6 buses+ 2 passport photos= ?

Today was registration day! Thank god American bureacracy taught me patience...clearly not enough. After the night of mosquitoes and no sleep i wake up this morning all ready to get my student i.d. and become an official University of Bilgi student. So i wake up extra early and get my things ready and walk downstairs. A gathering of Turkish students all looking stylish and cool are huddled around the exit to the dorms. When the bus pulls up there is a mad dash and much shoving and i end up not getting on the bus because it is too full. The other 30 Turkish students who also miss the bus walk back across the street to wait. Francesco -my Italian lover (well he doesn't know it yet, but the accent makes me weak) comes downstairs and we decide to walk to a different bus stop. 25 minutes later we have hiked up the huge Taksim square hill and are waiting for a bus, that comes 10 minutes later. We hop on and are riding comfortably from the main campus Dolapdere, to Santralistanbul when the bus gets a flat tire...we are hurried off and wait for another bus to come...keep in mind we are in the middle of nowhere and dont speak Turkish (seen this in a horror flick?) We get on another bus that takes us to Santral where i bid farewell to Francesco (sigh*) and i get on a bus supposedly going to Kustepe, my destination. The bus doesn't go back to Kustepe, in fact it goes back to where i've started at Taksim, where i learn i must go back to my dorms and get 2 passport photos to register. I get the photos, and meet a great girl named Stephanie from Holland. We end up taking 2 more buses and finally getting to kustepe, where we have to speak to a lady, get a registration number, go register online, come back to the lady to get more instructions and go get out pictures taken. (So whatfore are the passport photos?) once we are done with that, it is onto another bus where we go back to Dolapdere campus and talk to an advisor about registering for classes, i end up talking to maybe 3 professors who are all amazingly great people and then learning i cannot even register for classes until tomorrow!!! The day ended there, Stephanie and i got food, sat at a cafe with my fellow DU mate, Sara and chatted while drinking tea. For all the Americans reading this...thank a DMV worker...this long trial took from 9-5 and it was only to register for school. Think of trying to get a drivers liscence! but overall i must admit Istanbul has a sense of charm that is starting to get hold of me, it's like a little child with a smirk, you wonder what it has to hide, but secretly are enjoying finding out; yet hoping the suprise isn't overwhelming and unmanegable. I dont know how much sense that made, but to me it was a perfect description
Istanbul has a feel about it, something really indescribible for now, but in time i'm sure i'll put the puzzle together. More and more people are starting to smile at me on the street, and give head nods that are polite instead of cat calls and gawking stares. All this and i dont even know 4 words of Turkish!
I dont even know how to say goodbye yet...which is why i will stick to...
ciao!