Halloween party

Some of you may be wondering if Halloween is known/celebrated out here, and the answer is no, not at all. I think I saw an advertisement for a party in Taksim, but that's about it. And some $10 socks with pumpkins on them in a store. Luckily, my roommates and a lot of their friends visited/lived in America so they were quite familiar with the holiday and they decided to have a party. It was insane. At one point there were probably 70-80 people in my apartment, it was soooo crowded and smoky but it was never out of control...just a lot of people. It was pretty international too, my Spanish roommate brought a lot of his exchange student friends, I had a lot of my American friends, and of course there were a lot of Turkish people. As you can imagine the house was a wreck this morning but we had a lot of helpers and in a short time the place looked spic and span. I've never been/had a party like this before and while it was fun, not something I want to do every week!




I stole the idea from my brother to be "God's gift to men" so you can kind of see me in a box and there is a tag that says To:Men, From: God. I wore the box for about 4 minutes then became a fireman later on. That's Cengiz on the left and his/our friends Serkan and Bertal.



This is just the beginning, it got much worse.



Just an idea of how crowded it was



Somewhere in the night Cengiz became a pirate and Bertal gained an afro.



It's not a party without the YMCA song



Anyway, you get the idea, funny masks, funny hair, it was a good time and I think everyone really did enjoy themselves

To make a 180, here is a tea party with Anna at her calm and peaceful house. It was so nice - it was pouring outside and we sat inside her sweet and well decorated home and drank tea and ate cookies and fruit salad. Anna has been here for about 3.5 months and it's been so great to have her, a cool, down to earth girl with a taste for travel and loves eating, and she just lives down the road from me!



Another person you've seen in pictures but I haven't formally introduced is Jaime, another American girl who's teaching English here as well. When she was visiting friends in Baltimore this summer she met my good friend who got us in contact together. On another cold rainy morning this week Jaime had me over for pancakes with real maple syrup! Yum!



Today was a lovely day and once we finished cleaning up the house Cengiz, Bertal and I went to Besiktas and we found a great place to sit and drink tea. Whenever there is sunlight this time of year, all of Istanbul rushes out to soak it up, although it can get pretty chilly once the sun starts to set!