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