Welcome to 2009, y'all

Bwaaahahaa! I totally cheated and made the entry I just now posted look like it was posted a week ago, when I actually wrote it!!! Evil mastermind, I!

I did write that a week ago, by the way. Sitting on the bus, waiting to be taken back to the airport, where I would wait to be taken back to İzmir. It was so nice getting back and having Oğuz waiting for me at the airport again. ::wagwag:: We spent a lovely New Year's Eve at Serkan and Ebru's house, along with Yalım and Banu. Luke and Cassie already know that because they were in the lake house in Alabama and have gmail video chat enabled and we video chatted for a little bit. That was so awesome! I got to see the lovely lake house and the corresponding lake. They got to see our friends and Serkan and Ebru's place and their Nöel tree!

Turkey is mostly sold in parts in Turkey (I'm not talking about the domestic real estate market, though... think fowl). Whole turkeys are only available around New Year. As a result, the fine art of cooking a whole turkey is not as widely known as in the States. So they left it up to Oğuz and me. We rubbed a butter/sage/rosemary/garlic mixture under all the skin, threw it in a bag with potato chunks, onion slices and apple slices, and cooked for a couple of hours. It turned out pretty good, although the breast was still drier than we expected. ::shrug:: Ebru even brined it!

What did you do for the holidays? I want to hear all about it!

My Turkish continues to improve, and especially at those times we spend in İzmir! Necessity is the mother of... fluency? I'm far from fluent, believe you me, but I'm getting there. I had a wonderful email exchange with the woman at ODTÜ that runs the Turkish language classes for foreigners, and she told me that starting next term I am welcome in their courses as a guest student. Gee, that's swell! At some point over the next month I will meet with her and have a conversation in Turkish so she can tell me which level to join. I sure hope I can attend the intermediate classes, I think that's what would benefit me the most at this point. I also hope that my teaching schedule and those classes aren't at the same time, that would be a bummer! I won't learn my teaching schedule for awhile, I believe, so here's hoping.

Ah, when I learn my teaching schedule, I should be able to plan my visit home! I am so excited about the summer! Oğuz said he might not be able to come with me to the States this time because of his army service, so we will try to do something fun together here. The possibility of a bike tour of the southwestern coast came up in conversation... how cool would that be?!