I went to Turkey in 2013 with my Turkish teacher and my four friends. Turkey was turning from winter into spring. The temperature average was about 10 Celsius. As an Indonesian, I was dying there, LOL.
Istanbul was the first place. That gorgeous city was adorable! Blue-mosque, Hagia Sofia, bubblegum-like ice cream, and the people. People? Yes, they were really welcome with us, or maybe it because we are Asian (?), Turkish people love Asian btw, they were crazy at us.
There is a funny story when we were in Istanbul. We were going to pray, so we came to a mosque in the center of city. Birds flew and assembled just at the road in front of the mosque. We five were tacky for something like this. We ran through the birds trying to disturbed it.
We finished our spiritual duty, put on our shoes, and came out from the same gate. The birds were still there, so I run trough it, made them fly. There was an old lady who immediately screaming to me, put off her shoe and wanted hitting my friend -she thought that he was me. My teacher blocked her way, and plead.
I consider it is a moral story. I come up with if you are a guest, so act like a guest, if you are a host, so act like a host. I went to Turkey only for 10 days, means I was a guest. A respectful guest is someone who able act appropriate in front of the host and keep the host does something properly. I was tacky about that bird thing, and did not recognize there was an old lady sat on a park bench feeding the birds. Sorry, Ma'am.
We found that snow at the top of a mountain in Bursa, I really miss that place, that was my first time I see snow. Like what Demi Lovato said, the cold doesn't bothered me anyway. It was 4 Celsius, but when we threw snowball to each other, we just forgot if our hands got freezing. My teacher meanly put snow inside my clothe. I was wearing long-coat, I could just jumping and whipping my coat because of it.
What I learn in Turkey is something that I will not find in Indonesia. Turkish men are really respecting women, every single bus which I ride, I never saw a woman standing, no-matter she is pregnant, with disabilities, elderly, or not, men always offer their sit place.
I met with lots of good people, included my teacher's family. That family was treating me like we were one of them. His nephew -in the same age- just like our best friend for a couple days. We tried to keep in touch with him, but Turkish people are not good in English, so we had a language problem.
If I had money, I would spend it for an Europe trip and I would go to Turkey.