Filling in the Gaps...

Let me start of by apologizing for how long it has been since  I last wrote a blog post. Everything has been a bit crazy for awhile, and, to be honest, I just haven't known exactly what to put in a blog post. So I am going to try to piece together what my life has been like since I last wrote in increments - I am getting back on the blog bandwagon!

School started about two and a half weeks ago, but the few days before it started, I was in Kayseri and Kapadokya for Sugar Bayram, a Turkish holiday that rather reminds me of a strange cross between Halloween, Easter, and Christmas. The gist of the holiday is basically this: It celebrates the end of Ramadan, a period of fasting for devout Muslims, by being a time to eat lots and lots of delicious sweets (Especially baklava. YUM.). Also, children get money by going around and kissing the hands of their elders and pressing them to their foreheads, which is a normal gesture of respect to elders here, but Sugar Bayram provides a bonus of a few Turkish lira!

I had an absolutely amazing time being with my uncle and his family in Kayseri for this holiday. Kayseri is about a four or five hour drive north from Adana, and it is a smaller city surrounded by beautiful mountains and cold weather (which I LOVED. And I am still missing.). On the last day of our holiday, we went to Kapadokya (Cappadocia in English), which is one of the most incredible natural landscapes I've ever seen. Everybody who is friends with me on Facebook, go look at the pictures I posted from my trip, though they will not give you the full experience of being there. A mountainous area packed full of ancient Christian history, Cappadocia contains the amazing remnants of its former inhabitants in the thousands and thousands of caves that were homes, churches, and monasteries. I hope I can go back sometime while I'm here so that I can spend even more time exploring this fascinating area.

I started school almost as soon as I returned. I am in the 12th grade again at a private school here called Bilfen. My class is made up of nine girls (a coincidence - it's not an all-girls' school), who are all really sweet and who speak really good English. I have lots of English classes, which are rather boring, to be honest, because they all focus on English grammar, which the students have to learn for the big university entrance exam they take at the end of the year (more about this subject later). I also have Turkish Literature classes (which I am absolutely excelling at, as I'm sure you all can guess), German (which is fun, even though I've never taken it before), Geography, History, Religion, P.E., Sociology/Psychology (I'm really not sure which), and Math (only once a week - thank goodness). Since I can't understand much of what's really going on, I spend quite a few of my classes quietly studying my Turkish book or reading an English book.

I also get to wear quite an adorable uniform to school - a red and green plaid skirt with a white polo. It's nice wearing a uniform, actually, because I feel like I do blend in a tiny bit better, though I still get lots of attention for being so "exotic" looking. The boys at my school have nicknamed me "Bebeka" - "bebek" means baby in Turkish. I think this is a compliment, and I've actually grown to think the name is kind of cute!

As far as my Turkish language skills go, it is difficult for me to really measure my progress, though I can tell I am improving. I have a Turkish language class Monday through Thursday after school with the other Americans here, but so far it has been painfully slow-paced. What I know I have learned from studying on my own and from my everyday experiences, of course. I can tell that I understand a whole lot more now - I can almost always get the gist of conversations when I am listening to them. My Turkish teacher and friends say that I have really good pronunciation when I read and speak, which definitely makes me feel more confident about trying to speak. I think I have a strange advantage when it comes to learning Turkish which comes in the fact that no one in my immediate host family speaks much English at all, so I am forced to try to communicate in Turkish when I want to do something, ask a question, or simply make conversation. I believe everyone else has at least one member of the family who speaks pretty fluent English. I am really enjoying being forced to speak Turkish; though it may be broken, grammatically incorrect Turkish, I can speak it!

Will be continuing to fill in the gaps all this week - keep checking back!