This Week in Review

After my friend left on Monday, it was back to life as usual. As I said before, the owner of the studio decided that she was going to get a divorce about the fourth day I was here. She promptly left for Istanbul and hasn't been seen since. Interesting turn of events but I have gotten used to it. By Wednesday I was getting a little sad that I was going to miss Thanksgiving and even got a little teary-eyed when I heard "Little Drummer Boy" playing in Starbucks. Metin (who is the soon to be ex-husband and owner of Bistrom where I eat all my meals) went to the "American store" where the owner sells all the crappy US brands that he somehow smuggles out of the commissary. He was going to surprise me with a Betty Crocker pumpkin pie but wouldn't you know it, they were all sold out. Things were looking up when my client Seyda asked me to come over for dinner and she would make turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing but just hours after the invitation she called to say that her dad was coming in town and I wasn't invited anymore. This earned her the title of "Worst client of the Week" for getting my hopes up. I ended up just eating at Bistrom with one of my clients and her husband and pretending my chicken kabob was a roasted turkey with all the fixins. Everyone got into the spirit of things and I was forced to give a blessing before dinner so I laid it on thick by thanking Jesus for blessing the food and prayed for good health in the coming year.

Since I hang out at the restaurant so much, Metin and the waiters started getting very protective of me like they tend to do here. My friend Fatih came to meet me at the restaurant and Metin said to him in that special Turkish passive aggressive style "You remind me so much of my friend's little boy. You look just like him. He's about 4 years old and really a cute kid." It gets me a little nervous. The best part of last week was when I bought my ticket to Germany! I'm leaving on Thursday to see my sister and there is a day trip to Prague planned for Sunday. For some reason the tour leaves at 5am so that is no bueno but I have wanted to go to Prague for years so you gotta do what you gotta do.

The worst part of the week was when I texted my friend "Do you want to go get Chinese food tomorrow night?" and I accidentally sent it to my client, Cem. You remember Cem, right? Eighteen years old, braces, skinny as a reed, acne, probably never has spoken to a girl before? Well he ended up calling me and I had to explain that I didn't mean to send it to him. Awkward.