Wild and Crazy New Years

Ahh, New Years. In Turkey, it’s New Years and Christmas all rolled into one. All week long we’ve been teaching the elementary kids Christmas songs like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and We Wish You A Merry Christmas, even thought Christmas itself has come and gone. Maddy likened the week’s lesson plans to gulping down a big beer the morning after a night of hard drinking. In class we had the tykes make stockings, construct Santa Clause and Snowman mobiles, and do anything Christmas related we could find. We also had holiday parties where the kids would sing the songs they practiced and then they’d proceed to gorge themselves on snack food brought in for the class party. On Friday, New Years Eve, we only had a half-day of school, so the kids were sent packing at 1pm. Afterwards, the faculty had a holiday party and gift exchange in the cafeteria. But all this hoopla and fanfare for New Years with it being the week after Christmas, again, felt odd and very out of place.

Once I got back from school (after a failed attempt at renting a DVD and a 25 minute walk home in the rain), I thought I’d take a quick catnap. Well, the short nap turned into a 3 hour slumber, and Maddy woke me up around 8:30. Jen had gone into the city for a big New Years party and dinner with another Isikkent teacher, and Maddy and I had decided to stay home and stew for New Years Eve instead.

Earlier in the day when I was looking at what movies had been released on Friday, I noticed that a nearby theater had “We Don’t Live Here Anymore.” I had really wanted to see it over the summer but I never got the chance. How a small, US independent film like that ended up in an Izmir theater 5 months after its release, I’ll never know, but Maddy and I decided to go to the 9pm show instead of sitting around the apartment all night like total nerds. We took a cab over to this mall, called Kipa, and when we get to the top floor where the theater was located, we found the cinema’s doors locked and the lobby dark- they were closed for New Year’s Eve! I couldn’t believe it! Movie theaters back home do tremendous business on New Years Eve, but here in Turkey, they aren’t even open. In fact, the entire mall was closing early that night, so we soon had to scurry out.

Dejected that our night’s plans were dashed, further insult was added to injury when we couldn’t find a cab to take us back to our apartment. We were left to hoof it back on the side of the highway in the drizzle and the mud until we found a cab 2/3 of the way home. This was turning out to be some New Year’s Eve!

Not having eaten for about 9 hours, I went into the other mall across the street from me to get something to eat- I didn’t feel like doing any cooking at this point. Most of the mall was shut down, but there was one restaurant still open in the food court- a hot dog and french fry joint getting all the business with everyone else long closed. I had my hot dog and bag of french-fries and walked home a semi-defeated man.

I rang in the New Year watching an episode from the 1st season of the West Wing on DVD as Maddy worked on a job application for Reuters. She popped open a bottle of champagne at midnight, we shared a celebratory glass, and that was about it. Definitely a memorable night, but not exactly for all the right reasons.