I had to go to Bulgaria

This past week I had to head to Bulgaria. It was a strange process and had nothing at all to do with needing to get a new tourist visa to stay in Turkey longer. When I was heading out to catch my very early bus to Bulgaria I was quite excited. Thinking "I am going to Bulgaria today. Who gets to say that?" I had great thoughts of hanging out in a funny Bulgarian town for lunch that had dusty streets and then hopping on the next bus back to istanbul. It ended up being quite a long day. The bus ride was about 4 hours each way. A lot of sleeping happened. It was really great to see some more of the country side of Turkey though. It is really beautiful. Very green and hilly. Once in Bulgaria I just ended up staying at the bus station type place that basically seemed like an airport. I wandered around the duty free store for a long time and bought some mound bars. Yum. Sadly there was no great Bulgaria town with dusty street and old ladies selling things. I caught the next bus back and by the time I got home I had had a 14 hour day of going and coming. I was tired.

I went to Asia for a pillow fight.

On world pillow fight day, April 5th I believe, I headed to Asia to take part in a large organized pillow fight. It was a very exciting process indeed. Getting pillows. Meeting up with people. Getting a dolmus and crossing the bridge to the asian side of Istanbul. The getting there part might have been more exciting than the actually being there part, but the asian side was really great. We caught a beautiful sunset and got to hit strangers with pillows. Unfortunately the boys kind of dominated the pillow fight scene so it was a bit rough. Kate and I decided to just go and attack groups of girls that were standing around with pillows. That worked out pretty well for a while. We also saw two 6 year old girls fighting each other so we thought that was a perfect opportunity to get our pillow fight groove on. Also, great pillow phrases that don't usually happen were said like, "Can I borrow your pillow?" and "Take my pillow, I'm not using it anymore." Basically it was a splendid adventure.

Easter in Istanbul

Holidays in places that do not celebrate your holidays are always an interesting experience. They seem more like your own and you realize that you enjoy your traditions or what traditions are important to you. It feels like your secret holiday that no one else knows about or cares about too much. You can do anything that you like with it, because it is yours and no one else's. Maybe it's like being little when you have some make believe events- a tea party, your cats birthday party, etc. Most of all, I think any sort of holiday or celebration is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with people and relate to each other on another common level. We all love to dye easter eggs. You like to eat chocolate? Me too!! Let's be friends forever. In a cute apartment overlooking the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey this is just what happened on my make believe easter.

Thanks to a wonderful care package sent by my glorious mother, copious amounts of chocolate (well I ate most of it before easter got here) and an egg dying kit were at my disposal. The decision was quickly made to have an easter extravaganza, american girl style (not the dolls of course, but that would have been fun too), at Kate's current place of apartment crashing.

An aside about Kate- she is my new great American friend. She is halfsy English like me and did a bunch of traveling before landing in Istanbul. One of the many

marvelous things about Kate is that she is in search of a job. MEANING she has free time during the day to be my friend during my odd au pair hours. I am very happy that we met and we have shared many a splendid coffee and chat together.

Okay, back to easter. Kate, Maureen (my other

wonderful pocket-sized american friend), and I dyed easter eggs to our hearts content, ate chocolate past the point of our stomaches content, drank coffee and had some of Kate's watermelon & mint salad (sounds strange but it's good). We sat on a balcony overlooking the Bosphorus, discussed our disapproval of cruise ships, enjoyed the sun and each others company. Our eggs turned out to be quite marvelous. Unfortunately I squished mine on the bus ride home, BUT it was the prettiest green squished hard boiled egg I have ever seen. Overall my easter was truly splendid in the make believe, having it be exactly what you want it to be, kind of way. I loved being with people that understood the importance of colored eggs, chocolate shaped like rabbits, and talking about nothing in particular.