Day 0.5

My ride from the airport came a few hours later. My keeping them abreast of my delays ended up backfiring since they assumed I was going to miss my connection and planned for a two hour delay. Not a big deal, I just sat down at Gloria Jeans’s coffee and waited. Uğur arrived and helped me with my bags and we headed to the bus station. Owning a car is not all that common in Istanbul since they have great public transportation and traffic can be a pain in the butt. The bus ride was very comfortable and dropped us off not too far from ITI, where I will be doing my training. The institute is on Istiklal street in Istanbul which is a famous shopping, restaurant, and entertainment area. We went upstairs and met my instructor and my host/landlord. I will not attempt to spell my landlord or her boyfriend’s name because I’ll destroy it. They walked me to the flat just a few minutes away. They are both actors and she was in a famous Turkish movie at one time. When I figure out which one, I’ll post it on this blog. They apparently live here sometimes and sometimes they don’t. I have not figured it out yet. The flat is a decent one. It’s not what we would be used to in America, but it’s still comfortable and hospitable. I do need to get used to the showering since there is no shower curtain and one must shower then mop the floor when he’s done. I have the upstairs floor with two beds and a small outdoor terrace where I can drink tea. I also found out I have two more people that live here. A German guy, named Matias, working with setting up German/Turkish young exchange programs and a model and bar hostess (also am not going to try to write her name but it sounds like the Spanish version of Julia). Both are very nice but the three Turkish people I live with don’t really speak English so that’s a little bit of a challenge. Since I didn’t sleep much on the plane, I wanted to fight staying awake until a decent time so I could go to bed at a normal time for this time zone. Good night!