maintaining internet access. Yesterday was a lot of fun. We had a walking tour of the campus and got to see where we will be having our lectures as well as our everyday classes. Our student guide’s name is Birce (Beer-ja) and it would seem that she is going to be very helpful when it comes to getting around the campus and translating for us on a few occasions.
After the tour we stopped for lunch in a student eatery and had a light meal before going to the super market type place to buy water and bread so as to be able to have slightly cheaper meals where we don’t have to go out to eat. I bought a really big bottle of water that lasted me the rest of the day but I think in attempts to conserve money I might try to buy a big 5 gallon jug and just keep refilling my larger water bottle out of that one as I need it.After that we caught a shuttle to the front gate (the university is very large here) and then walked about 15 mins to get to the closest mall, Cepa (Jepa.) It was really very interesting to me to see that the mall here was pretty much the exact same as a mall anywhere else. If anything most of the stores were slightly higher end shopping and I ended up choosing not to buy anything there but a coffee that I could sip on while talking with Avery and people watching a bit. We caught taxi’s back to Aysel Sabuncu (the guest house we are staying in on campus) and everyone took naps, got onto the internet or caught up on some reading.
Around 8’oclock we met in the lobby and walked back to the student hub to find some dinner (it is about a 30min walk from where we are staying and I have the feeling I am going to have even tougher feet by the time I get back from all the walking I am going to be doing here.) We found a place and got used the help of a METU student to order our food. We are very lucky to be living and interacting with people here. METU requires all of its students have some sort of English language proficiency because most of the classes are taught in English. After we were done with our meal we asked some guys outside the hub if they knew how to get to Drunk which is the local café bar that most of the students go to. They agreed to walk us to where we needed to go and pointed us in the right direction once we got to the gate. After sitting down and ordering a few drinks (our waitress spoke a bit of English, thank God) we saw our friends walk into the bar. We joined them at their table and what ensued could only be described as a cultural exchange.
We drank, talked politics and language and what we thought of Turkey and Turkish people and what they thought of America and American people and had a wonderful time. One of the guys is going to be coming to New York for three months in July. His name is Ada and we ended up talking for most of the night (they walked us home after we decided to leave the bar.)
He spoke pretty good english and is a civil engineer at the school. We talked about how in Turkey the only true legitimate professions in which to make money are doctors, lawyers, and engineers; but how he would pursue art if he could. He told me I was very, very lucky to be doing something that I love to do since he doesn’t really like engineering at all but keeps his grades up because his father and mother and grandfather are all engineers. I made the mistake of telling him that I had wanted to go to school to sing and he then insisted that when we meet up again tonight I am going to have to sing for him. We will see about that. We spoke about how the American people are excited to have a new president and that the Turkish elections are a lot like the American ones. In Turkey they have multiple parties but only two that really are able to gain any sort of momentum. The religious party, as he explained it, and the not-so-religious party.
For lack of a better vocabulary I ended up explain that the republicans in our country where like the religious party and the democrats were like the non-religious one. We talked about what Americans think of Muslims (all three of them were) and how both Ada and another guy in the group who’s name was Chris (the Turkish equivalent that I can’t remember for the life of me at this point) were very happy to know that not all Americans thought that Muslims were terrorists. I told him that we had heard the call to prayer in the morning while walking down to the lecture hall and that I thought the Muslim religion was a beautiful one and that I was very excited about going to a mosque. I had the chance to ask them about if I was going to have to wear a head scarf when we went into the mosques and they said not for the ones on campus but maybe if we went to any of the bigger ones on campus. They said as foreigners there would be some bending of the rules and that as long as we were respectful everything would be fine.After walking us to the base of the hill of the place we would be staying we bid goodnight and decided that we would meet up with them again tonight at 8o’clock. They said they wanted to take us to go smoke hookah, which normally I would not be up for…but when in Rome right? I think we will probably go drinking again tonight as well, which I am going to curb in a little this time for lack of money to do so every night. I am interested in talking to Ada more about what he wants to do in America (he said he has always wanted to learn to speak Italian and I said that New York had many Italians and he should try and learn some while he is there.) I think we are going to be going into town and trying our hand at bargaining at one of the bazaars. Should be a good time. Talk to you all more soon!
~Claire
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