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!!