part two

And so the new adventure begins. Step two of my adventure First stop Istanbul.

Backing up for a moment I had an awesome final two days in Florence. I had dinner at my favorite restaurant, I went out and had good long talks with all the people I’m close with. Then on my last night everyone who was in our program still had a big going away dinner for me, and they celebrated my birthday!!! Whooo hoo. I kinda suspected it but also thought they forgot. On the walk home I was super excited and one of the girls said she her me say that I was bummed to be gone for my birthday so they planned this for me cause they know it means a lot. How wonderful! I really did make some great friends.

Then I made my treck to Istanbul. I didn’t think it was going to be that bad b/c I had a direct flight. Here was my day. Wake up at 7:20, leave apartment at 7:50 with all my luggage and Caroline who was walking me to the station. Caroline gets me on the train. Get off train in Rome, Kristie meets me there for coffee. Get on train to airport (I totally typed it aeroport first.. I’m so in italy still) a man from seattle helps me and we talked for a lot of the train ride. When he helps me off one of the guys sitting by us mentions he heard I was going to Istanbul. He is from there and heading there himself, he then carry’s my luggage for me and makes great conversation. He makes sure I get checked in alright and then leaves. I wander around the airport for a bit then my two hour flight takes off. It was barely half full. I get to the airport and someone is waiting for me. Both he and the driver don’t really speak English, but the one guy brought his little child with him, like three years old and he was soooo adorable! We then headed to what I thought would be a short journey to where I was staying. Boy was I wrong. We hit lots of traffic and eventually they stopped for gas, what else do you do when you stop for gas? Apparently you get your car washed too. I couldn’t figure out if that was normal or they were trying to wait for traffic to break up. We start driving again. More traffic, they seemed a little distressed. About an hour later they stop and open my door, this was for the man and kid to get out. Not me. Then we proceed to drive, we hit traffic again, this is 2 hours into my trip and he is trying to ask me to call my friend that I’m staying with. Nothing is going right, finally my friend is calling my phone so we have the correct number, he talks to the driver and figures out why I havent gotten there yet.

Finally I arrive. I’m greeted by 3 Turkish people, two lived where I was staying and two were friends from school. They were making dinner -fabulous I was starving. We sat on the floor and ate, they made pasta and were joking about the fact I was coming from italy. They were all great people and spoke English fairly well which was nice. They left and I sat and talked with Serhat for the night> after many cups of tea and an episode of south park. I am hitting my bed, which seems pretty nice. I’ll get up early tomorrow to attempt to explore. He is going to lead me in the right direction, but will be in class most of the day. I’m going to my school tomorrow at 4:30 to observe some night classes. I’ll will update more on my school then.