Goodbye Summer.

Summer is offically over.

I start teacher workdays tomorrow and the kids come back next Tuesday, Sept 1st. I am excited and looking forward to being back in the classroom. It has been a good summer. Took me a while to get used to the different pace of life, but I ended up really enjoying myself. In between going to the states, studying language, and having visitors; I did lots of other cool things! Here are a few pictures from my fun and eventful summer!

Went to a Galatasaray futbol game. This was quite entertaining and a very memorable night, with some great friends.

I became a big fan - it was so fun!

Visited the Prince's Islands a couple times, these are Islands off of Istanbul - its very nice and peaceful, no cars and lots of grass!

I made as many trips as possible to Starbucks - to read, study Turkish, catch up with friends, and play cards :) I enjoyed being out in the city at night, and not feeling the pressure of having to wake up at 6am the next morning! Soon enough, though.

And then just hung out with friends - new and old. It's fun and sometimes hard being in a city where you meet new people all the time, and then sad when you have to tell them bye.

Happyness

One of the many perks of being a teacher in Turkey is that I get lots of discounts (indirim)! I have this Teacher Card with my picture on it that lets me ride any form of public transportation for half price. While my friend, Liz, was here we toured all around the city. On our 1st day we went to Topkapi Palace - where the Ottoman Sultans lived in the 15th century. Anyways, I decided to see if I could use my teacher card to get a discount. I walked up to the window, showed them my card and told them I was a teacher. There was a lot lost in the translation, but I did understand something about it costing 10 lira, which is half of the 20 lira that my friend had to pay! I thought GREAT, and handed him my teacher card. He starting working on his computer, asked me a lot of questions (still didnt understand much), scanned my teacher card, and then took my money. Next, he handed me a MUZE KART. I was really confused but thanked him and walked away. Come to find out this MUZE KART gets me into all the Museums across Turkey for free, and it doesn't expire until next summer. Normally they dont give them to foreigners, its just for Turks. I think with my lack of Turkish, the man just felt sorry for me so he gave it to me. Whatever the reason - I am glad to have it, it has saved me a ton of money!

One of my favorite things to do in my city is ride the boat across the Bosphorus. All summer long there have been cruise ships docked in, sometimes up to 3 or 4 ships at a time. This always gets me so excited, because cruising is something my family and I love to do together. We have so many fun memories going to the Bahamas and Mexico. I like to look up the cruise ship's name online and find out where they have come from and where they are going next. Then I imagine what it would be like to cruise around this part of the world with my family! I sure hope I get to take at least one cruise while I live over here.

Come Visit Me!

A few weeks ago I had my 1st visitor - my good friend Liz!! It was wonderful having her here for 10 days. Liz was a great guest and fun person to show around my city, because it didn’t matter what we did...she LOVED it! It felt nice to just be a tourist for a few days and really enjoy my city. Sometimes I forget how beautiful my city is and how cool it is that I live here. I had a lot of fun planning our time together and being a tour guide. We were on the go the whole time and it was a lot of fun exploring with a good friend. Liz and I did lots of neat things, but instead of listing them all out here is a top ten from our time together! 10. Eating some good food – McDonalds, Chili’s, Ikea, gozleme, tavuk sis, and Magnum Bars
9. Setting up the self timer at every tourist spot – Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, Basilica Cisterns, Hippodrome, etc
8. Going to the Hamam – a true Turkish experience :)
7. Watching like 20 episodes of Friends.
6. Playing cards every spare minute we had – on the boat to the islands, at the airport waiting on Julie, at Starbucks, or wherever else.
5. Laughing Laughing Laughing – I seriously love this girl’s laugh.
4. Liz letting me use her arm for support as I limped around on my strained ankle – the result of wearing flip-flops everyday in a city where I have to walk a lot on uneven concrete.
3. Spending as much time with Julie as possible, which meant we slept like 12 hours in the 3 nights she was here. But totally worth it.
2. Sitting at the Starbucks in Bebek and singing Michael Jackson on my Ipod.
1. Having Liz by my side for 10 days straight – it was glorious and a truly great time!
My old roomie came for the weekend and it was so good for me to have some time with her. I miss her a lot, but am so thankful for the 5 months we had to live together when we first moved overseas!