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