It’s a bit of a shock to me when I reflect that it’s been nearly three years since I graduated from college. What exactly have I been doing for the past three years? The standard for most is to find a job, settle down and eventually get married. But ever since spending so much time…
I teach in a private university, so the students come from wealthy, very privileged backgrounds for the most part. They don’t want to be in their English classes, and usually don’t pay attention to anything other than their iPhones. I never thought that coming to teach in a university, the biggest problem I’d face would…
Living one street off of Istiklal means that I see all sorts of crazies. There was one lesson in school when we listened to “Imagine,” so I took it upon myself to teach the students about hippies and idealistic silly people. I had great fun with this. Where do hippies live in Istanbul? Taksim!What kind…
It was Friday and I needed spices. Next week I’m planning on hosting a Christmas party for the other English teachers in my flat and will make the Howard family mulled wine recipe. I’ve been searching Istanbul for the various ingredients. Finding any red wine that wasn’t dry was difficult. Next up I needed to…
I’ve been dabbling in reading Rumi for the past year or so. In my time here in Istanbul, I’d like to travel to different parts of the country, so a journey to Konya, where Rumi lived and is buried, made sense. I learned a while ago that every year there is a ten day festival…
Anyone who has traveled to a different place loves to share good stories of bureaucratic nonsense. Horror stories of the post office or dealing with the immigration process are always a popular topics for commiseration laughter amongst those in the know. Hungarian friends of mine told me about when they lived in California for a…
I thought I’d turn the heat on. It was November 29th, so I’d almost made it to December without turning the heat on (except for that one time when I made sure I knew how to do it.) Back in Michigan we always try to make it until the first of October without turning the…
The photo below was taken by older sister Elizabeth in the fall of 2008, after we’d finished the Ann Arbor criterium. It’s been one of our favorite photos for a long time, as it adequately captures how we were both feeling about bike racing at this point. I’d quit the race early and went to…
Graham’s doing his traveling like I did mine last year and only brought one pair of jeans with him. Every couple of months when they’ve become too filthy you break down and wash them. But they’re fine otherwise. When they get too smelly, you just go to a smoky pub and they will smell like…
Older brother Graham came to visit me. He’s been wandering around for around 3 months, and his last month will be with me in Istanbul. I had last week off of classes so we departed Istanbul and headed to Bursa for the weekend. This is the first holiday I’ve had since starting work here, so…