I arrived two days ago, and yesterday instead of class we had a placement test. I'm in the "Lower Intermediate" class, which makes sense since I haven't taken any Turkish in over a year, so it shouldn't be too hard. (I have at least seen all the grammar before, even if I forgot most of the vocabulary.)
There are a lot of cats and dogs around. They also don't tend to bother people at all, especially the ones in the street, but on campus at least people feed the cats but not really the dogs.
Istanbul isn't laid out on a grid, so it can be pretty confusing to get around, but I'm learning the nearby area and I'm pretty sure I know the way to and from campus. Google Maps is helpful by looking, but not for searching or figuring out public transit. Yelp helps even less. However, we found a couple of stores and kebapçiler so it's working out pretty well.
For some reason most of my class lives in the same dorm as me, which will be convenient. I've already made lots of friends; all my fellow students speak English, though, which means we haven't been only speaking Turkish. Maybe we will by the end though.
Also, I'm somewhat confused as to where we are, exactly. Google Maps says Sarıyer, but I'm pretty sure that's not right. Still, there's buses from here to Taksim so that should work out well. I more or less know my way around the immediate neighborhood, can get to campus and such pretty easily.
EDIT: I believe I am in Etiler. Also, enough of us have been trying to speak to each other in Turkish that I suspect it's helping. The group of us that was hanging out tonight has enough variety in proficiency that those of us on the lower end can improve from listening.
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