now in Istanbul

Hey all--

another quick post as I am in between touring by day and going out by night.

I arrived in Istanbul last Saturday and so far, I am loving it. I am staying with Tolga for a majority of the time, but I am also (currently) staying with Arin who is another AFS student who lived in Waukesha. Its wonderful to be able to have such great and familiar hosts because it means that I can really experience Istanbul not just in terms of the architecture and history, but also in terms of the culture, people and homelife.

In the last three days, I have done a lot of the tourist stuff (Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace) but also just met Tolga and Arin's friends, gone to bars and nargile (hookah/sheesha) cafes and eaten some great home cooked meals. I haven't seen Tolga in 10 years and Arin in 3, but we've seemed to pick up right where we left off. With Tolga its fun because when he was in the US 10 years ago, I was 11 and he was 18 so there was a gap between us in terms of development. But now, I am 21 and he is 27, and though there is the same age gap, we can relate more and hang out as friends rather than annoying little sister/ too-cool-for-school older brother.

Tonight I will be going out with Arin's friends, tomorrow Tolga and I will be sailing the high sea to Prince's island in his AFS friend's boat, and Friday we will be road tripping to the south of Turkey to stay at Tolga's family's summer home.

I am hoping to be able to fully update yall on my intellecutal musings from the past 3 weeks when I arrive back in Athens and have a few days of downtime to upload pics and sit at the computer all day long.

Side note: My blog access has recently been limited because when I go to my blog page, the words in top are always in the language of the country that I'm in. Since I am not too skilled in reading Greek, Arabic or Turkish I always need assistance before I am find the button to push for "sign in." O, the troubles and hardships that I must go through.