1. Mike basically had the week off, so he was home all day every day (except Monday). One of his professors was at a conference and his other class fell on Republic Day, plus his Turkish classes were between sessions, so he only had one class Monday morning. I think he enjoyed having a lot of time to lounge around, since he's usually running around for most of the day.
2. It was Republic Day yesterday, so both Mike and I had the day off. We didn't do much to celebrate, but we were able to watch all of the festivities from our balcony, which was fun. There were at least five different people selling Turkish flags and at least half of the people walking around had on Turkish flag tshirts. It reminded me a lot of 4th of July in the United States, minus the hot dogs. Mike celebrated by wearing American flag shorts. As if we didn't stand out enough already.....
Flags on flags on flags!
I don't know if you can see, but there was like a full on drum corps out there
3. Probably the most exciting part of this whole week was....WE HUNG OUT WITH FRIENDS! Mike has a guy from his class (Murat) who is also playing football with him and we went out with Murat and his girlfriend. Guys, this was so exciting! It's like the first interaction with potential friends since we've moved here! Murat's parents are Turkish but he grew up in Holland, so he's new to Turkey, just like us. His girlfriend is from Albania, but moved to Belgium in the early 2000s. They both go to Yashar with Mike and were really nice.
4. My classes this week were a lot of fun. We talked a lot about Halloween, trick or treating and superstitions, as well as the elections in both Turkey (which is this Sunday!) and the United States. It was pretty interesting to hear the different superstitions of Turkey.
5. I finished my book that I was reading and am kind of glad it's over. I saw "The Last Train to Istanbul" displayed in a bunch of gift shops in Istanbul and decided to read it. The history about Turkey's role in World War II was interesting, but the plot wasn't the best. It wasn't terrible, but not going to be on my must read list.
6. Oh, the time change. It's got everyone in Turkey confused. Usually, Turkey changes clocks with Europe, which was last weekend, but "because of the election" (don't ask me what time changes have to do with elections), we aren't changing clocks until November 8th. So, for two weeks, we're an hour ahead of Europe and for one week we'll be eight hours ahead of the United States. Plus, a lot of cell phones and computers changed times with Europe, so everyone is confused.
7. It's started to really feel like fall and I am LOVING it!! It's been in the 70s during the day and 50s at night. We've finally stopped sleeping with the air conditioning on and my feet keep getting cold because I forget to put socks on in the morning. After the 100 degree weather of this summer, it's a refreshing change. I'm curious to see what the winter weather will be like and when things will start to get even colder.
I think that's all that we've really been up to this week. Nothing too exciting, but next week will be back to normal for Mike and I'll finally start Turkish lessons, so we'll be busy busy!! Happy Halloween!
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