My Travels Through A Lens: Merhaba! (hello in turkish)

Gate H46 now boarding.

Flight LH3362 to Ankara, Turkey :)

My school is currently involved in a project with 13 other countries around Europe (including Turkey, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Germany, Spain, France, Slovakia and Romania. The project comes under the Comenius Program which is named after an educator called Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670). The aim of the program is to connect students and staff to countries and educate them on the diverse cultures Europe has to offer. They have a variety of projects that schools can choose to participate in. Our project is called "Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.' It aims to develop awareness of water issues in each country and what we can do to help.

Each country has to host a visit from the other countries and Turkey was first off the list. Turkey was not the country I put my name down for (I wanted to go to Poland and Spain) but because we had to go during the school holidays, a lot of our staff had families and other commitments and therefore could not go. I was happy to go, however, as I was planning to travel somewhere anyway. And what's more, all expenses were paid for. A free one week work holiday to Turkey? I wasn't complaining :)

My colleague, Rhian, and our English translator 'tour' guide, Atila. He was recruited from another school (not one participating in the project) as he was the English teacher and, as we soon discovered, was very well known in the town (will explain more later).

I didn't know what to expect from this trip as I had never been on a work related trip. In mind I expected a few meetings each day and then the afternoon or evening to sight see. This was not the case. It was better! We had one meeting the whole week and the rest was sight seeing! :D Turkish people are very proud of their country and wanted to to show it off.

Our Turkish host teachers - Urkut (vice principal of the primary school) and Cunyet (teaches Turkish at the highschool ). Urket was our 'body guard'. Whenever one of us would accidentally stray from the group, he was there to make sure we found out way back safely.

Day 1

Turkish Primary School.

The classrooms - look at how simple and small it is!

Currently I am fufilling my highschool dream of teaching in London and travelling around Europe. My next big dream is to travel around the world and teach in different countries. Going to Turkey has inspired me even more to want to make it happen. I loved the fact that even though this school had limited resources and space, the staff and students looked just as happy as a school with the latest technological gadgets.

The school put on an amazing lunch for us. Some of the food was made by the families and was absolutely scrumptious!

They're very big on their sweets in Turkey!

Baklava :)

Ate too much of this over the week :P

Some sort of fruit slice.

Mini sponge cakes with custard filling.

Being mobbed by children.

The children were fascinated with so many teachers from around the world. We felt like celebraties!

This boy taught me how to count to 10 in Turkish :)

biz, iki, ooch, dord, besh, alti, yeddi, sakkiz, dokkuz, on!

Next stop, the 1 day old Aquarium :)

This area was made into a forest where you could sit down and enjoying the sea creatures around you.

I think this says 'Cabel Car ride' :) or something along the lines of that! :P

From here we could see all of Ankara :)

Day 2

This was our one day work related meeting :)

At the town hall, we were greeted by the staff, students (yr 5-8), governers and education minister!

Each country was asked to prepare a presentation about their country and school. What we weren't told was that we were going to present it at the town hall with all the staff, students and VIPs! Luckily, my colleague is better at public speaking than I am so she took control :)

Day 3

This day involved a long 3 hour drive to a place called Cappadocia.

Our hosts squeezed as many attractions as they could on this day.

First attraction: Salt Lake

Goreme Open Air Museum

Cave churches carved by monks in the 10th century.

Spectular view!

Hot air balloon rides are the perfect setting for a romantic propsal!

Can you spot the hot air balloon?

Natural landscape formation - Fairy Caves.

Created by solidified lava streams and heavy erosion.

In front of the fairy caves

Pottery demonstration.

Wine tasting - no I didn't have any.

Holding wine glasses for photo purpose only.

Dinner was a traditional Turkish dinner with Turkish dancing.

Belly dancing.

Whirling Dervishes.

Turkish Folk Dancing

Because it was a 3 hour ride to Cappadocia, we stayed over for one night in a 5 star hotel!

Included: bathrobe, balcony, Turkish baths/massage, jacuzzi.

Day 4

Underground City - Derinkuyu.

Another lake, I forget what it's called.

Day 5

Turkey's Independence Day

VIP seats at the Independence Day parade.

Turkish president.

Some castle

A lot of the time we were just driven to places and had no idea where we were actually going (partly due to the language barrier).

The project team.

We were treated like royalty for the whole trip and being 'royalty' also included a big party just for us! Look at the decor - it was like a wedding reception!