Turkey

A few weeks ago I found out that I could go to a professional development conference in Cesme, Turkey. Do you think I was going to say no??? My friend from school, Anke, convinced me to go (it didn't take much convincing) and we counted down the days for two weeks!

We arrived on Wednesday and the conference started on Thursday. It lasted three days and was from 8:30am until 4:30pm. We were fed 3 amazing meals a day at the Sheraton hotel. Now-don't get too excited. 5 star hotel in Turkey does not mean the same thing as 5 star hotel in the U.S. I'm sure people got sick of hearing me say, "Well, in the U.S...." I said it a lot. To name a few disappointments: My phone didn't work, my shower didn't have a door, Anke's room didn't have A.C. and it took her more than 12 hours to convince any incompitant person at the front desk that she wasn't making it up, the gym didn't open until 8am and closed at 8pm and we couldn't bring outside food and water into the hotel for "hygeinic reasons." Whatever. It's Turkey for crying out loud! Do you really think we're going to drink the tap water! Seriously.

OK-so, Turkey is nice and all, but Cesme was pretty much disappointing. No spectacular shopping. Warm weather season was over, so it was windy and chilly. There is no cool history there (except Ephasus was about 90 km away, but there was no time for that...grrr), no interesting culture, so, more or less, we just got a glimpse of another culture, which quite frankly, reminded me a lot of the Mexican culture.

The conference was very good however, and there were some highlights which I will illuminate in the following slide show. Anke is a great travel buddy! She is aggressive and fun and is willing to get out and try anything. By some miracle we were able to figure out the public transit system (consisting of a white minibus that has no designated stops, you just have to hope and pray that you are standing in a spot where the bus will drive by, and then you have to take a guess about where you're getting off...quite a shocking difference from the Swiss system). We were able to swim in the Aegean Sea and we ate like queens. (I have an extra stomach role now to prove it-ugh.)

We met some amazing teachers from all over the world. We were in conferences with people teaching in Abu Dabi, UAE, Riyahd, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Sudan, Paris, Bologna, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Sweden, Estonia and the list goes on and on. It was fun to hear stories from all over the world, and to realize that teaching is pretty much the same no matter where you are!

One last bit before the slide show...We had a 3 hour layover in Istanbul and we jumped on that! We being, me, Anke and our head of school, Dominic. He had been to Istanbul a long time ago and had an idea of where we could go in a few hours. We went to the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia mosque. We only went into the Blue Mosque and then to a beautiful bizarre right down the hill. It was so fun to see culture and history and it made me want to go back one day.

Overall, it was fun and eye-opening. Anke and I had a ton of fun and learned lots. I wouldn't recommend Cesme, but I'm definately going back to Istanbul and Ephasus!