What country have you lived in for the past 12 months?

I went to Turkey to visit some friends. I had so much fun with them. Here is a picture of us in Ortakoy at the jewelry pazar.
It turns out traveling from Turkey to London takes a whole lot longer than it should especially since it is a 4 hour flight. On my way home I left my friends house at 4:45 am, which is really 2:45 am England time. I took a taxi just to the metrobus. Then I rode this for 30 minutes, got out to transfer and waited 20 minutes. Then I got on the next one and rode 20 more minutes. I said the word for airport and the Turkish men started screaming 'Yabanci' until the driver stopped to let me off. Apparently they thought I should get off there. So I got off and followed the nice gentleman's directions to the metro. This took me directly to the airport. Finally I got through passport control. They didnt really want me to go through and had to make some phone calls because my previous exit stamp was on the same page as my visa. I finally get to the terminal which is behind security where there are no restaurants so you cant take water on the plane. That is annoying. Anyway, my plane landed at 10:00 am england time which is really noon turkey time. At this point it has already been 7 hours since I left my friends house.
I flew through Heathrow, which is a nightmare. I was so happy I made it through passport control with only a few questions. I was then stopped by this lady who was doing a survey. Her first question was "What country have you lived in for the past 12 months?" I spouted off my 3 countries and she looked at me and with a weird look and said 'thats all I need to know.' I thought great I dont really want to sit and talk anyway. But it made me think that I have lived in 3 countries this year. That is pretty crazy. Quite an accomplishment for me.
Anyway continuing with the trip. I lug my bag through 2 tube stations and finally reach my last train at noon making it now 9 hours of traveling time, and sit down with a very large iced latte and a bagel happy to be 30 minutes from home. It turns out that the signals were messed up and all of the trains from that station were canceled. Great. So I get out, go back to the tube and take 2 more trains that lead me to another station. I had never used this station so I had to figure out how to find the right train to take me home. I figured it out just in time and jumped on the train. This was the long train which stopped at every single small town between London and Redhill. Why am I not surprised. So I finally got back to Redhill, took my luggage home, and ran to work making it there by 3:00 which is now 12 and a half hours since I began my journey on one hour of sleep. Needless to say, I was exhausted.

its been a while

I have been doing a horrible job at updating. I will try to do better. I always think nothing exciting happens in my life.

Everything is so green and beautiful here. Our office is out in this garden. It is so pretty. I saw a fox the other day. I have seen so many all over this city. I guess they will replace the large number of cats that filled the streets in my last city.

A few weeks ago, my friend April came. We toured London and saw so many things. I finally learned my way around the city.

We went the the globe theatre and saw a Shakespeare play. We stood right by the stage like the peasants a long time ago. I loved it and hope to go back again. It is only 5 pounds. What a deal!!

American football

This past weekend, we went to an American football game. There is a teacher at the international school here whose husband coaches a team in their college league. They had the championship game on Saturday so we went to cheer them on. We had no idea what to expect, but were excited to see American football.
They played in a futbol field, so here is a picture of the field goal posts.
It wasnt the best quality football and the refs were pretty awful, but it was still so much fun. These guys havent grown up playing football like college players in the states. Someone said to think peewee football in college age bodies. I dont think it was quite that bad. The other team was from a university here called Bogazici. We were sitting by a lot of their fans so got to hear them cheer and chant throughout the game. There wasn't a score board or anything, so we think the score was 22-20 in which we lost in the fourth quarter. There also wasn'treally a timer, so you never know how much time is left on the clock. I dont think the coaches or players know either. It seemed like the fourth quarter lasted forever. At the end of the game the players of the other team ran into the stands and began to climb the fence to get to their fans. It was kind of the opposite from the states where the fans run onto the field. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the stampede of the players running towards us.
Here is a video so you can see the cheering of the Bogazici team and us cheering against them, a little of a play, and also the players climbing into the stands at the end.

Are you serious?

This past Wednesday the weather was beautiful and a few of the guys in the office went golfing. A few other girls and I decided to go see the Rumelihisarı which is a fortress on the Europe side built in 1452. You can go in and explore the fortress. Here is a picture of it from the Bosphorous. We also planed to go to a starbucks with a great view of the Bosphorous afterwards.

I went in to the office early to get some work done. Then I rode a bus to meet one of the ladies at the iskele (boat dock). The other lady ended up not being able to make it. We were planning on meeting two other girls at the fortress later on. Sherree and I proceeded to take the boat to the other side and then a bus to the Rumelihisarı. While on the bus we got a call from the other girl saying she was on the bus and missed the stop which caused her to miss the boat across. The next boat would make her a few hours late, so we just planned to meet them at starbucks. We thought of a way on public that she could get to us in time, so we called back and forth for 30 minutes or so until we decided to just go ahead and go into the fortress and meet them when they got there. We got up to the Rumelihisarı and we saw this sign....
...I don't know if you can read the writing, but on the bottom of the sign it says the hours it is open and the phrase "except on Wednedsay" You might not remember, but this happened to be a Wednesday. Well, now what do we do? We called the other girl to tell her and then decided to go to the Dolmabahçe Palace, which is another touristy site I hadn't seen yet. At this point my phone is about to die and Sherree's had died earlier that day. We made a few calls to see if the other girls wanted to meet us there and to see what time it was open. Now it is 3:20 and it should be about a 20 minute bus ride back to the palace. They were open and quit letting people in at 4:00. So we got in a bus and head that direction. We got off the bus at 3:55 which is near the palace and walked fast to get there. We were let inside the gardens through the security, and we took our time walking through the gardens. When we got about 10 feet from the door they closed it right in front of our faces. It was crazy. We took our pictures and left. Here is a picture of the front of the palace and the closed door at the Dolmabahçe Palace.

Now we were thinking that we couldnt end the day now and just go home. That would be anticlimactic. So we decide to go to a nearby starbucks. We enjoyed our frappaccinos and had a great time even though it wasnt the original starbucks on the itinerary. It wasnt right on the water, but good enough at that point.

What a day. To add to it, Sherree had taken a lot of pictures to document me trying to visit more tourist sites before I move. However, it turns out that when she got home none of them turned out. I wasn't really surprised given the events of the day.

Spice Pazar

We went to the Spice pazar a few days ago. It is just a covered market. It is a tourist place, but many locals go there to buy things as well. They sell all types of things like scarves, dishes, gardening tools, bracelets, turkish delight, kitchen utensils, tshirts, of course spices, and so much more. The streets just go on and on and are filled with people. Here are a few pictures of the vendors.












You can see the scarves above and the spices to the left and the hand painted dishes on the right.

The vendors always try to get you to buy things. I just ignore them because I dont like talking to them. They like practicing their english on everyone who walks by. They say interesting things like 'yes please' asking you to come into their store. It took us forever to figure out what they were talking about. We finally figured out that people probably walk by and say 'no thank you' so that is just the opposite. You never really know what they are going to say to you.

5 times a day

This is a video of the call to prayer that comes from the speakers of every mosque five times a day. You can usually hear multiple ones going at the same time. It eventually becomes normal and you dont really notice it anymore. This is from the balcony at my office. The other side of the office has a much better view, but you can see a big mall to the right of the mosque, a basketball court, and a whole lot of apartments.