Space Camp Turkey

On to US Space Camp

2008-04-03T17:16:00.001+03:00

I will be spending the summer at US Space Camp in Huntsville Alabama. Will this be the end of my time at Space Camp Turkey? I doubt it!

But for now.... Check out my new blog at http://usspacecamp.blogspot.com

Balkans Adventure!

2007-06-10T22:44:00.000+03:00

Everything is going well at Space Camp Turkey, sorry for the lack of updates. Three of us just got back from a really great trip to Istanbul Turkey, Bucharest and Brasov Romania, Belgrade Serbia and Sofia, Bulgaria. It was quite a adventure to see each of these countries, we explored each of them by train and spent many of nights in 1960s era train sleeper cars.

Day 1:

Started with a flight from Izmir to Istanbul Turkey on Onur Air, a low cost Turkish no-frills airline similar to Southwest in the States. Once in Istanbul, we went and saw the amazing Blue Mosque and the famous Grand Bazaar. It was great to see some of Istanbul, because after coming to Turkey for the past three years, I never before took the time to see it’s most popular city.

We then made our way to the Istanbul train station, which was itself a piece of History. It is very old fashioned and looked like something out of an old movie. We bought a “Balkan Flexipass” which allows us unlimited train travel in Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria and a couple other places. We got a sleeper car for the long, 18 hour trip from Istanbul to Bucharest Romania, via Bulgaria.

Day 2:

Once in Bucharest we exchanged our money to Romanian Lea, a fun currency because it’s all plastic and partially translucent. We knew the name of the hostel we wanted to stay at and had a little map from our guide book so we set out on foot to find our hostel, Funky Chicken. After walking around looking at street names we couldn’t pronounce or read we decided to enlist the help of some of the local Romanians. Although they were friendly and tried to help us, they too couldn’t seem to find the hostel, Funky Chicken.

As a last attempt we hailed a taxi and showed him the address, after a few circles around the block we finally arrived and settled into our new 2 day home. At $10 a night, it was a very nice hostel, but only a few people other then us were staying there at the time. Night time was approaching, but we decided to go out and grab some food and check out the city. Bucharest was a little run down, but still pretty European. The buildings all looked very old but had character. There were many European style sit down Cafes where you can just sit for hours and people watch. After eating and walking around the city some, we went back to the Funky Chicken to sleep.

Day 3:

We woke up early to take the early train to Brasov, Romania, home to “Dracula’s castle”. Once there we were immediately identified as tourists and were swarmed with tour guides / taxi drivers competing to get us to go with them. We wanted to try to do it on our own so decided to go out in the city to get some lunch first.

Some very good advice when getting lunch in Romania, do not getting anything that looks like a bratwurst unless you are 100% sure that it is in fact a bratwurst. It didn’t quite taste like one, but we were really hungry, anyway, it really messed up the stomach and we now think it was some sort of intestine… Don’t really want to know.

Ok, Back to Dracula’s castle, after that great meal, we talked to some of the locals to get an idea of how to get to the castle from public transportation. It seemed difficult so we decided to go back to the train station and take a taxi. We negotiated a fare and got a guy to take us to the castle and fort for pretty cheap. Once at the castle, it started raining, a lot, so we waited under cover for it to calm down. Our taxi driver was amazing and was always going the extra mile, and actually convinced someone working at a stand to give us their umbrella to use while we make the little hike up to the castle. Once up at the castle, the rain stopped, to leave a very creepy but cool dark sky and fog.

We went into the castle after paying about a $1 entrance fee. The castle was full of old furniture and odd random things. It was a very beautiful area, up in the mountains. After going through all the rooms of the castle, and the secret stairwell (pictured below), we made our way to the fort, about 20 minutes away. While we were in the castle, we hadn’t paid for the taxi so asked us to leave something that we would come back for, like a passport or something, we left school IDs, because we knew if he left we could always easily get those back. We met back up with him and headed to the fort. It was crazy, and full of old weapons and torture devices, and even some skeletons buried under the floors with glass so you can see them. It was pretty creepy, and also up on a mountain, so made for some good views. By the time we got out of the fort, it was absolutely pouring rain and sooo cold. We, with our taxi driver ran down the hill of the fort and made it back to the taxi soaking wet. We headed back to the train station and got on the next train to Bucharest.

Once in Bucharest we went out for some dinner and to hang around the town. We went back for a nights sleep at the Funky Chicken, as the next day we leave for another country.

Day 4:

We made our way to Belgrade Serbia, not much to talk about for this day as it ended up being a 21 hour train ride. 21 hours is a very, very, very long time to be on a train. We were delayed for some unknown problem for about 4 hours in one city, and for some reason just kept stopping in the middle of nowhere. It was still full of nice views and an experience to say the least. By the time we got to Belgrade, it was Day 5.

Day 5:

We arrived in the afternoon in Belgrade, Serbia. First thing to do was to exchange some money, luckily the exchange rate was definitely in our favor. $1 = 60 Serbian Diners. After getting some Diners, we saw a person holding a sign for the hostel we were going to stay at, 6th Floor Hostel. We went and talked to him and he lead us right across the street to the hostel. The hostel was really nice, and yea, was on the 6th floor of this building, although nice, the elevator was pretty scary!

After settling in, our first mission was to find lunch, after the bad lunch in Brasov, we decided to hold off on trying Serbian food and head to McDonoalds… I know, that’s bad, but it was good.

We went around Belgrade that night and was pleasantly suprsied with one area of town. It was a old fortress that was amazingly beautiful and full of old relics like cannons and such. It was on top of a mountain and had a good view of the city below. The walk to the fortress was on a very European street with tall street lamps and café after café. Ice cream stands sold great ice cream in the gelato style found everywhere through Europe for a nice 20 Serbian Diners, or 33 US cents.

After walking a few miles with ice cream in hand around every in and out of the castke we headed back to the 6th Floor Hostel to get some sleep.

Day 6:

We were sooo tired by Day 6 that we were a little bit lazy and slept in, checked e-mails and so forth. We walked around Belgrade for a few hours and went back to the area we found the night before. For a Serbian dinner we went to a beautiful park that was full of almost every breed of dog, including the best, poodle of course. We went to a little stand and bought this very large pork sandwhich which was bread, pork, lettuce, an sour cream. It was surprisingly good and came with a free pepsi, total cost was a little over a dollar.

Day 7:

Started with an 8am train ride to Sofia, Bulgaria. We decided to brave the unkown and not go with a sleeper train. We were sitting up and looking outside for about 12 hours, it was suppose to take 9 hours, but there were some unknown delays. The train ride was very scenic, and got a little interesting when we go to the Bulgarian border. People were just stuffing their clothes full of cartons of cigarettes from the duty free shop, I guess they can buy them there and sell them across the border for a profit. One interesting sight was when we got close to the border people were throwing boxes of cartons of cigarettes off the train and running off into the woods.

We got into Bulgaria and went to my all time favorite hostel, Hostel Mostel. I visited there last year, but they just opened up a new hostel in a different location. The new one is even better, so amazing for a hostel. It’s clean, free internet, free pool table, breakfast, spaghetti, the rooms have keycard entry. All for, $10 a night. The staff is also legendarily friendly.

We set out for our mission of the night, find the Chinese restaurant I went to last year, it has the best Chinese food and gives you SOOOO much food for very little money. We found it, and it was amazing. It’s a very nice, fancy restaurant, and the first time we used silverware in a week. We sat down and ordered and were on the edge of our seats waiting for the food to arrive. We got it, and it was as good as I remembered.

After we were stuffed and could hardly move, we decided to walk around Sofia. The city is definitely one of my favorite in the world, the people are great, the city has so much to offer, is beautiful and, it’s cheap!

Day 8:

Our last real day of the trip, one of the goals was to see this movie, called Grindhouse in the States, it’s separated into two movies in Europe. It’s San’s favorite movie, and it was a mission, so we set out to find an English theater that had it playing. We first went to a old part of town next to some communist statues that have gotten beaten up and graffiti on them. The area was really nice though and full of fountains. We went to this movie theater, which was suppose to be one of the best, but it wasn’t showing it.

Then, I remembered last summer Kyle and I saw a movie in Sofia at a mall, but I had no idea what it was called or where it was. So we went back to the hostel and said we were looking for a really big mall that was made pretty much all out of glass, luckily they knew what the heck I was talking about and drew us a map. We went there and sure enough they were showing the movie, so we booked our tickets and had some time to spare.

We went and grabbed some lunch at Happy’s, a really great restaurant found all over Bulgaria that is most similar to Toots (http://www.toots.com) found in Tennessee and a couple other places.

After that we walked around the mall and went outside to the sound of a marching band. We look to the right and see a frantically dancing girl dressed as an Indian, she was sooo funny so we went up to her and asked her what was going on. She said it was the one year anniversary of the mall opening. Then a dancing rabbit, dancing witch, dancing cat and dancing penguin came out and we knew this was the place to be. We hung out with the dancing parade for awhile and then went back in to see the movie.

The movie was really good, which was kind of a surprise to me because the trailer makes it look horrrrrible.

After that we went around sight seeing in the city and back to the train station for our 7pm train to Istanbul.

Day 9:

We woke up at about 2am to cross the border back into Turkey, but quickly fell back asleep. We got up for good about 30 minutes before the train was to arrive in Istanbul, at about 7:45am. When we got to Istanbul we started our walk to the tram station, then walk to the underground metro, which took us to the airport. We flew back to Izmir on Atlas Jet, another low cost airline in Turkey.

Were now back at Space Camp Turkey about to start another work week. This will be the last week of the summer for office work, then its back to back camp sessions!

PICTURES:

I thought the best way to share pictures would be to put links to the public Facebook albums, just click here and you should be able to view them:

Balkans Adventure Part 1

Balkans Adventure Part 2

Balkans Adventure Part 3

Back In Turkey!

2007-05-12T17:44:00.000+03:00

Hey All,

I am back at Space Camp Turkey for the third summer. Everything is going good so far. I have had one team of mostly American kids that were really fun. There are several new counselors from the US: Todd, Tricia, Rob, San, Adihel, Craig and three of us returning from last summer, me, Ashley and Kyle. They are from California, Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, and Canada. Tricia went to Advanced Space Academy in Huntsville and Rob was a counselor at US Space Camp. We have been having a good time getting to know each other and exploring Izmir.

We went to see Spiderman III this week, which is always a treat as the Turkish movie theaters themselves are a cultural experience. They have assigned seating and usually show you to your seat with a little flashlight. Beth took all the counselors on a tour around Izmir, through a bazaar and out to eat for some Turkish cusine. We also made a stop at Starbucks.

This weekend has been hanging out around town. Eurovision is on tonight, which is like the European American Idol, where countries compete. The songs are really really funny, incluing this one about vampires http://youtube.com/watch?v=Iwcw6sq-hAY&mode=related&search=

Today we went to the Hugo Boss facillity at the Aegean Free Zone to watch one of the International Schools put on their school performance, where the kids sang songs and did little skits. They were good and the Hugo Boss facility is amazingly nice.

The next program starts tomorrow, the kids are suppose to be a good group, so that should be fun. I hope everyone is having a good summer! I will try to post more entries this summer, I got busy last summer and neglected it a bit.

I am putting one picture up off of Beth's camera, and will post more from mine when i get back to Space Camp.

--Matthew

Counselors eat lunch out in Izmir.

Summer Update, E-Pal Weeks, Bodrum

2006-07-13T22:56:00.000+03:00

Sorry for the lack of updates! Everything has been going great. My international groups have been a lot of fun, we have had kids from Turkey, Israel, Russia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Greece, USA, and England. All of the American counselors are here now, a total of 11.

Mr. and Mrs. Tuncer took all of the visiting counselors and their Turkish buddies out to dinner. They took us to a really nice restaurant thatis also a Winery. Each visiting counselor is paired up with a Turkish buddy who helps them learn their way around Turkey. My buddy is Ali, like last year, is a great buddy. It was alot of fun!

Our first E-Pal week was last week and Beth arranged for a guest Cosmonaut to come and stay for the week named Dumitru Dorin Prunariu. He is the first Romanian Cosmonaut and lived aboard the Russian space station Salyut 7. He was a great speaker and the Media Event was really fun, the kids especially enjoyed being able to have a Q&A session where they could ask anything they want and get a photo signed. An E-Pal is a student in the Partner School Science Program who e-mails, video conferences, and does science experiements with a partner school in Turkey. The kids come to Space Camp Turkey to meet for the first time. They were alot of fun and came well prepared for Special Events Night. This is a night where the kids get to present their culture. They were all really good performances and presentations. My team had kids from Bulgaria, Turkey and the US.

Kyle, Seda, Ashley and I went for a weekend in Bodrum which was a lot of fun. A very cool city it was loaded with tourists and it seemed like more people were speaking English then Turkish. Also there is a great place to get homemade nachos, called Nacho Nana's. Bodrum is a really cool city and we stayed at a great hotel. You can see the view from our hotel room below. We went and saw the Mausoleumm at Helecanarsous, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Next week is the second E-Pal week and we will have Astronaut Shannon Lucid flying over from Texas to visit . She is a very famous Astronaut so it will be really cool to have her here.

Life in Izmir is fun. We go out quite a bit and walking around the water is always fun. The summer is going by very fast and we only have one more team before we get three weeks off to travel. Kyle and I are visiting Sweden for one week, then coming back to Turkey for a little while, then off to Istanbul and Bulgaria to travel to Sofia, and the Black Sea coast. We come back for one more group after that before heading back to the States.

I hope you all are having a great summer!

Mausoleumm at Helecanarsous

View from Bodrum Hotel Room

Ridvan, Me, Ali and Kyle at the Buddy Dinner

Waters off the coast of Cesme

Bulgarian Dancers at the First E-Pal week

Cosmonaut Dorin Prunariu at Donkey Island

Rocket Room Dedication

Back in Turkey!

2006-06-09T21:41:00.000+03:00

It's hard to believe it has been over 9 months since last summer. I am back in Izmir and at Space Camp Turkey. Arriving after the nice long flight on Tuesday, my baggage was delayed. Luckily, Turkish Airlines was able to track it down and get it to me later the next day. It's great to see all of the famillar faces at Space Camp Turkey and to meet the new American and Turkish counselors. The American Counselors here so far are Seda, Kyle, Ashley, Jonathan, and me. We have about six more coming throught June.

Beth and Basar took all of the counselors out on Mr. and Mrs. Tuncer's boat yesterday where we had a fun filled day of swimming and Yahtzee. The water is so beautiful and the clearest I have ever seen. You can see all the way down to the bottom in deep water. It's very cool to put on some goggles and see the fish and plantlife. The boat is alot of fun and we stayed out all day with Space Camp providing sandwhices, drinks, snacks, chips, fruit, everything!

I came to camp the day before a team was graduating so I was support for that day. I will get my first team of kids on Monday. This weekend and next weekend we have off and are planning to go to the greek island of Kos through the Turkish beach city of Bodrum. It should be really fun and of course a cool passport stamp.

The summer is just beginning but is looking like it will be another great one! The international six day program will be starting in a couple weeks. Astronaut Shannon Lucid is coming to speak at camp on the second E-Pal week in July. She holds the record time in space by any woman and spent over 200 days in Mir. After the E-Pal weeks we have a week off where we will take a trip to Bulgaria and visit Sofia and maybe some of the Black Sea towns.

Here are some pictures, I will try to post more soon. Have a great summer!

--Matthew

Beth, Seda, and Ashley with their new hats

Blue Lagoon

Basar caught a fish!

Seda thought her hat would look cool on me. Me, Beth, Seda, Kyle and Ashley on the dock.

101 Days in Turkey

2005-08-29T21:31:00.000+03:00

Hey Everyone!

My 101 days in Turkey came to an end just a week ago today. I have moved into my new apartment and my room is full of reminders of the best summer ever. The furniture is lined with gifts from the kids, I framed my team pictures and have them on my wall. My last week at camp was great. The kids were amazing, they were from North Cyprus, Turkey and Russia. It was a great way to end a great summer. I had the time of my life at Space Camp Turkey this summer and want to thank the Space Camp Turkey staff for everything. I became great friends with the Turkish staff and counselors and miss them already. They are a great group of people who were alot of fun to work with. Special thanks to Beth Mitchell-Gencel and Mr. and Mrs. Tuncer. Beth became a great friend this summer and was a great boss. She makes great Nachos too! :) The Tuncer's started a great amp, it was an honor to be part of such a program and to be able to work with such amazing kids. The great thing about being a counselor is that even though you are the one teaching, you learn just as much from the kids. I didn't know anything about countries and cultures in the middle east and eastern Europe so it was great to be able to learn all about these cultures and people. It is an amazing part of the world. The people in that part of the world are the nicest people you could ever meet. So thank you Mr and Mrs. Tuncer, Beth and all of the Space Camp Turkey Counselors and Staff for giving me the time of my life! I had a great time and feel that this experience has added so much to my life. I miss you all!

--Matthew

2005-08-29T19:20:00.000+03:00

Nurcan, Matthew, and Diler at our last BBQ
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2005-08-29T07:21:00.001+03:00

Beth and Matthew at the last BBQ
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2005-08-29T07:21:00.000+03:00

Our last Graduation
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2005-08-29T07:20:00.001+03:00

Ozlem, Matthew, and Jale at our last BBQ!
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2005-08-29T07:20:00.000+03:00

Mine, Matthew, and Gurkan at the last BBQ
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2005-08-07T23:47:00.002+03:00

Group pic on wall
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2005-08-07T23:47:00.001+03:00

Ataturk
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2005-08-07T23:47:00.000+03:00

City Center
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2005-08-07T23:46:00.002+03:00

Reading Tom's fortune
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2005-08-07T23:46:00.001+03:00

Playing BS
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2005-08-07T23:46:00.000+03:00

Turkish Tradition
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2005-08-07T23:45:00.001+03:00

Group Picture in Museum
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2005-08-07T23:45:00.000+03:00

Group Picture!
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Balekesir

2005-08-07T23:14:00.000+03:00

Hey Everyone!

Everything has been great! I can't believe that there are only two weeks left of the summer. The kids these last few weeks have been great, they have been from Israel, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Belgium. Yesterday was one of the best days of the summer!

Kids from three weeks ago invited us to their home in Balekesir, Turkey. It is about two hours away by bus. Yesterday we woke up at 6 and got ready and were off to the bus station. We left on our bus at around 9 and got into Balekesir at 11am. The kids were there waiting for us and were so excited to see us. We went from there to their school. Their school was amazing! It was huge and very very nice. It was so cool to have them show us around their school. After the school we went on our way to the city center. Throughout our trip they showed us where they hang out and what they usually do in their everyday life. Then we made our way to one of their homes.

We went to Ece's home for lunch, where her mom made a huge feast! It was like a Turkish thanksgiving! It was so nice, she made SO much food that was so good. While their, two of their friends showed up who wanted to meet us. Supposedly the entire town knew we were coming and two of their friends wanted to help show us around. It is a Turkish custom that your guests can not lift a finger, so they wouldn't let us get our own food or pour our own drinks they had to do it all. It was so weird, but so nice. After eating we talked and talked and then played BS, a card game we play alot here at camp! After that we went back out and about.

They first wanted to take us to their very old and large clock tower, and then to a mosque. It was our first time at a mosque and it was a very interesting experience. After that we made our way to the top of the city. Asude's dad drove us up to the highest point of the city where there is a statue of the first Turkish president, Ataturk. It was a nice view and alot of fun. After that we made our way back into the city to shop and get some ice cream. The ice cream place was really fun and seemed like a modernized version of a 50s ice cream parlor. After that we made our way to a place where they always play tennis. We played some tennis, played cards, talked and they taught us some more Turkish. It was really fun. After that we went back to Ece's for dinner, another GREAT home cooked meal, amazing really. We hung out and played a game called Okay which is like a card game but not with cards, it's with tiles and scrabble like boards. I will bring a set back. It's fun. After that we made our way back to the bus station.

It was really interesting through the day to hear the kids talk about what they learned about at camp and what they got from it. They remembered alot of space stuff but they got more from it too. They are always talking to their friends from Bulgaria and from Lebanon and also got more confident with their English. They said the first day of camp they didn't understand a word we were saying because we talked faster then their teacher in highschool and just different then their high school teacher. But after the first day they said they understood us and when they got back were much more confident in their English after speaking it with native speakers, that they started teaching more English to their friends back home. It was really great to see what they got out of just six days of camp and what stuck with them at home and how much we were able to influence their lives for the better.

When all was done they walked us back to the bus station and started saying their goodbyes. One of them said that she will always be waiting for us to come back. Their parents invited us to stay in their summer home on the coast anytime we want. Turkish hospitality is well known but I didn't really understand it until this. They are the nicest people. It was a great day that I will never forget!

--Matthew

E-Pal and Beyond

2005-07-20T21:25:00.000+03:00

Hey Everyone!

It has been quite awhile since I have updated you on the happenings of Space Camp Turkey! Everything has been great, we just got finished with two really busy weeks. E-Pal weeks are the busiest weeks of the summer. Students were here from America, Greece, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon and France. They kids were alot of fun and so was the week. The second e-pal week was the best, everyone was very exceited to have an astronaut visiting. Dr. Gaffney (STS-40) gave great talks to the entire camp as well as one on one Q&As with individual teams. The kids LOVED it and one of my girls decided she wanted to be a scientist to be like him lol, it was cool. The kids that come here are amazing, so talented, friendly, smart. During E-Pal weeks the counselors work what is called a "Duty-Mate" schedule. Every other day you work from 9:00am-11:00pm, the other days you work from 9:00am-6:00pm. It was a bit tiring but completley worth it, it is a very fun and rewarding job which makes you not notice the long hours.

Outside of Space Camp I have been going around town alot and saw House of Wax a few days ago! It was suprisingly good, I thought it might be cheesy but was really scary. I was impressed! Besides going around Izmir I have been in Space Camp quite a bit. Beth was nice enough to invite me, my turkish buddy (someone they pair us up with to show us the ropes of turkey) Ali, and a fellow counselor Audrey to her home for dinner. We had Nachos and Mountain Dew, two things you cant find in Turkey so it was a treat! Thanks to her!

This weeks kids are awesome, the kids are always great, but these stand above the average. They are really cool kids, so fun and mature. Some groups you have to be constantly watching where they are roaming off to or constantly telling them to push in their chairs and clean up their mess. But with these kids they just do it! Always I never have to say clean this, push in that, never, they just do it! I always am about to start saying that and then realize, oh they have already done it. Really fun kids, they are from Turkey, Lebanon, and Bulgaria.

The summer session is still going strong, although it feels like the end of the summer is coming. People are starting to talk about their after summer plans, school, and that sort of thing. I have been here for two months and although I miss things and people from home, I will miss this place alot once I am gone. I hope everyone is having a great summer!

--Matthew

First International Week!

2005-07-02T23:09:00.000+03:00

Hey!

This week started the first Six-Day International program for the summer. The summer program is founded on a concept called Global Friendship Through Space Education. Kids from all over the world come to Space Camp Turkey to meet each other and learn about different cultures, while going through the Space Camp program with a few twists.

Kids this week were from Bulgaria, Israel, Turkey and Germany. On my team, I had kids from Israel, Bulgaria and Turkey. They were the best kids I have ever met in my life. The first day or two was a little bumpy, the kids were pretty much staying with people from their own country. I did some group games and activities that got them talking to one another a little and eventually they just all became best friends.

Special Events Night was on Thursday which was so exciting. What happens is the kids from each country present something that represents their country. The Bulgarian did a traditional dance (look below at a picture of me, Stephanie, and the Bulgarian from our team in their costumes!) The Turkish did a presentation on Turkey and a dance. The German's did a presentation on Germany and two girls sang 99 Red Balloons in German. The Israel kids did a presentation on Israel and also demonstrated some religious traditions. Also, some of the Turkish speaking kids did dances, sang and played the piano. All the kids had so much talent, it was amazing.

BBQ night is also part of the six day program and the kids love it, for three hours they are outside eating, listening to music, dancing and having a good time.

The relationships formed in six weeks was crazy. The kids were so sweet, they gave us all really cool presents from their home country. There were so many people crying when the kids left. The kids were upset, the counselors were upset. The kids didn't want to leave, we didn't want them to leave. They have been the best group so far! Tom, Sara, Jon and I just really had an unbelievably good time with these kids, and even though all the counselors were off in the afternoon we couldn't leave them, so stayed to say bye to each one. Once they left, we left and went to Burger King for dinner and then to see War of the Worlds. It was such a good movie. I think I have been seeing more movies here then when I lived in the states. The theaters are really nice, and you can choose to sit in regular chairs or on a couch. Well anywho, tomorrow is a new group! It is so weird to be out with the old and in with the new because you get to know the kids so well. This week is one of the E-Pal weeks so there will be kids from the states here for the next two weeks. The ones this week are from California, New York and Texas. I will update again once the first E-Pal week is over! I hope everyone is having a fun summer!

2005-07-02T23:07:00.000+03:00

Special Event's Night: Me, Stephanie and the Bulgarian's from our team!
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2005-07-02T22:58:00.000+03:00

Special Events Night Group Picture
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Second Team

2005-06-21T23:33:00.000+03:00

Hey Everyone!

Alright, as promised I am posting about my second team. They were a group of 11 kids from an american school in Beirut, Lebanon. I had a great team and really liked them and will miss them alot. They were an interesting group of kids and alot of fun. Many diffrent personalities, and they all had a great imagination and sense of humor. We won Mission Patch! Which is nice, there are only two team awards, one for mission and one for mission patch. I will try to post a picture of the mission patch tomorrow! So, I graduated my second team and was glad to see them go, but fear not, they are back! Out of nowhere they call a couple hours after leaving and missed their flight! So, they are back for the night and going crazy, but luckily enough the chaperones are doing hab duty tonight, which is hilarious because they are going crazy. So, I spent all week 24/7 with the kids and havent gone out for awhile, so hopefully will be going out tomorrow once the kids leave.... Again lol I should have another team this coming sunday. I will post again with pictures and info about them!
Well that is all for now, I will post more soon!

P.S. Margaret, the other ASA camper is on her way on Sunday! So another former space camper will be joining the ranks of the Space Camp Turkey Counselors this week!

--Matthew

Rhodes, Summer and More

2005-06-11T20:00:00.000+03:00

Hey Everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates! Since I last posted several things have happened. Three new counselors have arrived: Connie, Jon and Audrey. Connie arrived a little over a week ago, Audrey arrived this week and Jon just arrived today. Connie is from California, Jon is from Canada and Audrey is from California. Audrey and Connie are former Space Camp California Counselors.

Kaya Tuncer, the owner of Space Camp Turkey and the area it is located in, the Aegean Free Zone, took all the counselors, their buddies and alot of the staff out for dinner. It was a really nice restaurant that is also a winery. We all had a great time, so thanks to him for taking us all out!

Work has been pretty slow lately but is luckily about to pick back up. We have been mostly making copies of various things and getting ready for the summer program to start. Thankfully, the summer program starts on Sunday. I will be working support till Friday, I will get my own team after that! I am so excited about having a team again.

Margaret. a camper from ASA might be joining us as a counselor soon. She was hired, but they are having trouble booking her a ticket over. For some reason they can only use Turkish Airlines and not Lufthansa or Delta, and Turkish Airlines is all booked so she is on a waiting list. It would be great to have another ASA alumni here. Update: Just talked to her and she will be coming, but she might be here as soon as next week, but definitely on the third of July!!!

Rhodes! Last week we got some time off and went to the Greek island of Rhodes. To get there we took a bus down to southern Turkey to a city called Marmaris. Which was an amazing place, it was so much fun. We then took a ferry over to Rhodes. Rhodes was spectacular, with crystal clear water, beautiful beaches, and an amazing medieval city inside of a fortress! We walked around this fortress for about an hour and a half and then went through a dark tunnel to discover that there is a HUGE city inside, who knew? It was full of shops, restaurants, ATMs, everything. It is supposdly the oldest and largest medieval city still inhabited. It was crazy. While we were there, a movie called "Beyond Friendship" was being filmed. Check it out at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443448/

I will try to post more often, and will definitely post about my new team! I hope everyone is doing well! E-Mail me at mgd2i@mtsu.edu

2005-06-11T19:50:00.000+03:00

Space Camp Turkey group picture at dinner
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

2005-06-11T19:49:00.001+03:00

Chios Sunset
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2005-06-11T19:49:00.000+03:00

Me, Felicia and Stephanie in Chios eating Dinner
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

First Team, Chios

2005-05-30T15:46:00.000+03:00

Hey Everyone,

Alot has happend since I last wrote. I have finished training and received my first team last week. It was a two day program called OSA, Outer Space Adventure I think. They were a GREAT group of kids and so much fun. It was really odd being on the other side of things, being the counselor instead of the camper, but was really fun. They were all english speaking sixth, seventh and eigth graders from a school in Ankara.

Some of the other counselors have arrived since I last wrote. Sara, is a Camp counselor from Huntsville's Space Camp, Tom is a college student from Kansas. Darren is an NYU student who is from southern California. We have more counselors coming this week. Two weekends ago, the three counselors that were here, Me, Steph and Felicia went on a boat trip. It was the owner of the free zone's boat. It was very nice and alot of fun. We went to a place called Donkey Island, in which wild donkey's were there that we fed fruit, pretty odd but fun. We each have turkish buddies that are counselors for the turkish speaking programs that help us out around town and get us aquanited with the city. Two of our turkish buddies came on the trip, my buddy Ali and Steph's buddy Nurcon. (C is pronounced as J here so it sounds like Nearjohn) The new counselors are going on the boat this weekend. Beth and Bashar were also on the trip, Bashar is Beth's husband. Beth has been wanting me to write about her more in my blog, so here it is ;) We have been hanging out with the turkish counselors quite a bit, they are so much fun.

This past weekend Stephanie, Felicia and I went to the greek island of Chios. It was about two hours away. It was SO much fun. It is a beautiful island that has really nice people and alot to do. The night life was really fun and people are just out chilling next to the water through the night. Greek food is awesome.

The summer program starts on June 12th. It is really why we are here and I am looking forward to it starting. It will be great to meet all these people from all over the world. During the summer there is a week called EPAL week. During the school year students from California and students from Turkey do experiments with each other thru webcam, e-mail and phone calls. Then this summer they all meetup at Space Camp Turkey, to actually meet each other and get to work togethere in person. So during this week they wanted to have a special guest speaker, so I suggest the astronaut that I had talk at my high school's aerospace conference, sure enough they were good with it and he wanted to come so they are flying him over in July. It will be nice to see a familar Nashville face.

Sorry I have been slow on posting, I will try to post more. Also, in the next couple days I will post a bunch of pictures from my first team and from greece. I hope everyone is having a great summer, drop me a line at mgd2i@mtsu.edu

2005-05-17T23:17:00.000+03:00

me in the MMU
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

2005-05-17T23:16:00.000+03:00

Water!
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

2005-05-17T23:15:00.002+03:00

Flag
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

2005-05-17T23:15:00.001+03:00

Carriage!
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

2005-05-17T23:15:00.000+03:00

Atauruk Home
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

2005-05-17T23:14:00.000+03:00

Felicia in Space Suit
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

2005-05-17T23:13:00.000+03:00

Stephanie and Felecia
visit http://www.spacecampturkey.com

5--11--2005 Update

2005-05-17T22:41:00.000+03:00

Hey Everyone!

Alot has happend since I last posted. I have been going thru training since the day after I got here and it is going pretty well, ALOT more detailed then Huntsville. Everyone here is so nice, it's unbelivable. Friday, Yasin, Felicia and I went into the center of Izmir. We got to see many cool sites including the clock tower, churches, shops, and of course the sea side! We rode the bus, ferry and carriage to get around. We met up with Yasin's mom around lunch time, in which she insisted to pay on EVERYTHING we did, which is a turkish tradition. So that was really nice! I am going to try to post the pictures I have taken, which isnt that many on the bottom of this. I will try to take more soon. I have gotten to know Stephanie, Felicia (american counselors) and Gurhan, Yasin, Ali and Jay-Lan (turkish counselors, I have no Idea if I am spelling their name right!) really well and they are great people and alot of fun to work with, we are always laughing hysterically. Back to the Izmir trip, it started out with me, Yasin, and Felcia. We went to all the shops and touristy places and then met up with Ali and Stephanie around 7. Then we walked around at night and ended up at Jay-Lan's apartment later that night with her boyfriend, and two other friends. It was so much fun to just hang out with the turkish people and to experience their life. The camp kids we had this week have been really great, they are from Syria. I am shadowing their team inbetween training on the sims and history. No Mexican Wednesday! Food here is completley diffrent then US Camp of course, and is pretty good. Breakfast is mostly cereal, fruit, bread and tang. Lunch is something like spaghetti, pizza, chicken wraps, fruit, bread, and some sort of side like fried potatoes or something. Dinner is the same style as lunch. Well, I have my mid-term tomorrow and have to go study and then off to sleep!

--Matthew

Space Camp Turkey!!!

2005-05-12T22:22:00.000+03:00

Intro:

Space Camp Turkey! I am going to Space Camp Turkey from May 11^th to August 21^st. I attended US Space Camp as a camper for six years, in Huntsville Alabama. My last summer there I had Nathalie Yuen as a counselor, she worked at Space Camp Turkey a few summers ago and hearing about her experiences is what made me go! As most of you reading from Hab1.com know, Nathalie is one of the greatest counselors that camp has ever seen. I would like to thank all the people that have made my time at camp a great one! Special thanks to Nathalie Yuen, Jeremy Weaver, Tony Vitelli and Bill Bryant.

May 11^th:

This is my first blog entry, I will try to update it everyday! I started out today finishing packing and making my way to Nashville International Airport. I am now on my flight from Nashville to Chicago. My original flight was delayed and they put me on an earlier flight because I have an international connection. But, I’m worried that my luggage might have a better chance of being lost. They said they would make sure it was pulled and put onto this flight, but we shall see! I am very excited about this upcoming trip, I haven’t left the country since the New Year and It will be exciting to see some new sights and new faces. From Chicago to Istanbul I will be flying with another counselor from Space Camp Turkey who is from Kentucky, her name is Felicia. I called her last night and she seems pretty cool, as excited about this summer as I am! When I touch down in Istanbul I think I have to go thru customs there, but they said I won’t have to get my baggage till Izmir, so that’s cool. I am so excited about getting to Izmir, meeting up with Beth (our boss) and seeing the camp and the city and meeting all the people! I will have a private room while I’m there so that should be nice. I should have the internet in my room so I can keep in touch with you all! I will be posting many many pictures of the camp that will be available here and in the archive section of Hab1.com (Thanks to Vincent)! Well, we are about to land in Chicago (where I’m going to try to post this with their wireless internet), I will update again the night I get to Izmir! Eeek, I hope I packed everything.

Update: May 12^th

Alright, still haven’t slept yet but everything is going great! We (Felicia and I) made it to Istanbul and then to Izmir and then to Space Camp Turkey. The luggage was a couple hours behind us, but at least it got here! Everything here is really cool and everyone is amazingly nice. The kids are hilarious and treat us like celebrities asking for us to sign their hats and get in pictures with them. They are really fun. They are trying so hard to speak English! Felicia and I met up with another American counselor, Stephanie. She seems pretty cool but wasn’t around for long as she had other plans. They have a BBQ here once a week, and that was tonight, so that was a lot of fun and was when we got to interact with the kids a lot. It is an amazing city, we drove around it a bit and it is very modern and like most large European cities. The coast is beautiful, I can’t wait to go out there this weekend. The camp is very much a Space Camp and resembles a lot of Huntsville. You have all the same sims, the mocr, and the orbiter. There is a great energy running thru the camp, everyone is very excited. The founder of the Aegean Free Zone, where Space Camp Turkey is located came today (we found out he was actually on our flight.) He seemed to be a pretty cool and down to earth guy. Tomorrow we will be starting our training, we have been assigned many movies to watch including: October Sky, Space Camp, Apollo 13, Destiny In Space, and others! I think it will be a really fun summer. I am ready to get some sleep and get started! So, I will post tomorrow with more details about the camp and pictures!

E-Mail me at:mgd2i@mtsu.edu