A typical day..

My dad asked me to explain what a typical day was like here in Istanbul. I figured why not share it with the rest of you since that is prime blog material right there!

I'm not woken up by the 6am call to pray anymore so thankfully I can sleep til 7am now! However, depending on whether or not I feel like taking a shower (and if it's a no it's because I showered the night before.....) I might hit my snooze for 30 minutes so I sometimes get up at 7:30.  I immediately make a cup of coffee or tea, whichever one I feel like. The coffee is Nescafe and is in a jar and you add hot water to a couple of spoonfuls that you put in the mug...it's a weird concept to me but I also was not a huge coffee drinker in the US so I don't know if that is also really weird to anyone else. It just seems like more steps than it needs to be? With milk and the powder creamer whatever it tastes OK and will get the job done. As for the tea goes though, it's always a much more enjoyable experience when I'm in the mood for tea because the tea here is really, really, really, really, really, really REALLY good. 

My school provides breakfast, lunch and a snack so I have most of my meals covered. The plus side is that I don't have to really worry about groceries. The downside is that I'm surrounded by food - GOOD food - and since it's new I feel like I have to try everything. Because of this, I have actually joined Curves about 5 min from my school (and yes - they have Curves in Turkey!?) 

Breakfast usually consists of a combo of about 2-3 of the following items:

-hard boiled eggs

- tomatoes

- cucumber

- turkish feta

- Simit - bread twisted into a bagel looking shape sprinkeld with sesame seeds..not considered a bagel here though - look it up

- olives

- crepe

- cheese

- special k

- honey

- jelly

- this weird molasses substance you put on the Simit

Lunch consists of any of the following:

- Chicken cutlet

- macaroni

- green turkish soup thing

- meaty soups

- turkish meatballs

and more meals to be had/some that i just don't know what the name was so i can't describe it here, sorry :/ all you need to know is that it's all good:)

*90% of the time there is yogurt present

*95% of the time there are tomatoes and cucumbers present

Snack consists of any of the following:

- carrots

- cucumbers

- popcorn

- Simit

- apple cobbler - accidently ate 3 pieces of this - don't judge me because the "pieces" were small squares so it was sort of OK, yet it was still 3 "squares" so maybe not OK..

- chocolate flan-like substance cake thing 

- whatever we make on our cooking day (tuesdays), which has included pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, and something else but i forget!

Dinner is usually tomatoes/cucumbers in pasta with bread followed by yogurt/honey/strawberry jelly for dessert OR whatever Deniz has made that night. We discussed having me buy my own groceries when I moved in, but I have literally gone to my little market about 3x and it's usually to buy more produce and chocolate (bc that too is amazing here). Within 5 minutes of walking in the door, Deniz will usually say "you hungry? I make soup, you have some.." and the next thing you know I have a tray of food in front of me. It's a blessing and a curse living with this woman.  She's teaching me how to cook Turkish meals, but she doesn't seem to have a concept of portion sizes. I asked if we could do my first lesson this week (being stuffed peppers) and she was like 'oh yes of course! ok, how many nights do you want to have leftovers for?' and I was like oh I don't know, maybe 2-3 max? And she goes ok, you eat maybe 2, 3 peppers per night? I would get 6 peppers...no, get 10. Yes - you will buy 10 peppers, 1.9 billion lbs of ground beef and a field of onions.  It reminds me of my big fat greek wedding and how all of the adults always give their opinion plus juuust a little bit more...It's like I'm asked for my opinion - I give it - then I'm given a revised version of my opinion in return and that is now what I have to work off of. 

SO, basically what this means is that Kelsey needs to work out 7x a week otherwise she's going to be obese when she gets back to the states.

I'm getting along with the other teachers really nicely. Its becoming more of a challenge for me bc there is SO much Turkish spoken, not to mention the turkish teachers are really close so they sort of end up doing all of the planning together and I'm left cleaning up for the next activity or filling time btwn activities while they prepare, but I'm going to ask them if I can be more involved with the planning from now on bc it's starting to get on my nerves. Other than that it's really ncie working with them bc it's fun working with native Turks annnnnnd I'm learning new vocab words each day!

In the evenings I usually come home, eat, and then talk to friends online. That sounds SO lame, I know, but by the time I get home I'm usually pretty beat and just want to relax.  I'm leaving the weekends open for most of my sightseeing, exploring, etc... I also feel like I'mm still settling in though so once I feel more settled I think it'll be easier for me to do things after work.  Since I joined Curves I've also started going to the gym after work, but the only downfall is the distance from my apartment which isn't AWFUL, it's just not super convenient. I live on a compound at the top of one of the hills in Istanbul (I think there are 7 hills), so the complex itself is really residential, but once you get outside you hop on a bus 5 minutes and your at the Bosphorus with a bunch of restaurants, etc... Whenever I want to go anywhere though I always have to plan how I'm going to get there and back. I can't just leave my apt when I feel like and go catch a bus or minibus or something bc the transportation is really random here. It's plentiful in terms of the number of busses/minibusses, but there are no timetables listed anywhere - in bus stops or online - so it's always an overestimation of how much time it will take me to get somewhere which obv adds on time to any trip I take!

Like I said, on weekends I try and explore/hang out with friends.  So far I've been to the Grand Bazaar, a traditional Hamam, and I've seen the outside of the Blue Mosque.  The Hamam has been my favorite thing so far, even though it was probably one of the most uncomfortable things I've done in a long time!  You are basically given a spongebath  by an old turkish woman in her bra and underwear - sometimes just underwear. Historically, these were places that a lot of people went to for showers/baths bc it wasn't common to own them in your home. Nowadays showers/baths in houses are obviously a common thing so people dont use the Hamam's anymore out of necessity more so than they do for something fun and random to do.  They are probably more touristy than anything, but it really is an unbelievably relaxing 2 hours and I highly recommend it to anyone that visits Istanbul - for women AND men! Once you get over the fact that a half-naked woman is scrubbing you down, it is smooth sailing from there. I can't tell you what it's like for guys, but our friend Stephen went with us and he didn't seem traumatized when he came out so I don't imagine that it was that bad for him either!

Things with my Deniz, my roomie, are going well...like I said she is teaching me how to cook/feeds me so I can't complain there. Hasn't walked around naked in awhile so I'm appreciative of that. We also do some language exchanging so that's nice too!

That's all for now - more to come later. Hope everyone had a nice Halloween:)

Much love!

Greetings from Turkiye

Merhaba!  As most of you know by now I have relocated to istanbul, Turkey.  The change in location is due to the difficulties I was facing in trying to break into the TEFL job market in Prague, but I am extremely happy with my decision:)

Istanbul is an amazing city...definitely nothing like I have ever experienced before! The driving reminds me of the driving in Colombia and Mexico....very much an every man for himself kind of mentality.  The biggest challenges so far have been adjusting to the language and trying to navigate my way throughout the city.   Their public transportation here is pretty awful as they rely mostly on personal automobiles, buses, minibuses, and a 7 stop Metro line for 13 million people.  Needless to say there is a lot of traffic. always.  They are thankfully expanding their metro line to reach my area which will be done by next summer. In the mean time I will just continue to average about 3 different forms of transportation when I want to get anywhere near the middle of the city (Taksim) :)

The area I live in is called Tarabya, which is a nice area situated North of all of the main attractions in the city.  My apartment is about a 5 minute drive my school so it makes my commute VERY pleasant.  My boss lives across the street from me (and is also the one who found me the apartment) so I ride to/from work with her which is awesome on the wallet ;) I am renting a room from a 64 y/o Turkish woman named Deniz.  I don't know where to begin describing her because she's honestly one of a kind.  She's an ex-supermodel/actress now living on her own and is the sweetest woman.  It's like living with someone else's very hospitable grandmother - she constantly wants me to eat her food, offer tips on cooking, etc... She is a very sweet lady, calls me "baby", and pinches my cheeks every now and then.  I'm enjoying living with her because it makes me feel like I have a home away from home at times.  She is a little cooky at times - Birthday Suit Count: 3 - but at the end of the day I really appreciate having someone who is so genuinely interested in me as if I were her own granddaughter. In fact, I am the same age as her granddaughter so I think I think she enjoys having me around:)

As for the details of my job, I am working at Eden's Garden International Pre-School.  I''m a teacher in the 3 year old class and work with about 11-12 children.  About a quarter speak strictly English, half are bilingual, 3 quarters can understand English, and a quarter are strictly Turkish.  The challenge of the job is with the language barrier, because with the kids that don't have any English, it's difficult to be ale to exert any control over them if they can't understand what I'm saying. GRRR. I knew that going into it though, and the director and other teachers understand that that's something I face as well so it's not an issue.  I work alongside a Turkish girl named Nurcan (pronounced Nuhrjohn) who helps bridge the gap between me and the Turkish speaking children which is helpful.  I've found that despite it being an "International School", there is  still a lot of Turkish spoken so it's been/will be an adjustment getting used to hearing my day spoken in a different language.  My duty as the English speaking teacher is to just help the kids practice standard 3 year old English vocab, but due to the nature of the job and the fact that a lot of the kids do communicate in Turkish, I am forced to learn some Turkish so I can then interpret it back to them in English.  In a matter of days, I have actually learned how to speak like a two year old. Success! I can say things like "MINE, NOT YOURS" and "I want", "finished", the colors of the rainbow, items of clothing, fruit/misc. plants and some baby animals.  All things that a 23 year expat might need to get by in a foreign country.  I'm also proud to say that I can now produce my first full sentence, being"benim domuz gribi var".  This translates to "I have swine flu", which is appropriate in this day and age since everyone seems to be freaking out about it, especially Turkey. Evidently up until now they have been able to avoid it, but a few schools in the capital city of Ankara (about 4hrs away, I think?) had kids that got it so they shut down EVERY school in the city for decontamination.  Now, the Ministry of Education has decided to clean every school in Istanbul so this upcoming Friday we have been given the day off to allow the disinfecting squads to come in and do their work.  The swine flu is a pretty big deal over here, which is understandable in a city of 13 million people. ANYWAYS, I digress...

SO - work is good, living situation is good and bad (good bc of the food, bad bc of the nudity), and istanbul is just good all around:) I unfortunately think I might be getting sick, but I guess that is to be expected when you spend  40 hours a week with a bunch of 3 year olds. I forgot how curious kids are about what things taste like aka put things in their mouths.  I get the plastic fruit or silverware from the fake kitchen...or even worse - the fake ice cream cones.... but things like tables, toy cars, books even? It's unbelievable. You give them something and it's like there's a brief moment where they're toying between using the object for it's intended purpose or licking it.  Imagine if that's how everyone behaved...you go to work and deliver a powerpoint presentation and the next thing you know you are licking the projection screen because you want to know what it tastes like.  It honestly makes me cringe at the thought of how many germs are all over the toys in preschools, so I guess this whole disinfecting squad isn't such a bad idea!

Time for me to go to bed...I'll update more soon. XO!

As a treat...

...and to make up for how poorly I have gone about this whole blog ordeal, here are some of my fav pics that I have taken since I've been here:)

View of Charles Bridge at night. They do a very good job lighting up all of their famous buildings.

 

Castle at dusk.

TEFL CERTIFIED Y'ALL!

Shot of Old Town Square. Lots of tourists!

Grapes from a MINI vineyard - we are talking 12 posts of grape vines...I'm not even sure if these are used to produce wine or if they just use them for fruit, but I thought they were cute so I snapped a pic of one :)

View of Prague looking South.

Next up is graffiti from the John Lennon wall. I feel like whatever city I live in, there is some tribute (e.g. JL wall in Prague, Strawberry Fields in Central Park) to John Lennon and I am LOVING that! Back when CR was under communist rule, a lot of Czechs would come and scribble messages of peace, anti-war themes, etc...and a lot of the messages were derived from John Lennon's ideas, lyrics from songs, etc...  The police would come erase the graffiti, and people would just come back and do it all over again. Eventually the police actually gave up and left it be and the wall that you see to this day is the same one from back then.  AND, they even encourage you to make your own small contribution to the wall!

Home Sweet Hostel

I have spent the last week and a half living in Crib 15, which is a hostel located about a 7 minute walk from the city center.  It has certainly been an interesting experience, to say the least.

We had to move out of our apartment to make room for the next wave of students to go train with ITC,  so a few of us booked a few beds here.   Mine is the bottom bunk, and as you can see by the massive dark blob on the right, I overpacked when I moved here.  I didn't realize this until I started living out of my suitcase and found that it was very difficult to control all of the clothes I have in such a confined area : /  And to think I downsized BEFORE I came here....

The job situation has been the toughest thing about this whole experience, because the availability of work is not as plentiful as I was told it would be.  It makes harder to feel less far away when you aren't sure where you're going to be living in a week! That being said though, I am making the best of it.  The people I've been meeting in the hostel are pretty cool - 2 guys from Portugal, 1 girl from Canada, another from Melbourne, and another guy named Mike from Perth, Australia.   As a sidenote, I've adopted 'dodgy' into my vocabulary just because I feel like it, and you can describe some of the other characters I have met at the hostel as extremely dodgy.  One weird, old Bulgarian guy who violently projectile vomits in the bathroom every morning and night.  It's really gross, and I mean I feel sorry for him if he has an eating disorder, but it's still really..gross..  Not to mention he has also propositioned 2 girls in the hostel to sleep in his room with him.  He's not very well-liked around here, and there are a few of us who have now been here long enough to see people cycle through that we realize that we need to find jobs, and a place to call HOME, soon:)

I'm working on it, but I don't want to get my hopes up so I'm not going to post it on here JUST yet. I should know within a day or so, so check back soon...

Ahoj, friends!  I have seriously dropped the ball on this whole blogging deal - sorry!  By now I have actually obtained my TEFL certification so I have about 4 weeks to catch you all up on. September went 10x faster than I thought it would, and I was 10,000x more busy than I had anticipated what with classes, job searching, apartment hunting and trying to explore the city.  It's going to be difficult to highlight EVERYTHING I've done over the past 4 weeks, so I will just try and touch on the most important/interesting events in my life thus far:)

I landed in Prague on the 4th around 2pm and was greeted by a guy in his mid-20s named Martin.  Martin is the son of the woman who runs my training program, so sometimes he helps out by picking up students from the airport.  He drove me to my apartment which is located in Podoli (Prague 4).  Prague is divided by districts, which are indicated as Prague __(#). I'm about 20 minutes from the city center ("Centrum"), which isn't AWFUL, but I'd prefer being a little closer.  My area is safe and residential so it feels more like the suburbs than an actual city, even though I'm only 20m outside.

Martin suggested that my roommate and I try this waterfont bar (O2 žluté lázně) because it was where many locals like to go during the summer months.  It's located on the waterfront of the Vltava River and is about a 10min walk from my apt.  This turned out to be a fantastic recommendation because not only did we experience some off-the-beaten-path culture, we ended up meeting a group of locals who befriended us (or maybe vice versa, can't really be too sure after a few beers;))  who were eager to share tips, phrases, and stories with their new Amurrican friends.  We ended up exchanging information with one of them who I've actually been in contact with since to set up a night to go out for drinks or dinner.  I am deeming her my first Czech friend :) The remainder of the weekend was spent unpacking, getting settled, wandering, etc...  

On Monday (the 7th), I started my first day of TEFL training.  There were 8 of us in the class - myself included.  Everyone was from the US except for this one girl Shaz who is half American/half Belgian, yet she has an English-sometimes South African/Australian sounding accent, her parents live in Dubai and she goes to school in the UK so we're still not sure what to call her.  All but 1 of us were in our early 20's - the exception being a man named Don who is probably the coolest 78 year old man I have ever met.  His resume includes such things like retired NATO war pilot (nbd), PhD in social work, professor, badass, world traveler, etc etc....  I'm pretty sure he is actually younger than we were because many times we'd get out of class and he'd be trying to convince us to go get one of the 30kc ($1.72) .5L beers at this beer garden next to our school (Letenske Sady Beer Garden in Letna Park) and we'd have to be like 'Don, I'm sorry, but we really have to go home and take a nap'.  So, needless to say, he has been a pleasure having around and it was sad to see him go the other day when he took off to back to Wisconsin where he's from.

The class itself was alright - not extremely exciting since we were discussing grammar a lot of the time, but not extremely boring because I obviously wouldn't be here if I found this stuff really painful. Having my certification feels pretty cool because I am now certified to do this for the rest of my life.  Some certifications expire, but the TEFL last forrrreeevvveerrrrr.... so when I am old an rickety and am tired of the daily grind, I can just drag my family with me to Bali or somewhere exotic and use this a backup plan in case I get bored during retirement.  Always thinking ahead.

In my free time - which hasn't been much - I've visited a couple castles and old fortresses (naturally), gone to a couple beer garden and have just wandered around the city.  Below are some pics from Křivoklát castle( http://www.krivoklat.cz/en). The website will give you a better description of it than I can, but in short - It's a 12th Century castle, still in tact, about an hour away from Prague.  The End!

About two Saturdays ago I decided to designate the greater portion of my day to catching up on e-mails, updating this blog, uploading pictures, etc...and I had imagined that this would all be taking place in a quaint, European cafe that would sell cheap (but good) cappuccinos and would have free wi-fi.  I figured all I needed to do was wander around and perhaps have to try a couple of different places in case wi-fi wasn't free, but that it WOULD happen and it would be found.  WELL - let me just tell you what 9 cafes will do to you : 1)You will spend roughly 200kc on 8 cappuccinos; 2) you will not find free wi-fi; 3) you will feel sick after drinking 8 cappuccinos.  My mistake was in sitting down before I pulled out my computer to check the signal because those waiters are quick and will absolutely make you feel like you need to buy something.  I ended up just going to the apartment of 4 of my classmates to use their internet, which was free and didn't require my to buy anything.  On the bright side though, I discovered some places that I probably wouldn't have seen had I not been wandering around, so that was nice:)

On Friday's, the 8 of us have tried to do dinner somewhere around town.  The first Friday we went to a place that had unbelievable food - Czech and non-czech food, as well as a good selection of cheap beer.  My favorite so far has been this place called Pivovarský Klub, which is a brewery/beer garden that claims to have the biggest beer menu in the Czech Republic.  With 200+ beers in stock, I would not be surprised. I tried some wheat beer that was 35 kc ($2.50) for half a pint and it was preeeeetty preetty tasty.  I'm pretty sure the Czech Republic runs on beer! 

Welcome!

Hello family and friends!

Welcome to my prague blague, I hope you czech it often ;).  I figured it'd be easiest to create one of these rather than sending out a mass e-mail every now and then so I hope you all enjoy!

I depart the good old US of A on September 3rd and arrive in Prague around 1pm on the 4th after a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt.  The last time I was in Frankfurt my plane unfortunately was trying to land during what was probably the only hurricane Germany has ever seen, so I'm hoping that this upcoming experience will be a little less traumatizing.

A woman named Iva will be picking me up from the airport and will then take me to my apartment in the city. I'm still waiting on the address to the apartment, but evidently it's only few blocks from my training center which is located at:

Frantiska Krizka 1

Prague 7

170 00

I THINK that I'm located in what is called the Holesovice area, and the training center is just a couple of blocks from a park called "Letenske Sady".  I'll be able to give more details once I get over there/get the address of my apartment so stay tuned!

As for the teaching part of this whole ordeal, I start my training course on Monday, Sept 7th to begin my certification.  At the end of 4 weeks, I'll have finished the course and earned my TESOL certification which will qualify me to teach english almost anywhere in the world.  During the course, my training center will help me begin my job search in Prague so once I'm finished I should hopefully have a job lined up!  

That's pretty much it for now - I'll post again once I arrive in Prague!  The e-mail that I'll be using when I'm over there is kfriend08@gmail.com.  PLEASE feel free to e-mail me as much as you want and I'll do my best to respond quickly:) The first month while I'm in training is going to be pretty hectic, but I know it will be nice to hear from everyone back home!

Love to all!

Kelsey