I haven't wrote anything here for long time. November went by so fast with studying, doing mid-term exams and partying and December seems to do the same. Last night we celebrated Christmas together with exchange students and ended up being very drunk night. First time for me being drunk during Christmas as I don't like to do that in family environment. Nothing much has happened, I have now get used to the life of Istanbul. Last week there was however one really hard day. Snow came to this city and traffic was after total chaos. It took me 5 hours to get back home from university. If I see any snow again in this city I definitely lock myself inside or at least I'm not going to the university.
Next week starts our final exams which means my time in Istanbul is getting short. I will leave at the start of February back to Finland but the university already ends for me at 10th of January so I will have couple weeks free in Istanbul. Most likely my time goes to preparing going back to Finland but hopefully I got some time to visit some sights I haven't yet visited.
Since my last blog I haven't really been any special place in Istanbul. I visited in Istanbul Modern, the modern art museum which was ok but not the best art museum I've been in my life. View from the museum is however amazing! I walked around in Fatih district which is located west from Sultanahmet (the area containing Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace & Blue Mosque). It is really interesting part of Istanbul and it's also location of Chora Church which contains amazing frescoes and mosaics, the best ones in Istanbul. I also visited in the old fortress of Rumelihisari which is located in a very beautiful area of Istanbul. Otherwise I haven't really visited any remarkable places here anymore, just living the daily life and hanging out with friends has taken most of my time lately and I don't complain because I like to do that. It's funny to read my earlier blog post about the things I miss. Some of them don't bother me anymore and actually I don't really miss anything from Finland at the moment. At here I'm feeling really happy and I would like to extent my stay but unfortunately it's not possible...
I made 3 day visit to Izmir which was nice breakaway from Istanbul's traffic chaos. I stayed with local geography student and he showed me around the city and I really enjoyed my stay there. I also visited in the ancient city of Ephesus which is located near Izmir, one-hour train ride away. Ephesus was nice experience as it was first time for me to visit in ancient Roman archaeological site. And Ephesus is really well-preserved. I'm surprised it's not World Heritage Site yet. It's was also really quiet during mid-December day, not much other tourists around. In Izmir my favourite place was the bazaar area Kemeralti. It's really huge and easy to get lost. I lived in this area called Bornova which was full of young people studying in the nearby Ege University. I would like to visit Izmir again in summer and see the city life full on then.
And like for many other exchange students around the world I went and found my soulmate in here. I'm dating seriously a local and because of that leaving from here soon feels really horrible. I'm trying not to think about it much and enjoy the time we have now together but still the future haunts in the back of my brains. But we will see now one day at the time what will happen.
So if I doubted anything when I was coming here all those doubts are now gone and I feel really happy that I came here and experienced this all. I love my life at the moment and I've never been happier. :)
