On Thanksgiving

The exciting parts of yesterday started not to long after I'd dragged myself out of bed, pulled on my school uniform (no, I'm not posting pictures. Not yet, anyway), and was midway through making breakfast, coughing gently all the while. It was possibly this coughing that prompted my host mother to sleepily poke her head into the kitchen to inform me that I'd better go back to bed, as I'd been coughing badly in my sleep and she was taking me to the doctor this afternoon. I protested that it was just a head cold - admittedly a head cold that'd hung on for a week or so, and didn't seem to be getting any better. Host mother wasn't having any of that, put the milk back in the fridge and sent me back to bed.

Later that afternoon, she and Host Dad bundle me into the car (wearing two T-shirts, two sweaters, and a parka) and drive to (the inaptly named, as it turned out) Universal Hastanesi, or Universal Hospital. Where I present my insurance card to the triage secretary, who promptly hands it back, shaking her head. I point to the phone number on the card, indicating that she should to call that number. The insurance that Rotary exchange students are required to buy is taken everywhere. Nope, they won't call. Why? Because it's an international number. Yes, of course it's an international number, I'm an American exchange student and my insurance is from the US. This is "Universal Hospital," what do you mean you aren't authorized to make overseas calls? Look, it'll take two minutes, just call the number. Please? No.

I call my Rotary adviser. She talks to my host mom. My host mom barks in Turkish before digging out her cell phone to call a friend who works in Radiology. Radiology Friend and her supervisor come find us. They talk to the triage staff. They go and find the manager of the triage staff. Nope. No can do. Rotary advisor curses over the phone. "Your insurance is valid in Bangledesh, for heaven's sake," she says. "This is ridiculous. What if you were bleeding or something?"

"Yeah. I know."

Rotary advisor sighs. "Amy was in the hospital with dystentary earliler this year. Let me see what hospital she went to. They might be easier to deal with."

In September, Amy came down with a particuarly nasty local version of Montezuma's Revenge. I'm glad my sickness is nowhere near that serious. Host family and I spend the intervening minutes exchanging glares with the staff of Universal Hastenesi.

Rotary advisor calls back. "Amy was at Florence Nightengale Hastenesi. Mention her name when you give them the card so they can check their records. Good luck."

It's a short drive to Florence Nightengale, and once there, the process is remarkably fast. The insurence is no problem. Amy? Yes, they remember her. Copay? Deductible? No, of course not. Need to see an ENT? Certainly, he's right upstairs. Want to see what the inside of your nose looks like? We have a handy endoscope right here!

My host mom and I joke that, now that she's seen the inside of my nose, ears, and throat in close detail, we have no secrets anymore.

In the end, they diagnosed a common cold, advised rest and fluids, and wrote a prescription for some (delightfully fizzy!) cold medicine. Well, that was comparatively easy. Also, the guy working the Emergency Services desk was cute in a David Tennant kind of way, but without the skull. Fortunately.

From the Royal Shakespeare Company's current production of Hamlet.

Image courtesy of cerysromana.livejournal.com

From the hospital, we made our merry way to a local mall (this city has malls the way some cities have, oh, park benches. I've never heard of so many Swatch stores per square kilometer), where Host Mom and I stopped at a pharmacy to fill the prescription and from there swung by a Starbucks. Yeah, I know. Drop it. "Where's host dad?" I asked.

Host mom stirred her coffee. "Grocery shopping. Do you want a brownie?"

Yes, in retrospect, that was the best possible way to distract me. The brownie was good, too.

Once we got home, host parents hustled the groceries into the kitchen before shutting and locking the kitchen door.

Well. That was unexpected.

I tapped on the door. "Can I come in?"

My host mom opened the door a crack, grinning fit to be tied. "No. We are being sneaky!"

I started to clue in when the guests started arriving an hour or so later. There was probably a smell to give it away, too, except that I was so congested it was a miracle I was still breathing at all.

The roast turkey on the table, though, was a dead giveaway.





Same for the mound of mashed potatoes, the roasted vegetables piled around the turkey, the tureen of pumpkin soup - sweet honey mustard, they made pumpkin soup. My dad's specialty, which I'd mentioned in passing maybe a week and a half ago, and they remembered enough and cared enough to make it. And tracking down a turkey couldn't have been any easy feat, either. And there was pilav, and dolma, and carrot salad, and probably more that I'm forgetting. Sweet roast pumpkin with walnuts for desert with Earl Grey tea.



I'm not going to say that I cried, but I will admit to tearing up a little. The only thing missing was the Macy's parade on TV, and let's face it, there are only so many times you can watch a giant Snoopy balloon drift past buildings before it loses its thrall.


As at every Thanksgiving, I gave thanks. But I don't think I've ever meant it more.

Of course

I have been in this country for just over three months. I have learned many strange and wonderful things:

• Hookah is in fact pretty boring
• Traffic in Turkiye obeys the Cartoon Laws of Physics
• Pomegranate trees look pretty silly when in fruit

However, there are somethings that I am simply never, ever going to remember:

• Doors of commercial establishments open inward
• Stair treads are roughly half an inch taller here than in other parts of the world I have traversed

These latter two have inflicted bruises. You'd think I'd remember them by now.

Attack of the Killer Vegetables!

I think that Lela was amused, if not terribly surprised, when, having been sent to the corner market for bread and yogurt, I came back with bread, yogurt, the world’s largest cabbage, and a sheepish grin along the lines of “He followed me home. Can we keep him?”


Is this, or is this not, the most humongous cabbage you’ve ever seen in your life? You could play regulation basketball with this sucker. And they’re all like this. I vaguely recall a biology teacher attempting to convince small snot-nosed freshmen (including myself) that back umpteen million years ago, the Earth was richer in oxygen and things simply grew bigger: ferns the size of Douglas firs, turtles that could peer through a second-story window. I do vividly remember an illustration of a badger the size of a Ford Focus.

If these cabbages are any indication, monster badgers are just around the corner. Keep your eyes peeled.


This is Lela in the pictures, by the way. She's pretty awesome.

Le Grande Bazaar (or something like that)

When they decided to call it “the Grand Bazaar,” they weren’t kidding. Actually, same goes for when they decided to call it “the Covered Bazaar,” (guidebooks use the term interchangeably), but frankly “covered” has a decidedly less impressive ring to it. Seriously, which one is going to get your attention?

A: “Hey, let’s go to the Covered Bazaar!”
or
B: “Hey, let’s got to the Grand Bazaar!”

Yeah, it’s going to be “B” every time for me, too. Unless it’s really hosing down rain.

I have no idea how extensive the Bazaar really is, mostly because I haven’t thoroughly inspected my guidebook that closely, and for all I know, I missed an entire section. But I can say this: it’s big. Big on the macro scale. And positively labyrinthine, to the extent that the paranoid little voices in your head start whispering furiously about OSHA and firetraps. Or maybe that’s just me.

Incidentally, another set of voices start thinking about how Lara Croft should be able to have a pretty wicked fight/chase scene here. There’s stalls hawking everything from massive nargile contraptions and precious jewels (or so the signs would have it) to daggers and antique pistols (inoperative, one suspects). Come to think of it, this one might be unique to me, too. Huh.

Anyway, the strangest thing is that if you didn’t know the Grand Bazaar was there, you just might miss it. I got off the tram at the correct stop, and stood on the sidewalk, trying to stare in multiple directions at once. Surely one would expect…well, grandeur, or at least signage, for something called the Grand Bazaar.

I looked for a hotel, but didn’t see one (when lost, find a hotel. The concierge are usually more than happy to help. Sometimes they’ll even give you a map). I tried my second most-preferred method, Follow the Obvious Tourists, but was unable to definitively pinpoint anyone as an out-of-towner. I loitered near a juice stand for a few minutes, feeling pretty stupid and wondering what would happen if I asked the guy manning the kebab station “Bazaar nerede?” when I saw a discreet stone arch, nearly camouflaged between the T-shirt stands, money-changing stations, and Prada knockoffs that form around tourist draws the way that atolls form on reefs. I took a peek.

Oh. So this was where all the grandeur was.

The walls of a seemingly endless hallway were lined with jewelry stalls and recessed stores. Salesmen in suits stood in the doorways. I took a deep breath and stepped in.

Here’s the thing about shopping a bazaar: it’s like running a gauntlet. You will not make it through unaccosted. Chuck Norris could put on his best “Don’t Mess With Me” face, adhere it with Gorilla Glue, and play the Walker: Texas Ranger theme for good measure and he would not make it ten yards through the bazaar without smiling offers of conversation and apple tea from salesmen looking to butter a potential customer up. That’s the other thing about a bazaar: all the salespeople want to be your friends. They want to know where you’re from. They want to give you tea. They want to show you this rug, this necklace set, this statue. They’ve never shown anyone else; it’s only for you, mademoiselle, only for you.

Although they probably wouldn’t call Chuck Norris “mademoiselle.” You don’t get to be a merchant in the Grand Bazaar without a decent sense of self-preservation.

Needless to say, it’s exhausting.

Having no set agenda nor sense of direction, I wandered aimlessly for a few hours, dodging boys with tea trays and particularly enthusiastic merchants: “You! Pretty girl, where are you from? Finest silver! You! Madmoiselle? Why do you not speak to me?” I walked in circles more than once, doubling back when a hallway dead-ended or emptied into a surly-looking side street. In many cases, the stalls and shops continued beyond the roof of the bazaar, lining the streets for blocks beyond. Some streets contained only costume shops; some, only leatherworkers. Inside the bazaar, some merchants recognized me as I passed for a third or fourth time. A few waved. One boy, who must have been about my age, grinned and said, “Hello again, wandering lady!”

If only I’d needed an elaborately mosaiced lampshade such as he was hawking, I would have bought one from him right there.

Ultimately, I bought a hair clip and a pair of earrings, but only from merchants who didn’t seem to care; they sat in their stalls reading a newspaper and looked surprised and gratified when I pointed to an item and said “Kaç para?” (How much?). The man I bought the earrings from was kind enough to explain how to get from his stall back to the tram, as well. By that point, I’d been in the bazaar for several hours and was ready to head home – but had no idea at all how to get back to the side I’d entered from.

I admittedly took no pictures while there – didn’t even bring my camera. Nothing says “Pickpocket me! Pickpocket me!” like speaking pidgin Turkish and brandishing a fairly nice camera. Which isn’t to say that I won’t take pictures in there eventually; I’ll just wait until I can get someone with a nicer camera to go with me. This works under the same principle as the hobbit and the dragon parable: you don’t have to outrun the dragon, just the hobbit next to you.

…Hey! HannahSam! Want to come to Turkiye?

In the meantime, the Internet has kindly coughed up these images. They don’t do the Grand Bazaar justice – don’t even come close, actually – but they do give you some idea of the scale.




Yeah. It’s pretty cool.

There is a moral to this story.

ALLOW ME TO PAINT YOU A PICTURE WITH MY IMAGINATION BRUSH.

Supposing you are walking home from the bus stop.
On the sidewalk!
It is roughly 8:00 pm.
There are streetlights.
While you are wearing a dark sweatshirt, you are nonetheless clearly visible because you are by happenchance texting while walking (a skill you have, incidentally, only recently mastered) and your phone glows bright enough to be seen from space.
Suppose you should hear the distant whine of a motorcycle behind you!
And see its approaching headlights coming up from behind.

DO YOU:

1. Despite being roughly ten feet away from the road (this is a wide sidewalk) and despite the fact that said road is completely clear of all other traffic, take a running leap for the nearest ditch on the off chance that the motorcycle is on the sidewalk?
2. Look cautiously behind you to make sure that approaching motorcycle is in fact on the road and not, say, driving on the sidewalk?
3. Keep walking in your merry way, comfortable in your knowledge that the universe is a sane and rational place and there is no earthly reason why the motorcycle would be driving on the sidewalk.

If you picked option 3, I am sorry. You have just perished. Or, in my case, escaped with a minor bruise after getting sideswiped by a handlebar going approximately 3,457 mph (at a conservative estimate) and abruptly acquired gray hair. Option 2 would have been a much better choice, although at the speed that the sucker was going, you'd have been better off with option 1.

Such is the life.

The Hole in the Floor

There’s a hole in the floor. I don’t know where it goes.

Let me explain. The first story of this apartment complex (charmingly labeled “-1”on the elevator keypad) is a parking garage. Along with all the requisite dust and strange smells, it has, about ten meters from the stairs, a hole in the floor.

It’s about as big around as the average fist, roughly round. And it’s just there. The temptation, of course, is to drop things into it and wait to hear when they hit bottom, but that might awaken whatever is sleeping down there, and we certainly don’t want that.

(The hole in the floor has apparently already pulled some long-forgotten childhood paranoia out of hibernation, along with a few fractured lines from a Shel Silverstein poem I didn’t know I’d remembered about sidewalks ending; who knows what else could be disturbed from slumber?)

I step very quietly when I walk by.

“What? No, we’re not on fire. Okay…bye!”

A bunch of exchange students and I went to a football match last night. The Turkish National team versus Bosnia-Herzegovina. One intrepid exchange student, whom I’ll call Michigan, sent out a Facebook message inviting any and all to the match, and volunteering to pick up tickets the next day in Beşiktaş. He took us at our word that we would pay him back, and I think it says something about the group that everyone did, and promptly.

Anyway, on Saturday, after language classes, the whole gaggle – twelve out of the sixteen of us, although it always seems like there’s more when we’re in groups – made our way from language classes to Taksim, where we hung around, accidentally wandered in front of trolleys (disturbingly easy to do), and proved that trying to get twelve exchange students to all go the same way at the same time is a bit like herding cats. Eventually we all split up into sub-groups and went off to explore, with the firm promise to meet back at a designated spot at 7:00. Miraculously, everyone did. For being a dozen people from four countries and a stunning array of backgrounds and experiences, we’re a surprisingly cohesive bunch.

I for one meandered around a bookstore, got comfortably lost in some sort of mini textile bazaar with Ohio and Alberta, and loitered briefly in a two-story Burger King. It was a productive afternoon.

We all found each other at the meeting point, broke again for dinner after Australia pointed out that food at the stadium would be prohibitively expensive, and reformed again fifteen minutes later before tripping gaily down the hill to the Beşiktaş stadium. En route, we stumbled – literally, sometimes – scores of vendors hawking everything from fairly reserved red and white scarves to over the top mohawked wigs. Illinois bought a wig, to nobody’s surprise, while I invested in a scarf. It gets cold here in winter, and will be useful then. No, really.

Also, it matches my slipper-socks, so I’ll be all coordinated and everything.

Moving on…

We got to the stadium maybe an hour before the game started, maybe more. We had our tickets scanned; submitted to extensive searchings and pattings-down; emptied our pockets of open containers, lighters, and anything pointier than a toothpick; and eventually made it into the stadium. A few students – California and Michigan, I think – were given free Turkiye T-shirts, and I was handed a dozen or so medium-sized Turkish flags. We mostly used them poke each other in the eyes and ribs during the match, and occasionally managed to wave them at the appropriate moments.




I don’t think that we ever actually found our seats – that is, the ones listed on the tickets – but we did find twelve seats together about halfway to nosebleed and in one of the corner-curves of the stadium. We bought sunflower seeds – Turks eat sunflower seeds during football matches the way Americans eat peanuts during baseball games – and soft drinks. Canada produced simit from somewhere in her bag, so that was good, too.


The Bosnian cheering section made up perhaps at tenth, maybe less, of the seats – almost a humorously small fraction. They were very well coordinated, and even struck first in the pyrotechnic department, producing a flare two-thirds of the way through the first half. It didn’t do much more than smoke a lot and burn astonishingly bright, but things got more exciting when a group of Turkish fans retaliated, which meant that there was lots of smoke and energetic flames coming from both ends of the stadium. It was enough to alarm one of the exchange coordinators, watching the game on TV, prompting her to call Australia’s cell. I heard Australia’s end of the conversation: “Hey! What? No, no, it’s not a bomb, it’s a flare…no, Bosnia started it…no, we’re not on fire…yeah, I promise…okay…bye!”





Australia stuck her phone back in her pocket. “They were worried,” she explained.

Canada nodded. “We noticed.”

In the midst of all this, Illinois surfaced with a brilliantly painted face and a new best friend, wielding a paint brush. “This is…actually, I don’t know what his name is,” Illinois said. “But he’ll paint our faces for us!”

The Fabulous Mexican, Canada, and Michigan all went for it.





Our Turkish seatmates found our patriotism somewhat surprising. They taught us a few cheers, and corrected us when we used the wrong ones at the wrong time. Australia also whipped out a few Australian chants, and the Brazilians were doing their own cheers, as well. Canada broke into the Canadian national anthem when the mood struck her. We were quite the multinational conglomerate, even as we waved our Turkish flags.



Turkiye scored first; Bosnia tied it up shortly thereafter, while Turkiye was still in the throes of celebration. The majority of the second half was subdued on Turkiye’s end, before Turkiye got spectacularly lucky on a penalty shot and snuck one past the Bosnia keeper. Neither team played especially well; Turkiye in particular had some spectacularly boneheaded plays that had me shouting at the field in frustration. But you don’t go to a football match to watch football. You could do that at home from the comfort of your couch if you wanted. You go to a football match for the energy, for the crowd, for looking down and discovering that Canada’s been absentmindedly dropping sunflower shells in your bag for the last twenty minutes. For total strangers teaching you cheers and accidentally whacking you with their flags during especially exciting plays. For spending the entire match on your feet, for watching an entire stadium of red-clad spectators (barring the twenty or so sullen people in Bosnia’s section) jumping up and down in rhythm, and then joining in, and then writing home and being able to use such sentences as “…and then the whole stadium was full of bouncing Turks!”




Maine and I left about fifteen minutes before the match ended, in order to find a taxi before the rush. The driver only had to stop and ask for directions once, and he had some difficulty finding the correct street. Also, we didn’t speak directional Turkish, and he had the same problem but with English, so we wound up directing him by improvised semaphore. But he was very nice about it, and we were still vibrant and happy from the match, so everything worked out.

The cab fare was reasonable, given that Maine and I were splitting it. I walked in the door, said hello to my host family, and went to bed, but not before carefully folding my new scarf and placing it on the dresser.

Relying on the Kindness of Strangers

Some people recently got together and did something incredibly nice for me. And it probably says something about me that I’m always so shocked when stuff like this happens. With luck, ya’ll will succeed in wearing down my Wall of Stunning Cynicism within the next few years, and who saw that coming?

(Those of you who know me terribly well will probably have figured out by now that it’s not so much cynicism or fatalism but a deep belief in the impending inevitability of the worse-case scenario and an earnest desire to thwart the effects thereof.

There’s a difference. No, really.

But I digress)

My Aunt Sandy had emailed me a week or two after I arrived in Turkey inquiring if there was anything that I’d like sent in a care package. I believe I suggested one or two small things and asked what had prompted the email. She explained that her sister-in-law – her brother’s wife, Kate – was going to be in my fair city in a month or so for a wedding and had volunteered to ferry a care package across the continents for me. And Kate would be more than happy to meet with me.

In the middle of all of this, my friend Sam’s mother emailed to tell me that her best friend in college’s nephew (“Alex”) was living in Istanbul, had been doing so for several years (a “short stay” had turned into “long-term residency” after he fell in love with and married a local beauty), taught English in a local high school, and was also looking forward to meeting with me.

To recap:

1) Kate would be in Istanbul and wanted to meet. Unfortunately, she was hampered by

a.time constraints (she would only be available for two days), and,

b.a tourist-level knowledge of the city

c.the fact that she was on the European side and I was on the Asian side*

2)I was in Istanbul and wanted to meet. Unfortunately, I was hampered by

a.a distinct dearth of knowledge of the intricacies of the public transportation system

b.the fact that I was in Asia and she was in Europe*

*there are two bridges connecting Europe and Asia in Istanbul. Neither are open to pedestrians; you must be in a vehicle to cross either bridge

And into this situation stepped Alex. Upon hearing that I was more or less confined to walking distance of the house, he volunteered to travel over from his home on the European side, pick me up at my then-host family’s house, and then go back to Europe with me, where we could pick up Kate and give me the Cliff’s Notes version of Public Transport 101. He also explained most of this over the phone to my then-host mom – not an easy task – and reassured her that he was not a Communist or axe-murderer.

Alex collected me around 6:00; I’d arranged to meet him at the development’s gate, and was just leaving the house when it occurred to me that I had no idea how to recognize him. He artfully solved the problem by wearing a Jayhawk shirt, which I thought was quite clever of him. We took a minibus to the ferry terminal, and he showed me how to find the right ferry and the technique of jumping onboard said ferry (gangplanks are for wussies), and during the passage, narrated the sights and which of them were worth seeing. Once we reached Europe, he bought me an akbil, which is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me. An akbil is essentially a computer chip implanted on the end of what looks like a child’s plastic spoon and it…gets you places; it’s like an all-access pass to the buses and ferries in Istanbul. I predictably tend to lose mine just when I need it. (I affectionately call it “the clicky thingy that lets you take buses” when I can’t remember akbil – that is to say, most of the time. Present host mom finds it quite amusing when I’m running around the house saying “Clicky thingy nerede?”)

We had a lovely walking tour of Istanbul while looking for Kate’s hotel, and I decided that while the Hilton or the Hampton may be lacking the romance of a boutique hotel, you can at least practically see the signage from space, and this has certain advantages. Especially when you’re supposed to be meeting someone and are running a bit late. But anyway, we found the hotel and found Kate, and the three of us set off to wander the neighborhood.

Kate’s hotel – boutique though it might have been, with a cunningly hidden sign – was conveniently located just near Sultanahmet, the tourist center of Istanbul. Think of The Mall in Washington DC, with the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument all within spitting distance of each other. Sultanahmet is a bit like that, but thousands and thousands of years old. Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, and the Blue Mosque are all squashed together on a single point of land containing a mind-bogglingly enormous amount of culture and history.

Kate, Alex, and I didn’t visit any of the sights, but we wandered around with the pre-iftar crowds and got pleasantly lost looking for a restaurant Kate had eaten at the night before. We never found the restaurant, but I did see this sign. I think it was worth getting pleasantly lost for. Lee, I’m looking at you…

We eventually found a nice little place (with truly terrible music – something like Dance Craze 1979! on repeat) on a side street and ate there instead. As loath as I am to admit it, the nice thing about restaurants in touristy areas is that they’re used to catering to crazy Americans and the fact that the Chinese tourists travel in packs, and every other stereotype you care to name. Nothing phases them. And they tend to have comfortably international menus, so I had pasta with salmon – not a traditional Turkish meal by any stretch, but comfort food.

During the meal, the waiter periodically poked at my arm and told me that I needed to gain weight. I found this slightly hilarious.

The food wasn’t great, but it was good. Midway through the meal, the street lost power – that happens here sometimes. The wait staff was remarkably quick to bring out candles, however, and we enjoyed the next fifteen or so minutes in delightful shadowy ambiance and without the music. My eardrums panted in relief.

We exited the restaurant and found that it was raining. We trekked back to Kate’s hotel with a certain degree of urgency – it was just after eight, and the ferries stopped running to the Asian side at nine – where she gave me the care package.

I distinctly remember telling Aunt Sandy that I only wanted a few small things, that she shouldn’t send food because it’d make me cry, and that I didn’t want Kate to be loaded down like a pack mule. I expected…oh, a shoebox.

So I was a little shocked with Kate handed me a suitcase. And then threw in an umbrella and a few books of her own volition.

Alex eyed the suitcase and called a cab to take us to the ferry terminal. We caught the last ferry across the Bosphorus, took a minibus back to the house. Alex walked me to the door, too, where he once again convinced my then-host mother that he wasn’t a Communist or an axe-murderer, and then departed.

I hauled the suitcase upstairs to my room, shut the door, and opened the suitcase.

Oh. Wow.

Six boxes of Kraft Mac ‘N Cheese, twelve packages of beef-flavored Ramen noodles (shut up. I like them), a box of Lemon Heads, a pack of cinnamon gum, two HUGE packages of Nestle chocolate chips, and two boxes of tampons. Plus three books from Kate: The Zahir, The Witch of Portobello, and The Evidence Against Her. And, of course, the umbrella.

(Cue the Rihanna song here)

Allow me to recap:

a) my Aunt Sandy made the package and sent it with

b) Kate, who greatly flushed it out (I understand the most of the food was her doing), brought it to Istanbul and got it to me with the help of

c) Alex, who kindly ferried me all over the place, bought me an akbil, and encouraged me to get out and explore on my own

d) And the concierge at Hotel Aslan (Narnia fans: I KNOW) gave Alex and I directions to Kate’s hotel, so we might as well include him in this list, too; we’d have never found Kate without him.

e) And my dear sweet sainted father helped coordinate the whole thing, bless him.

Five people – more, if you count an awful lot of airline employees – all coordinated and put in an awful lot of time and effort, and reassured me many, many times that I was not inconveniencing them (even though I was) in order to connect myself and a suitcase full of Kraft Mac ‘N Cheese.

And if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

All of you: thank you.

Cinderelly!

New Host Family (yes, there's a new family; no, that's all I'm going to say about it) has a live-in nanny to help out with their three year-old boy. "Nanny" doesn't quite explain everything this woman does; she herds the child, she cooks, she cleans, and always knows where everyone's keys are. She holds the fabric of the household together. There should be statues erected in her honor.

Having never lived in a house with a dedicated staff before (even of just one person), I find this whole arrangement mildly disconcerting. I may have treated my mom like a maid before (Hi, Mom!), but that's entirely different. And so with nearly two decades of "Go help your mother" echoing in my ears, I try to pitch in and help. With mixed results: it's possible that the nanny in question has heard tell of my previous forays into trying to help around the house. Thus most of our interactions revolve around me trying to help her vacuum/tidy/cook/whatever, and her trying to dissaude me from doing so. Neither of us really succeeds, but at least we have fun with it. And I think I might be wearing her down: she let me help set the table at breakfast this morning, although she did strike a sneaky blow by making tea before I was awake. That's cheating, in my opinion.

In which a cake was successfully made!

I've been feeling rather cookish lately, which is like being peckish but with a desire to create attached. I found a recipe for "Dutch Apple Cake" on another blog, and apples are certainly available at the moment...and thus, I made a cake! (Yes, I'm surprised, too!)


It might be more correct to say that I improvised a cake. Host Family is rather (that is to say, totally) lacking in measuring implements, and my estimation skills are notoriously nonexistant, so I wound up finding two spoons of different sizes and designating one a "teaspoon" and the other a "tablespoon," and using a drinking glass as a measuring cup. Furthermore, proper oranges aren't available at the moment, so I used a mandarin instead, and the recipe didn't specify what sort of oil should be used. I wound up using what might have been sunflower oil; it was that or what I was pretty sure was olive oil, and I couldn't see that one working out at all. Oh, and I didn't have a "tube pan," and used a pie plate instead.

If you look closely at the recipe (you scrutinizing Internet detectives, you!), you'll notice that the cake cooks for quite a long time at a very high heat. This rather unnerved Host Mom, who checked it every ten minutes or so to make sure that I wasn't setting fire to her kitchen (I wasn't). The cake raw batter had a consistency rather like fresh cement, and I was sure that the final product was going to be better suited for projectile warfare than human consumption, but it ultimately turned out delightfully well:


Unfortunately, as it happens, I'm the only one in the house who likes Cake with Stuff in It - other members of the household found the apple chunks rather off-putting. But no matter; more for me, and I have a recipe for for double-chocolate brownies lying around here somewhere...