Dorm room tour

After talking to my mother, I realized that I have not posted any pictures of my dorm room or of Bilkent, except for the music department building. So this post will give you pictures and descriptions of my dorm and it amenities.

This first picture is of my room. I have two roommates, so three beds, three desks, and three wardrobes. The wardrobe size is a good size for me, but if I had my normal amount of clothing for college, I'm pretty sure it would not all fit. But one can store things under the bed as well as in the wardrobe. We also have a fridge in the room which we all share.

Once you exit the room, there is a common area that four rooms share, so 12 women. This is a picture from my doorway. On the right you can see a different doorway which leads into the bathroom. It is nice to have this extra living space, however, no one seems to use it.

The next picture is the bathroom. As you can see, there are 4 sinks and 3 toilets. However, only one toilet is a western toilet. The other two are squatting toilets. Another note on the bathroom: for some reason, the bathroom is always at least 10-15 degrees colder than the rest of the dorm. The common area is then about 5 degrees colder than my room, and my room is quite warm, maybe 70-75 degrees all the time. I generally am in a t-shirt while in the room. Otherwise I would overheat!

Next is the showers. There are three showers. Amazingly, even with 12 women sharing three showers, I have never seen any other person shower! We must have different schedules. The showers are so warm! But the floor gets very slick when it gets wet, and flip flogs have no traction, so there's a chance for a wipe out. But, so far, I have stayed on my feet.

Right outside the common space is the staircase that leads down to the kitchen, which you can see in the picture. Also lower is the main lobby and below that is laundry and a game room, complete with a ping-pong table! Up the stairs leads to more dorm rooms. I am on the 1st floor. In Turkey, they call the main floor the ground floor and what we would call the second floor they call the first floor. So I go up one flight of stairs to get to my room. This produces a problem when you look at your class schedule and your class says room 247, and you think to yourself, "oh! only 1 flight of stairs." You are so wrong. You have to go up two flights. They are giving me a secret workout.

The kitchen has this great large common area. It has WiFi, but every time I have used it, it is so slow and goes in and out, so that's a bummer. My dorm building is only women, but men can come into the kitchen and this eating area attached to it. They have these cute signs telling you which gender is allowed where. The one pictured here is for my dorm room area. For the kitchen they would both be green circles.

Next shows the kitchen. There are three stoves, three sinks, many microwaves, (don't worry mom. I already had popcorn!) and a dishwasher, but I just hand-wash my dishes. Each room has a cabinet inwhich they can store their dishes. My roommates have been kind enough to let me use their dishes, silverware, and pots and pans, so I am able to cook! I had that adventure last weekend. I needed some good ole' pasta and tomato sauce for a home cooked style meal. I was able to find noodles and sauce along with many vegetables that I fried and added to the sauce. It turned out delicious! Who knew that I would start to learn to cook in Turkey!

This is the view from my dorm building. This is showing the many other dorm buildings that are up that hill. I think Bilkent has over 30 dorm buildings, which is very different than ISU. You feel that each building is its own community instead of each floor is a community in the massive dorm buildings at ISU. Some of the dorms are co-ed by wings, meaning one side of the floor will be women and the other will be men. There are never men and women living next to each other in the same wing. Other dorms also have the more traditional dorm feel, with one hallway leading to all the rooms.

This is a picture of my dorm building, 51. The buildings are all uniform design, which makes the campus feel connected. Bilkent University was founded in 1984, so it is quite new and therefore they can have matching buildings. It is different that in a country that is so immersed in history I attend a new university, while the USA does not have as much history, I am attending a university founded in 1857. Hope you enjoyed my tour!