Monday, August 18, 2008

First "Normal" Day

This morning Chris and I made our first attempt at starting out the day in a somewhat normal way.  (Yes Chris is in his underwear and no it won't be the last time you see him that way).

We took lots of "before" video of the apartment, because, while very clean, I am ready to decorate the hell out of this place.  

I actually asked Jim the director tonight at dinner when and if I could start painting. He gave me the go ahead so as soon as I figure out how to say paintbrush in Turkish, this apartment is getting painted.


The kitchen - white.

The bathroom - white.



Stairs - white and beige.

After eating cereal we made our way downhill to the high school. Here we met with the secretary Gulcan and handed over our passports, birth certificates, headshots, bank account information and anything else that identifies us.

Gulcan is going to set up our Turkish bank accounts, get us our debit cards, Turkish social security numbers, residency permits, etc...And thank God, because we had no idea what any of those papers we filled out said.
For all I know we could have signed over our first born to the Turkish Labor Ministry.

(I hate that I’m having to tell this information so quick and factually but honestly we’ve been going 100 miles an hour and I can’t type as fast as things are happening, plus the internet is hit and miss so I have to strike when the iron's hot).

We ate our lunch in the high school cafeteria. Some kind of beef with tomatoes and melons. It was great.

Before we had time to swallow we hopped a bus to town and visited Praktiker, the equivalent to maybe a Target?  

We also went to the computer store and bought a router that doesn’t yet work.

After all the Turkish shopping, Chris found this to be the most fascinating item to date.

Bus back to the campus and happy hour and a BBQ outside with all our new colleagues. It’s really cool how principals sit with us and directors alike, it feels like one big family.

Back home, wrestled with internet wires, unpacked all our bags, passed out.

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