I'm home...ish...

Which means I got to Turkey safely. Mom dropped me off and I didn't remember we were matching until I opened this picture... I was shocked when Blogger popped up in Turkish and I don't know if the formatting will be quite the same, but life's good anyway.
It's really an amazing place. On the ride to the university we saw a ton of local architecture and the way old and new are juxtaposed is quite... well, I am not used to seeing it. And the buildings are closer to a rainbow than anyhthing- my dorm is built of green bricks.
Last night our professor was a tour guide of sorts and took us down to the Bosphorus, which is the channel of sorts that runs between Europe and Asia. We stayed on the Asian side, and watched the sun set on the way out there-it was AMAZING. We went to a pub of sorts and tried some of the local food and most people had local beer(I hate beer so I drank water) but it was a great experience. It meant we learned about the bus system and the ferry system, bith of which it appears we'll be using frequently.

The people here are really nice- 5 Turkish students led us around campus and to a local pub-type setup and to their version of a superstore- Carrefour. They were really really nice about the whole thing- and I think the men seem to be more chivalrous in some ways than in the States. They took things and weighed them at the store and carried things for us and were just really polite about all of it.
This is most of the people in our program and all of our Turkish guides. We had a reception for all the study abroad students so it was pretty cool to meet other Americans and some Europeans as well. We were served AMAZING cake that tasted like tiramisu and had fruit and chocolate between the layers. Light and summery, but delicious. Trust me.

It was awesome to do so much so soon, but really, I am jetlagged a bit so I think I need a nap. And I might be meeting people for dinner- I have no memories for this thing. Which will get better as I get used to not having a cell phone all the time at my disposal.

More pictures soon!