Merry Christmas! Happy New Years! Mutlu Noeller! Iyi seneler! Three months into this thing!
All ways of wishing someone a happy holiday season, and all things I have said in the past two weeks. Ok, so the "three months into this thing" isn't exactly happy holidays, but I have said it this past week. Monday marked my one hundredth day in Turkey, and last week was my three month anniversary. Crazy how much has changed, and how much I have learned. Three months is a good amount of time in a new place. When my teachers at school ask me what the weirdest thing for me is in Turkey, I have to think about the answer because nothing seems weird to me anymore. It's all just part of everyday life. Even using Turkish toilets has become a daily routine. Thinking about life without the Ezan five times a day, without kissing everyone's cheeks, without hearing Turkish is no longer comforting. It's saddening.
My first Christmas and New Years away from home have both come and gone, and it wasn't what I expected. To start off, I moved cities one and a half weeks ago. My second host family in Kayseri didn't work out, so AFS and my natural family made the decision to give me a new start. So far, this new start has been fantastic. My host family is absolutely fantastic, my school couldn't be better, and the city I'm in, Aydin, is on the west coast, which means warm weather, the sea eighty kilometers away, and a less conservative way of life, although still influenced by Islam. The differences were clear from the start. On the plane from Kayseri to Istanbul, the majority of the passengers were elderly women in head scarves, while on the plane from Istanbul to Izmir not one person was wearing a head scarf, and there were maybe five elderly people. And in a mall in Izmir that night, I saw the first bare legs I had seen in three months. The kids in my class and I have had conversations about everything from sex and drugs to the Holocaust, something that I definitely didn't do in Kayseri. But Kayseri was a great place as well. It's an old city, with fascinating history, and famous foods. It's a city right in the middle of the country, influenced a little by all the parts of Turkey. I feel so lucky that I get to experience two very different parts of Turkey, however, I am glad I have landed in Aydin for the remainder of my time here. For Christmas my family had two friends over, and one of them (a man) cooked dinner for us. It was a delicious meal with salmon, pasta, potatoes, and more. We ate, talked, drank coffee, ate baklava, and once the topic of politics came up it felt just like home. My sister and I also set up a Christmas tree, which added a homey, holiday feel to the house. Most people here mix up Christmas and New Years when speaking english or speaking to an english speaker, and in truth, they are pretty much the same thing here anyways. People set up Christmas trees, decorate their houses, decorate the streets with lights, and give presents for New Years. It looks, sounds, feels like Christmas, but it's celebrated just a few days after. On New Years eve my family and I went over to my grandmother's house and ate food until midnight, when we celebrated the new year by dancing and kissing everyone's cheeks. (My new host family, by the way, is the classic "I will feed you until you burst, and then I will feed you more," family. My host aunt put almost the whole bowl of salad on my plate last weekend, and granted, it's salad and it could be worse, but it was A LOT of salad. So my chubbiness has become part of me, and I will embrace it until it leaves. Then I will look back on it as a wonderful experience, and hope that I can avoid gaining this much again). My host parents got me presents for New Years, which topped off the whole wonderful night. I got a clock with Izmir on the face, some beautiful earrings, and a pair of gloves. My class also gave me a present. They had pulled names for Secret Santa (called a different name, but it's another Christmas activity in the States used as a New Years activity in Turkey), but I wasn't in Aydin when they did, so they all pitched in and bought me a sweater. I was so surprised, and had no words to express how touched I was. They had known me for one week when they did this. AFS, YES, previous exchange students, current exchange students, all of them had told me over and over again how hard the holiday season would be. But for me (Inshallah the homesickness isn't right around the corner) it was great because of the people I spent it with. There was no Christmas Carols this holiday season, no snow, no men dressed up as Santa Claus, but it's just as important to the Turkish people as it to us, minus the birth of Jesus. I have a great new host family in a great new city in Turkey, my birthday is four days away (seventeen!!! An adult in Harry Potter!), a few extra pounds on my body (maybe more than a few…), a great love for Baklava, and a ticket to take ACT this April. Bring it on 2014!!!!!!
Xoxo, Izzy
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| Me with an Atatürk statue in Kayseri |
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| The view from the ferry boat in Izmir |
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| My host family (minus my mom) and their two friends on Christmas Day. Left to right: My sister, my dad, me, the tree, my brother, the friend who cooked, the other friend |
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| My host sister (on the left) and I with her friends in Izmir |
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| The view from my school in Aydin |
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| Another ferry boat picture |
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