Thinking Out Loud

A lot of little things have happened in the past few days/weeks that I definitely wanted to document, so here's a run down of a lot of little things!  I'm linking up with Running With Spoons today, too, so that's just an extra bonus!

1.  We were talking about guilty pleasures.  People seemed to understand what the meaning of a guilty pleasure was and were naming all sorts of things from Candy Crush to different TV shows.  All of a sudden, one of the students was like "Hanukkah!"  I was SO confused, but figured it could be some weird obsession with Hanukkah.  As he kept talking, I realized that he didn't mean Hanukkah, he meant hookah, which is extremely popular in Turkey.  Maybe he's planning on celebrating eight nights of hookah?

2. We were talking about Turkish culture, which I think is interesting to hear from them.  They were coming up with great stuff and I was soaking it all up.  Finally, they ran out of ideas, but one girl decided to search "Turkish culture" on Google.  She starts sounding out the word with a confused look on her face...

"Cir-"

"Circum-"

"Circumcision?"

Nope. Not talking about that here! Sorry!


3.  Izmir has decorated for Christmas.  At first, we just noticed a few lights shaped like snowflakes, which gave it a winter-y feel.  Then, we started noticing lights shaped like angels and things just got weird. A few days after the angels appeared, I was walking to work and I noticed two guys setting up a light display at the end of a no drive street.  When I was walking back home at the end of the night when it was dark out, I realized that it was a straight up nativity scene.  Turkey is 90% Muslim.  Why is there a nativity?  They didn't get it quite right because, even though there was a baby, there were four angels looking at him.   So so weird.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas decorations, but I think it's kind of strange how obsessed they are with Christmas decorations, despite the fact that they don't celebrate Christmas.  Maybe that's just me...

4.  I finally got my haircut.  I got my haircut before we moved here.  Yup, in June.  I've needed a haircut for months, but between traveling and the language barrier, I just haven't done it.  There is a small barber on base, but Mike and I had been talking about going to get my haircut out in the real world, so I hadn't done it.  Finally, it got to the point where I couldn't stand it anymore and I broke down and went to the guy on base.  I am definitely not ready to try to speak Turkish to get my haircut, but maybe by the time I'm due again, I'll be ready.

5.  Mike's friend (and groomsman) Ben came to visit this weekend on his way to Israel for work.  While I was getting my haircut/manicure and pedicure, they were out exploring Ephesus and Izmir and seeing Star Wars.  I told them if they took a picture, they'd make the blog, so this is what I got.  Love it!

6. Our Goddaughter, Emma, was baptized on Sunday and, while we weren't able to be there physically, we were able to participate through FaceTime.  Thanks to Emma's parents for arranging it for us and to our lovely videographer Karen! Emma was a gem and was wide awake and quiet throughout the entire baptism and then promptly fell asleep for the entire church service.  She woke up just in time for the last hymn and then pictures with anyone and everyone. What a smart little lady!

I promise I'm not crying in this screen shot, but I mean, she's just so cute, I could understand if I was!

Emma's baptism gown was made from Anna's wedding dress which makes it extra beautiful!

The camera really makes us look great, don't you think? I also love how excited Emma is in this picture! Can't you just see all of the joy and excitement? Ha!

We are so honored to be Emma's Godparents and we were so happy to watch from afar.

As Mike and I were discussing the baptism that morning beforehand, he decided he should practice his lines and just goes "I pledge allegiance, to the Emma..."   He had me laughing at that one.

7.  I made Christmas cookies the other day, thanks to the package from my mom, and brought them to my Turkish class and then to my students.  Y'all, they went nuts and thought they were the greatest thing! It was so fun! The students in my Turkish class were taking pictures of all of the different shapes (Santa, snowflake, Christmas Tree, etc) and then in my other class later that night, they just kept talking about how delicious they were.  I didn't have the heart to tell them they were just a mix with store bought icing.  I loved it!

Seven Quick Takes

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for Seven Quick Takes about this week.  We haven't done a ton, but there are lots of little random things that have been going on, so here's the run down of our week.

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!