Istanbul - Tuesday, June 8th 2010

Hi! Wow. Even though I am sure I could figure it out, I have no idea how many hours I have actually been here. It's about 7pm on Tuesday and I got in last night - so perhaps in a normal world, that would mean I have been here just over 24 hours. We'll assume that is correct. 9 hours difference really does make a difference.

I'm staying at a nice hostel. If you're ever in Istanbul, I recommend the World Hostel. Fairly small, but comfortable and clean and on a very interesting street. I thankfully slept in this morning and woke up to find it raining. Apparently, it has been raining here a lot. And apparently all my preparation did not include checking on the weather. But that's alright. I set off wandering, intending to find one of those tour buses that would let me see the city and keep dry. As it turned out, it stopped raining when I left the hostel and I ended up meeting a nice guy who showed me around a bit. So I never got on the bus. I did, however, get remarkably wet - even with my nice little travel umbrella. I got a mini-lesson in Turkish with tea at a beautiful cafe in the middle of a great park (I have no idea if it is in the middle, but it had great views). Complicated language! My tongue seriously did not quite know what to do with it, but I'm getting a little better.

Today was really one of those wide-eyed "wow I'm in a different place" days. I didn't exactly do anything in particular, but I got a little bit of a sense of the city. At least the European side. It really is an amazing change from law school to honestly not care what time it is.

Currently, I am sitting with my computer at a table in the front of my hostel, which is set up like a little cafe with open doors out on to the street. There is a small shop across the street that sells fruit. Down the hill, you can walk to the Bosporus. Up the hill, you can get to the mail squares within about 15 minutes (less, probably if I wasn't looking around at everything). Last night I shared a room with 3 German girls about my age. Tonight (any time now) my friends from Boston should arrive. It's really something to meet up for dinner on the other side of the world.