Cappadocia made me feel that I was in a fairy tale

Hello guys,  welcome to my second blog. I am so glad that I can share with you all these experiences, these amazing moments from my journey , which are unforgettable.

I will tell you today about my wonderful trip to Cappadocia, a place that left me breathless, speechless and made me believe that dreams can come true.  In fact, I had never even dreamed of being here, I had only heard that this place existed but I never had the courage to believe that one day my feet would step on this magical land. The great adventure started in the morning, too early for me but not for the balloons that were already in the sky. We are in the city of Göreme, in Central Anatolia, a city that convinces you that you are somewhere far from everything that means reality. When you will look around, you will have the impression that you are dreaming, because everything around you is too beautiful for the reality in which we live. So actually what we can see around us it’s a landscape sculpted by erosion with a succession of mountain ridges, valleys and pinnacles known as “fairy chimneys” or hoodoos and for sure balloons, a lot of balloons. For a few tens of minutes we admired the enchanting landscape and after we went to the next location. 

And from the enchanting reality outside we thought we should get back on our feet, so we went practically underground, having the chance to visit the incredible Kaymakli Underground City, a place that let you to discover the world of civilizations before us. After that, we took courage and on our own feet we climbed  on the top of Uçhisar Castle, a place that offers you an incredible panorama of the surroundings. And finally, as Cappadocia is called ,,the land of beautiful horses”, we stopped at a horse farm where we could admire these beautiful creatures.  For sure, the day finished with an amazing sunset, personally the most beautiful that I have seen in my life, here so far away from my home and all my reality.

These were the main places that I wanted to share with you guys,  incredible locations that are worth to visit and which can offer you ,,fairy tale” moments.

Finally I just want to remember you a little thing : The chance to travel, to know new cultures and to discover people which are coming from different backgrounds, build us as human beings. Just have the courage and start on this path!

With love,

Anca Elena 

My amazing experience abroad

 

Hello guys, my name is Anca and I am from Romania.  In this blog I would like to share with you my experience until now in Turkey, Ankara being a volunteer at Iyaca, until now, for me personally, one of the best  organizations which I had the chance to work with. Maybe some of you will be wondering who I am and why I chose this organization? So, I will start to tell you a few things about me to get to know each other better, and then I will motivate my choices as well as my experience so far here. I am a young psychologist, 25 years old specialized in Forensic Psychology who loves to travel, to meet new people but especially to understand and to explore new traditions, cultures and the way other people from other parts of the world live their lives. I also think that having the chance to study psychology opened my eyes to understand the fact that not all of us live the same, not all of us think the same, but especially not all of us have a chance for a normal life. After all, what does a normal life mean? This answer can be so different from person to person, but for me it means especially that a person's basic needs are fully met (food, living conditions, tomorrow's safety). But every human being on this earth met these needs, so important for survival? Unfortunately, reality is not often the way we see it in movies or the way many of us live it. Outside of our reality there are children and people who don’t have even anything to eat on certain days, not to mention satisfactory living conditions or other factors so important for a healthy life. This is one of the reasons I am here with this program. Iyaca offered me the chance as a volunteer to be close to refugees (from different parts of the world, they came in Turkey, hoping in this way that they will have another chance for life, most of them came from areas like Syria, Iraq, where it is currently extremely difficult to live). Together with the volunteers from the organization, we managed every week to bring a little smile on some adults or children’s faces by preparing food packages and distributing them to those in need. Those moments when I am close to those souls are incredible and offer me an indescribable gratitude, as a human being. Helping, getting involved and knowing that this world needs our help a lot, makes us every day a little more "humans", gives us a real perspective of the life and gives us the opportunity to be with those which are facing unfavorable life situations. 

The organization also gave me the opportunity as a young person to learn about how this whole system funded  by EU works, what are the benefits and how can I get involved to achieve or contribute to such projects, created to improve the quality of life and  the progress of the environment in which we live. Iyaca gave me the opportunity to meet wonderful, open, funny people but also extremely professional and dedicated to their work, and this only makes me feel extremely lucky to have the chance to be part of this team, knowing that every day it gives me the opportunity to help my fellows, to form me as a young woman, but especially as a human. I hope you guys enjoyed my article, and until the next blog I just have a short advice: "Follow your dreams, be kind and be brave enough to be yourself all the time!"