HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Yes yes, today is my Mom's birthday (that also means, "Spring, here we come!") and she's living it up in sunny Florida! Even though, word has it that it's been a little rainy there as of late. So, Happy Birthday Momma B!

Old School Crew

Rumor has it that Marloes is back in town. We have one of our biweekly meetings this evening, so we will see, but I hope that it's true.

Last week Ewa and I were at another private school called Tuncsiper. It was an overall nice experience. We had a meeting one day with the founder, a very old and kind man, which was, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best, moment of the whole week. We talked about experiences in foreign countries, what we were doing in Turkey, our future, etc.-it was like story time with Grandpa Tuncsiper.

On Saturday we went to a Book and Education fair here in Bursa. It was very hot and crowded, and there were only a few tables to put all of our stuff on; but, it was definitely worth it when we were swarmed by herds of children. Some were brave enough to speak and ask questions, while others just kind of stood and stared.

I received 2 boxes worth of books, pamphlets, and brochures, thanks to the American consulate in Istanbul. Now I have information on everything from American Literature to being Muslim in the US, to the US Economy, and a lot of the materials are in Turkish and English.

I also got my hands on two Powerpoints about America, and I made something myself that I like to call, "Tour the 50 States". I did it in Powerpoint, but it is not a presentation per say. It has the state flag of all 50 states and then at least one picture from each state. There are no words except the names of each state, but I am thinking about adding the state motto as well. Like I said, it's not a presentation; but, I think it is a good thing, for example, to have running on a laptop at an American information table at a Global Village. I also have been forming a collection of American Patriotic mp3's. I have things like our national anthem, Auld Lang Syne, Taps, songs of the airforce, navy, army, etc, God Bless America, America the Beautiful, yada yada yada. I think this would also be nice to play.

Sunday we had a free day! Woo! The second one of the whole project. I did absolutely nothing, and it was fantabulous.

This week we are at Tan College. It's only the beginning of the week, so we'll see how it goes. I've talked with a couple of the German teachers, who I like very much, but I can tell my German is quickly fading, even though they complimented me on it.

Two more full weeks and the project will be over. I've been thinking about trying to find another opportunity here, but it's not so easy to look for jobs during the week because we are at school from early in the morning until about 5 pm. If I'm serious about it, I better get on the stick, eh? The end of the project also means that it's mother and daughter vacation time!!! I've been trying to improve my Turkish so that it will be that much easier to get around, but it's difficult to learn any foreign language when you are speaking English all the time..

By the way, thanks mom for being the ONLY ONE to even bother to post any comments!!!

Endings and New Beginnings

First, I think we should all send our condolences Marloes' way. Last night she lost her grandfather. It was very sudden and unexpected-she will be going home tomorrow to be with her family, but will eventually return before the end of the project. We'll all think about her a ton the whole time she's gone, and we can't wait for her to get back so we can be together again.

Now, on a much lighter note, I'd like to tell you about our weekend...

On Friday Onur, Marloes, Nikola, and I went to a bar called Ivory. Yes, I know I mentioned something about Danza before, but most people weren't really in the mood to go out and I don't think anybody was in the sort of mood to go to Danza. Ivory is a nice place, that I bet rocks in the summer time because it has a nice patio area out front. I've only been there twice, but both times I've been there they've had live music. It's mostly Turkish songs that everyone (every Turk, that is) knows and, depending on how late it is and how much they've had to drink, the bar will sing along with the few performers that usually consist of a girl singer and one or two acoustic guitars.

On Saturday Ewa (Yes, she's recovering finally!!!) and I went to a teacher's house from Milli Piyango. We had breakfast with Banu (the teacher) and her mother. It was a great way to start the day-crepes, cheeses, her mom's homemade jam, mmmm... then we all went over to Tan school to have a fun sports play date-there was basketball, volleyball, a swimming pool, and a game of indoor soccer. But the day didn't end there! That evening we had an awesome dinner at a journalist from bursa's house. We polished off a good amount of food and then sat around talking about the history of Bursa, Turkey in general, and singing songs.

I guess that brings us to today (Sunday), where I didn't really do a whole lot of anything. I caught up on a lot of emails and other things I'd been meaning to do, as well as made a list of things to do for next week. Now I just have to get them done...

Ewa and I will start our day bright and early at 9 am. This week we'll be going to a school called Tunç Siper.

Our one weekend in Bursa

I made it through another week! I just finished at Milli Piyango, the only state (public) school out of the six we visit. It was a long week because my partner, Ewa, from Poland was/is very ill and spent the entire week recuperating. This means I was taking on the teens single-handed. By the way, I saw her (Ewa) today for the first time since Monday, I think, and she said she was feeling much better. Hopefully she will feel good enough to join me next week.

This weekend starts tonight with a night out at a club called Danza. We've gone there before and the general consensus is that the club is very nice, but we're not such big fans of the music. Tomorrow Ewa and I will have breakfast at the home of Banu, one of the teachers from Milli Piyango. She is a very kind lady, and I'm looking forward to it and to actually spending some time with Ewa! Then we will all meet at 11am for a kind of Sports Fun Fest Day. We will spend the good part of the day just playing-basketball, volleyball, tennis, ping pong, and I think we can use the pool, too. After we've worn ourselves out, we're going to get changed and head over to some kind of "traditional Turkish dinner". I'm not exactly sure what this is all about, but I think it may have to do with eating with some city officials or something. Nothing fancy shmancy, though.

On Sunday we'll get to do something really fabulous that we haven't been able to do yet-REST! Sunday is a free day to do as we please. I will try and spend most of it sleeping in, as I'm sure most other people will do, too; but, the last time I tried this I woke up at 8am, so I'm not sure how well it will work out. Then I was thinking about trying to get some folks together, or if not I could just go by myself, to walk to the top of Tophane. It is a type of clock tower structure that is situated very high up on a cliff, and when you go up there you can see pretty much all of Bursa. I think it would be a great way to spend Sunday, though I think a lot of people will have this idea. Sunday is supposed to be beautiful and 18 degrees!

There are many other things I would like to do here in Bursa, that will have to wait for another day. I want to visit the tomb of Osmangazi (it's at the top of Tophane, so if it's not closed on Sunday I can do it then I s'pose) and also something called the green mosque or tomb or something like that.

Better Late than Never

I know that I've been in Turkey about 3 1/3 weeks, but I've been periodically sending out some emails to let you know what I've been up to. Believe you me, there are not many people who like this blogging stuff as much as I do and it's been hard for me to not be able to keep one up-to-date while I'm here in Bursa. I am going to try my darndest from here on out to keep this updated. Now, this doen't mean that I'll post even close to as often as I did when I was in Jena, but I like the idea of y'all being able to visit an online journal any old time and see what's the haps in the Land o' LBows.

One thing you might be interested in is that one of the trainees, Marloes from Holland, uploaded a few of her pictures to the internet. These photos are by no means all-encompassing-there are still a ton on the network in the aiesec office as well as a ton that aren't so I can't even get to them. Anyway, as I've said before, I'll let you guys know as soon as anything happens. Meanwhile, enjoy these. And just for reference, I wanted to put the link for the other photos I sent out in an email. Some of them I took from Marloes' pictures, so there will be a few repeats.