free bags and minarets!

I bought groceries today- and was just GIVEN a plastic bag to put them in! Yeah!

Oh- and yesterday I ordered pizza online and paid for it with my credit card when the man on the scooter delivered them.

There was ice in my Starbucks latte...

And today- as I was just hanging out in the balmy sea air that just wafts up and down the tiny, hilly, zig-zaggy streets- I heard a man whistling as he walked home from work!

If it weren't for the call to prayer issuing from the many mosques around town that I hear five times a day... I might forget. Sounds silly, doesn't it? But I might forget that this is not paradise...

Oh yeah- there's also this little, tiny detail that once again I CAN'T SPEAK TO LOCALS!! Grrrr.... Not paradise after all. :P

However... after studying the numbers and several power questions like "how much? what's your name? where?" ... I started laughing hysterically...

:D he he... Turkish numbers make sense!! (For example: the word for 11 is ten and one! And 12 is ten and two! And the wonder of that continues as you go through the twenties, thirties, forties... it ALL is sequential... the way numbers should be!)

I pretty much think that every language after this one that I've been slaving over the last three months will be a comparative piece of cake!

The challenges of the next month however will be: patience as I wait for a new visa to go home, tackling new public transportation and not being too terrified of getting lost in the big city, keeping my eyes on Him in everything!

it's raining!!!

It still fills me with joy when I see large drops of rain... especially when they blow a lovely cooling breeze in through our porch windows!! The desert has left me with nothing but an amazingly never-ending appreciation for green and precipitation... and I'm enjoing both here right now as I write!

Yesterday a teammate admitted that he would love nothing more than to be 'stuck in a rut,' but that this country doesn't let us be in any kind of rut because we have to leave every three months to renew our visas. Hah- I'd love to find a rut too. I feel like I've just started finding a path though, and I have to leave. I can't believe that I have been here for three months already!!

Highlights of the last three months?

- people I've met

- fashionistas and faux-pas

- the language I have managed to learn

- weather that is changeable and is not just 110+ deg

- my wonderful roommate :)

- a team that pulls together in a time of crisis

- the cheese and ice cream!!!!

I don't want to complain about leaving. I know know KNOW that He is in control of all this. And even though I will have to be out of the country for longer than anticipated because of paperwork issues... I know that this is for my good. Because He is good.

I'm actually optimistic right now- because I realize I've fallen into some not so beneficial summertime habits like sleeping in a lot, not making plans to get out of the house until late because I'm not teaching, and staying up late at night watching (blush) Wizards of Waverly Place online.

It will be a good thing to "reset" even if I don't feel like I'm in a rut of comfort- because I might actually be in a rut of lazyness.