Driving... in Istanbul?

So, I've been going through driving withdrawls. It's been about 8 months since I've driven a car, and even longer since I've driven a stick (which I love). It seems everyone around here drives a stick, and so whenever i get in a car, I am like, "pleaasssse let me drive!" Of course I had no real intention of driving in Istanbul because people here drive like maniacs... There really shouldn't be any lines on the roads, as nobody uses them and they drive in the middle and swerve back and forth instead. Forget turn signals... Any-hoo, today I was shopping and got a call asking if I had a driving license. Of course I said yes and my boss, Ali, told me to come to Dilko and speak with him. I finished my shopping and headed back to work and he asked me if I could drive his car. HAHA! So I was like uhh.... where... how far....will anybody be with me....etc. His car was at the service place and he had forgotten his wallet at home this morning but wanted to go pick it up. There was nobody else around who had a drivers license.. so I agreed. Luckily (and I wouldn't have agreed if it hadn't been) the place was quite close and he was coming with me to pick the car up. So, yay! I got to drive, and it was a stick! (I was quite nervous about that with how long it's been.. I actually don't remember the last stick shift I drove...) But it went all right, and was super easy. It took awhile to get used to the touchy brake because the car is so new though.



I'm loving this nice weather!! All the tulips and other flowers are out.. it's beautiful. I can't wait for a trip to the Islands! I'm going to have a picnic with my class again on Friday. Should be much nicer than the last one since the weather is much warmer... They want to play football, so I told them we must play American Football instead... they agreed, but who knows if we'll be able to get a real football... Should be fun. :) MMMM barbeque!

P.S.

P.S. It's 65 and beautiful here, what's the weather like there?

Oh, and mom the Romania slideshow is working again, but the music stops working after the first song... strange.

Oh, and does anyone know about sending a big box home by like freight or something... who I could do that through, how much it would cost, etc? I really don't want overweight luggage when I go home... :(

Birthday etc.

My birthday was quite uneventful. We had cake in the staffroom for both Omens and I, who share the same birthday. That was nice. I started an Advanced class that morning, and I told them that it was my birthday, and that I didn't want to teach so we went out after the first hour. My afternoon class signed a petition to let me go home after two hours. They also bought a bunch of little brownies and put candles in them and sang to me. :)




























Here are some other random pictures of me and people from Dilko. The blonde curly haired girl is Pınar, she's the receptionist that is in the teacher's room. She was also my student for Elementary and half of Pre-Intermediate until she switched classes. :(

Not much

Well, people won't get off my back about posting something. They say they're sick of opening my blog and seeing the sweater.... Alright, alright people! Nothing much has been happening lately. The weather has gotten really nice, and then gone to crap again. :( This has made everyone and their brother ill, including me. The stuffy nose is getting really old. Last Friday my morning class planned a picnic bbq and invited Anthony and I to come (we share the class). It was about 40 minutes away at one of my students' summer house on the sea. It was a pretty nice day, but it did end up raining a bit. When we were almost to the summer house we stopped at a grocery store to pick up the food. They got chicken wings that already are seasoned for bbq-ing, and I mean they GOT chicken wings! They filled up a grocery bag chock full, it must have been like a hundred wings. They also got Adana Kebap (which happens to be my favorite Turkish food). A ton of other food was also purchased, and of course we were not allowed to give them ANY money... A couple of the students got really crazy and decided to go in the water!!! It was seriously freezing cold and when they came out they were totally red and I was sure they would get pneumonia and die! but all is well. They want us to have another picnic next Friday, but we'll see what happens.

Sweater!! :)

So my package with the sweater mom made me and the taco seasoning came yesterday! I got it last night when I went in for my evening class! I was so excited. I wore it to class today and everyone was freaking out over it and how talented my mom must be. :)

Feb showers bring March flowers???

It has been unusually nice for this time of year the past few days (65-70 degrees), and so the trees outside of my window are blooming! I'm sure another long batch of cold days will come, but I can't help being excited for Spring! :)

















Also, I knitted a cute little sweater to wear over tank tops to make it more dressy. I'm going to buy a pretty brooch to pin it together at the neck.

Moving

Well, Leyla has moved out.  Well, her stuff is still here and she's going to pick it up tomorrow, but in all other ways she's already gone. :(  Natalie has moved the last of her stuff in (including the crazy cat, Dilly!), but but she hasn't put it all away yet.  She wanted to move out of her other flat as soon as possible because another woman just moved her stuff in last night. *sigh*  Things are going to be different without Leyla living here, but I really love Natalie, so it should be OK.  

After three weeks of freezing cold, rain, and snow it now is starting to feel like SPRING! I know that it's kind of a false alarm and that it'll still get cold again, but I can't help but feel excited for warmth. :) I'm excited to clean up the balcony and buy a small grill to put out on the table out there. I'm excited to go out without a coat again.  And flip-flops! yay for being able to wear those again soon.  The coming nice weather has reminded me again of all of the reasons I love Istanbul (it's so very easy to forget about them in the depression of an Istanbul winter), and it all the more reminds me that in 2 months and about 20 days I'm coming home. It seems so unreal. And sad.

Haircut

Well... for lack of anything else happening in my life, I'll post pictures of my haircut that I got today. Sorry they suck, it's pretty hard to take pictures of your hair yourself. Hmm... yep that's about all that's happened lately.

Snowed-In

Well it's pretty much a blizzard here! Yesterday the afternoon and evening classes were cancelled and today classes are cancelled as well. I think this is probably the most snow, this area of Istanbul at least, has seen in like five years. I took some pictures from my window. I really want to get out to take pictures, but I really don't want to leave the house because it's so snowy and cold. I might just leave the house to get stuff to make some food. And maybe stuff to make hot chocolate. :)


















In other news, I bought my plane tickets to come home in May. It's so crazy. It's seems so final, that my days in Istanbul (this time around at least) are actually numbered. I'm leaving the 'bul for London on the 20th of May. I'll spend three nights there with a friend who was working at Dilko when I came, but soon moved back home. She lives in Brighton. Then, on the 23rd of May I'll come home! It's so exciting and sad at the same time.

Yarn

So, I found the Kürkçü Han after much searching. I heard that it was near the Grand Bazaar, so my first order of business was to go there first and then look for it from there. There was one tiny problem.. it's been three years since I was there, and before I was with a group and just blindly followed everyone. I remembered where the Spice Market was, but went brain dead when it came to finding the Kapalıçarşı! We wandered around forever looking for the Grand Bazaar (if it's sooo dang GRAND we were wondering why the heck we couldn't find it!) However, we accidently stumbled onto the exact street we wanted -- we saw a large sign that said Kürkçü Han with an arrow! After much searching through bins with scary fluffy, bright colored, and often shiny yarn (which is nothing I would EVER use) I did find some yarn for the projects I want to make. I got some lovely yarn for the sweaters for Camy and Tori (pink for Camy and green for Tori), it is acrylic but it is really soft and feels a lot like a cotton blend. It was 1.5 lira for each ball.
Then I found some pretty green stuff for the purse that I'm making someone for their birthday, which is in two weeks. It's a lovely green, and I had just enough time this morning before I had to get ready for class to cast on and do three rows. :) At the same place, the Nako outlet place, which sells stuff that is meant for export, I got another yarn for myself (who knows what I'll do with it - maybe a scarf). Both of these yarns I got in a package of 5 balls for 5 lira. very good prices. Some of the yarn there was packaged with a label that just said 'export' and then there was another package of the same stuff with a Lion Brand label. The brown one I got for myself was actually a lion brand 'wool ease' that I wanted when I was in the states. I think the green one for the purse was some lion brand I've seen before but I don't know what kind. So, all in all I got 15 balls of yarn for 17.50 lira, which is like 15 dollars. For 15 dollars at home you can buy like 3 balls of yarn, and I got 15. :) yay.