An Outing Centered Around the Nargile?

Orientation Day! It had finally arrived. On the schedule: Orientation from 3-5, Campus Tour from 5-6, Dinner from 6-7:30, and finally, the City Tour to Tophane from 7:30-to whenever.

Orientation: The "Intro to Boğaziçi" was .....short. Lasting about 30 minutes, this presentation was a bit of a let-down. Every exchange, special and erasmus student in the Theater Hall wanted information on how to get the necessary residence permit and of course, the usual "you will find the information needed in an email sent out later" was the outcome. Things definitely move a bit slower here in Turkey and it may take a few weeks to really get used to this. However, I know that John Doe (the guy who loves when people read extremely quietly off of their powerpoint slides and never look at the audience) had an awesome time at the orientation!

Campus Tour: 3 groups of about 40-50 students. Each group led by one Turkish student. We "toured" about 1% of one of three campuses. Not really a huge success.

Dinner: Cost-15 Lira or about $10. Not cheap. Although I basically inhaled the buffet-style dinner (I seem to be hungy all of the time:)), the quality of the food was not what the Turks are capable of. The dessert was great however! And.....I tried the salt-yogurt drink (Ayran) that is so popular around here! It was .....interesting.

City Tour of Tophane: As the buses fill up, the anticipation grows. What will this city tour consist of? A mosque visit? A lovely view of the Bosphorus? Nope. None of the above. We walk two minutes, sit down at some bar/cafe/a place with bean bag chairs, and here we are offered tea or the opportunity to smoke some "Turkish tobacco." Of course, as we soon find out, if you don't want to smoke the "nargile", you are kicked out. End of evening. A large group of us ended up taking public transportation back to the Superdorm.

Positive aspects to the evening: Meeting some new faces, getting a bit more familiar with the Turkish way of life, getting more familiar with the public transportation system, trying apple tea (just like apple cider and a new favorite), and in general, being in Istanbul.