Our Best Weekend Yet!

Well, close anyways :) The other weekends are kind of in a blur, everything has been happening so fast for so long! I was writing an email to my parents, and realized that what I was telling them would actually made a decent blog post, and unlike my usual self, it'd be SHORT!

Things are going well here, I got a call this morning and I have another student, so that will be a little more money for 2 weeks anyways. Apparently he has taken the TOEFL (English as a Foreign Language, they need to take it to go to school abroad to prove they know English) and will get his score in a few weeks, but just in case he didn't pass, his mother wants him to take some lessons with me. Uh, ok. Seems like a bit of a waste of money when he may already have passed, but hey, it's their money. So this makes it so I have a total of 6 students now. Lesson planning is getting a little hectic :) Socially we're settling in though and things are getting hectic in a good way!

Friday night we got together with some of our CELTA friends, just to hang out near the sea and relax, have drinks and chat. They all brought some of their friends as well, so we met some awesome new people as well.A very late night, but it was so good to see these people again! and to feel social :)

Saturday we hung out with Pinar, who was in our CELTA course. She took us to Metro, which is similar to Sam's Club. I bought some artwork for the apt, some school supplies that we needed, and a couple other things. A way fun store but no way of getting there by bus, so we'll have to go whenever she goes. It was nice to be able to get some things that we otherwise can't find in the traditional Turkish supermarkets, and also just to hang out with her. we have plans to meet up again on Friday, although that may need to be bumped back a little now that I have that new student.

Yesterday Chris and I went out to the village our landlady lives in. Not a pretty village, but it was very much a picture of an authentic village. We absolutely loved it. She took us to another village along the water, where we had gözleme ('guz-luh-may), which is similar to a quesadilla only WAY WAY better. The lady who had the stall was so funny, she was an older lady, VERY spunky, and so funny! She even made us fresh sarma, which are the stuffed grape leaves. I tried Ayran again, which is that salty yogurt drink that I found totally disgusting last time. Apparently it's an acquired taste, and Nesta (our landlady) told me that it went great with gözleme, so I tried it again. Yup, still gross. But I am quite determined that I will learn to like it, pretty much every Turk does. One of my students was actually really upset that I didn't like it, so yes, I will learn. Anyways, after that we drove to find Teos, which is an ancient Greek town, in ruins of course, but you're free to wander around w/o paying a fee or anything. It's just kind of sitting there, waiting to be excavated. We found it and we'll explore at a later time when it's cooler. Then we went to the beach, which was a blast! Very relaxing and the water felt just like Lake Michigan, chilly but awesome on a hot day! That evening Nesta took us back to her house and made us baked chicken legs, potato salad, corn-on-the-cob, bread and butter, and bean salad. Quite an American-type meal. It was very interesting, their corn here isn't sweet corn. It's actually much more similar to the field corn that my parents grow. So yeah, a little chewier and different tasting that I have been used to in the past. But it was all good. So yeah, all in all, a great weekend! I expect our next few weekends will be good too, we are actually booked up for the next 3 weekends!

Ok, despite my temptation to write more on here, I promised a shorter post this time. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Oh yeah, before I forget: I've only heard the drummer once b/c I was awake for a bit. Apparently I sleep through it, since Chris ASSURES me that the man comes down our street every morning at 3:15 AM. I can't say that it breaks my heart that I don't hear him...