It’s a little hard for me to believe that I’ve been in Turkey now for just over two months. Sometimes it feels like we only got here a couple weeks ago and other times it feels like I’ve been living here for months. I settled into a comfortable routine: sleeping until my body wakes up on its own, breakfast/lunch, reading for classes, keeping up with the world on the internet, classes in the afternoons Monday-Thursday, grocery shopping, exploring the city, making dessert with friends, tutoring Turkish students in English, sipping tea at cafes while studying Turkish homework, meeting friends for dinner any number of places in the neighborhood, just enjoying life. All the while learning Turkish, speaking Turkish, eating Turkish food, hanging out with Turkish friends, buying and wearing Turkish clothes. Lots and lots of Turkish.
I’ve had several blog entries just banging around in my head for a while now, slowly composing myself as I get settled in and figure out Turkish life. I’ve been meaning to post about life in Istanbul, about my classes and what they are like compared to classes at CSUS, about Turkish food, about seeing places around the city, just lots of stuff. So quite a lot of it is overdue. I know that a couple of you reading my blog are planning on coming to Istanbul next semester, so hopefully a lot of this is good food for thought for you two. For others who may wish to visit Istanbul (or anywhere in Turkey), hopefully I’ll provide some good advice and things to consider. For the rest of you, if nothing else, interesting reading.
Okay, so Istanbul. What is it like to live in Istanbul? Maybe I could entitle this blog entry “Facts of life for living in Istanbul”. I wouldn’t want to say “Turkey” because really I’m sure that way of life in Istanbul would not apply to the way of life for all of Turkey. It’d be like saying that the way of life in New York City can be applied to the rest of the United States. So what is it like to live here? I’ll start with the basics in no particular order.
Time – Turks use the 24 hour clock, just like the military (24-11 = am, 12-23 = pm). So 15:30 is 3:30 pm; if it’s a number over 12, just subtract 12. Most Turks tend to say what the time as non-military time though, so 15:30 is “3:30”.
Metrics - Turkey, like almost every other civilized nation in the world, uses the metric system. I have a handy-dandy little conversion chart that I carry nearly everywhere I go just in case I need to convert something. So temps are in Celsius, distance is in kilometers, and you buy food in kilos and grams.
Money - Turkish currency closely echoes American/Canadian/European currency. Their currency is the Turkish Lira (TL), and they have 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 TL bills. The coins are called kuruş, and come in 5, 10, 25, 50, and 1 TL. The currency changed back in 2005, so there are various different kinds of coins floating around.
Food – I could likely write a whole blog entry about food. Turkish food, in a word, is delicious. I thought before coming to Turkey that it would be like a blend of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern, and some of it is, granted, but it’s quite different than I expected. There are a key few staples of the Turkish diet, namely bread, rice, tea, yogurt and meat. Chances are you will be served some kind of bread with every meal, and after every meal, you get tea. (As I believe I said before, it’s fascinating living in a country where you pay for the water and the tea is free). Rice is also very popular, both white rice and bulgur pilav (pilav being the Turkish word for rice, so now going back to America, I’m going to laugh every time I hear “rice pilaf” because it’s basically like saying “rice rice”.) Pasta is popular to eat as well, especially mantı, which is like mini raviolis. Pasta, by the way, is quite cheap here, and oh, pasta is also a Turkish word but it means “cake”. So a pastanesi is a cake shop, not a noodle shop. :) As you may have guessed, shish kebabs (or şiş kebap) are also very popular. While there are plenty of vegetarian dishes, Turkish cuisine tends to be a bit meat-heavy in my opinion. It’s rare to find pork, but there is also plenty of chicken, beef, lamb, and fish to be had, fish especially in Istanbul and along the coast. Fruits and veggies are plentiful, and foods are well-spiced, but not spicy. People drink lots of tea (obviously), milk, bottled water (drinking the tap water isn’t advised here), juice, rakı (a traditional liquor that’s flavored with anise), and ayran, which is about the only thing that I’ve tried here and didn’t like. Ayran is a drink that’s yogurt mixed with water and often salted. It’s supposedly good for an upset stomach, and is a quintessential Turkish thing, but none of the Americans have liked it (I think primarily because we’re not used to drinks being salty). Oh, and then desserts. The Turks know their dessert. Baklava is very popular here, as is sütlaç (rice pudding), helva (think sweet grits with pinenuts in it – sooo good!), künefe (it’s made of phyllo dough, but its texture is very similar to shredded wheat and it’s sweet and syrupy like baklava), and many others. And of course, there’s lokum otherwise known as Turkish delight. This is quite yummy too and especially delicious when covered in chocolate. You just haven’t eaten Turkish until you’ve had lokum. Oh, I could go on and on.
Transportation – Let me just say - traffic in Istanbul is horrible. I grew up in the DC area, and this is worse. Drivers here are crazy. If they can get through a space with an inch around their vehicle, they will. You think cab drivers in NYC are bad? The taksi drivers here are ruthless, and I’m being polite. They get you to where you need to go and quickly, but you may worry about speed limits and hitting pedestrians along the way. Drivers in general are more than a bit scary. They honk at everything, drive fast, and there have been more than a few times that I seriously thought that someone was going to get hit. The cars here are smaller, and there are plenty of models that you’d never see in the States: Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Daewoo, Daihatsu, and of course, in our area, Audi, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes. (Boğaziçi is in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Istanbul, btw, so it’s a bit high dollar around here, but still not quite what you’d think of in terms of high-dollar back home in the States). Mopeds and scooters are also quite popular, especially for delivery guys, and few drivers wear helmets, which scares me. I have seen very few bicycles which makes sense when you consider how crazy the drivers are.
The public transportation here however is quite good. There are lots and lots of buses, of courses, and trams, funiculars (underground metro trains), metro trains, metro buses, and vintage trams. Needless to say, the public transportation system here is extensive. I think you could live in this city for years and years and never ride on them all. But then, Istanbul is huge. Turks drive on the right hand side of the road, and the traffic signals and signs are very similar to those at home, save written signs are in Turkish. One of the first ones you learn is “DUR”, which is “STOP”. The lights are basically the same too, which means red is “fine, I’ll stop”, yellow “hurry the hell up! I can get through this!” and green “move, you &#%%$!”. Walking is a fabulous if slightly hazardous way of getting around the city. As long as you keep in mind the idea that pedestrians don’t always get the right-of-way, you should be fine. Turks do a LOT of walking around Istanbul; sometimes it’s the only real way to get to a place. So accordingly, if you come to Istanbul, be prepared to do a lot of walking, aka wear comfortable shoes. Sidewalks here aren’t the smoothest either, so how the Turkish women wear high heels and don’t break their ankles, I just don’t know.
Fashion – This is fascinating to me because I love people-watching, and I’m a girl, so I like fashion. I’m a jeans and t-shirt type of person myself, but admittedly, I’m still a bit of a girly-girl. Fashion among the students at Boğaziçi is rather varied. Most of it is European-influenced obviously, with lots of American brands being popular, and a healthy dose of the 80s mixed-in. Clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, Levi, Guess and others can be seen, as well as many Turkish brands too. If I had to sum up Turkish fashion in only a few words, it would be “jeans, boots, and scarves”. Everyone wears jeans, everyone wears scarves – men and women, and boots are very popular with the women. Guys wear a lot of sports-inspired clothes, and women often wear skirts and dresses with tights and legwarmers. Women often wear pantyhose or tights under shorts too, and while in the warmer weather, they wear short sleeves, they don’t bear a lot of skin. Apparently tank tops, baring the midriff, and open-toed shoes aren’t very popular here. Tattoos btw aren’t either. I’ve gotten a lot of looks when mine is bared, some curious, some not-so-curious, and lots of questions from my Turkish friends. (For those of you who don’t know, I have a good-sized tattoo that covers most of my upper right arm and is very noticeable when I’m wearing short sleeves. There are of course a lot of women who wear the headscarves, long skirts and dresses, and beautiful long coats as well, keeping with Muslim tradition. It’s an interesting blend really – old and new, traditional and modern. All in all, Turks really seem to care about what they wear, and dress well, in clean neat lines.
People – Oh, the Turkish people. Turks are friendly, polite, gracious, patient, and overall, a very handsome people. Most Turks are dark-haired and dark-eyed, but certainly not all, though blonde and red hair isn’t very common at all. Most of the young men are rather good-looking and the women are beautiful. They will often go out of their way to make you feel welcome, appreciate people attempting their language, and will invite along to join them for meals, tea, and shopping, and don’t even offer to pay; they just take the check and pay! I’ve laughed over this with a few Turkish friends, and told them that they have to let me pay sometimes too, since it works as a two-way street in the American culture. They appreciate gifts, so I share the candy that I brought with me from the States, and they like to try American food. Religion is ever-present and important in the Turkish culture of course, and it affects a lot of the attitudes here. But they are some of the nicest people I have ever met too. I will not leave this city without crying because I’ll be leaving behind some fantastically sweet and generous people.
Religion – This is another thing that you can’t get away from being in Istanbul. It’s everywhere. As 99% of the population is Muslim, there are understandably mosques all over the place. They are very distinctive with their domes and towers, and several times a day you see the faithful going into the mosque to prayer. I’ve had the chance to see a few on the inside, and they are absolutely beautiful and definitely worth seeing. When it is not prayer time, you can go inside and explore them. No shoes, of course, and women must cover their heads. (Yet another reason scarves are so popular here likely.) Another fantastic thing about Istanbul is hearing the call to prayer several times a day. It is like a blend between a chant and a song, and is all at once eerie and beautiful. I’ve gotten used to hearing it, and it’s funny because when you hear it, you know about what time it is. It’s something that I know that I will miss hearing when I leave.
Music – Oh, Turkish music. Like many things here in Turkey, it’s a mix of old and new. On the older side, you can go and listen to traditional music played in cafes and restaurants in the city, and a lot of it is instrumental. On the new side, it’s a lot like what you hear out of America and Europe – pop, rock, haunting vocals, stirring rhythms, just an interesting blend. Some of it I think it is cute and peppy, and some of it I will definitely be leaving here in Turkey when I go. :) I’ll have to find a few samples online for y’all to hear.
So what else? What do *you* want to know about living in Istanbul?
Showing posts with label ohmygodiministanbul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ohmygodiministanbul. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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.
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