Merhaba, everyone!
Ben Konstantinos. Ben yunanlim. Unfortunately at the time being, my Turkish is negligible, but hopefully and God-willing this coming fall semester, I might be able to take Turkish outside of my university with a locally-based programme. I was lucky enough to visit the Queen of Cities in March, and like the emissaries of Prince Vladimir, I found beauty in the City beyond belief. I also had to write about the Bektashi Order of Sufi Muslims and their views on scientific materialism and I had to conduct an interview with the dervish, and because he didn't speak too much English and I didn't speak Albanian or Arabic, we were able to communicate with the little bits of Turkish that we both knew, and boy was I never more proud of myself in my life when I could give him my phone-number in Turkish and write down his own
!
I've been dying to find any religious texts in Turkish simply for the sake of learning, and also if I am able to study in Thessaloniki in two years (God willing
--İnşallah!) and be part of a programme where I would be sent to Istanbul to study and reside both in the Fener and Kadıköy, and I can redeem myself in the eyes of the friends I made there because good Lord were my skills in Turkish both dismal and embarrassing.
I hope I can meet some Turkish Orthodox-Christians; it's been awhile since I've really talked to any of them, and Lord knows they have more problems to deal with right now than me due to the events unfolding in Taksim. Not to incite any anger or bring politics into a religious website, but Taksim is a magical place; I honestly think I'd shed a tear to return and see the Park made into a shopping mall complex.
