Comin' Home For A While

I certainly hadn’t planned on it, but when I realized that I was getting 18 days off from school for winter break, and that both of my roommates had big trips planned (Maddy went with her boyfriend to Budapest and several other Euro locales while Jen went to Olympos on the southern Turkish coast and then on to Israel for a week) I decided to go on a big trip of my own- home! I know, I know. But I didn’t want to go traveling around Europe or Turkey by myself for 2 weeks, especially with it still being a tad chilly. I did Cyprus and Greece by myself 2 years ago and I told myself I wouldn’t do that again. I’ll do plenty of traveling around Turkey when the beach weather arrives 3 months from now. I can only take in so many ruins at once.

So to NYC I fly on Saturday and I fly back to Turkey exactly 2 weeks later. Now I get to watch the AFC Championship game with the Patriots and the Steelers on Sunday night at Nick’s Brooklyn apartment. And naturally he’s throwing a big party for the game. I can’t wait. I’m bringing back some Turkish gifts- pismaniye (sort of like chocolate and vanilla cotton candy), a bottle of raki (Turkey’s national liquor drink), some scarves for my neighborhood Karsiyaka soccer team, and a genuine Turkish rug. Also coming back with me is a bag full of pants and clothes that no longer fit me, along with some sweaters I’ll no longer need. It’s just too warm here, and I don’t need anything more than a button down shirt or a polo shirt when I’m indoors at school all day.

So now I get to replace my old clothes with some new ones, get to see everyone, catch up on movies and TV I’ve missed, and eat lots of food I can’t get in Turkey. I’ll drive back to Boston on Monday, and then I’ll come back to NY to fly back out to Europe on the 5th. It will be nice to see some people, especially people who speak English. I’ve been by myself in this apartment since Sunday But why since Sunday if school wasn’t getting out until Wednesday afternoon?

Originally, my winter vacation was supposed to start yesterday afternoon after a half day on January 19th, but on the 13th, the Turkish government decreed that instead of going to school for 2.5 days, they’d cancel school across the country for the whole week. Thanks for telling us now, AFTER I already bought my non-refundable, non-changeable airplane ticket home. So that lengthened the vacation by 5 days, stretching it to 23 whole days. I can’t believe a K-8 school has a break that long.

While it’s a semester break, we also had this week off for Bayram, which is a big Muslim holiday here in Turkey. To observe it, the towns get a bunch of cows together, slit their throats, and offer the dead cows to the poor. Do we have any national holidays in the US that involve slitting large animal’s throats? This year, they erected a huge cattle stockade directly in front of my school, practically in the front yard. They built it back in December, and they herded in hundreds and hundreds of cows into these large covered tents 3 weeks ago. So they were out there for a long time, but Bayram was today, so I doubt any are there now. I don’t know too much about the holiday, but it’s been described to me as a cross between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Presents, usually clothes, are given to the kids, and family’s get together for a big feast.

What did I do for Bayram today? Uhh, not a whole lot. This whole week has been pretty quiet and boring. It feels like I’m under house arrest with school out and nobody around. I packed my bag for the trip home, organized songs on my Ipod for two whole hours, watched pirated DVD copies of The Aviator and Meet The Fockers (available for rent at my local video store on all-region DVDs for $4), shot some hoops with the new basketball I bought down at the park, and, uh, that’s about it. They had a few good American shows on TV tonight- Simpsons, Scrubs, and Without A Trace, so the night’s moving along. For the first few days I enjoyed the quiet and the solitude, but it’s quickly worn off and now I’m going a little stir-crazy. I’m really eager to get home and have a conversation with someone…in English.

Not nearly as many people speak English here than they do in Cyprus. Fluent English skills are only reserved for the very wealthy, who can afford the fancy schooling and the extra private lessons, so aside from the English staff at school there aren’t a whole lot of people for me to talk to. Not even the Turkish teachers at school speak a lot of English. Some of them are quite conversational, while there are others who know as much English as I know Turkish. It can really create an impasse when you can’t talk to teachers who have the same students as you do. Now that all the English speakers have left for vacation, this place is starting to feel a little lonely. It’s not like I can walk down to a bar or a restaurant and strike up a conversation with somebody.