One week in

Haha, OK, this is kind of a long post too. At this point, I have been in Istanbul for a little over a week, and things are going very well. I’m still seeing lots of things, and am starting to get settled in and comfortable.

Last week, I took a couple of trips to this mall that’s about 30 minutes away by bus. It is supposedly the largest mall in Europe, and it is indeed big. Take a look at the following pictures (and click to enlarge).

And here’s a picture of an elevator that I thought was pretty cool:

During both of my visits, I ate in their food court:

The entire top two levels that you see in this picture are full of restaurants. On the upper level, they have some nicer sit-down type places. On the level below that, they have some more traditional fast-food places, including McDonalds and Burger King.

Among the “nicer” restaurants on the top floor is Pizza Hut. Now, in the United States, Pizza Hut isn’t exactly a sit-down type place, but this one definitely was. They had waiters and menus and everything, and it felt somewhat like an Applebees. I got this pasta dish there, and it was pretty good!

They also had a large grocery store in the mall, and I picked up some food, because I plan to cook most of my meals while I’m here. Have you ever seen a mall with a grocery store? I hadn’t.

Then, a couple of nights ago, a bunch of us went to this ice cream place that was about a 20 minute walk away from the dorms. It was extremely nice and pretty expensive (about $6 for a small dish of ice cream). But it was also some of the best ice cream I have ever had. Who knew that Turks were so good at making ice cream?

And yesterday morning, I registered for classes, which start next week. Here are the courses that I will be taking:

• Chemical Engineering 3: Mass Transfer Operations
• Structure, Function, and Simulation of Biopolymers
• Engineering Materials
• Philosophical Texts
• Advanced Philosophy of Science

The first two courses are Chemical Engineering, the third is Civil Engineering (but I hope to count it as one of my Chemical Engineering electives), and the last two are in the Philosophy department. Most students here take 6-7 classes, so this is actually a comparatively light schedule.

Again, all of the courses are taught in English, which is good because I still only know some basic Turkish phrases. There’s merhaba (hello), gun aydin (good morning), gorusuruz (see you later), and a few others that I try to use every day. These aren’t spelled quite right – in some cases there are extra marks above or below the letters, and I haven’t figured out a good way to type all of them yet.

Then finally, yesterday, I had the chance to check out the gym. There are a few gyms around campus, but the one that I went to is conveniently located right next to the Superdorm. However, to get to the gym, you have to walk all the way around the track, which isn’t so convenient. It was also snowing yesterday during the walk. Anyway, here is what the gym looks like:

It's not as nice as other gyms I've been to, but it has everything that I need. I’ve been trying to get into better shape on and off for the last few years, and there’s no reason that I can’t do it while I’m here as well. I hope to come back to the United States big and strong!

In a lot of ways, being in Istanbul feels like being in a big city back in the United States, except that everything is in another language. There are of course other cultural differences, but for the most part they have everything that we have back in the U.S. People even dress the same way, except for the occasional woman wearing a head scarf. It hasn’t been as much of a culture shock as I thought it might be, but I guess we’ll see how things turn out.