Hello! My name is Juliana, and I will be moving to Ankara in mid-September to begin language studies/a Fulbright grant. I'll be starting off at Tomer and will eventually move to Bilkent. Although I have visited Ankara briefly in the past, I have come to realize I know very little about living in the city. If anyone has any advice about finding an apartment (or anything else, really) I would greatly appreciate it, as I do not yet have a place to live. I'm very excited about getting to know a new city and new people- hopefully some from the forum!
Cheers!
.jules

Welcome lowercase jules, the Ankarites on this forum are very friendly and helpful, i'm sure they'll give you the advice you need.

Welcome. We'll be happy to offer tips. Will you have somewhere to stay short-term while you look for a flat? Dealing with Bilkent you'll have to make the choice between living in town or living out there.

Welcome Jules. Starting out at Tomer will mean you should at least start by living in the city.

Seems like Mr. Fulbright is funding quite a lot of you Americans to come over here. See you when you make it.

Thanks! I'm going to look for a place in town. I imagine I will be quite hindered by my lack of Turkish skills, but am hoping for the best. Currently, I do not have a short term place, and am trying to figure that out... we'll see how it goes

Hi Jules,

Welcome! Where are you from? My dad was a Fulbright prof in Ankara 20 years ago and had a very positive experience. I live in Ankara now and have some friends who were recently here on the programme - don't they help you find a place to live, at least set you up with a reliable agent? If not, I strongly suggest you don't go flat hunting in the English newspapers - that is, unless you've got buckets of moolah...

haha, yeah I certainly don't have buckets of cash. I've requested information about agents and all- and will hopefully have some good leads when I get the response. Unfortunately I won't be at a single institution for the whole time, so I lack the ease of garaunteed university housing or the like. I'm from the US- specifically Albany, New York- went to school in Providence, Rhode Island. I'm looking forward to the change of locale-

Guaranteed housing can sometimes be a double-edged sword anyway as foreign students might fall into the trap of only hanging out with other foreign students rather than getting out into the heart of the city and experiencing what it's actually like to live here. Any idea which part of town you'd like to live in? How long will you be here?

So I made it to Ankara about a week ago, and am liking it very much so far. Today I moved in to a place in Kavaklidere. It's nice to get more settled after a week of setting up housing, bank accounts, classes and all that. Just thought I'd update my original post- looking forward to fun times in Ankara!

Welcome to the neighboor, and congratulations on the efficiency with which you found yourself a place!

Hi jules, welcome to the neighbourhood! Let us know what your interests are (sports etc.) so people can reply and hook up with you.