Jet-lagged in Istanbul

Merhaba!

Blogger is suddenly, along with my life, completely in Tukish. Apparently "gonderme" means "update" in Turkish.

Anyhow, I'm here, arrived safely in Ortakoy, a small neighborhood north of Istanbul, but one of the southernmost towns on the Bosphorus. For those of you unfamiliar with what I'll doing in Istanbul, here's the short of it: I'm enrolled in Bogazici University near a town called Bebek about halfway along the Bosphorus on the European side of Istanbul where I'll be taking intensive Turkish classes for 4-6 hours a day.

And thank goodness for that. I can't wait to start classes on Wednesday because Turkey is right in front of me and I seem to be in my own American bubble, unable to talk to anyone besides the 14 other students who are in here with me. When we arrived last night, my roommate Katie, who will be a junior at Wisconsin - Eu Claire, and whose first time it is ever going abroad, figured out the awe of hotel rooms whose electricity doesn't work unless the room key is properly in the slot next to the door. We then proceeded to wanted about Ortakoy, a town with an incredible Barroque/Rococo mosque that sits along the Bosphorus so that the sultan could disembark directly from his ship into the mosque, and a synagogue from dating back to Byzantine times. Etz Ahayim. Starved, we each bought "Gozleme" for our first Turkish meal: a large crepe spread with cheese, potato, spinach, and tomato, and and assortment of meat, grilled on what lookd like an enormous rounded upside-down wok. Essentially a Turkish burrito. I think it goes without saying, the gozleme was delicious.

We also experienced our first taste of Turkish Islam: prayer calls. First last night as we were going to sleep and then just maybe an hour ago as I woke up. We're not sure if the prayer calls, which are a series of song-y phrases blasted through town by some kind of horn or projection device, are in Turkish or Arabic. Definitely one of the first things we'll be asking Sylvia Onder, the Georgetown professor who is the director of the Turkey program this summer and also a Turkish professor in DC.

My bags didn't exactly make it quite yet: a short one-hour layover in Munich meant 17 bags didn't arrive in Istanbul, and my theory was that the heaviest ones got left behind. I have learned my lesson about over-packing! But they're supposed to get here today, and I'm hardly worried because some students who are studying in Alanya this summer (a costal town along the Mediterranean) also lost their bags, and how the bags are going to make another flight to Antolia and a busride to Alanya, who knows?

For now,
Sasha