Excuse me, did you just say Turklish?

It seems that ‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that?’(Affedersiniz, tekrarlayiniz) and ‘No, I’m not Turkish’ (Hayir ben ne Türkum) have quickly become two of my most used phrases here at Boğazici. My Turkish is coming along slowly but surely as I master the basics of a fairly systematic language. Once you get over the fact that the Turkish tend to simply add multiple suffixes to the end of verbs to get the point across instead of form whole sentences, it’s relatively easy. That is, until your instructor throws a word on the board that looks something like this:

Çekoslavakyalilaştiramadiklarimizdan

I am one of 153 exchange students at Boğazici from around the world, and it is a fantastic group of students. For all of us, the next four months promise to be both enlightening and entertaining. My suitemates are great – 2 Turkish and 1 Irish exchange student – and luckily both of the Turkish girls have offered to teach Niamh and I how to cook some of the traditional Turkish/Mediterranean foods. If you have ever seen me attempt to cook or have had the misfortune of eating what I actually have made, you know that this is most likely a disaster waiting to happen, but fingers crossed I may learn something.

The past couple of days have been quite interesting as I settle into classes and develop a routine. It started with a lecture by my Social Anthropology professor on Monday morning, in which I did not understand a word said in the first 15 minutes because the professor spoke completely in Turkish. Uh oh! Eventually, she paused, looked around the room and noticed 3 with what I can only imagine were quite funny looks on our faces – somewhere between shock, confusion, and despair. “Does anyone here not speak Turkish?” She finally thought to ask…3 hands went up from the middle of the group. “Oh, well in that case...” she continued right where she left off, just in English this time. I’m still not really sure what she said those first 15 minutes, but at this point it doesn’t really matter. The next class, History of the Byzantine Empire, promised to be a little better when my professor greeted us and introduced herself in flawless English (she got her PhD from Harvard and spent 10 years in the US), only to go rapidly downhill by announcing for those of us who were exchange students, that the class would be taught in Turklish…and I quote ‘TURKLISH’ What? Evidentially, the lectures will be in English but discussion will flow in and out of Turkish depending on the students’ comfortability with the language and with the materials. Uh Oh again!

Despite what hardships classes and the language barrier threw at me that day, it didn’t really matter 30 minutes later as I sat down for a late lunch. Once again, I have to brag about the fact that Istanbul is absolutely gorgeous and it never ceases to amaze me. I grabbed a Gőzleme from the kantin and went to join some of the other exchange students on the wall overlooking the Bosphorus while we ate. The breeze, the view, and the quickly developing friendship helped to alleviate whatever frustrations I may have had after my first day of classes, and served to relax me before a night of fun – Iftar, nargile (Hookah), çay (tea), and tavla (backgammon) on the waterfront with friends.