A religious accident...

So, I was pretty happy last Friday night when we went to Taksim and I saw a massive church.  I was even happier when somebody (I'm not gonna name any names here!) informed me it was a Catholic church.  I never really found out when the mass times were, but on Sunday I went back to Taksim to check it out and this is what I saw...

Quite beautiful, ne? Ok so I go in there, somewhat awkwardly, because I'm just like that. The signs were actually in English, but very uninformative.  The old icons and artifacts are all in Greek.. Anyway, I go in and find a place in the back.  Some sort of rite is going on but it doesn't look particularly familiar... I sit in the back and pretend like I know what's going on and that I belong here.. This is what the sanctuary looks like.

Anyway, I eventually decide that I don't this isn't Catholic at all.. I mean, there aren't really any seats and most of what's going on is behind the doors at the front, which are often closed, there's constant chanting and its all just sooo different...  My sluggish mind eventually comes to the conclusion that this is in fact a Greek Orthodox church!

Wow.... Well it was quite the experience (and this is yet another picture of it).  Anyway, after the service is over I walk down İstiklal Caddesi (Istiklal Street) some more to kill time until I'm supposed to meet Alyssa.  Eventually, I come across the actual Catholic church, Yes, this is the one I was looking for in the first place, and I can tell for sure this time because the signs are not only in English, but also informative! It looks like this (please ignore the fact that I cant seem to hold a camera straight):

I only caught the very end of the service but I intend to go back there next week.  The signs inform me that the service is probably 3 hours long, at least.  Also, its all in Italian... or maybe Latin.. but it seemed more like Italian to me.  I don't know that much about it though, I'm only a linguist..
Here's a terrible picture of the inside, enhanced a million times so you can see anything at all.. they didn't really want us to hang around after the service was over so I didn't get a good picture. Yeah, they chased us out in Turkish! nahaha.. 

...but not before I paid for and lit a little candle in sorrow for my earlier mistake :P... In any case, I should be able to take a better picture of the sanctuary this Sunday, but I still wont understand a word of the service!

Beyond this alarming event (alarming? not really I guess..), things are pretty great.  I still feel like throwing my phone into traffic every other minute, class is still amazing, I'm still eating (and having no stomach problems!), I still have money, clothes and homework.  Actually, I just did my laundry for the first time since I came.  It's very expensive actually, 10 YTL a load! (if you're lucky, sometimes its much more I guess) But they fold it, sorta... that's nice at least.

İstanbul Gezi

I'm finally posting some of the more representative photos from the İstanbul Gezi over a week ago. :D  They are in no particular order either...

So this is the cemetery outside the first mosque we visited, most of them had cemeteries very similar to this one here.  The building behind it is a tomb actually (most of the mosques had those too), and we went in there as well, it was pretty sweet. 

This is a really old library, like the oldest building that was actually built for the purpose of being a library or something... I couldn't get far enough away for a great picture of it and it was closed because of the weekend, but I liked the building so I included the picture :D

I forget which mosque this was.. but it was huuuuge and very very beautiful.

This is inside one of those tomb things that most mosques we went to seemed to have.

This is sort of a blurry picture, but it clearly shows that mosques have beautiful artwork inside.

Really old church building that we didnt get to go into, but I actually got a picture from far enough away that you can see most of the building, which I found difficult in the tight streets of İstanbul...  Besides, the garden across the way here is quite lovely, ne?

I like this picture because it shows the extent of the restoration work being done in some of these buildings.  I couldn't really tell what this mosque  actually looked like.

This is that really old church.  I have more pictures of this than anything else I think, I loved it alot. Lots of the old artwork is intact, but most of it is just bare stones anymore.  There were a few signs inside, an old Greek tablet thing and thats about it. I like ruin-y things :D

Fener high school! This building was sooo cool, and unique, one of my favorites.  We didn't go inside here either.

This is the courtyard of what is now the Turkish Cartoon and Humor Museum.  It was pretty cool.  There were lots of pictures and things inside.

Campus!

I finally decided to post some pictures of campus! Enjoy seeing my lovely school.  I really think its one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen, if not the most beautiful.

So this is the gate to the Güney Kampüsü, or South Campus.  The largest campus, the one with a forest and all our classes on it!

This is a view of the Güney Kampüsü from my classroom's balcony!  We have a pretty sweet classroom, but the sun coming through the massive windows makes half of it miserably hot to sit in, so whoever comes in last gets those seats, haha.

So here's the opposite, a view of our building from campus below!

This is the movie center on campus.  So far we've watched three Turkish films here; Organize İşler, Babam ve Oğlum and Umut.  I've enjoyed them all.  The first one was a comedy about some criminals in İstanbul, the second was a really sad movie about a guy and his family, his wife dies and then later he dies while his kid is still really young. Umut was an older movie (Black and white!) and was actually pretty depressing.. a guy going crazy because he's super poor and cant pay his debts or feed his family very well.. it had no real resolution either.  I'm not even entirely sure.. I'm terrible at watching movies and even worse at explaining them, so don't blame me!

This is the building where we have lab, which consists of us sitting in a room and doing all sorts of pretty repetitive listening exercises.  I kinda like it though..

I just like this area... there are so many beautiful ones though.

Michelle from my class playing with some of the numerous kitties on campus :D  I love how people feed them and don't care if they come into the buildings.  Sometimes they end up in our classrooms even, it's happened a few times.  I remember that was one of the most surprising things for me at the beginning.  There were cats wandering around distracting people during our placement exam :P  I approve of this attitude towards kitties..

This is my dorm.  Its actually pretty far from Güney Kampüsü on Uçaksavar Kampüsü.  Going to class in the morning isn't so bad, but walking home is all uphill, like this...

This is only a tiny portion of the hill, but the walk is about 20 minutes in the heat and humidity.  The forest is on either side of the road most of the way...

... But sometimes you get breaks in the trees along the way to see the incredible Bosphorus.  Boğaziçi is in Europe, but you can see Asia right across the water.  Look how close it is! :D

Just so you know..

I cant be on long today but I wanted to post so everyone knows I'm still alive, still loving life in İstanbul.  Yesterday we had the most amazing day ever, as you can see from Alyssa's blog, she summed it up rather nicely :D  I took lots of pictures of it too, but I cant deal with the camera thing right at this moment.  I'll add them later for sure.

The way there was mildly disastrous, in a very pleasant sort of way.  Sure we took too many ferries and buses and walked forever and ever trying to get to various forms of transportation and the wedding, but it was pretty nice anyway.  The wedding was an experience, I felt especially strange because I didn't know anyone at all (and Alyssa only knew the bride).  I was basically playing tourist at a foreign wedding. but it was all good.  We stopped for ice cream on our way to the bus stop and then I made Alyssa stop for cay, because I hadn't had any that day and was going into withdrawals I guess. I don't think she minded so much because we were right by the water and the boats came and left in the dusk.  It was so pleasant.  However, I'm pretty sure the best thing we decided to do all day was hop on that last ferry to go back to Europe.  The ride was beautiful, going by the bridges, boats and buildings, many of which were all lit up. For whatever reason, they started setting off fireworks over by a bridge as we passed by.  Then we stopped by the row of restaurants lined up under another bridges, that's where we had the adventures in misunderstanding.  I really don't know how somebody cannot understand pointing to what you want on the menu, but whatever, it happened and it was amusing and its over now :D  Besides, fruit is pretty good, I love it.  Anyway! Fireworks started going off as we drank our cay there too,  that was pretty cool.  Us, cay, fireworks in front of the Blue Mosque, incredible Turkish music playing in the background, people fishing off of the bridge right above us, the bartender throwing fish to a kitten who was hanging around.  It was all so fun, I think that was the best day I've had here so far.

Also, it rained this morning, or last night!  I didn't get to see because I was asleep but it was pretty clear that it had happened. I mean, we did see a guy watering the sidewalk under the bridge last night and such, but there was no way they watered ALL of the ground.  We really don't understand why he was doing that either.  Beyond that, I broke my phone charger in half today and had to go buy another one, how stupid is that...?  I've never broken one before and now I break the one that I'm only using for a month and a half and have to replace it?  I really hate my cep telefonu actually, there's a reason it was "maximum cheap."  While I was trying to buy a new charger, the guy at the Turkcell place was apparently speaking to me in English but I couldn't tell, then he asked me if I spoke English and then we were both sorta confused, because I didn't know what he said anyway and he couldn't understand why I had just told him I spoke English but obviously had no idea what was going on.  I don't really love it when they try to speak to you in English when you're speaking Turkish, but whatever, I suppose they're used to people not knowing Turkish.   I also broke the only pair of sandals I brought, but I super-glued them back together and they're fine :D  I'm hoping they hold up because I've never had a more comfortable pair of shoes..

I have some shots of campus that I wanted to put up and I did start taking pictures of my food, so I'll put those up when I have a decent collection of them.

A few scenes of İstanbul..

I dont know where most of these are actually.. but they're from European İstanbul for sure :P  These are from the walking tour we took, perhaps I'll post some from inside some awesome old buildings too.

People haul junk like this here I guess...

Some of these streets we walked on, children would run out of the houses to yell "Hello" at us and maybe even ask our names :D

  Those people on the left are from our group too :P

Oh I also wanted to mention that Istanbul was chosen as the cultural center (or whatever, I dont really remember what its called or who decides this ><) for 2010 so most of the historical buildings have all sorts of restoration being done, which makes it harder to appreciate them right now, but in the end, its for the best I think :)  You'll prolly see that when I post pictures of the buildings, but you can see it from Alyssa's blog pictures too

Uçaksavar Yurdu.. my dorm :D

This is the view from my balcony, where its very windy and cool.  I spend plenty of time here.
Our toilet has a pull-string to flush!... when it wants to flush, that is.. also the shower doesn't drain well :P
My desk on a good, non-messy day!
See all the unused furniture I have..

first photos..

These are some pictures of my hotel.  The first is just the room and the second is a view from my balcony, the more pleasant view :D.