2022 SDSU Turkey Trip

The first stop on our agenda today was at Tobb University. They have departments for medical science, politics, economics, and engineering. We also got to visit their medical lab. While at Tobb, we also listened to a lecture on Turkey’s political economy followed by lunch! After lunch, we visited a vet clinic. We found it interesting that students go to vet school right after high school, and that it’s a five year program. The veterinarians who run the clinic also hosted us at our farm visits in the afternoon. Today is my birthday and prior to leaving the clinic, I was surprised with birthday cake and candles! If there’s anything I’ve really noticed that stands out about Turkish citizens, is that they are so welcoming, and hospitality is something they take much pride in. Our first farm visit was at a 450 head Holstein dairy cow operation. We found dairy operations here are very similar to those in the U.S. While we were headed to our second dairy, which raised and milked Brown Swiss c...

After a long bus ride and only about 4 hours of sleep, we spent our first full day in Ankara by   visiting various museums, eating delicious food, and exploring some wonderful stores!  Our day started with a visit to Ankara University where we visited their Veterinary Science  Museum and their anatomy museum. The vet school was founded in 1842 during the Ottoman era  and was the first vet school in Turkey. The school was originally located in Istanbul before  it was relocated to Ankara. The museum was organized by vet school faculty in 2016 to display  and share the history of the school and of veterinary medicine as a whole. The anatomy  museum was super interesting as it displayed many different animals’ physical structures at  different life stages. There were elephant bones, fetal pigs, a stuffed tiger, an ostrich skeleton,  and a wild boar skull, just to name a few. One of the skeletons that I found very interesting was  a turk...

  As we enjoyed a more relaxed Sunday afternoon we cracked down Monday morning: we’re in the hotel lobby by 6:30am to catch the ferry boat at 7:30 that was taking us to Bursa. As we arrived in Bursa our first stop was an olive production farm. This is the largest cooperative that produces black olives instead of green olives. They have over 5 million olive trees, and they process olives for about 8 other cooperatives and 30 olive producers. This olive farm controls 1/3 of the black olive production and Germany is their top export market. The group was very surprised that the green tanks that the olives are held in can hold up 8 - 9 tons.  The tanks are over 10 feet deep. An interesting fact is that olives are harvested in November and at this production system there are 2 different ways to process the olives. They are either put into tanks where only salt and water are added and stay in these tanks for 6 months at room temperature, or the olives can stay in the tanks for 3 m...

Good evening from Istanbul! Today was a relaxing day.  Most of the day was "free time" for our students.  Several students took the Istanbul Metro to Galatea Tower, while the rest of the students spent the free time relaxing and shopping.  At 6:30 PM, we took a four hour cruise on the Bosphorus Strait on our own personal boat!  A wonderful dinner of fish or ribeye steak, plus appetizers and dessert, was served.  The view was incredible!!  It was exactly what we needed after several action packed days in Istanbul. Tomorrow we will wake up early to catch a ferry across the Sea of Marmara to Bursa.  After visiting Bursa, we will take a bus to Ankara in the evening, so our next blog post may be a little later than usual.  

Our fifth day was filled with adventure and learning about the vast history that lies within the city of Istanbul. We hopped on the metro and made our way to Sultanahmet one of the most historic neighborhoods in Istanbul. We received a guided tour of the Hagia Sophia the grand mosque constructed as a Christian church in 537 when the city was known as Constantinople. The church was converted into a mosque under Ottoman rule. We then continued with our guided tour to one of the largest cisterns (a large facility constructed to store water) that was constructed when the city was under Roman rule. This visit was followed by lunch at a local restaurant where we all had Turkish meatballs. We then proceeded to Topkapı Sarayı which was the palace where many of the Ottoman emperors lived during their reign. We got to walk through the halls, living quarters, bathrooms, and the throne room. It was incredible to see the sophisticated architecture and tile that covered the walls of the palace. ...

 We had a wonderful day full of traveling, shopping, and exploring. We started our day by going back to Altinbas University to listen to a professor of business and marketing speak about the current economy of Turkey. He talked about some of the similarities and differences between the United States and Turkey in terms of advertisements. He concluded his lesson with a discussion on whether sustainability can ever be achieved. Following this lecture, we made our way across Istanbul on a bus. After taking the bus we took a ferry to get to some islands called the Princess’ Islands.   This was a long ride on the ferry, but we had a good time talking and taking in the view. We stopped at one island before the biggest island to grab lunch. This was a great lunch where we got to try many different foods from spaghetti to hamburgers. Following lunch we split into groups and went to some shops around the island, and following this we headed back to the ferry.       ...

  Our third day started out with the metro (one of Istanbul’s major public transportation) to Bogazici University where we met with an Agriculture Economist Professor Gokhan Ozertan. We were able to learn a lot about Turkeys Agriculture economy and the different crops they grow. We saw many graphs that put their agricultural production into perspective. After our lecture we were led on a tour of the gorgeous Bogazici University by Dr. Evren Wiltse. We explored the city and got ice cream in Turkey! Then we took a bus up to where we were the first day and jumped on a ferry to get to Hasköy, Istanbul. We ate authentic food at Lala Lokantasi. Next stop in our agenda was Rahmi Koc Museum, a museum all about transportation. This museum had motors, boats, trains, cars, and more! There was even an exhibit that showcased different motors, with moving parts. Taksim Square was next! This square was all decorated for one of Turkey’s national holidays, called Youth Day (Ataturk Day). We the...