1 month anniversary

In the beginning of the week I baby sat Kayla. We shared alot of laughs especially when she asked me to climb into her little 3-foot high tent. I looked like a giant with my legs sticking out the tent. Shortly after playing in the tent Kayla decided that she wanted to color. I picked up a brown marker smelling it to see if it had a chocolate scent like my markers growing up. The marker had no scent but Kayla had to check as well. She was so adorable especially when she colored the tip of her noise brown. Soon it was time to leave and I said bye bye to Kayla. She replied bye bye Akera. This made my heart melt. Later that night Rachel called me and said she wanted Kayla to be taught English by one exchange student for the whole year.

Wednesday night was the opening event for ESN (Erasmus Student Network). It's a pretty low key bar that’s focused on good conversation and a bit of dancing. It was packed when I arrived so I did a brief walk thouhg and left for two other bars. Later that night I went back to ESN and met a lot of exchange students from other universities. At the end of the night I was approached by a Turk who asked me if I was American. I replied yes, why? He replied that I looked American and brought his friend over. His friend had studied at Yale and wanted to know my thoughts on living in a secular society. I said my family questioned my choice but I have my own reglious views. She agreed.

Thursday October 21st was my grandmother's 78th birthday. I'm was so glad I was able to speak to her and the she is still holding on strong. I'm proud of her being a fighter. Today was also my one month anniversary of being abroad!

Friday I went to the Turkish Cultural Foundation in Taksim to meet Hulya. This was a requirement since I am a reciepent of ther $2,000 scholarship. On the way there I stopped at Sariyer Borekivi and had the most amazing potato borek. Upon my arrival I had to wait 20 minuets for Hulya to get off the phone. She spoke to me for a few minuets and then spent 10 minuets talking on her BB and greeting people at the door even though there was a receptionist. Hulya showed me their website which was filled with Turkish song, dance, foor dand many other cultural things. The receptionist and Hulya both offered me çay (tea) about three times later on I realized Hulya's business etiquette would seem less rude if I was preoccuppied by cay. All in All TCA is a great place that I can come to for help.

Later on that night was the Taksim pub crawl. Alex, the backpacker I met the weekend before was back from Cairo so Lexie, Zack, Damian and I decided to meet up with him on last time. In between meeting with Alex and the rest of the group Damian and I went for food. Damian and I had a McKofte burger from McDonalds. Kofte is a tradtional Turkish dish of barbeque meatballs in Turkish. On our way back to Joker Joker a guy named Ben walked up to me and said I heard you speaking English and I saw you the other night at ESN. Are you American? I was so excited to speak to someone else who spoke English. Turns out Ben is from California but studies at Columbia University. We exchanged numbers and head our seperate was. Joker Joker was packed so Damian and I decided to head out to ESN. There I met two people from Long Island, students living in Conneticut, an Assuie and a guy from Mauritius. Soon after this I went to a dance club where I meet Indonesians that worked in Dubai and two Portugese Erasmus studying in Sophia,Bulgaria.

The next day was a planned photography trip. During the trip I witnessed a woman drop a basket with money from her 7th floor window for the neighborhood grocery store across the street to bring her food. I purchased some vintage necklaces and had lunch at limonlu bache (lemon garden), a nice restaurant inside of a three part gardern. Here is where I had my first near death exeprence in Turkey. I ordered a fresh squeezed limonade for 8TL and a meat wrap for 20TL. My sandwich came out with red sauce on it. I took the first bite which wasn't to bad but a second later I was on the verge of tears. My lips turned beat red and I had a hard time breathing. I gulped down my $6 limondade and asked Batu, my ex-mentor to order me another sandwich and limondade.

Later on that night I celebrated Dunia's birthday at Open House, a beautiful contemporary restaurant in Ortakoy. After dinner I purchased a handmade Amythyst pendant and ring for 40TL. Shortly after I caught a cab with Lexie and two others to go dancing in Taksim. Lexie and her overly friendly hello got our cab followed by 4 men all the way to Taksim. Our cab driver even cut them off and went up an alley way and they continued to follow us. They even got out of there car in Taksim and asked us alot of questions until we met up with Dunia and the others.

Sunday was pretty low key since Jasmine and I decided to go downtown for dinner and groceries. On the dolmus there I told her about the potato borek. Burger King was already our choice for dinner but Jasmine said “we could get borek and eat it on the way to Burger King.” That is exactly what we did.