Happy New Year!

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2013 is here, and I greatly enjoyed bringing it in with friends here in Istanbul. For New Year's Eve, Jeremy, Kylie, Jon and I visited with some other friends for the evening. We played games and then listened to the fireworks at midnight (we looked for them, too, but couldn't see anything from where we were!). This morning... or, rather, early afternoon... I headed to the store at noon to get stuff to make breakfast, but the store didn't open until 1 today! We eventually all enjoyed our brunch of pancakes and sausage at about 2pm!

This evening, the four of us headed out to go bowling, but the mall we went to had a skating rink, not a bowling alley. So after enjoying a meal at the mall, we skated. This was such a special treat for me since my church back home always has a New Year's Day skate! I guess God knew how much I'd enjoy being able to keep that tradition alive even while so far away from home. It really did make me feel a little more connected with home, so I'm very thankful for the opportunity even though it wasn't even something I had thought of beforehand. After our evening out, we returned to Jeremy and Kylie's for one more round of chay (Turkish tea), and then I left for the airport where I'm blogging from right now.

Now back to Urumqi!

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