Latin Dancing

So I am happily going to be dancing from now on 2 days a week. On Mondays and Fridays I am going to Latin Dance class for an hour each day. My host sister takes ballet at the same place as I'm now taking Latin, so it works perfectly. I'm so glad to be finally doing some excersise. I'm in the Tango performance which I've been told means I'm one of the best dancers there. They love me! The teacher is really nice and friendly and the kids there have been treating me like a celebrity. My first day there I sat in one of the chairs to watch and the little 11-12 year old girls who weren't dancing  came and formed this circle around me asking questions in English and Turkish. They are really nice and I'm enjoying myself. I think that now, because I understand more Turkish, I'm more comfortable around people. I understand what's going on most of the time and so I don't feel lost or stupid because I get more of what they're saying.
Things are really going to start picking up around here. This weekend I'm going to Sardis, next week we head up to Bursa to ski, and the Rotary programs keep going. In fact, in May I don't have a single weekend open. Time's really going to fly.... hopefully I wont blink. :)
Monica

The Trip to the Police Station.

So today I went to the Police Station..... but it's not what you think. :) I had to go to change my address on my residence permit. Now that I've moved they need to know where I am in case of an emergency. So today I got to sleep in and then went to my mom to the police station. 

The foreigner's department at the police station is one of the most interesting places I've been in. There's people from all different countries: people who are moving to Turkey to be with their spouses, students coming to study at university, families moving here for work and people just traveling. I met a man from Pakistan today who was coming here to be with his wife. It's so cool just to say I met someone from there. I also sat next to a woman who was using her i-pad in Chinese! I know how people type in that language now. Anyways, you also see many different passports. The Pakistan ones are green, there's a Russian one that's red, the Turkish one is red, the USA one is blue etc... I love seeing all these different things and people and knowing that there's countries from all over the world represented in one room. 

So school started up again on Monday and taking the metro is not as bad as I thought it would be. I just have to remember to get on the right side at the metro to take the one that goes all the way to my station.... that and get up at 7. However, starting school felt good. I'm back with my friends and it's really good. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Monica

I MOVED!!

Putting that in normal print just didn't set the mood right. So yes as the title suggests I have moved to my second host family. 

Sorry it's so big but it's hard to read otherwise. So I was living in the little redish pinkish spot called Konak and now I've moved to the live green space called Bornova. Believe it or not that's 40 minutes by public transportation. So I'm commuting to school now. Yay :D I'm not near the sea anymore, but I should see it when I go to school in the mornings. I've also moved from an apartment to a house which is rather weird. I was really getting used to the apartment thing.

My family here is really nice. My host mom doesn't really know English so my Turkish is going to hopefully pick up fast! I am forced to be around it and that's probably really good for me. I have a little sister again in this house but she's 10 this time. She's really sweet and nice and really loves dogs. She's got the names of the ones around our house. My host dad knows a lot of English but he still talks to me in Turkish a bunch and is helping me get it down.
Well yesterday 4 of us exchanges decided to go ice skating. The rink is only about 30 minutes away from my house so it was easy to get there, and turns out it's only 5 lira for 45 minutes of skating! (That's a little less than 3 dollars) It was awesome, but I am really sore today. Hopefully I can go a lot and get better at skating. I only fell twice yesterday so I think that's a good thing.

Max!

Heloisa, me, and Felipe

Felipe, me, and Max

Me!

The whole gang

We had a lot of fun and decided this was something we want to do more often. :)

In other news, there was a huge thunder and lightning storm that decided to start at 6am this morning and that included rain that sounded like hail. It's rainy season haha. It's supposed to rain tomorrow and Sunday too. Let's hope I don't get flooded out :P

That's all for now,

Monica 

Semester Break!

Well I have some time to kill mostly because I'm now on semester break from now until February 10th. Two blissful weeks of no school! This is the only really long vacation the school gives, so hopefully it will be enjoyable. So I figured I should catch you all up on what I've been doing.
First of all, last week I got two amazing packages. One from my parents, and one from one of my best friends: Caitlin Silk. My parents had some stuff for my family in it and a few things for me too. Caitlin's box had a bunch of amazing candies: candy canes, chocolate, chips and also a copy of the most recent town paper. Oh also she sent me a pair of fuzzy slippers so I have a very comfortable pair of house shoes (which I think makes my host mom happy because I wear them).

Caitlin's box

My parent's box

My host mom and sister with their presents

My parents sent this little furry creature. His name is Rousseau, Russ for short, to go with the Voltaire named cat at home.  

I am also moving host families during this break. I am moving on Monday the 4th of February to a house that's about 40 minutes away by metro. Actually I'm moving from one end of the metro to the other. I'll be taking the metro to school every morning so no more lazy sleeping in for me. I've met my second family several times and I really like them. They are really nice, but I'm going to be forced to step up my Turkish (not that that's a bad thing). Speaking of my Turkish, I have reached that happy point where I understand almost everything people say to me. I just need to improve my speaking ability, but I can definitely speak enough to get around really easily. I was able to point someone in the street towards their hotel the other day :D

I got a chance to meet some other exchange students yesterday! The group from the Istanbul district is going on a tour of a bunch of places around Turkey and yesterday they were in Izmir. So we all met up and formed this huge group of foreign people. We were about 33 or so people which is a crazy amount of people to do things with. There were 7 other Americans, lots of Mexicans and Brazilians, and a few people from Taiwan, Colombia and then the Turkish Rotex kids. We just crashed at a cafe and got to know each other. I already knew a few people from when our group went to Istanbul, but it was nice to meet the others. Annie is also here for the weekend because today is her birthday and we're also on break, so she's staying in Manisa with Shannon. It's nice to have her here because we haven't seen her in over a month!

I've got to go now, but I'll keep you all updated

Monica