Miniaturk

First of all, I learned how to type Turkish characters on my keyboard. In addition to the English alphabet, Turkish contains other letters, like ı, İ, ü, Ü, ğ, Ğ, and several others. So now, I can spell things correctly. Yay!

So at Boğaziçi (bo-AH-zee-chee) University, there is this group of students called the xChange commission. They are basically a bunch of great guys that helped the exchange students get settled in, and they are also showing us some of the cool things around the city.

This past Saturday, they took us on a trip to several places. First, we went to this mosque where we looked around and then had a huge brunch. The brunch was 16 lira (about $13), but it was definitely worth it! I have to say, Turkish food has not disappointed me yet.

Here are some pictures of the mosque:


After that, we went to this place called Miniaturk, where they had miniature versions of Turkey's best landmarks. Most of my friends here seemed to think it was going to be pretty unexciting (and a lot of them didn't go), but I think it's the best thing that I've seen here so far. Here's an overhead shot:


There were somewhere around 100 different miniature models, and I took at least one picture of each one. However, I have selected some of the best ones to post here:



I like this place (1) because I think miniature models are cool in general and (2) because it gave me a chance to see Turkey's best locations all at the same time in one place. People have said that Turkey has a lot to offer, but up to now, I haven't had a great idea of what they meant.

Furthermore, it makes me think of the United States, and how there aren't nearly as many culturally interesting landmarks. I'm glad that I will be in Turkey for a whole semester and will be able to see a lot of those things here!

Also, in the areas surrounding Miniaturk, there was a great view of some real buildings. I think one of the neatest things about Istanbul is that all of the buildings are very colorful. I took the following picture using my camera's PhotoStitch feature, which allows you to take a whole bunch of pictures in a row and then put them together to form a panorama image:



Finally, we went back to the area around the mosque, where we had started out the day. However, this time we climbed the steps of this large hill, and at the top, there was an outdoor restaurant:


I only had tea there (Turks drink A LOT of tea), but I thought the best part about this area was the view of the Bosphorus:

Overall, it was a great day, and after seeing the miniature versions of all of Turkey's best spots, I want to see them in real life!

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First week of classes

This week, I had classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. In a lot of ways, I think that the lectures will be similar to ones I had back at Washington University. In fact, most of the professors here speak better English than some professors I've had back home. There are, however, a couple of interesting differences I've observed:

1. Sometimes students will ask the professor a question in Turkish, and the professor will respond back in Turkish. I'm the only exchange student in almost all of my classes, and in some cases the professor will translate for me, but not always. In one of my classes, the professor went on for about two full minutes in Turkish, and there was lots of laughter (I hope they weren't making fun of me!), but then no one told me what happened. Luckily, all of the vital information is said in English.

2. Each of the classrooms has coat racks in the front, which the students actually use. This is not something I've seen in most American classrooms, and I'm used to having to stuff my jacket under my chair in some classes back at home.

Next week is my first full week of classes, and I'm looking forward to it!

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Good and bad cab drivers

My friends and I have been going out to see various parts of Istanbul almost every night for the past couple of weeks. The bus system here works pretty well for getting to these destinations, and it only costs 1 lira (~83 cents) for most one-way rides. However, the buses stop running at around midnight, so if you’re out past then, the best option for getting home is a cab ride.

Most cab rides go smoothly, but a couple have been “memorable” for one reason or another. So far, being in Istanbul has been an overwhelmingly positive experience, and I think it is one of the safest and friendliest cities of its size. Both of the following stories, however, illustrate the darker side of Istanbul.

“Good” cab driver

Yeah… I’ll let you decide whether this cab driver is actually a “good” one after you hear this story. We were out late in this district called Taksim one night (see the post titled “Snow” for pictures) and three other people shared a cab with me for the ride back. About halfway through the trip, we were riding down a one way street, and all of a sudden this shiny, silver car was coming towards us, going the wrong way.

I suspected that the guy in that car was drunk, and my suspicions were confirmed when he got out of his car and started looking like he was about to attack someone. By this time, about three other cabs had come out of nowhere and stopped next to our cab and the silver car. The drunken guy, still looking pretty angry, started banging on the driver’s side window of one of the other cabs. Why was he so angry, when he was obviously the one that was driving the wrong way? I’ll never know for sure.

But anyway, I started wondering whether the guy was going to attack us next. He never got the chance to, however, because our cab driver jumped out of our cab, walked about 20 feet away to where the drunken guy was still banging on a window, and pulled out a knife. An actual knife! I was watching from inside of the cab, and I could barely believe it. Our cab driver got up close to the guy, yanked the guy’s jacket, and held the knife over his head. Some of the other cab drivers got out of their cabs, and I was sure that a fight was about to break out.

Luckily, no blood was spilt. Things settled down after a few minutes, and before long, everyone returned to their respective cars. I’m thinking that this guy might be considered a “good” cab driver, because it was almost like he was protecting us from this dangerous drunken guy. But then again, I’m not exactly comforted by the idea that these cab drivers feel the need to carry daggers around with them.

“Bad” cab driver

OK, so I don’t think that there’s any question that the following guy is a bad cab driver. This story starts out in much the same way as the previous one. Some of my friends and I were hanging out in Taksim late last night, and wanted to take a cab back. It was snowing pretty heavily outside, and the roads were getting kind of dangerous. However, the cab driver seemed incredibly nice. One of the students riding with me knew a little bit of Turkish, and was having a pretty good conversation with the driver.

We finally made it back to the Superdorm, and the fare came up to 21 lira (about $18). We were thinking about giving a pretty good tip to the cab driver for taking us through such bad weather and for being so friendly. But we didn’t want to tip him after what he did next.

The student who was sitting in the front seat (the one who knows some Turkish) handed him a 20 lira bill. But then, after some slight of hand, the driver only had a 1 lira bill in his hand, and told us that we had handed him a 1 lira bill, and not a 20 lira bill. I didn’t see what had happened, and the student that had handed the driver the money was not completely sure that he had handed him a 20 lira bill. There was confusion, and since the kid that originally handed over the money was not sure if he was mistaken, we gave him another 20 lira bill, and then got out of the cab.

After we all got inside the dorm, we talked about what had just happened. The kid who had handed over the money looked in his wallet, and thought about how much money he had originally had, and was then sure that he had indeed given the driver a 20 lira bill.

So yeah, we were scammed out of 20 lira. The cab driver should have only received 21 lira, but we ended up giving him 41 lira. And judging by how nice the cab driver was during the ride, and by how smoothly his slight of hand had gone, he was pretty practiced at this scam.

This just reminds me that in such a big city (Istanbul is the 4^th largest city in the world, with a population larger than 11 million), there are going to be some shady people. I’ve also heard that pick pocketing can be a problem in some areas, and have always held my important items in the inside pocket of my zipped-up jacket. After this real life example of what’s possible in Istanbul, I’ll definitely be even more careful.

Snow

This might come as a surprise to some, but there has been a lot of snow in Istanbul lately. In fact, yesterday was almost like a blizzard. I think most people have this idea that Istanbul is in the middle of the desert and that it would never be cold here. But actually, it is on approximately the same latitude as New York, so I guess it makes sense that we would get snow here.

So first, take a look at this picture of the Bosporus that I took on a relatively nice day (I only have to walk about 5 minutes away from my dorm to see this view):


And now here is a picture of a slightly different part of the river that I took today:


One popular district in Istanbul is called Taksim. There are lots of shops, restaurants, and bars there, and overall, it's a great hang-out spot for the weekends. So here are some pictures of Taksim that I took during relatively nice weather:


And here are some pictures that I took last night:

At some points last night, the snow was blowing sideways. This weather definitely makes me want to stay inside, which is a shame because there is so much that I still have to see in Istanbul. The bright side is that the weather should get much better in a couple of weeks!

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.

Finally in Turkey!

Wow, there is so much to say, and I don’t even know where to start. This entry will be longer than future ones just because it is my first one from Turkey. I guess I will go in chronological order.

First, all of the problems that I mentioned in my last post as far as my visa and housing in the Superdorm were solved, and as I write this, I have already been in Turkey for three days!

So my trip abroad started when I arrived at Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita, KS. The original path was going to be Wichita, Minneapolis, Amsterdam, and then Istanbul. That plan, unfortunately, was shattered pretty early on. While I was sitting on the plane in Wichita, they announced that some random part that is supposed to discharge static electricity was missing. They ended up deplaning us because it would take about an hour to fix. However, after more than an hour of waiting, they found out that they didn’t have the part they needed in Wichita at all, and just canceled the flight.

So then all of the people on the flight (and there were a lot) jumped out of their seats and ran towards the ticket counter in order to be re-ticketed. It is a good thing that I run pretty fast, because I was one of the first at the counter, and there was only one woman there to take care of everyone on the flight. If I had been near the end of that long line, I think I would STILL be waiting there to get re-ticketed. Anyway, she booked me on a flight through Atlanta that would arrive in Istanbul at the same time.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty boring until I got on my plane in Atlanta which flew me to Amsterdam. Let me just say, this was an awesome plane. It was humongous, and they had pillows/blankets (which was good since the flight was 8 hours long), a television screen for each seat, and pretty Dutch flight attendants dressed in blue uniforms. I slept for most of the flight, but also watched The Prince of Egypt towards the end.

Finally, I arrived in Amsterdam! I didn’t spend long in the airport here, but it was pretty cool. I noticed that the place had been very Americanized, and that there were American products and company logos everywhere. This is a trend that I also saw when I later arrived in Istanbul. Take a look at the following pictures:

In the first picture, look at all of the American brands. Mmm, Lays potato chips. In the second picture, notice that at the far right there are bottles of Sprite and Evian that are almost identical to what you would find in the U.S. As a side note, all of the signs that direct you around the airport are translated into English, as were the announcements on the actual plane. All in all, it seemed pretty easy for an English-speaking person to get around and feel comfortable.

Anyway, we lifted off, and I saw some of the most beautiful clouds I had ever seen.

I don’t know, I really like clouds. An hour or so later, we passed over the Transylvanian Alps, which I thought were really pretty as well:

Finally, we arrived in Istanbul! But then, another setback. After getting to the baggage area, I saw that my bag was not on the belt. Normally, I would have panicked, but then again, I actually expected something to go wrong because my flight had been messed up. And in general, things just go wrong when you fly on airplanes. So anyway, after talking to some woman who could barely speak English, and receiving a coupon for 25 euros off of my next flight, I left the baggage area. The woman said that they would call my dorm when they found my stuff, but it actually took them three days to get it to me. They gave me some stuff like toothpaste and toothbrush, so I was able to survive, but it still wasn’t fun.

Anyway, I moved past that setback and headed to the airport exit. Before I could even leave the building, this man at a booth for a private cab company yelled over at me and asked me if I wanted a ride. It seemed like a legitimate company, so I thought why not. 10 minutes later, I was riding down the highway in this taxi-van, with “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears blasting on the radio. Wow.

Then I finally arrived at the Superdorm, which is where I will be living for the next several months. Overall, the setup is pretty good, even though my actual room seems like a prison cell.

Here are some pictures:

Almost immediately after I arrived at the Superdorm, I saw Eric Dubs, the other Wash U student that is studying abroad here in Istanbul. After I got a little more settled in, we went and explored some of the surrounding areas. Here is what we get to see on the walk every day to class:

This, folks, is the Bosphorus river. The weather wasn’t that great when these pictures were taken, and I think that the view will be even more beautiful when it gets warmer and sunnier.

So later that night, Eric and I met several other students. Some of the them were American, some of them were Turkish, and a couple are even from places like Holland. Everyone is really nice. We all went out to some of the areas surrounding our campus, and saw some of the shops and restaurants, and it was great. However a lot of the people in these shops don’t speak English very well, so it isn’t always easy. Eric and I even found a place to buy cellphones, and we had one of the American students who also knows Turkish help us get them.

Then, the next day, we had to do some pre-registration stuff. This pretty much involved walking onto campus and signing some forms. When Eric and I arrived, we met a whole bunch of Turkish students who were extremely friendly. There were lots of hugs and such, which might seem weird to Americans, but which is actually very normal here. In fact, it is not uncommon to see heterosexual males walking down the street together, arm in arm. Here, it’s just not a big deal. Later that night, we all went out again to the areas surrounding the campus, and had a lot of fun.

And then today, Eric, a couple of other students, and I went to the Grand Bazaar, which is this large covered area where there are lots of shops with people selling lots of random things.

Unfortunately, my camera started running out of batteries, so I only got these two pictures of the outside. However, when you go inside, you see all sorts of jewelry and watches and clothing for sale. It’s hard to describe, but the place is huge, and we spent about an hour and half there. Eric and I were looking for watches specifically (and didn’t end up buying any), and noticed that the salesmen were relentless. As you walk past, they do everything they can to get your attention and to get you to buy their stuff. Some of them are also pretty funny as well. One said “Buy one get one free, like McDonalds” as we passed by them, and since there were a couple of girls with us, one made a funny reference to them being like Charlie’s Angels.

Those are the highlights of what has happened so far, though there is so much other stuff that I could say. Goodbye!