Well here's a slideshow of my Egypt pics.. it isn't very good quality, so if you want to see my pics in better quality look at my photobucket site (name mandi311). Also, I'll be putting a couple videos up when I get time, of me riding a camel, etc.
29 December 2007
17 December 2007
Nothing better...
Well on my way home from grabbing some McDonald's tonight, I was thinking about how I don't have anything to put on my blog, and I thought maybe somebody would get a kick out of the way that they package the take-out (cuz I do). When you buy a meal, they put your hamburger and fries in a bag, your drink in a bag (because apparently you can't just carry your drink), and then they put them together in another huge bag with handles. It's not enough that you feel like a fat loser for getting greasy McDonald's at 8:00 at night, but they need to make you carry something as big as a billboard so that everyone on your way home will see from a mile away! haha...
10 December 2007
Christmas decorating
hahaha! What a crazy Charlie Brown-ish tree it is!
So, we've decorated a little for Christmas so far. We bought some lights to decorate the living room with but we haven't put them up yet, and I need to finish putting up the cute window window clings my mom sent us! :) It feels a little like Christmas because in the malls there are Christmas-y window decorations, and that feels like home. However, the lack of snow is a little disheartening. I'm still holding out hope that we'll get at least one snowfall for Christmas.
NINE DAYS UNTIL EGYPT!!! I can't believe it's here already! ahh!
29 November 2007
December
It's December in two days! Ahh! I can't believe how quickly time is going by. I feel as though I just arrived in Istanbul, and yet I feel like I've been here forever.
I "put up" a Christmas tree today. Well, I don't have any decorations yet... except for one that I got from my sister. I will buy some little lights and put red and green yarn on it for garland so it won't look so much like a Charley Brown tree. I'm excited for Christmas.... I really just wish it would snow...
I "put up" a Christmas tree today. Well, I don't have any decorations yet... except for one that I got from my sister. I will buy some little lights and put red and green yarn on it for garland so it won't look so much like a Charley Brown tree. I'm excited for Christmas.... I really just wish it would snow...
25 November 2007
Thanksgiving
Here's an example of what the invitations I made looked like. Each one was a little different.
Well Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I didn't miss home as much as I was worried I would. We had the teacher's party the day after, and the meal was delicious.
appetizers...
I didn't find a whole Turkey, but was able to get Turkey breasts, so we got four of those. I had to borrow a huge pan from the Diko Cafe, and then bring the seasoned turkey to their oven to cook it! It was pretty funny walking down the street with a pan of turkey breasts, and then I had to go there every half hour to check on its progress. 
I also made stuffing with Turkish bread that I cut up and let get stale.
I seasoned both with sage, thyme, salt, pepper, celery (which is hard to find), and onions. It was soooo good. I also made homemade salsa (even though I couldn't find cilantro..), and triple berry pie (with raspberries, blackberries, and sour cherries), a salad, and ranch dressing. 
Plus the other teachers brought a lot of other food. We even played Christmas music at the party to make ourselves feel at home, and we are hopefully going to set up a Christmas tree tomorrow. :)
3 1/2 weeks until Egypt/Christmas! I'm getting so excited I can hardly wait.
Time is flying!
Well Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I didn't miss home as much as I was worried I would. We had the teacher's party the day after, and the meal was delicious.
appetizers...
I didn't find a whole Turkey, but was able to get Turkey breasts, so we got four of those. I had to borrow a huge pan from the Diko Cafe, and then bring the seasoned turkey to their oven to cook it! It was pretty funny walking down the street with a pan of turkey breasts, and then I had to go there every half hour to check on its progress. 
I also made stuffing with Turkish bread that I cut up and let get stale.
I seasoned both with sage, thyme, salt, pepper, celery (which is hard to find), and onions. It was soooo good. I also made homemade salsa (even though I couldn't find cilantro..), and triple berry pie (with raspberries, blackberries, and sour cherries), a salad, and ranch dressing. 
Plus the other teachers brought a lot of other food. We even played Christmas music at the party to make ourselves feel at home, and we are hopefully going to set up a Christmas tree tomorrow. :)3 1/2 weeks until Egypt/Christmas! I'm getting so excited I can hardly wait.
Time is flying!
22 November 2007
Thanksgiving
Well, today is Thanksgiving. It doesn't really feel like Thanksgiving. There was no parade to watch on TV, no rush to get the final cooking done for the party. We are, however, having a Thanksgiving party tomorrow with co-workers at Dilko (even though there's only one other American besides Leyla and I). I made home-made invitations for everyone that were really cute. :)
We are still trying to figure out if we can get a turkey, but more importantly if we will be able to cook it...Regardless of if we get a turkey I'm planning on making some stuffing, salsa, a salad, and probably a pie. If we get a turkey i'll probably be the one to season it and cook it... even though I've never done that before! haha. It'll all turn out great, even if not absolutely perfect. Here's hoping it's a success!
Saturday is Teacher's day here, so my students made me come to class today even though I don't teach them today. They had gotten my co-teacher and I gifts, and one student made a cake and they had coke to drink. It was really fun, and at that moment it did feel like Thanksgiving for a moment because I was very thankful to be here.
We are still trying to figure out if we can get a turkey, but more importantly if we will be able to cook it...Regardless of if we get a turkey I'm planning on making some stuffing, salsa, a salad, and probably a pie. If we get a turkey i'll probably be the one to season it and cook it... even though I've never done that before! haha. It'll all turn out great, even if not absolutely perfect. Here's hoping it's a success!
Saturday is Teacher's day here, so my students made me come to class today even though I don't teach them today. They had gotten my co-teacher and I gifts, and one student made a cake and they had coke to drink. It was really fun, and at that moment it did feel like Thanksgiving for a moment because I was very thankful to be here.
04 November 2007
Halloween
Wow it's been forever since I've written in here! Things have been pretty crazy here - but nothing noteworthy has been happening, just working. I was really sad about not being home lately because fall is my favorite season and I absolutely love doing things like seeing the leaves change colors, going to apple orchards, drinking fresh hot apple cider, picking out a pumpkin and carving it... and here they don't really have pumpkins like we do... they are huge and white and ugly and they sell them by the kilo- people just buy a chunk to cook with, they don't buy the whole one... but I asked how much the whole thing was and they weighed it and it was 38 YTL!! (32 dollars) I scratched that and did the next best thing I could think of... I bought a watermelon. And carved it. Yep, you heard me right! haha, I felt oh so ridiculous, but it was beautiful. Then we used it at the Dilko Halloween party and it was great.
Posing for a picture with Pinar (the sweet sweet office lady that gives us board markers when we need them, etc), two of my students, and co-worker Anthony at the Halloween party.
My beautiful "pumpkin" on display at the Halloween party! :)
Posing for a picture with Pinar (the sweet sweet office lady that gives us board markers when we need them, etc), two of my students, and co-worker Anthony at the Halloween party.
My beautiful "pumpkin" on display at the Halloween party! :)
20 October 2007
Picnic
Yesterday was such a gorgeous day! For the last few weeks we haven't been getting many of those, and a lot of days have been down right cold. So we welcomed the sun by going for a picnic. Anthony, Kevin, Natalie and I went to the grocery store, and then headed to Florya with a blanket in tow. Florya is just two stops away on the train, and it has a really nice park by the sea. It was a wonderful time of lying in the sun, eating sandwiches, pita bread and hummus and swinging on the swings.
After that I was supposed to head to Taksim for church. Traffic has been really bad lately, and I stood in line for a whole hour to catch the dolmuş! While I was waiting in line, a bird pooped on my head - twice!! Then, the ride was over an hour (its usually 15 mins). Church starts at 8:00, and I got in line at 6:30 and arrived at church at 8:50! So much for that.
It was a nice day off, and now back to the weekend grind at work. blah.
p.s. Please please please nobody tell me the outcome of the Michigan game tonight - Im going to download it and i really dont want to know what happens!
After that I was supposed to head to Taksim for church. Traffic has been really bad lately, and I stood in line for a whole hour to catch the dolmuş! While I was waiting in line, a bird pooped on my head - twice!! Then, the ride was over an hour (its usually 15 mins). Church starts at 8:00, and I got in line at 6:30 and arrived at church at 8:50! So much for that.
It was a nice day off, and now back to the weekend grind at work. blah.
p.s. Please please please nobody tell me the outcome of the Michigan game tonight - Im going to download it and i really dont want to know what happens!
16 October 2007
Wed 10/10/07 – 10:38pm
We are now on the train headed for Bucharest. Which might as well be Iran as backwards as this trip has been thus far. It all started with Natalie and I being assigned a room with an old Romanian woman. We were quite disappointed because we were awaiting the arrival the third in our party, Sophia, and we were hoping to get a room to ourselves. We decided to put our luggage in the room and get back off the train to wait for her, hoping that we could get the conductor to put us together later.
Soon after we disembarked from the train, Sophia arrived with Cihat. After much discussion in English, Turkish, and Romanian, we were escorted into the first class cabin which slept three instead of six. We diligently lugged our luggage through the train from the room with the crazy old woman who had already organized the room, oranges and all, to where we thought we’d be staying for the night. When we got there, Cihat was negotiating with the man, who now decided he wanted some money. We agreed to pay him 20 Euros for our “upgrade,” but when Cihat brought him a 50 Euro bill he decided that 20 wasn’t enough! So, we dutifully took our luggage and lugged it back to the room with the oranges, only to find that not only was that crazy lady there, but there was another set of luggage in the room! We eventually got assigned to the next room over, which only had one woman. She is lying down on her bed, and looks up every 10 mins or so to speak to us in Romanian, trying to get us to go to sleep. We just look away, down, start eating or start knitting when she does this. There also was a nose-picking incident. Picture of the crazy sleeping woman is to follow.
10:47
Sophia has just arrived back from a walk around the train. The story to follow might shock you. Oh wait, this is Turkey.
You may remember the man who agreed to let us on the first class car so we could be together, only to change his mind two minutes later? Well, when Sophia was walking by, he gestured for her to come over to him and sit down in his private room. Confused, but thinking only of that private room, and hoping for him to be a gentleman, she sat down. She asked if it was about the room, and he said yes. He proceeded to look her up and down and lick his lips hungrily. She offered him money instead. He said, “bring it then.” She left, never to return again.
Yuck.
Thurs 10/11/07 – 11:27am
We have survived a grueling night on the train from you know where. We were awoken countless times to people pounding on our door asking for our tickets or our passports. Once a cruel-looking man even took Natalie and my passports and didn’t come back for half an hour! This made me very nervous. When he did return, he had a stack of passports and made me pick through to choose mine, and then tried to give Natalie a man’s passport! Then he apparently forgot where one of the passport owners was at because he was convinced that there was another American in the room with us. Where we were hiding this mysterious American, I don’t know. Finally he moved on, where he hopefully returned the passport to its owner.
Besides annoying wake-up calls, we also have been subjected to the curious eating habits of our local companion. Not only has she sucked whole tomatoes and cucumbers (and when I say sucked, I mean sucked), but she also thinks that the curtains in our room are her personal hand-towels. After one of the infamous wake-up calls at around 5am, she decided to rustle through her bags and find the most reeking food possible to consume, which made the whole cabin smell of the foul substance. When she left the room for a few seconds, we were forced to retaliate the only way we knew how: spray a ton of deodorant in the cabin. After that it was a little hard to breathe, but it was a welcome problem opposed to the foul stench that we had to deal with before.
Right now, she is busy chowing down on pumpkin seeds and water that she keeps putting mint candy in for flavor. Once she has a pile of pumpkin seeds 5 inches high, she opens the window and throws them out. This is in between her staring at the mysterious white object on my lap.
Now she’s folding all of our linens… God only knows why.
Friday 10/12/07 9:38pm
Well, it’s been awhile and a lot has happened. 20 hours on the train… that was interesting. We eventually left Mama’s compartment and found one by ourselves. That was a nice change. Once we found out how to turn the heater off (kick it forcefully for ten minutes…) it was quite pleasant. We didn’t think it would be much longer after that, but it felt like an eternity. The rest of the trip consisted of running out of battery power while trying to watch a movie, trying to avoid drinking water so that we didn’t have to use the hellish toilet, and going insane trying to predict the time we would make it in to Bucharest.
When we finally made it to the train station in Bucharest, it was as if our minds had been switched off and we were suddenly very confused about how to proceed, standing on the roadside with our luggage. We just started in all directions, not sure what to do first. We tried to change our Turkish Lira for Romanian money (Leis), only to find that it is unwelcome in this country. Nobody exchanges it. I take that back, one place takes YTL but it’s at about half the real rate. We weren’t willing to make that kind of a sacrifice, so money has been a huge problem this whole time. We vaguely figured out the metro station and decided to follow the advice of some girls on the street and head to the University area. We really had no clue where we were headed. Our aims were: food, shelter, and most importantly a shower. Little did we know, we wouldn’t receive these until much later. We made it to the University area and wandered the uneven streets aimlessly, in the dark, with our luggage, for about an hour searching for any sign of a hostel. We found what was called a hostel, but was really a hotel masquerading as a hostel, and were told that for 60 Euros we could come back in two hours and get a room with a “king” size bed. We decided to take our chances and lug our suitcases around some more to try to find something else. We didn’t. We did find Helga, a nice woman who worked at a travel agency. She was very kind to us and let us leave our luggage there while we got some food (from Sheriff’s- the best food in town, which was completely awful) and went back to the place to get the room. Then, when we came back to get the luggage she gave us cake and told us many places we should visit around there. Then, she decided to just take us and show us the places, and it ended up being quite interesting, as she explained to us a lot of the history of the area as we walked.
After that, we went back to the “hostel.” We were greeted by a “king” size bed with a nice tiger print blanket on top with two pillows (we asked for another pillow, and they didn’t have any, but later we found an extra one in a closet with no pillow case. I had to put a t-shirt on the pillow as a pillowcase!). We were assured by the young boy working the place that the bed was indeed big enough for us all as he pulled back the blankets to show us. We got to know each other very well that night.
We awoke expecting breakfast for three, but that would be too perfect. We were told it was breakfast for one. We decided to just forget it and get the heck out of there. We hauled out luggage back to the train station area and began searching for tourist info, bus info, exchange places, anyone that could give us any sort of direction of what to do next. Eventually we located a hostel I found online while using my ten minutes of free wi-fi for the day. The nice lady gave us good information and advice to go to Brasov by train. That’s exactly what we did. We ended up catching the train one second before it pulled away from the station (it started moving while Natalie was getting on).
Since we got on while it was moving we had to get on at the front car, and not where our tickets were assigned. We didn’t think of that and just sat down in the first seats available. When the conductor came around to check our tickets he looked at us like we were crazy and told us that we were second class, this is first class (he didn’t say it in English, but after a few minutes we figured out what he was saying). Again, we ended up lugging our luggage through the train (which seemed endless). This train was about 2 and a half hours long, but had very pleasant scenery with mountains and trees that were beautifully changing colors. We didn’t have any money because we used all of the Leis we had on the tickets, and we didn’t eat breakfast or lunch (again) before we got on the train. We did have a few Leis between the three of us, and managed to get a few waters about an hour into the journey.
We were accosted as soon as we got off the train by a woman about going to stay at her hostel. Being weary and desperate to dump our luggage, we agreed and got on the first bus that went that way. What we found on the ride to the hostel is that the city was absolutely gorgeous! We right away wished that we had come last night and had the whole day to explore instead of arriving in the early evening.
The hostel was very nice, and the girl who was working was very helpful. Armed with the map she gave to us, and not much else, we attempted another sightseeing excursion (only to find everything closed when we got there). We were starving and discouraged, so we decided to try to get some money. This only served to make us want to sit at a pub and drink ourselves into a stupor, as it reinforced the fact that indeed nobody here takes Turkish Lira and we couldn’t get anyone to take Natalie’s Traveler’s Checks. We borrowed money from Sophia to get some dinner at an unimpressive restaurant, and are hoping that in the morning we can get the traveler’s check cashed, or we will draw money from the atm before the tour to Bran Castle. We spent the evening wandering around the town, exploring, and now we are at the hostel ready to get to bed early so that we can wake up and do some more exploring. Hopefully we will find out about getting a bus from here to Istanbul in 12 hrs (instead of 2 ½ hr train to Bucharest, then 20 hours).
Saturday 10/13/07 – 6:40pm
The worst thing about a hostel situation is the likelihood of ending up sharing a room with a heinous snorer. Oh boy did we end up with one. He definitely had sleep-apnea and so, for us, sleep was hard to come by. I really couldn’t tell you what time it was that I ended up drifting off to sleep. When Natalie got up at 7:15am I was sure that it was 4 or 5 am. It was still dark outside (due to the crappy weather that was to follow). Amazingly enough the snorer was no longer snoring… we thought maybe he was dead.
We quickly got around and headed out on a mission for money. I had been praying for an open bank/atm, and sure enough none of them opened until 9am. Miraculously, we spotted a door to an atm vestibule that was ajar! We were able to get money (reluctantly though, as we really didn’t want to have to draw out money – dang Turkish lira!!).
We headed back in a rush, through the wind and rain, towards the hostel because our “tour” was supposed to leave at 9 am. We found out that our tour was basically us in a van with a driver and one other passenger. No guided tour… he just dropped us off at the places, pretended to buy tickets (he must have had an arrangement with friends because they just let us in, there were no tickets) and had us pay him later. Very sketchy. He even charged us the ‘camera use’ fee that the legitimate ticket places charge (although he “organized” a discount rate)!!
The first stop on the “tour” was a citadel in the Carpathian Mts. It was an area where the movie Cold Mountain was supposedly filmed. The area itself was breathtaking (what we could see through the fog anyway). The citadel was interesting also. There were human skeletons, torture devices, creepy pictures drawn in the 17th century of various tortures and demonic activity, and other artifacts from different times since the 1300’s.
From the citadel, we arrived at Bran Castle, which is mistakenly referred to as Dracula’s castle. It was nice enough, but fairly dull. There was nothing there about Vlad Tepes (who the character Dracula is loosely based after), but just had some old furniture belonging to royalty. We then walked through the market in the rain, where there were over-priced souvenirs and places selling pastries, both of which we bought.
We arrived back at the hostel only to find out that the bus company (which the lady from the hostel was supposed to be calling while we were gone) did not answer. In hopes of finding this elusive night bus directly back to Istanbul, we again ventured out in the wind and rain. When we got to the main square everything was closing for the day. At 2pm on a Saturday. That was disconcerting, to say the least. Disheartened, we decided we needed comfort food – McDonalds’ it was.
Refreshed and resigned to the fact that we were going to have to spend another night in Romania, we headed back to get our luggage from the hostel and then off to the train station to catch the train to Bucharest. On the way, we stopped at the Black Church (which has the largest organ in Europe, so they claim). That was pretty enough, but mainly we wanted to see it because we had walked by it so many times wanting to get in but it was always closed.
We are now on the train to Bucharest (such an ugly city!!!) where we will hopefully get a bus back to Istanbul tomorrow evening, which will put us in Istanbul at 5am, which is 4 ½ hours before we have to teach. We spent the first half hour of this journey in an unheated car of the train before they told us we could move. We are now nice and cozy and plan to sleep the rest of the way there.
Monday 10/15/07 1:40pm
Well, that last sentence couldn’t be further from what actually happened after I closed my laptop and ran out of battery! I’m running on 2 hours of sleep, so I don’t know how much I will type about the whole experience right now…
After I closed my laptop, we had about a half hour of peace and quiet and then the train stopped. I woke up because we were stopped so long and I was a bit confused. We stayed at that stop for about an hour and then the workers came around and told us that there was an accident on the tracks ahead of us and that we have to wait until they clear the tracks. We were starving at this point and had no water to drink, so we were going mad. They told us that it would be about 80 more minutes! We really wanted something to eat and/or drink, and so Sophia went to look around to see if there might be a dining cart on the train or if it were possible to hop off the train and get something. A few minutes later she reappears, excited, and says “Come! We can get food!” I stayed with the luggage, not knowing what was going on. About six minutes after they left, the train started moving… My first thought was, “I hope to God they didn’t get off the train,” and my second was, “No way, that couldn’t happen.” I guess you should always trust your first instinct. We stopped at the next stop 10 minutes down the line for another half hour. By the time the train started moving again I started to freak out a little. This couldn’t be happening, all we wanted was a bite to eat and to get back in Bucharest and dump our luggage and explore a little more. So much for that idea. Bucharest was about two hours away still about this time, and I’m running every scenario possible through my head over and over. It was really hard for me to fight back the tears. I was worried for myself being left alone with all the luggage on a train headed to a not-so-nice city, but I was really worried for them. If they had gotten off the train, how would they get to Bucharest? Maybe they could get the station to call the train and make it stop. The further and further away we got from where we had stopped the more unrealistic this began to seem. I went into hysterics for a minute or two where I just couldn’t stop laughing… everything that had happened so far and now this? And I kept picturing them getting off, buying food, and then coming back to where the train used to be and saying, “Um… where’s the train??” I just prayed for about an hour and a half straight. I don’t think I’ve prayed this hard in years. I’m not even kidding. I started to feel calm about the situation, realizing that I would have to ask the girl next to us if she would help me with the baggage. I would then try to get to the hostel and get a bed and dump the luggage, then come back and wait for them. I knew they would either look for me at the train or the hostel, if they could even get a ride that is.
I disembarked the train, and as soon as we popped the handles up on the suitcases I looked towards the station and a few yards ahead I saw Sophia! All I could do was yell, “What the heck happened to you guys???” It turns out that there was a whole lot of nothing at the place where they had been left. There were no taxis, no busses, and only one man working in the train station… and he didn’t speak English. They tried to get him to radio the train but he just didn’t understand what they were talking about. Luckily there was a woman standing nearby who said that she was waiting for someone to pick her up and take her to the airport in Bucharest and that he would probably give them a ride. Talk about an answer to prayer!!! They got in the car (which just happened to be a type of car that we had been fascinated with the whole time we were in Romania, we can’t figure out what make it is but it’s quite a ridiculous looking car, we even took a picture next to one at the citadel in Bran) and the gas light was on. This made them even more worried that they were going to break down on the side of the road in an even more “nowhere” place! The gas held out, however, and they made it to the station at the EXACT time I did! They thought I would have made it sooner, but since the train kept stopping along the way I didn’t. Amazing. We were overjoyed to say the least.
Tuesday 10/16/07 – 1:05pm
Well now that I’ve slept a full night’s sleep I have the energy to finish the blog. After we were reunited at the train station, we were so excited and really felt like nothing else could go wrong now. We headed towards the hostel that we had visited when we were in Bucharest last time. We drug our suitcases through the pouring rain, violently shivering the whole way. When we finally got there, all of the lights were off and it looked as if nobody was there! It’s a hostel, and a Saturday night… so we rang the doorbell, several times. Nobody came. We just couldn’t believe it. We turned around and headed back to the train station, not sure of what our next move would be. Walking back through the alley that we came from, ahead of us we saw two dogs. They were probably spooked by the sound of our suitcases rolling loudly over the cobblestone stree, because they started to freak out and bark at us and follow us! It was so scary.
It was about 11:30pm now, and we really didn’t want to spend the money to stay at a hotel, but that was really our only option. We headed toward the hotel across from the train station and went inside to check it out. By this time, we really did look like drowned rats, and it was a little embarrassing going into the nice hotel looking as we did. They said they didn’t have any rooms for three people (what a surprise) but that we could take the two person one and pay 10Euro more (75 Euro total). We really didn’t want to pay this much, so we had Sophia stay with the bags and Natalie and I went into the rain again to find out the price at the only other hotel around. It turns out that the other hotel was 110 Euro per night. We came back, deciding that we would take the room, and when we went to pay the girl said it wouldn’t be possible. She said that the shift manager had said no to us three being in one bed!! By now, we just couldn’t believe our luck and were really clueless as to what to do next. It was 12am and they were telling us that we would have to take a suite for 120 Euro! Just for a few hours sleep and a shower! We looked at a little booklet of things to do in Bucharest that they had lying there, and they had one hostel advertised. We asked the lady at the desk if she could call for us, and told her we were really desperate. She did, and found out that this place had exactly three beds left! It was on the other side of town so we had to take a taxi, and it was kind of hard to find, but it was a warm bed and a shower! When we arrived everyone was already sleeping in the room, so we decided that we would go to bed and shower in the morning. By the time we were ready for bed (after 1am) we climbed up into the bunks only to discover that the beds aren’t made, the linens are just folded on top! So, in the dark, in a room full of sleeping people, and on a top bunk, we had to make our beds and put pillowcases. We caused such a ruckus and it was so embarrassing.
The next order of business was to get the heck out of Romania by getting up and going back to the train station area and securing a bus to Istanbul. We were very happy when the lady at the Toros counter said there was a bus leaving at 3:30 that afternoon. The feeling faded when she told us that it was a smoking bus!! 12 hours cooped up with no open windows in a bus with people smoking… unbelievable! By the end of the trip my eyes were so red and burning from the smoke and I felt like I was going to puke. The bus ride itself was pretty awful, as they only stopped twice (unless you count the two times the sexist pig of a driver pulled over to the side of the road so that he, and any other males, could hop off and pee…), and we had many old ladies on the bus, and they were shoving tea and coffee and soda down our throats, not informing us that we would then have to hold it for 5 hours at a time! We finally made it to the Turkish border and I was so happy! We were almost home, and bed started to seem like a tangible thing. We got through passport control pretty quickly and then we drove for awhile and all we could see out the window was about 25 tour buses parked with people standing outside smoking. Further up you could see two buses at a time with all of the people lined up outside with their luggage open getting checked. That was 2 ½ hours of waiting and freezing.
I rolled into Bakirkoy at 5:30am, and I couldn’t have been happier to be “home.” Of course I had to teach at 9:30am, but it was better than being stuck on a smoking bus in Romania.
-sorry the pics in the slideshow arent the best quality they somehow got blurry in the process of making the slideshow in iphoto, exporting the file, uploading it to google video, and embedding it here.. so yeah i dont know why they suck now...
We are now on the train headed for Bucharest. Which might as well be Iran as backwards as this trip has been thus far. It all started with Natalie and I being assigned a room with an old Romanian woman. We were quite disappointed because we were awaiting the arrival the third in our party, Sophia, and we were hoping to get a room to ourselves. We decided to put our luggage in the room and get back off the train to wait for her, hoping that we could get the conductor to put us together later.
Soon after we disembarked from the train, Sophia arrived with Cihat. After much discussion in English, Turkish, and Romanian, we were escorted into the first class cabin which slept three instead of six. We diligently lugged our luggage through the train from the room with the crazy old woman who had already organized the room, oranges and all, to where we thought we’d be staying for the night. When we got there, Cihat was negotiating with the man, who now decided he wanted some money. We agreed to pay him 20 Euros for our “upgrade,” but when Cihat brought him a 50 Euro bill he decided that 20 wasn’t enough! So, we dutifully took our luggage and lugged it back to the room with the oranges, only to find that not only was that crazy lady there, but there was another set of luggage in the room! We eventually got assigned to the next room over, which only had one woman. She is lying down on her bed, and looks up every 10 mins or so to speak to us in Romanian, trying to get us to go to sleep. We just look away, down, start eating or start knitting when she does this. There also was a nose-picking incident. Picture of the crazy sleeping woman is to follow.
10:47
Sophia has just arrived back from a walk around the train. The story to follow might shock you. Oh wait, this is Turkey.
You may remember the man who agreed to let us on the first class car so we could be together, only to change his mind two minutes later? Well, when Sophia was walking by, he gestured for her to come over to him and sit down in his private room. Confused, but thinking only of that private room, and hoping for him to be a gentleman, she sat down. She asked if it was about the room, and he said yes. He proceeded to look her up and down and lick his lips hungrily. She offered him money instead. He said, “bring it then.” She left, never to return again.
Yuck.
Thurs 10/11/07 – 11:27am
We have survived a grueling night on the train from you know where. We were awoken countless times to people pounding on our door asking for our tickets or our passports. Once a cruel-looking man even took Natalie and my passports and didn’t come back for half an hour! This made me very nervous. When he did return, he had a stack of passports and made me pick through to choose mine, and then tried to give Natalie a man’s passport! Then he apparently forgot where one of the passport owners was at because he was convinced that there was another American in the room with us. Where we were hiding this mysterious American, I don’t know. Finally he moved on, where he hopefully returned the passport to its owner.
Besides annoying wake-up calls, we also have been subjected to the curious eating habits of our local companion. Not only has she sucked whole tomatoes and cucumbers (and when I say sucked, I mean sucked), but she also thinks that the curtains in our room are her personal hand-towels. After one of the infamous wake-up calls at around 5am, she decided to rustle through her bags and find the most reeking food possible to consume, which made the whole cabin smell of the foul substance. When she left the room for a few seconds, we were forced to retaliate the only way we knew how: spray a ton of deodorant in the cabin. After that it was a little hard to breathe, but it was a welcome problem opposed to the foul stench that we had to deal with before.
Right now, she is busy chowing down on pumpkin seeds and water that she keeps putting mint candy in for flavor. Once she has a pile of pumpkin seeds 5 inches high, she opens the window and throws them out. This is in between her staring at the mysterious white object on my lap.
Now she’s folding all of our linens… God only knows why.
Friday 10/12/07 9:38pm
Well, it’s been awhile and a lot has happened. 20 hours on the train… that was interesting. We eventually left Mama’s compartment and found one by ourselves. That was a nice change. Once we found out how to turn the heater off (kick it forcefully for ten minutes…) it was quite pleasant. We didn’t think it would be much longer after that, but it felt like an eternity. The rest of the trip consisted of running out of battery power while trying to watch a movie, trying to avoid drinking water so that we didn’t have to use the hellish toilet, and going insane trying to predict the time we would make it in to Bucharest.
When we finally made it to the train station in Bucharest, it was as if our minds had been switched off and we were suddenly very confused about how to proceed, standing on the roadside with our luggage. We just started in all directions, not sure what to do first. We tried to change our Turkish Lira for Romanian money (Leis), only to find that it is unwelcome in this country. Nobody exchanges it. I take that back, one place takes YTL but it’s at about half the real rate. We weren’t willing to make that kind of a sacrifice, so money has been a huge problem this whole time. We vaguely figured out the metro station and decided to follow the advice of some girls on the street and head to the University area. We really had no clue where we were headed. Our aims were: food, shelter, and most importantly a shower. Little did we know, we wouldn’t receive these until much later. We made it to the University area and wandered the uneven streets aimlessly, in the dark, with our luggage, for about an hour searching for any sign of a hostel. We found what was called a hostel, but was really a hotel masquerading as a hostel, and were told that for 60 Euros we could come back in two hours and get a room with a “king” size bed. We decided to take our chances and lug our suitcases around some more to try to find something else. We didn’t. We did find Helga, a nice woman who worked at a travel agency. She was very kind to us and let us leave our luggage there while we got some food (from Sheriff’s- the best food in town, which was completely awful) and went back to the place to get the room. Then, when we came back to get the luggage she gave us cake and told us many places we should visit around there. Then, she decided to just take us and show us the places, and it ended up being quite interesting, as she explained to us a lot of the history of the area as we walked.
After that, we went back to the “hostel.” We were greeted by a “king” size bed with a nice tiger print blanket on top with two pillows (we asked for another pillow, and they didn’t have any, but later we found an extra one in a closet with no pillow case. I had to put a t-shirt on the pillow as a pillowcase!). We were assured by the young boy working the place that the bed was indeed big enough for us all as he pulled back the blankets to show us. We got to know each other very well that night.
We awoke expecting breakfast for three, but that would be too perfect. We were told it was breakfast for one. We decided to just forget it and get the heck out of there. We hauled out luggage back to the train station area and began searching for tourist info, bus info, exchange places, anyone that could give us any sort of direction of what to do next. Eventually we located a hostel I found online while using my ten minutes of free wi-fi for the day. The nice lady gave us good information and advice to go to Brasov by train. That’s exactly what we did. We ended up catching the train one second before it pulled away from the station (it started moving while Natalie was getting on).
Since we got on while it was moving we had to get on at the front car, and not where our tickets were assigned. We didn’t think of that and just sat down in the first seats available. When the conductor came around to check our tickets he looked at us like we were crazy and told us that we were second class, this is first class (he didn’t say it in English, but after a few minutes we figured out what he was saying). Again, we ended up lugging our luggage through the train (which seemed endless). This train was about 2 and a half hours long, but had very pleasant scenery with mountains and trees that were beautifully changing colors. We didn’t have any money because we used all of the Leis we had on the tickets, and we didn’t eat breakfast or lunch (again) before we got on the train. We did have a few Leis between the three of us, and managed to get a few waters about an hour into the journey.
We were accosted as soon as we got off the train by a woman about going to stay at her hostel. Being weary and desperate to dump our luggage, we agreed and got on the first bus that went that way. What we found on the ride to the hostel is that the city was absolutely gorgeous! We right away wished that we had come last night and had the whole day to explore instead of arriving in the early evening.
The hostel was very nice, and the girl who was working was very helpful. Armed with the map she gave to us, and not much else, we attempted another sightseeing excursion (only to find everything closed when we got there). We were starving and discouraged, so we decided to try to get some money. This only served to make us want to sit at a pub and drink ourselves into a stupor, as it reinforced the fact that indeed nobody here takes Turkish Lira and we couldn’t get anyone to take Natalie’s Traveler’s Checks. We borrowed money from Sophia to get some dinner at an unimpressive restaurant, and are hoping that in the morning we can get the traveler’s check cashed, or we will draw money from the atm before the tour to Bran Castle. We spent the evening wandering around the town, exploring, and now we are at the hostel ready to get to bed early so that we can wake up and do some more exploring. Hopefully we will find out about getting a bus from here to Istanbul in 12 hrs (instead of 2 ½ hr train to Bucharest, then 20 hours).
Saturday 10/13/07 – 6:40pm
The worst thing about a hostel situation is the likelihood of ending up sharing a room with a heinous snorer. Oh boy did we end up with one. He definitely had sleep-apnea and so, for us, sleep was hard to come by. I really couldn’t tell you what time it was that I ended up drifting off to sleep. When Natalie got up at 7:15am I was sure that it was 4 or 5 am. It was still dark outside (due to the crappy weather that was to follow). Amazingly enough the snorer was no longer snoring… we thought maybe he was dead.
We quickly got around and headed out on a mission for money. I had been praying for an open bank/atm, and sure enough none of them opened until 9am. Miraculously, we spotted a door to an atm vestibule that was ajar! We were able to get money (reluctantly though, as we really didn’t want to have to draw out money – dang Turkish lira!!).
We headed back in a rush, through the wind and rain, towards the hostel because our “tour” was supposed to leave at 9 am. We found out that our tour was basically us in a van with a driver and one other passenger. No guided tour… he just dropped us off at the places, pretended to buy tickets (he must have had an arrangement with friends because they just let us in, there were no tickets) and had us pay him later. Very sketchy. He even charged us the ‘camera use’ fee that the legitimate ticket places charge (although he “organized” a discount rate)!!
The first stop on the “tour” was a citadel in the Carpathian Mts. It was an area where the movie Cold Mountain was supposedly filmed. The area itself was breathtaking (what we could see through the fog anyway). The citadel was interesting also. There were human skeletons, torture devices, creepy pictures drawn in the 17th century of various tortures and demonic activity, and other artifacts from different times since the 1300’s.
From the citadel, we arrived at Bran Castle, which is mistakenly referred to as Dracula’s castle. It was nice enough, but fairly dull. There was nothing there about Vlad Tepes (who the character Dracula is loosely based after), but just had some old furniture belonging to royalty. We then walked through the market in the rain, where there were over-priced souvenirs and places selling pastries, both of which we bought.
We arrived back at the hostel only to find out that the bus company (which the lady from the hostel was supposed to be calling while we were gone) did not answer. In hopes of finding this elusive night bus directly back to Istanbul, we again ventured out in the wind and rain. When we got to the main square everything was closing for the day. At 2pm on a Saturday. That was disconcerting, to say the least. Disheartened, we decided we needed comfort food – McDonalds’ it was.
Refreshed and resigned to the fact that we were going to have to spend another night in Romania, we headed back to get our luggage from the hostel and then off to the train station to catch the train to Bucharest. On the way, we stopped at the Black Church (which has the largest organ in Europe, so they claim). That was pretty enough, but mainly we wanted to see it because we had walked by it so many times wanting to get in but it was always closed.
We are now on the train to Bucharest (such an ugly city!!!) where we will hopefully get a bus back to Istanbul tomorrow evening, which will put us in Istanbul at 5am, which is 4 ½ hours before we have to teach. We spent the first half hour of this journey in an unheated car of the train before they told us we could move. We are now nice and cozy and plan to sleep the rest of the way there.
Monday 10/15/07 1:40pm
Well, that last sentence couldn’t be further from what actually happened after I closed my laptop and ran out of battery! I’m running on 2 hours of sleep, so I don’t know how much I will type about the whole experience right now…
After I closed my laptop, we had about a half hour of peace and quiet and then the train stopped. I woke up because we were stopped so long and I was a bit confused. We stayed at that stop for about an hour and then the workers came around and told us that there was an accident on the tracks ahead of us and that we have to wait until they clear the tracks. We were starving at this point and had no water to drink, so we were going mad. They told us that it would be about 80 more minutes! We really wanted something to eat and/or drink, and so Sophia went to look around to see if there might be a dining cart on the train or if it were possible to hop off the train and get something. A few minutes later she reappears, excited, and says “Come! We can get food!” I stayed with the luggage, not knowing what was going on. About six minutes after they left, the train started moving… My first thought was, “I hope to God they didn’t get off the train,” and my second was, “No way, that couldn’t happen.” I guess you should always trust your first instinct. We stopped at the next stop 10 minutes down the line for another half hour. By the time the train started moving again I started to freak out a little. This couldn’t be happening, all we wanted was a bite to eat and to get back in Bucharest and dump our luggage and explore a little more. So much for that idea. Bucharest was about two hours away still about this time, and I’m running every scenario possible through my head over and over. It was really hard for me to fight back the tears. I was worried for myself being left alone with all the luggage on a train headed to a not-so-nice city, but I was really worried for them. If they had gotten off the train, how would they get to Bucharest? Maybe they could get the station to call the train and make it stop. The further and further away we got from where we had stopped the more unrealistic this began to seem. I went into hysterics for a minute or two where I just couldn’t stop laughing… everything that had happened so far and now this? And I kept picturing them getting off, buying food, and then coming back to where the train used to be and saying, “Um… where’s the train??” I just prayed for about an hour and a half straight. I don’t think I’ve prayed this hard in years. I’m not even kidding. I started to feel calm about the situation, realizing that I would have to ask the girl next to us if she would help me with the baggage. I would then try to get to the hostel and get a bed and dump the luggage, then come back and wait for them. I knew they would either look for me at the train or the hostel, if they could even get a ride that is.
I disembarked the train, and as soon as we popped the handles up on the suitcases I looked towards the station and a few yards ahead I saw Sophia! All I could do was yell, “What the heck happened to you guys???” It turns out that there was a whole lot of nothing at the place where they had been left. There were no taxis, no busses, and only one man working in the train station… and he didn’t speak English. They tried to get him to radio the train but he just didn’t understand what they were talking about. Luckily there was a woman standing nearby who said that she was waiting for someone to pick her up and take her to the airport in Bucharest and that he would probably give them a ride. Talk about an answer to prayer!!! They got in the car (which just happened to be a type of car that we had been fascinated with the whole time we were in Romania, we can’t figure out what make it is but it’s quite a ridiculous looking car, we even took a picture next to one at the citadel in Bran) and the gas light was on. This made them even more worried that they were going to break down on the side of the road in an even more “nowhere” place! The gas held out, however, and they made it to the station at the EXACT time I did! They thought I would have made it sooner, but since the train kept stopping along the way I didn’t. Amazing. We were overjoyed to say the least.
Tuesday 10/16/07 – 1:05pm
Well now that I’ve slept a full night’s sleep I have the energy to finish the blog. After we were reunited at the train station, we were so excited and really felt like nothing else could go wrong now. We headed towards the hostel that we had visited when we were in Bucharest last time. We drug our suitcases through the pouring rain, violently shivering the whole way. When we finally got there, all of the lights were off and it looked as if nobody was there! It’s a hostel, and a Saturday night… so we rang the doorbell, several times. Nobody came. We just couldn’t believe it. We turned around and headed back to the train station, not sure of what our next move would be. Walking back through the alley that we came from, ahead of us we saw two dogs. They were probably spooked by the sound of our suitcases rolling loudly over the cobblestone stree, because they started to freak out and bark at us and follow us! It was so scary.
It was about 11:30pm now, and we really didn’t want to spend the money to stay at a hotel, but that was really our only option. We headed toward the hotel across from the train station and went inside to check it out. By this time, we really did look like drowned rats, and it was a little embarrassing going into the nice hotel looking as we did. They said they didn’t have any rooms for three people (what a surprise) but that we could take the two person one and pay 10Euro more (75 Euro total). We really didn’t want to pay this much, so we had Sophia stay with the bags and Natalie and I went into the rain again to find out the price at the only other hotel around. It turns out that the other hotel was 110 Euro per night. We came back, deciding that we would take the room, and when we went to pay the girl said it wouldn’t be possible. She said that the shift manager had said no to us three being in one bed!! By now, we just couldn’t believe our luck and were really clueless as to what to do next. It was 12am and they were telling us that we would have to take a suite for 120 Euro! Just for a few hours sleep and a shower! We looked at a little booklet of things to do in Bucharest that they had lying there, and they had one hostel advertised. We asked the lady at the desk if she could call for us, and told her we were really desperate. She did, and found out that this place had exactly three beds left! It was on the other side of town so we had to take a taxi, and it was kind of hard to find, but it was a warm bed and a shower! When we arrived everyone was already sleeping in the room, so we decided that we would go to bed and shower in the morning. By the time we were ready for bed (after 1am) we climbed up into the bunks only to discover that the beds aren’t made, the linens are just folded on top! So, in the dark, in a room full of sleeping people, and on a top bunk, we had to make our beds and put pillowcases. We caused such a ruckus and it was so embarrassing.
The next order of business was to get the heck out of Romania by getting up and going back to the train station area and securing a bus to Istanbul. We were very happy when the lady at the Toros counter said there was a bus leaving at 3:30 that afternoon. The feeling faded when she told us that it was a smoking bus!! 12 hours cooped up with no open windows in a bus with people smoking… unbelievable! By the end of the trip my eyes were so red and burning from the smoke and I felt like I was going to puke. The bus ride itself was pretty awful, as they only stopped twice (unless you count the two times the sexist pig of a driver pulled over to the side of the road so that he, and any other males, could hop off and pee…), and we had many old ladies on the bus, and they were shoving tea and coffee and soda down our throats, not informing us that we would then have to hold it for 5 hours at a time! We finally made it to the Turkish border and I was so happy! We were almost home, and bed started to seem like a tangible thing. We got through passport control pretty quickly and then we drove for awhile and all we could see out the window was about 25 tour buses parked with people standing outside smoking. Further up you could see two buses at a time with all of the people lined up outside with their luggage open getting checked. That was 2 ½ hours of waiting and freezing.
I rolled into Bakirkoy at 5:30am, and I couldn’t have been happier to be “home.” Of course I had to teach at 9:30am, but it was better than being stuck on a smoking bus in Romania.
-sorry the pics in the slideshow arent the best quality they somehow got blurry in the process of making the slideshow in iphoto, exporting the file, uploading it to google video, and embedding it here.. so yeah i dont know why they suck now...
06 October 2007
03 October 2007
29 September 2007
Tonight we went to Zeytinburnu to meet our friend Zeynep for dinner. We got a little lost (so what's new?) and had to wait in front of a polis station for her to come get us because we couldn't find the restaurant. We were then of course approached by a polis officer with a huge machine gun asking us what we were doing. After a huge dinner, we met Zeynep's sister for tavla and turkish coffee. We then took a mini bus back to Bakirkoy and got lost on the walk home. It was a very long night, but it was really fun.
Zeynep pretending to ready my coffee grounds after I was done.
My awesome new shirt! :)
This is for mom, the scarf I just started knitting...
This is for mom, the scarf I just started knitting...
26 September 2007
routine
I've been realizing that I'm really starting to feel at home here. I don't feel like I stick out when I walk down the street, and sometimes I forget I'm in a different country. Then, of course something quickly reminds me of where I am. But for the most part, I feel quite comfortable here. I'm not afraid of going out by myself to get lunch or go to the mall. If I go somewhere at night I obviously don't want to be alone, but other than that I feel quite safe. The other day we had a power outage, and that was one of those time where I remembered where I am. It wasn't that big of a deal, but having no lights or hot water for showering can get annoying. ;) I was really glad when it came on at 10pm last night. I was knitting until I had my last little glimmer of sunlight coming in, and then I had to surrender.. and go to Natalie's apartment across the street where there was power.
Sorry I haven't been taking any new pics. I'll try to find something interesting to snap. I've just been teaching and then hanging out watching movies in my few spare moments. Oh, and I gave my first clarinet lesson Monday. That was kinda fun. I really wish that i had a size 4 reed and my own mouth piece so I could play, too. But who really expects that they will have need of their clarinet they haven't played in 4 years in Turkey??
Love you guys. I just thought I'd update and say that things are going really well, just really busy.
Sorry I haven't been taking any new pics. I'll try to find something interesting to snap. I've just been teaching and then hanging out watching movies in my few spare moments. Oh, and I gave my first clarinet lesson Monday. That was kinda fun. I really wish that i had a size 4 reed and my own mouth piece so I could play, too. But who really expects that they will have need of their clarinet they haven't played in 4 years in Turkey??
Love you guys. I just thought I'd update and say that things are going really well, just really busy.
18 September 2007
taksim
We went to Taksim on Monday night because we all had the evening off (Leyla, me and Natalie) for dinner. After dinner we walked around a bit and found 'french street,' where there are a whole lot of cute cafes and a really great atmosphere.
Then, we wanted some coffee so we went to this roof-top çay and nargile cafe that had an amazing view.
Then, we wanted some coffee so we went to this roof-top çay and nargile cafe that had an amazing view.
14 September 2007
graffiti
I love graffiti... and tonight we kind of got lost in Taksim and found this abandoned area that was full of it.
What to say?
Hmm... I feel that I need to update this thing, it's been quite some time. However, I don't have anything interesting to say. Maybe I can think of something....
-We have two fish that we inherited from Charlotte and Stephanie. Their names are Bir and Iki (one and two in Turkish). Speaking of them, I'm gonna go feed them, I've been forgetting lately...
-Had a fun time hanging out with our co-worker Anthony last night. Watching people do stupid things on Youtube never gets old...
-I'm drinking Vişne juice and eating digestive biscuits.
-Going to Taksim tonight for the young adult group.
I'm a terrible blogger I've decided. :)
I promise I won't blog again until I have something profound to say. I don't want to expose you to how boring life is right now. haha.
God is good and we're doing well. That's all I've got. peace.
-We have two fish that we inherited from Charlotte and Stephanie. Their names are Bir and Iki (one and two in Turkish). Speaking of them, I'm gonna go feed them, I've been forgetting lately...
-Had a fun time hanging out with our co-worker Anthony last night. Watching people do stupid things on Youtube never gets old...
-I'm drinking Vişne juice and eating digestive biscuits.
-Going to Taksim tonight for the young adult group.
I'm a terrible blogger I've decided. :)
I promise I won't blog again until I have something profound to say. I don't want to expose you to how boring life is right now. haha.
God is good and we're doing well. That's all I've got. peace.
07 September 2007
Day to day life.
We just got back home from Young Adults group at the Dutch Chapel. It was a really good time. It's going to be really nice to have that group since we won't make Sunday mornings on a regular basis (or maybe ever) because of work.
One of the interesting things about being overseas is to be able to reflect on the different ways that culture shock rears it's ugly head in your life. For me, when I was in the Philippines it mostly surfaced in constant irritation with the people I was around the most, the team I was living with. Right now it's showing up mostly in the form of my emotions going crazy, especially in relating to work and how hectic my schedule is going to be. It's so hard to force yourself to take a step back and convince yourself that these are not things that deserve so much attention and are not worth getting this upset over, this is just you reacting and adjusting to the surroundings around you. Istanbul is a hard city to adjust to, especially being a single woman. But it's also a wonderful city, and I love being here. With God's grace I will adjust to life here in a healthy and appropriate way, neither being ignorant of the problems hardships of living here nor in a state of pessimism or anger towards certain people. Even just having been here over three weeks I have come across people in both of those states, and I think both are an unhealthy place to be. Ugh, I'm rambling and I don't know if anybody gets what I'm talking about... So I'll leave you and go to bed, as I need to be at school at 830am to prepare for class.
For those of you who want pics: sorry, and I'll try to get some up soon.... We might be doing something fun Monday.
One of the interesting things about being overseas is to be able to reflect on the different ways that culture shock rears it's ugly head in your life. For me, when I was in the Philippines it mostly surfaced in constant irritation with the people I was around the most, the team I was living with. Right now it's showing up mostly in the form of my emotions going crazy, especially in relating to work and how hectic my schedule is going to be. It's so hard to force yourself to take a step back and convince yourself that these are not things that deserve so much attention and are not worth getting this upset over, this is just you reacting and adjusting to the surroundings around you. Istanbul is a hard city to adjust to, especially being a single woman. But it's also a wonderful city, and I love being here. With God's grace I will adjust to life here in a healthy and appropriate way, neither being ignorant of the problems hardships of living here nor in a state of pessimism or anger towards certain people. Even just having been here over three weeks I have come across people in both of those states, and I think both are an unhealthy place to be. Ugh, I'm rambling and I don't know if anybody gets what I'm talking about... So I'll leave you and go to bed, as I need to be at school at 830am to prepare for class.
For those of you who want pics: sorry, and I'll try to get some up soon.... We might be doing something fun Monday.
05 September 2007
The other day we hung out with the Lentz family (an American family that's been living here for a long time, and that Leyla and her family know pretty well) and it was so great. We drove to a Yeşilköy, an area by the sea that is really nice and has been cleaned up so you can actually do some swimming. They played a little baseball, the kids roller bladed, and then we went back to their house and had dinner. I can't tell you how great it was for Leyla and I to hang out with a family since we can't be near our own. And seriously they live only a 15-20min walk away from us. Then yesterday Camille called and asked us if we wanted to go to a prayer meeting on the Asian side, and this was also a wonderful blessing.
This week has been a pretty good week so far, and Friday we are planning on attending the young adults group at the Dutch Chapel since we work on Sunday mornings. Work-wise I have a *brand new* class that I start tonight and do Thursday nights as well. It's literally brand new as it is elementary level... I'm quite nervous about this because I pretty much don't know any Turkish, and it's going to be hard to communicate. I also have activity club (about 45 mins of chatting about a particular topic) on Thursday. Then I have class Sat morn 4hours, Sat afternoon activity club, Sat night 3hours, and Sunday morning 4 hours. We'll see how I'm feeling Sunday evening, but as of now I'm pretty optimistic about it... ;) dunno how long that will last...
This week has been a pretty good week so far, and Friday we are planning on attending the young adults group at the Dutch Chapel since we work on Sunday mornings. Work-wise I have a *brand new* class that I start tonight and do Thursday nights as well. It's literally brand new as it is elementary level... I'm quite nervous about this because I pretty much don't know any Turkish, and it's going to be hard to communicate. I also have activity club (about 45 mins of chatting about a particular topic) on Thursday. Then I have class Sat morn 4hours, Sat afternoon activity club, Sat night 3hours, and Sunday morning 4 hours. We'll see how I'm feeling Sunday evening, but as of now I'm pretty optimistic about it... ;) dunno how long that will last...
03 September 2007
Address
I'm going to give out the address of the school I work for, because I think it might be more likely that I'd receive mail if it's sent there (I think if I get mail at my apt they just put it on a table downstairs...). So here it is:
Amanda Kincer, Dilko English
Hat boyu Caddesi No.16
Bakirköy-Istanbul
Turkey
I had somebody write it down for me today, so I hope that it's right... ;)
Amanda Kincer, Dilko English
Hat boyu Caddesi No.16
Bakirköy-Istanbul
Turkey
I had somebody write it down for me today, so I hope that it's right... ;)
02 September 2007
Better teaching day...
Yesterday was my second day teaching, and it was completely different than the time before. It was super exhausting because I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before worrying about it, but it truth it went pretty well. The students were much nicer and I think this is more the sort of classes that we will be getting. Of course, the day was miserable before both classes because i was sick with nervousness, but that will happen. I had four hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening (which Leyla has today), and it makes for a LONG day. By the end of my second class I was so parched and my throat was so scratchy from talking for such a long time.
Today, I got up (later than I wanted to) and headed out first to try to get some dollars changed. Unfortunately, the change office here was closed. Luckily I had enough change to get to Taksim by dolmuş for church, so I was seriously hoping for either a change office to be open on İstiklal Caddesi or one of the two friends we met last time at church (Charlotte and Mark) to be there so I could bum some change of them to go home. Luckily, both of those wishes came true, and a change office was open (although I only changed 20bucks because the dollar was down to 1.28 exchange rate or something close to that..ugh) and Charlotte was there and so I got to see her. Her friend Murat was meeting her, so I tagged along with them for lunch and then headed home. Leyla is not here :( so I can't find out how her teaching went... I'm sure she did very well.
The other day when we went to Kadiköy to hang out with Charlotte we went to a Çay Bahçesi to have tea and have her teach us how to play Backgammon.
I was trying to take a picture of one of the bridges that are lit up at night when we were on the ferry from Kadiköy to Karaköy (duh, the boat was moving and it was dark, obviously it wouldn't turn out... but for some reason I really like it.)
Today, I got up (later than I wanted to) and headed out first to try to get some dollars changed. Unfortunately, the change office here was closed. Luckily I had enough change to get to Taksim by dolmuş for church, so I was seriously hoping for either a change office to be open on İstiklal Caddesi or one of the two friends we met last time at church (Charlotte and Mark) to be there so I could bum some change of them to go home. Luckily, both of those wishes came true, and a change office was open (although I only changed 20bucks because the dollar was down to 1.28 exchange rate or something close to that..ugh) and Charlotte was there and so I got to see her. Her friend Murat was meeting her, so I tagged along with them for lunch and then headed home. Leyla is not here :( so I can't find out how her teaching went... I'm sure she did very well.
The other day when we went to Kadiköy to hang out with Charlotte we went to a Çay Bahçesi to have tea and have her teach us how to play Backgammon.
I was trying to take a picture of one of the bridges that are lit up at night when we were on the ferry from Kadiköy to Karaköy (duh, the boat was moving and it was dark, obviously it wouldn't turn out... but for some reason I really like it.)
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