Not in Kansas anymore...

I'm here!
The flight from SF to London was long and uncomfortable. Those seats have no lower back support and it is just unpleasant for me. I only managed to get about 2ish hours sleeptime. But the flight crew was so nice and they serve a lovely cup of tea! I had a short layover at Heathrow, which is massive. I couldn't get the public wifi to work, so I just gave up. I used a whole package of Kleenex on the flight, so I stopped at my old friend Boot's and got some cold medicine. Apparently, you can't find cold med that doesn't have a dose of caffeine in it. Silly Brits.

The seats on the smaller plane from London to Istanbul were much more comfortable and I was able to sleep a little more. There was an adorable little two year old across the aisle from me. His dad was so cute, so attentive to him and and kept shooshing him in a mixture of French and English.
I arrived around 10:30 and went through customs without any problem. I got my luggage and took a taxi to my cute little hotel. It's cute and clean, just typically small.
The time change has me all messed up, so I was only able to sleep for about 6 hours. I got up and wondered around the hotel and found the breakfast buffet down a couple of floors. Breakfast here is great, lots of foods that I enjoy. A typical breakfast here consists of bread, cheese, cucumber, tomato, yogurt (real yogurt, the semi-runny, tart kind), some form of cold meat (like cold cuts), olives, dried fruit and a couple of other things. They have this juice here that is so awesome, I think it's cherry pomegranate. It's so delicious.
The Davids were very thoughtful and got me a converter/adapter set. I didn't think to check it before I left and didn't find out until I arrived that it doesn't work with the plug on my laptop. This made feel a little worried, because the battery was low from me messing with it at Heathrow when I couldn't get the public wifi to work. I wasn't sure where to go and how to get there to buy the right converter. I am so glad I have my iPod touch, because I was able to use that for internet access.

I have been in contact with a few people here about renting a room and I had it set up to meet with a girl Saturday night. She told me what metro station to go to and when. So I had basically all day and I saw in the lobby of the hotel that there was a little brochure for the Turkuazoo, Turkey's only aquarium. I thought Well, that sounds fun. I do love me an aquarium. :)
I took a taxi and that was my first time seeing the city during the day. It has such personality. The landscape is kind of like San Francisco, just bigger and more spread out and older.
It turns out that the Turkuazoo is in an enormous mall called Forum Istanbul.
I stopped and Starbucks and had a snack. There's no place like home, right? :) The menu board is in English, which is a plus.
I guess I have become an aquarium snob. This one is not so fantastic. I think after visiting the most awesome one on the planet in Atlanta, anything else just cannot compare. But it was enjoyable and I had fun people watching.
It didn't take very long to go through it, so I poked around the mall for a while. I went into an electronics store like a Best Buy and found the correct converter for the laptop, another memory card for my camera and a USB charger for my iPod so I don't have to use the converter.
I went into a big store called Real, which is like a Super Walmart. I found a copy of Jane Eyre in Turkish. That totally made my day, as it is the one specific thing I wanted to get here. And it was only 2 lira!

It was Saturday so the mall was pretty crowded, especially the food court. They have a lot of American fast food places - McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Popeye's, sbarro. There is a Mexican food shop that sells pizza and burgers. :)
Something scary happened as I was eating my piece of kibbeh. I was going to go down the escalator to the next floor, but I decided to stand at the railing next to it and eat quickly. I was standing there and suddenly people started screaming and a crush was forming on the escalator that was going down. It had malfunctioned right at the bottom and things and people were getting caught in it. They managed to get everyone off, but one lady was injured. Very scary. :(
I went back to my hotel and left that evening to meet with the girl about the room. I was very hopeful that out meeting would go well, as she is a student at Bogazici and seemed very nice. I waited for 40 minutes and she never showed. This was so frustrating to me. I was getting quite cold and the place I was at is kind of like a small version of Times Square. I got in a taxi after 40 minutes and came back to the hotel. I was disappointed. I emailed her and she never replied.
So, I took this in stride and emailed another girl who was on my list, Fatma. She also seemed very nice and we set up to meet at her flat on Sunday morning at 11.
I got up and got ready and stumped another taxi driver with trying to find the flat (they always seem to have a problem finding my little hole in the wall hotel). We finally found it and Fatma greeted me from an upper window. The buildings here can be five or six floors. She unlocked the door for me and I went up a couple of flights.

Fatma is a sweetie. She is Turkish and was raised in France. Her English is great, we had no problem understanding each other. She is very self-conscious about her accent and English, but I kept telling her that her skills are so good and the accent isn't a problem for me. We sat there and talked for two hours. I told her that I would not be offended if she decided that she did not want me to live in the flat after meeting with me. I said "This is YOUR home." She said that she had one other girl who was coming to look at it. But after we talked for a while, she basically said that she liked me and wanted me to stay and the other girl would just have to deal it. :)
She is a very interesting person, very smart. She has a law degree from France, but wants to live in Istanbul and so is studying Turkish law. She will work in the business/corporate area of international law.
The flat is very cute. It has two bedrooms and one living room, which are all a good size. The bathroom and kitchen are typically small, but that just makes everything within closer reach. :) My room has a twin bed, a wardrobe and a desk with a small chair. There are new wood floors that are nice and shiney.
Fatma lived in Istanbul previously as an exchange student and she explained to me why she chose this flat. It is in a neighborhood called Kurtulus (Ker-too-loosh) in the Sisli (chiz-lee) district. There are all variety of small shops and everything I will need. She took me out for a walk and guess what the closest metro station is???? Yes, the one where I waited for 40 minutes the previous night. :)
I couldn't believe it.
Fatma is very excited about me living there. She is very social and wanted someone who would be a friend and flatmate and wouldn't just stay in their room all the time. I am excited to polish up what little French I remember and she can also help me with learning some Turkish.

The time change is giving me some trouble. I can't sleep for more than 5 or 6 hours at a time. I woke up at 5:30am on Sunday morning and fell asleep at 7:30pm because I was tired, then woke up about an hour ago at 1 am. I hope this doesn't take too long to work itself out.

The traffic here can be awful and riding in a taxi is interesting. These guys are somewhat homicidal maniacs. :) They get so unbelievably close to other cars and people. When you get into the smaller neighborhoods with streets that seem about three feet wide, it gets even more interesting. When I was going to meet Fatma, the driver had to keep backing up because there wasn't room for another car to pass by him. But the cars here are all very small, so they zip around quickly.

Pre-registration and orientation are this week, but I haven't received any communication from the school about specifics, so I guess I will have to try to find that out for myself.

If anyone has any questions, just ask!

Oh, Fatma has two goldfish! :)