Day 123 to 125 in Edirne (Turkey)
Edirne was my first experience of Turkish hospitality and I must say I was truly impressed by it! My host turned out to be this really nice guy and we had loads of fun together. The culture IS pretty different here, you can really feel that it is a Muslim country much more than any place I have visited before this, and this has both bad and good sides. The good sides is clearly the hospitality and that you feel extremely safe. The bad side is that it is quite segregated between men and women. It is also a place where your social network practically dictates who you are. The more people you know the easier things are… coming as a stranger to a new place is quite difficult here… but once you know a few people it is easy to expand this network.
If you ask a stranger on the street about directions they will look suspiciously… but if you I have said hi to their aunt’s uncle’s friend’s hairdresser at one time then you are their best friend and they will do anything for you… 🙂
A pub in Edirne… I thought it was funny because of the “since 2009” sign 🙂
Me, my host and one of his friends (who I later met up with in Istanbul too!)
Hanging out in a bar (yea… as I said… not too many girls around here…) 😉
Visiting a mosque (quite cool actually!)
Me and my host!
Holding a lecture about couchsurfing 🙂
Some pics of the students…
He he! Welcome to the middle eastern culture my friend!! 🙂
EDİRNE is one of the most modern cities in TURKEY.If you say here is a quite segregation between men and women,you’ve never known what the meaning it is…:)ıf you felt this segration this is not the problem of edirne:):)ı don’t wanna be rude but people read your writings and now they think edirne according to writings…ı dont know the circumstances in europe or any other country,but in my country there are so many cities where no working women is,or no right to say something.Edirne is in west of Turkey and in Edirne there is no difference between men&women.