Izmir

We've been settling into Izmir the last couple days. We found a couple places to shop and got some groceries and other necessities. We were pretty geeked that you could get a loaf of bread for 0.54 lira (about 35 cents), so we got that and some olive oil to snack on in our dorm room, along with a few other things.

Our biggest shopping frustration has been trying to find a ceramic hair dryer for Barb. We found one really nice one at a Phillips store in the mall (and one of the salesmen even spoke English), but it was 110 lira ($70), which was more than we wanted to spend. So we are still in search of one...

We've been getting a lot of exercise walking. The university is at the top of a hill (well, not the very top) and all the shopping is down the hill at sea level, so coming back is quite a steep hike.

We're getting better at communicating with people. I'm getting better at using the Turkish that I know, and Barb is learning more Turkish, and we're finding that some people speak a little English once you speak a little Turkish to them. I think everyone involved just needs to get beyond the "Oh no, how am I going to talk to this person?" stage of freaking out. The waitress at the tea garden asked us if we were from Germany. Don't know if we look German, or sound German, or if they just get a lot of Germans around here.

We haven't gone too far afield in Izmir yet. We've just been around the university and the shopping areas in Balçova, the district of Izmir where the university is. I'll be interested to see what the rest of the city is like, since I don't want to general our impressions of this area to all of Izmir, because I think different areas have different characters. We may do a little more distant exploring tomorrow and Saturday.