A trip to HATAY!

So finally exams are almost over, last week was a "midterm disaster"...but we can breathe again and enjoy freetime. :)
Those who heard of Erasmus, or seen Erasmus students might think "Oh but you don't have to study so much, you're an Erasmus student, all is holiday for you!". Well...lets just say like in almost everything in life, also in this case it's pretty useless to try to generalize. How you spend your Erasmus time actually depends on a looot of things. For example, how much tuition you get, or what does the country you're in allow you to do, or just simply...what type of a person you are. Of course for sure as a foreigner, you can have a lot looser attitude then home, because you're in the good graces of strangers, and normally they will want to help you and will find you interesting (normally) for just you know...being different, which you actually have no other choice but to enjoy, because you depend on them, as they know themselves around pretty well in the world you just stumbled up on.
Like I wrote before, if you're a closed personality, meaning not open to changes and new people, Erasmus is not for you. Of course, you can try it out, because if you feel like you want to learn how to be more open and see the world from another point of view, have the will/ attitude for it, you can change yourself in this perspective. So all in all it's totally up to you, what will you make out of your Erasmus time. You can travel all the time, or use every possibility to learn the language, culture of the nation, study, wonder, whatever you like, no pressure. Turkey, as you may know, is not quite the No.1 place for wild parties with lots of alcohol and dancefloors. It depends on the city you go for sure, there are some more religious and some less religious regions, but be prepared that the culture has just started to go through some changes coming from the "West", so you can't expect the same experience of outgoing as you have in a de facto European country. But then again, if you expect the same things as you experience back home, then what's the use of applying. :P
So Turkey is a place for people who like challenges, meaning, if you want to see a LOT of changes, a place that is a LOT different, with a culture and peoples way of thinking being a LOT different then what you are used to, then Turkey is your country. Be sure that even if you don't move an inch from the place you will study in, you will experience dozens of new things and will have what to think about, especially if you are an observer type of person. But if you want even more adventure, Turkey is also definitely a good country for the ones who like to non-stop travel. Again...all depending on the above mentioned.
Personally, I like where I'm staying and the people I'm sorruonded with. Adana is a great place, not too religious and has everything you need, meaning you can have the same things as you're used to home, except for Orbit gums...no Orbit gums here. Miss it though.....

So yesterday we went to Hatay, a region 200 KM-s away from Adana, and very near Syria with my lovely flatmate Melek and her kind friend Metin.

A beautiful sunny day!
It's still very hard (in a good way) to get used to the fact that I'm only a few steps away from the amazing seaside. A walk there , and all your troubles are off your shoulders! :)

Our flat is a little crowded now that we are 7 people, but it's for the better. We're all together, Erasmus students who are here since September of last year and us.
We were here for 2 days when a French girl also arrived, so a French majority is present in the multicultural flat we live in. :)
The first question I had to myself when I woke up in my first morning here was, "so...what will I eat?", since ofcourse I didn't bring any food with me, needless to say that without food in my suitcase I barely fitted into 20kg-s. So I went downstairs to a small shop that is right next to our flat, and with an unsure voice I said "Merhaba" and quickly started to look for the things I need. Bread, milk, salami, buttercream, coffee...I put my stuff on the counter, and the seller man, who's always in an unusual good mood started to talk to me in rapid speed. I stared at him, like I never learned turkish in my life, and he quickly realised, I'm not understanding him. So he asked "Nerelisin?" which means 'where are you from?', I answered "Macaristan", he greeted my answer with a huge smile, saying "Turkey and Hungary are brothers! Turkish and Hungarian people are friends!". I was really surprised, before I came here I had no idea about what Turkish people could possibly think about us Hungarians. Many Turkish followed this type of a response to my origin, which I'm very happy to hear.
Some who know me might ask, why don't you say you are from Serbia? Yes, I live there, and in a somewhat deeper conversation with someone who understands English (not many in Mersin), I gladly and proudly say, I'm a Serbian Hungarian, but I feel like for some this is a difficult state to understand, and it takes a history lesson to explain someone why am I a Hungarian who's living in Serbia, so because of the lack of my Turkish language knowledge, for now, I'm from Hungary. :) 

We faced many smaller everyday life problems along the way, like this one, considering I came here with nothing but a suitcase and a good friend. But luckily, our new 'Erasmus family' never turns us down when we ask for help. Hours and days here go by really fast, because we always do something or go somewhere that is still new for us. We went to visit our new University, for a couple of hours, and it wasn't an official welcome, but we got to sneak peek into what's waiting for us when the semester will start. We went to the seaside and rented small electric motorbikes and we were riding for half an hour alongside the most incredible view I've seen in a long while. Another day we went bowling (I'm really bad at it, considering the winner had 90 something points total while I was still at 42...), we went to several reastaurants, tried out fish, 'kebap', the last one I really like and will have many more times during my stay, but also we cook for each other many times.
The other day we visited the Grand Mosque of Mersin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersin_Grand_Mosque ). I got to learn many new interesting things about the religion and the way muslims pray. Before I entered the Mosque I covered my hair with my scarf, it was a really odd feeling, I imagined that most women of this religion live their whole life covering up their hair, sometimes their whole body to the point where all you can see is their eyes. When I left the Mosque, I deliberately didn't take off the scarf. By this I wanted to experience 1% of what it feels like to be a Muslim. It might sound crazy, since I have 0 intentions of becoming one, but I do have intentions of learning about this type of life and the beliefs that are making it. I might not agree with everything about it, but I didn't come here to judge, I came here to learn and by learning, grow.
Today while the others went fishing and diving at a madly early hour (considering we usually never go to sleep before 2pm) me and my Hungarian friend went to explore the Catholic church of Mersin. I was so excited to see it, I didn't care that it was 3,5 km-s away from our flat, we marched towards it like there's no tomorrow. I wanted to see if it's different then the one that's built and nurtured in a Catholic environment. I wanted to know how many Catholics live in Mersin ect. So the closer we got the more curious I became. We saw the big cross on top of the small bell tower and we entered. The small garden infront of the church was beautiful and we could see that it was well kept. A kind man, I think he is the priest there told us some informations, like there are 400 Catholics in Mersin, and the grand prayer is at 11 every Sunday, and he'd gladly see us if we feel like coming. For the first time since I arrived in Mersin, I found something that looks, feels exactly like something from back home and I am really happy that I decided to find this church.




 It's a nice feeling to never be alone, to go together everywhere, to always have people around me that are my age and just as dedicated to having fun and discovering new things in life.

Proud to finally say :

Cheers to the new adventure!

I'm in MERSIN, TURKEY !!! After months of waiting for this day to come...
What I felt when the plane touched down? I can only explain it with an example :

You sit in a restaurant, already ordered your meal, a meal you never had before, but just know it's going to taste awesome, so you order and wait, wait for the waiter to finally show up with your food in their hands. And you get more curious and hungrier in every minute that passes without you getting your order...and then ! They show up and put the long-awaited meal right infront of you. You can smell it, touch it, it's aaall yours. That's how it felt, finally being where I only imagined myself being. A place I was only talking about going to for months to friends and family members who were looking at me with curious and worried eyes.
Picked up my luggage and the doors of the airport opened. A familiar face with a smile greeted me and my friends not so fresh but full of curiosity expression. My friend is also my classfellow from Szeged University, so I'm not the only one who decided to take a step towards this unknown world from my environment.
A kind turkish student from the university where we'll study picked us up, and showed the way to the bus that will take us to Mersin, where we'll live for the next 4 months as Erasmus students.
From Adana airport to Mersin there's a one hour bus drive, and while traveling I forgot how tired I actually was. Looking out of the window of the bus like a child and inhaling everything I saw, like I saw it for the first time...I was thinking : "Everything here is the same, yet everything is so different."

To be continued...