Merhabalar everybody!
This is Ben, writing to you from Ankara, Turkey! I arrived safely and with all my various belongings at about 19.00 local time (which is 7 hours ahead of everyone on the East Coast).
I have only been in the country a few hours, but already I feel welcome and am starting to get comfortable. I am staying in a dorm room with 3 other Turkish students for this week, and then I will move to my host family's house at the end of this week. For the rest of this week, I will be having a cultural orientation in addition to the usual orientation you would expect at a university.
The dorms here are very similar to American ones, except that it is much more quiet (no Halo, TV, or Justin Ogden) and there is no decoration really (because this is a temporary dorm for students who could not go home over the break). Until the start of the spring semester in about 2 weeks, everyone is just loafing around, playing games on the computer, downloading movies illegally, and doing typical college student things.
I have to go now—görüşürüz! (see you later!)
