Dear diary,
American rock musician and singer Henry Rollins said once, “No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time. All you got is life time. Go”.
We appeared not just strongly believe his words, but follow them unconditionally, and this is how we describe our “free time” within EVS project. You know, some of us claim that one can be truly happy when they don’t divide their time into working hours and free time, weekdays and weekend, working year and vacation. If you live your life as a one continuous piece and enjoy each second of it, it means you are a happy human being. Take it from us!
So, this is the way we, EVS volunteers in Bodrum, spend our free time: we are making it a part of our life time, enriching it with unique experiences and taking just the best of it. Have you ever watched Rick Mereki’s trilogy of minute-long films “Move, eat, learn”? If not, we strongly recommend you to do it ASAP. Basically, we try to follow this motto while spending our free time during the project.
MOVE
We travel. We travel as much as we can. In three months of the project we managed to visit such cities of Turkey as Mugla, Izmir, Istanbul, Ankara, Adana, Gaziantep, and Antakya. Surely, we want to travel even more, and maybe even outside the country. Turkey is located in a strategic geographical place, and it’s easy to access Europe or Middle East from here. So it’s just the matter of time – new travels await for us!
We literally move. Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday we start with hot pilates session filling us with energy and positivity for the rest of the day. Some of us also try to do jogging in the mornings, but that’s the whole other story 🙂
We try to visit new places around us. Bodrum is a touristic city, and there’re many things to discover and explore. On weekends we don’t miss a chance to visit Bodrum bays, go to the seaside or go and find a café serving the best Turkish tea in town.
EAT
Oh, we eat a lot! Our only hope not to gain wait is actually pilates 🙂 First of all, there are a lot of unfamiliar and stranger desserts in Turkey, so we have already managed to check out almost all of them, and it was worth it!
Apart of enjoying Turkish tea and coffee we also tried raki – traditional Turkish strong beverage. It’s very specific and may seem a medicine for unprepared people as it’s based on anise. More than the drink itself we liked “raki table” – a special way of drinking it with delicious meze (appetizers), fish and in a company of precious people.
We also have our own food preferences now: Lucia loves sarma – a dish of chard leaves rolled around a filling usually based on a combination of grains, like bulgur or rice. Arina is in love with Eastern Turkey cuisine: her top are katmer (delicious crunchy pancakes with pistachios and clotted cream) and Adana kebab (specially cooked kebab originating in Adana).
LEARN
EVS is already about learning. “Learning by doing” – this is the motto of this program. Where to find us when we’re not at the office and not doing things from our working schedule? Lucia is most likely to be watching tutorials on website design, video making, or outside taking professional pictures with her camera, or with a book learning English or Turkish. Arina is probably playing the piano or the guitar, or learning German, or sewing a new piece of clothes. These activities that we’ve mentioned we never did before, or did, but a long-long time ago. EVS helped us start over or find new hobbies. And guys, this is the best.
Spend your free time wisely, be choosy and learn what you can do with it. That’ll make you happy.