet him again and now... The4 world is really small! And Alı, don't worry we will also meet ... when you have a day off from the army.

Fırst day of teachıng

2006-10-03T10:18:00.000+03:00

I just had my first class...what can I say...I understand why they joıned the course,they really need Englısh. But they are very sweet and they seemed eager to learn. Let's see how ıt works our. I wıll not be doing any grammar over here,only the conversational part of the lesson, so not too much of a headache.
The only thing that I can complain about over here is that is colder than I expected it to be so I wıll soon need to go shopping for some warm shoes.
Detaıls about the house I live in:
- 4 bedrooms, one for each person...a loooot more privacy than in Gurusaday
- two bathrooms, normal one with a bath tub, and a Turkish one, like the ones that we sometimes encountered in India as well
- a kıtchen that has everything besides an oven
- a HUGE living room that we cleaned yesterday because there were some thing lying around there. So we stored them in the closet from the 4th bedroom

So the house is really nice, we even have TV, though most of the channels are in Turkish (I really have to learn some if I wanna make it in this country). I really cannot complain yet.

Oh yeah...cultural shock, or better said cultural dıfference: the doors don't have a doornob on the outside, only on the insıde, so even if you leave your door unlocked nobody can enter because they will have nothing to grab on to do it. Smart!

Turkıye - Ben Türkçe Bilmiyorum

2006-10-02T14:11:00.000+03:00

I arrived ın Turkey on Saturday...so I have been here for over two days now....rıght now I am fıghtiıng with the Turkish keyboard...kinda different from the ones that I am used with.

Fırst impressıons:

- very clean

- very nice people

I had already met my boss and some of my coleagues, assisted a class today and then I was sent home. So after finishing writing this I am going for a walk around the city. If Indıa was easy because everybody spoke Englısh there, more or less, here NOBODY speaks Englısh so I already learnt how to say "I do not understand Turkish". Not very helpful though as they do not understand English so...gotta start learnıng a bıt of Turkish in the future.

I moved in my new house...very nice: four bedrooms for four people, so I get to have my own room over here, whıch ıs really nıce, after it took me a few hours to clean.

The city is really nice and... funny fact: The name of the city is Eskışehır: eskı means old and şehır means cıty. However the old cıty looks very young as when you walk on the street you mostly get to see young people. The AIESEC was also quıte nıce, waıted for me at the bus statıon, showed me a bıt the town...I was actually quıte surprıse...one point for them.

No cultural shocks so far, I still cannot belıeve that I am in Turkey and one reason might be the fact that I am livşng with another Romanian...but I start smellıng the roses when I walk on the street and lısten to what people talk around me...I said LISTEN, I did not say that I also understand what they are talking.

Well...going to take my walk,hoping that I will not get lost.

Again...trip around the city...

2006-09-25T09:16:00.000+03:00

...this time with our own photos.
"Cetatuia Monastery"

Qvinta cafe - part 3

2006-09-23T11:10:00.000+03:00

Yes...Qvinta again...my last visit there before leaving for Turkey. How was it? FUN, of course, otherwise I wouldn't have repeated the experience. However last night was a bit different from the previous two times. The biggest event of the evening: a FIGHT! Yeap, reminded me of the "Shisha" experience except that this was really light compared to that one. Some guys started arguing over a spilt beer. Ever heard of the saying "it's not worth crying over spilt milk"?. (I think this could be applied for beer as well, once the deed is done.) However the guys obviously hadn't heard of this wise saying so...puff puff... and the most interesting part was that a girl interfered and tried to separate them, with more energy than the guys. The bouncers came of course too late but no one got hurt anyway, so...
My question now is: what are bouncers for, anyway? Cause in the first case ("Shisha") they were the aggressive ones and in the last one, from last night, they were kinda useless.

Moving on... just when we were about to leave the dancing floor because I was getting tired with the music, they started playing oldies...yeay!!!! Finally the Qvinta that I knew and loved from my past. So the night was perfect!!!

Ek ben stom

2006-09-20T16:37:00.000+03:00

+
=As you might guess from the photos, you take the remote control, insert the batteries, turn on the TV and watch the game or whatever is on. Pretty easy, ha? My remote control broke down so for the past three months I've been trying to buy one but couldn't find one that matched. Today I went to a shop tried a couple, by going back and forth home. Then went to another shop. The lady told me they have a remote control but it might not work on my tv set, however I can take it home to try it. She inserts the batteries, tests it and hands it to me. I go home, try it...nothing. OK. Go back to the shop...walking is healthy anyway:

"It didn't work so...", I say.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Oh, well. I'll give you your money back. But it should work though. Did you put batteries in?"

"Say what?"

"Batteries."

"It didn't have batteries?!?"

"No."

"But I saw you inserting them."

"Yes. But I removed them before handing it to you."

"OH!!! Hm...alrighty then. I'll see you in 10 min. :)"

Went back, INSERTED batteries and...MIRACLE! It worked. That is why I'm an idiot today. :)

View of Iasi from distance

2006-09-19T12:33:00.000+03:00

The tour of my city continued now from distance by finding different places from where you can see the entire city as in the photo below (sorry, couldn't find a better one). After having seen it from "Mario restaurant" right after the wedding, we found other locations as well. On Saturday we went to "No Limits", a small hotel outside the city that has a very nice balcony from which you can see the entire city while having a drink. Peace and quiet...perfect. After finishing our drinks we walked for about half an hour and reached the highest hill next to the city, also with a nice perspective of the town. However, really really windy up there... you could say goodbye to all your hair gel. But the view.... all worth it!

On Sunday we went to the last location: Cetatuia Monastery. Went up the bell tower and again: WOW! The problem with all these locations is that you reach them out of breath and with muscle pains.

Qvinta cafe - part 2

2006-09-19T11:58:00.000+03:00

Since I have so much time on my hands and loads of energy that I waste on drinking, I thought of doing something different on Friday... go dancing! I remembered how much fun I had the last time I went to Qvinta so ...back there again. We were probably the oldest around there with less energy than the girls that were dancing on the speakers but more energy than other people at our age...yeah, yeah... our age... trust me if YOU had seen the people in the club you would have felt old as well.
Another nice event of the evening: in that club you can always see the girls from Kent, all in white, carrying a small laptop with them with a different contest every time. On Friday they were going only to those that were smoking Kent (yeah, started smoking again...don't judge me :P ) and you could win some stuff. The rules were that you had to play a game on their laptop, a sort of "bricks" and you had to catch the smoke ... anyway, she explained us the rules and how to play, we were both looking at her but none of us was listening so when she made space for us to play.... oops... but we did win a pack of cigarettes and a lighter....very nice lighter...almost burned our fingers till we found the button to light it ... I do blame it on the lack of lights there and on the few beers.
We ended up home, dead tired, with sore feet but happy after the pleasant night.

Iasi, the city of seven hills

2006-09-12T12:04:00.000+03:00

Konrad, this is especially for you darling. You said you dreamt that you were visiting Romania and I was your guide...well...I found this "short" video of my city so...I'll be your guide for the next 3 minutes. Hope you enjoy it.

This is where I enjoy and dread my days, touring the nice traditional restaurants, remembering past memories and creating new ones.

Continuing the virtual tour of Iasi

2006-09-10T10:19:00.000+03:00

Last night we continued the tour of Iasi by going to another historical traditional Romanian restaurant: "Bolta Rece". Continuing the traditional Romanian way of drinking we ordered some beers. We waited though for a while as there was a wedding in progress upstairs so all the waiters were busy with the guests there. Eventually the waitress came and proved her qualities not only by bringing us the beers in a minute time and opening them even faster but...even more. Are you wondering how? Let me detail this part.
We had a nut with us. YES, a nut as the one in the photo. Why did we have ONE nut with us? WHY NOT?
The problem was now that we wanted to open it and we didn't really know how, as we were in a public place. I suggested to use the power of the shoe but my guide objected saying that it was a bit primitive. So when the waitress came we thanked her politely for the drinks and asked if she could use something to open our nut with. The answer came instantly:
"I don't need to use anything...this is how I do it", saying that, she placed the nut under the sole of her shoe and pressed ...
"Noooo..... Thank you very much!" we said.
And the nut was handed to us open.
So...the moral of the story is that in Romania you can go to a nice restaurant and ask them for anything and they will do it for you, no extra charge... Welcome to Romania!

Romanian ways of drinking

2006-09-08T17:31:00.000+03:00

For the past week I've been taking a sort of tour of my city with my new found guide from the wedding.The other night he decided to show me one of the oldest restaurants in my city, "Trei sarmale", a traditional old place where it is guaranteed to feel the Romanian spirit: good wine and good athmosphere - the perfect combination. There is a live band there as well that will play traditional Romanian music and even receive requests from the people present. It is a small piece of the past lost in the present... escaping the world of concrete and noise you enter into a place where joy is waiting with the arms wide open.
I also tasted there a very interesting beer - "7 Coline". The beer itself, as a drink is really good but...THE BOTTLE.
You haven't seen anything like that before...or at least I haven't. The cap is not the normal beer cap but is more like the caps used for the wine bottles with the small difference that it's made out of ceramics. So when you open the bottle you are sure to find fresh tasy beer inside and hear the same sound made by a champaigne bottle. Who said Romanians are ever out of ideas when it comes to new ways of making your drinking more enjoyable ? :)

Kajra re

2006-09-05T20:01:00.000+03:00

I've been thinking a lot lately ... the "kajra re" time is over and can't seem to find something to replace it with yet. Although I did have an awesome time at the wedding dancing "Brasoveanca" (no, Konrad, it's not the one I taught you, it's a lot simpler, no blisters on your soles and the girls does most of the work).

I feel kind of sad to be honest because of this on one hand and because on the other hand I feel I have no one here to talk to about it ... I started avoiding meeting some people because I don't feel the same in their company as I used to: either I feel they are just talking to me so that I wouldn't think they ignore me or they talk with each other and I cannot join the conversation because I am not aware of the topic, and I never seem to be aware of the topic lately.
Well...now that's a bit too much melancholy for a day so ...
let's see the witch dancing one more time on "kajra re":

"LADIES AND GETLEMEN!!!!! THEEEEEE DANCING WITCH!!!!!" :

kajra re kajra re kajra re tere kare kare naina (2)

ho kajra re kajra re tere kare kare naina (3)

ho mere naina mere naina mere nain main chupke rehnaho

kajra re kajra re tere kare kare naina

Qvinta cafe

2006-08-19T16:29:00.000+03:00

Last night I went out with some friends. We started with a beer, continued with another beer... no use in counting, you know the routine anyway.
After a few drinks we decided that since it was Friday evening the best thing to do would be to go dancing. And so we did!
Before going to India I used to go all the time to this retro club, a kind of a Starstruck, except that this club, Qvinta, is always overpopulated... and when I say that I mean it. You cannot complain that there are no people there. Something like Shisha, with a BIGGER dance floor. That was the place I got really drunk for the first time... pity I can't really remember that night. That place is full of memories for me. In the beginning of my traineeship , whenever I was in a club I used to close my eyes and imagine that I am dancing with my friends in Qvinta.
Since I came back, at every "party" we had I missed hearing "kajra re". Last night, for the first time since I came back...it was perfect.Same old Qvinta that I knew and cherished.
Funny enough...last night there was also there the farewell party for a trainee, a Turkish guy from Izmir. Seeing how drunk he was I remembered how drunk I was as well on my farewell.
I really should go there again.

Time is flying by...

2006-08-18T17:26:00.000+03:00

I've been back home for exactly one month. How have I celebrated this? With some red wine and a movie: "Just like heaven". How did this affect me? Just reminded me how much I miss India and how lonely I uncomfortable a fell here...still. I was talking the other day with my best friend and I asked her how long did it take her to readapt to being back home after her traineeship. Answer: three months. And she had a two months traineeship. How long will it take me? The interesting part is that i'm more afraid of staying home than of going to Turkey cause at least I know that I have no expectations there, while my expectations regarding being home...too big to reach. I don't feel as comfortable with my friends as I used to. Most of the times I feel that I am boring them with my stories from India. On the other hand, my life has been India for the past one year. The things that we were always discussing in Gurusaday are no longer topics for discussion and I am more silent than I am used to be. Yeap! It finally happened! Micky is not talking much! I just wish I'd have something to do, to prevent me from thinking so much.
So...cheers for one month spent home! One more to go!

Its just one of those days

When you don't wanna wake up

Everything is fucked

Everybody sux

You don't really know why

But want justify

Rippin' someone's head off

No human contact

And if you interact

Your life is on contract

Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker

It's just one of those days!!

Life....

2006-08-14T13:56:00.000+03:00

... is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.

Later in the afternoon....

I received the photos from LPM Sibiu...I added one to the older post regarding the time spent there and here are two more.

If you are wondering what is with that baloon...we had to fulfill a task: put an egg in a bottle and make sure it won't break when you throw the bottle (typical AIESEC game). So...still wondering what's with the baloon? That is a special baloon. Designed specially to prevent pregnancy...yeap! It's a condom! perfect for sexual protection, therefore perfect for protecting an egg. I'm sure all you guys agree with me :)

And here is the result of our efforts of protecting the egg:

And last but not least....the project itself:
We were so proud!!!

Playing mime

2006-08-13T15:25:00.000+03:00

Yeap..that's exactly what I did last night. I met my friends to do something...Saturday night... so after more than an hour of waiting for some of the guys, who were late, we started playing mime, to keep ourselves busy. It was actually quite fun... we played till 4 o'clock in the morning. I would give you some examples of the words that we had to mime and the results that we got but it wouldn't really make much sense to you guys, as we played in Romanian.
However.... one of the words we had to mime was "condominium" (if you don't know the meaning check a dictionary; if you do...good for you!)... since it was quite difficult to mime it, my friend divided the word in parts and started miming the pieces. Easy? yeah. But she also mimed that we needed to translate to English the words that she wass miming. So...first she mimed "condom", then "in" and last but not least "you"... what did we get? "condom in you" - "condominium". Easy, right?

LPM Sibiu

2006-08-10T00:07:00.000+03:00

I've been out of town for about a week...Bebe...whom some of you know and some don't...the other Romanian guy from Gurusaday... what? yeah...the other GUY...weren't you saying that I was such a nice guy, bla bla bla? so...
As I was saying... Bebe, invited me to attend the LPM for his AIESEC local commitee in Romania, in his town... he was the chair of the LPM so he promised to take care of my accomodation. Good! I wasn't sure yet because of the money, but in the end I decided to go because from there I could have gone directly to Bucharest to the Turkish Embassy to get my visa.
I got on the bus on Friday morning, I traveled for 9 hours ... not much compared to the 25 hours to Delhi. I arrived in Sibiu, from where I was supposed to take a bus to Paltinis, where the conference was being held. The bus to paltinis was at 4.00 pm. What time did my bus from Iasi get there? At 4.00 pm! So I missed the bus to Paltinis ... I took a bus in town, than a tram and than hitch hiked to Paltinis. But when I got there... I went to the hotel that Bebe told me but there was not AIESEC there...started looking in all hotels...nothing...hm...was I in the wrong town? Finally someone told me to go deep in the forest because there is one more caban there and there's a group of students from Sibiu there. yeah!!!!!!!! Found them! Finally!
So...the adventure of getting there being over I could start enjoying! Since Bebe was the chair and didn't have much to do we talked and talked and of course had some exellent wine and some palinca.Had a big fire in the evening and a barbeque the next evening. There were two trainees there as well. A guy from USA...not very American..no! Not American at all...I even asked him whether he wasn't a Brit who emigratted to USA. And there was also one guy from Poland!!! So of course I had some Zubruwka...probably got the wrong spelling this time... sorry Konrad.
We also had a treasure hunt that was quite cool...we had to find clues that would lead us to the treasure...and the treasure was a quotation: "The difference between something that goes bad and something that can't possibly go bad is that when the thing that can't possibly go bad, actually goes bad and in most of the cause it proves to be impossible to realize."

I met some really really nice people there and talked A LOOOOOT about India so it was very nice. Sharing memories with Bebe about the good old times in Gurusaday.

Then I went to Bucharest to get my Turkish visa...long story about that one...they don't wanna give me a one year visa now. They gave me a three months visa and in one month I have to go again to, hopefully, get the one year one.

Anyway....Bucharest was also very nice. I stayed with Cezar, who has participated at the IC2005 in India so we had what to talk about and he told me to stop shaking my head when I talk :)) He had two guests as well...two Indians!! ;) So on Monday morning I ate alu gobi mattar with rice! Perfect!
So ... overall... it was a perfect Indian week. :)

Romania

2006-07-29T01:48:00.000+03:00

It's 1:44 a.m. and I just got back home. I went out with my friends...just for a drink and when I say that I mean it...I only had one. Then we went to a retro club ... boring...nobody was dancing... so after one hour of boredom I left...I can't believe that I was the first one to leave. What's happening????
Anyway...that is not the point of this post...the point is that I walked back home...alone...the club is very close to my home. Almost 2 a.m. ... White girl walking alone on the street and...nothing! Lights everwhere, people walking on the street without staring at me...totally safe. I really missed that! Being able to walk on the street at any hour of the day without being afraid. One point for Romania! yay!!!! And now...good night! I had a very long day of watching movies so I'm kinda tired.:)

Back in Romania

2006-07-24T18:03:00.000+03:00

I went to my house in the countryside yesterday, with my mom. Well...I felt like a foreigner in my own country...people staring at me, asking me where I've been for so long, what's it like in India..bla bla, the usual. I was getting bored so at one point I asked my mom what could I do to help ... so she gave me a huge bag full of corn to prepare for the chickens..some of you might remember and some of you might not know that now I've got about 40 chickens on my balcony... yeah, I still live on the 9th floor...what??? You've never heard of THAT before...get real! Pay me a visit and you might find Romania just as weird from some points of view as India....or my family anyway....
Today I went to the AIESEC office to call the Turkish Embassy...I'm trying to get my invitation letter as fast as possible so that I can go to Bucharest around the beginning of august. Thus I could go to Sibiu at the same time, Bebe's town, to visit him...I would LOVE to see him again.... We have too much in common....INDIA
I am also thinking seriously about going to Turkey a month earlier... It's been only a week since I'm home and I am already as bored as hell....although I've been drinking daily....yeah..even yesterday....my mom bought some VERY VERY tasty wine...I forgot how much I missed that one.....
FOR THE LAST TIME..I AM NOT AN ALCHOOLIC!!!!I just come from a very strong drinking culture!:P

My life in Gurusaday

2006-07-21T11:02:00.000+03:00

I guess my life in Gurusaday kinda ended now..I'm back home...But I will not change the name of the blog...my life in Gurusaday was a very important part of my life and I will never forget it...as we were always saying, Konrad...we are now citizens of Gurusaday and nothing can change that.
So... I travelled for a week before leaving the country. We went to Agra and saw Taj Mahal. I didn't expect it to be so beautiful...Unfortunately for us it was clouded when we got there so we only got 5 min to see the sun reflected on the building. And yet...it was so unbelievably beautiful. It is really worth paying 750 Rs. to see it. You hear the details of how it was built and it makes you think...was it worth the death of all those people? Maybe. The result is beyond your expectations...and the most amazing thing is that every time you look at it it feels as if you are looking at it for the first time...we were walking around it...talking to each other and from time to time we were lowering our eyes or looking away from the Taj Mahal...when we were looking again somehow it looked different...it is very difficult to describe this in words...you have to see it yourselves to understand it.
We went to Jaipur afterwards for a few days...we wanted to go for a camel safari in the desert but when we calculated the time that we had, we wouldn't have had enough time...we would have spent more time on the train and bus than actually seeing things...so we decided to stay a bit more in one place than just move around without really enjoying anything. Jaipur was really nice. One piece of advice for those who have any intentions of ever going there....don't do your shopping in Kolkata...Jaipur is SO MUCH better. There is a larger variety of things and a lot cheaper... bargaining is really fun...ask Norma.
The trip was amazing...the bad part was that I had to stay alone on my last day...but I decided to make it fun so I went for a movie...I saw Fanna...go see it...it's cool...it was in Hindi but I still found it really good.
Now..I'm home...getting kinda bored and already looking for a temporary job. Wish me luck!

Trip to Bendal and Bishnupur

2006-06-20T10:53:00.000+03:00

So...last weekend we decided to leave the city and go visit a lot of temples. We divided the weekend in two and went to Bendal on Saturday and to Bishnupur on Sunday. Let's take it one by one:

BENDAL trip
I finished one of my batches last week and since I'll be leaving soon my students wanted to go with me somewhere so we decide on Bendal cause they have the biggest church in west Bengal there, which was built by the Portuguese. Since these students were my favourite I thought it wouldn't be that bad if Gurusaday would go along as well... so we had a nice mixture of Indians and foreigners there and guess what: it was FANTASTIC!!!! Really! I didn't believe it either...since the Indians are usually kinda annoying but these guys did very well.
We went to see the curch, then we rented a boat and went to see the mosque there. The boat trip was quite fun: 12 people in a kind of a canoe which was almost sinking from the weight, sweating like hell ....in a word: it was fun!
The mosque was a lot more impressive than the church. It had a really high tower, 152 steps...nobody counted them of course..I kinda stopped at around 50...when you are out of breath you don't really want to know that you have 100 steps left:) The view from the tower was really impressive. The mosque tower reflected in the water of the Ganges.
The funny part was that Gurusaday was calling me Micky and my students were calling me MAM...hehe....one didn't want to smoke in front of me because it would have been disrespectful...only after a while they kinda relaxed.
After Bendal we went to Millenium park and spend a few hours there just talking. Overall it was really fun!

BISHNUPUR
Also really fun if you don't take into account the almost 10 hours train trip :))
The temples there were really nice. Especially the first one which was like a labyrinth...you could actually play hide and seek there. Instead of that we just climbed on the walls :))
We didn't succeed in paying Indian price either. For some reason the guy didn't believe that we were Indian residents so we had to pay 100 rupees each instead of 5...stupid Indians...oh well.
On the way back we had to change trains at one point .... which we succeeded very well, except that we KINDA lost two from the group... the 2 Russian trainees...bad Gurusaday...very bad. It seems to become a trend...Gurusaday loosing the Talliganje trainees. Last saturday we lost Christophe, the trainee from Belgium. Out of 4 trainees in Tallijange, we already lost John and Roman(Russia), Christophe......which leaves only Natalia(Italy)...but she is already scared of us. She only visited us once and I think that was enough for her.

So...as you can see..life here goes on....parties all the time..I kinda lost track of them. The best one was the one we had last Saturday...but no details on that one...all I can say was that everybody enjoyed it, and that it was kinda sexual...KINDA, keep that in mind, ok?

One month and a half left

2006-05-30T10:14:00.000+03:00

One month and a half...I can't believe how fast time flies by.... on one hand I am kinda sad that this time I will be the next to leave but on the other hand I know that it's high time I do it...I've been here for too long already...way too many goodbyes and I don't wanna say any anymore.

Moving on to more exiting things... last night Hielke moved oficially in the girls room..so he became one of the girls...now...what do girls wear? Skirts, bras and other stuff so last night not only did we get a new roommate but we also got THREE new girls in the house: Hielke, Konrad and Bebe. If you're wondering about the last person...that would be the Romanian guy that came to visit Kolkata, so now I have someone to speak Romanian to gossip about the others without them realising about it:)) Just kidding guys...you know I tell it to your face when you piss me off.

2 more months left

2006-05-05T12:50:00.000+03:00

Heya guys....guess what...I only have more or less two months left in India...unbelievable isn't it?
What has been happening in the meantime.....not much...same old same old...beer, vodka...you know what I mean...
There are new trainees in the house now as well.....Alvaro left, Beyhan left...and...you're not gonna believe it...ADAM LEFT!!!!! yeah....he left last night for Pune....he has been saying for so long that he is leaving that last night nobody reacted when he started packing and only when he hugged us and got out the door did we realize that this time it was for real...some farewell party, ha?:(
OK...As I was saying, people left, new people came: Wim, from the Netherlands, Johan from the Netherlands, Hielke from....guess...THE NETHERLANDS.....it's like living in Holland out of a sudden...no more Gurusaday....oh well....who else came...oh yeah ...
On Saturday we had a farewell party for Beyhan, who was supposed to leave the house at 3 a.m....big sadness...than at 5 a.m. we said good bye to Ali, who also decided to leave this stupid country...oops..did I say that? I "didn't mean it". :) So...we went to sleep at around 5a.m. drunk and tired. We woke up at around 11 and the first thing we saw in the room was a bottle of Polish vodka, Zubrozwka(I'm pretty sure this is not the correct spelling)....and we started wondering how did it get there....Finally we decided that it must have been the angel of alchool who finally listened to our prayers....I went to the fridge to get some cold water to quench my thirst and chill down a bit and I see a luggage in the living room...is Beyhan back????? I open the door to the guys room and start counting the people sleeping there: 1, 2, 3,....wait...3???? there were supposed to be only 2 there....so, counting again....: 1.Johan, 2. Adam, 3....???? who the heck is that one? I call the rest of the gang and we go to stare at the unknown person in the third bed...at that moment the unknown person wakes up : KONRAD!!!!!!!!!!!! the angel of alchool indeed!!!

Back in Gurusaday

2006-04-10T07:26:00.000+03:00

ok...sorry, sorry...I know I haven't published anything on my blog lately...well...On the 24th of March I came back to Kolkata and this time for good, not just visiting...you have no idea how good it is to be back in 7 Gurusaday road ... it's so goooood, so good, so good.....yeah, those of you who live with me already heard me saying this a million times...hehe....but it IS really good to be back:)
Anyway....people are leaving or already left, new people are around, but the spirit of the house is still intact. I arrived on a Friday evening and that Saturday I already woke up with a HUGE hangover.....What? Party!!!!! and yes Konrad, once you're back we're gonna have a party for you too....
Last weekend we went to Bakhali again and this time I managed not to get burned...I used Dorota's sunscreen...Thank you!!!!!
Let me see...what else...yeah...I only have three months left so I am beginning to wonder about the life after India....kinda weird...you hate this place but when it's time to go you really feel sad and start thinking about all the nice things from here: Kingfisher, chicken rolls, Starstruck, B.E.D., Gurusaday, all the trainees....if you are wondering why is Kingfisher number one...come on!!!!!!!! Are you really wondering?????
So guess what I'm doing...I got myself a new Sn ID and I'm looking for another traineeship...Why? What do you mean why? I gotta do something before I start my master.I can't just stay home watching TV... That's nice but it's kinda boring at the same time...
Dorota, the job in Japan that I told you about...I think I'd like to be closer to home this time as I don't want a long-term traineeship anymore.
I really miss you guys(the ones that went back of course) and don't stop sending news about yourselves.

My birthday

2006-04-10T07:24:00.000+03:00

Hey guys!
First of all thanks for the wishes for my birthday...surprisingly I had a really really nice birthday. My colleagues bought me a cake (Indian style..so kinda grosely sweet, but it's the thought that counts, right?), I also got a nice present from my students ... a T-shirt on which is written how to say "I LOVE YOU" in 100 languages ... well since it's Indian made, it only has 50 languages..hehe...and I don't know when will I get to use the knowledge on it..still cute though:) Then in the evening I went out and drank "some" beer... what??? I only had a FEW, but enough to be late home..which gave my landlord enough time to lock both doors and since I only have the key to the first door....yeap!!! I was locked outside my house...fucking Indian bastards...so I slept in my office (lucky I had the keys with me) on the table in the conference room...very very uncomfortable...overall it was fun though:)
Moving on to what I have been doing lately..I finally managed to go to Sikkim!!!!!!!!!!! I went with Bali and we had a blast...it's such a nice place..for those of you who are still in India and didn't go there yet...DO IT! No starring, no stupid Indians asking where you're from....because most of the people there are Nepali:)
Today is my first day of work after the trip and guess what I just found out? That I might stay here for two more weeks instead of one..I swear I will murder my colleagues if I don't get out of this place soon .
Well, hope you guys are OK

back to Kolkata

2006-02-23T10:15:00.000+02:00

Once again in Kolkata and having to say goodbye again.:(
Ted will leave today for Hong Kong...hope you won't get bored there and don't forget to write, even if it's just once a month.
And remember...all of you...no matter what the future has planned for us..we'll always have Turkey!

time goes by...

2006-02-23T10:08:00.000+02:00

The last two weeks have been quite full...can't complain. This weekend I went to Kolkata and the previous one I went to Darjeeling for a quick mouth of fresh air.
Let's start with Darjeeling...I went there alone in the hope that I will be able to hang out with some foreigners there. I stayed at the same hotel as on Christmas and...I was the only guest in the hotel so not any chance of socialising over there. My first night there I decided to go for dinner at that nice Tibetan restaurant and there is where I met a very nice Canadian couple and we talked and talked and decided to meet again the second day. So in the end it turned up to be quite fun and just as relaxing as I had hoped it would be. Sunday morning however I woke up at 4 to go to see the sunrise from Tiger Hill because I missed it the previous time , but...when I wanted to leave the hotel..nobody answered so after a few failed attempts of waking somebody up...I jumped over the gate and hurried to the jeep station.

Siliguri..the sequel

2006-02-08T13:25:00.000+02:00

ok...Since all my faithful readers kept on asking to update my blog...here goes...yeah, yeah, I know you both really like what I write here so...
Nothing new really happening here...just as boring as always, just that it got a bit warmer...
As you, or at least some of you know...on the 21, 22 and 23 I was in kolkata for a short visit..a sort of a battery recharge kind of a trip...well..it really worked . I almost missed my train because of that..I got on the train 1 minute before it left the station so.... and after the 3 nice days in Kolkata ..back to the kingdom of boredom:(...The first 2 days I was sick..high feaver and everything...either I had too much to drink in Kolkata..which I doubt..there is never too much to drink..or I had some sort of Gurusaday homesick kind of a virus.
Then the weekend came...I went to a park with my flatmates and starred at the other people:)..yeah..boring
Last week I went to the only club in Siliguri, which was deserted of course..but...they had karaoke..so I got the chance to make a bit of a fool of myself in front of...well, the bartender:)
Last sunday I went to see a movie..hindi one!!!! KALYUG....guys..go see it..it's really nice....it's about blue movies, or yellow movies...depends on how you call them on your continent...nice ha? They even show sex scenes...well...their naked shoulders..but that is something for a hindi movie:) and...believe it or not...there is no dancing!!!!!!!!
Anyway....This weekend I'll be going to Darjeeling for 2 days, saturday and sunday...anyone wants to join me? ...no?.....thought so....
And next weekend I'll be back again in Kolkata.....last visit till I move back , in April...so ..once again...make sure to get me drunk because I'll be quite sobre and all alone on my birthday later on.
That's kind of all there is to say...if anything else and interesting happens around here (very unlikely) I'll make sure to let you know.

First weekend in Siliguri

2006-01-09T08:27:00.002+02:00

well....I know what you guys think...think I must have been bored to death this weekend..well...not exactly. Unlike my expectations, this weekend turned out to be quite enjoyable, I even had beer..yupiiiiiii
Let's start with the beginning...
Saturday
Went to work, thinking that it was going to be a short day,like in Kolkata where I used to skip the boring meetings and just sign the register and run home as fast as possible. However it was definetly not a short day. I got off work only at around 6 in the evening which didn't really bother me because there wasn't anything waiting for me home. Sent a lot of e-mails and talked to students, councelling and so on. Then I decided to roam around the town a bit so my colleague dropped me at the market to do a bit of shopping. Yes, Dani! I went shopping, can you believe it?! Now...you might ask yourselves why this change..the girl that didn't really shop suddenly spends money on other stuff then alchool :)) well...for those of you who have been in Gurusaday from the beginning probably remember my huge disappointment that I couldn't fing G strings in India and at how expensive the underware was here...well, Siliguri is quite different...not only the underware is really cheap here but you can find all sorts of designs..hehe...so I spend some money there..and nobody stares at you if you're buying panties, even though the salesperson is a man.
Afterwards I tried to get home on my own and managed to get a bit lost and was also followed by some guy that kept on asking where I was from, my name..the usual staff...just when I was getting ready to call my colleague to come to pick me up from the middle of nowhere, Sumit (Harsh's friend) called to give me a lift home. It's good to know people from here..they will know all the places where you can have a beer..so we went for 1 beer which turned into 3. What??? It was Saturday night!
However I had to be home by 11 because of the stupid curfew. So I got home at 10 to 11 but the door was locked. Rang the door bell, woke up the landlord who was kinda pissed with me because he had left the key in a plastic bag outside for me so that I could enter without waking him up...but he had forgotten to mention that small detail to me too. As a result, the next day, Sunday, he gave me a copy of the key from the gate so now I can come home anytime I want. Convenient, ha?
Sunday
I went on a picnic with my colleagues and some other people and knowing how the indians have a tendency to start speaking Bengali even though there is among them a person that will not understand it, I took "War and peace" with me, so that I wouldn't get bored. But I didn't! My colleague talked to me non-stop...kinda annoying at one point... and the place was so beautiful. It was a spot on the way to Sikkim, next to a river, sandy beach on the shore of the river and mountains all around . It felt as if you were on the beach in the middle of the mountains...really beautiful and sooooo clean. Of course there were lots of other people there because it's really a picnic spot. We ate, laughed, danced...yeap! Really fun!
But the day ended and we had to return. However in the night I went again for a beer with Sumit. He's nice but not as nice as you guys.
Anyway I had a nice weekend .
Today I am booking my train for Kolkata so make sure you are home on the 22 and 23 jan.
Hope you guys also had fun, wherever you are.

Siliguri

2006-01-03T13:40:00.000+02:00

Hey you guys! I know everybody is dieing to learn about what I'm doing in Siliguri..I've already sent an e-mail to some of you but let me give you another brief description about my new life:
accomodation:
place:big apartment
flat mates: 10 (kinda like gurusaday, right?)
lanlady : nice and not bursting out into laughter without any reason
rent: 2200 + 500 for food (but I'm not paying...the company is paying it...hehe)
curfew: YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!! :((( 9 o'clock :((((((( but I've used my "bargaing power" so I can now get home at 11.... yupiiiii...I just don't think I have anyone here to stay out that late with though :(
room mate: 1, she is from Nepal...nice girl...in 12th grade..so not many discussions about sex :)))
town:smalllllll.....quiet...buuuuut I can see K3 from the roof...hehehe
office: hm..... kinda difficult to say...we have a promotion campaign now...so that we'd get more students because the only 5 that we have now are not enough...kinda pathetic right? And I can't stand the manager of the place....he thinks he is such a smart ass....well....he is half right...he is an ass :)))

Well..that's about it for now...miss ya guys..and I'll try to stop by in Kolkata as soon as I can get a leave....
Dorota....let me know when you plan to leave
Jeroen and Ted: are you going anywhere when you're back from Thailand or not? Just so I'd know when to come if I can...

kiss kiss

Darjeeling

2005-12-30T15:04:00.000+02:00

Christmas....the nicest time of the year...you receive presents, you stay under or near the Christmas tree with your loved ones, sing carols and drink warm wine...at least this is how it works in Romania. How does it work in Darjeeling? Very similarly: you receive presents (really disgusting so-called fruits..and when I say really disgisting I mean REALLLLY ...they make your mouth go numb..if any of you tried the Dutch sweets no offence Jeroen, Marja, Sly, Casper - then try imagining that taste 10.000 times worst... after those weird nuts everything tastes good)...moving on...
...presents, we sat under a 20 cm high Christmas tree and listened to John Lennon singing "Happy Christmas" a few times (just around 5000 times, since it was the only Christmas song we had), and we replaced the warm wine with "some" rum, about a litre of it... nobody really remembers what happened afterwards...some people lost their head, some their trousers :)...yeah! it was a really nice Christmas! and now...a happy new year is coming...let's hope for the best!

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-22T14:07:00.000+02:00

It's kinda hard to celebrate Christmas away from home...at least for me it is, since this will be my first Christmas away. So we decided to create a bit of the traditional Christmas athmosphere ...therefore...we're going to Darjeeling for a few days...I just hope we're not gonna freeze there.
Unfortunately not everybody will go there. I was really hoping that our Falling Angel will join us but she decided out of a sudden to go back to Japan. Last night we took her to the airport and said "sayonara". Cake, if you're reading, do think of us on Christmas because we'll think of you!
Moreover, there are some new changes of departures...everybody wants to leave India sooner than planned apparently: Orhan is leaving on Monday, Jeroen in jan, Dorota...I think in jan as well.... and I'm being shifted from Kolkata. I'll be going to Siliguri for a few months to look after my company's branch over there... sounds nice doesn't it? Now ask me when will I be leaving... 1 January 2006!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice beginning of the year, ha? So I might not be able to say goodbye to some of the people here :( ok, ok...I won't be emotional, even though everybody knows I am when it comes to farewells..I'll just have a beer and have a hell of a time in Darjeeling!!!!

So....Merry Christmas to everybody and remember that, wherever you are (Romania, Turkey, Philippines or Japan ) you are still in my mind.
HAVE A MERRY MERRY XMAS!!!!!!!!! and a lot of drinks of course!:)) HOHOHOHO

Weddings!

2005-12-02T15:22:00.000+02:00

One more week went by and unbelievable as it might seem it hasn’t been that full of events…or at least not full of drinks…what? I had to mention something related to alcohol, right?
So…we’ve celebrated Alvaro’s birthday last weekend and since he is older now his boss decided to send him again to Mumbai. Just when he was starting to understand all our inside jokes...in one month time, when he’s gonna come back we will already have made some new ones and we’ll have to initiate him again.
On Wednesday we went to a wedding reception, Raksha’s brother is getting married… and tonight we’re going for the wedding itself…oh, yeah! And on the 15th of December we’re going to another wedding…that time Harsh’s sister is getting married…it seems that if in Europe June is the best month to get married, here is December…instead of gathering round the Christmas tree you paint the middle of your hair red.
Yesterday was Romania’s national day and …nope…I didn’t celebrate it cause there was no Romanian around. But it was quite nice anyway…I heard a band playing nearby and it sounded exactly like our military orchestra that marches on the street on this day..it was nice…I just wish I could’ve been home.
Today I finally managed to meet Manna and his colleagues…it was really nice to see those people with smiles on their faces although they see so many bad things every day…by the way, Sly, Manna says "HI!" and guess what….YEAP! He didn’t like the Dutch sweets…no offence but I guess that you have to be born Dutch to like them. And I did try to warn him that even if you call them Dutch sweets, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are sweet…you should have seen his face :)))))))))
Ok…gotta go make myself pretty for the wedding. See ya!

Alvaro's birthday

2005-11-28T17:29:00.000+02:00

Hey people! It's been a while ...well...we've been busy with birthdays around here...nothing new there...we've had 2 birthdays this week: Saki and Alvaro...since I skipped Saki's I won't be able to tell you a lot of details about it. All I can say is that once again it has been prooved that Kalighat house SUCKS! The guys went there for the party and when they wanted to leave at 11:30 the guard didn't allow them..not even after they tried to bribe him, first with 100 then with 200 rupees...so they had to sleep there for the night...some party, ha? ok ok..I know I said I didn't know all the details...well..I don't ....I don't know who slept with whom:)

Moving on to Alvaro's birthday... Now... that was a lot more fun..nobody got locked nor inside nor outside the house...
Since his birthday was Sunday we decided to have the party on saturday night...it was fun...we went to Startstruck...as usual...but unlike usual the DJ played quite good music this time (Indian standards). The bad part was that Starstruck, which is usually deserted was this time quite populated by Indians ... and some of them became quite irritating, trying to mingle with us and dancing among us...Kinda hard to describe for those who were not present..but the overall idea is that they annoyed us a lot...
Anyways....this week is gonna be quite nice. We're all going to a wedding and on the 15th we've been invited to another wedding. Apparently everybody wants the stupid foreigners around for some cheap entertainment:)
Well...that's it...gotta go home. Maybe we'll play "Saori" tonight and they already started drinking the vodka without me....yes Dorota...you are right, I can't write a single post without making at least one reference to alchool....oh well!!!:)

Mosquito net

2005-11-22T17:59:00.000+02:00

Life in Gurusaday can be quite boring sometimes so we decided to have a day camping indoors...What? Haven't you heard of that before? All you need is a tent, some drinks and a lot of stupid drinking games.So...since we didn't have a tent we used Ted's mosquito net...if we can fit 8 people in a taxi we can definetly fit them under a mosquito net as well. Then...the drinks...we didn't have any:((((((( So we had to live without...but we did have a lot of stupid games. Of course they would've been a lot more fun if we had been drunk...oh well....
Has any of you heard about the number 7 game? When you are suppose to count, each person says a number. However you are not allowed to say any multiples of 7 or number that include 7. When you encounter those numbers you're suppose to say a code name...which was the code name? SAORI... You might wonder why? Why not? If we didn't have drinks we had to have at least some stupid rules, right? Normally when you make a mistake you are supposed to have a drink... no drinks...sexual related questions. It was really fun...we got to know some interesting things about people...how many times they've done it in one night...with how many, bla bla bla....guess that when you're not gettin' any, anything will do.:)

Changing the subject ...not that it's not interesting but the things that were said that night will remain between us and the mosquito net...sorry guys..you wanna know any thing...get your own mosquito net..:P

As I was saying....Daniela left on Saturday night and Polly left last night:( Fewer trainees in town...and worst of all ... no other Romanians except me:( So...if there is anybody out there listening...PLEASE send another Romanian here...with some Romanian drink if possible....what???? We need some for the next mosquito net game :)

Bakhali trip and others

2005-11-17T17:36:00.000+02:00

We finally managed to go to Bhakali this weekend, to have some nice, relaxing time. And of course we all got tanned. I actually got sun burnt just to spite all my friends from home who are freezing their asses off. It was perfect… a small village, no tourists or stupid foreigners around, except for the ten of us….no annoying Indians starring at us all the time, or at least not that many of them… and a really nice and CLEAN beach!!!!! The sand was so soft and so clean and the water was so nice…I just wanna go back there right now….not really big waves…not for the others anyway, but when you’re 1.60 everything is big, so I did get to have an actual taste of the ocean….better than the bottled one.
Other events from our life: Agnieszka moved in, in Dani’s place…. Too many Polish in the house if you ask me: Agneszka, Adam and…noooo, wait….Dorota is not Polish anymore, me and Keika decided upon that…she is Japanese starting from now so next time anybody calls her please say “Konichwa”. Furthermore, as if was not enough the AIESEC decided that 9 would be the perfect number so Ali also moved in and if any of those who is not here anyore wonders where could he possibly be sleeping because there are no more beds available…you’re wrong….the bed from the living room was available. YEAP! We have a bed in the living room now….Ali’s bed…the poor guy has to put up with all of us when we wake up in the morning or when we DON’T go to sleep at night….and by the way….Emre, he is from your town…couldn’t you have sent some Raki????? Some friend! But everything turned out alright cause he did bring a bottle, small one though and we drank it on Tuesday, because it was his birthday…too many birthday parties again…I know, I know….I’m complaining too much..I’ll want a party for my birthday as well, right? Well…I’ve already talked with everybody….I don’t want cake…bleah…too sweet, present is optional… all I want is…..BEEEEEER..lots of it…and it will be perfect…as long as I have beer and my friends with me…what else could I possibly want?
Dani came back this morning from Sikkim and now she is preparing for the departure…one more goodbye…

Paycheck day

2005-11-07T17:26:00.000+02:00

That is always the best day. You get to pay all your debts and start new ones :)
I really gotta stop drinking ...but on the other hand...India would be really boring and I would wake up and smell the roses ... wait ... roses in India? :O Rather wake up and smell the garbage ..bleah...better have one more beer.... stop thinking that I am an alchoolic because I'm not...just a normal trainee living in India, fighting for her mental survival.

Just a normal Sunday

2005-11-06T13:54:00.000+02:00

Now...I know what you must be thinking....a normal Sunday means waking up at 2-3 with a hangover and then doing nothing till the evening. Well...this was actually a normal sunday from a normal person's point of view...waking up at 10, eating bananas (yes, Beyhan slept over) and then going out...Where? To the zoo...We went to see the wild west shooooowww...well... There was no lama there but there were many annoying Indians ... imagine those 2-3 Indians that stop you on the street to ask your name and country....got the picture? ok. Now imagine that 100 times bigger... :O We left after 1 hour because it was horrible..you just couldn't get rid of them On the other hand...returning to the trainee house...today was clothes trying again...the traditional outfits...for those who have been here when me, Keika and Dorota tried on the traditional outfits...Well, today was Orhan's and Beyhan's turn. We dressed them up in the Romanian outfit and in the Japanese one...don't worry Emre, you'll get a copy of the photos.:)
That's all for the day folks...we're going home now to eat Adam's pancakes...probably a new invention...and afterwards we will defintely go for a beer because all these pancakes really make you thirsty. See ya!

Diwali

2005-11-04T10:51:00.000+02:00

Diwali festival brought more events into our "boring" life. If in other countries it is on New Year's Eve that people use fireworks and try to lose their hearing...in India it is on Diwali when people do it. it is also called the festival of Light but I would also add the festival of loudness. and sicne everybody else in the city bought fireworks and firecrackers why shouldn't the trainees do the same. so we made a large supply of all of the bove, united all the trainees in the Gurusaday house and one by one climbed on the roof, existed at the thought of what was gonna follow. it was really nice indeed but in my opinion the best part was when one of the firecrackers rolled down the stairs into our neighbours house. what do you think happened? ..... yeap.....we're not allowed to go on the roof again.
Since we had a few days of holiday some of the trainees decided to go to Puri for a few days and of course I stayed behind as usual. don't have to think that I never leave the house now....I am at the Internet cafe now, ain't I?:)
what else, what else.... Beyhan, Orhan and Konrad stayed over night last night.... we played cards, drank Adam's vodka, chatted....stop judging me...I am trying to set a record so last night was my 18th day of drinking...hehe...

Halloween

2005-10-31T16:43:00.000+02:00

This weekend was quite fun if I might say so. We went swimming on Friday, to the Halloween party on Saturday and to the landlady on Sunday. The Halloween party from B.E.D. was quite interesting considering that the only people wearing a bit of scary make-up from there were us and the bouncers.... but we had a good time as usual. Me and Daniela dressed up as Dracula's brides but unfortunately we couldn't find any mortal to kill because... let's be honest... we like drinking blood but Indian blood.....bleah!!!
After the party we came back home and I managed to convince our new Turk to give me a massage, which was so nice that I instantly fell asleep in Ted's bed, therefore Beyhan took my bed. By the way...guys.....your beds are a lot nicer than ours...
Then came Sunday... quite short, since I woke up after noon, but hey, Sunday is meant for sleeping and besides ... with all the alchool that I had in me.....
At around 6 we went to the landlady's apartment and we watched the movie made for Sly. hey..... the Indians are right...we are stupid foreigners ...but we do have a lot more fun than them. Ha! Eat your heart out!
Furthermore, since the Diwali is coming we bought fireworks for tomorrow evening and let's hope that we'll not set the roof on fire:)))

Surviving

2005-10-29T07:49:00.000+03:00

Life is not that bad around here...even though we keep on complaining about how bad India is, we still manage to have a blast. Right now I can proudly confess that I have been drinking straight for 2 weeks now, every single night. I really should slow down but even the other people in the house know that I will only stop drinking "tomorrow".
we went for a swim in Park hotel last night. or at least the others did cause from my part all I did was to hang to the edge. at least I made some progress last night....I managed to get my legs up for over....3 seconds:) it was quite night so as we hade free entertainment: Turkish wrestling in the water, between Beyhan and Orhan.
Tonight...party again of course but a bit different ...Halloween night so I guess we should try to look a bit scary...well ... Adam doesn't really have to try anything...all he has to do is open his mouth ....that's enough to scare everyody and kill the joy of having a conversation. He is OK when you talk with him in private but he doesn't really get the hints : I was talking to him Wendsday night. I had about 3 beers on my own so I thought that I was drunk enough to survive a conversation with him. hm... one more beer would have helped. I told him that as far as people are concerned I don't like those that talk a lot and say nothing in the end...funny...Adam agreed with me and started explaining me why are those people so annoying and all I could think about was that even thow the house is convered in mirrors he still couldn't see himself proving his own theory. He is a nice guy but because of his chatting he tends to keep people at a distance. Pity!
I really gotta stop drinking...I've been having a non-stop hangover for the past days....on the other hand...that would be boring...so I guess I'l stick to what I find fun

28th November 2005

2005-10-28T10:08:00.000+03:00

Sly left yesterday...

Preparing the video for Sly

2005-10-25T11:06:00.000+03:00

Today was a bit different than the other days because it's the last day of the preparation of the video for Sly. Me and Keika went down to the shop, then took the route to our flat...too many steps... I don't think I will ever get used to climbing 5 floors every single day.
We have almost everybody's confession on tape so now Keika is editing the material and by tomorrow the farewell video should be ready. The past week was awesome. We went out every single night: drinking, dancing, movie, swimming. The perfect last week spent with Sly.

Keepin' in touch...

2005-10-24T16:04:00.000+03:00

I decided to create this blog because since I don't have time to write to everybody I will just give you the link. There are higher chances of me writing more often here than sending individual e-mails.

So far my life in Gurusaday has been perfect...well not exactly perfect but very close to that.
Unfortunately this is not the best period ... one more to leave.:(