Bir Post

I've been thinking about creating a blog documenting my travels to Turkey for awhile and have finally gotten the time to do so. I have only been in Turkey for 5 days but it feels like weeks (probably because it took almost 48 hours of traveling to get here). The 48 hours started at the East Lansing train station where I met some of my classmates as well as our coordinator Maggie. Having never been on a train before the ride was really enjoyable and after 4 hours we were at Union Station in Chicago (a little over 10 hours before our flight). In order to pass the time, we walked around Chicago with our luggage on one of the hottest days of the summer finally stopping to eat some pizza at Giordano's. Little did we know this was going to be our last meal in America for 7 weeks. Taking the "L" to O'hare international airport, where we met more of our group, we went through security and boarded our plane headed for Istanbul. 

We arrived in Istanbul at 5pm, paid the visa fee (which had to either be in USD or Euro, they wouldn't accept Turkish Lira, their national currency) and met our university guide, Mehmet. He took us on an overly crowded train to the bus station where unknown to us we would be waiting for more than 6 hours for a bus to Eskisehir at 1a.m. After a 5 hour bus ride, we finally got to our apartments where everyone instantly fell asleep.

Apartment Complex

Kitchen

That same afternoon Mehmet took us on a tour of Eskisehir. It is a beautiful city with a population of over 600,000. We went to a bar that evening to have a few drinks and to meet Ezel, another Anadolu University contact, and her boyfriend Mohammad. On Sunday, Mehmet took us on a tour of the 'old' Eskisehir. Needless to say, this was very beautiful as well. We visited a mosque over 500 years old and drank delicious tea from two women who were dressed like gypsies. We also met our apartment neighbor, Justin, who is from Texas A&M working towards his PhD in chemical engineering at Anadolu for the summer. Monday we took a tour of Anadolu University, both the main campus and the engineering campus. We also got our schedules and registered for classes. There was a lot of chaos during this process but everything has seemed to work itself out so I won't elaborate any further. Later that night, we all went to a nearby park and played futbol with some of the local kids which ended up being a lot of fun. Everyone seems to like us, (probably because we are Americans), but I do wonder what people think when they see the 15 of us walking down the sidewalk...

Porsuk River through Eskisehir

'Old' Eskisehir Buildings

500+ year old mosque

I have class on Tuesday 9-12, Wednesday 9-2, Thursday 12-6, and Friday 4-6. So far the classes haven't been too bad, but it has only been 3 days. My transportation engineering class will be very interesting because the professor hardly speaks any English. If it wasn't for his English lecture slides we probably wouldn't understand anything. Ironically enough, we ate lunch with some of our Turkish classmates who said that they have a hard time understanding his Turkish because he speaks and old form of it. Today, the professor even had one of the Turkish students translate a few things for us which was pretty funny. My hydrology class is completely different. The whole class is taught in English and the professor speaks it very well. I cannot believe how friendly the people are here. The classmates that we ate lunch with also helped us get our books and get on the bus. They have also come to the bars with us and we have a futbol game scheduled against them Sunday morning at 1 a.m.

Main campus entrance

Main campus buildings

Here are some things that I want to share about Turkey/Turkish people/Eskisehir that I have observed from being here the past few days:
1) Turkish people are extremely friendly and will go out of their way to help you. It is their culture to be very accommodating and make everyone feel at home (which they have done a great job of)
2) Even though many people here do not speak English they will try their best to communicate with you.
3) Saying even a few words such as hello (merhaba) or thank you (tesekkuler) in Turkish pleases people because it shows that you are making an effort no matter how small it is.
4) There are a lot of stray dogs and cats on the street.
5) Not as many people speak English as I had assumed.
6) The weather is unbeatable. Hardly any clouds, dry heat during the days, and cool nights.
7) The traffic is chaotic. I am surprised that I haven't seen one car accident since being here because people drive crazy. There are no lane lines and cars do not stop...especially for pedestrians.
8) The food is delicious! Eating is a huge part of Turkish culture and they definitely do it right.

Anyway, free time has been a rarity since arriving in Turkey, but I am glad to at least get one post in. I am sure there is stuff that I am forgetting, so please comment and ask questions or maybe I'll remember and mention them in my next post. This Sunday we will be taking a day trip to Yazılıkaya, Turkey so hopefully that will be fun. Until next time.