I am currently sitting in my dorm room at Yeditepe as I am writing this and it is currently noonish on Saturday for anyone wondering. I am eight hours ahead of the Midwest.
I arrived to Istanbul yesterday and I was wiped. I started my adventure on Thursday morning has I was heading to the Des Moines Airport with my dad. I had already check in the night before and paid for my second bag (there was no way I was going to get everything in one!). Both my bags weighed 49 pounds each. I had spent many hours making them both under fifty! I flew from Des Moines to Minneapolis and that was a nice short flight and I sat by a nice man from the Texas area.
From Minneapolis I flew to Paris. That was a long 8 hour flight. Thankfully nobody sat next to me so I had more room but it still was not that comfortable. We had a snack and then they gave us dinner. Then due to the time change, they gave us breakfast a few hours later. My stomach started hurting on this flight as I was nervous, excited and my stomach did not handle the airplane food and traveling well. From Paris, I flew into Istanbul which was a three hours flight. By this time, I was ready to be landed and on solid ground! They served us lunch but it was raw fish and a few other foods I did not care for. I ate bread and the cheese.
I met up with this girl in the Paris airport who was also traveling to Istanbul to study abroad. She is my age and goes to a school around Beloit called St Olaf. It was great talking with her and after we had landed in Istanbul, we went through the airport together. We were both expecting a huge customs experience but we basically just walked through a door to the “meeting point”. This was a crazy as we walked out and there was so many people holding papers with people’s name of them. She found her person and I was waiting for a girl I meet on Facebook to go to the campus together. A guy from Beloit who is at Yeditepe both semesters saw me and greeted me as he was waiting for the two to people from my school to arrive. The three of them kindly waited for me to find my person. Then she and I went to a car and the driver was a friend of a friend of hers.
It took so very long to get to campus as there was so much traffic. Most people in Istanbul work on the European Side and live on the Asian Side so it took several hours. I was so tired by this point. I just wanted to sleep. Though I did look out the window most of the trip just trying to soak it all in. I saw many many buildings as Istanbul is so large. I laughed as the first song I heard on the radio was “Born This Way: by Lady Gaga. I also saw so many American fast food restaurants.
As we arrived to the campus after picking up another girl, I was surprised by the security as the gate. My campus is gated and has many security guards. I went to my dorm where I will be staying a few days until I find an apartment. Well for some reason, my name wasn’t on the list. Adding in that the women charge do not speak English made it ten times harder. I finally got into my dorm though from what I understand, I will be moving into a different room today. I was very overwhelmed last night. I was kind of glad I didn’t have a roommate so they wouldn’t see me freak out but also wished I had some company. I took a shower, which felt great after traveling. It had hot water but I had to hold the showerhead the whole time. It was also very hot in the room and couldn’t figure out how to turn it down
I am doing better today. I slept for about 11 hours which was highly needed but decided to wake up about 11 so my body would adjust to the time change better. I am going to adventure around the campus as there is a student center where I will eat and hopefully make some friends. I still feel overwhelmed and nervous but better then last night. It is great knowing I have so many people praying for me. I also love technology so I can connect with people back home and also people here. There is a Facebook page for internationals students and it nice to know I’m not the only one who feels the way I do. I do have internet in my room with a chord which is great. I am still trying to figure out converters and plug ins as they are different then in the States. I am being very careful not to blow anything out!
Also, I have to tell people I am from Chicago as nobody knows where Iowa is which makes sense. People are from all around the world and I Iook forward to meeting them all.
PS. My Blogspot account is in Turkish currently so I need to figure out how to change it. Thankfully the important buttons are colored so I know which ones to press!
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