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Ok, time to do a roundup of this month’s topdroppers. With the moving abroad and the travelling, it’s been tough to always drop back, so an extra thank you!

Topdropper: Wonderful Pic Collection (you get 500 ECs!)

Second place: iWalk,U2? (you get 300 ECs!)

Third place: Juliana’s Site (you get 200 ECs!)

I think most of you are aware of the 12.5% tax introduced by Entrecard for the credit transfers. I won’t deduct that, I’ll pay for it myself! Keep dropping and earn credits!

Other topdroppers:

Picturing of Life – My Imaginary Travels – Beyond Taiwan – From a Yellow House in England – Zen Tricks – Iconz World – WebFrap

Go check out my Entrecard page and leave a recommendation/review!

Since I spend a lot of time on public transport (either traveling or in the crazy traffic of Istanbul), I get to do quite a bit of reading. At the moment I’m reading two books. “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle, this one I’m reading for the second time, and “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai. I found two inspirational quotes in these books that I want to share.

Something I find very worrying is the growing phenomenom of antitheism. While using StumbleUpon, I noticed an immense number of sites that are very hateful towards religion. Understandably so, because they feel their way of life is being threatened by religion, but personally, I don’t feel that bashing, mocking, fighting or anything else that comes out of negativity can do any good. In “A New Earth“, Eckhart Tolle expresses my feelings very clearly:

“In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to “eradicate evil,” as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against. Fighthing unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself. Unconsciousness, dysfunctional egoic behavior, can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disguise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.“

Very wise words. I really admire Eckhart Tolle’s works and can keep reading it over and over. If you really want to grasp the full meaning of his words above, go check out the book.

On my way to Bulgaria, I figured that Eckhart Tolle’s stuff might be a bit heavy for a 10+ hour journey and I’d need some novel to read. I found some novels in my apartment (left by previous inhabitants) and found an interesting one about life in Nepal around the time of the Nepalese independence movement in the 80s. I picked it up and took it with me… On the third page or so, I came across this marble of beauty:

“Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.” 

Taken from Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss“. Haven’t quite formed my opinion about it, since the print in my version of the book is quite small and it wasn’t ideal to read in a bus on a Bulgarian bumpy road (and at night), so I had to put it away.

Have you read any of these books? Thoughts and comments very welcome! I find books are one of the best topics for meaningful and engaging conversations!

I’m off to see my girlfriend in Bulgaria. Which means I’ll be writing a bit about Bulgaria over the next week. If you want to know what it’s like there, just head over to my Picasa albums and have a look at the lower half of the page.

Speaking of Picasaweb… I took some pictures yesterday of a more or less typical day of me in Istanbul. Go check them out now. 

Also some great news… I got a freelance writing opportunity passed down from the international office from my university. Turkish Daily News, a Turkish newspaper in English, sent them a message that they’re looking for international students because they could offer an interesting perspective on Istanbul. This is very exciting and I hope to get a nice chance to show my take on Istanbul on a bigger scale, as well as increase my journalistic experiences after having worked with the Bulgarian National Radio before.

My life’s developing at lightspeed! I can feel the rush! (and the stress, but enough about that already!)

I’ll write soon, from Bulgaria!

Edit - Oh, and I’ve been included in a blog carnival called Carnival of Cities, covering many interesting posts about many interesting cities around the world. Go check it out! And Foxnomad was so kind as to make a summary of it and include my post

The last few days my blog has gone through a few changes, mostly because I haven’t been able to come up with good content, so I figured I’d invest my energy differently. Why am I not able to come up with good content? I’ve had a stomach or intestinal flu for about 3 or 4 weeks now and since I’m going to Bulgaria this weekend, I wanted to be better so I decided to actually go to the doctor. The campus doctor’s consult was free of charge, and after describing my stool in detail to the medical student of my age (very weird, not to mention awkward) who then translated it for the doctor, I was prescribed some medicine. I don’t know what’s in this medicine, but woah, my mind’s completely unfocused! I’m curious as to what the medicine actually is (besides very, very cheap compared to Holland!), but in this state I keep forgetting to Google/Wikipedia it once I get to a computer. Nice.

Anyway, for this reason I’ve been unable to come up with intelligible stories, hence the lack of updates. I’m doing well though, I feel I’m getting better and my classes have started and they’re interesting! Oh, and tomorrow I can finally apply for my residence permit!

Okay… so what have I changed/updated on my website? And why?

• I got FeedSmith and transferred my RSS feeds to FeedBurner after reading an article at Rockfuse about messing up your RSS feeds .  I did this so that I could track my feed subscribers better. I was quite surprised when I found out I had about 36 subscribers, instead of the 15 I expected. I proudly put up my feedreader count at the right and an option for people to subscribe by email. Thanks to you all for subscribing!
• I put my Entrecard widget to the left sidebar because it loads before the rest of the page. It’s really important to have your widget in the part of the page that loads the fastest, because many droppers just want to drop as fast as possible and it earns you credits to advertise!
• This freed up space for an “above the fold” banner at the top right side of my page! It’s still rather cheap, so go place your ad now!
• I put in a cool weather widget so you can see the weather I’m having here!
• I removed my MyBlogLog widget after reading an alarming post about the type of information they’re releasing (accessible to everyone!) about your blog. Not cool!
• I added a contact form, which can be reached by navigating to the bottom of the page and finding the contact link.
• I put the link for announcing my Entrecard topdroppers reward closer to the ‘drop’ button. In case people miss when they click, they’ll see the reward system (and hopefully keep dropping here). Also, they’re more likely to notice the rewarding if they’re just here for a fast drop.
• I also put the PayPal donation button under the Email subscriber form, because I think people with their attention focused on that part of the page are also more likely to donate. Not that I really expect anyone to donate, but who knows. A button can’t hurt.
• That’s about it. I also uploaded a new header image that you’ll see when you visit category pages.

A blog carnival is like an online magazine with a collection of the best (usually recent) blog posts on a particular topic. For examples you can just Google “blog carnival” and any given keyword of what you’re interested in, such as “travel” and you’ll find quite a few of these. It’s a great way to get your blog out there and it’s also nice to discover other bloggers in your niche, and network with them. Besides that, it builds traffic and pagerank, because of linkbacks (if that’s what you’re interested in).

I haven’t been able to find any expat blog carnivals, so I decided to set one up myself. Therefore, I’m calling for all expat bloggers to submit their materials for the first edition of the Expat Experience blog carnival!

How to participate? Simple. Just go to the Expat Experience submission page, select one of your most fascinating, well-read, recent posts and submit it for the next issue! Piece of cake.

When the next issue is posted, I’ll link every article back to the original blog posts (and main blog page), but I also expect people to show off their submission in the blog carnival and link back to the carnival. If you think the quality of the carnival is sub par, then don’t link it. It’s all up to you, but it would be nice to create a buzzing community.

Want to earn 300ECs (or a 2 week 125×125 banner on my site) and public recognition in the next issue of the blog carnival? Design us a cool banner that communicates the global expat experience with a width of 475 pixels! Whoever’s design is picked gets the prize!

So what are you waiting for! Submit your articles and leave your link below to show your participation!

Visit Expat Experience on BlogCarnival.com.

Well, just a quick update about the last 24 hours. It’s a perfect display of bad and good things coming hand in hand, as they should.

Most importantly is probably having more or less sealed the deal with our landlord. He will put in some extra furniture, provide more cutlery, some bowls and some other stuff. Besides that, he will get the window I broke repaired… I don’t have to pay for it. What a load off my shoulders.

After that I went to eat somewhere with my flatmate Daniele, from Italy. We headed over to a particular place where I knew they offered vegetarian dürüm. They recognized me and the theory I called ‘The Vegetarian Sandwich‘ seems to be true. I noticed before that upon returning to the same place a few times, they give you more and more for the same price. Here was no different. We ordered food for about 18.50 lira (about 10 euros). When we went to pay they charged us just 15. A nice surprise, so we paid and I figured we got our drinks for free. As we were standing outside, somewhere down the road, one of the guys from the kebab place ran towards us. I figured they had realized their mistake. They had… He gave me back another 1.50, so in total we only paid 13.50 and thus got 5 lira off… That’s more than a quarter of the price. Awesome. I don’t care so much about the money… It’s just great that they show your appreciation for coming back. You’re not just customer #2739.

Then we went to a house party… When returning home it was quite cold outside. Still being a little sick, my body didn’t enjoy it (understatement) and my stomach started rebelling quite seriously. We got a taxi, because I needed to be warm and home as fast as possible. Now I’m quite sure that I actually have some flu or viral infection related to either my stomach, or more likely, intestines. Even though physically I feel worse, mentally I feel slightly more comfortable since this is something I had before in Spain (5 or 6 years ago). I was lying on the beach as it was getting cold and windy and contracted this flu. It kept me inside my holiday apartment the whole week, never more than 20 metres away from the toilet. This is a bit different, but last night was a good wake up call that I should take it really easy this weekend. It also stopped me from being so stubborn and listen to my girlfriend’s advice of what to eat and what not to eat.

I think I’ll go to the infirmary this Monday, which is on-campus… If that’s the appropriate place to go. I just need antibiotics I suppose. But this weekend is for resting and taking it easy. No parties. I need to travel next week.

So a typical Istanbul day for me… filled with ups and downs I’m so looking forward to get rid of this sickness though… It has been holding me back since I got here (yes, I’ve had it for about 3 weeks now – sometimes almost absent, but now very present). I don’t have a picture to go with this post, but imagine how you’d feel after drinking the juice in the picture below and you’ll know (more or less) how I’m feeling right now

So a few times per day this guy, and similar guys, come through my street selling 2nd hand stuff from their carts. To let people know they’re there, they yell something like “Yehhhhhhh”. It sounds really weird. Like a very, very sick mule.

Besides these, we have accordionists walking the street, stopping on every corner to give their concert and wait for people to throw money out of the windows. Men that sell bread (they carry a huge stack on their head), gypsy women that sell flowers, people that collect water tanks to get them refilled for you… and I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of these professions soon… (and recording and uploading them of course ).

As much as I’m enjoying Istanbul, there are also things that frustrate me or have frustrated me in the first weeks after my arrival. I felt a comprehensive list was in order.

10) People thinking I’m a tourist.

I generally dislike being seen as a tourist. I’m not a tourist. I prefer to discover places by living there instead of just going there and not truly experiencing it. I did this for Sofia, Bulgaria and I’m doing this for Istanbul. I have a negative opinion of most tourists and don’t want to be perceived or treated as such. However, it’s hard to hide the fact I don’t belong here, because of my Irish skin and blue eyes, but I don’t mind being seen as a foreigner. Hopefully I’ll be seen as a foreigner who lives here as time passes. Which brings me to the next point…

9) Getting ripped off.

Like in Bulgaria, if someone thinks they can take advantage of you, they will. This is true just for a minority of people (and a great majority of people at the bazaars ), but whenever it happens it’s very annoying. The first weeks I was very cautious of it, but it seemed to happen more… Or maybe I’ve just realized something about Istanbul that I didn’t realize before.

8 ) Istanbul is not as cheap as I thought it would be.

When I paid 4 lira (about 2 euros) for a coffee on a terrace somewhere, I was sure I was getting ripped off. Looking back, maybe I wasn’t. It’s a very mixed city and in one street you can find a tea or coffee in a bar for just 1 lira, but in the next you can pay 6 or more. Apartments are cheaper than in Holland, but not by much. Although I’m comparing furnished apartments in Istanbul to unfurnished apartments in Holland. This difference makes it a lot harder to settle in Istanbul than it was to settle in Sofia. Sofia, for a Dutchman, is cheap… for now.

(more…)

For those of you that are not familiar with Entrecard, click here.

For all the visitors from Entrecard, I have a special deal for you which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Add my blog to your daily dropping rounds and get credits! At the end of the month, I will spend 1000 credits on the top 3 droppers.

Number one gets 500 credits.
Number two gets 300 credits.
Number three gets 200 credits.

So get to dropping on my Entrecard widget and please try to participate on my blog. I have SezWho installed, so it’s yet another way to earn credits… Oh and if you drop, I follow!

Happy dropping!

As said in the previous posts, I live very close to the sea. The first evening that I was in my apartment, I got a bit bored and went to walk around a bit. I found a gorgeous sun setting in the sea. Check out the video below… It’s really soothing, relaxing, meditative.

Sorry for the crooked horizon… see it as artistic expression.

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