Rotary Christmas Party

Oof ya! Where to start? At the begining, I guess. Bah. I don't want to write. Let's see. Christmas was good, but I was really disappointed when my host grandmother, instead of cooking with me like I thought we had agreed to on Christmas Eve, plunked herself down in front of the TV all day. I kept coming out and being like- "try this!" and "what do you think?" but she just sort of would nod and move so she could see the TV. It really hurt.

BUT! On a more pleasant note I talked to my family both on webcam and on the phone. Then, as a Christmas present to myself I called Janine and we talked for like, half an hour. The begining of the conversation went like this-
Me: "Hey! Merry Christmas!"
Janine: "Merry Christmas!... is this... Maeghan?"
Me: "Yup!"
Janine: "But aren't you in Turkey?"
Me: "Yup, Merry Christmas!"
Janine: "Are you serious?"
Me: "Yup, how are you?"
Janine: "But doesn't this cost like, a lot?"
Me: "It's my Christmas present to myself!"
And it was the best Christmas present I've ever recieved.

On Friday Rotary took us to a show at some hotel in Taksim. Emily and I left from school, and had quite a time trying to get there in time. I don't feel like going into detail (sooo lazy) but as you know the busses hate me...

The show itself was excellent! We all had a great time. I tried Raka, which is gross. It tastes like black licorice, which I hate. Anyways! The show included dancing from different areas in Turkey, some bellydancers, including a woman who is apparently the best in the country, and a guy who sang songs from each of our countries. It was really funny. He was looking around (there were other tables with tourists, and each table had flags from the countries of the people sitting there) and naming the different countries he saw- "Nepal, China, Italy, Korea, India.."-took one look at ours... Turkey, USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa and he simply said "The UN". We burst out laughing. He sang a song from every country in attendance, and often had people sing along, very embarrasing when you're the only one, although there were two other women from Canada at a different table, but they were not singing very loud at all. I met them after the show, and they're from Edmonton. Small world. Every Canadian I've met so far has been from Alberta.

Rotary gave us Christmas presents... we each got a rug! How cool is that? And it's mine, Mom. (*wink* I know you wouldn't take my rug, although you'll have fun working around the colour...)

Today I was in Taksim, shopping like crazy. Mattie and I met up to pay for our first Rotary trip. And finding that tour agency's office was crazy. The street sign was taken down, so we got all mixed up looking for the right street. Then the numbers on all the buldings were the OLD numbers, everything had been renumbered.. but they hadn't changed them on the buildings? THEN after an entire street helps us (not even kidding, we had a barber, a hotel person, a shop owner, and a delivery guy helping us look for apartment 34) the place was closed. And they don't have their times displayed anywhere, not on their signs, not on the sheets they gave us, not on their website.. Grrrr! We were really pissed off. I mean, those trips are expensive, and you don't want to be carrying around large sums of money all day. Plus, this means we have to make the trip again, and Taksim isn't exactly close to my house.

After we left Apartment 34 we decided to go shopping. I had lots to buy, because the exchange students and my class are both doing Secret Santas, so I had lots of fun trying to figure out what to buy people. Then! I saw these adorable scarves and thought, "well, I have to do it sooner or later!" so I bought gifts for people, but I'm too cheap to mail them, so I'll just bring stuff home this summer.

Over supper I got to watch some protests that I had witnessed earlier today on the news. Always fun to know that you were there when the police came... not. Thank goodness for random churches! Mattie and I hung out in one of those for a while, then booked it to Leven when the coast was clear. I like Taksim as well as the next person, but I don't want to be around when you see three seperate sets of Riot Police on your way down İstiklal street.

We'll see if I can upload a video.. or two.. or three!

-Maeghan

PS. I hope you love me.. these took over three hours to upload.