Shorty Fire Burning on the Stove-Top

Today I ventured into Istanbul's old city, Sultanahmet, where I got free postcards, accidentally got a kid arrested maybe, faked being a German tourist, was exposed as a faux-Touristin, made my first out-of-control tourist purchase, then returned to my flat and successfully cooked! The cooking was the best and most exciting part, so I'll focus on that.

Background: My flatmate peer-pressured/tricked me into exchanging meals with him while I was still jetlagging and not on par with my excuses and pardons. I sent multiple frantic emails to every spatula owner I knew and came away with two gems of advice:

• "...learn how to cook how the locals cook. It doesn't have to be authentic Turkish food, but if you can make meals with the ingredients they use over there you'll save a ton of money." -submitted by Margit "my diet makes people cry" Christenson via email

• "Make pancakes. Everyone likes pancakes." -submitted by Anne Kathleen Scholten Dutton via Skype
  

Advice in mind, I made Turkish Zucchini Pancakes and they turned out awesomely and I'm consequently feeling real good about myself right now. Then the Germans who live in the flat beneath ours invited us over for ice cream and smuggled Milka caramel chocolate. It is understandable that I faked deutsch-hood, ja?

(Point of clarification: this was not the incident where I was pretending to be German.)

Down-Low

Last night I met some other Bogazici students at an non-Bogazici-specific international student outing (that had only Bogazici students) to the Basilica Cistern. In the email sent out they promised traditional Turkish art and music with treats. I love treats.

After a poke around the largest of several ancient cisterns beneath Istanbul, we were given the first of our treats, which was individually wrapped fruit cakes and juice boxes. While we munched on the Turkish equivalent of Little Debbie's a quartet played music for a solitaire whirling dervish doing his thing. While most of my fellow students were snapping shots of the Semazen (yeah, that's the proper term), I became much more impressed by the wrappers collecting at the center of the table.

Apparently, I'm not the only one without home refrigerator and meal plan for the first time. The second treat of the night was socks. Everyone was even more excited about the free socks than they had been about the fruit cake and a lot of cotton was accidentally ingested.

No Friends, No Problem.

Having missed the orientation due to weather/flight delay/missed connection and not living in the Superdorms, I have no friends and all I want to do is talk to people loudly/energetically/with gusto. The dearth of friendship was expected, but it was not expected that I would have two full weeks void of orientation/ice breakers/trust building exercises, and thereby void of friends for a similar amount of time.

Faced by such a prospect, I walked to the Superdorm (where international students who are not me live) with the intention of knocking on all occupied rooms and introducing myself; it seems that instead of culture shock, my body/mind/subconscious has opted for extroversion. Unfortunately for me/the people who live in the Superdorm/the people I'm going to tell you about in the next paragraph, Superdorm does not abide by the St. Olaf door decorations/ propped doors/ signal of inhabitance code of Midwest friendliness, so I didn't get to meet any Superdormers in the Superdorm.

To cope, I started attacking anyone I thought to be a Superdormer on the streets of Istanbul's Bebek district:

Blond? We're about to be friends. 

Wearing a college hoodie? Let's do brunch at 11.

Buying an ice cream in English and ending with a Turkish 'thank you'? I love that international-looking scarf you're wearing-- let's go buy you another!

Taking a picture of a stray cat sitting on a concrete block? I'm planning a friendly message to leave on your Facebook wall right now. 

Digging for a campus map in your fanny pack? Don't talk to me.

An American in Istanbul

Gule Gule (but with umlauts over the 'U' in each 'gule,' something I haven't figured out yet but will eventually I'm sure), America! Gule gule means 'goodbye.'  

I learned this on my flight from DC to Amsterdam on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (product placement) where, instead of watching movies for 7.5hrs, I took advantage of a learning opportunity and played with KLM's version of Rosetta Stone. I also learned numbers 0-20, multiples of ten up until 100, and also 1000 (bin) and a few essential phrases including Seni Seviyorum which means 'I love you.'  I hadn't planned on using that particular sentence in speech for the next 5 months, but my flat is supercute, so Seni Seviyorum, Ikea decorated flat. 

And as for addressing people with this, who am I to snub the cupid of international love as foretold by KLM Rosetta Stone? Valentine's Day is approaching.