Thursday, August 30, 2007

It's Istanbul, not Constantinople...

I'm back once again with all the latest news from the cradle of civilizations that is the Anatolian peninsula. In the last week or so, the induction programme here at Bilkent has continued for us CELTA folks, so most of our days have involved some form or other of informational sessions on various aspects of BUSEL: the syllabus and its development, the average class, teaching methods, learning theories, etc. I won't bore you all with such drivel.

The evenings have proven much more entertaining and enlightening (?), as some of us made an excursion to a cafe downtown in the Tunus district the other night. It was one of those cafes where you can smoke nargilah (or sheesha, maasl, hookah, hubbly bubbly, or any of the other 1001 names it goes by), so we got three pipes between the eleven of us and had drinks, too, me taking advantage of the opportunity to order Schweppes yet again (how I have missed it!). We thoroughly enjoyed the company of our lively and enthusiastic waiter, Onur, who seemed quite besotted with several of the young ladies in our company!

At the Cafe Kaffa (Picture courtesy of Onur)
 


Kodak moment at the bus stop: Ted, Wendi, Alex and me
 
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I'll post again later, as I'm pretty tired right now, and have to be up early tomorrow for the bus ride to Istanbul, where we are spending the weekend. I'm looking forward to the Aya Sofia, a boat ride on the Bosporus, open-air markets, and Istanbul's famous nightlife, not to mention (hopefully) getting to see a friend from high school who is now living and working there. More to come after the weekend...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like you're having too much fun! Enjoy and good luck w/ all your studies. :)

Andrew said...

Thanks! Istanbul was great :) Drop me a line to let me know what you're up to.