Christmas and Exhibit B: Canım Ciğerim

(My first successful attempt at cookie making, and they were pretty damn successful)

Well... I don't really have any pictures to post from our Christmas over here.  Without a day off, the idea of travel was far fetched, so I just stayed in Istanbul.  I hung out with some co-workers, a pleasant first for me, and had a great time eating, drinking, being merry; all that good stuff.  Heck, I even had a stocking! 

I did get to go a really good restaurant though for a pre-Christmas Christmas dinner with my good friend Zeynep (who actually knows Nick Mullins).  It's a great place called "Canım Ciğerim," which translates to "My Dear, My Liver."  They serve skewers, lots of skewers, and tons of flatbread and veggies on the side.  It's delicious.  They're always super packed, so we had to wait outside for a bit, but it's well worth it.  

(The disembodied hand of Santa Claus)

In other news, I'm really looking forward to my trip home at the end of January, so I've been amassing a stockpile of Turkish goodies for everybody (though, admittedly, some of the goodies are gooder than others).  But! Before I come back to the states, I've got one short trip coming up...  I'll be going here:

To see these guys:

And bring some of this back to Turkey:

Exhibit A: Boza

 (A picture from last week's bike ride up the Bosphorus.  It's a fishing boat hauling in the nets.)

I'm slowly realizing that Turkey is home to a lot of weird food, so I've decided to start cataloging it as I happen to think about taking pictures.  I figure it'd be interesting for you guys, so I'm starting with a seasonal drink, something akin to Turkish eggnog (minus the eggs).  It's called "Boza," and it's a sweet winter drink, very thick and slightly alcoholic.  It's usually served with cinnamon and, oddly enough, chickpeas.  It's made from slightly fermented corn and wheat.  It dates back to the 10th century, and was extremely popular during Ottoman rule.

 It's really delicious stuff, but It's sold chilled, so I don't know if it would survive the trip home.  I guess I'll have to bring some raki back instead.  As for nutrition facts... I don't know, nor do I really want to know.  It's delicious, thick, creamy, and sweet... They used to use it to feed the army during the winter, so I doubt it's terribly healthy.

O, Christmas Tree!

Hey family!  I'm sorry I haven't written anything in a while, but I haven't really had any pictures to post.  But here's a short recap of what's been going on.  I've been teaching a lot, trying to figure out how to best teach 200+ kindergarten-ers English.  So far, we've just been singing a lot of song and playing a lot of games.  It's been working out well, so I guess I'll stick with that.

I saw all of the pictures from Thanksgiving, and I'm extremely jealous of you guys, but I was able to have a little Thanksgiving of my own.  I got together with some American/English co-workers an we cooked a turkey in a toaster oven.  It was a 10 kilo (about 22 lb) bird.  The door could barely close.  We had pumpkin pie (made from scratch), Stove-top stuffing, mashed potatoes, the works!  It was a really nice, close approximation, to a real American Thanksgiving.

I also went out and chopped down a tree for Christmas.  The man at the tree farm was nice enough to wrap it in that white netting stuff so I could take it home on the metro...

 (supplies)

Then I had some friends over who helped me trim the tree.  We drank some egg nog (and nobody died), let the branches fall a little bit, and then put on the lights and decorations.  A Christmas miracle!

(We had to improvise some of the ornaments)