My first few days have been 2 things: exciting and relaxing. Thursday during the day I met up with a friend who I was with last summer in Izmir and we walked around Taksim, a bustling part of the city, and sat at a cafe and played backgammon. After a few rounds, I started to get my moves back and was as good as new. (Backgammon is very popular in Turkey and I learned last summer while I was in Izmir. Thursday evening I moved in to the apartment where I will be staying for the duration of my stay in Istanbul. I am renting a room from a university student, Ece, who I found through an AFS contact. While I was in Turkey in high school I came with AFS, an high school intercultural program, and after reaching out to my contacts in Turkey, Ece and I came in contact. I am really happy living here because this is exactly the type of situation I wanted to live in. I have all the freedom I like, which I hadn't gotten from living with host families, and I am still living with a Turk so I can speak Turkish all the time and I have someone to talk with :).
Friday I relaxed a lot because I really hadn't had time to relax since school got out. I finished exams last Monday and I flew to Turkey Tuesday. Therefore, these past few days I have spent a lot of time relaxing. I went to an AFS Turkey Volunteer meeting with Ece Friday evening and I met a bunch of her friends, who were all awesome because they had all done exchanges in different parts of the world. Saturday day was spent more relaxing, and really catching up on sleep because I was pretty jetlagged. Saturday evening I went to one of my GW friend's house party. It was somewhat of a scavenger hunt finding the place, but it was a lot of fun. Sunday was 19 Mayis, which is the day that Ataturk landed in Samsun
Today I decided to go exploring and I walked all around my new neighborhood.
No comments:
Post a Comment