Sunday, 18 August, 2013; 9:49 PM; Host family's iving room.
Well, I've finally made it to my host family's house and met everyone. They're all super nice. genesis was an exchange student on a summer program a few years ago; she's from New York - she and I are the same age (she just finished her first year at NYU). Buse and Begüm are the two sisters (and I just got Buse to spell their names so I didn't mess them up); Buse is going to start high school soon (she's hoping to go to a German school, since it focuses on sciences), Begüm is finishing up at an Italian school (that might be one that focuses on the humanities, but I'm not sure).
That's the interesting thing about schooling in Turkey: high school is almost like undergrad college in the US, and University is like getting grad degrees. Turkey produces some of the youngest doctors in the world because of this system - they're done with their essential relevant sciences by the time they go to college, so they can go to their specialty right when they go to college. Sometimes I wonder why the US doesn't do that, but Gizem said yesterday that some students could say the same about the admissions process in the US. Maybe if the two could get meshed together, it would work out for the best.
The major events of today have mostly been coming to this house and having dinner here. All the people are really nice. The girls keep going on a bout this card game called 51. Apparently it's addicting. I'm just waiting for my tutorial on the matter so I can see for myself.
Right, Gen is back from showering, and Bergüm brought in water... I think we're waiting for Buse to go shower before we start. Or maybe w're just waiting for Buse to finish watching Teen Wolf and... never mind.
I apparently just made up a new word - 'creepertude.' It's when people are being very creepy. Maybe. I dunno.
Also, Genesis spoiled what happens at the Red Wedding (Game of Thrones). I have been told that revealing the Red Wedding events is revealing the events of the Super Mega Epic Spoiler of the series. Now I know the Super Huge Twist at the end of the series, and I'm not even a real 20 pages into the first book yet. Thanks, Gen.
(If any readers want to know who dies, it's EVERYONE YOU LOVE AND CARE ABOUT AND EVERYONE YOU HATE AND EVERYONE YOU ARE AMBIVALENT ABOUT. THE REST OF THE SERIES IS A LIE. That's the most spoiler-free spoiler I can come up with in the Game of Thrones universe).
I really need to get into GoT more. It would save me a whole lad of hassle, like having to go "BLAH BLAH BLAH" and plug my ears whenever Alex and Sean go on about GoT, or getting kind of mad at Genesis about spoiling the Red Wedding. (If your'e reading this, Gen, I'm still working on forgiving you about it).
I'm not sure what to say right now. The four of us are hanging out in the living room. I've taken a few breaks (from writing) to talk to people about stuff (like talk to Gen about the spoilers), but not much of consequence happened today. Boring, I know.
Well, on the way, we stopped at one of the largest malls in Istanbul. Gizem and I didn't get anything except some water at Starbucks, because we were waiting for her dad to pick something up.
We did stop at one place before that. We went to a smaller mall that's open-air (the top level is, at least; all the shops have glass windows and roofs, but there's no universal ceiling to the walkways). We didn't do much shopping there, but Gizem did stop at this one place called Watson's. I'd call it a pharmacy type place, but it's not, really, because you can't fill meds there, and places like CVS have snacks and stuff, too. Watson's is basically the entire personal care area of CVS, but a lot bigger. Soap, shampoo, cosmetics, nail polish, toothbrushes, lip balm, all that sort of thing. They have way more of it than CVS would ever stock, because it's a specialty store. I didn't think you could have that much of those specific items in one store. Obviously, there's the places like Bath and Body Works, which do just the lotions and some air fresheners and stuff, and there's the outlets just for cosmetics, but this is like... this is not either of those. Really, it's like personal care in CVS exploded into a premises bigger than it ever would have at CVS.
Right, enough about Watson's. We didn't even do that much there. Why did I spend so much time describing it? I think I'm just trying to fill space, at this point.
To summarize:
1. my host family is really nice.
2. my host cousin makes really good crepes.
3. don't ask Genesis what happens at the Red Wedding.
4. Istanbul has rally big malls.
5. Some of these malls do not have proper ceilings on the top floor.
6. Watson' is basically the Personal Care Store of Everything You'd Possibly Need To Take Care Of Your Body (except maybe tampons. Didn't check for those).
Wit that, I'm going to conclude this entry. Goodnight.
P.S. Gen and I are on the top floor. It gets kind of warm, but the view from our balcony is great.
No comments:
Post a Comment