in the mountains above Bursa...

every three or four students in the program are assigned a Turkish buddy: a college student who we're supposed to talk and hang out with. Today my buddy took us up to Tophane, the oldest part of Bursa, dating to the times of Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire. We had a good time, looking at the tombs of the earlier Ottoman emperors and afterwards sitting at a cafe with a beautiful view of all of Bursa. As we were descending back towards the more modern part of the city, however, we ran across this.

apparently we're famous

After classes today I went with a couple classmates to the cell phone store so they could put more minutes on their phones. After several slightly confused minutes of, we were ready to leave when the owner of the store came down the stairs, introduced himself to us and invited us to go up to his office to chat. With no reason not to, we followed him and up the stairs and talked to us for twenty minutes over Nescafe about his travels in the US, our experiences in Turkey, where to get the best kokorec in Bursa and the island of Malta (he had lived there for four years). About halfway into conservation it came out why he was so curious about the young Americans who had walked into his store: apparently there had an article in the local newspaper about us in the last week, explaining who we were, why were here and describing our trip last week to the mall, which by the way was one of the nicest I had ever scene.

Greetings from Bursa

I arrived in Bursa on Monday, moved in with my host family and started classes. The first couple day of classes have been a little slow, but they're starting to pick up. I really like the family: Ismail and Saadet, who are in their sixties, and their two children, who are in their twenties, Egemen and Ceyren. I'll write a more extensive post about my experiences soon.

second full day at Yeditepe

We've commenced the tourist portion of the orientation. Last night they took us to a restaurant in Taksim called Sultana's, which was certainly an interesting experience. Advertising itself as "1001 Nights Restaurant" (in English of course), the restaurant was styled to supposedly resemble a Sutlan's Harem and featured "traditional" music and dancers.Turks really didn't seem to hang around there, which the restaurant helpfully indicated by placing two flags at each table: the Turkish crossed with the national flag of the guests sitting there. I wasn't sure if this was to welcome the guests or indicate to the service what language they spoke. We seemed to be sitting next to younger members of the Saudi Royal family and a glance around the room indicated guests from Iran, Britain, Canada, Lebanon, India, Sweden and Egypt. The first act was a band, playing what I assumed to be traditional Turkish music, followed by a bellydancer, who looked like she moonlighted as a stripper, then some folk dancers. They had some more acts, composed mostly of the same people, but I stopped paying attention. I was feeling a little sick from the long, hot bus ride, so I didn't eat much of the food, but it was what I have learned is the traditional tourist meal in Turkey: a plate of meze, then kebap and pilav. It is still unclear why the Turkish coordinator of the program wanted to take us here. When asked she said that Turks will take their guests out to this kind of place, but someone else suggested a far more likely answer: she has family who either owns it or works there.

Today we had an arduous, but fun day of touring around the European side of Istanbul. First, we did a bus, then a boat tour up and down the Bosphorous, which was quite beautiful. The boat dropped us off in Eminonu, and we had lunch at another place that again catered solely to tourists (the drink menu was in French, Spanish, Italian and German) and I was able to eat the meal that I couldn't eat last night. From there, we went to the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi palace (they all happen to be right next to each other). After spending two days in a bizarrely modern university, it was nice to see the historic parts of Istanbul.

Tomorrow, we're going to the American consulate for a briefing, then more touring and finally we travel to Bursa to meet our host families.

Istanbul!

We arrived in Istanbul yesterday, after many hours of travel: 7 hours from Dulles to Frankfurt and then 2 and a half to Istanbul. Lufthansa is by far a better airline than United. Or at least more fun. We are currently staying at Yeditepe University on the Asian side of Istanbul and will be leaving Monday for Bursa to join our host families. We've been doing orientation activities and will have a tour of the city tomorrow. The tour should be more fun than orientation stuff; we've had three days so far, and there hasn't been much new since the first. Tonight we're going to some sort of restaurant that has traditional dancing. One of the coordinators said these few days will be last time we'll be doing such touristy stuff.

Staying at the University is interesting, though a disconcerting way to enter in to Turkey. It seems to be at a far corner of the city and the campus is bordered on one side by tree covered hills (complete with a large picture of Ataturk, facing the campus) and on the other by neighborhoods. The campus itself is pretty nice. It's only ten years old and is apparently built, as I learned this morning, based on the Seljuk style. It's on the side of a hill and so a walk from one end of the other, requires several steep inclines. There's lots of nice greenery, but the buildings are a little odd. They have this sort of cold, impersonal monumental vibe, like something out of the Soviet Union. This may be due, however, to the fact that I haven't spent time anywhere else in Turkey and the coldness of the buildings is rather just my own unfamiliarity. I'm definitely looking forward to the home stay and am glad I'm not spending the summer here.

I was able to get off campus twice yesterday. Once to get food (my first time using Turkish in a real life situation!) and the second just to wander around. That was quite the experience. The streets are all very narrow, with three or four story appartments and lots of children running around. I had never seen anything remotely like it in my life. One of the people I was with said it resembled Portugal or Spain. We'll see our outing tonight goes.

Washington, DC

At the Embassy Suites in Washington, DC. Very nice lodgings. Full day of orientation. Fly to Frankfurt at 5 pm tomorrow. Arrive at noon Friday. From there to Istanbul. ETA 5 PM.

T-minus 22 hours!

I leave tomorrow at 8 am for orientation in Washington, DC. After two days there, I will head with the rest of the folks in the program to Istanbul for another two days of in-country orientation.

As of now, I am unpacked and have a nice little to-do list tasks: finish fixing my iPod and computer, get little gifts for my host family, set up one of those away messages on my cell phone voice mail, clean my room and eat dinner with my mom and dad (swiss steak and dumplings). I've already done the easiest: set up this blog.