Reflections?

Today, like yesterday, we spent trying to register for classes we want to get into. It's pretty much a headache. We tried to pre-register at the beginning of the summer, but few of us got into more than one of our preferred classes. We're all required to take five 3-unit classes, including beginning Turkish. I'm registered for Mythology and Religion and am working on the rest of my schedule. Most classes are full already. It's crazy and we're all having a hard time.

Today I'm just going to comment on some of my impressions so far from being here.

Food

I really like a lot of the real Turkish food we've eaten so far. Of course, it really depends on where we eat. There's a lot of really delicious meat and yogurt. Some great bread as well. And there actually are quite a lot of interesting and tasty veggie dishes. Unfortunately, the cafeteria food isn't all that yummy and it's a lot of the same, but it's not terrible.

Bathrooms

So in the dorms we have to provide our own toilet paper, which came as a surprise. Also, we can't drink the tap water (no one can, it's not only a problem for foreigners). This all worked out the first week because it meant I was super dehydrated and didn't have to worry about the fact that I didn't have toilet paper for the bathroom :D TMI for a travel blog? Anyway, I'm getting the hang of it now, have tp in the room and know where to fill up my water bottle in the student center.

Gender dynamics

This is something that really interests me in general and I am really curious about. As I mentioned before, the females among us have been advised not to make or prolong eye contact with men on the street. Street sellers often yell at us and call us beautiful when we pass. I'm pretty sure I've had my bum grabbed a couple times as well >:[ What's been really interesting for me lately has been talking to people about dating in Turkey. Burcu is one of the ISS mentors and Jonathan K. asked her (hopefully) if Turkish girls were into American boys. She said that they usually aren't. She explained that Turkish girls like for boys to be calling and texting them all the time and for the guy to take control of the situation, which American boys often don't do. I would not like it if a boy I was interested in contacted me too much and I certainly wouldn't like for him to have disproportional control. A couple of the other American girls present agreed with me. On the other hand, American boys sometimes put in so little effort into making contact that it seems like they're not interested and I give up. Today, on of the CIEE guys was also talking about his experiences dating a Turkish girl in the US. He was talking about certain things that he would try to do to help out, like wash the dishes, that his girlfriend wouldn't let him do or would get all flustered if he tried. That also bugs me, even though I want to be open minded to the different understandings of gender roles and remember the fact that it's definitely not equal in the US either.

Laundry

I did it!! I was pretty unsure about my success for a while there. First, I realized that I needed detergent. Then, upon entering the supermarket I remembered that in this capitalist economy there's never just "detergent". Faced with countless variations on the theme, I realized that my extremely limited knowledge of Turkish was not going to help prevent me from bleaching out my entire wardrobe. Several exchange students had already bought fabric softener when intending to buy detergent (not tragic, but illustrates the point). Although I eventually got help from Jon there, I was all alone when finally confronting the washing machines. The Turkish washing machines. The first step was to determine which washed and which dried. Arguably an important distinction. However, not nearly as difficult as the task of figuring out how to set it. Ultimately, though, I'm pretty sure my clothes would get comparably clean whether the machine was set on "Sentetik" or "Yünlü". Finally, one of the dorm staff walked in, took my detergent, and took charge. So I guess "I did it!!" is a somewhat ambitious statement. At any rate, I now have clean clothes :DDD Much thanks to the kind staff.

lovelovelove

PS One of the washing machines has such an intense spin cycle it moves on its own. It almost fell off the platform :P

The Weekend :DDD

I have a couple of days to catch up on.

Friday

Friday night we went out to an exchange student dinner. It was fun to meet more of the exchange students, although in this situation it was hard to do so because CIEE-ers were separated (since our program was paying for us YAY!!!). Again, it was a HUGE meal and I couldn't finish everything, but it was really good. There was some music (mostly electronized latin songs... /:[ But at some point they played electonized Turkish music and all the mentors started dancing in the middle and making us join :DDD Tons of fun.

Saturday

We had our first visit to some of the most iconic sights in Istanbul. First we went to the Blue Mosque. It was INCREDIBLE. The moment I stepped inside I was struck by the size of the interior space and the gorgeous designs covering all the walls. When I went to Orthodox churches in Russia I felt something eerily and deeply "spiritual" (sorry Charlie :D), and I had a similar experience at the Blue Mosque. Linda, Kathryn and I got separated from the rest of the group because we spent so much time there being stunned, plus Linda stopped to pray. Somehow, we found some Erasmus kids (Erasmus is another study abroad program on campus) and went with them to the group-organized lunch. And we ate köfte. Omg. I've had moments of questioning my decision to give up vegetarianism for study abroad, but this was not one of them. Out and about we also tried some fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice which was likewise DELISH. Linda, Kathryn and I ate with Ibrahim (Singapore), Joan (Portugal), Marco (Italy), and Ozzie (Netherlands). And the other CIEE-ers left without us. So we didn't get to see the Hagia Sofia, which is supposed to be more incredible than the Blue Mosque, somehow. But we were reunited to check out the cistern next to it, which was super cool. This big dark space underground, all columns and barrel vaulting. There's still water in it. We saw some other cool monuments at a distance and then went to the Grand Bazaar. It was really cool and they sold everything from jewelry to fake designer polos to hookahs. I didn't buy anything (though sorely tempted) because apparently they really raise the prices there since it's so touristy.

The Blue Mosque:

Köfte! and Kathryn:

The Cistern:

The Grand Bazaar:

That night the ISS (International Student Society) organized a party night for us in Taksim. So we danced alllll night and went to bed at 5 :D.

Sunday

This was our first unplanned day. We went to a special exhibit at a museum. I went with Linda, Kim, and Charlie. It was so great. They had so many fantastic things. It went chronologically from Roman era through the Ottoman Empire. There were incredible examples of Roman capitals and statues as well as indescribably beautiful korans and Ottoman swords. I wish we could have taken pictures. There was also a dome where they projected actual domes in mosques across Turkey. I hope that makes sense :P Afterwards we went to a great restaurant and ate DÖNER and some ridiculously delicious desserts (one of them with COCONUTTTTT). Kim's birthday was the day before so we treated her to the desserts and got the waiter to put a candle in one of them :D

Today!

Was the first day of classes! I'm registered for Mythology and Religion, which looks like it might be pretty good. Otherwise, I'm looking at registering for Soc 100, Brain and Behavior, Turkish History and Culture (for exchange students only), and/or Modern Masculinities. And we're required to take Turkish, of course. It was a pretty overwhelming day, trying to figure it all out. I really don't want to hear about classes anymore. We're about to go out to Sariyer and get some essentials, like detergent and notebooks :P I really need to do laundry, but am worried about buying the wrong detergent. Also, in the past 24 hours I've gotten to skype with mama, Deda, Candy, Rachel, Krista, and Danielle!! It made me sooooOOOoooOOOooo happy!!!!!! lovelovelovelovelove

Vocabulary!!!

• Friday: Cuma (pronounced "djuma")
• Saturday: Cumartesi
• Sunday: Pazar
• Today: Bugün
• Blue Mosque: Sultanahmet Camii, aka amazingness
• Hagia Sofia: Aya Sofya, aka probable-amazingness
• köfte: meaty deliciousness
• döner: another term for meaty deliciousness

Pictures!

I'm putting up pictures!!! But unfortunately I really can't figure out how blogspot works for this. So my labels will not be next to the pictures, apparently. I think it should be pretty clear what is what, though. These are Jonathan K (l) and Nate J after that first clubbing night. This is me and Kathryn across the table from them.This is the ferry building in Beşiktaş where we took the ferry to get to Kadıköy (across the Bosphorus in Asia) during our scavenger hunt. This is my group on the ferry. From left: Amanda, Tyler, Brian, and Raven. Views from the ferry. No big deal. Traditional/delicious Anatolian cuisine OMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

Cultural Capitals, Karaoke, and Creepers

Man o man. It's 3:30 am (again) and I'm at that unfortunate place between exhausted and wired where I can't go to sleep and I can't do anything else. Today we had more normal orientation meetings. Then the CIEE group went into the center of Istanbul to check out some volunteer opportunities. Specifically we went to a center that provides support for members of a very poor primarily immigrant neighborhood. There are many Kurds and Roma in this neighborhood, as well as people from other countries and other parts of Turkey. The center provides classes for children and adults, and all other kinds of support services. It seems really great. We also went to hear about volunteer opportunities at the "Istanbul 2010" office. Istanbul has been chosen as one of the "cultural capitals" of Europe for this year so Istanbul 2010 organizes special events to showcase the country's culture. I'm not really interested in volunteering with them, but I'd really like to go to the events :P For dinner we ate at a special restaurant that serves Black Sea cuisine. It was (as usual) really good. There were usual appetizers, but the main dishes were different than we had had before. There was a fondue-type sauce made from cornmeal, cheese, and two cow's-worth of butter that was meant to be eaten with bread. It was super-duper good. Then there was rice wrapped in anchovies. By that point I was too full to try much of it, but it was also quite good. Miraculously, I wasn't so full by the time dessert came. It was so interesting and SO GOOD. Kinda like baklava but with a creamy, dense layer at the bottom OMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

The crazy-partiers of Koç University had planned a karaoke night. It had seemed like most of the CIEE people would be going, but in the end only four of us did (including myself, of course). I had fun, even though it wasn't the greatest party. Everyone was smoking and the karaoke singers were uniformly TERRIBLE. Most of the night was just dancing, though, so it wasn't so bad. I also had my first experience with a terrible pick-up line. I was just chatting with "Zack" and everything seemed normal until when I asked him what he was studying he told me "female anatomy". ... I briefly and strongly gave him a piece of my mind and walked away. Blegh. On the other hand, it was nice chatting with Kathryn, who was my main companion tonight. The other two girls we went with had had considerably more luck than Zack at picking up partners ;) Plus, we also met a bunch more international students. There are a lot of Germans and Americans, and a whole group of Italians. I feel really torn between wanting to meet EVERYBODY and feeling socialed-out. Nothing a couple hours of sleep won't fix :D

When There's Something Strannnnge in the Neighborhooooood

Tuesday we had more orientation activities, this time more along the lines of exploring our culture and Turkish culture and the idea of generalizations and stereotypes. Then, our program coordinators sent us out in groups of 5 to do a scavenger hunt in the city...by ourselves. The idea was kind of daunting at first, but it was really easy. Well, in my group we had Tyler who speaks pretty good Turkish and during the summer lived in the area where the main part of our scavenger hunt was to take place. Brian, Amanda, and Raven were also in my group. It was nice to get to know all of them a bit better. The neighborhood we were sent to was across the Bosphorus, so........... in Asia!!!! That's right, we took a ferry into Asia yesterday. Once there my group was assigned to go to a candy shop and buy some Turkish delight. It was my first time tasting it. It was good, although maybe not my favorite. We bought rose flavored!

After all the groups reassembled in Asia (the specific area where we were is called Kadıköy), we had a special dinner courtesy of CIEE. It was so good and so interesting! We started out with assorted appetizers (humus, yogurt, couscous, etc) that we ate with different kinds of bread. Then, they brought out at least five main dishes that, like the appetizers, were placed in the middle of the table for everyone to take some of. There was a meat dish with sour cherry, somethings with potato and chickpeas, a meaty dumpling thing, rice, something with eggplant.... And there was a delicious yogurt sauce to eat on everything. For dessert they had honeyed olives (that tasted a bit like dates), pitch-black candied walnuts, pistachio baklava (I think), and candied pumpkin (!!). The desserts were really interesting tasting, even if not my favorite taste.

The streets in Taksim (where the club was) as well as Kadıköy were really busy and crowded. There are women with and without headscarves, women who dress up and dress down to go out of the house, etc. As girls, we were advised not to make or hold eye contact with the men we pass because it might be interpreted as an "invitation". It's kinda hard to get used to.

Last night we were supposed to go on a cruise with all the international students (there are a bunch that aren't part of CIEE) and all the incoming freshmen, but it was cancelled due to inclement weather :( So instead there was a big dance party on campus. I had a lot of fun, although a lot of people were complaining about it and comparing it to middle school dances :P I mean, you turn on the music and I'm set, so I wasn't buggin. Plus all the CIEE kids were dancing together. And they played a lot of really fun music, from typical top 40 to Turkish pop to old rock hits. They even played Ghostbusters!!!!! :DDDDD I was pretty tired and fighting a cold so I actually turned in early and slept more than 7 hours for the first time in a week. I feel loads better today even though I definitely have a cold.

Today we had a big meeting with ALL the international students. After, my fantastic mentor (Azize) took us to the club fair, and as usual I signed up for more than I will be actually able to do. I signed up for folk dance, folk music, dance club (tango, bellydance, hip hop OMGI'MSOEXCITED), and the volunteer club.

I'm so enthusiastic about my CIEE peers. I know that this happens, that at first everyone seems great and then after a while we all start to notice annoying things about each other or whatever. But I'm not thinking about that yet :D

Tonight: karaoke!!!

--lovelovelovelovelove

Sleepless in 'Stanbul

I wrote this post yesterday (reallllly early in the morning) but didn't post it right away cause I thought I might put up pictures with it.

In reference to the title, "Sleepless" is a bit of an exaggeration. Between jet lag and lack of any bedding I didn't sleep as much or as well as I would like, but that's really part of the experience, no? Last night all of the CIEE students who were here had dinner together and decided pretty mutually that we needed to start the ice breakers before orientation actually started. So we all went to one of the mentor's apartment and hung out for several hours, playing never-have-I-ever and having some super intense conversations. One group covered every topic from politics to literature and love to philosophy. I had a super long conversation with Jonathan that got very personal. It was nice to feel like we could all start getting close...on the first day.... Today (now yesterday?) we really started orientation. We met our mentors (mine is so nice!!), had a more detailed tour of the campus, got introduced to the library, had a program session of exploring our hopes and dreams for the semester, bought sheets, went to the nearest town called Sarıyer, etc. And then we went clubbing. It was so fun!!! I feel like I bonded even more with a lot of the people, this time with no conversation whatsoever. I really liked the djs. We danced for about four hours, and I didn't sit out once. It's now 3:20 am and Kathryn and I are scheduled to breakfast together at 9 am. :P And I need to take a shower.

I can't believe it's been only two days!!! So much has happened, it feels like we've been here way longer. I'm really loving the other people in my program and really excited for tomorrow :DDD

I'M IN TURKEY!!! Day 1

I've been repeatedly telling myself that in every language I know or can reasonably fake (excluding the "Day 1" part). Nevertheless, the more lucid part of my brain still says "Nope". In fact, it was that part of my brain that dominated the week, with the result that I was transferring laundry out of the dryer and into the suitcase at the time when we had planned to leave the house. I did make it, though. The flights went smoothly. On the flight from Heathrow to Atatürk I chatted with the lovely lady in my row who was en route to do relief work in Afghanistan. She was really inspiring in general, and it was nice to get some last minute tips for traveling in Turkey since she's been before. I used some broken Turkish to make my way by taxi to the hotel and get settled. I was really excited when I remembered how to ask "How much does it cost?" (Ne kadar?) to the taxi driver and even more excited when I understood his answer "Yirmi üç" (twenty three). The neighborhood that the hotel is in looked exactly like Mostoles, El Soto, where my grandpa lives in Madrid. From the sidewalk tiles to the street proportions to the painted metal fences to the funny little cars. The only tip offs that I wasn't in Spain were the Turkish flags (go figure) and presence of green (as opposed to brown) grass. Jet lag, excitement, and fear of not hearing my alarm clock overpowered my exhaustion: it took me a while to fall asleep and I woke up two hours earlier than I meant to. And then I had my first meal in Turkey: scrambled eggs (exotic), some delicious something that was kinda like spanakopita, yogurt (OM NOM NOM), a roll with nutella (YES), and delicious coffee. And then back to the airport. And then I realized that of course the taxi took me to international departures when I was supposed to meet CIEE staff at arrivals. Rosetta Stone hadn't taught me how to say "international arrivals" or "study abroad program staff member" in Turkish. But fortunately arrivals was just a floor down from departures and from there it was just a matter of locating our meeting point of Starbucks (Starbucks nerede?). No problem. Soon after, I met three of my fellow CIEE students, Kathryn, Emily, and Tyler. They're all super sweet and easy to get along with, which makes the whole semester ahead seem tons easier. A Turkish student took us by shuttle to the university, with a soundtrack including Lady Gaga, Beyonce, and even Justin Bieber /:|. The campus is so beautiful!! It's surrounded by lushly-wooded hills and the gorgeous Bosphorus is super close. Since we've arrived here we've just been wandering around campus, getting a feel for it and meeting more CIEE mentors and students. My room seems huge and is super nice. And Kathryn lives in my dorm, which is really nice. Now I'm just waiting until we all meet up for dinner. My body's trying to tell me it's wayyy past my bedtime, but I'm valiantly resisting in the spirit of getting on Turkish time as soon as possible. Our orientation schedule this week looks CRAZY.

Here's my room!!!

My roommate's not here yet, so I chose my side of the room:

And here's the view outside my window. It's not a great photo, but you get the idea that it's gorgeously lush:

A shot of the University from Facebook:

Here's some vocabulary:

• Atatürk -- in this post, it's an airport in Istanbul. The airport is named after the greatly revered revolutionary president of Turkey who founded the Republic of Turkey (no big deal): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataturk
• nerede? -- where?
• yirmi -- 20
• üç -- 3
• Bosphorus -- the straight that runs through Turkey, connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, and delineates that part of the border between Europe and Asia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus
• Justin Bieber -- /:|
• çizburger -- cheeseburger

Why Turkey?

That seems to be the first question that everyone wants answered when I tell them where I'm going. My attraction to Turkey is probably influenced by romanticized notions of the Middle East, baklava, Turkish coffee.... Nevertheless, I think my decision was most impacted by my lifelong exposure to the country's folk music and dance. Back in my parents' hippie days they fell in love with folk music from the Balkans--Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Armenia, as well as Turkey. So at the age of 8 while my friends spent their summers at swim camp or soccer camp, I spent mine at... Balkan camp. That's right. I leaned how to be a Balkan person. Just kidding. Well, not kidding about the Balkan camp. It was great. Spend all day learning traditional instruments and voice techniques, all night doing traditional dances. There was some hard-core partying, old-school Eastern European style. Even though I haven't been back at the camp for several years, the music is still stuck in my head. I know it seems like I'm all about the Usher and Lil' Jon, but there's no replacement for a bagpipe made out of an inside-out goat. The frustrating thing for me is that the sound of Balkan music is so different from what most people in my community are used to (no joke, inside-out goat) that it's often difficult for my friends to enjoy it. Even though I understand that, I would love to find some people my age who could go dumb to a prado with me. I have no idea how Turkish college students view their folk traditions. I'm hoping not in the same way as my friends view clogging (which, by the way is actually fantastic), because I have every intention of immersing myself in music and dance while I'm there.

For those of you who have never heard Turkish folk music:

For those of you who couldn't make it through the last one:

For the rest of you:

Çikolata Yiyorum!

Welcome to my travel blog. I'm sure most of you reading must know what's up, but I figured a short intro couldn't hurt. On September 17 I am heading off to Istanbul, Turkey for a semester of study abroad. I'm ridiculously excited. I'm not too nervous (yet); I'm lucky enough to have had a lot of practice traveling. Nevertheless, there's always something unnerving about not being able to picture any of the people I'll be spending my time with or any of the places I will be. I'm the only one going there from my school this semester. Plus, despite a healthy dose of computer language courses, I don't speak Turkish. This doesn't worry me so much for while I'm actually at the school there (it's "international") but does cause me to question how I'll get around before then. I figure that these things normally work out fine, though, so I'm not >ahem< "tripping".

I'll be gone until January 9, which seems like a super long time, and I know I'm going to miss everyone like crazy. I'm hoping facebook and skype will help keep me sane. I'd love if you left comments!

Lovelovelove,

Ellen