Taking time...

So I've decided to take some time to write again.

I've kept busy since a while back.

I went on an insane weekend to Istanbul.
AES had a board meeting, or was it AES-IC!?
The boys were in meetings all day (night) so Bettinets and I enjoyed our new found freedom as it should be, with some wine, and a bit of sightseen of course.
I finally managed to see the blue mosque, it was not blue.
Not on the outside at least.

So as a result of the dissapointment of not seeing a blue mosque, we sat down on a bench and started judging the people passing by, Americans were the target of the day.

The comment of the day was:

"The traffic is horrible, so I will take a shortcut, but just so you know, it will be more expensive"

- How can a shortcut be more expensive? Wouldn't the word in itself imply a shorter way, hence less expensive?

Anyways, the weekend started with wine on the bus from Ankara with Esat and I don't think my system even had time to miss the wine until I was back in Ankara.

The weekend after that I left for the south. Fethiye. It was interesting.

That is a story that will take a few days to tell, so maybe not tonight.

That trip started with a man selling chickens in Asti and ended with a restaurant hunt in the most conservative city of Turkey.

Now I started my internship at AES.

This week Mustafa will have the pleasure to spend time with me.

Mustafa takes care of everything that has some kinda technology.

I find it hilarious I will even spend a week there since technology and I are not friends!

Today I wrote down phone nrs and pin codes...

I don't think Mustafa trustes me with technology, this might be because he was the one who took care of the wine incident!?

Other than that!?

I had an amazing weekend. Very good company and... I'm not sure I can say much more than that.

I have to sleep now if I don't want to fall asleep in Esats office tomorrow.

So for you who are impatient, there are pictures of the trips up on facebook. For those who can't check those out, well you gotta wait for a bit, but also, there are some uploaded on Flickr (on the left) so... there!

Bisous les enfants!

Lost...

Sorry for having been missing from here for a while, since the 13th to be exact.

Had some bad anxiety, busy days at school and went on some trips.

I will hopefully write some more tomorrow, I have so much to tell you all about.

Bisous

Picnique

Now, a picnique (I don't know how to spell that) to me means;
Park, blanket, salad, fresh fruits and wine.
A Bilkent picnique is;
Waitors, warm and cold food, soda, strawberries, porcelaine plates, glasses made of actual glass, tables and HUGE pillows on the ground.

I have to say I prefer the Bilkent version. I'm not a huge fan of insects, as you might all know; they scare the shit out of me, and they have a tendency of magically appearing when out for a picnique.

Today's exam went fine, a new record, it took me about 20 min to complete it!
Now my two management courses are over and that feels very good, although I did really like them.

Today when I got back from Bilkent I could easily have been taken for one of those salt tabletts that one would put in a Bunny rabbit cage (or which ever animal it is).
I must have sweated half my body weight today.
It was warm, very warm, barely any wind and the sun decided not to hide a single time.
The latter I really got to experience the consequences of when wanting to sit down by the fountain.
There's some kinda mini amphi theater around it, of course made of stone.
I sat down.
I quickly stood back up.
My ass was burnt.
The stairs were INCREADIBLY hot, not even warm. HOT!!!

Anyways, this post was only written in order for me to be lazy. I am actually trying to finish the CCM portfolio. I have about 5-6 pages left to write.
I have done more than half!

Alrighty then...

PUSS

One week...

That is the time I have left at Bilkent.
One week, 7 days... that is nothing. This semester has passed so increadibly fast. Amazing.

So, so... on to my usual babbling about my day.
It started out quite chaotic.
I had decided to take a cab down to Tunus, dagen till ära, I mean, I was finally gonna get my wallet (CREDIT CARD) back.
I jumped into the cab, a nice man was driving. I think I might have recognized him...
Not important, so, anyways; off we went, Tunus bound so to say.
All of a sudden, turning right at Atakule, approaching the presidents house, a HUGE traffic jam.
I don't like traffic jams, especially not when I am a bit late (woke up at 8.25, had to be in Tunus at 8.45, it was now 8.35).
All of a sudden I notice that the road passing by the presidents house was closed. At about the same time the driver noticed this and said "Tunus yok"... yok, yok, yok... stupid word. Yok  means not or no btw.
I was a tad "taken on the bed" (as we would say up north), I mean, it can't be possible that we can't go to Tunus.
Lucky me Firat (this weeks hero) called at about exactly that time (I was supposed to meet up with him to get my wallet), he spoke to the driver, and in some way I was again heading towards Tunus (a different "chemin" thou).
Off we went on something that looked like a road on the country side, I didn't care, I needed to get to Tunus before 9 THE LATEST (when the last Bilkent bus leaves), it was now 8.59, yet I was still hoping, stressing for no reason (we were not even close).
When we came down to Tunali I told the driver, "enough", paid and started walking towards Firat's place; we had now decided I would go there to pick the wallet up.
I got there, was asked if I was in a hurry; "not at all" I said, since I now had about an 45 min to waste.
At some point beer was mentioned and off we went on a hunt to buy some beers; the perfect way to wake up!
We went back to his place, had a beer each, listened to music and talked.
I became a bit tipsy.
At 9.45 I was walked to the bus, and off I went to do my daily duties; which today consisted of participating in a presentation I knew nothing about.

Well, things went smooth.
We were the last group to present, there were two students left in the room (there were about 20ish when we got there) when it was our turn, one of which left in the middle and the other being Benoit who was playing with his computer.
At some point we had something in Tukish on the slides and Akin said;
"To translate for our exchange students..." (being me, a part of the group, and Benoit)
I noticed Benoit wasn't listening, and since Akin's translation was aimed at him I tried to get his attention.

I did manage to get his attention. Not the right one thou, Benoit, who hadn't been listening AT ALL, thought that I was telling him we were done presenting and started applauding.
A quite humorous moment I have to say. (we were not done).
The teacher laughed and on we went...

Now I'm home, studying for the last CCM exam tomorrow.

Was stuyding for a bit in the sun, now I'm taking a power break.

PUSS

Always the same...

I don't know why, but every spring I get a "winter/fall depression".
The reason I am using the expression "winter/fall depression" is for the simple fact, and anyone who has lived "up north" knows what I'm talking about, that as darkness becomes more and more unavoidable and intense, people tend to fall into a depression.
Lack of sunlight
The fact of being more indoors
Many reasons are given.
Usually, spring coming, people start feeling better; outdoors is now more invitable and there is no shortage of sunlight.

But of course, I am different to most people. I get "spring depressions".
For some years now I've started feeling down every time spring "hits".
I become very anxious and don't really know what to do with myself; I loose things, I get into the wrong kinda relationships (not only referring to boys), doing random stupidities.
It has become quite a habit, a bad habit.
Already this year I've lost a wallet (which has been found, a story to be told), used most of my savings on sending a phone here, gotten into relationships (definition above) with people not worthy of any attention of mine... does it sound like last year? The year before?
Yes, history repeats itself.
And that does not make things better. I beome so angry at myslef. I mean; GOD, when will I learn!?

Idiots and assholes can be spotted from far, I am amazingly good at recognizing them, do I listen to my own warnings, not so often!
I seem to have this kinda profound need to always have at least one bad acquaintance around.

Anywho, I got into a discussion with my current bad (this is me exaggerating, it is not that bad) acquaintance about choices that had been made.

And at first I got angry... but all of a sudden it hit me: Crazy me, why am I even bothering?

So I stopped. Poor person thought I was crazy. Switching from upset to "normal" in two seconds.

I had to get all that out, SORRY!

So, wallet found! YAY... someone called the "gardien" of our building and I will get it back tomorrow.

A huge thank you to Firat who, kind as he is, called the guy (turkish only, of course) and made sure I could get it back.

Firat should also get some recognition for making my day today.

I was being my bitter spring me in Uni, sitting by myself eating a cupcake (I don't like cupcakes, so why was I eating it? Who the hell knows!). Elturan came to speak with me, and then Firat joined.

We moved over to sit with the other exchange students (Firat wondered why I always sat by myself... I am being bullied that's why! Just joking, I never pay attention, sorry!).

At some point it was decided lunch should be eaten. The problem being I had no wallet. So Firat so kindly offered to pay for lunch today.

Off we went. And, we didn't go to random shit place like, for example McDonalds, NO... we went to Burger King!

Seriously, walking down Tunali to the bus stop after eating I felt so good. I was half happy!                                                                                

THANK YOU Firat! (Although, sorry about the picture!)                     

BTW, Firat writes the funniest blog. I love it, it is hilarious, here's the link:

Firat's awesome Blog

Check it out ASAP!

Now I should really head to bed, it's already 2.25 am and I need to wake up at 7... BLÄÄÄÄÄ

PUSS

27c in the shadow

Yesterday I drank some beers and ended up a bit tipsy. Now I cannot find my wallet, I paid the cab so I had it there.
I'm a bit concerned and have that anxiety that I get when I loose or break things.
God, I hate that I always do that.
Anyways, I had a good time and fell asleep like a baby as soon as I hit the bed, of course after having sent a few drunken messages.
But not to worry dear friends, it is all good.

Today's activities involved the botanical garden, my new Tolstoy book and coke zero. It was a good day.

I found this book store with an entire floor of english books.
I LOVE book stores. I was a huge fan of Fnac when I lived in Paris and used to go there a couple of times a week just to check out the books.
Yesterday I bought 2 books;
 and

I'm sure they're good. Now I have something to do while enjoying the sun. Oh well, now I'm gonna watch a show

Puss

Tiredness

Tonight we cooked some kinda lame imitation to tacos...
The parents whipped together some carne molida, I chopped up some vegetables; only to notice we only had 3 bread(s) and no sauce. Yay...
It was very tasty despite some of the main igrediences missing, plus now the whole house smells like tacos... Double yay (please sense the tone of irony)

I have a few quite important remarks to make about the Turkish beuraucracy, but those will be left for tomorrow. When my mood is up!

Tomorrow is a new day, and my life as the owner of a Blackberry starts, hopefully it will work. I haven't yet tried since I am already angry enough at the situation. I leave that for the morning as well.

God, my brain is empty right now. I kinda regrett even starting to write.
Oh well... If you scroll down a bit, in the menu to your left you can see I added some new pictures to Flickr. They're actually kinda old, I just never uploaded them.
But there you are.

Puss

A long, very long day...

So the outcomes of today can be seen to your right ->

I'm happy, hurt and an extra tl 400 poorer.

It was, as the title suggests, an extremly LONG and exhausting day.

Taxi fares totalling: tl 50

Bus fares: tl 20

A bribe: tl 50

Storage fare: tl 100

Taxes: tl 50

And of course the DHL fares earlier mentioned.

But now I'm happy. I just have to go to Turkcell and register the phone for the small sum of tl 10 (I think) then I am done.

I want to say thank you to the extremly kind man who helped me through the 3½h at the customs, taking me from one office to another. I have never met anyone that is that helpful without recieving some kinda money at the end.

Now I'm finally home, will watch a show or two while relaxing then maybe tell you the story.

All of you awating a reply on FB, it will come soon!! Tonight or tomorrow. Now I'm less anxious and can start concentrating on more important stuff.

Puss

Guess what!!??

I saw a TURTLE!!!!!

It was taking "a stroll" (as the british would say) up in Bilkent. Haha, amazing!!!

It was all small and cute (I saw it from bus, which was moving, I am not sure my opinon counts!?) and I wanted to touch it.

I like animals, and for some weird reason they like me, it's just like children, they tend to like me too. Maybe because I am "mysterious" (someone actually said that) or just because I am so increadibly nice (no one ever said that).

So I've decided I want a baby dog. Not one of those bipolar dogs next to the mud house, a cute one.

I can take care of living things!!

I remember last year, around this time I think it was. Cassia and I decided to buy a Bunny Rabbit.

*Remember Cassia, the lady who ripped her pants open when chasing that poor bastard around?

Anywho, we heard bunny rabbits smell bad so in some weird way we managed to convince (actually we just told him) Eduardo that we were gonna keep it in his room, his condition was that he would be naming the poor little fellow.

What he forgot to think about is that Cassia and I well... we weren't gonna "take orders" from him.

So we said Yes! but knew (and it was later decided) we would name him.

The whole plan went very smooth until it was mentioned Bunny Rabbits can be eaten (I said this as a joke, my mother took it seriously and told us to get a forrest rabbit, it was weird...), the plan was then set aside for a while.

Ahh, good memories.

I've been talking memories with Bettina all night, it was nice.

Now I'm gonna watch some shows that came up today...

Puss

I'm a camper...

but not a happy camper.

So I warn you now, if you don't want to read an angry post, which might include swear words and people being called stupid, then you might not want to read this one.

So this one is once again about the Blackberry issue.
I went to the DHL office in the Cinnah hill today; thinking the only thing left for me to do was going to Esenboga and pay the stupid fee and get on with my life, without any more phone problems.

First, if you don't know. This whole problem arised because Fredrik couldn't listen to someone but himself.
He was asked NOT to put the price of the phone and to write that the phone was used.
It seems, and yes seems; who knows, none of this was done.
One was supposed to pretty much "neutralize" the other.
Today when I was one the phone with customer service (yes, they don't speak english in the office, what a surprise) she kept on talking as if thou the phone was new (which it is, but not in that sense). So after a while I corrected her, telling her I had forgotten it.
She stopped talking briefly, asked; So it's used?
Yes...
Long pause... then; Well, there's nothing we can do about that now, it is already "in the system".
WTF!?
So not only might there have been one way BUT two ways to avoid this, two of which I asked to be done.

I do realize, again, that I forgot the phone, and that even thou the price wouldn't have been written on the package they might have checked, BUT then it would have been only my fault.

So tomorrow I need to wake up early, go to the head office of DHL here in Ankara (tl 20) then go to Asti (tl 15) then take a bus to the airport (Price unknown, but it takes about 1h), go to customs, get the phone (tl 150 + tl 20) for which I had to pay tl 130 to get here to Ankara.
And this on top of the €90 (tl 180)it cost to send it here.
Let's add that together:
180
150
130
20
20
15
20 (bus fare)
= tl 535
= € 267

That is more than the phone cost me in the first place.

The anger I feel is not describable.

I'm glad I'm far away and can't go be shitty, it's better to ignore.

Ay, I love this...

My dear friends, it's been sunny and warm here for quite a while now, but Swedish as I am I constantly think that tomorrow it will rain.

It will not.

I have, to my delight, found a weather "widget", as the blog language so nicely puts it,  it is to your left.

There you can see the temperature and whether it is cloudy, rainy or sunny down here.

I am very excited.

This seems to be yet another warm week.

And as you might understand, it's 23 in the shadow.

I sweated my ass of today walking from Tunus to the bus stop just down the Cinnah up-hill. 

Tomorrow my to do list is rather simple;

* Spanish + quiz; I will study for it on the bus

* Looong 4h break, during which I will (or at least I think) have lunch with Benoit (and Ayse?)

* Call DHL's Ankara office and try to sort the Blackberry issue out

* Endure 2h of Macro with, in my eyes, the worst professor ever

* Come home at 19 and crash asap in my bed

Short, concise yet it will be effective and spent in the sun.

I'm sorry for going on and on about the weather, but I like it!

PUSS

SPF 20

I finally got my ass to a pharmacy, this was the last stop in my quest for sun block.

I went in the first best I could find on Hosdere and looked around. It looked nothing like a "normal" pharamcy.

They didn't have a big selection of sun block's, or pain killers for you to choose from indepentently.

The sun block I found was on a "random shelf".

There were also nailpolish, nailpolish removers, cotton, well, random items, including sun block, SPF 50.

I asked the girl if they had anything lower than 50, she looked confused, asked if it was for the face or the body; Body I signed (can't speak with them).

She ran off, came back with a fancy bottle of SPF 30.

Don't they have the good old Nivea, or the Hawaii shit!?

I asked for lower, again, I got a confused look for answer.

She left, talked with the other 3 employees, and came back with a SPF 20.

I looked at her; was she joking!?

So I asked; lower?

"In Türkiye yok" with a gesture of something supposed to mean lower: i.e. there's nothing lower than SPF 20 in Turkey.

Interesting.

I mean, there's not only one reason to use sun block: not to get sun burnt, but also to protect your skin: not to get skin cancer.

They don't seem to care.

As they don't care about making sure a person has a prescription for Antibiotics.

Here I walked around thinking that countries (such as Sweden) are trying to lower our intake of antibiotiks in order for the world population not to get immune. Or maybe I am wrong.

Who knows!? The point is that in Turkey you buy it without prescription whereas in Swe you can't really get a perscription; they try alternative medication if possible.

Anywho, I ended up buying a grape sented nail polish remover as well, they charged me tl 60 (€30) whereof tl 58 was the sun lotion.

Money well spent BUT, in order to fight skin cancer they might want to lower the price on sun blocks, or just start to import Nivea.

Enough about that, now I need to do some research about some Turkish company, a provider to the army (what a surprise!)

PUSS

Relaxing

It's been an amazingly good day today. The weather is, as you can see on these photos, amazing. It's warm, there's a cold breeze and I had nothing in particular to study. So I read a couple of Comso's I bought on my way back from Swe, drank some coke and just enjoyed being outside. While I was sitting there I couldn't get those Bilkent girls out of my head. I've never mentioned this before but, up at Bilkent there are two major types of girls. Girls dressing according to season vs. Girls that are dressed. (full stop)

It is quite funny to see, enjoying the sun up by the fountain, how some girls are dressed in sandals, top, skirt and a light jacket, while others are wearing UGGs and a winter jacket, or even worse; Rainboots on a sunny day... wtf girls? Not only would your feet sweat to death but also, it looks pretty freaky! Wear weather appropriate clothing and everything will be fine in the end! Hopefully they will b wearing lighter clothes soon.

We went for lunch at Tribecca earlier, I had a Cream cheese, cheddar and steak bagel... amazing. Oh, and while enjoying the sun out on the blacony I did my nails, today they're pink. I got this nailpolish in Panora last week, cost tl 1.30, and it's really good. Got some red, pink and beige-pink. Me like! Anywho, tonight we're gonna bbq... I'm already hungry. But to be honest I just want the days to pass now, I want it to be wednesday. I will go pick up the Blackberry (a story to be told another time, cus it makes me angry) and at night I think someone is coming back up to Ankara, so hopefully there will be a visit!!!

Hope you all had a good day!

Puss

A party in may...

almost like if I was celebrating "Valborg" a day late! It was pretty nice I have to admit.

I went there already at 15.30. Met up with Giorgio and Jarko (his finnish room mate).

We walked around, looked at the people, the view, listened to some concerts, laughed at another "concert", had a strawberry "slush" for tl 5. Played "babyfoot"/Fussball...

All and all a very nice and relaxing afternoon, although my nose is redder than Rudolphs now.

Where can I buy sun block???

SPF 8 or 15 anyone??

Benoit and Ayse came with some "refreshments", beers, not actually refreshing since they were warm but they still served their purpose.

We stayed in the parking lot drinking for a while, you are not allowed to bring alcohol into the "area".

Which of course everyone did anyways, but not big quantities. I brought 2 beers in my shorts... I walked as if thou I had an urgent matter to "solve" in the bathroom, and I looked pregnent.

We got some chinese food from the Quick China stand, good as always... went back to the parkin lot to drink.

All of this happened like between 18-21-22.

We go back to the "party area" dance some to a Dj and then I took the 23 bus back to town.

Came home, talked a bit with someone on skype, a very nice conversation btw... it made me happy. And fell asleep.

Woke up this morning and Bettina was home. YAY....

So now I'll enjoy a bit of the sun, just a bit thou... and enjoy that Bettina is home!