BasBasBas.com

Tag: Yeditepe

  • Marmara Sunset Cruise

    A few weeks ago, or was it a month, we (the exchange students) received a special invitation from the rector of our university (or chancellor/president, if you will). A special boatcruise was planned and we would be having dinner with the rector on the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Amazing!

    Afterwards we would dance and the rector might teach us some Turkish folkdancing. “Wow”, I thought, “it’s really incredible what this university is willing to do for their exchange students”. Everyone was excited about it, partly because of the promise of free food and drinks ;-), and most of the 100 exchange students at Yeditepe University planned on attending.

    On the day of the cruise we arrived and it turned out the boat had already left. Miscommunication. The boat left 2 hours earlier than was announced to us. The university bus took us to another dock where the boat would come to pick us all up. When we got there, the boat was a lot bigger than I anticipated and what surprised me was there were a lot of people on board already…

    We were then told that kids from high schools and their parents were already on board and that the rector had ordered the boat to come pick us up. Great! I let the new information sink for a minute and then realized that it had all been a great PR stunt. There were hundreds of people on the boat and this way Yeditepe could show off their international character. The cruise was quite different from what I expected and definitely not as intimate as it was made out to be, but it helped me achieve one of my goals for Istanbul:

    To party on the Bosphorus! The Bosphorus is the strait that connects the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea (and thus ultimately to the Mediterranean) and runs between the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.

    As we got on we sailed out to the Marmara Sea and saw the Prince’s Islands (I think) and witnessed the beautiful sunset pictured above. Later, as the skies turned dark we sailed through Istanbul. The lights are beautiful and as I’ve said before, the best way to see the glory of Istanbul is from the water. We partied on the deck of the ship with a bit too many high schoolers and very loud Turkish house music. Oh, and free beer (which finished within half an hour) and free wine!

    View the pictures of the trip on Picasa! Pictures of the sunset and the sea and of course the party! Sorry, I don’t have the right equipment to catch Istanbul by night. You’ll have to come and see it for yourself. 😉

    If you took a ferry or boattrip in Istanbul before, how did you like it? What was your experience? In the past I’ve partied in an empty office building, under a bridge, in an abandoned church (controversiaaaaal), a parking lot and in the forrests on a mountain in the Balkan range. What’s the most spectacular location you’ve partied at?

    BasBasBas.com is about a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.

  • Drugs, Prostitution and Same-Sex Marriage

    That’s the title of a 10-15 minute presentation I’m giving soon for my Intercultural Communication classes at Yeditepe University, here in Istanbul. I designed it in such a way that it can also be enjoyed without my vocal explanations and here it is!

    Drugs, Prostitution and Same-Sex Marriage

    View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: travel international)

    The Intercultural Communication course is likely to be the most innovative course I’ve taken during my higher education (sadly — universities should make more use of modern technologies). Every Tuesday, we get into a classroom at 4 o’ clock in the afternoon and have a video conference with a class in Lincoln, Nebraska, US. We present ourselves, our culture, customs, daily lives and our countries to each other. It’s fascinating, because both the Turkish class as well as the American class have students from many different backgrounds.

    This part of the Intercultural Communication course, called Global Classroom, has been quite fun so far. We’ve managed to make 2 students from the Nebraskan class dance in front of the camera and they’ve managed to make 2 of our students wrestle in front of the camera (or was it Jiu-Jitsu?).

    There’s only a few sessions left, so I hope I actually get to do my presentation, as our lecturer wanted everyone to prepare one, but there will be no time to actually execute all of them.

    I hope the presentation has given you an insight into Holland’s liberal policies and if you have any questions please feel free to reply. I love answering questions about these issues.

    How about in your countries, how is your government dealing with these issues? What is your personal opinion on these matters? Has the war on drugs failed? Is same-sex marriage morally wrong or is keeping it illegal a form of discrimination? What about prostitution?

  • Rush!

    Letter of Acceptance

    I’ve been officially accepted to Yeditepe! Time to sit back and relax, right? Not.

    Last week: 2 final exams. This week: 1 final exam, 1 deadline for a website, some work assignments. So at this point I was already busy. Anyway, I decided to figure out how I would get my ERASMUS grant. I went to the international office and they informed me I should have my forms in before the 15th of July (I would be in Bulgaria/Macedonia from the 25th of June to the 17th of July), including a certificate of enrollment for the NEXT study year. I handed my enrollment in last Friday and was going on holiday this Saturday, so that got me quite stressed.

    “No worries, mate” I told myself. I figured I’d just take care of something that I could take care of immediately. I googled a bit to find out more about the Turkish embassy in Holland and visa. The embassy site was nearly completely in Turkish, but I found a number and called them. After passing through 2 rude receptionists and being connected to a person, I was informed that I should not call her but someone asked and she asked me why I called her. I blamed television and she gave me the number of the Turkish consulate. I called the consulate, had to go through the same annoying type of receptionists and finally got someone who knew anything about what I was asking. Turns out the studentvisum for Turkey is… 446 euros! Awesome. Perfectly reasonable to ask from a student, right?

    More stress.

    Then I did something I should do more often before asking stuff to people who don’t really know the answer either. I used my eyes and applied them to some text. I did some reading. I saw I could get an advance on the Erasmus grant, which meant I could probably use that money to pay for the visum. Also, I got in contact with the central international office of my degree factory (commercial university) and found out my enrollment for this year would be enough.

    Last time I had stress relief like this I decided it would be best not to blog about it. So I won’t.

    Nervewrecking stuff if you’re going on a holiday for a month in just a few days. Anyway, it all seems to be okay now. Still nervous about the visum, since I’d rather not borrow money for it, but we’ll see. Let’s hope the woman was confused and told me the normal or work visum instead of a studentvisum. Not counting on it though. The very worst is that I will have to go visit the consulate which is built in Holland’s pit of doom, Rotterdam. Lord, help me :sad:

    Oh! So I’m going on a holiday this Wednesday. Expect to see many stories and pictures! :cool:

  • Time to get moving!

    Okay, I’ve been procrastinating loooong enough (plus I’ve been ill for a while which really ruined the momentum). It’s time to get this exchange in Istanbul sorted! Firstly, tomorrow I’ll get all the forms fixed so I can deliver them to the partner university in Istanbul, called Yeditepe. This means that I’ve been selecting courses. The courses I plan on following at Yeditepe these fall are:

    • Introduction to Political Science;
    • Democracy in the Global Society;
    • Society, Culture and Communication in the 21st Century;
    • Scope and Social Impact of New Media;
    • Consumer Behaviour;
    • Humanities;
    • Theories of Mass Communication;
    • Corporate Public Relations;
    • Semiotics;
    • Persuasion and Perception.

    Needless to say, I’m very excited! Those that know me well will understand, based just on the list above here and how well it suits me 😉

    Second thing is, the to-do lists are back. Last year they were here as I was preparing for Bulgaria, disturbing my natural laziness, now they’re back. Tomorrow I have an exam, so I better start studying now. I discontinued the ‘Latest Updates’ posts – they’ll now just be placed in the side menu. Besides that, more posts about my life and about going to Turkey: I promise.

    Also, the website is still under construction, but it’s about 80-90% done now 🙂

  • What’s up?

    Hey, figured it’s about time I give a small overview of what’s up with me. A couple of things.

    • Doing a project on International Affairs Representation (lobbying) for university. Very interesting. Looking at all that the IUCN organisation has to offer on their website. What a great organisation!
    • For the same course I’m going to Brussels for a field trip on the 27th of this month.
    • Got a potential marketing/sales project coming my way. If I decide to take it on, I expect I could make about two thousand Euro with it this summer. Which would be great, because I’m broke now. Looks like my interest in internet marketing and entrepreneurship is finally manifesting itself in my day to day reality, right?
    • Looking for a job doing some promo-work (like handing out samples and stuff) for a while, so I can make some money. Or maybe doing work at the homes of elderly people. Although I’m not sure if it would be productive to invest my time in that instead of the above project. Probably smart to have an extra, small income stream though.
    • Figuring out when I’m done with the semester and when I can fly to Bulgaria to go see my girlfriend!
    • Figuring out when I would probably be broke and have to fly back to Holland…  together with my girlfriend… to show her Holland. First time she’ll be in Western Europe. Culture shock :shock:
    • Applying to a Turkish language course at the end of August and beginning of September.
    • Getting my stuff handled with Yeditepe University in Istanbul, so my Erasmus exchange will start smooth. Or at least smoother than when I went to Bulgaria last year.

    That’s about it. If you think you can help me out with any of this. Please contact me.

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