Bekar Misiniz?

Prepare yourself for the longest blog post ever.

I spent the last week of my winter break in Istanbul, Turkey with Grace so we could visit my cousin Sarah who is living there! We left Monday morning with about 12 hours of sleep accumulated within the last 3 nights. We were slap happy and excited (bad combination) as we made our day long trip to Turkey, complete with just about every form of transportation imaginable including a bus, train, shuttle, plane, taxi and boat.

Flying over the Swiss Alps

We were greeted by the warm air (by swiss standards) and the smell of rain as we walked out of the airport. We got in pretty late Monday night (actually that's a lie, we got in at like 5, but we were exhausted!) so we went out for some dinner then crashed at Sarah's for the night. After oversleeping, we got up Tuesday morning and went out to explore the city of Istanbul! We did the classic tourist spots including the Aya Sofia (not Eye of Sophia as some might think...) and The Blue Mosque.

The Aya Sofia

The Blue Mosque

We did a bit of shopping and spent the majority of the afternoon lounging in the MASSIVE Starbuck's drinking coffee and writing postcards. Turkey is super duper cheap compared to Switzerland, so I think I got Starbuck's about 6 times throughout our 5 days there. Great!

Wednesday we ventured into the Grand Bizarre, which was so crazy! It was filled to the brim with tourists, which means the Turkish people working there would try to lure us in. I think they only know 5 phrases in english, all starting with "pretty lady." We went out to dinner with some of Sarah's friends at a restaurant where you take off your shoes and sit on pillows on the ground. I thought it was pretty fun :)

I'm sure this statue has some sort of significance, but I really just enjoyed roll playing :)

Thursday was our last full day, so we had more of an American day. We went out to lunch at a lighthouse that is on an island. It started out normal, but then the 80 year old 'sugar man' came over to talk to us. Somehow he just didn't grasp the fact that Sarah was the only one who could speak Turkish, so he just kept babbling away to me, apparently telling me that I'll get a lot of guys with my smile. Great! He made us go up to his little candy corner in the lighthouse and made us some sucker type things, and then had some trouble letting us go. But eventually we escaped and made it back to land! Hip hip hooray!

On the boat after eating at the lighthouse

We spent the rest of the afternoon making chocolate chip cookies (a rarity in both Switzerland and Turkey, so we were all pretty happy) and then we watched My Best Friend's Wedding, a classic movie in our family.

Sarah and Grace

Friday morning we completed our Turkey adventure with a Turkish bath. It's a bit like a spa treatment, and you get scrubbed down and exfoliated then just lounge about in a sauna and pool. After relaxing all morning, Grace and I said our goodbye's and made the long journey back to good ol' Switzerland!

It was good to get away for a bit and just be a tourist. Not worrying about being a member of a family, fitting in or speaking french. It was a good escape that was needed. The whole train ride home I was just amazed with my life. I had spent an entire week with my cousin and my best friend in Istanbul. Grace kept saying "if someone came up to me a year ago and told me I would be going to Turkey with some random girl from Ohio I would have laughed in their face." and that's completely true! A year ago I was slowly living my life in good ol' Bay Village, Ohio. Don't get me wrong, I loved my life last year, and senior year was without a doubt my favorite year of school, but when I compare my life last year and my life this year, they're just on completely different levels. I never imagined I could be so content here. It can still be a little hard, because coming home to my host family is nothing compared to coming home to my mom and soul sister. But it was still coming home. It was my room and my bed and my Swiss life that I came home to. I was excited to catch up with my friends here after not seeing them for a week, and excited to see my family after being away. I'm proud of myself for making it this far, because it's defiantly the hardest thing I've ever done, and I'm excited to see what the next 6 months will bring!