Geliş (Arrival)

The stars were against me on the 28th. We hit horrible traffic in 3 or 4 different places on the way to JFK airport. If my plane hadn't been delayed, I might not have made it. But then again, had my plane not been delayed I would've been able to make my second flight from Istanbul-Ankara. No harm done, though, I just managed to confuse the International Students Department here (they rightly assumed I'd be on the next flight in).

Besides that, all went pretty smoothly. There was someone there to pick me up, along with another American from California. I met two other students from Denmark and we all went out to eat. My eating schedule has been terribly thrown off by the jet lag.

The water bottles I brought saved me a lot of trouble. I tend to get nauseous on planes when I'm riding by myself (an apparent side effect of exhaustion and anxiety), but water bottles and sleeping through it helped a lot. So, I bought myself 5 more liters of bottled water, so it can help in the future, too.

The airport at Ankara (ESB) is so tiny. I think it has two belts for luggage pickup. To get to METU from the airport, you need to catch a Havas bus to the ASTI bus depot, then you take a taxi to METU/ODTU.

Anyways, time for sleep (10pm here, 3pm at home).

P.S. I nearly forgot! The guy I was sitting next to on the plane from Istanbul-Ankara started talking to me. I think non-native speakers of English enjoy practicing with someone who's fluent- it's a shame I use so much Philly slang. Even my METU host has consistent problems with my usage of the verb 'to get'. He's a 'Physics Engineer' and left me his phone number in case Ankara got too boring. What that means, I'm not sure, but I think I'll stay away from it.