hi everyone,

Phil told me that today it was hotter in Utrecht then it was in Istanbul! Good to hear you have nice weather too. I put up a few new pictures. Yesterday it was 'Republic Day', when the Turks celebrate their victory over the Greeks in 1922, after which Ataturk founded the Republic and started his secular reforms. Everywhere we were, masses of big Turkish flags. I have been meeting more and more Erasmus students, and on Republic Day a big group of us headed for the beach about 1 hour outside of Istanbul. Especially the big group of German students was sensitive for this all this hyper-nationalistic energy. But on the beach itself we did not notice anything at all, and I was relieved that we fitted in perfectly with the locals who were also wearing bikini's. 

Tomorrow my language course starts, and I can't wait to get to know more about the Turkish language, and meet some new people. I am pretty happy in the end that I am not in the Erasmus course, since it is pretty massive, and now I will also meet some non-students.

I hope everyone is doing fine, with starting up there schools and jobs also, although most of you are already working again.

Hope your weather lasts for a bit,

love, sacha

Some more pictures, these are all of sunday.

I went into a beautiful mosque on the older part of town. After that I went to the Basilica Cistern, a water reservoir built in 532, that kept water that came from the Black Sea, via a 20 km aquaduct. It is huge and is held up by 336 columns! It could hold upto 80.000 cubic metres of water. Then I went home with  the boat. If you see the last picture up with a view from a  boat, there is a strip of green on the right, right above the water. The first building then is a little square block, I live 2 streets behind that block (which is a high-school).

So, now you know where I live, and seen some more pictures, hope you enjoyed it.

tea-suger-a-dream: my first Turkish steps

hi everyone,

I made it! my first steps were a bit rough, but now with all my stuff in my perfectly-situated room I feel fully landed.  

My first impression of Istanbul was not such a friendly one. With well over 20 kilo's of lugage, a sticky 35 degrees and no clue of were to go I headed for the metro. Confusingly the tickets are coin-shaped, so it took me a while to figure out that I had really bought them. I was occupying two seats with all my stuff and a older guy made a fuss about in Turkish and made me stand with everything in the middle of the metro for the rest of the busy ride. It took me a while to find a place, ended up in a girls-only dorm-room, that was very nice. 

I quickly befriended a guy who seemed to family to all t he restaurants, barbers, and hotel owners around the hotel. I ended up playing bagamon with  him and his friends. They told me how to say 'thank you' in Turkish. By now I know it should be 'tesjekur ederum', but they thought it was help me to say 'tea-sugar-a-dream'.. haha. Later some other french tourist joined and we danced till 1 and then went for some beers and they sang songs with their guitar. After a few songs I realized I had not even been in the city for more than  10 hours and realized how tired I was, so I went to bed. The next day I visited the impressive Blue mosque, then I packed my stuff and went to my new house. 

My housemate Mahir is a very nice guy, very friendly and relaxed. The neighborhood is very nice and quiet, only they are redoing the streets so that is dusty and noisy. I put some pictures of my room and the view (they took out the road, only one car was still parked on it so they left this one car like an island). I put my stuff in my room and got settled a bit. Then we went out for dinner, I have the feeling that eating out is very normal here, also for lunch. The food is usually not too elaborated, but nice. And I figured out pretty quickly that keeping up with my vegetarian preferences is going to be impossible, definatly for as long as I don't speak Turkish. We went for a drink and the begamon board came out again, and I am learning the 'kneepjes van het vak' so my tactics are getting better by the day. I am happy I knew the basics already since it is a fun and easy way to spend time with people and get to know them, and it is hugely popular around here. 

We ended up meeting the people from the day before again at the 'world (?) famous' Taksim square. That is the place to be at night and it is super busy and big. We saw super nice live Turkish music and had some beers and Turkish raki (kind of like the greek 'uzo').  The musicians were really really good, and first I thought I had a Turkish Stef Bos in front of me, but later when people who requested songs got more drunk it turned into more of a Turkish Andre Hazes. 

Today I have just ventured into the neighborhood in which I will be living: Besiktas. I could not have wished for a  better area to live in. The direct streets surrounding me are quiet (no mosques in the morning at 6 with 'allah alleahakbar'), but lots and lots of nice shopping area and restaurants and bars just three blocks down. Also lots of bus-connections and a ferrydock. The neighborhood's symbol is a eagle, so everywhere there are impressive eagle statues. And they are also the home of one of Turkish best soccerteams: BJK. There is a ringroad that fits exactly around the stadium. Because of all the hills, on one end of the ring you are on 'groundlevel' next to the stadium, on the other side of the ring you can look into the stadium and see the game! So crazy with all the hills in this city. 

Well that is a (maybe too) detailed account of my first impressions. I am going to be a tourist for a week more. Then on the first, like most of the students in NL, I am starting my language course. That will take two weeks. After that the Bogazici university has introduction and my actual courses will start. 

I hope (and am pretty sure) that The Netherlands is less sticky and hot, hope all is fine.

my baklava-love, Sacha