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Published: February 20th 2008
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South Campus Bosporus
The moon was out during the day, so many of my shots have the moon as part of the overall scene. I like this picture - it was taken on South Campus, at a place which overlooks the Bosporus and you can see one of the fortifications overlooking the water. It’s the night before classes start, and it’s also been a few days since I’ve updated, so I figured I’d write a bit about what I’ve been up to.
On Friday, the International Office of Bogazici finally had a formal orientation for the foreign exchange students. We learned a lot about the bus system, got some information about museums and sight-seeing places, and learned that students get discounts for mass transit and at virtually all museums and touristy places. Unfortunately, the disorder of Istanbul and Bogazici prevails - we need a student card to get these benefits; and we won’t have the cards for a few more weeks. That’s not as bad as it sounds though, as the weather this weekend was snowy (snow is not unheard of in Istanbul, but it usually doesn’t accumulate to any large degree) and the temp the last couple of days hovered around freezing, so touring has been the last thing on my mind. The good, warmer weather is supposed to arrive around the time we get our cards, so all in all, it’s a workable situation.
The orientation included multiple PowerPoint presentations, which outlined the info above, then segued into a partial
Arts and Sciences Building with Snow
This is where I'm going to have my history classes. I reminds me a lot of Holland Hall. campus tour, highlighting the academic buildings. Then we had a group dinner, and then were bused to Tophane, which I will talk about more later, as I went there this evening.
Saturday my first roommate moved in. His name is Kendall, a senior from Arkansas. He seems like a nice enough person, and is really excited to be in Turkey. He talks a lot, however, but isn’t really informed, and his “facts” are constantly being corrected by everyone around him. Other than that, he’s a great guy so far, and I think he’ll be a good roommate. There is still a room open in our suite, so hopefully we’ll get another roommate soon.
Saturday night was fantastic. A group of us went over to an apartment shared by a handful of Turks from the Exchange Commission (the student organization that’s been helping foreign students). There were Turks, Americans, several people from the Netherlands, an Italian and a German there, and we talked about a wide variety of things, from the movie “The Big Lebowski” to the Turkish economy to possible membership in the EU, as well as a bunch of smaller personal conversations. It was phenomenal to talk
Favorite Spot
There is a spot just beyond South Campus and down a hill that has one of the coolest views that's I've captured so far. There is a different part of the same fortification, with the Fatih Bridge int eh background. with all of these people, and it was really intellectually stimulating, as communication really took some though to express your viewpoint.
After several hours of talking, we were treated to a large Turkish dinner. We sat on the floor and had a variety of dishes arrayed on the plastic picnic cloth, which we ate with gusto. Turkish food is amazing. We had soup, rice, meaty things, Turkish raveoli, yogurt, bread and a bunch of stuff I can’t remember. It was fantastically tasty. It was also a Dutch kid’s birthday, so Hakan made a cake, which we ate with tea while we discussed another variety of topics.
This is getting long, so I’ll start to wrap it up. Monday I mainly wandered the campus taking photos of the snowy transformation. I went to Taksim today, Tuesday, and made my first souvenir purchase: a Turkish book. Well, sorta. It’s Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes classic “Scientific Progress Goes “Boink”. It’s a good investment.
I went with Mickey, and we met up with Kagan (pronounced Kahn or Kaan; the g has a squiggle that my computer doesn’t like, but it means that it has no sound, but instead lengthens the
Just to the Left of that Spot
Yeah... this is just to the left of my favorite spot; same subjet, just a few feet over and more zoomed in. previous vowel), a Turk from the Exchange Commission. He led us around to a bunch of amazing nooks in the city, including an amazing café in the 6th story of a building overlooking the bustling Taksim streets below. We then walked to Tophane, which I said I’d explain more about….
Tophane is a historic cultural center of Turkey, known for its nagile cafes and atmosphere. The nargile (nahr-gee-lay) is the Turkish water pipe, similar to a hookah, but much higher in quality, as instead of a plastic tube, like most hookahs, it has a long wooden neck, which absorbs the flavor of the first tobacco uses (as far as I know). So when picking the flavor of tobacco to smoke, one also selects the “flavor” of the wooden neck, in an attempt to produce a pleasant aroma. Some common combinations include mint, apple and rose dominated smoke, so even though you leave smelling like smoke, it’s not offensive and generally enjoyable. As it’s smoke, and I have asthma, I haven’t partaken much in the nargile smoking, but I really do enjoy the atmosphere of the nargile cafes.
The cafes in Turkey are more leisurely than American counterparts. Generally, you walk in, order, enjoy your meal and end it with a cup of tea, the whole process taking somewhere around an hour. The nargile cafes are similar, but since they don’t really sell food, they’re just nice hang-out spots. I watched a football (soccer) game in one last week, and I visited two this evening with a Turk and my friend Mickey, from Maryland. If you want to smoke you can order something, otherwise you bust out a Backgammon board and drink tea. So this evening, a group of 6 (2 Turks, 4 Americans, including myself) went to a nargile café, and I drank several glasses of tea and played an epic 9 games of Backgammon, eventually losing 5-4 against Mickey, though I bested Kagan two zip earlier in the evening. I can see myself spending a lot of free time with friends in nargile cafes.
So yeah, that brings everything up-to-date. I’ve been talking with Turks and students who were here last semester, and I think I have a phenomenal schedule. The Byzantine class I’m taking covers from about 800 on, which is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to learn (this time includes all the Crusades), and I seem to have fairly good profs all around. The classes are oriented towards two essay tests - no papers, which will be a problem come finals, but otherwise pretty good, as I usually do well with essays.
It’s just shy of 1 am, so I’m going to go to bed. If you’ve read this massive post; pat your self on the back; you have a lot of patience.
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