Yesterday after work, I had arranged to meet my friend at her school - Boğaziçi University. She gave me directions to the bus stop, told me the buses I can take and where to get off. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the bus stop; not even after checking the location of the bus stop on google map. Well, Istanbul has one problem - streets are very difficult to find. Some streets do not have signs, so even if you know what street you have to be on, it will usually be hard to find. So I approached a lady to ask her about the bus stop. She couldn't understand English, but she seemed very willing to help me. So I wrote Boğaziçi University and the numbers of the buses. She understood what I wanted and called her friend for help. Her friend was extremely kind - he drove both of us to a bus stop. The lady got off the car with me and went with me to the bus stop. At the bus stop, she asked around for help, and there were 2 girls who were going to the university as well. After that, the lady shook my hand and left. The 2 girls were with 2 other girls, and all of them were really friendly too. They tried to chat with me by asking me many questions and telling me about themselves. With all the help of these very friendly and helpful people, I managed to reach Boğaziçi safely and on time :) This experience has proved once again that the people are really very nice :)

My friend brought along other friends, and all of us went to dinner at a restaurant near the school. After dinner, we went back to the school and sat in a cafeteria drinking tea, chatting and playing Taboo. Yes, Taboo was in Turkish, but they were so nice that they decided to play it in English. It was so amusing playing Taboo with them that I soon realized it was probably too late to catch a bus back. Since my friend had room for me in her room, I decided to stay the night in her room.


This morning, I spent my time sitting on a lawn having lunch with friends. After lunch, my friend and I went to Istiklal. We were walking leisurely, eating dondurma and doing a little shopping. When we were about to leave, we noticed some sort of festival in Taksim square (Taksim Square is an open space at the start of Istiklal). It turned out that they were having a bazaar for hand made goods from eastern Turkey.

Signed off by Priscilla