Various Vistas and Taxi Troubles

It's been a long time since my last post again; the internet has been spotty both here and at school. I've been keeping busy with classes and exploring in the past week.

On Tuesday we had our Urban Morphology class in the morning. I spent a good chunk of the rest of the day frustrated in the computer lab trying to print autoCAD drawings for studio and pictures of Taskisla for my project due Wednesday. All of the computers seem to have some kind of virus, and for that reason, they are extremely slow and like to randomly restart. After two tries and with Chad's help, I got everything printed that I needed.

Tuesday evening Christine and I took a bus to Ortakoy. We went to a small pedestrian area she'd been to before on the Bosphorus with shops and restaurants. We got coffee and tea at Gloria Jean's Coffee, which has a terrace with wonderful views of the mosque next to it and the Bosphorus.

Once we couldn't feel our fingers anymore from the cold, we went in search of a restaurant to get stuffed baked potatoes that are popular in that area. We found them at the first restaurant we passed. They were so good! I wish I had taken a picture, but I'm sure I will go back. The potato was twice-baked and loaded with cheese, slices of hot dog, sour cream, a spicy red salsa-like sauce, and "American salad": carrots, peas, corn, and cabbage. It was so good and so filling!

Wednesday morning we had our Architecture and Design in Cultural Context class. It lasted from 8:30 am until 12:30! The lectures are interesting, but it's hard to keep focused for that long. After class Mandy and I decided to stay in studio to do some work. After a couple minutes I got up to go to the bathroom, and realized we were locked in! Our studio connects with the other half of our group's studio by a center door, and each studio has a door leading to the hallway. Our door had been locked and the last ones to leave from class must have locked the other hallway door behind them, not realizing we don't have keys yet. We were the only ones left after class cleared out, so we had to wait a couple hours for someone to show up so we could leave.

That afternoon Mandy, Chris, Casey, John, and I walked to the Golden Horn then took a taxi to Pierre Loti where we sat and drank tea at a cafe on a hill overlooking the best panoramic view of the Golden Horn. We stayed through sunset then took a cable car over a cemetery and down to the bottom of the hill where we caught a taxi home. We had dinner at Zencefil, where Walker and I had eaten on his last night here. The lemon pie there was amazing. That night I worked on a small watercolor of an area near the Bosphorus. We have to do one per week for Tarik's class.

Not sure why when ever I use photoshop to edit pictures, they upload with inverted colors... so I've included the pans and later I'll put up the pics they came from under them.

Thursday I spent my afternoon of studio upstairs in the cafe so I could use the internet (because the internet in studio has been broken for the past week and a half). I finally downloaded VectorWorks so that I can now do CAD work using the autoCAD documents we were given.

Friday Cameron and I went to Kanyon mall to go to browse shoes for the salsa dancing lessons we are going to begin this week. A group of us, all foreign exchange students, are going to start them on Wednesday. I found a pair I liked, but didn't buy them until we went back there for dinner yesterday. Cameron also got a very cute pair of shoes; both of ours were from Nine West and on sale, over half-off, just 55 lira!

Last night I went with Cameron, Jamie, Casey, Chris, and John to a house party pretty far north of here. They had met some of the kids who would be there at another party last weekend. It was so much fun! The best thing about it was that it was Star Wars-themed. Almost all of the people there went to Koç University. We headed home around 4 am, and because the buses stop running around 11 pm, we had to take a taxi the whole way back. The door on Chris's side was broken, so he had to hold it shut as the taxi whipped down curvy roads. Then, fairly close to Taksim, we were stopped at a red light and SLAM! We all jerked forward as a girl pulling up behind us slammed into the rear-end of the taxi. We sat there in shock for a minute while our taxi driver got out and called the police. While waiting for the police our cab driver finally got Chris's door to shut. About twenty minutes later, after seeing the police drive by once without stopping, we decided to just pay our fare and take another cab for the rest of the way. Quite a night.

Time to figure out what to cook for dinner. I'm trying to use up all my food in the fridge before we leave for Mardin on Thursday.

A Snowy Night in Istanbul

The party went well Saturday night. Halil, a Turkish I.T.U. student who is head of the Erasmus (international student) program, brought several French students over who are going to school here this semester as well. I put out some of my Tzatziki sauce and it was a big hit! :)

Sunday was spent in hibernation for most people. I didn't do too much. A little school work and a little relaxing.

This morning I went to studio around 9 am to work on my project. First thing, I went to the copy room to get copies of the floor plans I'm working from. At I.T.U. students have to pay each time they want to make a copy or print something off. At Auburn we have a ridiculous Professional Fee that we must pay in addition to tuition, allowing us to make unlimited copies/prints for the year. I arrived in the copy center with a few girls in line ahead of me. One student was working the copy machines. After the other girls left, I told the guy I wanted 5 copies (beş kopi). He replied with a string of Turkish words. All I could discern was "dört" (four), so I thought maybe there was a four copy limit, smiled, and nodded my head as I said "dört". He made a few copies, each time they were extremely zoomed-in and went off the page. I thought maybe he was new and wasn't sure how to do the settings correctly. Then he said another sentence in Turkish. I told him I knew very little Turkish (çok az Turkçe biliyorum). He sort of looked exasperated then kept repeating the same sentence, slightly differently each time. I just shook my head, and he looked annoyed. Eventually a girl came in who spoke English. She said to me "You cannot blow it up 5 times because it will be too big." Finally understanding, I replied, "Oh, no, I just wanted 5 copies of each." She explained it in Turkish to the guy who rolled his eyes as another worker walked up and made my copies for me. I hurriedly paid and left. They kindly did not charge me for the first blown-up versions.

I finally returned to studio and worked for the rest of the morning on diagrammatic floor plans. I ate the lunch I packed just before studio began. My professor seemed to really like my wine and cheese showcase idea. We travel to Mardin next Thursday, and he wants us to do as much work as possible before that so that we have plenty of questions that can be answered on the site visit. So, I have a lot of work to do for Thursday's class. I feel good about this project though.

After class, Christine and I went to the market in the Kanyon mall. I loaded up on these tiny marshmallow puff cookies I tried the other day. It's a cookie with a marshmallow on top, covered in either chocolate sprinkles or coconut. I love them!

Just a little bit ago, Casey came up to the apartment to let us know that it was SNOWING! We all stood outside enjoying the snow and taking pictures. The people inside the shop across from us were laughing at us all outside dancing in the snow and huddled on the sidewalk. I got a few pictures. The flakes were large!

Turkey Trot

It's been almost a week since my last post due to being sick and trying to keep up with school work at the same time. The "sickness", most likely caused by the food here, has hit no less than five of us in the past week. I think I'm better now, until I eat out again that is...

Other than be sick and go to class, I haven't done too much in the past week. Here's a quick recap: Monday I made it about half-way through studio with a 102 temperature before I decided to go back to the apartment. I spent the rest of the day and night in a half-sleep state. On Tuesday I slept through my first class, but made it (a little late) to the afternoon lecture on Mardin. The rest of the day and night I worked on a project to "read, experience, and map Taşkişla" (our school building). None of us quite knew what to do, the project description was quite vague. I ended up doing a few sketches from around the building and a couple small maps. The class this was for was at 8:30 am on Wednesday morning, a four-hour lecture class! They didn't end up taking up the project, so I have another few days to add to it. Here are some pictures I shot of the courtyard at school and the views from the 3rd floor balcony.

After class I went to the Nike store with Chad and Adam to pick up some work-out clothes so I can start exercising at the gym on the main campus. Then we went to a place for lunch that had the best menemen (egg, cheese, meat, pepper, tomato dish I'd mentioned before); they served it with tortillas made by women sitting in the front window who are rolling out the dough. After that I went back to studio to finish a model of the site that my group had begun after I left on Monday. When I got home Jamie had made vegetable and chicken stew. It was so good!

Shortly after that I started feeling sick again.

Fast forward to Friday morning and I was feeling much better. I didn't do much yesterday. I didn't actually leave the apartment at all. It's been very cold and very rainy here for about almost a week straight. I did make tzatziki sauce though!

Today a group of us went out to get menemen at the restaurant I went to Wednesday. I was a little scared to get it again, even though it was so good, so I tried to order a dessert instead. I'm not sure if they waiter said they didn't have it right then or that I couldn't have any that early. Either way, I ended up with just some tea, which was fine with me as I'd already eaten lunch. We went to a new market I hadn't been to yet after that and I got a few different chocolate bars. It's a fairly well-sized market, not nearly as good as the one in the mall we go to though.

For the past week I've been struggling with which site to choose and what to put in the existing building. This morning I finally got it. A wine and cheese shop. Wine is made in the region Mardin is in and cheese is made in the city itself. The shop will be more tourist-oriented, tourism in Mardin has shot up in the past few years. There will be a shop attached to a tasting room as well as a restaurant/bar with a music area. If I have space I'd like to have the cheese made on-site. I'm excited to develop this.

We picked up some pastries from the market earlier for the birthday party we're having for John tonight in our apartment. It's going to be a "classy party," so we are all getting dressed up and drinking with our pinkies extended all night. That's all for now.

Oh, today when I was out it was insane the number of people on the streets selling flowers and people carrying flowers they were given or about to give. It was really pretty. Happy Valentine's Day!

A Couple of "Kedi"s

What a yucky day! It's been pouring and windy! I made eggs with basil, mushrooms and onions for breakfast... it was delicious!

I did not feel like going out of the apartment at all, eventually I headed to studio with Christine. We got there to find four of the guys from our studio all sitting in the hallway with their laptops. We still don't have keys to get in. But the internet there is fast! I was able to download my iPod update so I can put apps on it. I got one that is a Turkish phrase book with some common phrases in it... it will be very useful.

There must have been a door open down the corridor somewhere because the wind kept howling and howling. Then we heard meowing and meowing. There was a cat, or kedi in Turkish, coming down the hall towards us. Eventually it came over to say hello; it's meow was so intense... just like the one my cat CeCe picked up at the vet one boarding. A little bit later another showed up. I've decided to call them Skittles and Biscuit-Maker. Skittles was very skittish and Biscuit-Maker kept kneading biscuits on Christine's D&G purse! They were very friendly... despite Biscuit-Maker's face in the last picture.

When Christine and I left studio around six it was already dark out. Our studios are in the basement, so to get to them we cut across the central courtyard then go down a set of stairs that lead straight into the basement level. We open the door to outside and could see hardly anything, the staircase was so dark. Then we had to cut across the dark, wet, empty courtyard with a cat howling in the corner. Quite the scene from a horror movie.

Time to do a few last minute things then get to bed. I want to be up early to studio tomorrow. I'm going to pack my lunch and work all morning until studio begins at 1:30 pm.

An Extraordinary Dromedary

Friday morning I was greeted my a great surprise when I got out of the shower...my package with my debit card had finally arrived!!!

The weekend has been slow-going. Friday morning I met my professor at school to pay my deposit for the flight to Mardin. In the afternoon we were supposed to be going with some of the Turkish students to get our transit passes, but something came up and they cancelled. I spent the rest of the day around the apartment. I tried to understand my Architecture in Cultural Context assignment, vacuumed, and did a sketch of some of the furniture from Koleksiyon then began to watercolor it. Cameron was amazing and cleaned our bathrooms and got the drain to our shower unclogged. By the end of our showers we had been half-calf-deep in cloudy water. It was quite a treat to shower without wading around this morning.

Friday night Me, Cameron, Christine, Jamie, and Jamie's Polish friend (who lives here) went to a couple of bars. The first was the one I'd been to before, we sat one floor lower than last time which is more of a "sit-and-talk floor" than the top "dance" floor. We moved to the second bar after a bit, which turned out to be not-as-great as we had expected. It was extremely crowded, lots of shattered glasses on the floor, and pretty stuffy. I think they had to pay 6 lira for a beer too- moderate, but not cheap.

My fingers and toes have been tingly and numb all day today.

Right now I'm listening to Simon and Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock". It makes me want to see Garden State, the movie that introduced me to the soothing songs of Simon and Garfunkel.

Today Christine and I went to Kanyon mall. First thing, I went to get the camel bracelet I had seen. I love it! He is adorable. At 31 lira, it is pricy, but wasn't as much as I had thought it would be; definitely worth it!

We went to Starbucks where they spelled my name on my cup "Sera". I used to want to change the spelling of my name to that when I was younger to be different. 'A's have an "ah" sound in Turkish, so when I say "Sarah" the first 'A' has more of an 'E' (eh) sound in Turkish. My name would be pronounced "Sah-rah" here. Magdalena, an Auburn studio professor from Croatia, asked me when I was in her class how I wanted her to pronounce my name: the American way or the Croatian way (the same as it would be pronounced in Turkish, with long 'A's). I told her definitely the Croatian way; I love the way it sounds with the long 'A's, especially with a foreign accent.

After we got back and had lunch, Christine and I went to school to do some work in studio. We still don't have keys to our studio and couldn't find someone to let us in. We thought we could go home and borrow a key from someone in Tarik's studio then enter ours through the connecting door between the two, but as we left we found out the building closes at 7:00 pm on the weekends (it was already 5:30 pm), so we decided to wait until tomorrow.

After tortellini pasta for dinner from the grocery store, I fell asleep on the couch while waiting for Ugly Betty to come on. Now it's just after midnight and I don't feel tired...time to do some Rosetta Stone! The monotony of the same words being repeated over and over always puts me in the mood for sleep!

Designer Couches and Crowded Buses

I'm listening to a shrieking cat on the street and a man yelling sales pitches (at this time of night?!) as I write this from my room.

The saga of the debit card continues. My package is in limbo somewhere in Istanbul, floating around on the FedEx (or Express Kargo?) truck to wrong addresses then back to the FedEx facility at nighttime. Dad was able to wire me some money today to tide me over until I can unite with my parcel; just-in-time too because in the morning I have to put a deposit down on our trip to Mardin.

Today was a great day, but it felt like an extremely looong day. It began with lots of Mardin research, so I could come up with a proposal for our project. It's hard to get an idea of the scale of these sites from the autoCAD drawings, but with the understanding I have now, I've come up with two proposals. The more fun idea is a cultural arts center that would have a stage for traditional music and dances to be performed, galleries for art to be displayed, and shops for artisans to sell their crafts, along with a restaurant, bar, lounge, and visitor's information center. It seems this could fit into the bazaar space well. The other idea I've had is sparked from a couple articles I read on Mardin's tourism. Over the past few years there has been a huge increase in the number of tourists visiting Mardin, but many people have to stay in a neighboring town because Mardin doesn't have enough hotels to accommodate this boom. A hotel would be a very practical project and would work well with two of the three sites. I like the idea of a cultural arts center more because I could learn about the town's culture and society as I design the project. So that is how I spent my morning, researching and brainstorming all things Mardin.

After the rest of the group started awakening, Nick and Adam kindly agreed to go with me to pick up my wire transfer of money. On the way back we grabbed sandwiches (the same I had yesterday) from the restaurant across the street, before heading to school to meet all of our classmates and professors.

Our group of about thirty crammed onto an already crowded un-air-conditioned bus to go to Koleksiyon, the upscale furniture/interiors shop that is funding the majority of our trip to Mardin. The bus ride wasn't any fun. It was over half-an-hour of standing with people packed in on all sides and sun beating in through the window; quite a trip. Our discomfort was not in vain. Koleksiyon was amazing.

When we arrived, we went through the elegant displays to the third floor cafe to be greeted by Faruk Malhan, founder of Koleksiyon. He took us through the displays, explaining the stories behind some of his favorite pieces. Koleksiyon sells its own designs, as well those of trendy designers they have discovered. One of the pieces that has sold like crazy is a slightly modified traditional Turkish tea glass and saucer. The glass has an indention in the bottom and the saucer has a little bump, so that the glass does not move all over the saucer when the set is being moved.

A new piece that is expected to be a big seller is a set of glasses for drinking rakı, a Turkish alcohol made from aniseed that is clear until mixed with water, at which point it turns white. Rakı is meant to be drunk along with water; the two are either mixed or drunken separately. With rakı, being clear, it is common to confuse which glass has which liquid. Koleksiyon's set of two glasses are slightly different sizes and curved to fit perfectly next to each other.

After our tour, we returned to the cafe for tea and cookies. I had just enough time to snap some pictures of a few pieces and do a few sketches before we were headed back to the bus.

the cafe ^




the view of the entrance to Koleksiyon ^
the view across the street from Koleksiyon ^

down the road a little ways, the view of the Bosphorus ^

A few of us went with some of the Turkish students to an outdoor restaurant along the Bosphorus. I had menemen, a dish of egg, cheese, tomatoes, and peppers; a good choice. We learned some more about the city and the language and taught the Turkish students some about where we're from. At the end of our meal the waiter demanded an extra lira from everyone, saying the prices on the menu were old...sure. The Turkish students went ahead and paid, so we did too.

Another long, but this time air-conditioned bus ride, and we were back to Taksim. The day has worn me out, so I'm going to spend the night in while the others do their nightly bar-trip. Tomorrow the Turkish students will take us to get our akbils, which are buttons that give us discounted bus/metro/ferry fare.

The Stress Begins

It's been a little hectic the past couple days. The internet not working well at the house or school, not having the programs I need on my laptop for studio, and the saga of getting my new debit card mailed here after my account was hacked has all added up to a good bit of stress.

Other than those things, life as a student in Istanbul has been great. Tuesday morning we had Urban Morphology; a grad student lecture class taught in English. We all packed into a tiny classroom for the first part of class. Apparently none of our names were on the list, so they expected to only have about 24 Turkish students; our group doubled that number. After the general course introduction we moved to a larger classroom to begin the day's lecture, which was given as a powerpoint presentation with one of our two professors reading the slides in good, but somewhat choppy, English. After the first couple of slides, the power went out. Lucky for me, I was in the front row and could therefore see the laptop that the powerpoint presentation was on and take adequate notes for the rest of the class period. The course seems like it could be interesting: the study of city form, mostly coastal European cities like Istanbul; however, it was hard to comprehend the whole of the lecture. I don't know if it was how the slides were written or not having my ear keyed in on our professors' accents yet. I looked up issues of the Urban Morphology journal online when I got home, literature our teacher mentioned in class. I found an article on Istanbul's urban morphology, written by an I.T.U. professor; I read the first part of it and took some notes. It helped me understand the idea of the course a lot better, and it was really interesting.

After class on Tuesday I bought some drafting supplies at the school supplies store, came back and ate lunch, then went back to school for studio work-day. We have three potential sites in Mardin for our project: a family house, an inn-type building, and a bazaar. Our task is to design the interior space, keeping the existing building's shell and interior walls, with whatever proposal we want. That is my assignment for tomorrow: come up with proposals of what could exist in these sites. Two of the sites could become really great museums, I think, but museums can be tricky because there is a certain amount of restraint needed on the part of the architect so that the artwork is given a perfect background. I also thought about a mixed-use hostel or hotel and visitor's center. Anyways, I'll quit brainstorming here, and get back to my account of the past few days.

In studio I spent most of my time figuring out a software I could download (for free) to view .dwg files, which is the format of all of the documents we've been given on the sites. Most people have autoCAD, but OSX (mac's operating system) isn't supported by autoCAD, so I turned to AutoDesk's free student downloads, but got lost in the many options. Eventually, I realized that Adobe Illustrator (which I have) opens .dwg files for viewing. Today I found out that I can download a free student version of VectorWorks, similar to autoCAD; this eliminated a good bit of that stress I mentioned in the first paragraph. I just need to scan my student ID (which today I found out I can do at school) and e-mail it in.

This morning we had architectural contexting, taught by one of the assistant professors who is helping Tarik's studio class. This seems like it will be a lot of fun. Each week we are given a place (assignment) in the city to go explore and document. At the end of the semester we will make a video of all of our findings. Today we explored our campus. Our professor took us to see the two libraries, computer lab, and supply store.

After class I waited by the door downstairs for two hours on the FedEx man. At 11:30 am I decided to call it quits and went upstairs to enjoy my two lira sandwich from the restaurant across the street.

^ complete with chicken, french fries, lettuce, green peppers, and tomatoes

Tonight I cooked lemon spaghetti for Jamie and Cameron. It turned out well for eyeballing all of the measurements. Here's the link to the simple and good recipe. :)

Someone outside is making a noise every 15 seconds that sounds like a loud cough, although I'm sure it's a word; it can be a noisy night-time (and day-time) street that we live on.

Time for me to continue work on these proposals due for studio tomorrow. Instead of having class at school we are traveling to Koleksiyon, a trendy, upscale interior design shop that may (if we make a good impression) fund our trip to Mardin. www.koleksiyon.com.tr

First Day of School

After not getting much sleep last night, due to my dinner re-visiting me around midnight, I was surprised to wake up ready to start my day at my first alarm. It is about a ten minute walk to our building, a beautiful old building with a large courtyard in the middle where cats hang out.

Just our group and the IMIAD grad students met in the morning with Tarik and the two others (like GTAs) that will be helping teach his studio. We only spent about 20 minutes in our meeting, being introduced to each other, with orders to reconvene at 2:00 pm.

In the meantime, I took Christine, Nick, Adam, Chad to the Kanyon Mall to go to the wonderful supermarket there. I remembered my camera this time but found out you can't take pictures.

After a lunch of buttered pasta, I headed back to studio. Our morning group was met by the third and fourth year Turkish students and Abdullah Erençin, the other Turkish studio professor. Our Auburn group split ourselves between the two professors, Tarik and Professor Erençin. Having had Tarik last semester, I joined Professor Erençin's studio, along with seven of my Auburn classmates and seven Turkish students. We got handouts giving a tentative semester schedule and brief, somewhat vague, project description; we are supposed to be e-mailed more information soon. Professor Erençin is very friendly, and I am excited to be able to have him as a professor. Only four of the seven Turkish students in our studio were there today. They were all very friendly; they bought us all tea and coffee and will take us out for a day to show us around one weekend soon.

After studio let out I walked around the building a bit Christine and Mandy. We looked at all of the projects displayed in the hallways; found a studio, which looked very similar to ours in Auburn, with a large balcony with an amazing view; and realized our school has both traditional and modern W.C.s (see my "Across to Asia" post for a picture of a traditional one). I love our building; such a change from Dudley (Auburn's architecture building). We have tall arched ceilings and white plaster walls.

On the way home we walked by a woman and her two small children that we pass every day. They sit bundled in dirty blankets on the sidewalk accepting change from those who offer. Today the small boy, about three years old, who is usually hugged in his mother's arms, was twirling around in the middle of things, bumping into pedestrians. After passing him, I felt a tiny hand on the back of my leg and turned just as he tugged my water bottle out of the side pocket of my bag. He ran away from me a few steps then turned and grinned as I crouched down with my hand out, gesturing him to give it back. After smiling at me for a second more he handed it back, while his mother, still seated, shouted in Turkish. Only her angry eyes were showing. Her mouth was covered by her headscarf; I'm not sure if she was shouting at the boy or me. Either way it's obvious she's taught her son well; I'm pretty sure the huge grin on his face was because he knew he'd momentarily succeeded in his job.

I'm headed to bed early tonight to catch up on last night's lost sleep. Tomorrow we have one of our two other classes, urban seminar or architectural contexting, at 9:30 am.

Waiting for School to Start

We haven't done much over the weekend. Friday night a few of us went to a bar near the fish market off of Istiklal. It was a lot of fun. We went to the top floor, which will be great during spring, because the whole roof is just an awning that folds back. Our group hunkered down in a cozy corner booth with 4 lira beers- a pretty good price for Istanbul. After about an hour a group of twenty or so people came in and moved all the tables out and the dancing began. The music was mostly American songs from the 1990s, but they still had decent beats.

When I got home I called Walker to see how his flights had gone. He said they went well, but the ride to the airport was quite an adventure. He and a British man were the only passengers on the shuttle to the airport. About a mile away they came to backed up traffic and tons of people in the streets waving flags (Turkish and one they didn't recognize). A man knocked on the door and he and the bus driver spoke in raised voices for a bit. Then the bus driver told them they would have to walk the rest of the way! So, Walker and the British man got out and started maneuvering their luggage through the mob of people. They got to the airport alright, just a little shaken. When Walker got to Atlanta and was able to use the internet he found that the people were awaiting the return of the Turkish Prime Minister who had been at an international debate in Davos; the other flag being waved was the Palestinian flag. You can read the whole scoop here.

Saturday Tarik came to visit. We all sat in Nadim's large room down stairs and drank tea while Tarik gave us an update on what we would be doing this semester. We'll be split between two studios: Tarik's and another Turkish professor's. Tarik's studio will be a vertical studio; it will have all of the I.M.I.A.D. grad students in it, us (fourth year students), and third year students. I'm not sure if the other professor is doing a vertical studio as well. We'll be going to Mardin at the end of February, where three potential sites for our project are. I'll know more about it all tomorrow. We go to campus tomorrow morning to get introduced to everything, but after that studio will be held in the afternoons on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

Saturday evening I went out with Christine, Nick, and Tula (one of our Finnish apartment-mates) to find a large supermarket Nadim had said was about 15 km down the road. We walked for a long time, never finding the market, and decided to stop and eat at an Italian restaurant. Tula and I had tasty spinach and mushroom omelets. Most of our group headed back to the bar last night, but I decided to stay in and try to get on a good sleep schedule. I watched the first episode of the series Durham County, a Canadian TV show that was on TNT. It's about a homicide detective and his family who move to a new town across the street from a murderer and his family. It was pretty eerie.

Nothing has gone on today. I've been doing laundry, and we watched the movie Pineapple Express on someone's laptop. A few of us just got back from an Italian place down the street. I got spaghetti with cream sauce, which turned out to be mostly olive oil and pretty tasteless. Oh well. Time for me to get my laundry out of the dryer and get ready for bed!