Friends!

How do i explain this in away all my dear readers can understand....? First, let me compliment everyone who is willing to accept the challenge of studying abroad and branch out into the international scene! Now into todays topic- After a particularly uneventful day, i walk back to my dorm to cook the only meal i know how..pasta. I get my supplies and head to the communal kitchen. there are 5 girls in there cooking and talking amongst each other. At first i try to join in but they ignore me and continue on. So i put my pasta together (water, salt...add pasta) and get my book to wait for it to cook. Then some nice girls in the corner offer me food and tell me to sit with them. My first Turkish invite. they are really nice and end up teaching me a little turkish and asking me about my home. the first thing they tell me is "we think you are so brave, coming all the way over here and not knowing the language and not having any friends or family.
In Turkey that is the most important thing to us, we would never leave it." And i smile because it is so nice to be acknoweldged like that. anyways they are my second turkish friends, my first is one guy who on my first day offered me fruit that he was eating, peaches and pears. I think it's probably a peace thing, offering food to someone you dont know in order to invite them in. I've discovered that not everyone in Istanbul is nice, lots of people are just trying to make a living and could care less about you, but there are the people who want to befriend you and help you, just because they can. Its a different environment that i cannot explain, its a community of chaos, where families and friends are valued above everything else and if you have neither, then you have nothing at all. I still feel like an outsider, because in reality i am, i can communicate only simple words and at the end of the day i am so tired from the strain of constantly trying to understand and use my turkish that i'm too exhausted to even think. But also there comes the satisfaction for me that at least i'm trying and at least i'm putting myself out there.
As for other evaluations, i'm holding off on purpose, i have 4 months here and i've been here 2 weeks so if i seem light on passing judgement it is because i dont want to judge, i want to observe all aspects, participate when possible and understand things. I can't do that if i'm nit picking every aspect. You must follow my blogs closely if you want to gain a concrete opinion of Turkey from me, overall i'm still here and i'm living every minute, enjoying some and not so much others....but such is life!

gorusuruz!
Jessi