Bayram weekend

Last weekend Bayram was celebrated in Turkey, so we had off from Friday until Tuesday!
Almost all of the Erasmus students left for Izmir, Istanbul or other parts of Turkey. But since my sister was coming to Ankara, I stayed in the city. Nevertheless, I had a really great weekend - maybe even one of the best!

Thursday

On Thursday there was - even if we are already in Ankara for around four weeks - the ESN Welcome Party for the Erasmus students from all universities in Ankara.

Fanoes, Farnoosh and I went to Joe's place in the city to pre-party, which was actually quite fun; maybe even better than the party itself. Joe's Turkish friend Burak joined us, but eventually he could not get into the club, since he wasn't a student anymore which kinda sucked.

In front of the club they actually had a security checkpoint such as in airports. They even opened our handbags and checked them..

So the club was okay, but the music was total crap - but at least the DJ played Nirvana and Nancy Sinatra.
Even if I was totally sober, the evening was quite good. After 2 years of studies and almost always being sober on parties, it seems like I can even survive the shittiest party!

Friday

Since I first came home from the party around 5 o'clock, I felt kinda hungover on Friday ( yes, I can tell you that the feeling of being hungover is not actually created but by a lack of sleep).

So I actually slept the whole day and met Maren (my sister) and Anki ( her friend) in the city to have some dinner. After that we went to a shisha bar and that was basically my whole friday in a nutshell.

Saturday

On Saturday I collected Maren and Anki in the city, brought them to Bilkent's Campus and showed them around.
After we had a Cay, we met Nicol, Fanoes and Farnoosh by chance and went all together to Kizilay. In Kizilay we went to some shops and even if Nicol was at the beginning not so amused about going shopping, we eventually became his personal shoppers;)

Afterwards we went to a Shisha bar and waited there for Maren and Anki, who wanted to go back to their hotel to bring all their stuff home.
So eventually we ended up at Bench and this was actually a really legendary evening:
A guy proposed to his girlfriend and it was for all of us the first the we witnessed a proposal. It turned out that the girl had birthday and so they shared her birthdaycake with us - and that was actually the best chocolat cake I've ever had!


Sunday

On Sunday we met to have breakfast in a Turkish restaurant and went to see the Kocatepe Mosque, which is a really beautiful one.

Later on we took the Metro to Ulus; Directly next to the metrostation there is a park and a theme park and we had Turkish ice cream for the first time. Turkish ice cream is so different to the one we have in Germany- it actually tastes like frozen pudding.


Our main plan was to go to the castle, so we went up the hill and crossed the Bazar, The only good thing about the bazars in Turkey is that my Turkish is so bad that I can't understand them and do not feel that annoyed.
Since we were walking around for the whole day, we eventually decided to take a taxi up the hill - and that was definitely the better decision!

 The castle in Ankara is quite lovely, but as a German person I've never felt so insecure - there is no balustrade around the ruins and the edge, so it is actually not the best place to go to with children. My fear of heights did not make this situation any more convenient for me though..

Monday

Due to illness I could not attend the tour to the Atatuerk Mausoleum in the orientation week, so we decided to go there on the last day of Maren's and Anki's stay in Ankara.
The Atatuerk Mausoleum is architecturally amazing and the museum taught you so much about Turkish history.

Afterwards Maren and Anki wanted to go shopping - as you know I prefer online shopping, since it is less stress, so I went back to the dorm to take a nap.

In the evening we meet Aylin and her cousin Ülkü for having dinner. I got to know Aylin during a political meeting of the Social Democratic Party; she is doing Erasmus in Istanbul right now and visited her family in Ankara.
We went to a very local restaurant and had a really nice evening(:

Tuesday

Tuesday was meant to be a "study day". I mean I even printed out all the documents I needed, but then I ended up at Bilka with Fanoes and then we meet Nicol and then we went to Real and then we just hang out on the grass and - not me but the other ones - got drunk until 2 o'clock in the morning...