Bucket List and Updates!!!

          I leave Albuquerque 1 week from today and I arrive in Istanbul in 9 days. The closer I get to my departure date, the more excited I get. Ever since I got the email telling me I was going to Turkey, I have been looking up pictures and finding all kinds of things around the country that I want to do while I am there. So I have made a bucket list with all kinds of things I will hopefully be able to do on my exchange year. I know that I may not do all of these things and I do not feel like I need to do all of these things to have a good exchange year (obviously) but I thought it might be nice to have some goals for while I am there.

My Turkey Bucket List

1. Become fluent in Turkish

2. Become a part of my community in Turkey

3. Make close friends

4. Visit Pamukkale

5. Go to a Turkish bath

6. Learn to love Turkish coffee

7. Visit Cappadocia

8. Visit Istanbul ( especially the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque)

9. Become close friends with the other YES Abroad and AFS students

10. Get homesick

11. Get over it

12. Visit a mosque

13. Get used to hearing the call to prayer every day

14. Visit the other YES Abroad students in their host cities

15. Cook my host family American food

16. Try some crazy Turkish foods (and learn how to cook my favorites)

17. Visit the beach

18. Visit the Roman ruins at Ephesus

19. Join some sort of extra-curricular

20. Volunteer

21. Take lots of photos/videos

22. Keep up this blog

23. Send letters to family/friends at home and other YES Abroad students

24. Drink lots of Turkish tea

25. Buy some traditional Turkish clothes

That's all I have thought of so far, but I'm sure I will think of others as my year continues. Although I would love to get to do all of these, I don't know whether I will, but I am so excited to experience everything Turkey has to offer.

          In other news, we found out on Monday that our visas have been issued which guarantees that the Turkey group will be able to depart on time. I was very worried that our visas wouldn't be ready in time, so I was very relieved to find out that we have gotten ours. I have finally cleaned out my room which will hopefully make packing easier. I have also made a list of everything I need to bring with me and I am slowly working on getting all the remaining things I still need. Hopefully, I will start packing soon but it probably won't happen since I'm a terrible procrastinator on things like packing. 

          This will probably be my last post before I am in Turkey, although I may make another post if I think of something to write about. I may make a post at some point during the orientation process, but it will probably be a couple of weeks after I arrive in Aydin before I make a post so that I can try to start integrating into my new family and community. As always, thanks for reading! Hoşçakal!

Cappadocia

One of the roman ruins at Ephesus

Pamukkale

Everything Keeps Getting Closer!

          Today marks 22 days until I leave Albuquerque, 23 days until I leave the USA, and 24 days until I land in Turkey. It seems like time just keeps speeding up and my departure keeps speeding towards me at a ridiculous fast pace. I have made a list of things I need to get before I leave and I've finally started cleaning out my room so that I can start thinking about packing (although I know I probably won't actually pack until right before I leave because I am a horrible procrastinator about things like packing).
          Today also marks the first day of school for all my friends, and for the first time in 6 years of going to school at Prep, I am not there. I am sitting at home writing this blog post while my friends see everyone again, go to their new classes for the first time, get the obligatory "This is what we will do in class this year" speech and give the obligatory "This is who I am and what I did this summer" speech, listen to announcements at assembly, and sit under the tree where we have eaten lunch almost everyday for years. And I am sitting at home with my sisters. Not that that is a bad thing, it is just very weird. It is such a strange feeling knowing that I am doing something so different than what I would normally be doing. Although I am not sad that I am not in school, I am sad that I can no longer spend the same amounts of time with my friends that I did this summer. It's an incredibly bittersweet time for me because I can't wait to begin my incredible adventure in Turkey, but at the same time seeing my "old" life beginning without me makes me sad. If there is one thing I have found while I've been getting ready to leave for Turkey, it is that I always have a mixed bag of emotions. I can be so excited to leave that I can barely stand it, but at the same time, I am so terrified to leave that all I want to do is say that I can't go. Thinking about my leaving scares me so much because I am about to leave everything I know here to go to a place where I don't know anyone and I can't speak the language, but at the same time, I can't believe how close I am to beginning an absolutely incredible adventure.

The Istanbul skyline. I can't wait to fly into this beautiful city in less than a month. I am so excited!

          And now for a story that somewhat relates to my preparations for leaving. When I had already applied to YES Abroad but before I had even found out that I was a semi-finalist, I would (and truthfully still do) stalk the 2013-2014 YES Abroad students blogs and I found a blog of a girl who was currently in Turkey. The post I was reading had a fairly obscure reference to food in New Mexico which I just thought was a really weird reference to make if you weren't from New Mexico, so I went back in her blog and discovered that she was from another town here in New Mexico. When I first found out that I was moved up to being a finalist for Turkey, I emailed her to ask what kind of classes she takes in school to help me figure out if I could get credit for my year from my school. And just recently, as I got my host family and began researching about my new home, I discovered that she lived in the same town I am placed in and attended the same school that I believe I will be attending. So, I emailed her and asked if she could meet with me so I could ask her more questions about Turkey and her experience. Last week, she came to my house and my family asked her lots of questions and hearing all her stories about what an amazing experience she had and how much she loved and missed Turkey got me so excited to leave. It was also just absolutely amazing to be able to talk to an alumni of the Turkey program who had lived in the same place as me because the culture varies greatly even just across the country. She also told me that Priya and Kyle (two of the other YES Abroad students) are also placed in Aydin with me which I am very excited about because it will be nice to have other YES Abroad students for me to meet with and talk about our experiences, especially in the beginning when I maybe don't have as many friends yet.
          Another exciting piece of news is that my bright yellow AFS luggage tags and my domestic flight ticket to get to New York for my gateway orientation arrived in the mail yesterday. Getting these luggage tags is a pretty big deal (at least for me and I think for most AFS students) and it really makes things more real for me. Every time some new piece of information about my exchange year comes to me, it makes things more real for me. When I first found out I was going to Turkey, everything was just a huge blank and with each new piece of information I receive, things become a little less vague for me. Unfortunately I still don't have any information about what our orientation once we arrive in Turkey will be like and I still don't know for sure what school I will be attending, but hopefully I will get that information soon. I also returned from a vacation to see my family in Illinois and Wisconsin and I had to say what I consider to be my first real goodbyes while I was there. I was surprised by how hard they were for me and it makes me very nervous for saying goodbye to my immediately family and my friends here. I guess I will just have to wait and see how those go for me.

          Also, I am steadily working my way through the Rosetta Stone for Turkish. I still feel completely unprepared for the language barriers I will encounter, at least I know something. I often compare myself to a Turkish toddler because that is about the level I think I am at with the language. I am very proud of myself because I have finally sort of begun to understand vowel harmony and how the different suffixes on words work. Teşekkür ederim! Hoşçakal!