A Stroll Through My Neighborhood

A quick fifteen-minute walk down a big hill takes you to the Bosphorus Strait. Here are some shots from the boardwalk (which is made of stone, so stonewalk?) and my walk to school:

Interesting characterization of the city: ancient fortress called Rumeli Hisari next to a huge modern bridge hanging high over the water
Waterfront cafes with luxury car to set the scene
Rumeli Hisari and a graveyard in front of it (nice real estate for if you're checking in for good)
On the way to school...
Gorgeous view of the sparkling water and sailboats everyday
Almost makes me forget the noise, the air and land pollution, the crowds, and the heat. Almost.
Fishing on the stonewalk in business clothes- lunch break!
A quick fifteen-minute walk down a big hill takes you to the Bosphorus Strait. Here are some shots from the boardwalk (which is made of stone, so stonewalk?) and my walk to school:

Nightly News

This just in: On the evening news, emotion-stimulating music plays in the background of every story. Quiet time comes when the anchorman sums up or introduces a new piece. During a shot of a violent protest, tunes that could have come from Pirates of The Caribbean playing in the background made the harsh images seem less real. When pictures of missing children appeared on the screen, sappy classical music hummed. Also, the camera angles and intense choppiness of the editing made me think of Project Runway. Without understanding a word of the dialogue, watching the news here is almost more entertaining than watching reality shows (which are not so hard to beat). Ultimately, it’s hard to distinguish the serious stuff from E! Entertainment Television/ trashy celebrity gossip programs.

Cooking Class in Photos

Last week I took a wonderful class at a culinary school called Cooking Alaturka in Sultanahment, a famously historic neighborhood located pretty far south of where I live. The class was in English, required no previous cooking experience, and accepted Euros, Dollars, or Lira (geared toward travelers, perhaps?). Though I was the only one under age 35, living in Istanbul, and there alone, the old fogies who took the class were quite pleasant. We had lot of fun preparing five dishes and sitting down to a served course-by-course lunch. The menu: stuffed eggplants (the Turkish name is Imam Bayaldi, which literally means the Imam fainted with joy, or he fainted when he saw the amount of olive oil in the dish), zucchini pancakes with garlic yogurt (kabak mueveri), bulgur and red lentil soup (ezogelin corbasi), grape leaves stuffed with meat (etli yaprak dolmasi), and syrup-soaked semolina cookies (sekerpare). Here are some shots of our creations.

Syruping the cookies. Why bake plain, old dry cookies when you remove your hot baked goods from the oven and drench them in melted sugar?
The hot stuffed grape leaves (commonly known as domas) with some cooking liquid as a sauce and a side of yogurt.
The final presentation of the cookies, topped with a hazelnut and sprinkled with grated coconut and crushed pistachios
The dolmas before we put the lid on to steam.

Brewing Turkish coffee over a high flame in the traditional pot
Rolling the dolmas in grape leaves
Painting an egg wash on the cookies
Our stuffed eggplants

First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day of classes, which to me means showing up to class five minutes early, finding a seat in the front row, and looking enthusiastic. Usually these three things are easy, that is when the first three people I ask for directions all point to the same place. Punctuality, like so many of the Western notions ingrained in my mind from a young age, is simply different here. That’s all, different. Here’s how the day panned out:

8:50- I ask a student who is setting up at the activities fair on the quad for directions to my class. She says she also has Ceramics, but “is busy” so she won’t be attending today.

9:00 AM- Starting time of my first period class.

9:07- I am standing outside the Fine Arts Building and ask a woman who is smoking out front for directions to the classroom. She is now the third person I have asked.

9:08- After some back and forth miming and pointing to my campus map, she asks a passing student to guide me there.

9:10- We pick up a confused-looking Dutch girl on the way who is headed to the same class.

9:15- Arrival and subsequent surprise at the lack of students sitting at the tables in the pottery-filled classroom. One girl with light-colored hair (an obvious sign of a non-Turk) is sitting at the first table looking desperate.

9:20- The two other foreigners and I make small talk while hoping that we are in the right place and that our class actually exists.

9:25- The teacher comes in and, speaking in broken English, states that we will not have class today because the other students are not here. We did not receive an explanation on that subject, but we did have ample time to wander around now that the four-hour class was cancelled.

So that’s Turkish punctuality and priorities, I guess. Like I said, it’s just different. The two girls (one from Germany and the other from Holland) turned out to be incredibly nice, so we walked up to the Borekcisi, a small café selling many kinds of borek, for some tea and a snack. We picked up a German guy along the way who was headed to the same place and enjoyed sharing travel stories while devouring suborek. Borek is a savory snack made of crispy, flaky pastry dough and filled with spinach, potatoes, cheese, or meat. It’s much denser than a croissant but lighter than a Racine Kringle (a Wisconsin specialty). The bakeries make the snack in long pieces and slice off whatever amount the customer wants. It’s sold by weight. Suborek (directly translated to “water borek”) is a moist version of the traditionally dry pastry. The addition of melted butter and soft cheese makes the thin layers deliciously tender. Then again, with a little butter, salt, cheese, and pastry dough, not much can go wrong.

The teacher for my afternoon class never showed, so I left after waiting for nearly a half hour. The activities fair was eye-opening in that my Turkish better improve significantly if I want to be an active participant in extracurricular life on campus. Or, if I want to read the school newspaper. I signed up for the paragliding club, half because I would love to get out of the city with the intent of flying over some of Turkey’s gorgeous landscapes and half because the student working the booth worked so hard to explain the club to me in English that as I walked away, he plopped into his chair and let out a big sigh of relief. I found out about the aviation organization from my roommate back in the spring when we were exchanging emails to determine if I would live with her. She wrote that she would join the club in the fall. I wrote, “see you in September!” More on my high-flying adventures to come after I complete the education portion. Turns out there is some legitimacy to a bunch of students running down hills with pricey parachutes strapped to their backs. Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll wear a helmet.

Panoramic View via Link

For an in-motion panoramic view of the city at dusk, check out the image at the top of this web page: http://www.manzara-istanbul.com/en/

Saturday Activities

Fresh juice bar at the organic market. Mix and match any fruits to your liking! My peach-apple-carrot-blackberry concoction was thick, sweet, and revitalizing. Drinking organic, local fresh-squeezed fruit juice makes you feel like a healthy hippie.
Slightly blurry shot of the market. It's in the lower level of a parking garage, which made the search to find it (through well worth the trek) quite difficult. I ended up in a neighborhood that saw very few non-Turks. Turns out Google Maps isn't always dead-on.
Lovely fountain in Sultanahmet, the touristy district where most of the big historic sites are located.
Street vendor in the Hippodrome at a makeshift shop with styrofoam-like temporary walls.

Lunch at the Ekolojic Pazar

Savory snacks sold at the Ekolojic Pazar, Istanbul's only certified organic farmer's market.
My lunch was this crepe-like organic flatbread made from a thick whole wheat dough. Filling options include meat, spiced potato mush, or shredded greens and cheese. I chose the latter and loved the hot chewy, salty, cheesy combination. A Turkish grilled cheese of sorts?
The workstation including two griddles and cutting board
The smiley flatbread chefs whose delicious end product and quick, careful technique proved they have been at it for at least a few years now.

Obama Cookies!

Three Important Things

In the few days that I have been in this foreign country I have learned three things of equal importance. First, the bakery up the street was written up in The New York Times for a special kind of baked good they named "Obama cookies." The chocolate-covered chocolate cookie has some sort of chocolatey sweet nut filling. I had to stop in and express my enthusiasm for the kind gesture toward Americans. Regardless of your views toward the 44th president, you should always make it known that you are somehow affiliated with Obama (i.e. he is the Commander in Chief of the country in which you reside) if you see cookies with his name on them. The bakers may give you a free one. And, what do you know... they did! They look better than they taste.

The second important piece of information I learned is that my flatmate has seen scorpions in our apartment. Yep, black scorpions. I cannot comment further.

The third thing I learned, when I admittedly was searching for videos on the Kanye/T. Swift incident, is that YouTube is BANNED. Yes, the site is totally blocked in Turkey! It didn't take long for my flatmate to offer up ways around the ban to calm me down, but I am still in a mild state of shock at the nerve of the Federal government here. The Criminal Court of Peace, to be exact. Just when I was beginning to respect the liberal-mindedness of the State in terms of religious tolerance and secularism despite the vast majority of the population being Muslim, Turkey had to go and ban a site that actually won an award for embodying and promoting Democracy (the George Foster Peabody Award in 2008). And it was just one dumb video from some Greeks insulting Ataturk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, that instigated the whole thing in the first place. Good thing I found a nice proxy server (I am ignoring dragon-themed popup ads that come with it) the to let me through so I can be caught up on my VMA celebrity drama. I don't often look up trashy celeb videos, though. Don't get the wrong idea.

First foods

Typical Turkish breakfast- three cheeses, sliced cucumbers, a peeled tomato, mixed olives, jams, and butter. I ate this outside at a cafe overlooking the Bosphorus. A stunning view of the water will make any meal taste good. Turkish coffee (served in a small demitasse cup) and breads with the kahvalti.
A tower of eggroll look-alike desserts dripping with a thick caramel sauce.
Various pickled things in jars on a side street off of the main drag, Istiklal.

More photos from the first few days

Fruits!
Indoor food court-style eating place lined with restaurants and food stands
Small park in the middle of Taksim

Initial Images

The photos below are from my first two days here. These shots of markets and small shops are from Taksim, the central entertainment/financial center of the city. A woman on the bus today said that if Istanbul had a downtown, Taksim would be it.

An outdoor market in the center of Taksim, selling touristy knick knacks

Why Turkey?

The decision process for determining where I would spend my Junior year abroad was easy, I thought. All pre-planned, hand- holding study abroad programs were out. None seemed to be the right fit for the level of cultural immersion I sought. Directly enrolling in a foreign university was the best option because being a student in another country would be the closest to “local living” that I could get. Originally, I set my mind on the American University of Beirut, arguably the most prestigious university in the Middle East (one factor I thought I had going for me in the Parental Discussion). A friend and I talked about going together and living the Lebanese high life amongst a decadent view of the Mediterranean, dark and handsome men, and delicious kebabs. Those plans quickly went down the drain when Mom declared she would not send her daughter to a place where she could “see bombs going off on the news everyday.” A slight exaggeration, I might add, but a valid point nonetheless. Turkey, the runner-up on my list, eventually won out.

I am currently sitting in an apartment in Istanbul for more reasons than my Mom wouldn’t let me go to Lebanon. Actually, I did want to go to Turkey, but I wanted Lebanon just slightly more. Turkey fit all the pre-requisites: that I had never been before, that I knew very little about the place itself, and that living in the place would allow me to learn a new language. The school that caught my eye here was Bogazici University, a Turkish university with classes in English. Soon after I was admitted, I found a female student who was seeking a flatmate in a three-bedroom in walking distance from the school. I quickly signed on and now, here I am in my bedroom in Istanbul. Registration is this Thursday and classes start on September 28 (very late compared to many American schools). So, it’s here. It’s happening. Follow this blog for detailed stories on all my adventures, experiences, and road bumps along the way. Hoşgeldin!