An American in Turkey

Hello from Istanbul everyone! After an incredibly harried day or so of travel (let's just say heathrow wasn't the best place to fly through this weekend) I arrived at the Gumussuyu campus of Istanbul Technical University. For those of you with a map Gumussuyu is near the tip of the northern asian landmass right about where the boshporus and the golden horn meet. It is in pretty close proximity to Taksim Square (the modern business center of Istanbul) and Dolmabahce Palace, which was the imperial Ottoman residence for the last two hundred or so years of its existence. Life hear is amazing, there is almost always something to do or see and I've been getting around on a few turkish words along with some bastardized arabic, french and spanish. Yesterday we visited Ortakoy which is a small bohemian neighborhood on the shore of the bosphorus. There we did a little shopping, ate at a nice cafe and took a cruise (only 5 lira!) up the bosphorus and saw Rumeli and Andalou Hisari (two castles that stand on opposite sides of the bosphorus at its narrowest point. The Bosphorus is a fascinating body of water, almost constantly filled with large containment carriers coming from Russia. Last night we got a gootaste of two Turkish specialties, kebap and gozumilye (not sure about the spelling). Kebap as you might expect is simply roast lamb, the other is a thin baked dough with feta or yellow cheese and spinach inside (think quesadilla). Both were delicious. We topped the evening off with nargile (hookah and flavored tobacco) and tea. Today we had our first turkish lesson, which is three hours long every day.

Thats about all for now, I'll write back in a couple of days.