On Friday September 4th, I woke up over Croatia. I looked out my window to see mountains with the occasional village or town nestled in a valley.
The plane landed in Istanbul, where I spoke in Turkish to a passport control officer and a Starbucks barista (the food in the Istanbul airport is mostly American chains), both of whom replied in English. I walked with the AFS kids through customs, which involved simply walking through a door. We got on a bus and went to a hotel on the Sea of Marmara an hour or so outside of central Istanbul for another orientation. The NSLI-y kids spent five days at the hotel. We had intensive Turkish lessons by the sea. Turkish people are much more relaxed about time than Americans, so sometimes we would be told to meet for lessons at 2 pm, and, several hours by the pool and a lengthy dinner later, they would begin around 9 pm. We spent time relaxing and learning Turkish.
The following Tuesday, we flew to Izmir to finally meet our host families. We waited excitedly in the airport as our flight got delayed a few times. In the bathroom, a couple of lovely older Turkish ladies complemented me on my eyes. I tend to stick out a bit in Turkey :). We finally boarded the plane at 9 pm and landed in Izmir. It was pretty fantastic.
Since then, I've gotten to explore Izmir with my family and the NSLI-y kids. The Turkish Ministry of education decided to delay the start of school until September 28th, and our Turkish lessons got delayed as well. So.. we've just been hanging out and immersing ourselves in Turkish.