I have just completed my first week of classes at Boğaziçi University where I am taking three chemical engineering classes and other classes that are yet to be determined given the difficult registration system.
In the event that you are interested in the University...
Boğaziçi University (pronounced Bow-ah-zee-chi) was founded by the U.S. in the 1860s and was the first American University to be founded ouside of the U.S. In the 1970s it was handed over to Turkey where it has become the primer public university. The college admission system is quite different from the U.S. One nationalized placement test determines where you can be admitted into school and Boğaziçi usually takes the top couple thousand out of over 1.5 million students. Safe to say I am in some smart company!
I will try and upload more pictures of the University later, but I tried not too make the stereotypical exchange student mistake of standing in the middle of campus on the first day of school and taking pictures of all the buildings...
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| Campus |
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| Hard to Believe this from an Outlook on Campus |
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| Night View from Campus |
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| The Main Lawn |
So since school only started this past week, you many be wondering what I have been up to since I returned from my travels around Turkey on Feb 3. Essentially I had a week and a half of getting to meet all the other exchange students who arrived at the beginning of February (there are a little over 200 student with about 40% of them being American).
Activities during this time:
1. Hosting a pot luck at my apartment
Since we have a fairly small kitchen, we made sure that everyone brought a dish!
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| Potluck! |
2. Visiting the Modern Art Museum
I went with two of my flatmates for a walk along the river to a Modern Art Museum that was staged in an old mansion overlooking the water. While the art itself was beautiful, one of the highlights was looking at the view of the water from the immaculate front lawn and balcony.
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| Modern Art Museum |
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| Modern Art Museum |
3. Returned to the Historic Pensinsula for Fish sandwhiches and a trip to the Spice Market
Since most of my first month was spent traveling to the Historic Peninsula where many of the main sites are located, I decided to go back to see some of the areas that I missed the first time around. Although traffic makes getting to this area a bit difficult, I managed to visit the Spice Bazar and walk along the bridge where some of the best fish sandwiches I've eaten are fried up for you on the spot.
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Stall at the Spice Market
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4. Exploits to Bebek
Bebek is an idyllic town on the Bophorous that is located about a 10 - 15 minute walk from the University - this walk includes a set of 200 stairs down to the water. Once my quads stop burning, I love walking along the water and looking at the boats or sitting down to read in a cafe. I stopped in a Starbucks that was rated the second most beautiful Starbucks in the world - can't say I would disagree.
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| View of the Water from the Bebek Walkway |
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| Starbucks Window |
5. Erasmus Dinners and Welcome Events
The university put on a series of dinner and events for us to meet other ERASMUS and exchange students. Because there are so many universities in Istanbul, there are also a bunch of city wide events targeted directly at study abroad students.
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| Me and Some New Friends! |
6. Return trips to Ortakoy
Ortakoy was the area of Istanbul that I stayed during my first month in Turkey. I still consider it one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city and have visited a couple of times for dinner and afternoon tea and tavla (backgammon) by the water.
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| Ortakoy |
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| Ortakoy Waterfront |
In other news...
I am still not able to leave the country due to the residency permit issue, but I have my appointment in a week. Hopefully all will go smoothly and I will have some upcoming posts about places I've traveled throughout Europe.
I am also planning on trying out for the university soccer team this weekend!
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