Summary

As you may have noticed I haven’t written much lately, so now I will just give a short summary of the nice things I did last 2 weeks.
One of the positive parts of being a Dutch exchange student is that you are invited to all sorts of interesting events. Wednesday the 31st of March were very lucky though! We were invited for a Business Cocktail at the Dutch Consulate on Istiklal. For those who know how the building looks like may understand how excited we were to go there. It was a very fun and interesting evening. Some of us did some networking, others just enjoyed the superb snacks and desserts and the good atmosphere. It was really nice to be surrounded with so many Dutch people all of a sudden.
Later that week I joined Marina and her friends who came to visit her for a walk in the old Greek and Jewish neighborhoods; Fener and Balat. We were very lucky it was great weather, I think the nicest day since I’ve been here. For some reason the sun won’t show itself so often…I can’t wait for the weather to be warmer! But anyway our walk to Fener and Balat started with a visit to the Greek Patriarchate all the way up to the Chora Church and other Byzantine churches some turned into mosques, some not.
The first week of April the first guest from Holland arrived. Well not exactly from Holland, let’s just say he’s Dutch but his last stop before Turkey was Georgia and before that…well…he almost traveled the whole world those last 6 months. We did some sightseeing together but unfortunately I also had to study as well, so in the end I could join him 2 days.
In between the walks, visits and studying I really like to spend time at our nice apartment. I’ve been trying lots of new recipes since I came here. And since it was Easter I thought we couldn’t do without a real challah bread. They turned out pretty well if I say so myself…unfortunately I didn’t taste them because I gave them away to friends. At least I have a good excuse to make them again ;)
For pictures scroll down.