Monday, Victory Day, pm. Cecile and Cengiz helped me figure out the washer, which turns out to be a combination washer and dryer. I've never heard of such a thing. The 3 of us were trying to interpret icons and then we found the manual. It was in multiple languages... Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, and Portuguese, the last being the closest to any language I know. But it was in Turkish too, so we managed to use our collective knowledge (mine being the language of laundry, so I understood things like "extra rinse")
After soaking my feet, I decided to walk up to Ulus and I made it to Akmerkez, the big shopping center that's maybe a 15 minute walk away.
Akmerkez is not as big as Carousel Center, but in some ways it's more impressive. And yet, they tell me it's really on the wane and that there are 2 more that are even more amazing.There are 2 bars in the place, one pretty upscale where one can get 20 lira martinis.There's also another larger branch of Macro Center, the Wegman's-like grocery. One of the features I really like is the electronic directories. You can touch icons and find the ladies' room or a kind of store, including the route to get there from when you are.
Once again I was invited to dinner at my sponsor's home. It was four of us, Jennifer and her husband Michael and Phil, my department chair. A very enjoyable evening.
Tuesday was a full faculty meeting in the morning. We got headsets for the dual translation, which I guess they don't do all the time, but which cuts the meeting time in half. Besides that, it was like many such meetings I've attended, but with a superior level of professionalism and seriousness... though it wasn't all serious. The dean of students got 4 faculty members to illustrate the do's and don't of the dress code, accompanied by disco music.
After a fairly brief department meeting, where once again I was impressed by Phil, who doesn't waste our time and communicates that he trusts us to do the work without scrutiny, I drove out to the airport with a school driver to pick up Sim. It's now Thursday night and we have just returned from dinner along the Bosphorous. We stopped off at the apartment of my friend Layne, a German teacher, to pick up Bebek (means "baby"), an adorable gray tiger kitten, about 3 months old. Layne was prevailed on to take her from another couple who had nursed her back from the brink after she fell out of a tree. Now Layne's allergies are acting up and we agreed to take her for awhile (?) We'll see how that develops.
Pictures of everything, including Bebek, coming soon.
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