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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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... ;)

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.)