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
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