Week One: Hoş Bulduk

This mosque is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen,
and the first in Turkey to be designed by a female.

I arrived in Turkey the 26^th of June after traveling for hours? Days? Weeks? At some point in between Seattle and Istanbul time just became arbitrary. My roommates, Şenay and Eren, gave me about two hours to nap and shower before taking me out to Taksim, which besides being the location for the protests is also the most common place to go out. My roommates are fantastic. I owe Josef Burton a thousand Efes for getting me in touch with his old friends who happened to have an open room. Both went to Boğaziçi University but have since graduated. Şenay  is an English teacher at a middle school and Eren is getting his masters at another university while working as a TA. Our apartment has four bedrooms (we're still waiting on a German girl that is moving in 9/1) with a balcony overlooking other apartments and a freeway. While it is very close to campus and will be fantastic when school starts it is a bit of a jaunt to get to the center of town, especially since after the protests a lot of public transportation is still off. I get along well with both of them but Şenay has been on vacation and spends a lot of time with her boyfriend so I see her much less than Eren. He is such a good sport about bringing me along to meet his friends or coming to hang out with mine. On weekend days we'll often just find a cafe to sit and study or he'll take me to some part of Istanbul I haven't seen.  At the apartment we all speak Turkish together; however, Eren has already started keeping a list of all funny mistakes I make. Language learning is probably the greatest way to decease your capacity for embarrassment.

Black Sea beach

One of my favorite days was the first Sunday after I arrived and a friend invited me and Eren to a beach on the Black Sea. The beach was jam packed, but for good reason, the water is the perfect temperature and because the Black Sea is basically a big lake it's less buoyant but doesn't sting your eyes. Also, the sand is the finest and softest of all the land so I brought a bottle home with me. I'm sure my family is already looking forward to transporting my accumulation of stuff back to the states when they visit.   

The first week was pretty much a blur of getting back into speaking Turkish, dancing and starting to explore Istanbul—an activity that can never be exhausted. According to the Wikipedia page, Istanbul is the “country's economic, cultural, and historical heart” and with the population of Istanbul proper at a mere 13.9 million, it is the second largest city in the world. The historical/geographical/economical/political climate of this place will be something for future posts, but the more I look into it the more fascinated I am.  And I get to live here! For a year!

Let’s see, I also started Turkish classes thanks to FLAS funding and they have been very useful. I still have a ways to go but there are few things better than learning something in the morning and then applying it to your conversation later in the day.