Gradventure Turkey – Part 1

Field work is easily my favorite part about being an academic. Even though academia has slowly moved away from the good old fashioned field work for the most part (while focusing on data analysis and building data sets), those of us studying Comparative Politics and International Relations are still expected to do field work. Fortunately for my dissertation project, I am relying on heavy field work spread across three countries to prove my hypothesis about the influence of bureaucracy on democratization efforts. My cases are Turkey, Pakistan, and Taiwan. Currently, I am working on Turkey and Pakistan. As a Taiwan Fellow for 2017, I will begin work on Taiwan in Fall 2017 after I move there as part of the fellowship for a semester.

Adnanventure 3: Pittsburgh

I am proud to announce that #Adnanventure is back again and this time around it is Pittsburgh. As I write this, I am waiting on the airport for my flight to Pittsburgh. This #Adnanventure is slightly different from others as this time around I will be attending work events most of the time and will be bring you the awesome experiences I have. As this is an election year, Adnanventure 3 will be heavy on political news and events. But as always, I will be trying to explore as much of the city as I can.

So far these are the places I have been told to definitely visit –

• Andy Warhol Museum
• Primantis Sandwich
• De Luca’s
• Beehive Coffee

I would love to get more suggestions. Leave them in the comments section

Stay tuned for updates.

AdnanVenture – Walking Washington DC

Capitol Selfie… Hazards of Travelling Alone

I travel not because I have to, for me it is something more. I took this trip/vacation not because I needed one; well I needed one, but because it is when you travel you get to know yourself better. I always saw travel as a means of improving yourself because it gives you testing conditions that your normal life does not. So from where I am sitting, travel is a great way to do a self evaluation and find stuff that can be better addressed in your life to improve the overall quality of your life. You throw yourself out there and make as many mistakes as it takes to get through a finite amount of period while trying to have fun and take things easy. It is a balance that you try to maintain throughout the period of time you are travelling. This Adnanevnture, as I like to call it, has been amazing from this point of view. I have learned so much about myself, about the places I have been visiting and the people I have been seeing.

Adnanventure – Doing Durham

The last 24 hours have gone something like this; I started out from Atlanta on MegaBus. Honestly I just chose that instead of flying or Amtrak because the ticket was 1 dollar. The bus took about 8 hours to get to Durham having made a stopover in Columbia, South Carolina. If you have the liberty of time, always take MegaBus. It is comfortable, it is cheap and the buses are in great condition.

The $300 Spring Break Project: Planning Spring Break on A Budget

Cause DC is like Cancun for Political Scientists

As spring break approaches, most people are planning their trips to get away from the grind of university life. Truthfully this time around, after the semester I have been having, this break is badly needed. I was going to do the touristy thing and just go to New York and do the touristy routine. But instead I am planning to do something totally different now. I am going to do a whole spring break i.e. 7 days, on a budget of $300. The target is to travel, stay at hotels, have three meals a day and sight see within the budget. 

Based on the concentration of my friends on the east coast, I am going to stay a couple of days in Durham/Raleigh in North Carolina and then move up to Fairfax, Va and Washington, DC for about 4 days of fun and discussions about politics and whatever else people talk about in DC. 

As I start out on this adventure, I would love to hear from all of you. All your ideas, suggestions, travel hacks and just good wishes.