Büyük çay, lütfen!

Translation: Large tea, please!

I have come to terms with the fact that I am still a student, albeit in another country. There is no escaping that "Crap, I have four hours of class today and I got 4 hours of sleep last night!" feeling. Try as I might, I can't seem to stay awake in class here any better than I do at school back in the States. The solution for that is obviously caffeine.
Since I have been here, I have been drinking more tea (or çay, as I will refer to it from here on) than water. It is complimentary with most food at restaurants and actually less expensive than water. When I need to hydrate for a workout, I will drink a large çay instead of a bottle of water, because you can't drink the tap water (unless you are in the Superdorm- guess it does have some perks after all!). It can't be that great for my hydration. In fact, I know it is not. But when in Rome... so to speak.

Here they drink çay out of glasses, not mugs or tea cups usually. In fact, whenever they serve me çay in anything but a glass I know it is because I'm foreign. But I really just want to fit in! So I've started trying be a Turk when it comes to my çay. 2-4 sugar cubes per glass. We like it sweet. And keep that milk away, we aren't English!

One of the great things about the university I am attending is that there are little canteens on the bottom floor of most classroom buildings, so you can grab a quick çay if you are feeling sleepy before class. In fact, you can grab a çay anytime. Getting çay is a totally acceptable thing to do if you want to go hang out with your friends, or even just sit and relax in a cafe by yourself. I guess we do that back home too. But here places don't close at 6 pm, which is fantastic! You can get çay early in the morning, late at night, and anytime in between. But it's a healthy addiction, right?

I did not take this picture, but it pretty much sums up my experience in Turkey so far. Çok çay.