Shopping!

Sunday, September 28
Maren, Aeden, and I had a breakfast picnic on the floor of the kitchen to let Brian and Lacey keep sleeping. I had found some Cocoa Puff look-a-likes the night before at the grocery store, so we sat down to our first Turkish breakfast of cold cereal, "Misir ve Bugday Gevregi Kakaolu" with Sut (milk). Went OK, except they're not as sweet as at home, so that was a surprise.

At 11:00 I went off on a shopping trip with Asli and her husband. Asli is the assistant to Mustafa, the head of the IB program at TED and he is also the chair of the Chemistry Department. Turns out that Asli is "the one to know", and if you ask her a question she doesn't know the answer to, she finds one for you. Her husband Fukir drove us to Panora Mall in their Volvo and I had my second immersion into crazy Turkish driving. I was glad to see that they used their seatbelts and I could use mine as well.

Panora Mall can best be described as a southern California indoor mall dropped off in Ankara. It has a Claire's, a Burger King, and lots of the brand name clothing that I ignore in the states but at least know the names of. It was familiar, even if all the signs were in Turkish. I noticed that a kiosk was selling little cups of corn to munch on, and Asli said you get to choose your condiments, from sweet to savory. I look forward to trying it with the girls on another trip. We had Turkish food at the food court at my request, and I had to pace myself to keep from inhaling my lunch. It was a meat stuffing inside of rolled grape leaves with a tomato-based sauce and a yogurt sauce squirted all over it. It could of been almost anything I think, but it did seem especially delicious. I've forgotten all detail of what it was called, as I still can't believe I made it through that day awake.

But my second shopping trip was successful:
1. Towels. A shower soon!
2. A bigger, better frying pan and a spatula. The tiny crappy one we were provided with was just not going to work.
3. Cleaning supplies and a mop. I didn't want to unpack anything into the dust and styrofoam mess we had moved into, and the bathrooms and kitchen needed some cleaning before they could be used very well.
4. SIM cards for our cell phones--our new Turkish phone numbers!
5. Pillows. No more couch pillows and upholstery-face.
6. Blankets for the girls. Turns out we're provided a master bedroom and one furnished bedroom. The other 4 bedrooms were empty.

Came home from shopping and showed off everything, and then crashed for a nap. Then took Lacey and Maren for a walk to the grocery store for more food. They seemed to be as loud as they could possibly be and I felt like an eyesore with jumping girls dancing all around me. We were certainly the new American family in town.