Since I left my house.....

Iyi aksamlar (eeyach-sham-lar - good evening) everyone!  It's about 12-1 in the morning over here as I'm posting, but it should be around 6 or 7 your time.  Since my Uncle's internet was decidedly NOT working, I had to wait until I got to Turkey to post anything, plus I was busy helping everyone pack ;-).  I kept a little post-it note with stuff I wanted to write about, though, and so I'm working from that and my memories!

The trip down to my Uncle's house was quite lovely... Melis and I both slept most of the way, we stopped for breakfast at MacDonalds (They have amazing sausage burritos... I never knew this!!), and goofed off in the Russel Stover store in Andersonville, SC... (we played ninja, and... well... yeah... but it was worth it!)  We did not feel BAD about goofing off in said Russel Stover store because our party (names have been left out of the matter ;-) bought at least 50 dollars worth of chocolate, of not more, mostly for use as rewards in my Aunt's government -sponsored awareness workshops across the globe.

While at my Aunt's house, I discovered THE most amazing pasta ever (at least I thought so until I had this amazing Turkish pasta...) that was served with yogurt infused with garlic.  I had no idea it was going to be as good as it was!  Apparently (as I saw when I got over to Turkey), Turks eat yogurt the way we eat butter: with EVERYTHING.    The pasta was simply shell noodles, tomato paste, ground beef and some seasonings, and the yogurt was just plain yogurt with chunks (not minced - chunky) of garlic in it.  As far as the yogurt goes, all you do is chop and put in the garlic, and then the flavor leeches out of the garlic and into the yogurt.  It's not very strong, and the chunks of garlic don't actually taste like anything except for texture.  At any rate, the whole ensemble was delicious... and just an Americanized taste of real Turkish food.

While helping my cousin Melis pack, we ran across a brochure put together by high school students entitled "101 Ways to Stay Alive" (no joke).  One of them was "Don't drive if you can walk."  I stopped and said, "Almost everybody can walk, hello!"  We both cracked up.  Melis also then made the quote of the day by saying, "Well, that would severely cut down on traffic!"

I also learned that day that chain links can be turned into wire shelf hooks!  You simply take pliers and turn the top half at a 90 degree angle to the bottom half counterclockwise (so it makes kind of an s, but not all the way).  You then have hooks of all different metals (you can buy chain in about every colour), and that method is significantly cheaper than paying for weak, ugly wire shelf hangers.

One final note before I go to bed and continue the rest of this summary tomorrow night (maybe, if we're not out too late): You MUST watch The Lakehouse!  It is super twisty though (you don't know whether the guy lives or dies), and Melis and I were both dripping liberally by the end of the movie.  Even though all their technicalities as to the time difference are not worked out, it's a very good story.  So please watch it! (And tell me if you dripped too).   ;-)  Love you all!
       ~Bekah