So once again, this is the first time that I've written anything in a long time, and I fell bad about that.. but thankfully I finally have some time to kill here in the Istanbul Airport. Lots has happened in the past month or so..
I'll start with last weekend, I'm pretty sure it was last week, was a reealy busy one. After school on Friday, I talked with some people after school and mozyed around town, and made my way back up to the dorm eventually.. When I got back I saw some guys out on this grassy feild area thats near the dorm playing Ultimate Frizbiee, unfortunatly, by the time i changed into some clothes that could get dirty (it had rained recently, so it was muddy), the frizbiee game had morphed into a mud fight. After we finish things up and start heading down to the dorm, Cory (one of the RAs) comes out.. takes one look at us and trys to get away.. well once he got muddy we decided to go for round two back in the mud.
On our way down this time, we saw a couple of Palm girls in this little playground thing right between the dorm and the grass, we decided to try to freak them out.. on the count of three, 10 muddy (mostly shirtless) guys charged at them.. It took a couple seconds for it to register, but when it did.. they screamed and ran, luckly for us.. we had an alabi, it was April Fools! Man who would've thought that water and dirt could be so fun?!
After the post-mud cleaning.. a movie was put on and most of the guys watched that.. I didn't because I found out that Francis and Cory (RAs) were going to go out and roast some chicken, they did this last week too.. but I was too engrossed in video games to care, but after hearing how good it was, I really didn't want to miss the second round. It took a couple of hours to roast, but wow.. it was amazing. That was my Friday, it ended earlier than normal because on the following Saturday, Track and Soccer had games and people were doing things and the Staff wanted us to be rested, which turned out ot be a really good thing.
Saturday I got up at 7ish, got changed, grabbed a croissant and headed out the door with Danbi (a Senior at the dorm) to help paint a homeless shelter in Lörrach (a nearby city). I really didn't know what to expect.. I was excited for it.. The building that the shelter is had been a hotel.. It was really old, really not in the best conditon, but at the same time not as bad as I was preparing myself for.. It's a unique place because some of the pople pay to stay and some don't, it's not just for "homeless" people, some people have been there for years, some people are only there a week or less. We had two goals, to paint the landings of the three floors or the building and to serve a lunch for anyone wanted to come. So our team was spilt into painting and food-prep.. though there were other jobs and such, but they were the basic groups. It was really cool because our team was so spread out, I knew everyone was, but it was really fun getting to know them better.. Me and Danbi got there about an hour early to help set everything up.. by taping, laying newspaper etc. but then when everyone else came, we could actually start painting. Something else that was really fun was getting to know some of the guys who stay at the shelter. One of the guys name was Otto, we talked and ate together.. He was probably 60+ and he asked if I could paint one of his walls -in his room- I said I would gladly. I think it's amazing how much German I've learned in almost one year, It's a demanding course, but it really does pay off.. It was great being able to talk to the guys there and serve them. We also had the chance to talk to the lady who runs the shelter, she's getting her degree in Social Work at a University in Basel and the shelter is part of that, so she spends half the week at the University the other half at the Shelter. During the day me and some others who were working with her got talking and she invited us to come visit her and improve our German by talking with her kids (who are the same age as us). So yeah.. that was a really cool opportunity that I'm so glad I was a part of. We might be going back there in May to do some other work and stuff, I'm looking forward to it!
After I got back from Lörrach, I went for a run and did some homework and just relaxed.. that was Saturday.
Church in the morning, we had a BBQ outside for lunch, thankfully Sunday was a beautiful sunny day. We had a blast just messing around and playing basketball and stuff. After lunch, someone suggested that we go to the Rhine.. I heard stories about it form last year and it sounded really fun, I had done most of my work and it was an amazing day so I was happy to go! It's a really big river, and it's really cold! We had a lot of fun just swimming around and jumping in.. There are rapids that you can ride down and stuff, but the water was really high and from what I head they get really rough, so I decided not to do that.. I think it was a good choice too, because one of the guys really almost drowned.. that was really scary, but thankfully he was saved. That was pretty much Sunday.
So yeah, that was probably the most busy weekend I've had, but it was really awesome, all I could think was that I was so glad Spring Break was in a week!
This past week wasn't very eventful, just a normal week, except for Friday.. I do the sound board for Chapel and we have practice before school on Fridays so I asked Danbi (he was doing chapel that week) to wake me up, because I didn't know if I would wake up from my alarm. Well.. the only thing I remember about Friday morning was waking up to Cory saying that it was 11:30. Apparently Danbi tried to wake me up twice and he said I kinda got up.. well I don't remember any of that. It wasn't paramount that I be at Friday practice because there's another guy who does sound as well, so they were okay. I think the staff assumed that I had gotten up and they didn't bother to check my room because I'm normally out the door before most of the guys are awake. I don't know why they only found out at 11:30, I would've thought that if I didn't show up to school, the school would've called the dorm and asked where I was.. well I needed that rest so I'm glad I got it.. I also missed the two hardest classes of the day, so that was relieving, but of course I have to make up the work I missed.
I don't know why I always think that all-nighters are awesome! Especially the night before traveling.. never again. Last night (Friday) a homestudent slept over so we hung out.. all night.
Something cool about half this trip was that I got to travel with another student.. I don't mind traveling alone, it's not that fun.. but it was nice to have someone else. But he lives here in Turkey, so it was only for one flight.
I'm going to go find my gate and hopefully not have to do too much more waiting.. All I can say is THANK GOD it's not another 10 hour layover!!
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