Hoş geldiniz, 2010!

Chris and I were talking the other night, and we both agreed that although 2009 was fun, we really do hope that 2010 is a little less...surprising. Although I am sure that I will never regret this experience, the act of giving up my home, "career," car, and stuff to travel to Asia and live there is something that I think I need some recovery time from before I do it again.

We had an extraordinarily low-key New Years, as is our usual MO. My students all canceled, so I had the day free, but Chris had to work. When he got home we ate, and then watched a movie. Now, I had been pestering him for awhile to watch "Cleopatra" with a young Elizabeth Taylor. I just don't see the fascination with the old lady, and I wanted to see what everyone was so obsessed about. Four painful hours later, I was still wondering...

It did serve to pass the time until 11:45PM though. We turned on our TV to try and find the Turkish version of Ryan Seacrest (Chris swears he's out there! Scary) and instead stumbled upon probably the biggest train-wreck of a New Years Eve show I've ever seen. Although I will try hard to make this believable, let me assure you all that I was having a hard time believing my eyes.

There were 3 hosts. The first was a singer. Although she was quite pretty, her fashion sense was a disaster. First, imagine a gown that is knee-length in the front, and floor length in the back. Now color it magenta (that's bright pink for you men out there). Now add feathers to the back. And her wrists. Within the feathers on her wrists are huge, thick diamond cuffs. So it looks like the feathers got caught there. She also has a matching necklace, although perhaps a more appropriate term would be neck-and-shoulders-lace; oh yes, it was so wide it went from around her neck to draping over her shoulders. And as Turkish women are wont, waaaaay too much blush. So that was her.

The next host was a man who was probably about 70 years old. His hair was dyed jet black, however, which just looked weird, but did match his suit. He had a huge mustache, and was trying very hard to make this a serious show. When he sang, he sort of bobbed around (dancing?) and every once in a while, did a shimmy that just served to look like he was possessed.

The third host was a younger guy who looked surly. I don't think he smiled once.

During the course of the show, feathers were lost, there was a dog on the stage, a cake with sparkler candles, an audience full of old, extremely drunk ladies, audience members on stage dancing, certain audience members hustled off the stage by the older host after they didn't dance well enough (the good (and hot and young) dancers were left alone). But the best part? 11:58, they went to commercial! And Turkish TV doesn't do short commercial breaks, I think the shortest I've seen is 10 minutes. So somewhere between an add for Ayran and an add for chocolate, 2010 was rung in. A ship in the harbor blew its horn, which is how we knew when to clink glasses and smooch.

We opened our windows to watch fireworks. This was partly because we found it so cool that it was warm enough to leave the windows open, and partly because I still haven't washed the windows, so in order to actually SEE the fireworks, we kind of needed them open. We were able to see fireworks all around Izmir, all around the bay. Absolutely beautiful.

So that was our New Year's Eve in Turkey. Low key, but just like we like it. We both hope that this year is as fun and exciting as last year, although perhaps a little less dramatic. We also hope that all of our friends and family have a blessed year in 2010. And that someone will come and visit us. :D

Love you and miss you all!