The Plan in More Detail

These past couple days have been a bit of a struggle for several reasons. The first of those is that I got sick. I had a mild fever before I went to bed and the next day it became a cold, which I am still fighting. Being sick while in Turkey is really nothing new for me. It has happened almost every time I have come here! It seems that the cause is some combination of coal, coldness, and stress. There is so much coal being used in this country to heat and it hangs heavily in the air in some spots on cold days. Also, as much as I have enjoyed this country sometimes the situations I find myself in can be stressful. It is not so surprising, but for some reason my body can't take it in large doses. This time I think it was mostly the kömür, the coal. But really who wants to hear about how I have passed the last couple days mostly lying down, taking medicine, and eating lentil soup?

Actually I did go out yesterday to run a few errands, but almost everything I tried to do failed in some way. I thought life would be a bit easier here if I opened a bank account but it turns out that there are a couple hurdles to jump through (I mean over?) and... you jump through hoops and over hurdles, right? Because I wanted to say 'jump through' something but I also wanted to use 'hurdles'. Anyway, getting the account at this point is more trouble than it is worth.

I tried to get my phone working. Turns out I have to register my actual phone because it is foreign, which means Turkcell will need a week to retrieve the papers and do whatever bureaucratic bull they have to do in order to get the damn thing working. So I decided to just buy a new SIM card and hence get a new phone number right then and there so they could register it in the store. It would cost about 20 bucks. But... the system was down! Can anything else go wrong? I have now found peace in knowing my phone wont work for another week and I'll just continue to borrow my friend's old one for now. This is life.

I went online to the expatriate forums to see what other Americans experienced when they moved to İstanbul. I learned quite a lot. It turns out that the two best things I can do for myself right now are to: 1. apply for a tourist residency visa and 2. get certified to teach English. Both are on my schedule, though it's nice to know what I can prioritize in these early days. Perhaps #3 is to find that apartment. Yesterday I passed near Acıbadem and it seems like a perfect location. My thanks Kahraman for that idea.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with an international education consultant. He is the acquaintance of a friend who thought I might benefit from talking with someone who deals all the time with people starting new lives abroad. I called him the other day and he sounded eager to meet me. I am not sure what we will discuss, but I think I can learn a lot from him.

Today's plan: shop for a couple things, pursue the phone thing, buy an Akbil thing (for the bus/metro system), gather materials for the residency visa application, and then rest in the late afternoon and play football in the evening.

I had a dream last night that I went to Denmark but forgot to take any pictures. I think it is because yesterday I saw the first place I went to in Turkey but I didn't take a picture. It was just a piece of sidewalk where I met a friend but my mind was in such a nice place at the time. I will take a proper picture of that place at some point. And I will take some pictures today, so that we will both have something to look at in the next post :)