However, while blogging has been on hold, life has continued. Since I last posted, Amasya witnessed one awesome Thanksgiving blow-out, we had two official-ish visits from Fulbright people, and I went to Konya (not in that order, mind you). Add to that I had my first official sick day (two of them, in fact). Life has been full.
Let's talk about getting sick in Turkey--it's pretty much like getting sick in America, except maybe a little more glamorous and a lot more mysterious. I ended up with this weird virus that turned out to be pretty uncomfortable, considering the stomach problems, the killer headache and what turned out to be possibly the worse chills/fever of my life. Thankfully it swept in and swept out about as quickly--36 hours later and I'm pretty much back to my usual self, just in time for...
...Christmas in Istanbul! Friday morning--at an ungodly hour--I'm flying from Amasya to Istanbul and starting what I hope will be an epic Christmas weekend in good 'ol Constantinople. As many people have commented of late, it's going to be tough spending Christmas away from friends and especially family in America--no christmas cookie baking with Mom, no present wrapping, no tamales (perhaps the worst deprivation), and no caroling with the fam on Christmas Eve. Sigh. It's going to be tough, especially Christmas Eve when the entire Martinec Clan (mom's side of the family) gets together and yours truly is absent for the first time in...since birth. That's a surreal thought--unless my parents are hiding something, I've spent every Christmas Eve that I've been alive at my grandma's house, with the exception of this year. Wow. Anyway, hopefully I can find something to make up for it in Istanbul.
I have many things on my to-do list in Istanbul, mostly scout out awesome places to when Catherine and Genevieve come in February, which is going to be awesome. I'm thinking of postponing all the best touristy things until then and using this trip as a casual exploration of Istanbul versus a whirlwind see everything go everywhere trip. Also, I'm going to buy some boots--random tidbit, but I can't find a pair of boots in Amasya that fit. This is a problem. I'm hoping that Istanbul can fix this problem. We'll see.
Let's see-anything else of interest? Life in Amasya continues as usual. The cold weather has eased up a bit, which is nice. It's pretty mild right now, and absolutely comfortable when the sun is shining. You know what's not comfortable? Infatuated students...I would write more but you never know who's watching...
I mean, in general in Amasya I get the feeling that everyone is watching because everyone is watching. I think that pretty much everything I do is monitored to some extent or other. I go somewhere and later find out that one person saw me and asked another person who asked another person and...you get the picture. Basically, I get the feeling that my daily movements are of interest to people, people who sometimes I don't really know at all. Oh well, at least everyone is nice and curious instead of malicious and curious. Nice counts for a lot.
I wish that I could have real themes to my blog entries, but I guess that I post so infrequently that it just doesn't work that way. I just kind of open up a blog window and write everything down without any thought to you, the reader, which makes for really poor rhetoric, which means that maybe I'm not using my college degree very well. Again, sigh.
And on that note, I'm going to sign off. I can't make any promises, but I'm really setting my heart on one more blog post for 2011, so stay tuned. I have a lot of things that I feel I should cover on this blog before the new year begins--kind of a blog ideas cleansing so that I can start afresh (maybe with better blogging habbits) in 2012.
But for now, Happy Holidays to Everyone, whether that means Chanukah or Christmas!
