Travel to Downtown

Bus - metro - tram to Downtown Istanbul today took 2 hours each way. Basiktas, Taksim.

Istanbul is amazing. I've never FELT history before I saw the wall to the old city today... amazing. The U.S. is so young... our cities dont retain anything of their history. IStanbul, on the other hand, IS all historic. It's amazing and huge and beautiful... overwhelmingly so.

Again, I'm so tired I can hardly write. Had a great day, made two new friends who worked at a coffee shop. One of the them, Yunus, offered to help me with my search. He's an expatriate as well, from Morocco. Such a nice guy. Apparently, Morocco and Turkey are allies, and so he came here because he doesn't need a Visa. He wanted to go to an English speaking country, but they turned him down for a visa because he has no credentials... he has not finished high school. I feel bad for him... we live in a time where i feel like all this administrative tape is stupid. But honestly Istanbul is an amazing city and he seems to like it. The girl working with him (Beresh????) lives in Buyukcecmece. She was also very nice. She told me she hated Americans because of our government. But she likes Obama. I told her we also like Obama and hate our government (generally), so we agreed.

The room today was too small, but I like each of the two boys living there. It think it will make for an adequate backup.

Had tea tonight on the bay of Buyukcecmece with Burak, his wife and a friend of his. It was very pleasant. Damn my bad memory; i wish i could remember names better! And languages. =P I will have to work on that while I'm here.

Burak's friend told me a story. He was studying in Oxford and had been there for 6 months when turkish soldiers came to his door (in Oxford!) to take him to the army. He'd been drafted. He was there for 6 months and said it was hell. He said he feared the officers because they can do anything to you. He's training to be a CPA, a real bright guy with a great future and so much promise, just snatched up like that. Imagine! I'm so glad we have a volunteer military in the states... and that our military is very progressive.

Hopefully I will find somewhere nice to live.

One of these days when I'm not incoherently tired I will go back through and rewrite these posts. I feel like my half-conscious rants don't do justice to this wonderful place.