So Oklahoma decided to send it's love this past week. Snow in Istanbul!! How fun. This would have been the case except that Tuesday was just about the worst day for me. Full of much pain. For some reason, Turks have this insatiable love with using marble for outside walkways, stairs and the like. In a place that gets as much precipitation as I've heard about, this seems to me like one of the worst ideas in the world. Well anyway on my way to my early class Tuesday morning in the rain, I was walking down a set of said marble hellspawn as a girl in front of me decided to abruptly root herself in the middle of the stairway to chat with a friend of hers. In order to avoid barreling her over I attempted to put on the breaks. One would think that rubber soles and marble would be a perfect match, but unfortunately these stairs weren't looking for a long-term relationship and down I went. I managed to avoid taking her out with me, though looking back it would have served her right, and only slid down about 3 or 4 stairs in the process. The worst part was the forearms... they're all good and healed now, but it definitely wasn't a fun experience.
So I guess that Istanbul just had it out for me that day because I later decided to go out and do some shopping for making dinner that night and I had a similarly adverse experience. You may use the post with the picture of my street as a reference for this next event. As you might notice, there's no a sidewalk on the street I live directly on. This means that all cars,vans, and mopeds parked on the side of the street must be walked around by making one's way into the street. Well I knew there was a car coming up the street, but was also well aware of the ample space of road open, not taken up by myself or the parked van I was walking around. I was apparently wrong in my optimistic assessment of this man's driving skills because seconds later I was clipped on the shoulder/arm area by this man's sideview mirror. So hard in fact that it caused the mirror to fold in quite a bit. So he stopped the van and made sure I was okay? Right? Actually he kept going and merely looked annoyed that I had gotten in his way and that he now had to readjust his mirror. After getting my groceries I retreated into my room and didn't leave for the rest of the night :)
So that was really the only big highlight of my week. The snow was really cool actually. It was nice to have. Quite cold for sure, coldest it's been since we've been here but I believe that will be the last of the cold weather for the season. Today was absolutely beautiful. It was sunny and warm. So much so that the rowing team, which I am now a part of, decided to take a run along the Bosphorus. The team has been fun. I have just been with them for about a week, but there's a lot of really cool guys and 3 gals in it. It was kind of crazy how it all happened as well. I went to a friend's house for some drinks one night last weekend and everyone was talking about what they were doing on campus, groups and clubs they were involved in. I made it known that I was curious about the rowing team. Little did I know that the only other exchange student who is on the team was at this very house, the same night I was. She also is one of only 3 girls on the team. So this 'coincidence' led me to really jump into this with both feet. I don't know that I'll be able to actually race or anything as I am new and inexperienced but the training has been fun so far and I hope to be out on the water soon.
Here is also a picture that was in a burger place by my house we stopped at on our way back home from going out this weekend. Thought it was worth sharing.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
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