It is time to show you some pictures! Last weekend I could finally start enjoying the Istanbul that everyone loves. Well .. maybe not everyone, but you know what I mean 🙂 The whole week I have to work and my sightseeing consists of Metrobus and all the different people around – by the way, quite interesting from an ethnographical point of view. But on the weekend I can finally be just a normal tourist and have some fun. The first stop was Dolmabahce – a beautiful palace built in European style on the coastline of Bosphorus. I have already been there in 2010, so I decided not to go inside and spare myself 30 liras (12 euros) entrance fee. I actually thought that the guys would see the palace in one hour and I could meanwhile walk around in the nice garden it has. But I was not admitted to the garden without a ticket…. and it took the guys longer to see the palace. So I ended up waiting for 2 hrs alone and then one more hour with some people.. I learn from my mistakes and will not plan like this again =)
Continue reading “Dolmabahçe, Arnavutköy and Rumeli Hisarı” →

It’s hard to get used to the chaos and crowds of Istanbul. There are always masses of people around you and they are always in a hurry. They run to get the Metrobus, they run up and down the escalators, they run to get out of the metro, they run to cross the street… they run all the time like they were programmed for a certain speed and there were no option to slow down. Inside myself sometimes I scream “Please, stop this madness! Why can’t you walk …just walk.. and breathe.. and look around for the sake of diversity? And smile.” Yes, people here don’t smile. If you look at their faces they are always tense and with a lot of wrinkles even young people. Continue reading “Madness” →

So, you probably want to know what I do at my work? Unless you study computer science you actually don’t wanna know. But it’s too late, I am going to write it anyway =)

There is a project that my company is doing and I am going to “help” there a little bit. As I signed the non disclosure agreement and violating it would send me to Turkish prison for all my life I can’t tell you the name of it. So let’s call it project P 😉 The project is being written in python using a whole bunch of technologies I have had no idea about. By the way I am was completely unfamiliar with python as well… So my first two days I spent reading tutorials and documentation on this language. And I can say I quite like it… Rather nice and understandable! Then I read about such things as Bottle, SQLAlchemy, RabbitMQ and some other stuff of this kind. Finally I was given a link to the repository and the show has begun. Continue reading “Istanbul, 16.08.2013” →

I woke up today and the first thing I did was to check whether I got an answer from the LC (local committee). Nope!

I still had my 2 bananas and an apple left, so the breakfast was arranged … But I had to think about my future meals and how to satisfy my basic needs =) So I went downstairs and asked the security man where I could change my money and have something to eat afterwards. Luckily, there is a shopping mall right in front of the campus… so I headed there. They have amazing discounts of 50 to 70 %! I definitely have to come back later and check all the stores. I changed the money, came back to the dorms and went to cafeteria where I had my first Turkish lunch ))) Continue reading “Istanbul, 11.08.2013” →