Blogging
From Abroad

I should apologize for the fact that I haven’t written in a little while, especially since there was another, and perhaps more serious terror attack in Istanbul. It is true that the attack occurred in a fairly crowded shopping district, which is a bit disconcerting, although in one that I have never been to, nor had ever heard of. This is not surprising as by some counts Istanbul is a city of 20 million people. Anyway, I want to tell everyone that I am alright. The only way that the attack has affected me is that I see updates about finding the suspects frequently on TV. Again this is in no way a reason to not come to Istanbul or be worried about me.

Learning Turkish is going well. I had a strange realization the other day. I was thinking about a conversation I had with my Turkish lady-friend had told me (she speaks English pretty well) and I realized I had no idea if we spoke in Turkish or English. It was a fairly in depth conversation, although one that I could carry on in both languages, and for the life of me I can’t remember. Even more cool to think about is that in all likelihood it was in Turkish. We probably speak in Turkish 90 percent of the time, and usually only in English when I want to say a very complicated sentence. I think this is a pretty significant step because it means that in my brain I’ve attached Turkish words to abstract ideas, as opposed to having Turkish words simply be translations of English words that describe abstract ideas. At this point a thing with pages and words is both a book and kitap. Not speaking any language other than English, to me this is a pretty cool thing to have happen.

I’ve gotten a couple emails from people about studying in Turkey lately which makes me happy, partially because I like talking about Turkey to people who are interested and partially because it means that people other than my mother are reading this. If you have any questions about Turkey or studying in Turkey please don’t hesitate to ask. Not to toot my own horn but at this point I do have a decent amount of knowledge about being a student in Turkey, traveling in and around Turkey, ect. If you are considering studying here, here’s three tips: One, learn just a little Turkish while you are here. Two, go to Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, it’s the best, it’s close to the fun stuff in Istanbul, it’s incredibly beautiful, and the people are great. Thirdly and most importantly, stay for a year. Everyone I know that only did the semester regretted not staying longer.

Having said that I think it’s important to say that Turkey is (in my mind) by far the best place to study abroad. The people are wonderful, the girls are beautiful, the food is delicious, the language is interesting and learnable, the culture is intense, vibrant, and completely different than the US, most things are pretty cheap? the list could go on for pages. Furthermore studying in Turkey is a good sieve for quality people. The type of people (non-Turks, yabancılar) that you meet while studying in Turkey are, well, the type of people that would come study in Turkey and are generally pretty interesting. Some of my best friends are ones that I met in Turkey two years ago, and honestly I can’t remember what I was even like before I studied in Turkey. In conclusion, drop everything and come study for a year in Turkey. It’s awesome, you won’t regret it.

Here’s some more pictures: