Excursions and Adjustments

We'll call this entry my context blog, because its the blog where I give you a broad, general picture of what I'm doing and who I'm with and then if you ever get confused, you can go back and check.
This probably won't happen, but just in case.

I am now 10 days deep into Duke in Istanbul. My program is pretty close to directly enrolling in Bogazici University (pronounced bo-ah-zih-chee). One day, hopefully, if everything works as it should, I'll be enrolled in classes, but I'll let you know when that actually happens.

What differentiates my program from a direct enroll is that we, the 19 students on Duke in Istanbul, have the kind staff here to check in on us, teach us one class, and take us on a few excursions throughout the year. We also have the company and comfort of one another to enjoy with extra bonding time in the aforementioned excursions and classes.

Bogazici is actually one of the best universities in Turkey. As all admissions to public universities here are based on standardized test scores, Bogazici gets the top tier of those tested. It has a reputation of being particularly challenging. Most of the Professors have received their graduate degrees abroad and all classes are taught in English. For more information, please take a few minutes to read the HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY. Its highly informative. Here is a little preview:

Initially Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, an ingenious New Englander of versatile talents, came to Turkey in 1839 to start a seminary for boys where he taught until 1860. He met Mr.Robert in 1856 during the Crimean War. As Robert's steamer was pulling into the Port of Istanbul, he noticed a boat full of delicious looking white bread. His curiousity aroused, he found out that this bread had been baked by Cyrus Hamlin for the wounded British soldiers hospitalized at the Selimiye Barracks near Uskudar. Subsequent meetings of these two men, oddly enough both of Huguenot descent, brought about the founding of the oldest American College outside of the United States. 

Intriguing, no? It continues with a consistant level of detail.

I'm living in  The Super Dorm (if you're not imagining the atrocious building on the right with a cape, you should be). I have three suit-mates, two from the Duke program, which is pretty unusual, and one Turkish first year. All sweet :). No real kitchen though.

The other kids on the program, in general, come from small, east coast, liberal arts schools pretty similar to Macalseter, besides the handful from Duke. Most study something along the lines of International Relations, History, Anthropology and Religion, though there is also an engineering student just to throw a wrench in everything. We all get along quite well so far. Its a very intellectual bunch, which has already led to some engaging debates.

Bogazici's campus is actually about an hour from the center of Istanbul via bus or tram, depending on traffic. While theres a bunch of restaurants and a few fun bars near by, most of our "going out" will involve schlepping to Taksim, where there are A LOT of bars and restaurants.

Thats about all the background info there is to know.  I'm sure I'll elaborate on everything else later.

As for my actual life, heres whats up:

The program started on the 6th and because classes don't begin until tomorrow, our fearless leaders have kept us busy wandering around the south east of Turkey on a little bus tour (actually, the bus was quite large) of some cool cities. We left 2 days after most of the other kids on the program arrived and were gone for a week. To get the best sense of my trip, I'd check out THIS ALBUM OF PICTURES. Especially if you like looking at old churches carved out of mountains and pretty, snow covered mountains.
Also check out my B+ level google map skillz. Click on the cities to read 3 words about each one!

     

View Şanlıurfa/Şanlıurfa Province in a larger map

Day one of our journey was specifically designed to encourage intensive bonding and slight indigestion. We woke up bright and early and arrived at the airport by 6:30 am and boarded a plane. I promptly fell asleep. I awoke an hour later to find that we had not moved and were being instructed to deplane. We then spent the next 15 hours in the domestic departures terminal of Ataturk Airport, outside of security.

Monk's home, carved into a fairy
chimney. You had to climb
straight up to get inside.

If anyone needs a reccomendation about where to get the best  cucumber, tomato, and feta cheese sandwich, I had 4. The one on the airplane was the worst.

But I did color about half of my Consent Coloring Book and study some Turkish. I can count to 19!

Floor mosaic, I think from the Antakya Museum, which was
slightly less impressive than the Zugma one.

Besides our airport dream-day, the trip was basically this: 
we spent about 1/3 of the time on a bus between cities and 1/3 being wildly over-fed kebaps and fostering addictions to chai. The rest of the time were were blindly following our (pretty great) tour guide and looking at ruins, mosaics, or mountains.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the trip, but the 5 star hotels and mercedes bus, the prepaid, pre-ordered meals, and the complete lack of control made it hard to feel immersed into Turkish culture or society. I'm still struggling to feel like I'm in a new country. It feels much more like EIE (semester abroad in high school where I was ushered around Israel with 90 other Americans) than, say, Mechina. So I'm trying to pump myself up to put myself into situations that are outside of the American--Exchange-Student Bubble.

Fresco (well, secco) in some church.
Don't ask which.

THAT BEING SAID, with out a doubt the highlight of the trip was Cappadocia, a city in central Turkey that was recently named the hot air ballooning capital of the world. Or something.

Cappadocia from the sky.

On our first day there we once again awoke at 5, but this time went on an hour+ hot air balloon ride above some crazy geological panoramas. Funny thing about hot air balloons--theres not much to do except snap pictures. I refer you to the fb album again.

We then explored a complex of monasteries carved into the mountainside with frescos dating back at least to the 10th c. (they can't date the actual caves because nothing is built on, so they could be much older). We also went on a little hike through a very snowy, muddy valley. Most of us were dreadfully underprepared for this walk, which only made it better. For dinner we ate at Ziggy's a cute lil' restaurant with AMAZING mezzes of eggplant salads and hummus of sorts, fantastic chicken kebaps, ans then the quince and kaymak dessert I described in my last post. SO GOOD. This also happened to be Valentine's Day. Very romantic. One might say it was a giant date between everyone on the program. I'm not sure if I would say that, but someone might.

I'm checking out a pottery class on
Wednesday. Seriously.

We also went to a carpet store and learned about their production and tips for our future purchasing, and I made a beautiful clay pot at a pottery store while everyone else drank tea and watched.  

As I said before, for the rest of the trip just imagine any tour you've been on, but imagine it the first week of your freshman year of college--you don't really know anyone, you are kind of awkward, and you share a lot of stories from high school. You also try to sneak alcohol past the RAs. (JK. no RAs in the Hotels. Superdorm, on the other hand, has the freaking CIA. but thats another story.)

Thats all for now. Hopefully the upcoming weeks will be a little more contemplative and this blog will be a lot less report-y. I made friends with the Occupy Starbucks at Bogazici students yesterday (its facebook ofic. nbd.) and tomorrow I'm going to a St. Vincent concert with a bunch of kids from my program. Should be good.