SO SORRY SO SORRY SO SORRY

But today, oh, guess what?  Let's see:

Article A: British Library exhibit on the evolution of the English language, from the Saxons and Vikings up to Muhamad Ali's and the Queen's speeches, through profanity, propaganda, accents and acronyms, traversing spelling variations, language derivations... for a spelling nerd like me it was basically heaven.  

 

Then B: lunch at St Pancras Station, a glorious place I couldn't get any decent pictures of.  

Then my aunt and I picked up my cousin and grandmother and dropped them off to go handbag-shopping.  We headed to D: Magnus, perhaps the only shop in the world with (fun, pretty) shoes my size, where I picked out two very exciting specimens with which I am deliriously happy:

However, as we were pulling up in front of the shop, something completely horrid, C, happened.  We were almost parked as a guy on a motorbike came down the road and braked.  Then, I don't know, it happened very fast but I suppose he tried to accelerate and he slipped on a patch of oil.  The front wheel slid out form underneath him and the bike fell on top of him.  He'd been about ten feet in front of us the whole time, but it looked and felt for all the world as though we'd hit him.  We and some other people got out of our cars and helped him to the pavement, picked up his bike etc.  He'd hurt his knee quite badly.  Very long and stressy and shaken story short, the police and an ambulance arrived and took him away, and a very nice police officer sat in my aunt's car for a bit and worked out what had happened.  The saddest bit was that it was this man's birthday.  And he'll be layed up for a couple weeks at least.  Awful.

Well, we got over that after a bit, and I was dropped off at a café to meet up with exhibit E: my mother's old boyfriend from, oh, before they went to university, I suppose.  He's an awfully nice guy, the sort who, according to all reports, has been wearing the converse and skinny jeans I saw him in today for about 35 years.  That look.  He's also a rather well-established journalist, who wrote this book, which is referenced in my chemistry textbook, as well as Just My Type, his most recent publication, about fonts.  My dad got it for Christmas and I read a couple chapters before catching my plane.  I definitely recommend it.

So, my day ended with exhibit F: three episodes of The West Wing.  Good times.  Must go to sleep as my cousin and I have a day of photography about the city planned for tomorrow.  Wish me luck and more shots like this, my favourite of the trip so far:  

News!

Well, it's that sort of time again where I start talking about languages.  I sent in my application for NSLI-Y summer a month or two ago, this time indicating preference: Farsi (Persian), then Arabic, then Hindi.  And today I got an email letting me know that I'm a semifinalist!  This basically means they liked my application enough to interview me and check if I'm a total psycho!  I started this post hours ago and have since been to a birthday party, gone for a walk, been hunted down by my mother for staying out too long in the dark (I did tell her where I was going) and threatened with... I'm not sure... house arrest?  They can't very well keep me from walking to the beach, can they?  Anyway, I'm just praying that this snow in London goes away before I'm meant to fly - the 29th.  Honestly... whenever I try to go to England, there's some natural disaster that freezes Heathrow.  Last time it was that volcano and I was almost stuck there, while my cousin was trapped in Spain - actually, I was over there when I found out I'd gotten into the Turkish summer programme.  I feel a bit like this:

Chet Baker.  Just a dream. 

...And Back

And, my god, it feels good.  Everyone's quite stressed, what with finals coming up and a whole week of (unproductive) break right behind us, but I am just so happy to be back with my friends that it's almost okay.  I had a rather mixed week at home.  On the one hand, it was brilliant to see my friends (and Brokeback Mountain.  Awestruck) and go to school - I stayed in the art room this time so there was no awkward biology-crashing, and my teachers seemed happy to see me and everyone who didn't know I was coming to visit treated me like I was back from the dead.  I also ate excellently and feel very pretty as a result - I love the way my back looks when I've gained a little weight.  However, there was a lot of fighting going on as well, and if a breast cancer scare (false alarm, thank god) can't unify my family and get us to stop bickering for ten minutes, I don't really know what can.  But, yeah.  If you have breasts and are thirty-ish or older you should go get a mammogram.  Now.  Did you know that one in eight women in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer? 

I just joined the swim team.  Yesterday was the first practice, I hadn't done butterfly since eighth grade, and I am sore.  I know that sounds like a completely idiotic thing to do right before midterm exams, but I slept so incredibly well last night that, if this is anything to go by, it might actually help my grades in the next couple weeks.  This school doesn't technically have any sports teams, so for things like football soccer we just play with the local school, with which we share the academic building, but for some reason we can't do that for the swim team.  So I and the only other MSSM girl have cajoled two other girls from our school into swimming, so that we have a relay team.  Otherwise we couldn't compete.  I used to hate swim meets and I am sure they're no different now, but we have a nice pool here and being on the team exempts me from fitness classes - which would conflict with the practice schedule anyway!  So, I'm quite well-satisfied with that and hope to fulfill one of the boys' predictions that I'll have six-pack by the end of the season. 

That's really all that's going on... I have to finish the rough draft of my midterm English essay - about satire in Huck Finn - and study like hell for a chem test that looks about as friendly as my sister after she gets caught taking other peoples' Christmas presents out of my room and decides that the best course of action is to scream, slam doors and cry loudly enough to render us all deaf for several hours....but that's another story.

I got a few lovely birthday presents.  The primary one was, of course, a contribution to my new lens, but I also got a couple lovely books and some beautiful new tights.

Okay.  Sites That Are Blocked At School (Mostly For "Pornography") That Shouldn't Be:
Some of Smitten Kitchen.  Like, this one.  This is a food blog!  What the hell, people?!
Stockings HQ
UK Tights
My Favourite Underwear Blog   (However, this is absolutely fine for us to look at, apparently!  Jesus, people, find some real porn to block)
And loads more, but I don't want to incriminate myself by going on all these sites to get the links in one day.


Okay, so here are those recipes I said I'd post.  In both cases, I used yoghurt and milk instead of buttermilk.

Chocolate cake   (in this one I used Green&Black's ginger chocolate)

Ginger-apple-upside-down cake

Night!  I'm high on Fawlty Towers.

It's None Of It True

Now, I don't mean to go all sentimental photo-montage on you, but a friend of mine, one who talked me out of all my money convinced me to get my camera and all ensuing tchotchkes, made this and it's really too good not to show you.







In other news, I'm home after an uncommonly pleasant bus ride.  I woke up at sixish, with far more ease than almost everyone else in the school, mostly due to the fact that I hadn't gone to a midnight-ish showing of Harry Potter the night before (I passed most of my birthday evening wandering about outside and looking in at the boys' windows - there is some frightful pornography to be seen on those walls).  Anyway, I came outside for breakfast and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground and more falling.  It was absolutely magical, and even in the groggy, cold, flip flop-clad state I was in I was delighted.  Boarding the buses was fun - I was the last on - and I found the usual company for my route enhanced by an addition with whom I listened to several issues (is that the right term for a podcast?) of The Bugle before dozing on the shoulder of a lovely boy whose taste in music rivals those of even my friends here.  He approved of the above video.  All through this is was snowing rather thickly and the bus was cold, but when I woke up we were 'south' and it was ridiculously sunny again.

I'll skip the part where I drag my father underwear shopping and go right to the food.  I swear, my next post will be nothing but pictures of what I'm eating.  I have been reduced to tears by real food that I didn't cook.  Last night, we had greens and Brussels sprouts with ginger and roast chicken and parsnips and garlic and potatoes and beets and carrots.  It's not the meat that I really miss, oddly enough - I could go vegetarian after having been at school this long - but it was all gorgeous.  I made fairy cakes, but went to bed before dessert.  Five weeks without a break is too long, though I don't imagine the scotch and soda helped.  In any case, I was out at seven-thirty, back up at nine and then asleep for the next twelve hours.  Then to a friend's house for a stunning breakfast of eggs, sausage and biscuits, and home with some other friends to make two cakes - count 'em - watch Torchwood and eat roast lamb with rice and lentils and open a few birthday presents.  I'm going to school tomorrow, just to hang out in the art room and catch up with whomever is cool enough to drift in there, so I've got to go to bed now.  Studying for finals starts tomorrow.  Just remind me. 

(Oh, what a lot of tags!)

Wake Me Up When It's Over

There's just no hope for me.  You'll never predict me.... I'm just femme fatale all through, you'll never know what's going through my head, you won't hear from me in weeks and then, suddenly, I'll be calling you again, writing to you, because I need you... (Okay, maybe I do want to be Liza Minelli.  What you gonna do 'bout it?)

Not true.  I was actually thinking earlier about what an ironically disappointingly uncomplicated person I am.  But suddenly I want to talk about it.  Or I just want to talk.  Yes, dear, to you.  Doesn't that make you feel wonderful?  No, I'm not just another politician who wants to make your life easier, your tax money go better places, your kids more successful and more likely to kick the *censored* out of the Chinese kids on the future economic playground on which they'll play.  I just want to talk to you.

Hah.  Actually, I have no idea why I suddenly feel like writing again, but I want to write about food.  I was just watching NYTimes thanksgiving recipe videos, and they made me hungry, of course, in such a happy way.   I can't wait to get home.  I can't wait to sit on my friends' couches and talk with their families and eat and drink and feel great.  I can't wait to fight with my family, because it makes me feel so much less alone.  I love living here - it's basically college on training wheels, living in the dorms here - but I am looking forward to a week of being someone's baby again.

But watch me - in an hour I'll have changed my mind.  I just did, after all... food does strange things to me.  I'm really emotionally attached to it.  I wrote this a couple days ago:

I haven't been writing recently, I suppose because I just didn't want to, and because I've had plenty to think about that I can't write about.  I'm also sick of my mother reading this and calling me up and asking me what's going on.  And I feel like a bitch for saying that, but it's true - I don't need my family to know when I'm upset or sick of all this.  They're nearly three hundred miles away.  It can't do any of us any good and I'd rather they didn't get upset. 

I guess I've also had other people to talk to recently.  Internet, you're cool but you don't give much back.  I have friends here, with whom I can actually have a conversation that's not a glitchy facebook chat or a text message.  Again, the internet's great but it's just not good enough.  I want to lie on my bed at home with my friends at home, and talk to them and tell them everything I can't tell people here, just because we all live together and it would all get out.  I can't wait for this week to be over.  Friday's my birthday - there are so many November birthdays here - and then we go home for a week.  I won't have to remind myself to eat.  I will fight with my family and be happy because it'll be normal, and I won't have to feel guilty about withholding information from people and I won't have to be a diplomat quite so much.  I just want to go back to what's familiar and be loved in a totally un-novel fashion. 

And I have been too tired.  I can't make myself go to sleep and I always get up way too early and get nothing done.  I haven't felt well lately - watch this space, a concerned relative is about to call me and call the staff and tell them to check my room for blades (they'd find a big chopping knife, actually, and I'd be screwed if they took that away, because they've opened up the kitchen) - and I've hardly got the drive to be sociable any more, let alone care about schoolwork.  I just do it. 

I've also noticed my heart going crazy every time I eat chocolate. 

Angst.... it's not my line of business, but it's viral here.   Anyway, I am going to forget about things for a little bit starting tomorrow.  I'm going to go home, if that's what it still is, and cook in a kitchen that's not full of people who can't cook and seem to independently support America's entire cake-mix industry.  I'm going to read Siddhartha just because a friend threw me a copy, and I'm not going to get dressed with anyone in particular in mind for a whole week - I might not even get dressed at all. I'm almost ready to leave - my sheets are washed, I know what I'm taking back with me and my fridge is almost empty. 

I've probably mentioned how much Norah Jones I'm listening to at the moment.  I decided to take some pictures and set them to Wake Me Up, though I don't know why.  Actually, I really don't like it when people do that, but I don't care today.  And if you've been reading me for any length of time you'll recognize some of these pictures, so maybe they'll be a little less meaningless.

Anyway, today's my birthday.  It's eight and I just sat up in bed.  I only have one and a half classes today, most of the school is going to see the new Harry Potter film this evening, after a big dinner they're putting on just for me  for the holiday, and I've also got play practice.  Hello, 16.

The Grindstone: Modern Education

Oh, well.  All extended weekends must pass.  My bus was the first home, at about half past five, and there was no seven-to-nine structured study as people were trickling in all evening.  I hung around in the lower lounge with people and, among other things, read someone's anti-feminism post-modernist short story and was offered $20 by one of the guys.  To feel my breasts.  People, take pity on me in the asylum I live in, and … oh, I don't know… go watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes this weekend.  That'll make me happy.  It's what I plan to do, after a whole lot of nonvolunteer work that the school organizes for us to do. 

But, really, it's nice to be back.  It was great to see my friends at home, to visit my old school (It feels so weird to write that), where I sat in on a French class and realized that I still have all the vocabulary, but can't conjugate in anything but Turkish, and to sleep in my own bed, and be woken up by my little brother at ungodly hours – before one p.m.! – but I'm glad to be back on a routine.  The weather's really cooling off here, but I was able to watch a bit of the football soccer game (I confused a lot of people this evening when I told them about it in british terms) that the local school was playing tonight.  Boys' team.  A couple friends are on their team (that's what we have to do if we want to play sports), and 'we' were actually winning when I left to eat some of the glorious bread and cheese and vegetables I dragged back with me.  There were many jokes made on the bus about gardens being shifted, and they developed into a (rather speculative) discussion about when plants stop photosynthesizing.  We are geeks and we are happy.  (I am all about the brackets tonight, aren't I?)

There are a few other people here who are into photography, which is nice.  I can't lie around in plain view without somebody instigating an impromptu shoot, and I'm running out of space on my hard drive!  (Who cares?)

Oh, and, if nothing goes amiss, I'm going to the Common Ground Fair this weekend!  It's been said that if a bomb were dropped on the Common Ground Fair, Maine's surviving hippie population would be countable on one hand.  This is completely undesirable, as they happen to make it a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining place to be – from their no-refined-sugar-within-the-gates policy to the totally delicious deep fried shiitake mushrooms, falafel and gyro (who'd have thought?), to these ridiculous displays of hundreds upon hundreds of varieties of dried beans, barrels-full through which you are allowed to run your dusty hands for as long as you should please… I get very excited about the beans.  There's no disgusting typical fair food or people, and there are all sorts of lovely animals and – my god – activists.  I'll admit, my primary motive in signing up for the trip this weekend is so that I can go to all the political booths, from the Amnestly International people to the Trade With Cuba people to the My Body Is Not Public Property You Freaking Right-Wing Conservative Bastard And I'll Have Abortions Whenever The Hell I Want To people and sign their petitions and buy about forty pins and badges to stick all over my backpack… oh, wait, I don't use one of those any more.  I shall have to find something else to stick pins into…

So, there's really not much more to report.  Oh, wait, sweatshirts: L. gave me his, you know about that.  Well, his girlfriend, my lovely down-the-hall neighbor, had another lovely hoodie that belonged to her maybe not-so-lovely ex back home, and, though I'm not quite sure how, it's become… well, mine.  And I love it!  It's blue and warm and soft and utterly delicious.  That I'm coveting sweaters surely means that summer must be over in my mind, and I'm loath to bid such an eventful season farewell, but I am looking forward to the rest of school.  This time last year, I couldn't imagine myself doing that with much of anything other than resignation – to wasted time and unfriendly people, alleviated, admittedly, by my wonderful darlings at home and a couple good classes.  But to actually be excited about this year is, well, exciting.   I'm enjoying myself here.  I know, right?  Maths homework, which I'm taking a break from right now, is actually quite fun in a therapeutic/numbing sort of way, and I have to ring up my dad in a bit to get him to scan and email a baby picture of me – some secret project the English teacher has lined up, and I forgot to get one while I was home.  But there's always a buzz of sorts in the dorm and the academic building, as they so grandly call it, and I do love that. 

Okay, I have to look what I've said in the face now and go enjoy my maths homework.  Hoş çakal!

Back to the MSSM

Sorry, but the Beatles are the best.

I am back.  And not projecting from the future.  No, Turkish-speaking-Bacon-eating bloggirl is back online, and how*.  Let me work backwards for a bit here.

I came home this weekend because I of that eye appointment/fair, and I missed school yesterday.  Thank god I didn't have math class, because that would set me too far back for words.  No, but it'll be tough enough catching up with Chemistry.  Chemistry!  I have a science class that I like.  Someone is messing with cosmic cogs and levers at the moment, and I am liking, you know, math and science.  Earth-shaking.  Oh, actually, I saw my math teacher Anyway, I get home late Thursday night and on Friday I hung out with a couple friends, made blueberry peach cake, watched The West Wing and totally failed to take enough pictures of the beautiful town I live in and never really appreciated before.  Stayed up until about 2 a.m. making pie crust and talking to someone back at school - it sounds like I'm missing a wild weekend.  This morning I baked that pie (blueberry) and took it over to the fairground to enter.  My old school's jazzband plays for the harness races every year, but considering the torrential nature of this morning, the horses were kept home and the band played their set uninterrupted.  The bad director, whom I'd been a little scared to face after leaving him so suddenly - if temporarily - second trombone-less to come to this school, saw me and went and dedicated a song to me, with a cheery 'wishing her good luck at school up north'.  The man's either trying to guilt me into tears or okay with my leaving.  Either way, it was great to see my friends play, and after helping them break down we spent a couple hours doing Fair Things.  This means we spent a couple hours alternately cooing at cows and piglets and llamas, and eating.  How we ate.  I again forgot my camera, but I'm kind of glad because I do not want to remember what I've eaten today.  It was wonderful.  Smoked ribs, sticky buns, incredibly high-qual sausages, lobster roll, lime fizz.  Then I brought home my pie (came third this year - very happy) and ate some of that.  It was a little runny, which will be why it didn't take first, but all parties pronounced it yummy and that was fun.  This evening I didn't eat dinner, understandably, except for some cake my parent brought home from a neighbor's wedding.  I still have to do battle with chem, though.  And if you're thinking 'my god, this girl's a food slut,' you're only kind of right.  Because the food at school is frankly Not Good.  There's a kitchen in the dorm, and I cook myself stuff every day, but it's hard to find time to eat as much...it took my performance today to convince my mother that I'm not developing anorexia.  This state of affairs, combined with biking class (we got through the most gorgeous rolling fields and toxic clouds of ozone) and maybe, maybe, my new tendency to NOT eat ten pieces of baklava every day, makes this weekend a total non-problem.  I'm actually feeling rather svelte.

I've tried LARPing (Live Action Role Playing, for those of you who, like me, don't know *censored* about that particular facet of 'geek culture').  It's a huge deal, played with swords and spears and various other weaponry composed of plastic piping, foam and duct tape.  I hate sig figs because they made me fail a quiz, but I feel like I did all right on a chemistry test on Wednesday.  I love my AP composition class to death, and the teacher is starting a photography club!  I'm starting to save for a new lens...one that, um, zooms?  And I've taken hundreds of photos already... god knows my classmates' antics are worthy of being recorded.  I also just heard that I got into the a cappella group, which practices for four hours every weekend.  I auditioned Wednesday and didn't think it went very well, but I'm really excited to have gotten in.

Oh, god, what else.... have I made it completely clear that I love it there?  The classes are extremely demanding and I'm doing three to four hours of homework every evening, but the other students are fantastic, the teachers actually care and there's not this feeling of just going through the motions.  Last weekend there was a dance where people actually danced, and this week it was horribly hot.  This hurricane was preceded by the most awful, stagnant heat, and inland Maine is like the midwest anyway - there's no medium, it's either stifling or bitterly cold.  I feel a little boxed in there without being able to smell the sea, and I'm sure winter will be hard... but I'll worry about that when it happens.


And now that I'm back to dull old Maine again, lots of my friends are flinging themselves across the planet.  AFS is heart-wrenching for those left behind.


Well, I have to go be excited to go back to school.  Or, rather, do maths homework.  Both.  I actually can't wait.  I missed my friends here like mad, and it's been fantastic to see them this weekend, but I'm ready to go home now, for another two weeks.


And there are other ukulele people!  One girl has an electric one...and I'm playing ukulele in the band!  Marilyn, move over.
And I do apologise for this post: haphazard even by my standards.  But there is no way I'm reading it over.  Just don't care that much about sentence structure tonight.
Herkesi sizi seviyorum!


*blame Lorna Lilly for that particularly contagious bit of the '50s

Son Gün Evde (Last Day At Home)

Ahh... my last day at home was lovely.  I spent it with a very good friend, and we finished packing, went to the beach, watched A Bit Of Fry And Laurie on YouTube (sweet, unblocked YouTube) and loaded up the car.  After she left, I and my parents made a lovely dinner: grilled salmon, chard with bacon and a gorgeous mushroom risotto, stirred to perfection by yours truly.  Carrot cake left over from the Celebrity Spelling Bee fundraiser the night before - remind me to tell y'all* about that later - was dessert, along with a big bowl of grapes, and followed by a lovely deep bath.  

Yes, those are my darling pink converse, pictured here on the shore of Turkey's Salt Lake.  They get around, and now I am wearing them up on the Canadian border.

Guys, look up a certain individual named Dan Savage.  Just do it.

That's about all.  Enjoy September.

On and on

Say that you remember

On and on

Dancing in September

On and on

Never was a cloudy day...

*I am missing my friend from Georgia.

Home Again - Temporarily

Ah, well.  I suppose this is just a time to catch my breath between Turkey and School.  It's all so impossibly short.  But hey.  I am back on my laptop, and the funny thing is that I'm having trouble adjusting back to US keyboards!  I keep reaching up to the 1 key to type an apostrophe, and I'm almost nostalgic for all those ı characters now.

Home is a funny place to be now.  The last six weeks were full of a lot of food, music and new friends - people I feel incredibly fortunate to have met.  I have been conscious in the last few days of just smiling at one memory or another, and having to snap out of it quickly before somebody decides I'm in love or up to no good.

I miss Turkey, and everything is still so fresh in my mind that I can't quite convince myself in the mornings that instead of going to school to see Arzu Hanım and wander Ankara with my friends, I am going to go downstairs, see the granola in production, and leave to babysit my darling five month-old friend from New York , and prepare for school, something I'd completely put off thinking about while in Turkey.  It's not that I'm not happy to be home.  I am.  But when I get on my computer, all I want to do is look at photos from this summer, and all I want to speak to people about is Turkey, in turkish.  Part of my head thinks I'm still there, but Im slowly catching on.  Today I will eat no simit from street stalls, catch no sweaty buses, and I probably won't even sweat. 

After my host family went to America, I moved in with my grandparents.  They and my eight-year-old cousin from İstanbul, who was also staying with them, don't speak much English, which was great for me.  I caught a dolmuş home in the afternoons instead of the bus, which was a little different and fun for the three days I had to do it, and, despite my host mother's fears that I would be fed to death, it was all great.  

Last Friday (I can't believe I was so far away a week ago) we had a party at school, with cake and certificates and many hugs with our teachers and waiter and a lot of photos.  The previous day we'd given Arzu Hanım a present - a lovely vase, flowers and a framed picture of the class and her, from my camera, and everything was pretty fantastic.

Actually, though, it was what happend after school on Friday that made the day a little special.  I walked a different route to Kızılay with two classmates, and we found ourselves looking at the magnificent Kocatepe Mosque, perhaps Ankara's only beautiful building.  A man came up to us on the street and somehow we ended up following him inside this mosque, which was perhaps even as stunning as the Aya Sofia and Sultan Ahmet ones in İstanbul.  We left our shoes at the door and I and my friend - the other was (and still is, I suppose) a boy - were brought headscarves, and god.  That place was beautiful in a way that made me understand religion a little bit.  If there was a faith centred on building places like that, I would be a crazed believer.

We are Americans.  This means that every experience, every day, no matter how authentic, fascinating or ethnically correct, must include Starbucks.  We walked to the one on Kızılay.  It was there that this gorgeous baby girl who was just learning to walk stumbled up to us and started to play with me.  Maybe I was still high on that mosque, but she made me so happy just by putting her snacks in my lap and letting me feed them to her, and after a few minutes, her mother called me 'abla'.  Big sister.  Lovely.

(I'm making it sound as if I really adore babies, aren't I?  Actually, I don't... they're here, and I'm here, and we get along all right, but don't pull my hair too hard or it's back to Mama.)

It was there that the goodness stopped, though.  I walked from Starbucks with a friend to his apartment to pick up his power adaptor so that I could charge my camera before going to İstanbul the next day, and on my way back to catch the dolmuş I saw a kid get hit by a car.

Turks drive like maniacs, and I heard a scream on the other side of the street and saw this little girl - she must have been about six - on the asphalt with the wheel of a taxi almost on top of her.  A huge crowd gathered as her mother grabbed her and dragged her to the pavement.  They were both screaming, which was a relief - at least the poor thing was alive.  I didn't realize until later that i understood what her mother was screaming at the taxi driver, as I watched people check this child over, pour water on her, pull out their mobile phones to call an ambulance.  I was thoroughly shocked, but there were at least fifty people there and I couldn't be of any help.  I carried on getting home, but was really shaky the rest of the afternoon.

That night, or the next morning really, at 1:30 am, we all met up at the bus station to catch our otobus to İstanbul.  I said goodbye to my grandparents and got on, and we all drifted in and out of consciousness for seven hours.  Then we got to İstanbul and I wished I'd slept solidly,  because what followed was a half hour of lugging overpacked bags through that crazy city, which, at eight in the morning, was just beginning to spill its hungover soul back into the streets and start to party again.

What followed was a day of sickness, reunitation with the İstanbul NSLI-Y crowd (we were a lucky group - they fought the whole six weeks and there was some t e n s i o n), more Starbucks, a gorgeous nighttime boat tour of the Bosphorus, and crazed hanging out in hotel rooms until five in the morning.

I was not destined to sleep the next day, either, for flights are delayed and shit happens.  And the strangest thing happened after we had 'de-planed'.  What a word.  Anyway, a turkish woman heard me talking to one of the other AFSers about my school, and she interrupted to say she knew it!  Turned out, she was a professor at the Florida Institute of Technology and had a student who went to MSSM a few years ago!  The world just keeps getting smaller...

Anyway, I'm home now and have far too much to do.  I have to go now, so I'll put a thousand pictures on this post later.

Oh, and isn't this just the Summer of Gay Rights?  Argentina, Mexico, now California again?  Keep it coming!

Hoş çakal!

Leaving

Well, this may be the last opportunity I have to post until I get back to the States.  We fly on Sunday, but my host family is actually off to America for a holiday tomorrow, so I'm staying with my host-grandparents until Friday night.  Our bus to İstanbul leaves Ankara at 1:30 am Saturday.  I am stunned by this information and have no comprehension of why anyone let alone (or even?  Some of them are pretty nuts) AFS would schedule such a thing.  No matter, we shall reach İstanbul early and spend an exhausting day basking in its glory before flying home Sunday.  I'm excited to see the İstanbul NSLI-Y group, and the other AFS Turkey summer people who weren't on this scholarship, and the 12 days I have at home are something I'm looking forward to

(Things I am going to eat: blueberries, rare meat, spelt bread, lobster, Maine mussels, greens from my family's garden, pork, distinct from bacon, and a lot of fruit desserts)

And I'm half-scared, half-excited for this nutty school I'm going to.  But, guys, I've just spent my summer in Türkiye.  I am just beginning to feel confident with this language, as if I could really do well if I could study it more.  The heat doesn't bother me as much as it used to - at the beginning of this trip, every day on the bus I would feel this slick of sweat on my back just slide hotly and roll down the backs of my legs, and now I can actually make it through the day conscious of something other than 'God, what did this part of the world do to deserve this?' - and I adore the food like nothing else.  The people are friendly and, for the most part, not too creepy, and I love my family and my teacher and my new friends. 

Oh, I dıdn't realıse I was leavıng NOW. 
Bye.

Frustrated, Homesick and Generally Happy

Merhaba, everyone, and happy July fourth ıf that's what you go for.  I love fireworks, but who doesn't?  I missed school this weekend, if you can believe it, because it's turned out to be the time I can unwind a little with people who speak fluent english.  Living wıth my host famıly ıs great, fantastic really, but it's also nıce to be in a constant settıng for a bıt.  Yesterday after goıng to the haırdresser's wıth my mother and sıster:

(he didn't speak englısh, so I only found out afterwards that thıs ıs permanent) I went bowlıng wıth Alkım and her frıends, and we had dınner wıth some old frıends of my parents.  The same frıends, plus the guy's brother and hıs famıly, came over thıs evenıng.  I ımprovısed a couple pıes - one apple and one made wıth tınned blueberrıes I brought ın my suıtcase - and they were very well receıved, whıch made me happy.  I felt a tiny bıt homesıck for the fırst tıme when I tasted the blueberry (I am the dısqualıfıed champıon of the Maıne State Blueberry Pıe Contest 2010), and the US embassy ın Ankara set off fantastıc fıreworks, whıch we could see from our balcony here. 

Earlıer today, my anne and sıster took me t Atatürk's mausoleum, whıch was very ınterestıng.  There are soldıers there who don't move at all, sımılar to the ones around Buckıngham Palace, and the structures and museum there are very dramatıc.  Turkısh people really, really love Mustafa Kemal, as Atatürk ıs also called, to the poınt, ıt seems to an outsıder, or worshıp or deıfıcatıon.  From what lıttle I know, he was a great guy wıth revolutıonary ıdeas way ahead of hıs tıme, and I can't thınk of a sımılar hıstorıcal leader who gets such posthumous adoratıon.

After the mausoleum we vısıted Ankara castle, whıch ıs a gorgeous stop, though I haven't fıgured out the hıstory yet.  Let me mentıon here that today ıt was 40 degrees celcıus, before the thunderstorm set ın, and almost unbearably brıght outsıde.  We ate lunch ın thıs ıncredıbly cool restaurant wıth crumblıng tıle rooves and two women ın headscarves who sat and prepared our food over a sort of ındoor grıll.  Then the castle ıtself - one of the hıghest poınts ın Ankara (thıs ıs a serıously underrated cıty, people, you should come here) and very old and beautıful.  So, yes, I am more than exhausted.  Oh, and we got up at noon thıs mornıng.  TUrkısh breakfasts on the weekends are the best thıngs imaginable.  Helva ıs my new favourite food, and we had omelette, olıves, pancakes (okay, that part's not so Turkısh), cheese, simit....Mmmm! 

So...I'm actually too tıred to wrıte anythıng more,  so I'm just goıng to show you some of the pıctures I've taken...apologıes for thıs completely ınexcusable excuse for bloggıng....ıt's just too hard to stay awake when you've been toastıng pıe all evenıng and readıng Paradıse Lost all nıght for a week.

Grr.  Okay, blogger beıng dıffıcult.  More tomorrow, I promıse and I do apologıze.  Bye.

A Post With A Ridiculous Number Of Pictures

Selam, everyone.  It's the end of a beautiful hot day, and I'm packing right now.

AFS has very strict rules about what you can bring, and I have to keep my luggage under 44 pounds.  I'm culling my clothing selections to make room for the America and Maine-themed things I'm bringing my family.

On Saturday night, I went with my family to dinner with some friends who used to live in Turkey.  They put on a wonderful evening, and we watched a slideshow of photographs projected on a sail outside.  It kept billowing back and forth in the wind, and we made a lot of jokes about all the earthquakes in Turkey.  We ate the most delicious turkish food - grilled meat, aubergine, and feta cheese wrapped in phyllo and deep fried.  I made baklava for the first time, and was very pleased with the way it came out.

I spent yesterday with two lovely friends from the AFS orientation.  One of them, Silvia, is from Indonesia and going home next weekend after a whole year in Augusta.  The other, Danielle, lives here in Maine and is going to Turkey on NSLI-Y as well, for a semester.

We cooked Indonesian fried rice, which was absolutely delicious, and a lovely syrupy middle-eastern dessert.  Silvia stayed the night, and only just left.  I went to work babysitting for a couple hours while she hung out with my mum and some other mothers and kids at my house, and when I got back we went to the beach.  We waded, caught hermit crabs, and drew maps in the sand of the US, Indonesia and Turkey.

We also wrote our names in the sand.  She did hers in Arabic, and I wrote my hebrew name, לאה (Leah).  I think Arabic is far more güzel than Hebrew.

Some guys from my school showed up at the beach, and I introduced her, and when we left we put flowers on their various cars (identifiable by the college bumper stickers they sport.  Notable is the Harvard convertible) for them to find.  Then we went kayaking, which Silvia had never tried before.  She got quite good at it, and we were very happy and tired by the end.

I am SO excited about going to Turkey.  I fly to New York the day after tomorrow for the orientation, and on Friday to İstanbul!  I've found my host mother and sister, Didem and Alkım, on facebook and we've added each another as family.  They seem so nice, I just can't wait to meet them.  My host father is a chemical engineer, my anne studied psychology and works as a sales manager, and Alkım loves rock and plays the piano.  They've been to London, too, which is really great since I lived there for the first nine years of my life.

These rocks are just some pictures I took at the beach, but I am so enamored of the sharpness achieved by the Lumix that I couldn't help it - even if I kind of am echoing Ian's posts.  Whatever, he does it better.  In any case, I implore you to click on these to enlarge them and marvel.

And with that, my dears (sevgilim in Türkçe), I must away to my suitcase and figure out how to make it all weigh something that I am capable of lugging around Türkiye on my own (I'll have you know that I lugged some pretty damn heavy kayaks today, through the stickiest mud thusfar traversed by womankind).  I'll try to fit in another post before I leave, and then I'll be writing from Ankara!  I imagine that I'll be quite a mess when I first get there, so you must bear with me.  And just because this is a post with a ridiculous number of pictures, I'll throw in just one more:

İyi geceler.