OMG! Finally here!

Merhaba from Istanbul!! (finally) holy moly (: I knew I signed up for an adventure when I decided to study abroad in Istanbul, but this isn't quite what I had in mind! To make a long story short, Heathrow and snow are a terrible combination (even if it's only about two inches). My plane landed quite nicely at 6:45 am in Heathrow. I then proceeded to wait 4 hours ON the plane and another 6 hours in a long, slow-moving line. British Airways kindly set me up in a hotel, about an hour into the city and told me to take the Tube to Euston. Well (haha) I managed to get myself to Euston Square instead of Euston Station so I wandered around for a while in the snow (it was about 8pm at this point) until I asked a bus driver for directions and made it to my hotel no problem. A number of my friends from the 6 hour line were there too! Including two Turkish women who were booked on my flight (:

I woke up at 5:30 the next morning and took the Tube back to the airport, waited two hours to check in and was so close to the counter when my new flight was cancelled. I spent the rest of the day in line again and they booked my on an AirFrance flight through Charles De Gaulle. In line at the AirFrance check-in, I met Katie Numbers - an American girl who is also studying at Bogazici (my university!) She had a hostel and a ride from the airport already arranged and they even had room for me so we finally made it to Istanbul and stayed at the Bahaus hostel that night. Sadly, neither of us had luck with our luggage coming through and to this day, our bags have not been delivered! We had a lot of fun finding our way around Sultanamet though and eventually tramming/busing our way to the Superdorm.

It's pretty nice accommodation. I have three Turkish roommates: Irem, a master's student in civil engineering, Zeynep a freshman in chemical engineering, and Çiğdem a sophomore in mechanical engineering. They all seem to be really nice and fun so I can't wait to actually get to know them. The past few days have been spent getting to know the other Americans (mostly girls) and exploring our way around the city, trying to buy the essentials: a bed sheet, shampoo, underwear!, tee-shirts, and food!

Last night some of us went to Taksim, the party area, with Tugay - a Turkish guy who just came up to me and started asking if we needed help doing anything. Don't worry. Everyone here is genuinely hospitable, friendly, and willing to go out of their way to help! All of us always have our guard up, thinking these people are just being helpful because they want something - but they never do! He took us to a fun, popular bar where we each enjoyed our first Turkish beer (not bad, but not my favorite...Julia helped me finish it) and then to a bizarre dance club where no one was dancing, but us haha. Oh well, Julia and I probably had the best moves I've seen in a while and we used practically the whole floor! It was a lot of fun & a great way to get to know the girls (: we were all so goofy! Today we all got waffles together (so delicious) and Allie Julia and I made friends with the fruitstand boys who spoke no english. We sure are learning a lot of Turkish really fast! We might meet them later tonight to back to Taksim, this time we're bringing our American friend Tim along to make sure we're guzluk (safe!) I think we are all having a fabulous time and enjoying the beautiful weather! Time to go buy a TurkCell! Pictures and more posts to come...

GuleGule, 

Rhy