And I arrive!

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I arrived last night after 20ish hours of traveling, which were surprisingly enjoyable right up until the end when I was so tired I could barely stay awake for a minute, which was kind of stressful since that was right when I was going to have to get off the plane and do shit for the first time in forever.

Traveling itself was fun partly because I gave myself so much shit to do; I watched a couple episodes of Planet Earth (Caves blew my fucking mind!), saw Kung Fu Panda and some crappy movie starring Johnathan Rhys Meyers as some English guy who saves a bunch of Chinese orphans at the beginning of WWII on the flight to London, played a bit of Starcraft, read a lot of V., learned some Turkish, and looked at places. London looked big like I expected, and was rather cute--Heatherow is just like an American airport except everything is more expensive, everyone has cute accents, and the terminals are a lot more condensed. Flying over the Continent you could tell it was Europe just looking at it--it was all quaint, green farms and estates with highly rationalized canals cutting across the countryside. Munich was also kind of just like Sea-Tac; everything was written in English as well as German, the weather was exactly the same, and for some reason The Daily Show was playing on all of the TVs at the terminals. Istanbul was much drier and brown-looking from the air than I expected it to be.

Getting out of the airport was easier than I expected, and the drive(s) to the northern part of the city (from the western part where the airport is) were fantastic. Down on the southern part of the New City (as opposed to the Old City, which is more Muslim and traditional and maybe a bit more historical, though also on the European side), Ortaköy, along the pretty and well-landscaped Atatürk Boulevard, the entire waterfront next to the Bosphorous is a long park, much of which runs along ancient defensive walls. It was amazing seeing how much public space there is, and to see little children running around under walls that I think might be over 1000 years old. The streets and buildings are densely packed, with colorful signage covering a much larger amount of space than in American cities. Near the end we drove under the Valens aqueducts, which have definitely stood for over 1000 years and are a major landmark. We got off at Taksim, one of the bustling commercial centers of the city, and I took a cab up the rest of the way to Rumelihisarüstü where I am living. On the way I caught glimpses of the grand Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet, which I definitely plan to visit at least a couple times before I leave. My cab driven, Ogan, didn't speak any English and kept trying to tell me things in Turkish that I didn't understand, until he asked for my dictionary and started actually driving while reading it. It was scary, but when in Rome..., eh? It was, I will say, a very Istanbul experience, which is exactly what I came here for.

Anyway, he had trouble finding the apartment, but we finally did after some obvious aggravation on his part (which is ironic because I am pretty sure at first he was pretending not to know to try and bump up the cab fare a bit). I got here to meet my room mates and find out that, despite the fact that they went to Bogazici, they cannot speak English extremely well. Which is a good thing in that it will force me to learn Turkish, but is a bad thing in that it makes me worry exactly how much Bogazici really is English language instruction, since two of my room mates graduated from there. Hmm! It is a kind of humbling experience not being able to communicate with people well unless you learn their language and living in their apartment. Anyway, it is strange because they all seem very much like stereotypical young American guys. When I got here, Uygar was listening to Sigur Ros. Afşın plays electric bass, likes Phillip K. Dick, and his favorite bands are Radiohead and Pink Floyd. Afşın's little brother is a freshman and he is really excited to hang out with me and practice his English with me all the time. Hah. It's kind of a weird apartment; there is no living room or anything like that, just 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a central room that connects them all.

I didn't sleep at all when traveling, and I only got like 5 hours of sleep before getting up to leave for Sea-Tac. So needless to say I was tired. I got here and started unpacking and then just crashed for about 12 or 13 hours. Now I'm awake and my room mates are gone, but Afşın's girlfriend and brother are here. And now to start my Istanbul adventures!

Anyway, here are pictures of my new place:







Here's also a picture of me when I left. Let's see how different I am when I come back.


PS: Look at how many fucking verb tenses there are in Turkish, hah:

http://www.verbix.com/cache/webverbix/31/gitmek.shtml

Oh well, only so many of them are necessary on a daily basis. Still...

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