This is Arca, and for the first time in a long time, I have some bad news. Stefan Karl Stefansonn, the Icelandic actor aged 43, has just died of cancer.  He spent most of his life as an actor, in some way or another. After staring out early on with theater, he eventually moved on to movies and television roles. His most famous role, and the one that you probably recognize him for, is his role in the children's show Lazy Town.  I personally, as a child growing up in the mid-2000s, have plenty of memories of me spending my days indirectly with him. Not that he was actually with me, of course; My kindergarten days were of a pre-iPhone era, before the preschoolers of the world entertained themselves by means of staring at an iPad screen and being brainwashed by YouTube "nursery rhymes" (actually strange bootleg, kinda creepy content in disguise). Instead, in the years following my ability to speak, walk, and talk, I entertained myself the old-fashioned way: By watching TV. My...

This post will be a summary of weeks 1 and 2 of my annual vacation in Turkey. My family is completely Turkish, and while I live in the northeastern US, I do pay them a visit them every year. This visit, while it has varied slightly over the course of 13 years, is usually in the same format: One week visiting my mom's side in Ankara, one week visiting my dad's side in Bursa and Yalova, and one week just chilling in the Mediterranean Sea, at a beach resort in Antalya or Bodrum. My trips do vary slightly from this format in terms of whether it is just one week or two per location, and the order of places can vary chronologically, but other than that, this years trip is just like that.  In my three-year tradition of journaling my Turkish travels, this time, since I didn't have enough photos to show for week one (Ankara), I have combined weeks one and two into one post, for your viewing convenience. Week three, which I just started yesterday, will be uploaded at lea...

Hello, this is Arca, and while you are reading this right now, I am in Turkey. Long-time fans of my blog, or anyone who knows me personally, is familiar with the fact that every summer, I go on vacation to Turkey for around three weeks to visit my family and go to the beach. Seeing as I have around three weeks, a decent chunk of which I will be sitting around doing nothing, I decided to not put my time (and WiFi) to waste. To make the most of the summer I have left, I will try to continue to blog as much as possible, even in Turkey. Of course, it won't be as frequent or detailed, but I will try my best to post a few times a week. My blog will still be about my regular post topics, but this time, I will also make a post at the end of each week discussing what I did in Turkey that week. This week, so far, I am in Ankara (the capital of Turkey), and I happened to meet a famous Turkish journalist woman named Ayşe Arman. My mom recognized her at the New York airport, and immedi...