Saturday, December 27

We had lunch at Tapas on Tunali Hilme with Daniel (the other Fulbright teacher in Ankara this year, but not at TED), Paul, Becky and their family from England visiting for Christmas. I very much enjoyed my yogurt meatballs, and Maren announced that she always wanted to go to Tapas for meals and have their breaded fish, but order two next time, because it was only like a side!

We stopped at Marks & Spencer (an English department store much like Macy's) in hopes of finding a sale and an overcoat to fit Brian, and ended up leaving with 6 bags of stuff! We found a beautiful black wool coat for Brian, then when we were checking out they explained that we'd get M&S gift checks for 50% of what we purchased, so I did another round of shopping for some basics for everyone I'd been missing (more undershirts for Brian, socks and underwear for Maren, etc.), and some new clothes for Aeden to grow into. I waited in line to check out again, but I had added up our stuff incorrectly so went over the check amount. But then they said I'd get more checks again for 50% of the total, so I just moved a few items over to the next transaction. Macy's doesn't allow that kind of double-dipping, probably for good reason! This all sounds somewhat neat and tidy when I explain it this way, but it leaves out that they had to get a different clerk to speak to me in English each time, that the "buy 3 for the price of 2" specials kept haunting me, so I'd have 2 of something and then have to leave the line and go pick out a 3rd (I guess I didn't HAVE to), and that I was all bundled up to be outside, except it was super overheated in the store so I was dying to be done. At one point a clerk came by and tried to explain that I could get more socks on the special and I just said, "No thank you, I need to be done shopping now." Shopping fatigue had definitely set in.

The cameras stayed put away today.