Istanbul (historically Byzantium and Constantinople), is the largest city of Turkey, home to a population of 8,803,468 in 2010. A megacity, it is the nation's cultural, economic, and financial center, ranked as an alpha(-) world city by GaWC in 2010.
Located in the northwest of the country, it lies on the Bosphorus strait and encompasses the natural harbour known as the Golden Horn. Extending both on the European (Thrace) and Asian (Anatolia) sides of the strait, Istanbul is the only city in the world situated on twocontinents. It covers 39 districts of Istanbul province. The greater Istanbul metropolitan area held 18% of Turkey's population in 2010. Its 13.26 million residents rank it third in Europe after those of London and Moscow.
During its long history, Istanbul has served as the capital of the Roman Empire (330–395), the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire (395–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). When the new Republic of Turkey was proclaimed in 1923 Ankara was chosen as its capital.
Istanbul's historic areas were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985. It was named a joint European Capital of Culture for 2010 and the European Capital of Sports for 2012. Istanbul is currently bidding to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Today was all about being lazy , getting up late , eating as much as i could at supper and write my blog .. It was again like 3 pm when i get up and today is the last day of the march break ~ I do not really know how will I get up in the morning to go to school :( Since I did nearly nothing today , I kinda had time to think on my own , I decided not to complain about my family's decisions , as I know that I cannot change it , even if I do , it will be all about me forcing my family to spend too much money on my education and life , unnecessarily...
Before I come here as an exchange student my dream was to go abroad and stuff , now I live in Canada but there are more serious decisions that I have to make for my future .. like , should I go back to my country next year? I don't really know , I don't want to force my family to send me back but I am actually enjoying my life in Canada ... Anyways , it seems like I am going back to my country next year! I really miss everything .. I miss the food , I miss my family and I miss my dog , so much! I did not cry so far , because I miss my family in Canada (yet) but .. today something that I really really did not expect happened , my little sister Tamara wanted to talk to me , after months and when I asked her do you miss me? She asked me ,'do you?' and i said I asked you first and she answered yes , i do miss you because my brother is just so annoying ~ and everything is just so different without you . This is the main reason why now I am fine with going back to Turkey next year , I will at least be with my family and obviously my dog :) Today I also called my uncle and grandmother in Turkey and as always , my grandmother sounded happy at first but then sounded like she is about to cry and passed the phone back to my uncle , I miss them , I actually really miss my whole family and everything I have in Turkey ~ so I started being positive! When I go back , I will be living in another city that I have never been to before , again..! As my family moved to Tekirday , near to Corlu which means next year I will not be back to my old school , I will start going to another school in Corlu , everything will be new , agaiiinn.. but I am alright with it , I really learned how to make friends , in Canada , in another country , so I think I will be fine with everything in Turkey! I actually do not know how will I catch up with math and other classes but .. hopefully I will be fine with everything in Turkey as well ... Yesterday Haico promised me to get me a bracelet from China , he has two weeks so we will see how it is gonna be! I am also super excited to go on the Montreal trip in April! I will be missing Shota's birthday but I think the trip is gonna be awesome with Yejin , Sojung and Urara! Yeah , they all are asian.. I can not really help it , they are all around! haha .. I want to share my dogs picture with you guys too , so that you know what I am actually talking about!
I really miss Sydney! and my other pets ,
Yeah , you saw all my pets , that I am really missing :(
Video of today is the song that Haico actually liked and tries to sing , whenever he sees me :
Whenever all the international students meet , we have 2 songs to dance with , I just wanted to share since EVERY single person on the exchange actually knows the lyrics and the dance of it , wherever we go , whatever the time it is , if someone has the music with them somehow , we , dance ..
Today I get up around 2 pm and i was again late meeting Haico , which I know actually makes him hate me , slooowwlyy .. insiidee.. haha . Anyways, I went to Center200 to skate with Sojung , Yejin and Haico , also met my friends Victoria and Jessica , after skating like 3 hours , we left the rink and decided to go to the Chinese restaurant downtown , the weather was awesome ( like 4 C ) and we were really enjoying the sun actually .. On the way to the chinese restaurant , we met Cem and Ching , went to the restaurant all together .. That was a fun day after all , while walking to Cem's house we stopped in the park , sit on the ground watch the lake and the ducks! I was actually super excited about ducks to come back since Shota and I are waiting for them to come back since December! Now he is still in Japan but I sent him a message saying that the ducks are back! I am happy that the weather is finally getting warmer , comparing to Turkey , 4 C is NOTHING , seriously but here when its warmer than 0 C degrees in day time , then it is warm - after having some fun in the park and taking some stupid pictures we went to Cem's house , skyped my mom all together and then go to to last Eagles hockey game of the year in Center200 again .. then the match became too boring for us that Haico and I went to Tims and I forgot my skates there while going to the movies!! If he did not remember that I definitly would just forget it there and wont remember about it at all .. maybe till I go back to Turkey? haha I dont know.. Then we went to the movies , he wanted to watch a movie called "Safe House" which he thought was a horror movie and I insisted on going to the movie called "21 Jump Street" at 10 pm , but he said it would be too late for him to go back home so we got our tickets to Safe house at 930 , after watching the first 10 minutes of the movie , I started to complain and just made him change the movie , since we are in Canada , they dont really care if we change movies and stuff , i do not know why they just do not notice :D Then we went to the movie "21 Jump Street" and that was quite awesome , I really liked the movie actually..
Since this is my blog , I just decided to turn this blog into my diary from today, right now! Here I go ; what I did today ..
March 16th , 2012
For last 1 week , I know that next year I will be back to Turkey , back to my routine and everything which gives me headache when I get up in the morning .. but somehow today was different , last night I talked to Paris and he recommended me to go to the Greek Restaurant in Sydney and try the food there , hoping there would be something Turkish . Around 3 pm , I met my friend Haico and went to the restaurant , seriously hoping there will be something good to eat ! With no racist feelings really!
Then when we sat inside the woman asked me what we wanted and I told her that I am Turkish and I want something that they think close to our food in Turkey and unexpectedly, she acted colder than she was when I first entered after finding out that I am Turkish! Anyways let's not turn this into a racist thing haha , after having our food there , we payed like 50$ at total which I did not really find worth eating that food ... Before I leave the woman asked me which city I am from , and I said Istanbul and she said ah Constantinapolis , and I said we say Istanbul for last 2.000 years , Constantinapolis is the old old name and she said Its not old , Its just Greek since it was once ours .. Which again made my racist feelings to come out , one more time.. I do not really think that I will ever visit that restaurant again , in my life..
After our adventure in the restaurant , we went to the movies to see the movie 'A thousand words' which was pretty good and then I left Haico all alone , my host mother and grand-host-mother drove me to my Korean friend , Yejin's house to have some Korean food! She was kind of sad since the people she invited did not show up but then we invited some people over and had some kimchi , bulgogi and noodles! That was pretty fun to talk with Yejin , Sojung , Masataka and Yuuki , to see that two japanese guys are actually getting on really well with Korean girls haha! That is so fun to see my friends together and trying to speak in Turkish with me! To be honest I just find the Korean girls successful at pronouncing Turkish words since Japanese guys do not even have the letters l and r separetly .. anyways , after having some cake , my host mother again picked me up from Yejin's which i know was not a happy drive for her unfortunetly, picking her student from north Sydney and driving back to Sydney again..
I could not skype my mother when I came home as it is already morning in Turkey , I talked to Shota for a bit which makes me happy , to hear from him finally since he went back to Japan . I am actually really excited to see him when he comes back next tuesday! Now I know how it is like to miss someone .. It is 2 am already! I better sleep !
Video of the day , the song that I am obsessed with recently!
I met so many people since my arrival to Sydney but my best friend here is Cem and he is Turkish as well , it must be something to do with the language i guess .. But I can't help it , i would probably be fine without him in Canada too but he is the one who listened to my problems and tried to get me through all of them!~ Sometimes you just need to speak to someone that knows your language , your culture and knows what would actually happen to you in the present situation if you were Turkey and Cem is the only person that I really need to talk with sometimes and spend some time with.. In Turkish we say " Turkun Turk'ten baska dostu yoktur" that means the Turk does not have any friends other than other Turks , it is not that I say that is totally true but sometimes we just say it to each other when we know or just feel it that we would not be able to talk about that thing with someone else..
I have been living here since August , Its a country that i have never been to before , in a totally different culture and everything. Being an exchange student is the most amazing thing , meeting new people , making new friends , trying new things ... Before i moved to Canada , only other country that i have been to , "without my family" was Germany for 2 weeks with a school trip , except that i have never been apart from my family that long.. and now I am living in Canada for over 7 months , I cannot believe how long it has been that i actually did not have dinner with my family , fight with my sister , walk my dog , be alone in my real room.. I really miss the rain , since it did not really snow in my city Antalya and it does not really rain here in Sydney, i miss being dissapointed about having school since even if it rained so much that day the school is never off in Turkey and here even if you want to go to school , it snows and boom - schools are off .. I miss my mom forcing me to eat the stuff that i dont like and now here , there is nearly nothing similar to what we eat in Turkey .. I miss visiting my grandparents and listening to my grandfathers stories.. Thats also another thing that exchange students are always scared of .. " what will I do if something happens to my relatives?" and that is really true , personally I , I seriously get scared that I will loose one of my grandparents or someone else in my family when I am away.. It's not that I do not really enjoy being an exchange student , but it is not as easy as most of the people think , being away from our families for a year , living another culture in another language... I remember my first host mother telling me that I might need more sleep since I translate everything in my head all day which means I think twice , which means i might get tired easily .. I did not really think the same at first but when I really think about it , that is true.. Also my English teacher in Turkey telling me that everything will be easier after starting to dream in English ~ that is also true , somehow it kinda gave me more confidence to get up in the morning and start the new day when i dream in English .. But now I do not really care if i dreamed in Turkish or in English really. After like a month , you get used to everything anyways , like.. now I am thinking how will I really live without my friends in Turkey next year. I will be with my family , with my dog and everything but I will not have my friends that I have here , school will be harder than here and i will be back to the routine in Turkey , study and study for the university exams. Today's date is March 16th , we are at the middle of March break and yes , i finally have some time to think of what I am really doing for last 7 months , finally getting aware of what I am right now ..
