You Had Me at Merhaba

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write all my thoughts into a coherent form, but it hasn’t worked so far. Honestly, my thoughts haven’t been all that coherent since arriving; I’ve only been able to kind of string together loosely associated concepts into a weird mental mosaic. So, I am going to convey my thoughts with lists.

List #1 – My Exact Thoughts as I Stepped into Istanbul for the First Time
1. what
2. what are all these words
3. what is going on THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE
4. WAIT
5. WHERE ARE
6. I DON’T EVEN
7. WHERE IS THE ENGLISH??!
8. WORDS I CAN’T SPEAK THEM
9. mental breakdown
10. sjkfiaghbwjnkmhshbsanfkdhjndd

I am not exaggerating.

Okay I am.

There is this strange phenomenon I like to call the Foreign Tabitha Effect, where I go into Foreign Mode. It doesn’t matter what country I’m in, I’m just in Foreign Mode where my brain thinks any ol’ foreign language will do. I’ve stopped myself several times from trying to say “Wo men qu nar?” (Chinese for “where are we going?”) or “Entschuldigung” (German for “excuse me.”) I’m getting better though! I’ve picked up quite a few words in Turkish—important ones like water (su), thank you (teshekkuler), and many others.

What really surprised me, however, was that there is so much English around. Many signs include English translations, many people speak at least a little English, and the Turkish language itself has incorporated several words—mainly technology words like “dijital” or “telefon.” I don’t know if I’m making a correct assumption here, but since Istanbul has so many different nationalities living and visiting there, English is sort of the international way to convey the Turkish meaning. DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. I am usually wrong.

On a completely different subject, it never quite registered with me how much rich history and cultural fusions took place here. I should have realized (being an Anthropology major) that since Turkey was right smack dab in the “This is Where A Bunch of Stuff Began” part of the world, there would obviously be many sites and artifacts older than like five United States of Americas. It didn’t really hit me until I got here. There’s an incredible fusion of all these influences that make up a beautiful city.

Word of advice: COME TO TURKEY ASAP.