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