Departing and Arriving

February 4-5

I departed Logan Airport in Boston at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, February 5th. My ticket was bought through Delta, but I was flying Alitalia. My first flight took me to Rome, Italy, where I then had to pick up another to Istanbul.

The flight to Rome wasn't too bad. Alitalia served us both dinner and breakfast, and both times, the food was surprisingly edible. Transferring also proved not to be a problem. If you must fly international, Alitalia is not a bad bet, imho.

I arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, February 5th, at 1:45 pm local time (Istanbul is 7 hours ahead of Boston/New York). Being very tired and confused, I went to the stand that said "Visas." The lady behind the counter asked for my passport, and I gave it to her. Then she said "$20." I asked why and she told me it was for my visa. I told her that I already had my visa, an education visa that was stamped into my passport and for which I had already paid $58 to get. She looked at it, shook her head and said "$20 or 15 euros." At this point I didn't feel like arguing and figured it might be some sort of entry fee. I gave her $20 and she stamped a second tourist visa onto my passport. I knew I didn't need this second visa at all, but I figured it was useless talking to her.

When it was my turn to go through Immigration, the Turkish officer took one look at my multible visas, shook his head and just asked, "Why man."

"I know, I know," was all that I could mutter. He pointed me over to the table of policemen, who stamped a great big "Cancelled" on my tourist visa and sent me on my way. Twenty bucks, wasted!

After picking up my bag from baggage claim, I left the terminal and looked for the people from my study abroad program, or CIEE. They had told us to wait by the Starbucks to the right of the exit, but it was nowhere is eyesight. I walked all the way to the end of the terminal before finally coming across the Starbucks and a few other American students. We introduced ourselves and then proceeded to sit in absolute silence, trying to rest and waiting for our ride.

The shuttle that was taking us to Koç was about 2 hours late, but we were just glad to see it at all. We got on the bus and headed for the university. The airport and Koç are at two completely seperate points of Istanbul, so the bus ride was about 2 hours long, thanks to the Istanbul traffic.

Goodbye snow covered, freezing Boston

Hello Koç!

When we finally arrived, we were given our room keys, blankets and pillows, and shown to our rooms. It was around 6:30 pm, but we were all exhausted, plus there was nothing to do on campus. After surfing the web for a little bit, I went to sleep