Turkish Lessons

Merhaba!

On Sunday, we started our government-mandated Turkish lessons. It was held in one of the AFS offices in the European side of the city (I am not sure where, exactly). I had a hard time getting there, most likely because I was told many different routes by different people that I just had no clue where to go. Eventually, my host father drove me to Kadıköy where I met up with Eren, an AFS volunteer, and some of the AFSers. We took the ferry to Beşiktaş, on the European side and waited for the remaining students to arrive.

The Turkish lessons were nice, but I knew everything that was discussed except for the word yellow (sarı). We did things like simple conversations and were given homework to do.

As it turns out, I actually did not meet all of the AFS students in Istanbul at the survival camp – there were about four kids that were late arrivals. I started talking to a Russian girl, and oddly enough, she was an exchange student in the US for one year in my home state, Maine!

On Monday, I was walking around school with my friend Romina when I discovered that there was a tour group consisting of Australian teenagers that visited my school. I was allowed to skip class and hang out with them, which was nice.

On Tuesday, the exchange students and I had to pick up our residence permits. I, however, was confused about where we would meet up so I was walking around the wrong continent looking for the volunteers (which wasn’t too bad, they were giving out free ice cream near the docks). When I finally got my permit, it turns out that they had the wrong address and I needed a new one.

Not much has happened since then, so I guess that is the end of this post :)

First Day of School

So last week I started school. However, it is bit of a confusing story.

On Monday, I went to school with my host aunt. I was late, and only after freaking out for an hour about being late for school while my host aunt was talking with some of the school’s staff about what they should do about me (they apparently were not ready for me yet, even though I had already been there with my counselor Ece to give them a heads up), I learned that I didn’t even have to go to school that day. So my aunt and I went home.

On Tuesday, I woke up and got ready for my first day of school, yet again. As I was about to leave the apartment, my aunt and uncle (who were at home with me while my family was on vacation) came downstairs and told me that I didn’t have school that day. So, I went back to sleep. This happened on Wednesday, too.

So, Thursday was finally my first day of school. I arrived to school a bit late after I got lost trying to find the school and waited once again with some school staff for them to tell me where to go.  After thirty minutes or so, I went to my classroom and turns out I had missed the first class. That class was English, which I actually would have understood. The rest of the day, we had classes that I could tell were boring even for the kids that knew what was happening. The last two classes were math, which I was able to follow because, as luck would have it, math is pretty much universal. On my way home, I took the wrong bus and ended up in some neighborhood that was completely unknown to me. This wouldn’t have been a problem if my phone wasn’t broken. After taking several more bus rides, I finally got to the right part of the city, still with no clue what to do next, and found someone to lend me their phone to call my counselor.

That is pretty much the story about my first day of school. Since then, my school days have pretty much been the same, but without the getting lost thing. Oh, and I found out that 8:45 actually isn’t when school starts; it starts at 8:00. So today was my first day of being on-time to school.

Turkey!

Merhaba!

This time, it is hello from Istanbul! I landed a few days ago and so far it has been really nice :) My flight was 10 hours long, which I didn’t care too much for. However, I got to know the other kids heading to Turkey (we had a camp in NYC before we left) so I had something to do. Me and some of the other students even got up from our seats and took walks around the plane.

The first day in Turkey was VERY tiring. I couldn’t fall asleep on the plane, so I was tired the whole day. We arrived in the morning and I was ready to fall asleep. When we got to our rooms, we were allowed to rest for a bit, so I slept on the room’s porch (it was so great outside). Our camp was a “Turkey Survival Camp”, where we learned things about Turkish culture, got to know each other, and learned some Turkish.

A few days after we landed, the students were sent off to their corresponding cities. The other Istanbul student (and some other students) and I took a one hour bus ride to the AFS offices in Istanbul to meet up with our families. The bus ride was great because we got to see a lot of the city :)

When I arrived at the AFS offices, my host family was right there :) After some greetings and introductions, we drove back to their apartment. There, I met my grandmother, uncle, and aunt and we had lunch.

On Wednesday, my counselor Ece and I visited my school and it was nice, but I didn’t see much of it. Apparently, my school did not know that I was going there this year, so we didn’t get much done. On the way back to my house, we got lost and finally got back a couple hours later.

Finally on Friday, the other AFS students in Istanbul and I went to pass in some paperwork for our residence permits. I however, forgot the paperwork and the money, so we had to make new copies and photos and I have to pay back the AFS volunteers 200 TL.

Overall, it has been a nice stay so far. I have been enjoying my family, the culture, and most other things. I am also excited for school to start on Monday and see what that is like :)

Host Family!

Great news! I received my host family information! They live in Istanbul (not in the suburbs, actually IN Istanbul) on the Asian side a short distance away from the Bosphorus! They like TV, music, and travel, which are all things I like to do. They also like playing sports and doing other athletic activities, which I don’t usually do but I would love to start doing. I started emailing my host father, and he seems nice. He also knows English, which is useful when I don’t know what I am talking about in Turkish J

I also sent out my visa information and what I am pretty sure is the last of my paperwork. It took a while to complete because my family can be very disoriented and we all work at different paces, but we finally got it done!

My Turkish has been improving, too. I have been using a program that helps me learn Turkish vocabulary, and with this program I have learned over 300 words (I do not remember all of them, but I know them better than I did before).

Back from DC

And I’m back!

I got back from my trip to DC a few days ago :) It was quite a good trip and my friend Maria tagged along (it was the furthest south she’s ever been and her first time on a commercial airplane). We toured George Washington University and American University and visited a few others, but GWU and AU were my favorites :) We also visited a few museums and the National Zoo, which were both nice.

For my trip to Turkey, I’ve sent in the rest of the money for my tuition! My donation jar has raised over $200 so far, and I have all of the spare spending money I am going to need for my trip. It is definitely a good feeling knowing that my financial situation for my exchange is all settled :)

Making Some Progress

¡Hola! (I know that’s not the right language, but I’m going to say it anyways)

The other day, I received my travel itinerary from AFS! It gives me information regarding everything about my departure. It says that I will be leaving on September 6^th. I originally thought I would be leaving on the 2^nd, which would have been bad because that is the same day that my sister goes off to college.

I am still studying Turkish, working on refining my knowledge on the spelling rules and verb conjugations. Recently, I discovered that a site that I have been ignoring for a while has some useful exercises for pretty much every aspect of Turkish grammar. I realized a couple weeks ago that even though I knew a lot of Turkish grammar, I had hardly any vocabulary. So, I decided to learn some. It is definitely difficult to learn; there seem to be hardly any similarities between English and Turkish vocabulary. Here are just some examples using some words I’ve learned:
Fast - Hızlı
April - Nisan
Car - Araba
Fifty - Elli
To wait - Beklemek
To answer - Yanıtlamak

This summer, there seems to be an unusual amount of Turkish people in my county. There are some working at an amusement park a couple towns over and there are some at the place my step-mom works. I learned recently that my mom’s friend has a Turkish roommate that will work at the bakery that both my mom and sister work. So, it seems that I will be meeting a few Turkish people before I go on exchange.

I have been taking English 101 over the past eight weeks in order to graduate on time. It has been a bit tough, especially considering I don’t usually do too well in English class K . It’s time has come to an end, however, and that means that all that’s left before going to Turkey is finishing my online health class :p

In other news, my birthday is coming up J ! I will be 17 (finally) and I am not getting much, except for a laptop and some money for when I am abroad. Another thing that has happened since last post is the arrival of my unicycle (it came the day after that post), and I have to say that it is great! It is the proper size, so I can actually go long distances, and I have been riding it around town.

These are some pictures of me on my unicycle :)

My Summer So Far

Hello again!

I haven’t updated my blog in a while. I was at theater camp last week, which was a great time. I made a few new friends and saw my friends from last year. In my camp, we learned about acting, dancing, and improv (my favorite J ). I have also spent some of my summer learning to unicycle. I am now quite good at it, and my new unicycle, the one that is actually my size, will arrive soon J

I have also been busying myself with learning Turkish! My notebook already has fifteen pages in it (I am making a notebook with a compilation of Turkish language things) and I am still working on it. I have learned a lot about verb conjugations and I feel that I am starting to get the hang of vowel harmony and some noun cases.

If you have never been to Maine before, this is what it part of it looks like. Although most of Maine does not look like this, this is one of my favorite places in the town, the Blueberry Plains.