Life is busy... but awesome!!

I apologize for not having posted sooner. Life here is super busy and when I'm not in class, activities or having out with friends I am sleeping. The heat is exhausting and I get tired from just the sun. At the same time thinking all day in a foreign language is tiring as well. I have finally gotten accustomed to it again and it isn't bad anymore, but it adds to my tiredness. I hadn't been sleeping as much as I needed and I had gotten a cold. Luckily I have slept more this week and I am feeling much better.


First, here are some pictures from my weekend at the picnic with our language buddies. We ended up going to the beach all day which was great!

with my language buddy, Melek

Last week we had two activities in the afternoon: cooking class and a trip to Çeşme. In our cooking class we learned how to make stuffed grape leaves. I learned how to make these 2 years ago, but it was good to review how to make them again because I want to make them in the US. Unfortunately the Çeşme trip was not exactly what we expected. It was a lot of fun, but they tried to fit in too much stuff that by the end of it we didn't actually spend a lot of time anywhere. First we went to Alaçatı, a touristy part of the area which looked like Greece. Being outrageously expensive we just walked around and didn't buy anything. After we went to Çeşme castle where there was a little museum. Finally we went to the beach, but we only had a little over an hour there so a couple of my friends and I went to a cafe and played Okey, the Turkish equivalent to Rummikub. It was a long day, but I really enjoyed myself.

Cooking Class

Alaçatı

Çeşme Castle

I spent this past weekend in Bodrum! Bodrum is one of the places that I really wanted to go to in Turkey so it was a treat! What was even better was that we went really cheap too! There were 10 of us in the group that went and we were all American except for one Turk. We stayed at an "apart hotel" so we had apartments for the 10 of us which worked out perfectly. The bus ride was a little under 4 hours so we didn't get too bored. While in Bodrum, we went on a boat tour, saw Bodrum Castle with an underwater archeology museum in it, and went to the Mausoleum of Mausolus which is one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and where the word 'mausoleum' originated from. Although we were busy the whole time it was very relaxing and I would go back in a heartbeat.

Aegean Sea :)

Bodrum Castle

Bodrum Castle

Underwater Ethnography Museum 

Mausoleum of Mausolus

Mausoleum of Mausolus

This week classes have been the best because I have learned the most. On Tuesday after classes we went to Bonukköy, a little touristy village where they make a lot of evil eyes. It was a really good place to get inexpensive, traditional, hand-made, Turkish gifts :). After the trip I had an early dinner with some friends and then went to a concert. Fanta sponsors an annual concert in about 15 cities around Turkey every summer with two singers. To go to the concert you buy fanta and then exchange the cans/bottles for a ticket. This year's singers were Emre Aydın and Tarkan! For those of you that don't know, Tarkan is my favorite singer and I know all of the words to most of his new songs. Going to his concert was a dream come true and the fact that the ticket was under 10 lira (about $6) made it even better! The concert was extremely crowded, but was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed myself.

Boncukköy

Fanta Concert

TARKAN!!!

Yesterday after class I walked around with some of my American friends before going home. I was especially tired because I stayed up for the concert, although it was definitely worth it. Today after class we had our second cooking class and we made mantı, a traditional Turkish pasta which looks like small ravioli. It's not actually that difficult it is just time-consuming. The best part was eating the mantı we had just made ourselves for lunch :). After, I came home and got my hair cut, which was pretty interesting because the hairdresser had me stand up while he cut my hair. Then he curled it and I looked like Shirley Temple. When I shook my hair out though, my hair had a lot of volume and I looked like a lion. Good thing I could take a shower to get it back to normal :P

Tomorrow after class I am going to Istanbul for the weekend. I am very excited to see friends!!! More to come :)