Settling In

I got up around 10:30, packed, and checked out of the hostel at 11. Jonas left early (waking up before me, for once) and joined Saray for a visit to the Basilica Cistern while I took all my crap to Boğaziçi.

I took my gigantic backpack and got on the T1 to Kabataş, then grabbed the 43R bus to the school, as I've done too many times already. The ride is approximately 22 minutes (well, without traffic), but it took us over an hour to get to the school.

I walked through the doors of the Superdorm, and was greeted by a Turkish man, who asked me my name. He found my information in the office and asked me to follow him.

We took the elevator up to the third floor, and turned right down a dark and impersonal hallway. Around a corner to the left we found y room, VK 303. I'm not totally sure yet what VK is.

I'm the third room, so I'm technically VK 303-3. I have a set of three keys; one to my suite, one for my room, and one for a drawer inside my room that I can store valuables in.

My room is about 7' by 10', but that's probably an exaggeration. There's a desk with no drawers, a bulletin board with no tacks, and a light strip above that. I have a room phone, but I don't know the number, and I have a bed, but no sheets (they gave me a cover sheet for it, but that's it). The door itself has two openings for ventilation, I assume, one just above eye level and one larger opening by the ankles. My window opens, and there's no screen. I have a view of the rest of the Superdorm, but nothing else. Oh, and there are shelves. So many shelves. They take up almost all of the walls, leaving me maybe a 6' by 3' space for posters, if I had any.

I pulled all the crap from my backpack and stowed the thing above the top cupboards. I took a quick breather and headed back to Sultanahmet to meet up with Jonas before he left. I found Jonas just after 3, in the lobby of the hostel, and we sat for a while there.

Around 5:30 we went to Taksim and grabbed dinner at a place directly adjacent to where his bus was leaving from. It was a little restaurant/cafe called, as best I could tell, Restaurant & Café. The food was good, and I managed to get a gigantic salad and a decent pasta dish for 22TL. Not terrible. The drinks are where they get you, but I refrained due to a pained stomach still learning to cope with Turkish street food.

Jonas and I had a tearful (but not so much) goodbye outside the Havatas bus to SAW airport. It was an awesome few weeks. As I told Jonas, hopefully this'll happen again, either in the US or Kiev...

I returned to the dorm, and slept on top of my empty bed without any blankets, and only my tiny little travel pillow. Good thing this place is properly heated.