Selected observations about Yeditepe

From Barbara: The excitement this week has been the Nobel Prize announcements. Tomorrow Larry will give his Nobel Prize talk. Advertisements with his face superimposed on the Nobel medal are visible all over the campus. Before lunch every day he and Mustafa sit by a computer screen awaiting the news from Sweden, and once the names(and sometimes faces) flash across the screen they rush to share the news and reflect on the appropriateness of the choices. Sometimes Larry has a story to tell about this or that prize. It's like women watching the Academy Awards to see the dresses...But what a joy to see Larry in his element, far away from the petty politics of his department, talking science gossip and feeling on top of the world..
There is a wonderful friendliness here. Birthday parties abound. Students and faculty gather to celebrate, with large plates of borek and cake. Today the cake featured sparklers as well as candles...What a treat to have boreks instead of pizza..
Larry had never mentioned his birthday to anyone except Renad; will there be a belated celebration? Students everywhere will find any excuse for the party, the free food, to break up the monotony of school.
In the morning when we eat in the student cafeteria we join the crowds selecting from the identical breakfast plates, putting stacks of bread through the toaster; all of us shaking the morning sleepiness out of our eyes with cups of chai or Nescafe..The students could be students anywhere. I'm seeing now Uggs on many feet which earlier were wearing every color of Converse sneakers. Skinny jeans on the girls, Gap and Abercombie sweatshirts...100s of heads of dark curls...how strikingly different my naturally strawberry blonde Anni would be here. Allegra would almost blend into the crowds although her skin is too ivory colored.. See how my children fill my thoughts? And no one looks like Anders or Rob although the occasional piercing blue eyes will stare back at us...And sometimes there is an echo of American English; someplace there are foreign students here for a short time as we are and probably as lost and as at home as we are...
One of the special delights of the university are the small pockets of trees filled with picnic tables where people gather on sunny days. We walk through them on our way to meals and always think how civilized...except there are way too many people smoking and sometimes we have to step over sleeping dogs...And to the south of the campus buildings are the hills still covered with trees, a remnant of what must have filled the hills above Istanbul before it became a sprawling mass of 15 million people spread out over 2 sides of the Bosporus.
The library is subtitled the "Knowledge Center" and occupies one floor of the administration building. Sometimes we find an English language paper here or a Time or Newsweek, but it is mainly a place for me to browse and wonder at the curious selections in the English and American Literature sections. The classics, yes, and odd best sellers....But as my supply of books from home is depleted, it's a welcome source of reading...
Wandering around the local neighborhood is an adventure, too. One night we wandered out beyond the gate to find Larry a barber shop, and there the shops were, down a side street, a whole cluster of them. Larry chose one at random. We sat and had apple tea, that delightful custom we're discovering everywhere in shops whether they are hustling carpets or cutting hair, while we waited. He was the first American to have his hair cut there and was immediately the center of attention. Somehow the barber understood what he wanted (I had had visions of a totally shaved head because of the language problem) although the price was not the bargain Larry had assumed it would be. But his beard looks great...and for a few weeks he wears his Turkish souvenir: a Turkish haircut...
On the weekend when we had planned to visit one of the islands in the Sea of Marmara, the rain (and a recurring digestive problem I'm having) changed our plans. We stayed at the university until it cleared and then went for a short walk near by, stopping to have pomegranate juice at a stand and to eat at a nearby kafte and talk to a waiter eager to try out his English on native speakers. We wandered into shops offering samples of cookies and candies and filled a bag with our versions of Turkish delights. We strolled by an old wooden mosque, painted white and trimmed in red.. I wonder which mosque is the source of the calls to prayer I hear when the window is open...We compared prices at grocery stores, bought some glasses with the special tulip shape so at home we can still have "Turkish" style tea. Just like locals, we headed up the hill to the university, our arms filled with bags...Not the "adventure" we had planned, but a pleasant stroll in this Yeditepe neighborhood. One sign of how removed we are from the familiar, though. In a vacant lot a sheep was tied, and behind it we saw a truck filled with live sheep, all destined to be sacrificed in the upcoming Bayrim holiday...Biblical echoes...