Intro to Istanbul travel diary during peak of Corona

 Intro

I am Janne a Finnish guy on an Erasmus student exchange trip with my German girlfriend Gamze. This adventure we are embarking on came to me as a lucky accident as I did not plan to do any exchange as I felt I really did not match the ideal exchange student profile. I started my studies at my university in Oulu Finland after quite a long career and planned to just do the 2 years I needed to finish my master's program. As it happened I ran into my girlfiend when most of my studies were already done and this is where I heard about her plans. Soon after we started talking I should join her to Istanbul. It was her dream to go there from Germany to get to know her roots and I got this super cool chance to join her. Istanbul sounds very exotic, maybe even dangerous, but also super cool place to visit and the best of it is that I get a personal translator and guide with me. :) We plan to stay in Istanbul for 5 Months even though the Corona is at its worst around the world. Our hope is the outbreak will start to fade as the vaccinations are now available. At the start of our trip the restrictions in Istanbul are quite strong. After few days on road and answering questions and reporting happenings to my friends and family I thought of starting a diary of the trip. I noticed the time here in Istanbul is special for several reason. The political unrest and Corona virus being just few of them. I first started to write just a word doc on my laptop and now as we have been here for almost a week I got request to start to blog instead so I can share the information, so after googling and watching few youtube videos I am in start of it. What follows you can read as our adventure continues here.. so I go now and start moving the stuff I wrote already to the next blog.. So if you are a friend of mine or family or just interested in such ramblings I welcome you to share our adventure to this amazing place.