Istanbul

4 days later...

I'm back in London after an epic weekend in Istanbul, Turkey. The 700 pound cost had me second guessing my decision to participate during the entire preceding month, but now that the trip is done, I can honestly say that it was the best big purchase I've ever made. Our group of forty students and four adults toured the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia, a few palaces, and went on an hour long cruise down the Bosphorus. With smaller groups, I ate lots of lamb, saw the whirling dervishes, shopped at the Grand Bazaar and walked from to Europe from Asia one night after going out in Taxim Square. At the Bazaar, I haggled over a few pieces of inexpensive jewelry and emerged with a silver Hand of Fatima (the daughter of Muhammad) necklace, a few little beaded bracelets, and a gold ring, all of which set off the metal detector at airport security, and got me privately wanded down. The Bosphorus cruise was my favorite. I learned from Orhan Pamuk's book Istanbul: Memoirs and the City that the name Bosphorus translates to "throat". It's a shockingly appropriate name considering that the Bosphorus breathes life into Istanbul and offers respite to the a gigantic city which is in the midst of a cultural, political, and religious crisis following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It is a gorgeous river that spans as far as the eye can see and shines brilliant blue turqouise during the day, gleams golden at sunset, and mesmerizes with it's black instensity at night. Between the river, the 22 million person population, and the indescribably ornate mosques, Istanbul is a city so sublime that its ineffable.

more photos...

this week

Updating this blog on a regular basis has proven to be slightly more arduous than I thought it would be, and so (once again) I find myself overwhelmed will all of the details I want to tell you about this past week but without enough time to write the novel that they deserve. Last weekend I went on a free FIE trip to Stonehenge and Bath. I was suprisingly free of my typical motion sickness during the bus ride and so I could actually listen to our tour guide and enjoy the English countryside that whipped by out my window along the way. As most who make the journey would probably report, I was a little let down by Stonehenge. We were blocked from getting closer than 15 yards from the actual rocks, and so for the most part, seeing them wasn't much different than staring at the Stonehenge microsoft desktop picture. The chance to put them in the context of their landscape was appreciated though, and I genuinely enjoyed the fresh air and our tour guide's explanations. According to her, the public haven't been allowed to get close to Stonehenge for a few decades now, ever since viewers began to make a habit out of borrowing chisels and hammers from local blacksmiths and vandalizing the rocks. After Stonehenge the bus deposited us in Bath where I saw the baths and splurged on a 10 pound lunch of goat cheese tarts and caeser salad. Sara, Christie, and I didn't take the tour bus back to Kensington with FIE and instead waited in Bath for a friend of Sara's to pick us up. Lottie lives near Bristol, and we spent the night getting scolded for not being ladies (when we ordered pints instead of half pints at the pub) and eating delicious home-cooked food that her mom made. Later on we went to a guy nicknamed "Peaches" birthday party in Birnham near the sea. Once again we were the token Americans at a party, and all of the English kids (and the parents who were in attendance) wanted us to teach them drinking games. It was a great weekend, and now I'm buckling down (kind of) until Thursday morning when I depart for Istanbul!

photos photos photos

Sara and Christie!

The London Eye (huge regret- I missed my chance for discounted tickets)

Another photo from the Millenium Bridge just because I'm so obsessed with it.

A window inside Parliament...

updateZZ

I finally have news about the internship I'll be doing during the second half of my program here! I received this email yesterday:
Dear Mackenzie, I am pleased to inform you that FIE has provisionally placed you in an international internship with World Photography Awards. World Photography Awards is a global, annual awards programme for both professional and amateur photographers. As one of the largest photographic events existing today, The Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA), reach far beyond an awards programme for the still image. The website can be accessed at: http://www.worldphotographyawards.org/
Hopefully more information will follow soon (anticipation, anticipation, anticipation), but I think that it's safe to say that I'm going to LOVE it. Fingers crossed that I'll have access to some good photo printers and (maybe?) a darkroom.
Leeds was so much fun! The English countryside was pretty gloomy, and Leeds itself was more industrial than picturesque, but the people made up for it a million times over. We danced until almost 4am at the student union on the first night, and we hung out at Christy and Sara's hilariously perfect friend Abi's house the second night. During the day we wandered around aimlessly and semi-explored the neighborhood around Chris Price's dorm building where we were staying. I've never slept so badly in my entire life though, as we shared one tiny dorm bed between all three of us both nights.
Yesterday I did a tour of parliament, walked along the Thames, shopped at Primark (the only store cheaper than Forever 21), and concluded the day at the Tate Museum. My favorite piece was a photo proof sheet by Robert Franks that documented his travels around the US. You might recognize this photo of his (I'd seen it before, and so I reckon it's pretty famous):

I love London!

Millenium Bridge