The Turkish Life

So today was my first real day in Istanbul since yesterday I didn’t get to my apartment or settled until after 5, and I was EXHAUSTED! But today was excellent! The day was spent similar to a traditional Turkish day! I woke up around 9:00 and went to breakfast with Reuben’s program coordinator who is a young American woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She studied abroad here twice when she was at Duke and loved it so much that she applied and received a Fulbright to come. After that she got her Masters at Bogazici fell in love and got married and now seven years later she’s still here! Anyway she was really nice and very helpful. She took us to a small café very close to our apartment but I can’t remember the name of it now. It was very reasonable and delicious! We had çay, which is pronounced chai, it’s the traditional Turkish tea. It’s served in a glass, which is about the equivalent of three shot glasses; it’s tricky at first because the glass gets so hot but the trick is to hold it at the rim. Usually it is taken black with two sugars, çay is similar to black tea but it has more of a bite at the end. We also had börek, which is similar to a puff pastry filled with either spinach, a salty feta like cheese, or ground beef. It is served cut into cross sections and warm, oh and delicious. Knock on wood so far everything I’ve eaten here I have absolutely loved!

After breakfast we wandered to the vegetable market, which was such a cool experience. It is similar to an American farmers market in that it’s only open on Saturday. All of the part of Istanbul we are in is very very hilly and the market is on one of those large hills. I just kept walking to check the different prices at stands and by the time I stopped I had gotten to almost the bottom of the hill and had almost half a mile up the hill eeek!!

In the afternoon we ventured to Taksim, which is the city square, probably equivalent to Times Square but busier and bigger. There are a lot of bars and resturants, it is just a generally very nice area. We took the bus here, which was an adventure since today there was a soccer match between two Turkish teams. The stadium traffic was INSANE!! Oh well you live and you learn. So when we got to Taksim we had kebabs for lunch and then went to a Nagile (Hookah) café to watch the game. The weather today was sunny but still chilly, probably warmer than home though. Put it this way, we were able to sit outside and smoke nagile in jackets without being cold. We decided to take the metro back to Bogazici which was an adventure all its own. There was no clear map but signs on the floor to tell you where to go. The metro is very clean and nice, it’s a lot like DC. Only problem was, we had an idea of what stop to get off on but didn’t really know where to go after getting off. But it wasn’t too big of a deal while we were wandering we went into a dessert bar for a snack and found an expensive shopping center. We tried to walk back but it ended up being to far and no buses were coming so we just gave in and took a cab, oh well it was only about 6 lira (~$4.00). Overall today was an excellent day!

Market

Reuben and me in the Nagile Cafe

börek

çay

View from a park near my apartment