To all of my loyal blog-followers out there, I'm sure you've been waiting at the edge of your seats for another update from me. Well lose no more sleep.

Since my last post I have taken two separate trips to southeastern Turkey, one with my program group and one with my friend Ben. Words don't do much justice for these excursions, so I'll just bullet some of the milestones and post a few photos.

• I hoofed it to the top of Nemrut Dağı just in time to see the sun set.


• In Sanlıurfa, I wandered through the seemingly endless maze of shops in the local pazaar.


• In Mardin, I looked out at the Mesopotamian plains after the most delicious meal of mezes I've ever had. After lunch, we met with some local youth at a newly opened cultural center and roamed the winding streets of Mardin with them for a few short hours.


• I dressed up in traditional clothing and posed for pictures in one of Haran's beehive houses. Harran is one of the oldest continuously inhabited human settlements in the world.


• On a boat ride up the Euphrates, I got goosebumps at the sight of the tip of a minaret, sticking out of the water, the rest of the mosque submerged under water after this area was flooded, following the construction of the Berecik Dam. Today only 3 families live in old Halfeti.


• In Van, Ben and I explored the spectacular ruins of the ancient city of Tuşba. We climbed to the top of 3 minarets. We were also the objects of much curiosity, mainly to Kurdish children and men. While we wanted to take pictures of the castle, they wanted to take pictures with us.


• I swam in Van Lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It was REAALY cold, extremely salty, and left my skin feeling slimy.

The weekend in Van was dominated by encounters with Kurdish pride. I took a lot of pictures with people, holding my fingers in what I believed to be the universal sign for peace, but is also, as I found out later, a gesture signifying victory within the movement of Kurdish resistance.

My classes wrap up next week so I'm busy writing final papers on topics like Shari'a in Islam, Women in Sufism, and the evolution of language. The weather in Ankara is fantastic, which makes it that much more difficult to write papers.