View from our hotel in Istanbul!

After what felt like a very long journey I have finally made it to my new home in Adana.

After leaving DC the we flew to Frankfurt where we split from the Egypt group and continued on to İstanbul, where we were met by a group of young volunteers. We were surprised and happy to find out that we were going to be staying in a hotel in one of the most popular neighborhoods of İstanbul, and it was beautiful. Just driving from the airport we passed beautiful old crumbling walls and houses that had been standing for longer than I can imagine.

Though we stayed in a very happening neighborhood it was less than satisfying because the volunteers would not even let us leave the hotel. For the two days we spent in İstanbul we left three times to eat, though two of those were Pizza Hut and Burger King. But breakfast almost ate up for the lack of authentıc cuisine. Every morning we stuffed as much of the the buffet style Turkish breakfast in as we could. we ate delicious bread, croissants, cheeses, olives, yogurt and honey, dried and fresh fruit, coffee, tea, pancakes and more. I could get enough. Plus all of this was eaten on the roof of the hotel, a nice patio with a beautıful view of the cıty. From where we stood on the European side we could see all the way past the Bospherous to the Asian side. The mosques stick out with the pillars around them announcing the call to prayer, it is so beautiful and foreign.
Besıdes food our orientation consisted of various informational sessions where the volunteers tried to prepare us for our new lives. We took basic lessons in Turkish, learned that shoes where not worn in the house and were warned that we would soon have a lot less freedom than we are accustomed to. All in all the "survival camp" was helpful, but we were all very anxious to get to Adana and meet our host families.

Yesterday we flew out at about 11:00, I sat next to a very sweet old Turkish women wearing a headscarf and as the volunteers warned us had no idea of American personal space. But I was comforted by how much we could communicate with such a language barrier. Thanks to my pocket dictionary and book of the San Juan Islands we made it through the flight with very few awkward pauses.

All of the host families were waiting at the gate when we arrive and I am ecstatic to meet my host mom and sister (my dad is working in İstanbul) there waiting with a sign. My host sıster Dilşad is very sweet and i think that we will get along very well. Her English is really good so she has been translating for her mom whose English is not that great but we have been getting along. They both seem eager to teach me which is great because my Turkish sucks, but I already feel like I am starting to pick things up!

Washington DC

Welcome to my blog! So for those of you that don't know I received a state department scholarship to study in Turkey for a year. I will be living with a host family, attending a high school and taking intensive Turkish language classes. All the kids that received the scholarship-called Nsli-y will be living in Adana, Turkey. Adana is southeast a little bit north of the Mediterranean, near the Syrian border. It is the forth largest city in Turkey and home to about two and a half million people. Though Turkey is about 98 percent Muslim it is secular and modern.


That said, I left Tuesday to begin my adventure. After a tearful goodbye with my mom I flew to Washington DC for a two day orientation. My plane landed at about 6am and we went straight to a hotel near the Dulles airport. The orientation began at 2pm and it was far more informative then I had anticipated. Many of the people leading the orientation are AFS staff that work specifically with the state department. They stressed the fact that this is not a gift or a paid vacation, but a job that should be taken seriously. We are to be ambassadors for our country and with our main objective to learn Turkish.

The majority of the students are going to Egypt either for a year or a semester and there is a group of about 15 of us going to Turkey. Some are on the same Nsli-y scholarship or various other partial or full scholarships. I have met some really cool girls that are going to be in the same city, and most of them are in the same situation as me-graduated high school and deferred college. It is nice to know that there will be people in the similar situation living so close.

The most informative part of the orientation was the cultural resource time where we sat down with a Turkish guy and a woman whose family is Turkish and has traveled extensively there. They told us about the food, (which is going to be ammaazzingg!!) the culture, and the dress. It sounds like we will be wearing uniforms and dressing pretty moderately, if we don't want to stand out or be harassed.

All of us are super excited and maybe a little bit nervous. Tomorrow we are in for another long day of orientation, and then we fly out at about 5pm eastern time. I am so ready to go!

I will try to keep up on the blog, so keep reading!