Ok, it has been forever since my last post, but I promise, I have good reasons as to why I haven't written:

About a month ago, I had my folklore performance with the dance group from Afyon Kocatepe Üniversitesi. It went really well and was enormously fun. At the end of the performance, my teacher, Müharem hoca, wanted me to speak about Türkiye and folklore and such, so I did. Giving a speech in front of a ton of people in a foreign language was so nerve-wracking, but apparently I didn't mess up too badly, because people said afterwards that they could understand me, so that was good.

The next weekend, I went to Eskişehir. Eskişehir is only a little bigger than Afyon, but it has two universities and ton of university students, so there's lots more to do there. There was an exchange student weekend there, but only I and two of my other exchange friends, Amy and Ellen (also from America) went. Still, it was fun. We met members of the Eskişehir Roteract Club (they are like Rotarians, but they are between the ages of 18 and 30), and they showed us around Eskişehir.
On Saturday, we went to Yazılıkaya, which is a place near Eskişehir that was used for religious ceremonies by the Frigs, which dates back to about 3500 BC. Yazılıkaya literally means "writing rock" and that's what it is: this huge rock with writing on it. Around it, there are caves that the Frigs lived in and wells that they dug for water. It was pretty cool.

I came home (back to Afyon) on Sunday, and then on Tuesday morning, I went to Karadeniz (Black Sea) Ereğli, where my friend Ellen lives. I hadn't been to the Karadeniz before and I really wanted to go, so I went to visit her. Ereğli is also really small, but it is right on the Karadeniz, so it is gorgeous. Ellen's house is literally 3 minutes away from the sea, you can see it from her house. I am so jealous. I stayed there for a week and met her family and friends there, which was really fun. I also went into the Karadeniz, so now I have been in every sea in Turkey: The Karadeniz (Black Sea), Ege Denizi (Aegean), and the Akdeniz (Mediterranean).

I stayed in Ereğli for a week. Then, Ellen and I went to Ankara. The big Rotary conference for our district was May 31-June 3, but all of the exchangers had to meet in Ankara on the Tuesday before that. I was in Ankara for two days, and then I went to Antalya for the conference. There were 7 exchange students who went: Amy, Ellen, Rush, and I (from America), and Carol, Gaby, and Emanuel (from Brazil). At the beginning of the year, we were 15 people, but the others havealready finished their years and gone back to their respective countries.

It took 7 hours to get from Ankara to Antalya (we all went together), and we went on Wednesday night, with the result being that we were exhausted by the time we got the conference. We didn't have a lot of time to rest though, because we had to give a performance on Friday! We ended up writing a short skit (in Turkish, yay us!), which we performed in front of about 500 Rotarians. After that, we were basically free, and we took advantage of the gorgeous weather by going to the beach.

When I finally got back to Afyon, I had been gone for two weeks, so it was really nice to see everyone again. Semra and Fettah got back from America (they went there to visit their daughter, Aslı, who is an exchange student in New York) two days ago. So, yesterday, I went to visit them. They went to New York City and Long Island to see Aslı, and they also went to Orlando, Miami, and Key West. They really liked it and Fettah wants to go back, which is really funny, because he was scared to go in the first place!

So that has been my last month, told you I was busy! Now it is June, and I absolutely cannot believe how quickly the time has past. I have exactly one week left in Afyon, and less than a month left in Türkiye, which makes me unbelievably sad. One good thing though: my American family is coming here next week, so that will be cool.