1. I AM EXHAUSTED! so who knows how well this one will be!

Yesterday (monday) was class from 9-12. After that was just a relaxing day and then at 5 we all met up with Said and he took us to a park near the Marmara Sea. We made a quick stop at a grocery store to get snacks and drinks and Said bought a volleyball. A few just played around with the volleyball while the rest of us watched relaxed and talked. Pete had bought and Ud here which is a traditional turkish instrument. So he practiced that in the park for a while. A little boy came up to him and said something in Turkish and pointed to the Ud so Pete handed it over and the kid started playing with it he had no clue how to really play though but it was cute. After the sunset Kelsey Miles and I caught a cab back toward campus and went to a cafe and had some çay hooka (not me though) and just had the greatest conversations it was much needed after a few frustrating days. We stayed there for like 3 hours just chatting and whatnot. Then all of a sudden they turned the Tv to an english channel and we all three were SO confused because we thought we heard words we knew but couldnt really grasp that we were hearing english. Outside of our own voices we havent heard english really. I think for me that will be the strange thing to get use to once im home. Yes Ive been to countries where no to little english is known. But Ive never been practically living somewhere like that. Anyway like I was saying before we stayed for like three hours then all of a sudden they come over with napkins and forks for each of us. All of us look at eachother and ask did you order something and we all said no then all of a sudden they come over with a big plate full of fresh honeydew melon! I love Turkey again like I said they do this type of stuff all the time. We had no idea what time they closed and there was no way of asking it was 1130 at night so we decided we better leave.

Today was great long expensive but so worth every penny! We started the day off by going to Bayazit square and we were planning on going to a calligraphy museum but of course it was closed of course like everything is closed for reconstruction! So we went to Bayazit mosque which was amazing and not on our planned schedule. Then we went to another mosque cant remember the name of course and a really awesome tomb againg like i said LONG day dont remember names! This is bad! Alright so after all this we decided to hit the grand bazaar. This is THE largest bazaar in the world over 40,000 shops and its crazy huge and crazy confusing and so easy to get lost. Kelsey and I decided to conquer this big guy together. We also decided to just go ahead and get almost all shopping done here and today! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! I got so much stuff today but Im so excited about it all. I got this gorgeous scarf and had so much fun with the seller. I had one scarf (for andria) and he asked for 30 then I found a scarf I liked and I asked how much for both eventually I got both for 38 and had so much fun joking with him. Every scard I looked at he would put on his neck to model it for me! haha 'this is how you wear lady' haha so then we did a fun little handshake and then he pinned a free evil eye on my shirt to protect from evil. Evil eyes are big thing here. I got a gorgeous tea set that ım so scared is going to break! I got some earrings for my mom an ornament some bowls and man I dont even remember what else. While we were at the bazaar we were getting so tired so decided to stop and have a milkshake Turkish style which was so good and refreshing. After we somehow god only knows how made it out of the bazaar we found our way to the spice bazaar. We figured we were in the bazaar quarter lets just get it over with. So we went back to the spice shop we did before and just had a blast. We both bought so much stuff there it was crazy. They kept giving us çay to drink and feeding us different things from the shop. I got some different spices to cook with some fres çay some turkish delights and some hazelnuts this time. All are fresh and vacuum sealed so I cant wait to bring them home to have and share!

I am so beat right now and I need a shower BAD. So its off to bed I go well after a shower that is!