Portland State Magazine Spring 2014

22 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2014 Life will never be the same for study abroad student Seth O’Malley. ON A WARM NIGHT this past January, 22-year-old Seth O’Malley walked across the border from Bulgaria into Serbia. O’Malley, a Portland State student, was hitchhiking through Europe from Turkey with a friend, and while they had a rough idea of when they would get to their final destination— Prague, where his traveling companion teaches English—they left the other details of the journey open to chance. The sky was clear but it was pitch black in the Serbian countryside, and O’Malley’s friend became nervous. After spending the past five months studying abroad and traveling throughout Turkey, O’Malley had learned to be comfortable with uncertainty. “I was just so glad to be standing on the side of the road in Serbia, drinking plum brandy and waving at truckers to stop and give us a ride,” says O’Malley. “I told him, ‘Maybe we won’t catch a ride tonight.’ And we didn’t. But I was just happy to be there. Just like the rest of the trip, it was more of an excuse to be in these deeply special places and in these circumstances that otherwise, I had no reason to be in.” The next day they hopped a bus to Belgrade, Serbia, and 556 miles later parted ways in Prague. The circumstance that brought O’Malley, an applied lin- guistics senior, to Turkey in September was the opportunity to study abroad for a semester at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, a prestigious and rigorous university referred to locally as the Harvard of Turkey. He took classes in Turkish and linguistics that deepened his fluency in the language, but of equal impor- tance was the chance to immerse himself fully in an unfamiliar culture, live as authentic a life as possible during his stay, and rid himself of biases or preconceptions. “I came to Turkey to experience something that was totally different, that would challenge me,” he says. His living situation supported that goal. Rather than staying in the university dorms, O’Malley opted to live with two Istanbul locals, sleeping on a futon in their living room. While both of his roommates were friendly and welcoming, he became particularly close to Ruşen Filiztek, a Kurdish musician who was also in his early 20s. Filiztek took him to Kurdish music concerts and invited him out with his friends. O’Malley didn’t always understand the conversations around him and at times felt conspicuous as the only blonde person in a room, but he was glad to be included in Filiztek’s circle. “Ruşen was just a really easy person to like, always the life of the party when we were hanging out eating meze at bars with friends,” says O’Malley Together the two traveled to southeastern Turkey, where Filiztek was performing traditional Kurdish music. They visited Hasankeyf, an ancient town on the Tigris River that WR I T T E N B Y HEATHE R QU I NN - BORK Investing in a new worldview Alumna Theresa Farrens and her husband, Bill, find traveling a valuable experience. They started a new scholarship for PSU students studying abroad that supported Seth O’Malley. TURKEY BLACK SEA BULGARIA SERBIA MARDIN, TURKEY ISTANBUL TURKEY