Note to the readers: I wrote this entry initially on Wednesday, and reading it over, almost decided not to post it. I'd prefer this blog to be more positive, but then I thought that it'd be unfair of me to mask the negative aspects of this experience, especially for those of you who are reading about my adventures who are potentially planning on coming here. Another thought was that I didn't want to get too personal; some of you who read this blog know me better than others. But again, I like to be honest, and I think it's important to record what's going on in my head, good or bad.
Second note to the readers: Important names you should know - Russ (my boyfriend, my other half, the love of my life, etc. We've been together 5 years and he is at home in California holding down the fort while I'm off gallivanting in Istanbul); Stephanie (my best friend of 18 years; she lives in VA, happily married to Karl, one son, Caleb, and expecting her daughter any day now)
That being said...
Today marks my three week anniversary of arriving in Istanbul. It's a bit hard for me to believe now how scared and anxious I was 21 days ago, touching down in Ataturk Airport, not quite ready to face this exciting new country and culture, and yet here I am. I've navigated the ins and outs of the Istanbul public transportation system, have heartily sampled Turkish cuisine, have tried rakı, have smoked the nargile, played a game of backgammon, and have even visited a mosque. Time both feels like it's standing still at times, and other times it just flies. This is in many ways just like a four month-long vacation - just with work.
Still I think that I'm beginning to hit that wall. You know, when the novelty of "whee, I'm in a foreign country!" starts to wear off, when loneliness kicks in, and you start missing strange silly little things that you can't find where you are/don't have readily available and took for granted at home, like peanut butter and maple syrup and a hair dryer and a comfortable bed. I keep company with lots of other Americans and Europeans, and they are fine people and I'm making friends with the Turks too, but I miss people I know, my friends and family. I have talked with Russ a few times on Skype but because there's ten hours between Istanbul and California, we don't get to talk as often as I'd like. I've only been able to speak a few times with Stephanie and Karl, but no one else. I haven't spoken with my family since I left too. My cell phone doesn't work here because Verizon doesn't have networks in Turkey. I'm so spoiled because at home I can pick up my cell any old time and call people I love.
It's lovely here, please don't get me wrong. I'm having fun, and learning so much, and seeing all kinds of neat places and meeting all kinds of cool people, but I miss home. I miss decent Mexican food and being able to bake cookies in my own kitchen. I miss curling up on the couch and watching tv and movies with Russ. I miss tv. I miss movies. I miss pancakes and Sunday brunch with scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, and the works. I miss my car, and being able to drive to stores to buy familiar food, to be able to see and read and *understand* signs and billboards in English, to be able to talk to people I see out and about in my everyday life. I miss being able to go to an ATM and withdraw cash without having to a $5 fee on top of a 1% fee just for the privilege of being able to get *my own money*. I miss kisses. And hugs. I miss reaching out in the darkness and touching Russ's warm back as he sleeps in bed next to me. I miss Russ. A lot.
I feel like I'm missing out too. Stephanie is waiting, any day now, for her daughter to be born, and I won't be there to see her arrive. By the time I see her, the baby will be almost four months old. I want to be there with her when the baby comes. I'll miss the baby coming, I missed saying good-bye to Shadow. All these cats, these strays on the streets that I want to take home, but none of them my Shadow.
Sometimes I just want to block out Turkey. Beautiful city, beautiful people, beautiful food, but sometimes it's just too much Turkey. I find myself now beginning to long for distinctly American things: pb&j sandwiches, classic rock & roll songs, American slang and accents. Turkish is a lovely language, and I do want to learn it, but it's not easy. It's the fourth language that I've undertaken to learn, and despite the many cognates that I've come across, it bears little resemblance to the English, French and German that I already know. Part of my brain rebels against that. "The sentences are backwards." "How can you have a sentence without a verb?" "Why do they say things like 'five apple or many student' and not 'five apples or many students'?" Turkish doesn't fit the patterns that I already have in my established language knowledge in my brain. It's like trying to put that old square peg in a round hole. It doesn't want to fit. It doesn't want to compute. Yet I have to learn it if I want to get anywhere and communicate with people who don't speak Ingilizce.
I miss mail. Every day I check the box here hoping that something will have arrived with my name on it but nothing so far. Granted, I haven't sent any out either, but I have a bunch of postcards that are ready to go to a bunch of people but I have to *find* a post office first, and figure out how much they cost to mail to the US, and hope that I can communicate with the person behind the counter. I miss *English*. It is so agonizingly frustrating not being able to talk with people. Yes, the teachers and students here speak English, but nearly everyone else on the campus doesn't - the office staff, the infirmary staff, the guy at the information booth on the main campus, even the front desk people here in the dorm where nearly *all* of the international students live - none of them speak English. If you have a problem, you have to find a Turkish student to translate for you, or muddle through with a phrase book and dictionary. The sweet ladies who come almost every day to clean up our dorm rooms, Katie and I struggle to talk to them. They are so nice, so patient, but every encounter just leaves me so frustrated. One thing is for sure - I will completely be able to understand the frustration and irritation that my students go through trying to learn English and get around in a country that really only speaks English because now I can say that I've "been there, done that". So for that, I am thankful. But still, I'm lonely and alone.
I'm sure that things will get better. I keep busy, and I have plenty to do and see, and I'm sure that before I know it, June 12 will be here and I'll be leaving and then I won't want to go. But still, in these wee dark hours of the night, I feel very alone.
I'll get over it. I'm not trying to guilt trip anyone or ask for sympathy. I just need to get this off my chest else I lash out at some poor hapless Turk and cause an international crisis. I'm sorry for being random and rambly. It'll get better, I know, I know.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
First week of classes...?
This past week has been interesting, lots of ups and downs. I'm still mourning Shadow, but I'm trying not to dwell, and as I said before, trying to keep myself busy so I don't get caught up in sorrow. So this week was supposed to be the first week of classes, only three of mine were canceled - read: all of my grad classes - and I went to only Turkish. It's rather nice to be back in an introductory language class; it's been years. My class is split up, two hours on Tuesday, two hours on Wednesday, and is composed of mostly Americans but other several Europeans. So far we've gone over the alphabet/letter sounds (there are 21 consonants and 8 vowels in case you're curious), greetings, numbers, the days of the weeks, months, and seasons. A lot of this vocabulary we've already been using in our everyday interactions with Turks on the street, stores and restaurants. What is interesting is feeling my grad school training kick in almost immediately as I start to silently appraise the professor's teaching style, how her syllabus is written, and how she blends several introductory language teaching methods. (And yes, Dr. Heather, I thought of you several times in doing this! *grin*) When she discussed the eight vowels of Turkish and how vowel harmony works, the fact that the vowels are evenly divided between "front" and "back" made perfect sense. (Vowel harmony btw basically is "matching" the kinds of vowels. If a word has front vowels, then the plural ending will also have a front vowel, and if the word has back, then it's back vowel ending. It's a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea.)
So Turkish looks like it'll be an entertaining class. I may not have the opportunity to use the language very much after I leave Turkey, but it'll definitely be of immediate practical use while I am here, and for that, I appreciate it. It also provides a refreshing opportunity for me to reflect on what I've learned already about teaching language and see it in action for another language. One of the things that I didn't consider in the beginning when I was thinking about coming here to Istanbul, but have since decided is a positive aspect is that fact that Turkish is not related linguistically to Germanic or Romantic languages, so I have little to fall back on with respects to my own past training in both French and German. So this is a linguistic challenge for me, and is at times rewarding and frustrating, both really. It's very neat to be a market, buying fresh produce and making connections with people who only speak a few words of English when I only speak a few words of Turkish, yet with the help of a pocket dictionary and phrase book, we can make ourselves understood and both parties are pleased in the end. Every day more I feel like I can sympathize with my students who are surrounded by a language that they don't speak very well, or even when they do, they still cannot fully express themselves. We're all still at the most basic level, so it's so frustrating not being to communicate in the simplest ways. So it's a lot of give and take. Every word made clear on both sides is a victory. But I still have this overwhelming urge at times to slip into French, just to be able to say *something*. It's hard to explain. So much of the time, they can't understand me, I can't understand them, so I want to switch to a language that's different from both English and Turkish. I'm sure that I'll have plenty to say on this subject. It's ever-present for so many of us.
But yet one of the funny things is that we get through, we manage, we survive. I was just saying this to my roommate, Katie, and my friend, Lessa, when we were sitting at a local pastry shop sharing a couple slices of chocolate cake and tea after having gone to the local Saturday produce market this morning. We were discussing the thought that while we were "strangers in a strange land", surrounded by a different culture, different language, different customs and all, there are certain universal things that we just slip into like slipping into an old glove. We may not be able to speak much Turkish, but yet we can walk into a shop, point to what we want, sit and eat and drink, and then pay for our food and leave - just as though we would back home in the States. The only difference really is that we're in a foreign country, with a foreign language, and foreign people. But really it's about the same thing.
We've all been doing things like this. We figure out the bus routes ("take the 43R and the tram to get to the Spice Market or take the 559C directly to Taksim, etc"), we figure out the currency ("5 lira? That's about $3 American, etc."), we know enough to say "hello, good-bye, please, thank you, etc.", and really, we're good. Yes, I know that we all have plenty to learn, but we're getting by. It's funny - you put yourself in a situation where you're surrounded by *different*, and you just make do. We've been figuring out what we can get at the local grocery stores, what we can pick up at the street markets, and then from there, working with our limited cookware to make old favorites - pasta with cream sauce, stir fry, chili & rice, even chocolate chip pancakes and omelettes. A bunch of us are essentially working together to be sure that the others are well taken care of and well-fed. Lessa is going to do breakfast on the weekends, we've plans to do a dorm potluck of sorts, and if I could get my hands on any board games, I'd love to host some game nights. Already Katie and I have made dinner for other students and had guests at our dorm, and it's just so friendly and nice, it makes it feel more like home. Yes, I know I'm being sappy and sentimental, but at the same time, it's very cool how many people I've getting to know and make friends with.
Oh, more later. Katie and I need to get dinner ready: tuvak, pilav, ve soya sosu ve salatar (chicken, rice and soy sauce and salad), and for dessert, maybe elma ve peynir (apple and cheese). :)
So Turkish looks like it'll be an entertaining class. I may not have the opportunity to use the language very much after I leave Turkey, but it'll definitely be of immediate practical use while I am here, and for that, I appreciate it. It also provides a refreshing opportunity for me to reflect on what I've learned already about teaching language and see it in action for another language. One of the things that I didn't consider in the beginning when I was thinking about coming here to Istanbul, but have since decided is a positive aspect is that fact that Turkish is not related linguistically to Germanic or Romantic languages, so I have little to fall back on with respects to my own past training in both French and German. So this is a linguistic challenge for me, and is at times rewarding and frustrating, both really. It's very neat to be a market, buying fresh produce and making connections with people who only speak a few words of English when I only speak a few words of Turkish, yet with the help of a pocket dictionary and phrase book, we can make ourselves understood and both parties are pleased in the end. Every day more I feel like I can sympathize with my students who are surrounded by a language that they don't speak very well, or even when they do, they still cannot fully express themselves. We're all still at the most basic level, so it's so frustrating not being to communicate in the simplest ways. So it's a lot of give and take. Every word made clear on both sides is a victory. But I still have this overwhelming urge at times to slip into French, just to be able to say *something*. It's hard to explain. So much of the time, they can't understand me, I can't understand them, so I want to switch to a language that's different from both English and Turkish. I'm sure that I'll have plenty to say on this subject. It's ever-present for so many of us.
But yet one of the funny things is that we get through, we manage, we survive. I was just saying this to my roommate, Katie, and my friend, Lessa, when we were sitting at a local pastry shop sharing a couple slices of chocolate cake and tea after having gone to the local Saturday produce market this morning. We were discussing the thought that while we were "strangers in a strange land", surrounded by a different culture, different language, different customs and all, there are certain universal things that we just slip into like slipping into an old glove. We may not be able to speak much Turkish, but yet we can walk into a shop, point to what we want, sit and eat and drink, and then pay for our food and leave - just as though we would back home in the States. The only difference really is that we're in a foreign country, with a foreign language, and foreign people. But really it's about the same thing.
We've all been doing things like this. We figure out the bus routes ("take the 43R and the tram to get to the Spice Market or take the 559C directly to Taksim, etc"), we figure out the currency ("5 lira? That's about $3 American, etc."), we know enough to say "hello, good-bye, please, thank you, etc.", and really, we're good. Yes, I know that we all have plenty to learn, but we're getting by. It's funny - you put yourself in a situation where you're surrounded by *different*, and you just make do. We've been figuring out what we can get at the local grocery stores, what we can pick up at the street markets, and then from there, working with our limited cookware to make old favorites - pasta with cream sauce, stir fry, chili & rice, even chocolate chip pancakes and omelettes. A bunch of us are essentially working together to be sure that the others are well taken care of and well-fed. Lessa is going to do breakfast on the weekends, we've plans to do a dorm potluck of sorts, and if I could get my hands on any board games, I'd love to host some game nights. Already Katie and I have made dinner for other students and had guests at our dorm, and it's just so friendly and nice, it makes it feel more like home. Yes, I know I'm being sappy and sentimental, but at the same time, it's very cool how many people I've getting to know and make friends with.
Oh, more later. Katie and I need to get dinner ready: tuvak, pilav, ve soya sosu ve salatar (chicken, rice and soy sauce and salad), and for dessert, maybe elma ve peynir (apple and cheese). :)
Taksim, Balat and surprises, oh my!
The past few days have been a big rough, but I'm getting through all right. Mostly I've been keeping myself busy so I cannot dwell too much. There is a lot going on at home too that I'd like be involved in or take care of, but I cannot so instead I preoccupy with life in Istanbul. Saturday I broke one of my preset rules for living here and decided to venture by myself into the downtown. (I said before that I wouldn't go anywhere off the campus alone but well, since the "campus" is actually four separate campuses here, I suppose I do that a lot actually). I rounded up my 1.40 lira fare, checked the schedule, boarded the 559C bus, and rode an hour or so down to Taksim, studying my phrase book on the way. I met my new friend Charlotte in front of Burger King (yes, there's a Burger King in Taksim Square. There is all kinds of American food here, but that's another post). Charlotte is a friend of a friend, and is just all kinds of nice. She's a lovely human being, witty, intelligent with a dry snarky sense of humor that just delights me. She is here in Istanbul teaching English kindergarten, and she lives on the Asian side, which I have incidentally not yet had to the chance to visit.
She and I wandered Taksim, ducked into an English-language bookstore there, happily pored over a decent selection of the "classics" (Poe, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Austen, etc), admired the bigger selection of books about Turkey, and drooled over the books about language and linguistics. I didn't see anything that caught my eye to purchase this time, but I noted the store for future trips because I miss reading and it's not easy to find a lot of great English-language books here. (While I know that I'll likely have plenty of reading for my classes, I do love to read other things during the semester, especially right before bed, because that's *my* time to read things that have nothing to do with my degree work. I did bring a couple Bill Bryson books, and don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Bill Bryson, but a girl needs a little more variety over the course of five months.)
Charlotte then led me to a little restaurant that's off the main street, and tucked in a little side street that I probably would not have found by myself. Parsifal's is a lovely vegetarian restaurant, a snug homey spot which maybe could seat twenty-someodd people, with worn wood floors, classy art on the walls, and rickety wooden chairs and tables. Needless to say, I loved it immediately. (ooh, look, and they have a website! It's all in Turkish but you can still look at the photos.) The food was a bit pricier than other places that we've eaten at already, but it was so good that I didn't care. Charlotte and I got the same thing, a broccoli and cheese au gratin dish, with tea, bread, water, and the bill came to about 42 lira (about $25), so in hindsight, no, not really that expensive. We lingered there for a few hours, slowly sipping tea and chatting. She and I have a lot in common, and we already get along quite well. She told me how she came to be in Turkey, what she loves about it here, what she misses from home, and we discussed our respective educational backgrounds. Come to find out, it may be easier than I thought to actually get a teaching job if I wanted. (more about that later)
Charlotte and I split ways when she went to meet her boyfriend for Valentine's Day dinner, and I braved the rush-hour traffic home. Traveling alone isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I know which bus to take, I know where my stop is, and I know how much it cost, so I was okay. As much as we are riding the buses, the other international students and I have been figuring out which ones go where, and exploring quite fine all on our own.
To that end, a group of us decided to brave a couple new routes and find Balat, the Jewish quarter of the city on Sunday. It was bitterly cold, far different from the balmy first couple of days that greeted us a couple of weeks ago. I have a winter coat with me, but I didn't bring any gloves, hat or scarves with me to Istanbul. I do have a plan to rectify the situation with the scarves, but so far I've been dealing with lots of layers and keeping my hood up in lieu of a hat. We took a bus down to the tram station, and walked a good distance over one of the bridges to an area called Eminönü (which I keep wanting to pronounce as "E-min-o-yu" instead as "E-min-o-nu" for some reason). There we actually were able to purchase akbils! What is an akbil, you ask? Well, as for most major metropolitan public transportation systems, Istanbul has an extensive system of buses, trams, and trains, and they all use this little tab button thing that hangs on your keychain called an akbil. You purchase one for 6 lira, preload it with money, and then you just touch it to a sensor when boarding, and it beeps at you. This way you can avoid carrying around pockets of change to pay for the bus or tram. (Hey, look, akbil info!)
Unfortunately, we tried following this “45 walk around the Balat and Fener neighborhoods” but ended up getting more than a little lost. We did however find the St. Stephen Church, which is a beautiful Bulgarian Orthodox church that is famous for being constructed entirely of iron. It was actually colder inside than outside, but exploring it (it was free!) was definitely worth it. I'd like to come back when it's warmer – and I find myself saying this about several things actually. There are a number of sites here in Istanbul that I haven't seen yet either because I'm waiting for the weather to get better and/or I'm waiting for my student id so I can get in either cheaper/for free.
After leaving St. Stephens, we walked even more, getting a bit more lost, and the weather just got worse. Just cold, grey and windy. After we finally got back to the dorm, I curled up in my room to warm up for a little while. But the best was yet to come. Not even half an hour after coming inside, I heard a strange sound at my window, and I looked over and saw that it was snowing! Not only snowing, but it was sticking! Big old fat snowflakes, the perfect white fluffy snow that I love so much, and despite the late hour, I just had to dash outside and play. So after a flurry of messages on Skype and Facebook to locals here in the Superdorm, I threw on my coat and ran outside.
So yeah, never the fact that I'm nearly 30, I went outside and played like a kid all over again. But you can't blame me – the snow was just so beautiful. After a few minutes, a number of other students trickled out and we amused ourselves by throwing snowballs at each other, rolling up a couple snowmen and even making snow angels on the Superdorm lawn. On a lark, a few of us decided to walk down to the South Campus. I slid a few times (note to self: smooth-soled Chucks are not the best to wear in the snow), fell a couple times, but seeing the snow was worth it. Well, to make a long story short, the snow truly transformed the campus. Everything was coated in fluffy white snow – the perfect “snowball” snow, might I add – and the Bosphorus looked lovely. A lot of the Turkish students were out playing when we got to the South Campus. We stayed out for a while, my feet got completely soaked, and I was cold and wet, but very happy. All in all, we got about two inches of snow. Sadly, by morning, it was almost all gone, and by the afternoon, you wouldn't have even known it had snowed. According to the Turks, it was pretty rare to see such weather, so we felt very lucky to have experienced it. It was very ephemeral, but at least we enjoyed one beautiful night.
She and I wandered Taksim, ducked into an English-language bookstore there, happily pored over a decent selection of the "classics" (Poe, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Austen, etc), admired the bigger selection of books about Turkey, and drooled over the books about language and linguistics. I didn't see anything that caught my eye to purchase this time, but I noted the store for future trips because I miss reading and it's not easy to find a lot of great English-language books here. (While I know that I'll likely have plenty of reading for my classes, I do love to read other things during the semester, especially right before bed, because that's *my* time to read things that have nothing to do with my degree work. I did bring a couple Bill Bryson books, and don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore Bill Bryson, but a girl needs a little more variety over the course of five months.)
Charlotte then led me to a little restaurant that's off the main street, and tucked in a little side street that I probably would not have found by myself. Parsifal's is a lovely vegetarian restaurant, a snug homey spot which maybe could seat twenty-someodd people, with worn wood floors, classy art on the walls, and rickety wooden chairs and tables. Needless to say, I loved it immediately. (ooh, look, and they have a website! It's all in Turkish but you can still look at the photos.) The food was a bit pricier than other places that we've eaten at already, but it was so good that I didn't care. Charlotte and I got the same thing, a broccoli and cheese au gratin dish, with tea, bread, water, and the bill came to about 42 lira (about $25), so in hindsight, no, not really that expensive. We lingered there for a few hours, slowly sipping tea and chatting. She and I have a lot in common, and we already get along quite well. She told me how she came to be in Turkey, what she loves about it here, what she misses from home, and we discussed our respective educational backgrounds. Come to find out, it may be easier than I thought to actually get a teaching job if I wanted. (more about that later)
Charlotte and I split ways when she went to meet her boyfriend for Valentine's Day dinner, and I braved the rush-hour traffic home. Traveling alone isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I know which bus to take, I know where my stop is, and I know how much it cost, so I was okay. As much as we are riding the buses, the other international students and I have been figuring out which ones go where, and exploring quite fine all on our own.
To that end, a group of us decided to brave a couple new routes and find Balat, the Jewish quarter of the city on Sunday. It was bitterly cold, far different from the balmy first couple of days that greeted us a couple of weeks ago. I have a winter coat with me, but I didn't bring any gloves, hat or scarves with me to Istanbul. I do have a plan to rectify the situation with the scarves, but so far I've been dealing with lots of layers and keeping my hood up in lieu of a hat. We took a bus down to the tram station, and walked a good distance over one of the bridges to an area called Eminönü (which I keep wanting to pronounce as "E-min-o-yu" instead as "E-min-o-nu" for some reason). There we actually were able to purchase akbils! What is an akbil, you ask? Well, as for most major metropolitan public transportation systems, Istanbul has an extensive system of buses, trams, and trains, and they all use this little tab button thing that hangs on your keychain called an akbil. You purchase one for 6 lira, preload it with money, and then you just touch it to a sensor when boarding, and it beeps at you. This way you can avoid carrying around pockets of change to pay for the bus or tram. (Hey, look, akbil info!)
Unfortunately, we tried following this “45 walk around the Balat and Fener neighborhoods” but ended up getting more than a little lost. We did however find the St. Stephen Church, which is a beautiful Bulgarian Orthodox church that is famous for being constructed entirely of iron. It was actually colder inside than outside, but exploring it (it was free!) was definitely worth it. I'd like to come back when it's warmer – and I find myself saying this about several things actually. There are a number of sites here in Istanbul that I haven't seen yet either because I'm waiting for the weather to get better and/or I'm waiting for my student id so I can get in either cheaper/for free.
After leaving St. Stephens, we walked even more, getting a bit more lost, and the weather just got worse. Just cold, grey and windy. After we finally got back to the dorm, I curled up in my room to warm up for a little while. But the best was yet to come. Not even half an hour after coming inside, I heard a strange sound at my window, and I looked over and saw that it was snowing! Not only snowing, but it was sticking! Big old fat snowflakes, the perfect white fluffy snow that I love so much, and despite the late hour, I just had to dash outside and play. So after a flurry of messages on Skype and Facebook to locals here in the Superdorm, I threw on my coat and ran outside.
So yeah, never the fact that I'm nearly 30, I went outside and played like a kid all over again. But you can't blame me – the snow was just so beautiful. After a few minutes, a number of other students trickled out and we amused ourselves by throwing snowballs at each other, rolling up a couple snowmen and even making snow angels on the Superdorm lawn. On a lark, a few of us decided to walk down to the South Campus. I slid a few times (note to self: smooth-soled Chucks are not the best to wear in the snow), fell a couple times, but seeing the snow was worth it. Well, to make a long story short, the snow truly transformed the campus. Everything was coated in fluffy white snow – the perfect “snowball” snow, might I add – and the Bosphorus looked lovely. A lot of the Turkish students were out playing when we got to the South Campus. We stayed out for a while, my feet got completely soaked, and I was cold and wet, but very happy. All in all, we got about two inches of snow. Sadly, by morning, it was almost all gone, and by the afternoon, you wouldn't have even known it had snowed. According to the Turks, it was pretty rare to see such weather, so we felt very lucky to have experienced it. It was very ephemeral, but at least we enjoyed one beautiful night.
Friday, February 13, 2009
So close, yet so far
Today hasn't been a very good one for me. Well, yes and no. Let me back up. The past couple days have been great actually. Yesterday, despite the chilly weather and intermittent rain, friends and I ventured out to the Book Bazaar in downtown Istanbul. The bus ride was bumpy and abrupt as usual (the public transportation is pretty good, granted, if crowded at times, but the bus rides are rather erratic at times, and you really have to hold on to keep your balance most of the time), but we arrived in one piece, had lunch and set off to explore. Most of the books we saw were in Turkish of course, but there was a goodly amount of English books, as well as bilingual dictionaries and how-to-learn-English books, which pleased me to see. We found some lovely posters of local sites (anyone want a 18x24 photo of the Blue Mosque or the Hagia Sophia? Only 3 TL), admired the beautiful Korans, and then lo and beyond, came across one of the many entrances to the Grand Bazaar itself.
Now the Grand Bazaar, let me tell you, is quite large. It's also quite a maze, and one street (yes, it's divided into streets and "districts" actually) can look quite like the other. How the vendors themselves don't get lost, I don't know. There are so many vendors selling the staples: silk and "cashmere" scarves, multi-colored glass lanterns, ceramics in all shapes and sizes, Turkish delight and traditional sweets, leather goods, hookahs, backgammon boards, and of course, the famous Turkish rugs. There is just so much to see, and of course, because it's as plain as day that we're not natives, the vendors step out in droves to invite us into their shop and look at their wares, and as one grinning young man put it, "help us spend our money". The vendors are a funny bunch too, tossing out all kinds of comments and "compliments". "American? Washington? New York? No, Texas! Anyone from Texas, y'all?" We were a group of 6 women with 1 man, and poor Alex got all kinds of teasing once they figured out we were all with him.
But the vendors are polite, just persistent. We did step into one shop for a cup of tea, and Lessa was treated to a free glass by the waiter, who also took a photo of all of us. We mostly did window shopping, and I kept my eyes open for potential souvenirs. Right now, I'm looking for a few scarves for myself (it's still cold, so this is a practical desire!), but also I'd like a nazar or two, which are the blue glass "eyes" that ward against the evil eye. They're very popular here and you'll see them hung on the walls in restaurants and stores, wore as jewelry, keychain charms, you name it. Like baklava and tea, they are a quintessential part of Turkey.
Yesterday evening, we went out to Taksim again to experience a little of the nightlife there. Again despite the weather, people flooded the area. It's one of the most popular areas in the city, so supposedly no matter the time of the day, it's always busy. We passed a couple hours in a local bar, trying the Turkish unofficial national drink, rakı, which is anise-flavored (think Sambuca), and is traditionally drunk mixed with water, which causes it to turn a milky-white color. It's strong, and not sweet, so I didn't particularly care for it.
So all of that was well and fine. But I am still reminded that one of the hardest parts of going away to a foreign country is just being so far away from your home and your loved ones. I mean, we aren't nearly as "far away" as we used to be. Modern technology allows me to tap into the Internet any old time that I like when I'm in my room and sitting at my laptop, and with a few clicks of my mouse, I can even make a phone call through the internet and see people on my webcam and "talk" with them that way. And then there's emails, IMs, blogs, Facebook, so you'd think that you couldn't possibly feel alone with all that at your fingertips.
But I'm not home, and when it comes right down to it, I'm not there in person, and especially now when I want to be. .. Russ (my other half, my boyfriend, my partner, for those of you who don't know him by name) left me a message last night, so I walked into my room around 1:30 in the morning to find out that he had our cat put to sleep yesterday. Shadow, our 14 year-old grey lady, had gotten sick over the past couple of days, and he didn't think it was too serious, but had taken into the vet just in case as she had some bad sores in her mouth. He found out that the sores were the end result of kidney failure, and she was dying. There was nothing that the vet could do. So he decided on the humane option, instead of letting her suffer, and he let her go.
It's hard for me to accept this. I want to think that she's still at home, maybe curled up on the couch with him as he watches TV, and when I come back to California in July, she'll be there to greet me. But she won't be. I only really knew her for the 3 years I've lived with Russ, but he had had her for 14 years, since he adopted her as a young cat from the SPCA. She was "as dumb as a box of rocks", as he liked to call her fondly, but she was the sweetest, gentlest cat I've known. So tolerant and lovable. She was my cat, I guess. When I moved in with Russ, she adopted me as "her" human. When Russ and I were curled up on the couch, she'd come up, popping her grey fuzzy head over the edge of the cushion, meowing. Sometimes she'd jump right up, other times she'd hesitate and judge, hesitate and jump, then then hop up. She had arthritis in her legs, so she didn't move especially quickly, but usually ambled through the house in her wobbly slow gait. But she'd always manage to find a little corner of room on the couch with us, and often, on my lap, where she'd flop down and purr, blinking at us with those lazy golden eyes of hers. And sometimes, when I'd get up from the couch, I'd come back and she'd have slipped into my spot, curling up where it was warm. I'd lean in close to her sometimes, and touch my nose to hers, and she'd sniff at my face, and sometimes, I'd very gently lay my head on her warm body and listen to her purr. I'd skritch around her ears and under her chin, and stroke along her whiskers. She loved that.
This is hard. I cried for a couple hours last night, and today tried to get by as best as I could, but now as I'm alone, writing this, too late at night, I'm crying again. It's hard to be away from home ordinarily, especially when you're a stranger in a strange place, but this makes things even harder. I can't be home to mourn in my own home, the space I shared with her. I can't comfort Russ, who I know is mourning the warm fuzzy ball of fur that we both loved and miss. I'm just here, alone in my grief. My roommate, Katie, asked me if I believe if things happen for a reason, and I do. Shadow got sick, she was an older cat, and I knew that some day she would leave this world to cross the Rainbow Bridge, but I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon. But then I guess that we're just never really expecting it, nor are we ever really ready. Maybe somehow it's better this way. Her death isn't so.. immediate, I guess you could say, because I'm not there.
I'll miss her, my sweet grey lady.
Now the Grand Bazaar, let me tell you, is quite large. It's also quite a maze, and one street (yes, it's divided into streets and "districts" actually) can look quite like the other. How the vendors themselves don't get lost, I don't know. There are so many vendors selling the staples: silk and "cashmere" scarves, multi-colored glass lanterns, ceramics in all shapes and sizes, Turkish delight and traditional sweets, leather goods, hookahs, backgammon boards, and of course, the famous Turkish rugs. There is just so much to see, and of course, because it's as plain as day that we're not natives, the vendors step out in droves to invite us into their shop and look at their wares, and as one grinning young man put it, "help us spend our money". The vendors are a funny bunch too, tossing out all kinds of comments and "compliments". "American? Washington? New York? No, Texas! Anyone from Texas, y'all?" We were a group of 6 women with 1 man, and poor Alex got all kinds of teasing once they figured out we were all with him.
But the vendors are polite, just persistent. We did step into one shop for a cup of tea, and Lessa was treated to a free glass by the waiter, who also took a photo of all of us. We mostly did window shopping, and I kept my eyes open for potential souvenirs. Right now, I'm looking for a few scarves for myself (it's still cold, so this is a practical desire!), but also I'd like a nazar or two, which are the blue glass "eyes" that ward against the evil eye. They're very popular here and you'll see them hung on the walls in restaurants and stores, wore as jewelry, keychain charms, you name it. Like baklava and tea, they are a quintessential part of Turkey.
Yesterday evening, we went out to Taksim again to experience a little of the nightlife there. Again despite the weather, people flooded the area. It's one of the most popular areas in the city, so supposedly no matter the time of the day, it's always busy. We passed a couple hours in a local bar, trying the Turkish unofficial national drink, rakı, which is anise-flavored (think Sambuca), and is traditionally drunk mixed with water, which causes it to turn a milky-white color. It's strong, and not sweet, so I didn't particularly care for it.
So all of that was well and fine. But I am still reminded that one of the hardest parts of going away to a foreign country is just being so far away from your home and your loved ones. I mean, we aren't nearly as "far away" as we used to be. Modern technology allows me to tap into the Internet any old time that I like when I'm in my room and sitting at my laptop, and with a few clicks of my mouse, I can even make a phone call through the internet and see people on my webcam and "talk" with them that way. And then there's emails, IMs, blogs, Facebook, so you'd think that you couldn't possibly feel alone with all that at your fingertips.
But I'm not home, and when it comes right down to it, I'm not there in person, and especially now when I want to be. .. Russ (my other half, my boyfriend, my partner, for those of you who don't know him by name) left me a message last night, so I walked into my room around 1:30 in the morning to find out that he had our cat put to sleep yesterday. Shadow, our 14 year-old grey lady, had gotten sick over the past couple of days, and he didn't think it was too serious, but had taken into the vet just in case as she had some bad sores in her mouth. He found out that the sores were the end result of kidney failure, and she was dying. There was nothing that the vet could do. So he decided on the humane option, instead of letting her suffer, and he let her go.
It's hard for me to accept this. I want to think that she's still at home, maybe curled up on the couch with him as he watches TV, and when I come back to California in July, she'll be there to greet me. But she won't be. I only really knew her for the 3 years I've lived with Russ, but he had had her for 14 years, since he adopted her as a young cat from the SPCA. She was "as dumb as a box of rocks", as he liked to call her fondly, but she was the sweetest, gentlest cat I've known. So tolerant and lovable. She was my cat, I guess. When I moved in with Russ, she adopted me as "her" human. When Russ and I were curled up on the couch, she'd come up, popping her grey fuzzy head over the edge of the cushion, meowing. Sometimes she'd jump right up, other times she'd hesitate and judge, hesitate and jump, then then hop up. She had arthritis in her legs, so she didn't move especially quickly, but usually ambled through the house in her wobbly slow gait. But she'd always manage to find a little corner of room on the couch with us, and often, on my lap, where she'd flop down and purr, blinking at us with those lazy golden eyes of hers. And sometimes, when I'd get up from the couch, I'd come back and she'd have slipped into my spot, curling up where it was warm. I'd lean in close to her sometimes, and touch my nose to hers, and she'd sniff at my face, and sometimes, I'd very gently lay my head on her warm body and listen to her purr. I'd skritch around her ears and under her chin, and stroke along her whiskers. She loved that.
This is hard. I cried for a couple hours last night, and today tried to get by as best as I could, but now as I'm alone, writing this, too late at night, I'm crying again. It's hard to be away from home ordinarily, especially when you're a stranger in a strange place, but this makes things even harder. I can't be home to mourn in my own home, the space I shared with her. I can't comfort Russ, who I know is mourning the warm fuzzy ball of fur that we both loved and miss. I'm just here, alone in my grief. My roommate, Katie, asked me if I believe if things happen for a reason, and I do. Shadow got sick, she was an older cat, and I knew that some day she would leave this world to cross the Rainbow Bridge, but I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon. But then I guess that we're just never really expecting it, nor are we ever really ready. Maybe somehow it's better this way. Her death isn't so.. immediate, I guess you could say, because I'm not there.
I'll miss her, my sweet grey lady.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Happiness is...
..making dinner for two in your tiny kitchenette for pennies.
Chicken cutlets: 2.05 YTL. ($1.25)
Barilla farfalle pasta: 1.40 YTL. (85 cents)
Tomato sauce: 1.75 YTL. ($1.05)
Feeling self-sufficient again & saving money at the same time: priceless.
Oh.. and to give you further perspective, the whole box of pasta was 1.40 YTL. We cooked maybe half of it, and that made four servings of pasta. Four. And I only used about 1/3 of the jar of sauce. So with those ingredients above, Katie and I had a full dinner (with a side of salad and an orange for dessert), and we *still* have leftovers for tomorrow's lunch.
Amazing.
Chicken cutlets: 2.05 YTL. ($1.25)
Barilla farfalle pasta: 1.40 YTL. (85 cents)
Tomato sauce: 1.75 YTL. ($1.05)
Feeling self-sufficient again & saving money at the same time: priceless.
Oh.. and to give you further perspective, the whole box of pasta was 1.40 YTL. We cooked maybe half of it, and that made four servings of pasta. Four. And I only used about 1/3 of the jar of sauce. So with those ingredients above, Katie and I had a full dinner (with a side of salad and an orange for dessert), and we *still* have leftovers for tomorrow's lunch.
Amazing.
Orientation
Yesterday we had Orientation, and I got a chance to meet a bunch more international students here at Boğaziçi. Most of us are from America (all over the country too), but there are also a lot of other Europeans here, including from Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Ukraine, oh, and then China and Japan. So we're a pretty eclectic bunch. As I said before, most everyone is younger than I am, though I've found out that I'm not the only grad student which is a bit comforting.
We got a tour of the North and South campuses too. The North campus is closer to the Superdorm and it looks like most of my classes will be there, and the South campus is the larger one closer to the Bosphorus. It sprawls on the hillside with a blend of Victorian-era American architecture with distinct Turkish accents that you can see in the interior tilework especially. But in a way, it's strangely familiar. Boğaziçi was originally founded in 1863 as Robert College, for those of you who don't know, so it was/is the oldest American college outside of the US. It's now a Turkish institution, but all of its classes are taught in English and it's a very prestigious school here in Turkey. The North campus is more modern and has a very large library, so it is likely that I will spend a lot of my time there. Shorter walk, which is grand, because we do plenty of walking here. I'm really hoping that I walk off about 10-15 pounds by the time I get home! :) Of course, you balance that with very good Turkish food, and that ambition may be a lost cause!
After the tour, we had a brief break and I grabbed a drink with a couple new students that I hadn't yet met, a girl from NYC who's originally from Poland, and a girl from NJ who is Turkish, and speaks both English and Turkish fluently. After this, we loaded up on buses to go to dinner, and enjoyed a pretty tasty (albeit pricey) dinner right along the water, and then it was back out into the cold and then onto to Tophane, a historical area (what isn't in Istanbul, really?) that is very famous for nargile. Sure enough, shortly after pulling up, we spilled out of the buses to see several cafes lined up, their slightly smoky interiors beckoning us in out of the cold to go enjoy a hot cup of çay, play a game or two of backgammon, and smoke the nargile.
For those of you who don't know, all of these are famous traditions here in Turkey. The nargile, otherwise known as the hookah or water pipe (yes, that thing the Caterpillar was smoking in "Alice in Wonderland") is very popular here. They stand about knee-high, and their base is filled with water which cools the smoke. The top is set with coals, and the long pipe is wrapped in cloth and piping, and is passed from person to person (each of us had our own tip to insert for smoking). This was something that I simply had to try. The smoke smelled good, even tasted good, but when it hit the back of my throat, it burned, and I ended up coughing a lot. Not very dignified, but then, I'm not a smoker. *shrug* Livia, Lessa and I sat with Anna from the Ukraine and Chris from Bulgaria, and we played a few games of backgammon. Since I had never played, the others took turns telling me the rules. Chris' father was a three times national champion of backgammon in Bulgaria, so he definitely knew what he was doing!
It wasn't a bad way to pass the evening hours, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, meeting new people, chatting, drinking the ever-present glasses of tea. We felt very Turkish. :) This morning was registration, so I have to hope that I'll be able to get into the classes I need (already they hit their quotas!) I have a feeling that I may not able to as there are a couple of conflict with the dates and times, but I'm hoping too to have a chance to speak to my advisor and work out such details. Wish me luck. :)
We got a tour of the North and South campuses too. The North campus is closer to the Superdorm and it looks like most of my classes will be there, and the South campus is the larger one closer to the Bosphorus. It sprawls on the hillside with a blend of Victorian-era American architecture with distinct Turkish accents that you can see in the interior tilework especially. But in a way, it's strangely familiar. Boğaziçi was originally founded in 1863 as Robert College, for those of you who don't know, so it was/is the oldest American college outside of the US. It's now a Turkish institution, but all of its classes are taught in English and it's a very prestigious school here in Turkey. The North campus is more modern and has a very large library, so it is likely that I will spend a lot of my time there. Shorter walk, which is grand, because we do plenty of walking here. I'm really hoping that I walk off about 10-15 pounds by the time I get home! :) Of course, you balance that with very good Turkish food, and that ambition may be a lost cause!
After the tour, we had a brief break and I grabbed a drink with a couple new students that I hadn't yet met, a girl from NYC who's originally from Poland, and a girl from NJ who is Turkish, and speaks both English and Turkish fluently. After this, we loaded up on buses to go to dinner, and enjoyed a pretty tasty (albeit pricey) dinner right along the water, and then it was back out into the cold and then onto to Tophane, a historical area (what isn't in Istanbul, really?) that is very famous for nargile. Sure enough, shortly after pulling up, we spilled out of the buses to see several cafes lined up, their slightly smoky interiors beckoning us in out of the cold to go enjoy a hot cup of çay, play a game or two of backgammon, and smoke the nargile.
For those of you who don't know, all of these are famous traditions here in Turkey. The nargile, otherwise known as the hookah or water pipe (yes, that thing the Caterpillar was smoking in "Alice in Wonderland") is very popular here. They stand about knee-high, and their base is filled with water which cools the smoke. The top is set with coals, and the long pipe is wrapped in cloth and piping, and is passed from person to person (each of us had our own tip to insert for smoking). This was something that I simply had to try. The smoke smelled good, even tasted good, but when it hit the back of my throat, it burned, and I ended up coughing a lot. Not very dignified, but then, I'm not a smoker. *shrug* Livia, Lessa and I sat with Anna from the Ukraine and Chris from Bulgaria, and we played a few games of backgammon. Since I had never played, the others took turns telling me the rules. Chris' father was a three times national champion of backgammon in Bulgaria, so he definitely knew what he was doing!
It wasn't a bad way to pass the evening hours, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, meeting new people, chatting, drinking the ever-present glasses of tea. We felt very Turkish. :) This morning was registration, so I have to hope that I'll be able to get into the classes I need (already they hit their quotas!) I have a feeling that I may not able to as there are a couple of conflict with the dates and times, but I'm hoping too to have a chance to speak to my advisor and work out such details. Wish me luck. :)
Monday, February 9, 2009
Days 3, 4, and 5
I really need to keep up with this blog, so I don't let time slip away from me. So much is happening so quickly, and I want to keep record of it all. Day 3, Friday, a large group of us went down to Taksim, which is one of the busiest shopping areas in the whole city. First we had lunch at a local shop (we've been trying new places every time we eat out, and each one is better than the last, it seems). The place was a little mom & pop type shop, and we all had tavuk ve pilav (chicken and rice). I adore rice, but I love the way that they prepare it here, buttery, light and very flavorful. The owner also had us try ayran, which is not unlike buttermilk, frothy and often salted. I've found that I much prefer süt, which is regular milk.
We took a bus down to Taksim, and I ended giving up my seat to a little old lady halfway there. On the way, we saw many banks, stores and restaurants, including a Starbucks and a TGIF right across the street from each other. There is, incidentally, a decent amount of American stores and restaurants here in Istanbul, and they seem pretty popular if a bit more expensive than their Turkish counterparts. Public transportation is also popular here, and before long, the bus was packed with people. Traffic too in Istanbul is an adventure, let me tell you. Drivers go for every inch that they take on the road, they drive fast, aggressively, honk constantly, and sidewalks and pedestrians are fair game. At least the famous Turkish courtesy often does prevail, and drivers will stop abruptly to let people cross the street.
Taksim was a deliciously chaotic area, jammed with people swathed in scarves and dark colors, with vendors on the corners selling chestnuts and simits (like a cross between a soft pretzel and a bagel, covered in sesame seeds. I tried one - very tasty.) We quickly found the Turkcell store, and after a frenetic exchange of jumbled Turkish, English, passports, and lira, we all had new cell phones and simcards. My American cell doesn't work here, but now I can at least keep in touch with my new local friends and I don't feel quite so alone without a line of communication. After this, we wandered through Taksim and the adjacent neighborhood of Tünel, and window shopped, drooling over pastries and candies, delighting over Alex's purchase of a Harry Potter book in Turkish, sharing Verena's pistachios, and snapping photos like the silly tourists that we are. Hey, if we're gonna be tourists, we may as well as be tourists.
We did visit two Catholic churches, St. Anthony's and St. Mary's. Both were just beautiful and peaceful, and I definitely want to return to these for a good second look. We also found the Galata Kulesi (Galata Tower), which stands nearly 200 feet high and dates back to the 6th century. A few of the group went up into the tower, and the rest of us continued exploring, saving the tower for another day. I don't want to do too much touristing too early so I'll have things to see later. Dinner and grocery shopping (an adventure in of itself, I assure you) finished out our day.
Saturday, my roommate and I went off and did a little exploring and shopping around the immediate area. To give you some perspective, the Superdorm, where we live, is about 1.5 miles from the Güney Kampüs (South Campus) where we have our classes, and includes a good-sized hill, so yeah, I'm going to be doing a lot of walking. Between the two campuses are a variety of restaurants and stores, including ATMs, pharmacies, pastry shops, grocery stores, etc. We've eaten in a number of places and each one is just lovely. If you've never had Turkish food, you're missing out. It's not exactly vegetarian-friendly, but I'm pretty pleased.
We wandered around for a few hours to figure out where things were, and to our delight, found a great Saturday market, chock-full of all kinds of produce, fresh cheese, eggs, seafood, and even clothes, towels and linens, toys, and household products. It's just the way I imagined a market here would be: men and boys behind the tables hollering out invitations to buy their things, women in scarves and long skirts chatting together and bargaining good-naturedly, vendors handing out samples of their wares to try, just beautiful chaos. Together we bought stuff for salata (salad), lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, and apples, oranges, a quince, cheese. My roommate and I had a fun time fumbling through our very basic Turkish to make our purchases. It's frustrating not being able to express ourselves, nor understand the Turks, but we're learning quickly. Every day we pick up new words. What's even better is overhearing others, and understanding what they're saying. Ne kadar? Beş lira? Tesekkür. (How much? 5 lira? Thank you.)
Sunday we woke up to rain, so it was bound to be a lazy stay-at-home type day. Still we ventured out to eat and pick up groceries. I'm still just getting over a bit of a cold, and I've been tired and not feeling my best, but I think that has to do with adjusting to the new environs and food. I think that we're all taking in a lot all at once - new country, new language, new people, so many names and faces and facts that we're all feeling overwhelmed, and my body is adjusting too to Turkish food. It's very good, but the Turks cook with a lot of oils, which I'm not used to eating as I tend to eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, salad, whole grains, fiber, and mostly vegetarian. Luckily, bread is a big part of the Turkish diet, and with newly gifted kitchen goods from a local friend of Katie's, we can make at least some things now in our dorm.
Last night one of the American girls held a tea party (since alcohol is verboten in the dorms), and I was able to meet a bunch of people all at one time. It appears that most of the international students are Americans, with a couple Germans, a couple of Dutch, a Chinese girl, and a French girl. I think that I've also figured out that I am the only graduate student, and likely the oldest of the international students, which in itself is odd, since I usually am one of the youngest of any group of my friends. It's a neat experience though being able to hang out with people from all walks of academic life, and spend time with people outside of the TESOL crowd. I miss the TESOL crowd at CSUS dearly, and I have a feeling that I'm going to have mixed feelings about the TEFL crowd here at Boğaziçi, especially as I have been forewarned that I may be the only non-Turk in the classes.
(Still haven't figured out my schedule too btw. I'm more than a little annoyed that they have decided to schedule two core classes to conflict with each other. I am also more than a little annoyed that both Turkish classes conflict with the rest of my classes so that at this point, I really am just not sure what all I'll be taking. I intend to speak with an advisor before registering, that's for sure. I know what I'd *like* to say, but instead I will think of my mantra ("patience, flexibility, this-isn't-America") and try to maintain my temper.)
Today Katie and I strolled over the campus to find the infirmary (where nearly none of the staff speak English, save the Chief Medical Officer himself, who saw us personally), and then we found an Eczane( pharmacy), did laundry (or should I say dropped our laundry off to the lady who does it for us for 10 lira for the two of us), found a little market in the basement (no more lugging big water jugs a quarter of a mile back to our dorm!), before heading to Turkcell for Katie to register her phone. It had started to rain, so we huddled under my umbrella and continued exploring south as we knew that we were near Akmerkez, which is a big fancy-smancy mall a kilometer or two away from the dorm. Along the way, we started at the Starbucks and I indulged in a Chai tea latte for a mere 4.25 lira. I know, I know, I've barely been away from the States for a week, and already I'm craving Starbucks. But it had been a running joke amongst my coworkers and me about how to order chai tea in Turkey since çay (pronounced the same way) *is* tea in Turkish. So is it "chai çay", we wondered? Turns out the Turks don't seem to drink chai, so I have to find it at Starbucks. And tea with milk... the way it should be.
Oh! Oh, but the best part! We had *Mexican* for dinner! In Istanbul, of all places, there is an *El Torito* restaurant. I absolutely couldn't resist, so Katie and I went to have MexiTurk for dinner. We split a chicken fajitas dinner for about 40 lira, so it wasn't too bad that way, but it is still a bit pricey so this will only be an occasional treat for us. But oh, a chai tea latte and chicken fajitas in one day! So happy. It was a very surreal experience eating Mexican food in Turkey. Our waiter spoke decent English, and we went back and forth in English, Turkish and Spanish, teaching each other new words. He ended up giving us his phone number and extending an invitation to take us to a local soccer game. Interesting. Oh, have I mentioned how handsome a people the Turks are? Some of the men *swoon*. :)
Tomorrow is our Orientation. Supposedly. It's not mandatory, but they "highly recommend us to take part in order to have a smooth transition and introduction to Boğaziçi University and Istanbul". The only problem is that they have yet to actually let any of us international students know when and where this Orientation is. So.... yeah. The lack of communication here is really beginning to get on my nerves. There a few other things that I have some serious reservations about here, but I plan on keeping a list to report back to my program advisor and global education office for when I return.
But hopefully we will find out more in the morning. More soon.
We took a bus down to Taksim, and I ended giving up my seat to a little old lady halfway there. On the way, we saw many banks, stores and restaurants, including a Starbucks and a TGIF right across the street from each other. There is, incidentally, a decent amount of American stores and restaurants here in Istanbul, and they seem pretty popular if a bit more expensive than their Turkish counterparts. Public transportation is also popular here, and before long, the bus was packed with people. Traffic too in Istanbul is an adventure, let me tell you. Drivers go for every inch that they take on the road, they drive fast, aggressively, honk constantly, and sidewalks and pedestrians are fair game. At least the famous Turkish courtesy often does prevail, and drivers will stop abruptly to let people cross the street.
Taksim was a deliciously chaotic area, jammed with people swathed in scarves and dark colors, with vendors on the corners selling chestnuts and simits (like a cross between a soft pretzel and a bagel, covered in sesame seeds. I tried one - very tasty.) We quickly found the Turkcell store, and after a frenetic exchange of jumbled Turkish, English, passports, and lira, we all had new cell phones and simcards. My American cell doesn't work here, but now I can at least keep in touch with my new local friends and I don't feel quite so alone without a line of communication. After this, we wandered through Taksim and the adjacent neighborhood of Tünel, and window shopped, drooling over pastries and candies, delighting over Alex's purchase of a Harry Potter book in Turkish, sharing Verena's pistachios, and snapping photos like the silly tourists that we are. Hey, if we're gonna be tourists, we may as well as be tourists.
We did visit two Catholic churches, St. Anthony's and St. Mary's. Both were just beautiful and peaceful, and I definitely want to return to these for a good second look. We also found the Galata Kulesi (Galata Tower), which stands nearly 200 feet high and dates back to the 6th century. A few of the group went up into the tower, and the rest of us continued exploring, saving the tower for another day. I don't want to do too much touristing too early so I'll have things to see later. Dinner and grocery shopping (an adventure in of itself, I assure you) finished out our day.
Saturday, my roommate and I went off and did a little exploring and shopping around the immediate area. To give you some perspective, the Superdorm, where we live, is about 1.5 miles from the Güney Kampüs (South Campus) where we have our classes, and includes a good-sized hill, so yeah, I'm going to be doing a lot of walking. Between the two campuses are a variety of restaurants and stores, including ATMs, pharmacies, pastry shops, grocery stores, etc. We've eaten in a number of places and each one is just lovely. If you've never had Turkish food, you're missing out. It's not exactly vegetarian-friendly, but I'm pretty pleased.
We wandered around for a few hours to figure out where things were, and to our delight, found a great Saturday market, chock-full of all kinds of produce, fresh cheese, eggs, seafood, and even clothes, towels and linens, toys, and household products. It's just the way I imagined a market here would be: men and boys behind the tables hollering out invitations to buy their things, women in scarves and long skirts chatting together and bargaining good-naturedly, vendors handing out samples of their wares to try, just beautiful chaos. Together we bought stuff for salata (salad), lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, and apples, oranges, a quince, cheese. My roommate and I had a fun time fumbling through our very basic Turkish to make our purchases. It's frustrating not being able to express ourselves, nor understand the Turks, but we're learning quickly. Every day we pick up new words. What's even better is overhearing others, and understanding what they're saying. Ne kadar? Beş lira? Tesekkür. (How much? 5 lira? Thank you.)
Sunday we woke up to rain, so it was bound to be a lazy stay-at-home type day. Still we ventured out to eat and pick up groceries. I'm still just getting over a bit of a cold, and I've been tired and not feeling my best, but I think that has to do with adjusting to the new environs and food. I think that we're all taking in a lot all at once - new country, new language, new people, so many names and faces and facts that we're all feeling overwhelmed, and my body is adjusting too to Turkish food. It's very good, but the Turks cook with a lot of oils, which I'm not used to eating as I tend to eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, salad, whole grains, fiber, and mostly vegetarian. Luckily, bread is a big part of the Turkish diet, and with newly gifted kitchen goods from a local friend of Katie's, we can make at least some things now in our dorm.
Last night one of the American girls held a tea party (since alcohol is verboten in the dorms), and I was able to meet a bunch of people all at one time. It appears that most of the international students are Americans, with a couple Germans, a couple of Dutch, a Chinese girl, and a French girl. I think that I've also figured out that I am the only graduate student, and likely the oldest of the international students, which in itself is odd, since I usually am one of the youngest of any group of my friends. It's a neat experience though being able to hang out with people from all walks of academic life, and spend time with people outside of the TESOL crowd. I miss the TESOL crowd at CSUS dearly, and I have a feeling that I'm going to have mixed feelings about the TEFL crowd here at Boğaziçi, especially as I have been forewarned that I may be the only non-Turk in the classes.
(Still haven't figured out my schedule too btw. I'm more than a little annoyed that they have decided to schedule two core classes to conflict with each other. I am also more than a little annoyed that both Turkish classes conflict with the rest of my classes so that at this point, I really am just not sure what all I'll be taking. I intend to speak with an advisor before registering, that's for sure. I know what I'd *like* to say, but instead I will think of my mantra ("patience, flexibility, this-isn't-America") and try to maintain my temper.)
Today Katie and I strolled over the campus to find the infirmary (where nearly none of the staff speak English, save the Chief Medical Officer himself, who saw us personally), and then we found an Eczane( pharmacy), did laundry (or should I say dropped our laundry off to the lady who does it for us for 10 lira for the two of us), found a little market in the basement (no more lugging big water jugs a quarter of a mile back to our dorm!), before heading to Turkcell for Katie to register her phone. It had started to rain, so we huddled under my umbrella and continued exploring south as we knew that we were near Akmerkez, which is a big fancy-smancy mall a kilometer or two away from the dorm. Along the way, we started at the Starbucks and I indulged in a Chai tea latte for a mere 4.25 lira. I know, I know, I've barely been away from the States for a week, and already I'm craving Starbucks. But it had been a running joke amongst my coworkers and me about how to order chai tea in Turkey since çay (pronounced the same way) *is* tea in Turkish. So is it "chai çay", we wondered? Turns out the Turks don't seem to drink chai, so I have to find it at Starbucks. And tea with milk... the way it should be.
Oh! Oh, but the best part! We had *Mexican* for dinner! In Istanbul, of all places, there is an *El Torito* restaurant. I absolutely couldn't resist, so Katie and I went to have MexiTurk for dinner. We split a chicken fajitas dinner for about 40 lira, so it wasn't too bad that way, but it is still a bit pricey so this will only be an occasional treat for us. But oh, a chai tea latte and chicken fajitas in one day! So happy. It was a very surreal experience eating Mexican food in Turkey. Our waiter spoke decent English, and we went back and forth in English, Turkish and Spanish, teaching each other new words. He ended up giving us his phone number and extending an invitation to take us to a local soccer game. Interesting. Oh, have I mentioned how handsome a people the Turks are? Some of the men *swoon*. :)
Tomorrow is our Orientation. Supposedly. It's not mandatory, but they "highly recommend us to take part in order to have a smooth transition and introduction to Boğaziçi University and Istanbul". The only problem is that they have yet to actually let any of us international students know when and where this Orientation is. So.... yeah. The lack of communication here is really beginning to get on my nerves. There a few other things that I have some serious reservations about here, but I plan on keeping a list to report back to my program advisor and global education office for when I return.
But hopefully we will find out more in the morning. More soon.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Istanbul, Day Two
Day Two
I woke up about 9ish, after nearly 11 hours of sleep, which were sorely needed, and met up with the others at 11. We met Alex, another American student from Illinois, and walked to the Güney Kampüs (South Campus), which is a 10-15 minute hike from the Superdorm. Along the way, we passed lots of little shops and restaurants, and finally saw the Bosphorus. (For those of you who don't know, Istanbul is divided by the Bosphorus Strait which connects the Black Sea in the north with the Sea of Marmara in the south, and beyond the Marmara are the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Istanbul is the only city in the world which sits on two continents.) Across the water we could see Turkish flags flying on the Asian side. Asia! We're barely a couple miles from Asia! That was a delicious startling thought, and all of us laughed at that. Registration took only a few minutes, and there we met Nadine, Verena and Ernesto all from Germany, Karel from the Netherlands, and a couple others whose names are currently escaping me. We decided to find the swimming pool, which is on the Hisar Kampüs, and unfortunately it requires a membership fee so I don't think I'll be swimming there.
After that, we went all together for lunch at a local place, all 10 of us sitting down together. Ordering was fun – only Nadine really spoke much Turkish so with translating help from her, referring to pictures on the menu, a little pointing and a little random choosing, we all got lunch. We swapped bites so we could all try everything. I can't remember now what I ordered, some kind of wrapped burrito-like thing with hamburger sausage, lettuce and tomato, but it was very tasty. A little dish with spices and peppers, not unlike a dryish salsa was served, and baskets of puffed bread that was big as a person's head. Seriously. We joked about taking a photo of the bread next to someone's head just to get a size comparison. (I'll be learning all the Turkish words for these things sooner or later) We drank water and tea. Oh, this is definitely one thing that you notice about Turkey. Bottled water and tea are everywhere – every store, every restaurant, nearly everywhere you go. You can't drink the tap water here, so everyone drinks bottled water and it's cheap, about 90 kuruş (kuruş are comparable to American cents), which is maybe 75 cents. Tea is of course absolutely ubiquitous in Turkey. It's so much a part of Turkish culture, and it is drunk very simply with şeker (sugar), but no milk. Apparently this is just not done. There are two kinds of milk even, süt and ayran, which is more like buttermilk and is drunk with salt and pepper sometimes. The yoghurt (I'm not going to translate this one – surprise! You already know some Turkish) is also different, not flavored and eaten as a side with meals. I mixed a little with the salsa-like stuff and it was a reasonable Turkish mock-up of my beloved Mexican.
We spent the afternoon walking, and decided to make our way down to Bebek which is on the water's edge. We made our way down a long hill, along a steep narrow road, dodging crazy drivers all the way. Oh! The drivers in Turkey are unbelievable. They park their cars every which way, even on the sidewalks as the roads are often narrow and many of them cobblestone or brick, and they drive all over the park, honking at anything, and they will barely slow down to let you pass. We kept joking today that one of us was going to end up dead, and here I am, over 6000 miles away from my favorite mortician! So needless to say, this isn't a city that I'd want to drive in. Turkish drivers are downright ruthless! But the walking, oh, the walking may kill me. I think we must have walked 5 miles today, and between having a cold and being stupidly out of shape, I had to stop a couple of times to take a breather. But to be fair, coming back up the hill was more than a bit of a workout. So yeah, Turkish food is delicious, but I think I'm going to lose a bit of weight being here.
The waterfront was quite pretty, again lots of little shops and restaurants, and many people fishing along the water. Mostly they were pulling in silverly little fish which they put in plastic buckets of water. We even saw a small clutch of men huddled around a portable grill, eating their fresh catch with lemons, cigarettes dangling from their fingers. Here's another constant: everyone seems to smoke, and they smoke everywhere – in restaurants, on the street, on their mopeds (minus helmets too) and smokes are cheap apparently, not that I'm interested. The girls and I took it all in, including strolling beneath the grey rock towers of Rumelihisarı, which is a fortress that was built between 1451-1452, back when Istanbul really was Constantinople.
It was seeing that majestic fortress looming over us that I really had that “OhmiGod, I'm really in *Istanbul*” moment. America is old and has lots of very neat buildings, but there are no real fortresses or castles there. This was a fortress, built nearly a century and a half before Virginia was first founded, over three hundred years before America was founded, even forty years before Columbus sailed for the Indies. Constantinople, y'all. 1451. That's old. Now to be honest, we've all been having these little OhmiGod, I'm in Istanbul” moments at various points, but seeing those towers really drove home the fact that I'm now in Europe.
Oh... another long day, and it's late as I'm writing this. We Americans went back to the Superdorm, rested for a bit, and there I met Katie, my roommate, who is from Boston. She just got in from many long hours driving from west Europe and was suffering from the same jet lag the rest of us had the day before. We ventured out, and I introduced her to Erin, Emily and Olivia, and we had dinner at a local hole in the wall restaurant, where we ordered our food by again a lot of pointing and smiles. I had something like a Turkish beef stew and the others had dishes that resembled chana masala, chicken pot pie and mousaka, which was the one dish we all recognized. Tea, bread, salad (lettuce, carrots and red cabbage eaten with olive oil and lemon juice) rounded out the meal. And the the very handsome waiters (Oh, girls, let me tell you that the men here are so pretty!) even gave us free dessert, including a baked apple in syrup with heavy whipped cream, a caramelized milk pudding (like flan), and a dessert that had the consistency of grits or polenta but was sweet. All in all, very tasty. We will definitely be going there again!
So that's my road less traveled so far. I'm very happy to have met other Americans, including ones who are from Virginia, no less! I've made some good friends pretty quickly, and I'm looking forward to meeting more. Every hour I spend here I learn or see something new. We're all happily fumbling our way through the language, and even going to a restaurant minus a Turkish-speaker has not daunted us. We're all in this together. Tomorrow we have plans to brave the public transportation and go to Taksim, near the downtown area, to see what we can see, buy Turkish cell phones and do a little shopping. I promise more updates soon. :)
I woke up about 9ish, after nearly 11 hours of sleep, which were sorely needed, and met up with the others at 11. We met Alex, another American student from Illinois, and walked to the Güney Kampüs (South Campus), which is a 10-15 minute hike from the Superdorm. Along the way, we passed lots of little shops and restaurants, and finally saw the Bosphorus. (For those of you who don't know, Istanbul is divided by the Bosphorus Strait which connects the Black Sea in the north with the Sea of Marmara in the south, and beyond the Marmara are the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Istanbul is the only city in the world which sits on two continents.) Across the water we could see Turkish flags flying on the Asian side. Asia! We're barely a couple miles from Asia! That was a delicious startling thought, and all of us laughed at that. Registration took only a few minutes, and there we met Nadine, Verena and Ernesto all from Germany, Karel from the Netherlands, and a couple others whose names are currently escaping me. We decided to find the swimming pool, which is on the Hisar Kampüs, and unfortunately it requires a membership fee so I don't think I'll be swimming there.
After that, we went all together for lunch at a local place, all 10 of us sitting down together. Ordering was fun – only Nadine really spoke much Turkish so with translating help from her, referring to pictures on the menu, a little pointing and a little random choosing, we all got lunch. We swapped bites so we could all try everything. I can't remember now what I ordered, some kind of wrapped burrito-like thing with hamburger sausage, lettuce and tomato, but it was very tasty. A little dish with spices and peppers, not unlike a dryish salsa was served, and baskets of puffed bread that was big as a person's head. Seriously. We joked about taking a photo of the bread next to someone's head just to get a size comparison. (I'll be learning all the Turkish words for these things sooner or later) We drank water and tea. Oh, this is definitely one thing that you notice about Turkey. Bottled water and tea are everywhere – every store, every restaurant, nearly everywhere you go. You can't drink the tap water here, so everyone drinks bottled water and it's cheap, about 90 kuruş (kuruş are comparable to American cents), which is maybe 75 cents. Tea is of course absolutely ubiquitous in Turkey. It's so much a part of Turkish culture, and it is drunk very simply with şeker (sugar), but no milk. Apparently this is just not done. There are two kinds of milk even, süt and ayran, which is more like buttermilk and is drunk with salt and pepper sometimes. The yoghurt (I'm not going to translate this one – surprise! You already know some Turkish) is also different, not flavored and eaten as a side with meals. I mixed a little with the salsa-like stuff and it was a reasonable Turkish mock-up of my beloved Mexican.
We spent the afternoon walking, and decided to make our way down to Bebek which is on the water's edge. We made our way down a long hill, along a steep narrow road, dodging crazy drivers all the way. Oh! The drivers in Turkey are unbelievable. They park their cars every which way, even on the sidewalks as the roads are often narrow and many of them cobblestone or brick, and they drive all over the park, honking at anything, and they will barely slow down to let you pass. We kept joking today that one of us was going to end up dead, and here I am, over 6000 miles away from my favorite mortician! So needless to say, this isn't a city that I'd want to drive in. Turkish drivers are downright ruthless! But the walking, oh, the walking may kill me. I think we must have walked 5 miles today, and between having a cold and being stupidly out of shape, I had to stop a couple of times to take a breather. But to be fair, coming back up the hill was more than a bit of a workout. So yeah, Turkish food is delicious, but I think I'm going to lose a bit of weight being here.
The waterfront was quite pretty, again lots of little shops and restaurants, and many people fishing along the water. Mostly they were pulling in silverly little fish which they put in plastic buckets of water. We even saw a small clutch of men huddled around a portable grill, eating their fresh catch with lemons, cigarettes dangling from their fingers. Here's another constant: everyone seems to smoke, and they smoke everywhere – in restaurants, on the street, on their mopeds (minus helmets too) and smokes are cheap apparently, not that I'm interested. The girls and I took it all in, including strolling beneath the grey rock towers of Rumelihisarı, which is a fortress that was built between 1451-1452, back when Istanbul really was Constantinople.
It was seeing that majestic fortress looming over us that I really had that “OhmiGod, I'm really in *Istanbul*” moment. America is old and has lots of very neat buildings, but there are no real fortresses or castles there. This was a fortress, built nearly a century and a half before Virginia was first founded, over three hundred years before America was founded, even forty years before Columbus sailed for the Indies. Constantinople, y'all. 1451. That's old. Now to be honest, we've all been having these little OhmiGod, I'm in Istanbul” moments at various points, but seeing those towers really drove home the fact that I'm now in Europe.
Oh... another long day, and it's late as I'm writing this. We Americans went back to the Superdorm, rested for a bit, and there I met Katie, my roommate, who is from Boston. She just got in from many long hours driving from west Europe and was suffering from the same jet lag the rest of us had the day before. We ventured out, and I introduced her to Erin, Emily and Olivia, and we had dinner at a local hole in the wall restaurant, where we ordered our food by again a lot of pointing and smiles. I had something like a Turkish beef stew and the others had dishes that resembled chana masala, chicken pot pie and mousaka, which was the one dish we all recognized. Tea, bread, salad (lettuce, carrots and red cabbage eaten with olive oil and lemon juice) rounded out the meal. And the the very handsome waiters (Oh, girls, let me tell you that the men here are so pretty!) even gave us free dessert, including a baked apple in syrup with heavy whipped cream, a caramelized milk pudding (like flan), and a dessert that had the consistency of grits or polenta but was sweet. All in all, very tasty. We will definitely be going there again!
So that's my road less traveled so far. I'm very happy to have met other Americans, including ones who are from Virginia, no less! I've made some good friends pretty quickly, and I'm looking forward to meeting more. Every hour I spend here I learn or see something new. We're all happily fumbling our way through the language, and even going to a restaurant minus a Turkish-speaker has not daunted us. We're all in this together. Tomorrow we have plans to brave the public transportation and go to Taksim, near the downtown area, to see what we can see, buy Turkish cell phones and do a little shopping. I promise more updates soon. :)
Istanbul, Day One
(Note to the readers: Just so you can learn some too, Turkish words are italicized with their meaning in parentheses, unless it's blatantly obvious *grin*)
Istanbul.
Oh, where to start?
I could go back about seven months to when I first started looking at study abroad options, but that would be retelling a lot of what folks already know. But it's amazing to me to realize just how far I've come, both physically and metaphorically, and I'm still reeling from that fact that I'm actually here.
I'll start with Tuesday. I started to get the whole Turkish experience right from the plane flight here. I was one of a handful of Americans on the plane, and the rest were Turks, including the flight attendants. Turkish Air is quite lovely too – the seats were more spacious (it was 2-4-2 seating patterns, with 3 sections), there were video screens on the seat backs, so we could pick from a variety of music to listen to as well as TV shows and movies (I watched Carousel), and I was pleasantly surprised by the meals they served (chicken, sautéed spinach, potato purée, salad, a small dish with tomato, eggplant and mozzarella, a roll with olive oil (natch) and butter, juice, water, and an apple tart). Breakfast several hours later (it was a 10 hour flight that was supposed to leave at 6:15pm but we didn't get into the air until 8:45) was equally lovely (eggs, sausage, sautéed tomato, plain yogurt and muesli, a small dish of tomato, cucumber, feta and olive, a roll with butter and jam, and tea). I made friends with the young Turkish guy next to me, Cehangir, and we traded language lessons. I kept having this strange urge to switch over to French, which for me for many years has always been “the other language” in my head. I know that I need to learn and speak Turkish but now that I'm being thrown into a foreign language immersion environment, part of my brain is telling me that I need to use “the other language”. Not surprisingly too though, I'm feeling the need to cling desperately to things that are familiar including my music. So I think I will likely want to listen to American music still a lot. It's natural.
I slept very little on the plan because I couldn't figure out how to get my seat to go back, nor how to turn off the video screen, which while it constantly informed me where we were along our trip via a little plane over the map, I wanted to sleep. I think I managed to eke out about an hour and a half. Breakfast and tea helped wake me, and before I knew it, we were touching down in Istanbul. I kind of got all verklempt when we landed, and I looked out to my first view of Istanbul and the Turkish signs. Oh, my God, y'all. *I'm in Istanbul.* I was very nervous about getting through customs and to the university, but that all went surprisingly smoothly. I breezed through customs, where the officer glanced at my visa, looked significantly at me, and then stamped it and waved me through. Picking up my suitcase took all of 5 minutes, and then I exchanged what American bills I had for lira, picked up more lira at a nearby ATM, and secured a taksi not even 30 seconds after walking out the door.
Istanbul is big. Big. The drive was about 30 minutes or so, I'm not sure, because I spent the whole time gazing out the windows. Everywhere I looked I saw something new. Istanbul is a delightfully chaotic mess of apt buildings, where lines of drying laundry are equally at home with satellite dishes, and Porsches and Audi honk and swerve down the roads along side beat-up Toyota and Hyundai trucks. In almost every neighbor, like churches in many small American towns, there was a mosque, domed buildings with minarets towering over them, their pointed spires piercing the sky. They are very odd and neat to see, and a very clear reminder that I'm no longer in America. The drive to Boğaziҫi cost me 50 lira ($30 American), and before I knew it, I was strolling into the Superdorm. (Just a few facts: the Superdorm is a large building that houses all the international exchange and special students, up to 486 students in 130 suites that each have 2, 3, or 4 individual rooms.) Check-in also took a few minutes, and it was basically “check your room, write on this form if anything is damaged or missing (how would we know if anything was missing?), here are your keys, don't lose them under any circumstances, and let us know if you have any problems. Oh, and the staff here doesn't speak English.” This a frustrating bone of contention, let me tell you. About the only person in the Superdorm who speaks decent English is the dorm manager, who is only in during business hours, so let's hope that no disasters arise between the hours of 5pm and 9am.
The 2-bedroom suite that Katie (I'll tell you more about her later) and I share is rather snug. Austere would be a good descriptor word. There is our kitchenette during your right as you enter, which largely consists of cabinets, a small counter, a sink, and a half fridge, but no utensils, dishes, or cooking appliances. The living room is tiny, with a love seat, an odd-looking two-tiered “coffee table”/counter furniture-thing, a dining table with 2 chairs. A hall goes to the right of the living room, and opens into the bathroom which is divided in the middle with a countered sink and cabinets underneath, and a room to the left with the shower stall and a room to the right with the toilet and storage cabinet. I have the first bedroom and Katie has the second, and both are identical – cabinets and shelves, with a large table to the left, bed to the right, and a narrow wardrobe closet at the foot of the bed. It's snug but it's enough room for one person, and actually more than enough shelf spaces for all my things, including luggage.
So after settling down, plugging in my laptop (the internet worked immediately – yay!), I went out to find Erin. I had met Erin shortly after coming into the Superdorm as I recognized her from being on the same flight with me from NY. If only we knew we were coming to the same place, we could have saved the cab fare! The staff directed me in the right direction after a bit of fumbling and pointing, and I met up with her in her room which she shares with 3 other girls. Turns out Erin is from Portland but is going to UVA – a girl from the city I want to move to going to school in the state I'm from! And to make things even more neat was meeting her roommates, Olivia who also lives in Virginia, also attending UVA and Emily who is from Chantilly and goes to Mary Washington! We all travel thousands of miles, and all of us have a connection to Virginia – how wonderful is that! I also met a family friend of Olivia's, Lucy, who lives a few minutes' drive from the campus, whose husband works for the Foreign Service, and she invites all of us to dinner at their apt. She offered to come get us, so after a shower and a fresh change of clothes, we all met up and rode to Lucy's apt.
Oh, and before I met up with them, I spent a little just gazing out my window. I spotted not one but two European magpies, so needless to say, I feel quite at home here with that! I also heard the call to prayer about 5pm. Nearly thirty years I've lived and I have never before heard the Islamic call to prayer. It echoes from many directions, haunting, exotic, and so beautiful. There's nothing quite like it in Catholicism. The only thing I could compare it to really is the call and response Gregorian chant that the monks sing. This too reminds me that I'm no longer at home. But Lucy's home is close to the real thing. She lives in an expensive and a beautifully decorated apt, a neat little slice of America in Turkey, and there we students were treated to a delicious dinner of steak, pasta and salad, with chocolate-dipped strawberries for desserts. We also met Jessica, who is an intern friend staying with them, and she's currently teaching English at a Berlitz school here, so we had lots to talk about. We all had a lively conversation, and told Lucy and her husband Harold where we were from, what we were studying and why we had come to Istanbul.
Let me tell you that it all felt very surreal. Only hours before, I had landed, nervous about being in an unfamiliar country, surrounded by a language I didn't know, farther away than I have ever been from family and friends, and before I knew it, I had made 6 new friends, and was eating a wonderful dinner in a beautiful apt in Istanbul, Turkey. Lucy went beyond fantastically generous when we started discussing what we wanted to do the next day, and we mentioned that we wanted to buy a few things – pillows, blankets, ethernet cables, etc – and she offered us all these things, digging right into her storage unit to get us what we needed. Oh! And did any of us want to make a phone call to loved ones to let them know that we had arrived? Use her phone, she said. They had a very inexpensive phone plan, so all of us were able to spend a few minutes on the phone. I immediately called Russ and my Mom, and both sounded as clear as a bell, and I was so glad to be able to talk to them. After stuffing us with a delicious meal, loading our arms with needed supplies and offers to have an occasional Sunday night dinner again at the apt, Lucy sent us on our way back to the dorm for some much-needed rest.
So that was my first day, a dizzying whirl of food, new friends, and blessed generosity.
Istanbul.
Oh, where to start?
I could go back about seven months to when I first started looking at study abroad options, but that would be retelling a lot of what folks already know. But it's amazing to me to realize just how far I've come, both physically and metaphorically, and I'm still reeling from that fact that I'm actually here.
I'll start with Tuesday. I started to get the whole Turkish experience right from the plane flight here. I was one of a handful of Americans on the plane, and the rest were Turks, including the flight attendants. Turkish Air is quite lovely too – the seats were more spacious (it was 2-4-2 seating patterns, with 3 sections), there were video screens on the seat backs, so we could pick from a variety of music to listen to as well as TV shows and movies (I watched Carousel), and I was pleasantly surprised by the meals they served (chicken, sautéed spinach, potato purée, salad, a small dish with tomato, eggplant and mozzarella, a roll with olive oil (natch) and butter, juice, water, and an apple tart). Breakfast several hours later (it was a 10 hour flight that was supposed to leave at 6:15pm but we didn't get into the air until 8:45) was equally lovely (eggs, sausage, sautéed tomato, plain yogurt and muesli, a small dish of tomato, cucumber, feta and olive, a roll with butter and jam, and tea). I made friends with the young Turkish guy next to me, Cehangir, and we traded language lessons. I kept having this strange urge to switch over to French, which for me for many years has always been “the other language” in my head. I know that I need to learn and speak Turkish but now that I'm being thrown into a foreign language immersion environment, part of my brain is telling me that I need to use “the other language”. Not surprisingly too though, I'm feeling the need to cling desperately to things that are familiar including my music. So I think I will likely want to listen to American music still a lot. It's natural.
I slept very little on the plan because I couldn't figure out how to get my seat to go back, nor how to turn off the video screen, which while it constantly informed me where we were along our trip via a little plane over the map, I wanted to sleep. I think I managed to eke out about an hour and a half. Breakfast and tea helped wake me, and before I knew it, we were touching down in Istanbul. I kind of got all verklempt when we landed, and I looked out to my first view of Istanbul and the Turkish signs. Oh, my God, y'all. *I'm in Istanbul.* I was very nervous about getting through customs and to the university, but that all went surprisingly smoothly. I breezed through customs, where the officer glanced at my visa, looked significantly at me, and then stamped it and waved me through. Picking up my suitcase took all of 5 minutes, and then I exchanged what American bills I had for lira, picked up more lira at a nearby ATM, and secured a taksi not even 30 seconds after walking out the door.
Istanbul is big. Big. The drive was about 30 minutes or so, I'm not sure, because I spent the whole time gazing out the windows. Everywhere I looked I saw something new. Istanbul is a delightfully chaotic mess of apt buildings, where lines of drying laundry are equally at home with satellite dishes, and Porsches and Audi honk and swerve down the roads along side beat-up Toyota and Hyundai trucks. In almost every neighbor, like churches in many small American towns, there was a mosque, domed buildings with minarets towering over them, their pointed spires piercing the sky. They are very odd and neat to see, and a very clear reminder that I'm no longer in America. The drive to Boğaziҫi cost me 50 lira ($30 American), and before I knew it, I was strolling into the Superdorm. (Just a few facts: the Superdorm is a large building that houses all the international exchange and special students, up to 486 students in 130 suites that each have 2, 3, or 4 individual rooms.) Check-in also took a few minutes, and it was basically “check your room, write on this form if anything is damaged or missing (how would we know if anything was missing?), here are your keys, don't lose them under any circumstances, and let us know if you have any problems. Oh, and the staff here doesn't speak English.” This a frustrating bone of contention, let me tell you. About the only person in the Superdorm who speaks decent English is the dorm manager, who is only in during business hours, so let's hope that no disasters arise between the hours of 5pm and 9am.
The 2-bedroom suite that Katie (I'll tell you more about her later) and I share is rather snug. Austere would be a good descriptor word. There is our kitchenette during your right as you enter, which largely consists of cabinets, a small counter, a sink, and a half fridge, but no utensils, dishes, or cooking appliances. The living room is tiny, with a love seat, an odd-looking two-tiered “coffee table”/counter furniture-thing, a dining table with 2 chairs. A hall goes to the right of the living room, and opens into the bathroom which is divided in the middle with a countered sink and cabinets underneath, and a room to the left with the shower stall and a room to the right with the toilet and storage cabinet. I have the first bedroom and Katie has the second, and both are identical – cabinets and shelves, with a large table to the left, bed to the right, and a narrow wardrobe closet at the foot of the bed. It's snug but it's enough room for one person, and actually more than enough shelf spaces for all my things, including luggage.
So after settling down, plugging in my laptop (the internet worked immediately – yay!), I went out to find Erin. I had met Erin shortly after coming into the Superdorm as I recognized her from being on the same flight with me from NY. If only we knew we were coming to the same place, we could have saved the cab fare! The staff directed me in the right direction after a bit of fumbling and pointing, and I met up with her in her room which she shares with 3 other girls. Turns out Erin is from Portland but is going to UVA – a girl from the city I want to move to going to school in the state I'm from! And to make things even more neat was meeting her roommates, Olivia who also lives in Virginia, also attending UVA and Emily who is from Chantilly and goes to Mary Washington! We all travel thousands of miles, and all of us have a connection to Virginia – how wonderful is that! I also met a family friend of Olivia's, Lucy, who lives a few minutes' drive from the campus, whose husband works for the Foreign Service, and she invites all of us to dinner at their apt. She offered to come get us, so after a shower and a fresh change of clothes, we all met up and rode to Lucy's apt.
Oh, and before I met up with them, I spent a little just gazing out my window. I spotted not one but two European magpies, so needless to say, I feel quite at home here with that! I also heard the call to prayer about 5pm. Nearly thirty years I've lived and I have never before heard the Islamic call to prayer. It echoes from many directions, haunting, exotic, and so beautiful. There's nothing quite like it in Catholicism. The only thing I could compare it to really is the call and response Gregorian chant that the monks sing. This too reminds me that I'm no longer at home. But Lucy's home is close to the real thing. She lives in an expensive and a beautifully decorated apt, a neat little slice of America in Turkey, and there we students were treated to a delicious dinner of steak, pasta and salad, with chocolate-dipped strawberries for desserts. We also met Jessica, who is an intern friend staying with them, and she's currently teaching English at a Berlitz school here, so we had lots to talk about. We all had a lively conversation, and told Lucy and her husband Harold where we were from, what we were studying and why we had come to Istanbul.
Let me tell you that it all felt very surreal. Only hours before, I had landed, nervous about being in an unfamiliar country, surrounded by a language I didn't know, farther away than I have ever been from family and friends, and before I knew it, I had made 6 new friends, and was eating a wonderful dinner in a beautiful apt in Istanbul, Turkey. Lucy went beyond fantastically generous when we started discussing what we wanted to do the next day, and we mentioned that we wanted to buy a few things – pillows, blankets, ethernet cables, etc – and she offered us all these things, digging right into her storage unit to get us what we needed. Oh! And did any of us want to make a phone call to loved ones to let them know that we had arrived? Use her phone, she said. They had a very inexpensive phone plan, so all of us were able to spend a few minutes on the phone. I immediately called Russ and my Mom, and both sounded as clear as a bell, and I was so glad to be able to talk to them. After stuffing us with a delicious meal, loading our arms with needed supplies and offers to have an occasional Sunday night dinner again at the apt, Lucy sent us on our way back to the dorm for some much-needed rest.
So that was my first day, a dizzying whirl of food, new friends, and blessed generosity.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost, 1920
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost, 1920
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