ISTANBUL

I HAVE ARRIVED! It took me a while to figure out the WiFi situation but now all of the kinks are worked out and I am good to go for the rest of the semester. After my plane landed (10 hour flight) I met up with 7 other girls in my program at the Starbucks just outside of customs. We were all exhausted from dragging our mounds of luggage all over the place and being trapped in those uncomfortable Turkish Airline seats for so long. It probably was the smallest and hardest seat I have ever been assigned; my butt literally was sore for the rest of the night. From the airport we all piled into a Dolmus (minibus) and took a one hour ride to Koc Campus for a mini tour and dinner date with our mentors. Koc is beautiful! It is secluded in a forest about 20 minutes out of the closest town, Sariyer. All of the buildings on campus are HUGE because all of the ceilings are so high and all of the rooms are so expansive. There are a ton of places to eat on campus (even more than there are at UNCW which is odd seeing as UNCW has 11,000 more students). The food is cheap, electronics are expensive. The tap water is not potable but bottles only cost .50TL (Turkish Lira). The Bosphorus is only 5 minutes away from campus and is full of barges and yachts. So far everyone in my program and working at the school have been so very kind and helpful, I have no complaints. Everywhere I look there is something even more amazing than the next. Turkish flags fly loud and proud around every corner. Now... the language is quite difficult. They have 3 more vowels than the English language and all of them are only sligghhtlyy different. It's a lot of throat inflection. And vowels are every other letter so your tongue has to move so quickly in order to pronounce the words properly.

My room is also HUGE. It is at least twice the size of my freshman dorm room at UNCW. They provided me with a pillow, blanket, desk, dresser, lamp, bed, mini fridge, and nightstand. The bathroom is very clean and is located right outside my door; I share it with my room mate and 4 other rooms on my hall. We have an entire wall of windows that overlooks the patch of woods in between all the dorm buildings. It is like Narnia with tall trees and lamp posts and a stone path through the middle of it. I still can't grasp the fact that this is my home for the next 4 1/2 months.

Also, there is a bonus to Turkey that I did not expect. They have so many wild cats and dogs (just like any other city) but all of the animals are relatively clean and exceptionally friendly. According to some of my fellow students the government has a special program where they catch all of the street animals and spay and neuter them and then release them back onto the streets, also I heard something about there being another government program that helps to feed them. On campus the animals will wait by the doors for someone to let them inside and come right up to you and hop on your lap wanting to be petted. A dream come true for a crazy cat lady like me.

That's all for now folks!