CRAZY

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What has happened in my life? Lots. Too much.

The biggest thing was that I went to Cyprus for five days. I joined Ari, Christina, Holly, and Kubra’s trip to Cyprus which happened to be leaving on the same plane last Friday morning as Dan, Zac, Kendra, Justin, Paul, and Ginny’s trip. So the first day we all hung out in southern Cyprus. We had to pass through the UN buffer zone in the capital city of Nicosia, which was pretty cool and bizarre. Then we looked at old Nicosia and saw a medieval hall, lots of ethnic diversity (as Dan said, “you know you’re a former part of the British empire when…”), an old Venetian mansion with a small museum in it, some Orthodox churches, and a crazy Byazntine icon museum full of more Byazntine-era icons from the 9th to 19th Centuries than I could shake a stick at, which was really cool and which I am really glad I got the chance to enjoy with Dan. That night we all went to Milessos on the southern tip of the island. The best part of that was having the opportunity to eat bacon and the massive number of balloons that we encountered in the street and which we played with for a long time—for like an hour in me and Kendra’s case.

The next day Ari and I went to meet Holly and Christina back in Lefkoşa (the Turkish half of Nicosia). They were about 40 minutes late, but they arrived. Unfortunately Kubra was unable to come because she didn’t get her shit together and actually get a plane ticket—what a surprise. So we went to Magusta and hung out at our beach bungalow for a day and a half. It was amazingly warm given that it was December—we swam and played frisbee and I meditated on the beach for a while and at night we gave each other back massages and drank rum and talked about starting postmodern language education schools and enjoyed each other’s company. We also spent time in the old city of Famagusta, an old star-shape Venetian fort that was reaaaaaaallly cool. There were four massive churches that, when they were all still churches (and not poorly-converted mosques) and weren’t mostly fallen down were probably absolutely stunning all in the same place. Even their ruins were stunning.

Then we headed to Girne. It was rather touristy. We got there and realized our doppelgangers were in the city when the hostel the guy in Milessos had recommended all 8 of us was full with “a bunch of American students.” We explored touristy Girne, had dinner, got my wallet lost/stolen, went to the internet café to cancel my credit and debit cards, and then hung out with our friends before they left for the ferry to mainland Turkey the next day. I got to make out with the girl I’m totally all about on the sea wall at midnight and it was, by all accounts, pretty romantic. The next day my group wanted to go hike up in the mountains; for some reason we asked a woman who owned a random lingerie store how to do that. She recommended we go to a British ex-pat town in the mountains from whence we could hike around. The taxi took us there, and it was so absolutely small and charming it was literally almost unbelievable. The houses and the views were and the landscaping and gardening were absolutely perfect. We went to the one restaurant (of the town’s two) and about a third of the town’s current winter-time residents were there hanging out—we met the owners, two Canadians from Calgary, who were very pleasant and who gave us a ride back down the mountain. We ate more pork and, explored the exterior of the town’s formidable castle, and then went back to the hotel and enjoyed each other’s company for a while again. Me and Christina got a cab to the airport at 4:30AM.

Good trip, if rather expensive for five days. It’s been Korban Bayramı all week and lots of stuff has been closed and there are lots of people who are obviously not from Istanbul everywhere. It also suddenly feels much colder—it’s definitely late autumn now instead of early or mid autumn. Or at least it has seemed like it. With this Istanbul weather you never know. My friend Mali was visiting from Wednesday until this morning, but she’s felt pretty sick for part of her stay unfortunately. It’s been nice seeing here, and she’s the best house guest I could ask for; she doesn’t need much besides a bed to sleep on and to hang out when it’s convenient for me.

It's also interesting in that, um, this relationship with Kendra thing has started to get really good--it feels kind of like we've hit our stride, so to speak. Hopefully it will continue because it's rather nice.

In other news, I have so much school work to do it’s fucking stupid. My apartment has also lacked internet for like two weeks; the guys were supposed to come install it 3 times and had some stupid excuse each time. And all week they've been unavailable because it's bayram. FUCK I NEED TO SKYPE MY GRANDMOTHER AND MY FAMILY BUT I CAN'T.

Also, pictures coming as soon as I HAVE INTERNET AT HOME AND NOT JUST FUCKING SIMIT SARAYI AND I CAN UPLOAD THEM WTF.

Oh yeah, I also might go to Beirut and Syria with Dan and Kendra in January instead of Europe. Hmm.

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