Falling into routines (a boring entry)
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Istanbul,
Turkey
Thursday, July 17, 2008
So I have been in Istanbul for 2 weeks now.
About daily life... My sleep schedule is great now, as I am waking up at 8:00am every morning. The last time I woke up this early on a regular basis was junior year in high school. Our dorm offers free breakfast, which all of us eagerly attended to the first few days, but the breakfast club is diminishing rapidly in numbers. We are done with class by 1pm and either go back to the dorm, hang out in Taksim, or go sightseeing. If we decide to do either of the latter two, we are usually exhausted due to the heat and have to hibernate in the dorm before dinner- which is what happened the first week. This week has been less focused on tourism and more on blending into the local scenes and doing my ur duties as a student.
I wrote my first religion discussion paper on the emergence of ethnic and religious nationalism in non-western countries and several theories on the phonomenon. I squeezed out my fading knowledge from the comparative democracy class and incorporated them into the paper, along with the readings for the class. For the history class, I chose to write my paper on the history of Bogaziçi University, the first American university outside of the U.S, and its impact on the higher education in Turkey. I think it will be interesting to visit a college campus and learn about the changes it has gone through, with the transition into Republic of Turkey from the Ottoman Empire and other political shifts. I contacted the history of education professor at Bogaziçi, who speaks very good English and is willing to help, so I feel good about this paper.
The evenings are filled with reading on the rooftop, chilling in the nargile wonderland, and going to Taksim. Outgoing and cheery, I have met quite a lot of people in the dorm outside of my program. Broadly generalizing, there are two types of people: Turkish delinquents and well-educated foreign students. The Turkish students are our age; their English skills vary quite a bit. Because these kids failed their classes and are stuck here for summer school, their English leaves something more to be desired. You find these kids hanging out on the steps in front of the dorm, playing ping pong, or smoking on the roof. The other group- the foreigners- are mostly from Eastern Europe and Central Asia (the -stan countries). They are here for a short program and seminars to learn about scholarly, worldly things like international relations and human rights. They are older, headed to graduate schools, and fill the study lounge. The contrast between the two groups is stark, but I somehow manage to get along with all of them. I guess less so with the Turkish students because of the language barrier, but they are the ones who like to go out.
I am falling into routines: laughing with the amazing friends I made here, ordering ice cream in Turkish at the famous baklava place around the corner, haggling for everything, everywhere, facebooking and playing Solitaire in class, saying "no" to the same people at the same restaurants by the bridge, sinking into the colorful beanbags at the nargile wonderland... Time is flying by. 1/3 way through the program already! So sad.
My parents told me to use my credit card for anything that costs more than $30, but I have not bought one item that costs over $30. I think the most money I spent at one time was like 20 liras for a week's worth of groceries. Bank of America takes off 3% every time you use your credit card/ATM card, which really sucks, especially combined with the foreign transaction fee AND the $5.00 ATM charge. This all adds up. A lot. Bank of America seriously sucks. People who use Credit Union or US Bank get charged much, much less, so I should have done some research on banks. The next time I am abroad for more than a month, I am definitely opening up a new bank account that will not take off chunks of money for every transaction.
