Photos!

My first few batches of photos are up! I'm working on captioning them all, as after a bit one mosque looks a lot like another, so bear with me.
Photos are at: flickr.com/photos/bonkano

And a few brief thoughts:
-I forgot that the Turks put french fries in their sandwiches. I ordered a Mediterranean wrap the other day, and was bemused to discover fries among the chicken and lettuce.

-There is an Istanbul version of Foodler. Yauwa. Also, for every 30 lira you spend on the site, they give you a free DVD. One night in with my roommates = I am now the proud owner of The Illusionist in Turkish.

-I find I have a tendency to switch into Hausa when a word isn't coming to me in Turkish. I'm not really sure why my brain leaps between those 2 languages; perhaps because of the Arabic links?

-I took a walking tour of parts of central Istanbul with my language program yesterday, which was pretty fun, very interesting, and incredibly informative. We walked 7.5 miles to look at mosques, churches, and architectural examples; I woke up a bit late and thus did all that traipsing in flipflops which, in hindsight, was great for the mosques but not for the walking.

-I saw my first abayas in Istanbul yesterday, in the Fatih district. The Fatih district of Istanbul has a reputation as a stalwart bastion of conservatism in a secular city; I didn't realize how true that was. I don't think I ever saw an abaya in Ankara.

This is where I live...

This, above, is the view on my walk from Superdorm (oh, it's pretty Super) to class. It's stunning, and is probably a large contributing factor to my lack of tardiness so far (9AM is really pretty early for me...). I still can't quite believe I live here, with that view. It's crazy.

This week has been a flurry of activity: Saturday was full of settling in and sleeping, before I headed out to explore the neighborhood and shop a bit with my roommates on Sunday. One of my roommates has been here at BU (this time, BU means Bogazici Universitesi, which takes some getting used to for me) since February, and she's been a bit of a godsend in terms of her neighborhood/campus/bureaucracy/etc knowledge and helpfulness. All of my roommates, or I suppose the more correct term would be suitemates, are just sweethearts, so I think I really lucked out. I have three, and we range from 18-26, California to Boston, so we're a pretty diverse mix.
Anyway, back to shopping: we stopped at a Pasaj to look for some basic plastic cups for one of my roommates, and the owner was a little shocked by our request; he informed us that plastic cups would kill us. We thanked him for his wise advice and continued on...we did eventually find plastic cups at Migros (like an American grocery store, but with an expanded 'stuff you might find at Target' section). While relating this health advice to my other roommate's Turkish boyfriend, he further informed us that eating fish mixed with yogurt would kill us as well. I sense a trend: the theme of my summer may have to be "Istanbul is deadly in strange, strange ways."
My language program officially started Monday, with a placement test, interview, and campus tour. This was pretty stressful; I realized how much vocabulary I had forgotten or only half-remembered. Tuesday we started classes and have been going strong since. My classes so far are sadly a little boring, especially from the grammar side of things, but I'm learning a lot of vocab and really familiarizing myself with speaking and with vernacular usage. I suppose 5-7 hours of Turkish a day will do that.

My impressions of Istanbul so far this time 'round are so different than last time: I think because so far I've stayed in primarily university-adjacent neighborhoods, I've avoided the repellent tourist touts and overcommercialization that struck me last time I visited, in Sultanahmet, Beyoglu, and Taksim. Here in Bebek and Etiler, shopkeepers don't shout at me to "come in! come in! look!", and the shops sell actually useful products, instead of carpets and belly-dance costumes.
The one thing that really surprised me about life here is all the hills. Constantinople, like its Roman Empire sister-capital, was built on seven hills, and unlike Boston, engineers and city planners did not flatten the surrounding hills as the city expanded. Of course, very little urban growth in Turkey was actually "planned"; most of it just kind of...happened, helped along as needed by 'gifts' to the relevant inspectors and officials. Thus, there are a ridiculous number of streets at crazy angles and inclines; some of the footpaths at BU actually tack back and forth, like mountain roads. This would be an adjustment in any environment, but to traverse these roads in 90-degree weather with dripping humidity, carrying 7 or 10 books (depending on the day) is really giving me a bit of a workout. I think I will have amazingly toned legs by the end of the summer.

On that note, I should get going,
Hope everyone's doing great!
-R

I'm here!

I arrived in Turkey this morning, at about 10AM Istanbul time/2 AM Minnesota time. After a somewhat harrowing wait for my luggage (I think my bags were the last 2 off the plane), I grabbed a cab and headed for campus. In true foreign cabdriver tradition, my driver chatted with me for a bit before telling me that he would totally tutor me in Turkish, and that we should hang out, and to give me his number. So my luck with taxidrivers hasn't changed much since Niamey. I suppose at least he didn't propose :P
My flights were pretty decent; Delta upgraded me to first class for my first flight, which was nice and unexpected. If only that'd been my transAtlantic flight... The transAtlantic flight was also decent, although Delta pales in comparison to the bells and whistles offered by Lufthansa or Air France. There were no seat-back media players, no complimentary newspapers, no warm towels (oh man I love Lufthansa...); it was fine though, and their coffee was pretty good, so that kind of made up for it.
After finding my dorm (I'm in a dorm for the summer program, and will inshallah be apartment-hunting while here), I checked in, dropped my bags off, and headed out to find bedsheets, which I had neglected to bring in the interest of not breaking my already-overstuffed luggage. Apparently, Turks don't use flat sheets, which I don't remember being the case 2 years ago. Anyway, on the way to the shop I had an enjoyable walk along the main road between Bogazici's 4 campuses; I'll probably be up and down the road tomorrow buying other essentials (a fan, cell phone, I've got quite a list). On the way back I stumbled into a children's dance show of some sort. Oops.
After my short shopping excursion, I took a shower and pretty much collapsed and fell asleep, which was pretty blissful, even without a flat sheet. My pagne has turned out to be surprisingly useful: so far, it has served as my towel, my wrap skirt, and my top sheet. Yauwa.
And with that I'm back to bed. More on the city (1. it's huge. enormous. gargantuan.), inshallah with pics, tomorrowish.

-R

Just a quick update, now that I know when I'm leaving:
I’m flying over to Istanbul June 20th, where I’ll be staying for the summer, studying Turkish at Bogazici University. On/about August 14th, I’ll be moving on over to Ankara, where I’ll be studying at ODTU, taking Turkish lessons, studying independently, and doing some independent research. I don’t know exactly when I’m returning, but classes go til at least mid-June, so it’ll be a full year and change.

My departure date was decided pretty darn recently, so I'm running around here, there, and everywhere trying to pack and get everything done before I leave. Also trying to remember what Turkey doesn't have and experience it before leaving/pack it (peanut butter, Mexican food, shorts, my favorite library system...). It's a fun flurry of activity.

-R

My next adventures

I’m updating this from the depths of its disuse on the eve of my first few weeks as an alumna of BU to bring it, and inshallah any readers, up to date. Although this past year I spent predominantly in Boston, finishing my degree, this summer I will be returning to Turkey as a Fulbright Scholar to study and research for a year. While in true Turkish fashion the details are still being worked out, I’m flying to Istanbul in mid-June for a seven-week Turkish program, and will move to Ankara at the end of the summer to take classes at METU/ODTÜ and begin my research. I am incredibly excited to have this opportunity, and really looking forward to living in Turkey again and solidifying my Turkish. Inshallah I’ll update this blog with news/stories/adventures, and keep my Flickr account straining under massive influxes of photos.

My research will be on Turkish foreign relations, paying special attention to foreign relations within the context of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. Some of you may remember, I wrote my thesis on Turkey and Huntington's theory, so I'll be expanding the breadth and depth of that. I intend to travel through the Turkish border regions to better understand the border relations separate from Turkey's foreign policy. It looks to be an interesting time to be in Turkey, and again, I'm pretty excited.

Stay tuned for more info!

-R