YES

Excerpt from an email I got this morning about the program I'm going to be on:

As part of your program, many trips are organized to places like Istanbul, Cappadocia, Safranbolu etc. There is also a trekking activity in your program, near Kızılcahamam region, a liveboard discovery diving experiment and canoe rafting in Alanya. Also excursions are included in your program to historical places in Ankara...

I was quite upset at first, back in April, when I found out that they put me in Ankara instead of İstanbul. (The CLS program has two intermediate-level groups, one in İstanbul and one in Ankara). İstanbul is the tourist destination, the city people fall in love with, the place with all the history and all the sights. Ankara is... well, the capital, formerly a dusty little town known chiefly for its goats ("Ankara" = "angora," get it?) until it found Atatürk's favor in the 1920's. İstanbul is on the Bosphorus; Ankara is, I am given to understand, somewhere in the Anatolian desert. You can imagine why I would be upset.

But I came to terms with my lot (after making sure I couldn't switch into the İstanbul group... no dice), since the Ankara group was promised excursions and homestays instead of dorm-stays. In trying to keep me on Turkey-track instead of having me run off to Kyrgyzstan (always a risk, with me), my Turkish professor also tempted me with the prospect of lots of Central Asians in Ankara to chat in Russian/Turkish/Uzbek with. Nice. So by now I was already prepared to love my time in Turkey's drab capital, and now that they've sweetened the deal with trekking, canoe rafting, and the geologically bizarre region of Cappadocia (I swear, Cappadocia is ALL my Lonely Planet Turkey guidebook talks about), I'm super excited!

PS, since people have been asking, I leave for Turkey on June 19. Still nearly four weeks away! :(
PPS, if anyone knows what a "liveboard discovery diving experiment" might be, I'd like to know. It makes me a little nervous.