Just Another Day

Merhaba, everyone. 

Oh, so much news, where shall I start?  Today at TÖMER, lunch was a lesson.  A rather enjoyable one, too.  Lunch is always very good there, and AFS (well, The state department...ie American taxpayers) pays for it, which is delightful, but today was special. 

Our amazingly cool waiter...

Just kept bringing more food, and there was a teacher there to show us how to eat it all.  Just when we were sure it wsa done there would be another dish, and the chef came out, too.  

Once lunch was over - which took a while - we were set loose a couple hours early with no afternoon lesson at all!  Oh, and the mornıng class consisted largely of this CD. 

After all the köfte, salata, dolma, döner kebap, yoğurt, ekmek, ayran, baklava and çay, we could barely walk so we hung around for a while on the roof where the school restaurant is and decided what to do.  We ended up going here. 

To the top of a hill where there's this really tall tower that's quite famous in Ankara.  It was a very long, steep walk, just what the eıght of us (one girl left early to do something with her host family) needed.

After that, we wandered on toward our various bus stops and gradually split up.  I went off to a sectıon of the street my bus stop is on, where there are rows of shady book dealers.  I found myself the dictionary I needed for 5 lira, and I think it's going to be my best friend.  I had one that was İngilizce - Türkçe, but needed one that goes both ways, and this darling little thing will fit in my pocket. 

After that I stopped by Mavi Jeans, a very popular turkish clothes retailer (mavi means blue) and tried on a couple shirts.  They have some really cool t-shirts with differnt designs saying İSTANBUL, and I think I'll get a black one that says Burası İstanbul (this is İstanbul) on it.  While I was trying it on, Not Fair by Lily Allen started playing.  I love that song, it's ridiculous.  And so I stayed in the changing room and danced and sang along with Lily.  But they bleeped some of it!  Only in Turkey, where nobody can understand the words of the song, do they change that line to

 I'm feeling pretty damn hard-done by

I spent ages giving beeep

This amused me to no end.

Now, because this is not working out to be a very deep post, watch me as I proceed to totally echo eM on her abfab blog The Compulsive Confessor.  Not in describing the party life in India, of course, but by copying her recent photo post. 

I'm not a huge shopping person, which is a lucky thing for me because, really, the options in rural Maine are few and far between.  But, since I'll be throwing myself from the pan to the fire (or perhaps the fridge to the Antarctic?) on August the 21st by going off the the Maine School of Science and Mathematics, three minutes from the Canadian border and surrounded by the permafrosted potato fields of Limestone, ME, I thought maybe I'd better get in a few kicks while I'm in one of those magic things called a city.  Especially since the exchange rate's in my favour.  So, here are a few photos of my new clothes.

Fun skirt, quite plain but I think it'll go nicely with lots of things I already have.

It doesn't look like a very flattering shirt off, but I love the neckline and feel quite curvy in this (that might have something to do with the weight I've gained here.  Might (!)).  It's also relatively long and goes nicely with jeans, which I feel I'll end up wearing a lot of up in Occupied Canada.

Weird İmogen fact - I wore my first pair of jeans on October the 18th, 2008.  Before that I refused.  I have no idea why.

And finally this.  (I'm really pleased with this one, even if it was a little expensive as shirts go).  I never really got into the Plaid Movement, but this is pretty and I like the way it ties in front and the sleeve length.

Okay, I'm done being an evil materialistic consumer now.  And I've done my homework, with my lovely new dictionary, and ıt's 11:30 (or, as I learned today, saat on bir buçuk) so I suppose I'll just shut up now. 

Ooh, my family's taking me to İstanbul this weekend! 

Okay, right.  Shutting up.  İyi geceler.