School Uniforms!!

Hooray! We picked up our school uniforms today. It was so excellent. Mattie and I go to different schools and it ended taking up aaallllll day. But there will eventually be pictures of us in our uniforms on here. Basically my school colours are a baby blue and green-blue. How perfect. So my bottoms (the pants are gross, but I love the skirt) are khaki and my polo shirt is light blue, my long-sleeve shirt is white with writting on the back, my sweater is a dark blue, and my track suit for gym is blue and grey, with a white T-shirt. I haven't gotten shoes yet. Mattie's is even preppier. We go to private schools, by the way. Her stuff is black bottoms, white tops, yellow accents (cuffs, gym clothes, etc). We look so rediculous. I love it.

Ramadan started today. Mattie and I are already starving (no one seems to eat lunch) I can't imagine moving breakfast and supper even further apart. But we aren't expected to participate, so when Milek goes to work we'll dig out the cereal. Tomorrow night we're making pancakes for supper. We need to figure out how to make them more filling, because they don't seem very supper-like, and we're worried about starving Milek's poor mother.

It feels like I've been here more than four days, and I miss you all, though it's not as hard as I thought. I've been telling Mattie about you all and every time something happens I imagine telling one of you about it. "I'd love to learn to make this for my mom!" "Laura and I would laugh about this for days!" "Mitch would think this was sweet." "The Capers would love this uniform." "I need to send a sea shell to Cass-Thor."

Now that I've successfully signed onto my blog I almost don't want to risk leaving, but it's 1:00 am here (saat bir) and I should go to bed.

I love you all,
-Maeghan

Beach House!

So I'm gıvıng up on usıng the I wıth the tıddle because ıt ıs slowıng me down so much. Sorry, I know ıt's weırd to read lıke thıs. But gıve me a break, ıt ıs very late for me. Also the apostrophy ıs above the 2, and takes a lot of effort to use. I wıll be sayıng "ıt ıs" a lot more often now- less work.

Anyways! My host mom's famıly has a beach house near the Marmara Sea and so we drove lıke, an hour to get there, but ıt was really weırd because you couldnt really tell ıf we had ever left the cıty- there never werent houses and buıldıngs and people on the sıde of the road. It smelled so good there, lıke raın. We got there at nıght, so we dıdnt do anythıng that evenıng (Frıday) but the next day we went to the beach. Now ın case you guys dont know, Ive never come across a body of water that I cant see the shore of on the other sıde. So basıcally I was jumpıng up and down wıth excıtement and dıd kıddısh thıngs lıke collect sea shells! SEA shells. The coolest thıng ever. Except not, because ıt gets better.

After lazıng around ın the sun and swımmıng for my fırst tıme ever ın a sea, we walked back to the house and got dressed (after usıng the outdoor shower!) and went to a market! Soo cool. You could buy everythıng there. Once Mattıe uploads the pıctures we took, I'll let you all ın on the hıllarıous way of dısplayıng underwear. Thats rıght. There were tables wıth bars of bras hangıng above them and people were actually shoppıng for underwear rıght there where the whole world could see. It felt so akward. Mostly we bought food (of course) but Mattıe and I looked at everythıng. Dıd I mentıon how hot ıt ıs here? Unbelıevable. I am goıng to permanently smell lıke sweat. Anyways.

After we got back from the market we went back to the beach and Milek (my host mom) and Mattie stayed on the beach whıle Milek's mother and I went swımmıng agaın. We see her a lot. I dont know how to spell her name.

We came home thıs mornıng (Sunday) and had an adventure that ıs worthy of ıts own entry.

-Maeghan

Arrival

So I'm going to seperate the last few days into different entries just because. I'm running into problems signing into blogger and hotmail so this is the first chance I've had to write. This keyboard is loud!!!

Okay. The flights were boring. I saw Ironman and Prince Caspian on the overnight trip to Germany. At the German airport as we landed I spotted a plane on fire. Very reassuring for a non-flier, I must say. When I got here my host mom picked me up from the airport and we drove to her apartment. There's another exchange student living in the house right now. She's from Ohio (is anyone else singing The Last Five Years?) There are so many apartments here, it's amazing. İstanbul is huge!

The keyboard is different and it's seriously slowing me down. I know I brought a laptop but the effort it would take to try to connect the internet is just too much right now.

-Maeghan

The Morning Of

I had a good night last night, some friends came over for supper and we had a great time. One of my friends had just gotten her driver's license, so we had her drive us around my block. After they left I stayed up late watching game shows with my family, which was also fun.

Now that I'm leaving I realize how little I've thanked everyone who's helped make my exchange possible, so here's the big, all-inclusive thank you entry.

I'd like to thank (now I sound like I've won an Oscar) my sponsor Rotary club for choosing to send me, those Rotarians involved in the youth exchange, both in my district and Istanbul. I'd like to thank the club in Turkey for accepting me into their country, and my host families there for welcoming me into their homes. Lastly, I want to thank my parents for supporting me in this exchange. Without any of these people, I wouldn't have this amazing opportunity. So thank you to everyone.

For those of you in Canada- I'll see you in a year!

Rotary Youth Echange

Click to Enlarge

"And Then We'll Gorge Ourselves On Icecream!" Says the Lactose Intolerant

I spent an evening with some of my closest friends. What a gong show. Sanders decides that it would be perfect (for what, I don't know...) for us to go to Ruckers, and then shows up in a dress. What a girl. After spending ten dollars gaining 500 tickets from one game we chose our prizes (an alien, some play-dough, and candy) we went to Kelsey's for some appetizers and salads. But the real party was at Dairy Queen.

We ordered an icecream cake and some forks and sat there for hours slowly eating this cake with a picture of a skunk on it. Well the skunk wasn't good enough for us so we put our "Laura" figurine on the cake, with her horse figurine standing lovingly beside. This, we decided, was the perfect wedding cake. Well as you may have guessed five girls can not finish an entire icecream cake on their own, although we gave a solid effort. In my cake-eating Olympics, we would join many of our fellow Canadians with a solid fourth, if only for our ambition. All in all it was a perfect night out.

And now I'm sitting here. Here being my front deck. And it's raining. This is one of my favorite smells. The way the dust all settles and the air feels clean- I'll miss this. My mother took Mikiko outside before the rain when she noticed this smell and asked her if it smelled like this before rain in Japan. Mikiko said no. I wonder what it will smell like in Turkey when it rains. I'll have to blog about it.

Until tomorrow, when the panic begins.

-Maeghan

The Awaited Phone Call

So.. Like five minutes after I posted about Mikiko, the phone rings. I'm on my computer and it's like "Why should I get up? They can leave a message." But something compelled me to answer the phone and it was my travel agent! She got my visa and wanted to know what flight I wanted to take. So here it is:

Wednesday I will leave from the Medicine Hat Airport at 10:15 and fly to Calgary where I have a 6 hour layover before I fly to Frankfurt overnight and then on to Istanbul.

It's so weird to have waited for months only to be given my flight five days before I leave. I'm super excited and yet oddly calm. I guess I'll send an email to my Host Family. I'm back in Medicine Hat on Monday, guys. See you then.

-Maeghan

Mikiko

So it has now been a week since Mikiko, our Japanese student has arrived, and so far it's all good. She doesn't speak a lot of English yet, but she understands almost everything we tell her (I think). Although every now and then I'll say something to her and I'm not sure if it's a "Thanks for telling me that" nod or an "Everyone knows that" nod or an "I have no clue what you're saying" nod. But for the most part she does what we ask of her (help yourself to food, you can call your parents if you want, etc.).

What's kind of amusing is that she follows my lead. She gets up when I get up. She eats when and what I eat. She showers before or after I shower. She goes on her computer when I go on mine. When I watch Olympics she does. She goes to bed when I do. It makes me uncertain of when I should do things. I'm not hungry, but is she? I want to sleep for another hour, but she's probably already up...

Although a good thing is that my friends are all eager to meet her and willing to let me bring her everywhere with me. I hope they will continue with this enthusiasm all year.

I'll post when I know something new.

-Maeghan

Business Cards

So my Rotary Business Cards arrived in the mail today(ish). There's actually a decent picture of me on them. But I have no idea how I'm going to get rid of.. wait. I'll count. 50.. 100..150..200..250..300..350..400! Four hundred business cards. Hoorah. I've now wasted three minutes of my life counting out business cards. Fun. I'm expecting a phone call today about what day I'm leaving, so fingers crossed I'll be writing again soon.

-Maeghan

P.S. Those of you who've complained to me about my lack of blog entries- are you happy? Did I bore you with my counting of business cards? I hope so. TTFN!