Antalya!

Beach #2

Berke - he's grown since I last saw him!


Berke and Kubra - Sinan's sister


Merve - Sinan's cousin. She likes to practice English.


Beach #1 with most of the family.

I’m in Antalya as I write this! I had three days off in a row, and I wanted to get out of Istanbul so I decided to go visit Sinan’s family down in Antalya. I managed to get three consecutive off days because today, Tuesday, is a holiday, and I normally have Wednesday and Thursday off. I arrived here late last night, leaving from work. Sinan’s mom, brother, and sister were so kind to get me from the airport at 1:30am! Naturally, there was food for me – stuffed peppers, chicken, a salad, fasule (like green beans) in tomato sauce, and cake.

Unfortunately today was a big day so we had to wake up at 9 which meant only 5.5 hours of sleep, but wow, it was good sleep. The temperature is perfect sleeping temperature, for me at least. We were supposed to go on a picnic and then go swimming in a pool, but because today is a holiday, places were closed. I never really knew what was happening until it happened, but this was the order of the day: dropped the father off at the apartment complex he built, went to the relatives in Antalya for hanging around and eating breakfast, stopped in two furniture places and someone ended up buying a fridge (we’re a 3 car caravan by the way), drove for about 35 minutes more to a beachy area, stayed 10 minutes, drove back about 30 minutes to a different beach, drank Coke and eat sunflower seeds, went into the water (Merve won 10 lira off of that), stopped at a restaurant to eat meatballs and beans, grocery store, and now home. Sinan isn’t here so I don’t get as much guidance or information, but his brother, a former English teacher, has been wonderful and is helping me along. I think tomorrow will be a more relaxed beach day, hopefully I can just zone out and read my book. It’s probably been a year since I’ve been to a beach to read! I’m looking like a ghost so I need to get some color.

Work is going pretty well, I’ve been pretty busy there. My main concern now is that I don’t have the heart to repeat people, or I have very low. I will probably get in trouble if I don’t start repeating more…What I really enjoy about where I work is that there is kind of a community there with the students, like you see them again and again whether in an Encounter, a social club, or just hanging out in the social club area. It’s nice to see familiar faces, I haven’t really established any social circles yet and seeing the friendly people at work is making up for that.

That’s about it! Life is going pretty well, just doing normal day-to-day things. I’m hoping to get home for a week or two this summer. I miss things like driving and speaking English fast and listening to stranger’s conversations and Reese’s cups. And the obvious – my family and friends. I thought I smelled a BLT today and it made me yearn for summer time at home and eating and playing on the back porch with my family, eating fresh things from the garden. I suppose I get to eat fresh fruit and kebaps and other cool stuff, so I shouldn’t complain!