First two days

The first thing I should say is that I am severely jet lagged. I basically try to stay awake for as long as I can but eventually end up falling asleep around 8pm my time. only to get up around 2 in the morning. Eventually I will get the timing down. If only I was closer to a mosque...

Speaking of which I now get to hear 5 times a day the "call to prayer" being blasted from Mosques all around Istanbul. This is very interesting actually because it seems that the entire city echoes these calls to prayer. My school is actually very close to very artistically built mosque that you can see below.

Today was the really the first day I actually got to walk about and explore the campus. The campus here however definitely blows ISU's out of the water. The campus is absolutely fantastic. It is located in a more forested area of the city and has vegetation everywhere. It is a very green campus and the buildings are elegant, which is something I rarely see in the more modern colleges in America. The only campus I have seen that comes close to this one's beauty is Wesleyan's.

I also figured out a very interesting fact today. Unlike most cities in the US, Istanbul does not feel the need to control certain local animal populations. This is obvious because I see stray dogs, and cats almost everywhere I go. In fact the picture below illustrates the truth better then I can explain it. And keep in mind there is no crazy old cat lady that takes in these cats. They are all strays.

I also got to meet one of my roommates today. I need to write down his name though in order to correctly pronounce it. That will be for a later post though. I learned though that all of my roommates are Turkish. This gives me lots of opportunities but it also presents another challenge. I feel a little awkward in this city, and it would be nice to share my awkwardness with another person who feels the same awkwardness. My body was still adjusting for the time difference and my body was demanding sleep. So my body just crashed...