Life Update #2

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with this as much as I'd like; it's been a busy few days.

Friday June 8^th, 2012: class, nothing too spectacular, just living the lifeJ

Saturday June 9^th, 2012: AHH THE HAGIA SOPHIA IS AWESOOOMMMEEEEE. The Topkapi Palace was a tad bit overrated, but still legit. Pictures don’t do either of them justice. They were both expensive (25 TL each, ouch) but worth it. We had lunch at a place that had been around since the 1920s, and that was pretty neat. Found out one of the girls in our class is going to be in Jax from July-Sept, so I hope to meet up with her when I’m back up at school. After our day on the Euro side, we went back to the dorms to grab overnight/next day stuff, and headed back to the euro side for a night out. On the ferry ride there, I saw two dolphins (Nihan flipped because it’s rare to see them, and this trip we’ve seen them twice!) and the sunset over the city was amazing, and two musicians started playing, and it was just one of those magical moments where life is just pretty freaking awesome. We had an interesting night at Urgher’s place, poor Ian sprained his ankle, but a good time was had by all.

Sunday, June 10^th, 2012- we slept in a bit, and then Ian and some others went back to the dorm (Ian bc he couldn’t really walk, the others to drop stuff off) and Kristen, Kyle, Emre and big Urgher started the trip to the islands. On the busride over the Bosporus (there are two bridges connecting the city, and you can take the ferries too), traffic was stopped for a bike race. That was fun. Then while we waited for the others by the ferry, we got cheesy toast and fresh squeezed oj as a brunch. Yummy. The others caught up, and we headed out on the 45 min ferry ride. Istanbul is just awe inspiring, how huge it is, and how blue the water is too. The islands in Greece were nicer to swim in, because this one was a hike and 13.50 TL to get to the beach, but the water was icy cold and refreshing. It was sharp rocks and seaweed, but clear and blue and cold too. Made seeing the jellyfish an adventure, to be sure. We splashed around for a bit (we got to the island 1ish, but not to the beach until 2ish) and then laid out, and then got some food because we were ravenous. This was the most Greekish food I’d had yet, and it was yummyJ Expensive, bc it was an island, but yummy. The ferry ride back was peaceful, Istanbul is crazy to look at, and then we pretty much just all chilled in the study room uploading pictures to FB. I got to Skype with my good friend O, and chat with my momma, so those made me happy too. All in all, pretty nice weekendJ

Monday, June 11, 2012: Class was ok today. We had two guest profs, a guy and a girl, and they were both a little condescending. The guy mostly talked about history, which we’d mostly heard before, and the girl talked about the Turkish political system, which is way different than America’s. I was interested in that, but not everyone else was, so there were lots of dozing people. Came back to the dorm and typed this up, and now it’s study/review time for our final exam tomorrow! After the final, we have a trip to Cannakle on Wednesday, and idk how the internet will be over there. But the plan is leave for Cannakle wed, tour stuff thurs, idk fri and sat, and then leave Sunday and get back to Yeditpepe at night. Then Monday, we have a few last sightseeing things in Istanbul (maiden’s tower and the Galata tower I think) and Tuesday our plane leaves the airport at 6:30 am, so we probably need to leave the uni at around 3 am. Yuckkkyyy. I can sleep when I’m dead, though, right? :)

Hugs and kisses to everyone I love and miss!!! <3

Life update!

Whoops, haven't been able to update as regularly as I'd have liked, so here goes a quick summary of what's been going on lately:)

Tuesday, June 5^th, 2012

Class, lunch break where we went off campus and got really good chicken, rice, and bean mix, class, tiny bit of chill time, and then our friend from class, Hasancan (pronounced Hass-on-john) had the 6 of us over at his apartment for dinner and hang out time. Can (pronounced john) from class was also there, and their friend (I don’t have the right letters to spell his name) not from class also came. It was nice, and the view of the sunset was amazinngggg, and Hasan can cook good tooJ. What was not so nice is that we totally got ripped off for our laundry. We decided to try it out, because we all brought the wrong sort of clothes, and our jeans badly needed washing. The guy totally over charged us, so we’re pretty much not going to do anymore laundry (but Hasan’s friend has a machine he offered to let us use, and he lives pretty close by I think, so that’s super nice of him) unless absolutely needed. We’re wearing shorts around campus now, and not really caring as much, but out and about it’s still better to have more clothes on.

Wednesday, June 6^th, 2012

Class was interesting again, the differences in culture, location, and religion and how those all interplay into interpretations of history are fascinating to me. The morning session was lecture, and in the break we had group work to go over the Johnson/Inonu letters of 1964 (they are about the Cyprus crisis). The people in my group were pretty nice; after we were done with the assignment we just talked about Turkish v American culture, and it was super interesting. In the afternoon, we had a class discussion about the letters (both the am and pm sessions were led by Feroz Ahmed, the textbook author who spoke earlier in the week). After class, Hassancan (pronounced Has-an-john), Ugher (spelled that totally wrong, but it’s pronounced Oar but with a longerish O sound) and a kid I can’t remember the name of took us out to the main fancy shopping place this side of the city (about 30 minutes by car. Some were in a taxi, the 4 girls went in a car driven by the kid whose name I can’t remember). We just walked around, it was pretty, very much like Aghia Paraskevi, and we wandered down by the water eventually. The water was not swimmable (to gross, the color is beeeyooouuuttteeefull, but there is too much nasty stuff in it, and there isn’t really a beach), sadface, and then we wandered back. Hassan wanted us to get these special burgers, but they were like 20 TL each so we were all like nah, let’s just eat at school. So we all came back, and I went and puked while the others went to dinner and then Hassan’s apartment. I’m kinda a little bit (by a little bit, I mean almost deathly) ill, and not really feeling up to doing much of anything. :/ Also, my atm card has decided not to work in Turkish atms (so far, I’ve tried 4 different brands) and so running out of cash is a very real concern. Luckily, I have a nice roommate who will lend me some, if my card doesn’t start working. I bought francs, euros, and usd for the layovers, so I was able to convert that to tl and not be completely broke, but unless my card starts to work people back home probably aren’t going to be getting anything awesome from Turkey:/

Thursday June 7, 2012

Class today was another interesting one. The guest lecturer was Turkish, but attended/taught at 6 american universities, so his English was excellent and he had some interesting points. The afternoon time was about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, another interesting subject. I’m still sickly, like Peru bad, which is saving me money because I don’t want to eat lol, but it sucks to be epic sick when I don’t have a lot of time here. I got to skype with my mom and O, and it was niceJ Now I’m chilling out in the study area, with the sucky wifi (start wifi rant: IT IS THE YEAR OF OUR GOOD LORD TWENTY FREAKING TWELVE, AND RELIABLE WIFI SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD TO COME BY/end rant), working on my homework.

Miss and love to my family and friends! xoxoxo

First day of school! First day of school! (to be read in Nemo's voice)

Monday, June 4th, 2012

Before I get to the school stuff, I wanna blog about some not-so fun parts. On the hall with us are some kind of post high pre college program kids, and it appears that they enjoy running marathons in the hallway all night long. They run, scream, bang on all the doors (including ours, not just theirs) and laugh at us when we tell them to be quiet. It’s been 4 nights of obnoxious rambunctious-ness, and we’re all tired of being tired. The walls are thin enough already (we can hear music playing in each other’s dorms when it’s at a normal level) and the doors are see through, so the hallway lights shine in, but they’re motion sensor (and a sensitive motion sensor), so it’s more like a strobe light most of the time. The other not so fun thing is that my and J’s room got broken into. It was 6:30 in the morning, and we were sleeping. There was someone at our door, trying to get the key to work. At first we thought it was one of the kids, or a drunk trying to get into the wrong dorm, but he wouldn’t stop, and eventually the door opened. He walked in, and then walked out. I thought I was dreaming this, but J, being the smart adrenaline filled one, got up after he walked out and looked at him. He was wearing normal clothes, not a cleaning crew uniform or the security guard uniform, and he was walking down the hallway.  Supposedly, they have the security at the front of the dorm to prevent non students from getting in, but obviously he got in somehow. That he key eventually opened our door is super sketchy too. I have all of my cash, electronics, and important documents with me at all times now, because I don’t trust the door. We tried to tell security on our way to class, but idt they took it seriously. We told Nihan, and I hope she handles it. If I get kidnapped and sold into the sex trade, have the cops look at the security tapes from this morning, because it was probably the creeper who entered my room.

Moving on, school today was pretty interesting. We met Nihan at 9:45 so she could show us where our classroom was (up 8 flights of stairs. Idk why the buildings are so tall when there are earthquakes all the time, but anyway) and our professor is the adorable grandpa looking guy with an awesome accent. We had a guest lecturer, Feroz Ahmad, who wrote one of the books we had to read before we got here. He’s originally an Indian Muslim, but he lived in the US for 40 years, and then moved here a while ago, and now bounces back and forth between the US and Turkey. The morning session was a hour or so of him talking (mostly the same stuff from the first few chapters of his book) and then it moved into a Q&A session. Then it was lunchtime, where we all (the unf kids, the yeditpe students, and the two profs) went to the nice restaurant on campus. It was my biggest meal in like a week, and it was probably the best food I’ve had yet. We started off with a salad thing (carrots, shredded cheese, corn, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and what I’m pretty sure were beets, (hey O! I finally had a beet, I think! Lol) then a soup which I thought was lemon soup, but was actually lentil. (Sadface, Michelle. I miss greek soup!) But it was still good. Then the main dish was like meatloaf, but not really, and then a grain which turned out to be boiled wheat. It was mixed with veggies and hot sauce (like usual) but it was still edible. Dessert we had a few choices- baklava, some super thick pudding thing, sugar bread, banana crepe thing, and something kinda like flan. I went with the flan thing, but it was too much and I was pretty full so I only had a little bit. I even managed to drink half of the chi (the post meal tea that everyone drinks. It’s either that, or the super intense coffee, which I just can’t handle. One sip one time is plentyyyyy for that).

After our lunch, we had another class session, and this time it was pretty straight Q&A, but the answers were a solid 15-30 minutes long, so it didn’t really feel like a normal q&a. There were some interesting viewpoints about the Armenian genocide/disaster/displacement, the PKK, and freedom of speech that were completely different than my personal ones. I can tell that I’m going to learn just as much from the profs as I will from the students, about culture and the way history is viewed and just lifestyle differences. I talked to two during lunch, and they were friendly, nice, open, and interesting, so I hope the class goes well.

It’s about 5:30 here, everyone is super tired from not getting adequate rest, we may go to Cotla for dinner or stay on campus. I’m still super full from lunch though, so idk. Shout-out to my Daddy, today is his birthday!! I was able to sing to him yesterday via Skype, but I’m kinda bummed I don’t get to tell him on his actual day. <3

Love to everyone! 

Crazy shenanigans followed by a lazy day:

Sunday June 3rd

Um, last night was kinda completely not what I normally do and way out of my comfort zone. We went to the European side and went to bars and a gypsy club and stayed out until 5:15 in the morning and saw the sunrise on our hour and half long trip back to uni. The mission of my roommate is to get me wasted, but I'm pretty sure she won't succeed, unless she like drugs me or something extreme. Um, I slept till noon, got up, came down to the study area, and worked on uploading pictures. My laptop still hates Turkey. I want to skype people back home, because I miss them and am not doing anything today except finishing homework for class and finding food at some point. It's 3 pm here and I would like to go to bed early tonight because it's the first day of school tomorrow, but if someone *coughMomKellyOlesya* can skype, I'm down with staying up later:)

Crisscrossing continents

Day 3: June 2nd

Well, we didn’t actually get to see the Hagia Sophia. Sadface. I still love the city though. We left the dorms at 8:30 and went wayyy uphill (fav quote: I did not sign up for the freaking stairmaster at the freaking 18000 difficulty level!) and then down the street to Cotla, the café we had dinner at yesterday. They have free but sketchy wifi, but super nice service. They don’t speak much English, and we don’t speak enough Turkish, but we smile and they smile and eventually we figure each other out. I got menemen, which is wayyy out of my comfort zone food wise. It’s tomato based, with peppers, scrambled eggs, and cheese. It tastes better on bread. We met Nihan at 10:30 by the library, and took a Yeditepe bus down to the European side. It took about an hour. First we went to an underground citadel bathouse thing that was super old and creepy/cool. The columns were Ionic and doric, and there were fish chilling around. The famous part is the two medusa heads, there are a bunch of stories on why they are there. Pretty legit, but idk if it was worth the 10 TL. After that, we walked by the Hagia Sophia, but the line was insane so we decided to try again later. We then tried to go to the Blue Mosque, but it was closed to visitors because it was praying time. So we went to the Grand Bazaar. Holy cow. Insanity. Massively huge. I got some evil eye stuff for presents for people back home, and a lot of the stuff looked cool but you could tell it was mostly for tourists, and so so quality. We grabbed lunch around 2ish at a small place right outside the bazaar. I’m going to go on a food rant real quick, hold on. Honestly menemen is not my thing. The ravioli thing yesterday was interesting in a “I’d rather not have that again, because Greek yogurt and pasta is an odd combo” sort of way. The food looks Greek, but Greek food is sooooo much better in my opinion. For lunch today, classic pita with skewered chicken, should be delish, right? Nope, because the Turkish way to cook it involves like 10 gallons of Tabasco sauce, and I think mild salsa is spicy. But it looookkkksssss like it should taste amazeballs, and then it’s super spicy, and I’m just like urggggghhhh. But the pita was awesomeJ After that, we walked around Istanbul back to the Blue Mosque, and were able to get inside it this time. Amazing. Stunning. Wow. We had to take off our shoes, and they provided scarfs for us to wear, and we were quiet and respectful of the people praying. The intricate designs and stained glass windows were beeeyyyooouuuttteeefuuuullll. After that, we walked around the city more, and didn’t go to the Hagia Sophia because we had to meet the bus at 4pm and we didn’t want to rush through it. So we wandered and enjoyed the city. The bus ride back took an hour and halfish, traffic was insane. Our driver at one point backed up, angrily cussed someone out, and then passed them on the outside of the road. The driving here is crazy, like Lima and Athens. Buttt, there is tons of cellphone usage, unlike Athens.

The weather here is gorgeous. It would be perfect if shorts weren’t such a no-no. It’s like low/mid 70s (but walking around for miles, and the lack of breezes in the heart of the city) make it too warm for jeans to be comfy. I don’t get how everyone doesn’t die of heatstroke, because most people are in long sleeved tops and long pants. The full burkas are a pretty light material, but some of the men are in very warm outfits. The straights and the golden horn are so pretty, pictures don’t do it justice. Hopping back and forth between Europe and Asia is just mind blowing.

Tonight, we are leaving the dorms at 8, taking the bus (our first time getting on without Nihan) and meeting Nihan at 9 by the ferries to go out. Should be interesting…

Xoxo to infinity and beyond! 

Turkey Day 2, Friday June 1^st 2012

Jamie and I went to bed around 9:30/10, wide awake but super tired at the same time. Jamie said she slept ok, I on the other hand woke up a bunnnccchhh. There were strange noises, a squeaky bed, and general unfamiliarity to keep me from sleeping well. The other two dorm of students knocked on our door at about 8:30 to see if we wanted to go to breakfast in the cafeteria place. At first I wasn’t going to go, but then I realized there was little chance of me falling back asleep, and I was hungry, so might as well. Jamie stayed to sleep some more. The five of us went to the place where we first ate yesterday, on campus. Kinda a cafeteria type of deal. This time, though, we didn’t have Nihan, our fantastical guide/aide/student assistant/life saver with us, there wasn’t a menu on the counter, and there didn’t appear to be any American/international students (yesterday at lunch/dinner/whatever meal it was) there was a large amount of very nice students who were very willing to help the new kids out. This morning, there were like 4 other people in the whole place. Sooo, the other 4 got coffee, and I was brave and adventurous and went for a bagel looking thing. The girl in front of me had just picked it up and paid, so that’s what I did too. It was super similar to what was in Greece(I’m like 99.99% sure it’s exactly the same, but the Turks and the Greeks would disagree), but basically a super skinny bagel that was made with sesame flour and covered in sesame seeds. Dry, but good. We sat out on the porch, and a fellow American found us shortly after we sat down. She’s not a student here, but her fiancé is, and she’s staying with some friends of hers for the summer. She seemed nice, and we all bonded over the challenges of the Turkish language (seriously, the words sound COMPLETELY different than what they look like they should sound like, if that makes any sense). I went back to the dorm so Jamie wasn’t alone, and the other 4 went off campus to find some foodstuffs. Jamie and I got ready and went to the on campus bookshop to see if they had Ethernet cords, but they didn’t. (the dorm we’re in didn’t come with one, and there is no wifi in the dorms. That’s maybe driving me kind of insane). However, we found a little grocery shop store and a clothes store on campus, which is pretty neat. We hung out on campus for a little while, trying to use the internet while we could, and ran into Nihan on our way back to the dorm.

We met up with the others back at the dorm, and had an AWESOME afternoon. We took a (long and bumpy) bus ride and the city is sooooo cool. Mosques everywhere, random wells, crazy traffic, small stores with apartments towering over them, more or less your typical overcrowded developing city. After the bus ride, we took a ferry across the Bosporus (!!!!!!!!) to the European side of the city. Istanbul is divided into the European and Asian sides, and Yeditepe is on the outskirts-ish of the Asian side. The views on the ferry were awe inspiring. Words just don’t describe how BIG Istanbul is. Blows NYC and Athens out of the water, in my humble opinion. We actually saw a dolphin on our way, and that totally made my day because they’re one of my favorite animals of all time (along with giraffes, elephants, belugas, and of course unicorns) and Nihan says they’re pretty rare in the straights so we were lucky to see it. From the water, minarets spike out every few blocks, and the building rise and fall steeply and suddenly. Istanbul is much, much steeper than Athens, if that’s possible to believe friends in/who’ve been to Greece. We saw some cool sites from the water, but we’re actually going to be touring them in the next couple of days, so that will be awesome.

Once we made it to the European side, we walked all around the city. We went around a spice bazaar, a mini bazaar, had legit Turkish coffee (O, you would probably explode into little beans of coffee and rainbows because of how happy you’d be with all the coffee. I’m pretty sure you’d never leave, you’d be so hooked on the coffee). I didn’t enjoy it, because it is like COFFEE coffee and I don’t really like coffee to start with, but the other students liked it, and the fortune telling with the grounds was cool. We just walked and walked pretty much, up and down, and I feel like we only saw a small fraction of the city. We wandered into an Algerian corner (that used to be the French section) and we wandered the hugeeeee shopping area that is part of the ‘heart of Istanbul’ (idk if I believe that though). We got lunch at a place Neehan said was good, and like yesterday the food was a tiny bit off from what I was expecting (yesterday, it looked so Greek, but tasted so spicy. Pretty much the same food, just prepared differently and with different side items). This time, Nihan recommended some sort of tortellini pasta dish, which was interesting because it came covered in what was more or less Greek yogurt (tastes like sour cream, kinda tart). An adjustment for pasta lol. Other people got ‘pancakes’ which were stuffed with either spinach or potato, but had a spicy kick too. Greek people- think like the crepes in platka, but the dough was a lot thinner and drier, and the actual dish was served on a cutting board, you didn’t eat it like a sandwich. After eating, we walked around more and more, and saw some amazing city views, from the top of a smallish hill and from the top of some semi famous café place that let us stand up at the top (after like 10 flights of stairs) for 5 minutes. Beeeeyyooouuuuuttteeefuuullll. Then we made the walk back to the ferry, and took the bus back to Yeditepe. The ferry was about 25/30 minutes, and the busride is about 50/60 minutes. I think we are going to go grab dinner soon, and head to bed shortly after. We have a busy, exciting day tomorrow, with the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, and some other really really realllyyyy neat things! J

Day 1: A 28 hour day (so far)

Hi there! My name's Katie, and I'm a college student studying abroad in Istanbul, Turkey, for 3 weeks. Here's the start of my adventure:)

I left my house with my parents a little after 8 am on Wednesday. We made the drive up to Jax and met one of my best friends for a pre departure breakfast. Cracker Barrel french toast is the shizzz man, and it was a nice peace out America thing. Made it to the airport, and awkwardly waited for the other students to arrive. I hadn't met them before, so eventually I gave up and went through security solo. They always find something to double check, and this time it was my right pocket andddd I got bomb residue tested. Yay TSA!

In DC the departure gate was right across from the arrival gate, so that was super nice. There was an adorable family who ended up traveling the whole way with us, the mom and dad were native turks and the kids (13 and 5?) were awesome. They were super nice and helpful. The DC flight left at 5:45. on time, and I tried and failed to sleep. Weird times, and super turbulence. We made it to Zurich an hour early, which was nice because we had no idea where to go, so the extra time cushion was good. Even though it was 7:30/8 am Swiss time, it was 1:30/2 on our body clocks and we wanted to sleeeeppp. Zurich was a sleek airport, very European feeling, and this time I got patted down by security. Legit pulled aside hands all over patted down. Ahh well. The flight from zurich to Istanbul went off without a hitch, dozed a bit but I am a zombie right now.

Getting through Visa control in Istanbul took patience and $20, and then getting through passport control took even more patience. Good thing we were too tired to care too much. We found our student TA person, and hoped on a uni bus. The ride was an hour and half ish to the uni from the airport (due to the airport being on the Europe side and the uni being on the Asian side) and unfortuantly I did not have my camera to document some of the really cool things we saw on the way (straights of Bosporus, anyone?) . We got to the school, and got keys for our dorm room. They're making an excpetion for us, and letting the girls stay in the traditionally male dorm next to our guys. It's summer and we're american, so the cultural taboo is slightly lessened. The shower is JUST like the Mykonos shower, for better and mostly worse lol. However, the uni is beeeyooouuutteeful, and I put pictures up on FB:)

That's all I have for now, it's been a loonngggg 28 (almost 29 hours now, as it's almost one in the states of the day after I left), and I'm going to shower and pass out. Love to my family and friends all across the world:)