A Day in the Life

Let me give you a tour of my flat and a little introduction to my life so far overseas. :-)

Here is my building:

We live on the fourth floor in the back, right corner of the picture.

We climb three flights of stairs to get to our flat.

We walk in the front door to our front hallway. It is a Muslim custom to take your shoes off when you enter a household so as not to spread germs from the street all over the house.

Immediately to the right is our kitchen. We have a gas stove, a dishwasher (which we don't have enough dishes for), a washing machine (that doesn't work yet), and as soon as we get our first paychecks, we will buy a counter-top stove. :-) It has been entertaining so far to cook without a microwave, a toaster, and an oven. We toast our bread over the open flame of the gas stove!

This is the other half of our kitchen. At the moment, we are in the process of requesting a repair on our fridge/freezer...the freezer part is broken. 

Walk back out to the front hallway and turn immediately left and your have our first bathroom: the squatty potty. Let me tell you: it is an adventure in itself to use this toilet! You put on the blue shoes (barely visible in the bottom left corner), put your feet on the edges of the toilet, and you pretend you are camping. :-)

Come back out to the front hallway and you enter our front room that will at some point become our dining room when we get a table.

Turn left and walk down our back hallway to Amanda, Maria, and Lara's rooms and the other bathroom.

Note the non-squatty potty in this bathroom. :-)

Walk back out to the front room and walk across it to our living room. These couches are deceiving...they look soft and comfy but I practically gave myself whiplash when I sat down on them for the first time because they are so stiff. However, as we continue to use them, we are breaking them in and they are becoming more comfortable. (PS There is hidden storage underneath the couches!! And underneath our beds! This a very common feature here because there are not a lot of cupboards and closets.)

Once you enter the living room, turn left and there is my room!! The flat was originally three bedrooms but the landlord gave our school permission to build a wall in the main room to create a fourth room. It is significantly smaller than the other rooms and I love it! My room at home was also very small. I guess I am a fan of small rooms. Anyway, my furniture consists of a bed that was rock solid when we moved in but is loosening up as I sleep on it more. (Another gift: I prefer to sleep on stiffer beds.)

If you sit on my bed, you look directly at my desk out my window.

To the left of my desk is my wardrobe and my prayer wall. The sticky notes have names of family and friends, locations I worked at in Phoenix, and people here in my new home. As I walk out my door every time, I glance at one and lift someone up.

That's it for inside! We love it! Its clean and spacious and perfect! :-)

Behind our building is a little garden. We have yet to use it, but we look forward to taking advantage of it.

Here are some events of the past few weeks:

Preparing for my first day of class. My roommates thought I was hilarious because when we first got our schedule, I was bouncing off the walls a little bit full of excitement to start teaching. We all have our focus and our passions, and it became clear that mine is teaching. 

In the past few days, I have started making homemade granola bars. (Thank you, Mom, for the inspiration!) The top is oatmeal, almonds, craisins, tahini, honey, and sunflower oil.

The bottom is oatmeal, peanut butter, tahini, honey, and olive oil.

The one on the right is oatmeal, almonds, dark chocolate hazelnut spread (similar to Nutella but SO much better!), and olive oil.

They are SUPER yummy!!!

Amanda is an incredibly healthy eater (which I am thankful for) and is an amazing chef! We have had fun experimenting with different recipes like Tabbouleh, lentil dishes, salads, new veggies, and fun spices. This is a white bean ratatouille. It was delicious!!

Here is the local denomination: the Turkish Lira. On every single piece of money is a picture of Ataturk - the father of modern Turkey. He is greatly revered for bringing Turkey to the place it is in now as a modern Muslim nation. On the backs of the bills are pictures of other important figures.

A few days ago, Lara, Maria, and I ventured out to a new restaurant because I really wanted chicken. (My roommates are vegan/vegetarian!) Without Amanda, our resident translator, we had NO idea what we were ordering. I knew that tavuk was chicken and su was water,  but that was it. We basically placed out finger randomly on the menu and hoped for the best. My meal was amazing! The rice was so good and I was able to eat my chicken. :-) Lara and Maria's dishes were not so successful...we still don't really know what they ate...

 This is at one of the local markets. The produce available here is absolutely incredible! I cannot tell you how thankful I am to be in a country that cooks with so many fruits and veggies!

Here, I am taking advantage of all these amazing veggies by making an "omelet" for breakfast. I put that in quotes because its really sauteed veggies held together by scrambled eggs. I don't know how to make an actual omelet...despite this fact, it was a great breakfast!! Random fact: the yokes here are orange! I was quite startled when I cracked open my first egg a few weeks ago. It still is strange, but its growing on me. 

Like any other major city in the world, Ankara has traffic. I feel like this traffic is significantly worse than Phoenix because the streets are narrow and everything is really close together. I am SO thankful I do not have to drive while I am here...the drivers are aggressive! The rule of the road is that there are not rules (or at least that seems to be the case most days). Cars always have the right away unless they are gracious enough to let people go in front of them. If not, people wait till there is a gap in traffic and then dash across the street. When I come home, I will be a professional jay walker!

I hope you enjoyed the tour. I ensure that more stories will come soon! When you are in a foreign country, EVERYTHING that happens seems significant and like an adventure. :-)