Hi everyone!
I am finally in Turkey! My journey seemed to take forever, but I am so glad to be here! My host family is amazing! My sister's name is Aslı, my mother's name is Semra, my father's name is Fettah, and my host brother's name is Can. Aslı and Can speak English pretty well, so I talk to them and they translate for their parents. I have already met so many people here. The first thing we did when I got here was to meet Aslı's cousin, Özge. Özge was also an exchange student, but she went to Japan. She also speaks English.
I have also met a lot of my host family's neighbors. I met one lady who is a teacher at the school that I will be going to. I have also met other neighbors, Fatımah, and her son, Bora. They brought me flowers and they made me cookies! Bora is 12 and speaks English really well. He (along with everyone else) is teaching me Turkish. He also said that when Aslı leaves (she is going to America to be an exchange student) he will be my translator. Today I also met 4 of Aslı's closest friends.
Everyone here is very friendly and nice. My host mother, Semra, is an incredible cook. She keeps feeding me more than I can possibly eat.
Turkish is a very complicated language, but I have already learned some just from hearing it all around me.
I am living in a city called Afyon. I think that it is amazing, but when I say so, everyone looks at me funny. To them, Afyon is very small and boring, but for me, it is exciting and not small at all. You can walk absolutely everywhere and there are so many shops and cafés, I think that it is beautiful. However, when you are walking, you have to be very careful, the drivers here are absolutely crazy. I am so glad that I am not allowed to drive here, I would crash into someone in an instant. There are rules, but I get the feeling that they are only half followed. Plus, there are a million people always in the street. If anyone thinks that drivers in New York are bad, here they are way, way worse.
I am really glad to be here, but I really want to learn Turkish as fast as possible. It is so hard to communicate with people without knowing it. I feel like I am being really quiet, but it's only because I can't say anything to most people! But sign language/pointing and dictionaries work really well, and I am sure that I will learn Turkish soon enough.
Well, that's about it for today. Have a good weekend everyone!