Experience Turkey - What has Andrey been up to?

Hey again! It's me, Andrey!

It's been ages since I last wrote!

And so much has happened since last time! Let me just quickly list the highlights:

• Ankara Cappadocia Tour - 17, 18, 19 July
• 15th Anatolia Congress - 23, 24, 25 July
• Istanbul Study Tour (follow-up of Anatolia Congress) - 26, 27 July
• Blue Aegean Tour - 31 July, 1, 2 August

It's been one great event after another! I've met so many people from all over the world - Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, The Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, South Korea,... at the Anatolia Congress there were even more people from Bulgaria, my home country! Of course, I must mention all the amazing people from AIESEC in Turkey which have become very good friends of mine. :)

There is so much I have to share! I won't be able to fit everything in one post. :P
Let me just give you an update on what's going on with me.This Wendesday was my last day as an intern. I had to stop my traineeship in order to focus on my AIESEC work. I will miss the children. *sob* It was really amazing and fun to teach English, sing, dance and play games with them. Oh well, I have to move on. My first AIESEC project awaits me! And it's entirely mine! In the next 2 weeks, I will implement Information Management as another function in the Izmir local committee. Without doubt, this will not be easy, but it also means I will have more time in front of my laptop. So expect to hear from me again very soon!

Does any of the events listed sound interesting? Which one would you like to hear about first? You are welcome to comment just below this post.

Reporting from Exchange with AIESEC, from Izmir, Turkey, this is Andrey, an AIESECer.

Experience Turkey - Greetings from Izmir!

Hi! Greetings from Turkey!

My name is Andrey Bozhkov. (That's me in the photo to the right!) :D I am based in Izmir, and I will be writing about my experiences in Turkey. I arrived in Turkey on 22 June, so I've been here for 3 weeks already. I am doing a one month traineeship and one month CEED. So far, I've been having a great time! Both the city and the people here are amazing! :D

There are a lot of things I would love to share, but let me start off with one story about how I got my hair cut this Friday.

At about 5:30pm, I go to the local hairdressers. I walk into a very clean and tidy room and sit down to wait my turn. There are two stylists, but both of them are busy, so I have to wait. About 10 minutes later, some random guy walks in and also sits in the queue. Another 10 minutes later, one of the stylists has finished with a customer's hair, and now it's my turn. So I sit down on the chair, and the stylists starts talking... in Turkish, of course. Naturally, I don't speak Turkish, and he doesn't speak any English, and neither does the other stylist speak English. I tried to show him how much to cut off, but that didn't really work out. When I was starting to consider walking off, it turned out that the guy waiting in queue after me could speak English. Lucky me! See, I like to keep my hair short, so I say in English: "Please tell him that I want my hair cut short and the same on all sides." Those are exactly the same words I say to any other stylist. The stylist takes the buzzer, changes its end and does one stroke near my fringe. Apparently, he was waiting for my OK. The place where he did the stroke looked OK, so I nodded. Then he does two strokes... and cuts off half of my fringe!!! This was a very awkward moment. I needed to be somewhere in an hour, but I felt like arguing with the stylist. Well that wouldn't have done much good - my hair is not going to suddenly grow back, and the stylist is not going to understand anything I say. What's done is done, lets finish the job! So I just give another nod, and the stylist carries on with the buzzer.

Now I have an army haircut. A bit too short for me, but it has its benefits - very good for hot weather and for swimming. Everyone else here says it looks good on me, so I don't really care. :P However, this created a big problem for me the next day. I will tell you more about it another time.

How do you find this story? Is it interesting? Do you think I could have done something better in my situation? If there is anything you would like me to talk about from my stay in Turkey, if you want to answer the questions, or if you want to just share your thoughts and opinions, please leave a comment below.

I will keep telling you more about my Experience Turkey story as time goes on.

Reporting from Exchange with AIESEC, from Izmir, Turkey, this is Andrey, an AIESECer.

Greetings from Bucharest, Romania.

It's been a week and one day since I landed at Baneasa Airport. My first impression was that it looked very much like Malaysia, where I come from. Along with the scorching summer sun and a fellow AIESECer picking me up from the airport, I can't help but feel at home already.

I spent the next few days getting to know the city, its food, and fellow AIESECers at Bucharest. Two days ago the LC had a weekly social called the 'Trainee Beer', where trainees and LC members meet up at the rooftop of the National Theatre for drinks.

On the second or third day (can't remember), I joined the LC for a LC meeting. It was 3 hours long! But they hold it only once a month, and there were like 25 agendas. Each strictly governed by a 5 minute time limit, which of course resulted in plenty of punishments.

I'm staying with a trainee from China. He's working on a TT for 6 months. 2 days ago 2 Dutch AIESECers came over as part of the Dutch AIESEC Ambassadors programme. They would subsequently travel all over Romania visiting LCs and promoting their crazy antics. One of which includes bringing a live hen along with them throughout the tour, as part of one of 66 tasks they had to complete.

Overall I'm really grateful AIESEC Bucharest welcomed me with open arms. Also I would like to thank AIESEC UK and HSBC for making this possible. Oh, and I must also mention my CEEDer buddy, who kindly takes her weekends off to hang out with me in Bucharest, before returning to the country side to tend to her goats.

Bennette Lim

The CEED Participants you will be hearing from:

CEED Participants

Andrew Morrissey - Karachi, Pakistan
Anna Robinson - HEC, Canada
Bennette Lim - Bucharest, Romania
Ciara O'Sullivan - Vitoria, Brazil
Denita Bruwer - Beijing, China
Edward Baily - Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
Frederica Marques - Mumbai, India
Hannah Beckett - Helsinki, Finland
Helen Coupe - Universitii Sains, Malaysia
Jamelia Harris - Saskatoon, Canada
Josh O'Byrne - Ahmedabad, India
Kylie Flavien - Galati, Romania
Marcel Dirsus - Bangalore, India
Sonam Sakhrani - Thessaloniki, Greece
Till Kraemer - Moscow, Russia
Viktoriya Peycheva - Vilnius, Lithuania
Rachel Berry - Tirgu Mures, Romania
Eva Kubrichtova - Lima, Peru

Experience Turkey
Yaoran Zhang
Amanat Thind
Alexandra Spencer
Andrey Bozhkov
Anusha Sredharan
Carlos Dupim
Julie Kinninmont
Laura Barrington
Luis Miguel Amaro
Sana Moyeen
Xinke Zhu
Anita Wong
Esme Firth
Christine Ludlow

Pioneers
Richard Pollard
Kelvin Ling