(A little) New Information!

Herkese Merhaba (Hey everybody)!

I haven't got much to report, but at the beginning of this week I did receive that packet of information from NSLI-Y in the mail. :D

There wasn't a huge amount of new information, but we received two forms to be returned to NSLI-Y/ACES (ACES = American Cultural Exchange Service, our implementing organization), an FAQ sheet which included a tentative itinerary of the summer (more on that in a moment), an FAQ sheet about financial planning and expenses for the trip, a packing list, a list of Turkish language resources to jump-start our language learning before the start of the program, our first Turkish study guides of several to come, and a packet with information about Turkey. 

The tentative itinerary is as follows: 

"Here is a brief timeline of the upcoming summer:

• June 22nd: Students will depart home and arrive in Washington DC for a pre-departure orientation held at the Hampton Inn and Suites Dulles Airport Hotel. 
• June 22nd - 23rd: Pre-departure orientation sessions.
• June 24th: Students and chaperones will depart for Turkey. 
• June 25th: Students and chaperones will arrive in Istanbul and spend two nights there. 
• June 27th: Students and chaperones will travel to Bursa. 
• August 11th: Students and chapereones will return to Washington DC and go directly to their domestic flights home. "

This is quite exiting for two reasons: for one thing, the pre-departure orientation in DC is a day or so longer than I had understood it would be, which is good - some of my friends who are NSLI-Y alumni got to go to their host country's embassy or cultural centers during pre-departure orientations, so I'm hoping we'll get to go places like those. And also, I'm SUPER exited that we'll be spending our first two days after arrival in ISTANBUL. :D I've wanted to see Istanbul for many years; it just looks so beautiful and has so much amazingly rich history, and I can't believe that we'll be there in less than two months! 

Also, apparently there's more to come:

According to the packet, "between now and your departure from home, we will be sending additional program information, including domestic and international flight information, a student handbook, pre-departure orientation details, a tentative program itinerary, culminating project information, and host family details."

I'm looking very forward to all of the above.

Also, I've been meeting up lately with a new friend: a girl named Krista from Dexter, a town about 15 minutes from where I live, also was picked as a finalist for Turkey! She's going with a different group, to Ankara instead of Bursa. But we've been meeting up lately, freaking out about our upcoming adventure and how much we want to skip over April and May to get to June for it.
Hey if you're reading this Krista ^_^ 

That's all for today, I haven't got much else to report for the moment. 

Hoping to be back soon with more exiting news,

Nico 

^And here's another Tarkan song.