Sometimes I Crave Turkish Delight

Merhaba!

I realize it has been two weeks since I last posted, but when I'm not traveling around all the time there are fewer interesting things to write about. Still, I've had some fun times in the past two weeks...

Last Friday one of my roommates had a friend visiting (a friend who coincidentally had dated someone I went to high school with--small world!) so we went to the Çiçek Pasajı ("Flower Passage") for some drinks. It's a beautiful old space where flowers used to be sold—now it's mostly bars and restaurants, and somewhat touristy. Still a good time. The rest of the weekend was pretty boring, but last week I started getting into the swing of classes, finally! I'm taking a class on audio recording and editing (it's random, but really fun!), my "core" course on contemporary Turkish history and politics, Turkish language, Politics of Nationalism, and my independent project. I've decided to study Germans and German Turks (either return migrants or second generation) in Turkey to see the "other side" of the interesting Turkish-German situation in Germany. Hopefully this summer I will be able to continue my research in Berlin (depends on if I am awarded a grant or not).

On Tuesday I had a very special visit from some friends from college back in the States! They were on a study visit with their study abroad program in Denmark. We visited the Spice Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar and had Turkish coffee and baklava, then went back to Çiçek Pasajı that evening. It was great fun to catch up and hear about their adventures in Denmark.

On Wednesday my roommates and I visited Dolmabahçe Palace—a big, beautiful, "European-style" palace right next to our university, on the banks of the Bosphorus. The palace and the grounds were gorgeous, as expected; I loved the giant chandeliers. We also caught a chill inside the giant palace, so we spent the rest of the afternoon in the heated university library, trying to get some work done.

Last Friday I took the first step in my independent research project and visited the Goethe Institute here in Istanbul. They offer German classes and have a German-Turkish library, so I talked to the head librarian and learned some helpful things about German-Turkish culture in Istanbul. I'll continue working and hopefully set up some interviews soon.

I also went to an interesting event on Friday: my Turkish professor had told me he was playing a concert of traditional Turkish music—it turns out it was actually sort of a choir rehearsal! So I sat with 20 or so students and tried my best to sing along while my professor and some students played some traditional instruments. At one point my prof singled me out (in Turkish) and had me sing by myself! I turned beet red, but I had figured out the tune, so it was fun.

I didn't go out at night last weekend (was pretty tired), but I had a great time on Saturday with some friends—we went to Şişhane, where we strolled down a street full of music shops, passed by the Galata Tower (decided against going up since the line was long!), and crossed the restaurant-studded Galata Bridge. We ended up heading back to the Spice Market, where we took advantage of free samples of Turkish delight... a bit too much Turkish delight...
We finished off the evening with fish sandwiches on the Galata Bridge, and a trip back home by way of the second-oldest underground transportation system in the world--Istanbul's Tünel (the first is the London metro, I believe).

Since then I haven't done much. The weather has been pretty terrible, so I've done a lot of sitting inside and procrastinating on my reading, heh. Will be heading to my audio class this evening, so I'm looking forward to that! See you in a week or so :)