First day

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I got a phone that is significantly cooler than my American phone for about $45, and 850 minutes (which don't expire for 6 months) for about $30. Cell phone service works much better outside of America.

My first day was strange; woke up around 5 AM, learned Turkish for a while in my room, talked awkwardly with my roommate's brother and my room mate Uygar before he left for work. Left my apartment to go trek all the way down Nespetiye Caddesi to the Citibank to try and figure out my banking situation. On the way I saw how amazingly small the streets here are, how amazingly dense the number of businesses is (it's fucking crazy how many small restaurants and eczaneler, or "chemist's shops" which are sort of like convenience stores, can be shoved together onto one block; it's also amazing that there's a T.G.I.Friday's, a Starbucks, a McDonald's--which is very nice with a beautiful courtyard!--and a family-style Mexican restaurant called El Torito--with a small shop next to it which sells fast Mex food, El Torito Express--are all within short walking distance from me on Nespetiye. Unfortunately when I got to where the Citibank is supposed to be, the building was demolished. Fuck, the next one is twice as far away, next to the giant shopping center Kanyon. Oh well, might make my way out there today.

On my way back I met another exchange student from Austin named Ariel on the street. She approached me because apparently it's not very Turkish to be tall and have a shirt that says BELLEVUE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB on it. We met later at Starbucks (it was the one place we both knew for sure we could find easily on our first day) and then explored South Campus. South Campus is very strange; all of it is on a very steep downhill slope (as happens next to the Bosphorous), and most of it is covered in trees. There is one single quad, with some old buildings, some of which are kind of cool and some of which are kind of crappy-looking. Most importantly, there are cats who just hang out all over the place and are really friendly. Strange and charming! Today I think I'll look at North Campus which is, conveniently right on the other side of my apartment. I only today realized how amazingly convenient this apartment is--even if it is kind of shitty--because you literally could not be closer to both campuses at the same time. Sweet!

Anyway, then we went down to the Bosphorous, reveled in its beauty, got harangued by a boat captain who had poor English and worse teeth, talked about homosexuality, and realized how stupid we were for walking all the way down to the Bosphorous BECAUSE WALKING UPHILL IS SO FUCKING EXHAUSTING IN THIS HEAT.

On a related note, it is glorious how hot Istanbul is. I don't know exactly, but it's probably in the 80s. It's so amazing!

Then I went home, got a phone, and took a nap that ended up lasting from 6:30 to 2:30 AM when the drummer came around drumming (literally walking through the neighborhood) to remind everyone that it was time to get up to prepare and eat sahur, the big pre-dawn meal before the morning prayer, which itself was beautiful and blasted over loudspeakers all across the city.

Sweet.

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