Party

Yes folks, that's right. Sally Gordon is writing about a party. I actually prefer to call it a "get-together" as to not try to sound like I'm trying to be cool. I guess you could say I've established a few groups of friends and I really wanted to bring them together so they could meet each other, see my new apartment, meet Cengiz, and just get out of the house! I find we all tend to get stuck in our comfortable routines and going to a new house, being with new people, can help us break it, even if momentarily. I can honestly say the get-together was quite a success, but I had no idea if was going to be or not. I have to give a BIG thanks to Anna, a fellow American teacher and friend at WSI, and she just lives down the street from me. She came over at 2:30 because we were going to bake a cake, but she ended up going to the store for me, making the (delicious) cake herself (as well as a salad and salad dressing) and being an ENORMOUS help with serving and cleaning up. I also have to thank my roommates for letting me have this get together and also helping arrange furniture, taking out the trash, putting away shoes, setting the table, and mingling with my friends. On Friday I thought it was only going to be 4 other people, but by Sunday it ended up being 13!



Anna making the cake



I love having such a nice big kitchen!



View of people from the balcony overlooking the living room. I have to brag, when people arrived at my apartment, their jaws literally dropped. I'm so lucky!



This is almost everyone, minus me and Engin. I decided to make fajitas and Spanish rice and a salad which was fun, I think hands on food makes for a good time. There wasn't quite enough but luckily there was a LOT of dessert.



Here are the different desserts. I made some lemon cookies with a lemon glaze, and also peanut butter cookies, some filled with jelly, some plain. Anna made the chocolate cake, and Cengiz brought the baklava and also a huge watermelon.



Anna and her beautiful and delicious cake.



Not a flattering picture of Cengiz or me but Sem, who(m?) I also know from Celebrity Fitness, always looks cute.



When Anna and I were clearing plates and getting ready for dessert I couldn't understand why no one was helping but everyone was so engrossed in their conversations they didn't really realize what was happening! By the time dessert rolled around people snapped into action, it was so kind. Again, I really had such a fun time cooking and seeing so many great people together in one place. I hope to do it again!

These breakfast pictures are from a while ago but breakfast/brunch on the weekends is such a Turkish thing I have to include them to help you learn about the culture. Engin is on the left, Emrah in the middle, and Engin's friend Omer is on the right.

Turkish music Sunday

Sertab Erener - "Rengarenk"
Yükleyen musicplay. - Yüksek çözünürlüklü video keyfini yaÅ�ayın!

I kept hearing this song in the car while going to and from the holiday because the couple had a CD or put it on a flash drive - anyway, I think it's pretty catchy. It's called Rengarenk by Sertab Erener.


Murat Boz & Soner Sarıkabadayı - "İki Medeni İnsan"
Yükleyen musicplay. - DiÄ�er müzik videolarına göz atın.

This is just a song I hear around, Murat Boz & Soner Sarıkabadayı - "İki Medeni İnsan".

Have a good Sunday!

Bayram

What a week! My Turkish course is still going (ahhh it's so difficult! I'm learning and I like it, but the grammar is just a little too difficult for me), I'm going to the gym (gotta get my money's worth) and work started! I'm really happy to be back at Wall Street, and it helps the students are happy to have me back. I'm only working part time until my Turkish course is finished, so it's only 4 hours at night, which is good to ease me back into this thing called work. Sigh. So the last month was Ramadhan, which is when people are supposed to be fasting. At the end of it, there is a bayram, or festival/holiday, that lasts for a few days. It's when family and friends visit each other, eat desserts, and give children money. People generally have 3 days off of work, and so a lot of people take this time to go on a holiday. Cengiz and I went together with a good friend of his and his friend's wife (Cagri and Seyide). I was a bit nervous because I didn't know the other couple and Cengiz and I are a bit new, but it was a lot of fun and we all got along so well. The friends hardly spoke any English and Cengiz's is limited but it all worked out. We went to Kusadasi, and then to Bodrum, two popular places on the Aegean Sea. The weather was perfect, and we only went to the beach and ate food and maybe went out at night, and it was perfect. I have a lot of photos, I hope I don't bore you (lot of couple-y pictures - sorry!)!



Beautiful water! And a stone beach which has it's advantages.



You could rent these funny paddle boats. This driver paddled out to his friends in the water and I heard him shouting, "Taxi! Taxi!". We also rented one...







This beach has wild boars on it, which are not afraid of people at all! I actually came to this same beach 2.5 years ago and one got really close to me and I had to toss a rock at it. This year we had some chips on a picnic table and it managed to get it's dirty snout into the bag! Grrrr it wasted my chips!





Now we're at a different beach, still in Kusadasi. This was the first day of the bayram, the most important one, and everyone's phone kept ringing was I was annoyed at at first, but then I understood it's a really important day to talk to those you are close to!





WWF smackdown. I totally won.



One of the rare pictures of us not in our swimsuits.



When we were in Kusadasi we stayed in a friend's villa which was nice because it had a kitchen, so we would prepare delicious breakfasts and dinners.



Now we're near Bodrum. A little less natural and calm...I like this picture though, with the mosque in the background yet tons of people in bikinis.



This is Seyide's sister (who just got married and lives 10 minutes from the beach) and their mom. Notice her swimming costume. She actually has her head uncovered, but at other times I saw women completely covered - almost like a scuba outfit made of raincoat material. Interesting, but I'm glad they are out enjoying the beach and water.



The sister lives in a beautiful house with a great garden and lots of beautiful flowers. The couple we went with have a kid, who (fortunately) didn't come with us but stayed with the sister. She seemed like an okay kid, for a kid.



Our other day in Bodrum, we met up with my housemates who were also there. The one hitting the ball is Emrah, and then the one in the green shirt is Engin. I couldn't ask for kinder, more helpful roommates.



I made a new friend on the beach. Normally this does not happen but it was alright for a dog. Yeah, I do a lot of ab work outs. No big deal.



While we were in Bodrum Turkey was playing in the semi finals of some big basketball tournament (I'm so out of touch with the world, I don't know what it was) against Serbia and it was super exciting. They won pretty much at the last second, and seconds later there was this huge Turkish flag on the street and people yelling and chanting and running around it. I got a video which I'll post later. It was really cool, and I'm sorry they lost to America in the finals.

Anyway, this "sums" up the trip, I'm sorry there was so much but I had a lot of fun and I wanted to record it somewhere! Have a great weekend everyone!

Don't hate me!

I'm sorrryyyyyyyy! I haven't updated in FOREVER! No real excuses, but I have constantly been on the move since I got back to Istanbul almost 2 weeks ago. I can't believe how busy I've been but how much fun I've been having. It's been great catching up with friends, seeing students, eating food, and exploring Istanbul. I was a little nervous to come back after getting into such a nice routine with my family in America, but I flew into action here and it feels like home. This week has been particularly busy because I started a Turkish course, which is 4 hours everyday, I joined a new gym (my other one closed), and I moved my apartment! As you know, Sinan and I broke up and it's probably best I got out of the neighborhood we both lived in, and I really really like my new location. It's so convenient to everything, and 5 minutes to work and 5 minutes to my gym. The apartment is SUPER cool too - not the traditional, standardized Turkish apartment. I suppose you could also say there is a new boy in the picture, and it's been really fun hanging out with him and seeing new parts of Istanbul and getting me out and about. I never though I would return home at 2am because I was out dancing, but why not!! Here's a collection of various activities over the past couple of weeks:



The new boy, Cengiz, is a firefighter by day and a fitness teacher at night. I met him at my old gym (so cliche, I know I know). Here we are with his really good friend, Sem, the lady in the black, who has a daughter my age and she lived in America so her English is really good. That's her sister on the left, whose apartment we are at (REALLY nice apartment), and their mom. We/the sister cooked an iftar dinner because Cengiz and the mom are fasting.



Eggplant salad and borek, and there was also chicken and vegetables and salad.



Sem and I are proud of the borek we made. These had white cheese and dill and parsley in it - very good!






Both of them are fitness teachers so they have tremendous energy. Before we started cooking we did some fitness things together - tai chi, pilates, and yoga. It was so nice, it was like a private lesson! Later Cengiz is practicing body combat stuff which Sem and I pretended like we knew what we were doing.



Another night, I went to a student's birthday party. It's so sweet that they want to include us. The boyfriend of the student (who is also a student), made 4 t-shirts with pictures of them together. You can kind of see one in this picture. I promise this picture is staged!



My good friend Matt, whom I met while doing my teaching course and I helped him get a job at Wall Street, had a few people over for fish and raki, a very Turkish thing to do. Unfortunately I'm not a fan of either of those so I had chicken and beer. We ate out on the balcony which was really nice. They are hilarious guys (1 American, 1 Brit, 1 Turk) and it was a good time.

It was Sem's sisters birthday on Friday so there was a little party for her. Somehow we started taking a lot of photos in various poses around the candles.







Yesterday, Cengiz, his friend and I went for a walk along the Bosphorus on the Asian side. This is the Kiz Kulesi (Maiden's Tower), which I've never been to but I'd like to.



Later, the 3 of us met up with a classmate of mine who wanted to do something over the weekend. We had some tea, then went dancing! Not my typical activity but it was actually really fun. 3 of us were pretty shy dancers but Cengiz was crazy, at least 3 times he was on the floor doing splits. One second he'd be up near me then the next second he was on the floor. Anyway, good times!





Ok last thing. Here's my new apartment. The pictures really don't capture it. It's so big and spacious, and I love the big kitchen with lots of counterspace and how it opens into a 2-3 story living room. There are exposed beams, a fireplace, 4 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms (great shower). I'm living with 2 Turkish guys who are really nice and considerate. They both lived in Virginia for a while which is perfect!



View from the balcony overlooking the living room.



Kitchen

That's it for now! Today is a nice rainy Sunday so I'm using this day to catch up on things like my blog, emails, and also get my room ready and decorated. I'll start back up at Wall Street on the 13th, so one more week of freedom (except I have Turkish classes). I hope I'll be back in a better routine and I'll keep up with this better - I'm so sorry! I hope you all are doing well and please take care!!