Finally Here...

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After 20ish hours of travel, I've finally arrived in Istanbul. The trip wasn't exactly what I was expecting/hoping for. I nearly missed my first plane, and my second plane was so late that I did miss my third. Because of storms in England, my itinerary got all switched around and I ended up going through CDG in Paris instead of Heathrow. Everything ended up alright though; even my baggage made it to Ataturk without incident. The flight from Paris to Istanbul wasn't as cool as I was hoping it would be. It was so foggy and cloudy that I couldn't really see any of Europe as we were flying over the continent, except I'm pretty sure we flew over the Alps. I'm not positive, but we definitely passed over a huge mountain range somewhere in Europe. That part was pretty cool, but by that point I could barely keep my eyes open and was feeling a little queasy. I bumped into the rest of the girls almost by accident at the baggage claim and we took two taxis to our hotel. The drive was a bit scary, especially since there weren't any seatbelts in the back, but our driver was really nice and pointed out a lot of landmarks. One thing I love already about Istanbul is the mix of old and new, for example, we drove under the Valens aqueduct (over a thousand years old) in a taxi on a modern highway.

After getting settled in our rooms, we went out to find something to eat on Istiklal Caddesi, which was awesome. A Wednesday night in February and the street was literally jammed with people. We found this little place and I got cay and durum doner. Not sure what it was exactly, but it tasted good. We entertained ourselves and the waiter and owner by trying to communicate in Turkish, and it wasn't pretty. I mostly pointed and smiled but it worked out in the end. I got a decent meal for 9 YTL, which is about 5.50 USD. Awesome. Love Istanbul already!

It still feels kind of surreal. It's so exciting to think that this is going to be my home for the next four months. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed when I arrived, but I'm feeling better by the minute. Tomorrow we're getting up earlyish and heading over to the school to get checked in and settled for real.

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