days 3 + 4: welcome to boğaziçi kids

as the days pass by in Istanbul, it's getting more and more difficult to remember what we've actually done. I only remember lots of delicious food (which is the only important part let's be real) and faintly recall a blur of new faces... yesterday we had a tour of the beautiful boğaziçi campus and became slightly more familiar with the winding stone staircases, the super cheap .40 cent/meal dining halls, and the incredibly abnormal abundance of dogs and cats that live on the grounds. following that, they gave us a little (very very long) orientation which was p useful..... I guess

afterwards, we found ourselves famished but thankfully had a traditional turkish dinner to attend complete with a rice pudding for dessert and the company of other foreign exchange students. turkish food is truly one of the best cuisines I've ever tried 10/10 would highly recommend

after dinner, we went on a pub crawl and it was prettttyyyyy wild. hundreds of foreign exchange students being ushered from bar to bar to bar to nightclub through taksim... god bless our souls for staying together and having a great time (kyle and his 5+ tequila shots were the hit of the night... ok just kidding it was the bar they kept lighting on fire... or mayhaps it was watching people down whole glasses of beer to keep up with the crowd?) anyway, we got back at 4 am and passed out so hard, it was blissful. side note: we should probably build a room for karolina at every nightclub so she'll never have to leave. we nearly had to pry her from the grips of the suspender-clad bartenders

we ended up sleeping for around 8 hours and then woke up around 11 to spend some time with our turkish roommate! he took us to a wonderful breakfast place where we each ordered a typically turkish plate spread of vegetables, cheese, jam, honey, nuts, butter, egg, and bread. we also got two plates of a flaky savory dish, one filled with cheese and the other with spinach. they also served us cup after cup of tea (which I don't really care for but everybody else went IN) and bread out the butt (my fav). after, they even brought us some eclairs?? and baklava?? and sekarpare (I only know the name because I stalked karolina's latest post a bit)??? I literally was about to fall asleep on the street, I was so content. we then walked over to a vegetable market and picked up some things for dinner. everything was so fresh (one of the vendors let each of us try a tomato so I bought some eggplant from him. bless his soul) and lively, it's definitely somewhere we'll frequent on a weekly basis.

we came home and relaxed for a bit (made some freshly squeezed orange juice, karolina and i finally made our room presentable, etc) and invited durant over for dinner. kyle made something decent and I made the best bulgur (rice-like grain) in the entire world like seriously you guys a restaurant may hire me for my skills...

everybody is out at a bar right now but I decided to take a night in for myself. maybe read a little, watch some netflix, get my life in order... it's been a hectic couple of days but we're starting to form a nice routine and I'm so excited for everything that's to come

peace out girl scouts..........