cold snows of winter
drive constant past the window
thin glass swept by wind
Despite our best efforts to drag out 2011 as long as possible, 2012 came as expected, marking another notch carved into the timeline.
Since I have been lapse in reporting on my rather stationary life here in Istanbul, I will start with what is the same. I am still working at the university (Bilgi University – http://www.bilgi.edu.tr/en/) as an Instructional Designer and Academic Skills Instructor. I am still trying to get involved in music and theater whenever possible, making trips home semi-regularly and working with my writing group to workshop odd bits and pieces of the occasional poem.
2011 ended with a trip to Boston to be maid-of-honor in my oldest friend Jessica’s wedding in November. It was a whirlwind 5-day, 4-night trip, but in the end we all made it down the aisle in one piece.
After that, there were the regular Istanbul comings and goings: searching for turkey in Turkey around American Thanksgiving, to no avail, and getting stuffed on turkey come Christmas and New Years. The irony that never gets old.
January ended with a trip to Portugal and February seems to have decided to keep her promise of intermittent snowy days, rainy days and gorgeous sunny days. Never a dull moment.
But first, Portugal!
| GritoSilêncio!Do silêncio faço um gritoO corpo todo me dóiDeixai-me chorar um pouco.De sombra a sombra
Há um Céu…tão recolhido… De sombra a sombra Já lhe perdi o sentido. |
I ScreamSilence!Of the silence, I make a screamMy whole body hurtsLet me cry a little.Wandering from shadow to shadow
There’s repressed sky today from shadow to shadow I have lost my senses. |
Meara, Jill and I left Istanbul one saturday afternoon for a week-long trip to Portugal with every intention of eating and drinking ourselves silly. And we did just that.
Unbeknownst to us, we made the right decision from the start by renting a car and proceeding to slowly wind our way up the amazingly tiny, lovely little country, driving about an hour each day and leaving plenty of time for sightseeing…
And… eating and drinking…
During the times that we weren’t… eating and drinking… we managed to see all sorts of lovely little towns like Obidos, Coimbra, Aveiro, Porto (where, yes, they make port) and Guimaraes.
But not to worry… none of this “sightseeing” took away from our firm and steadfast commitment to… eating and drinking.
When at last we had reached the top of the country after our 5-day eating and drinking tour, we then did a speedy 3.5 hour trip straight back down again to Lisbon, where we arrived in the late afternoon with plenty of time for… well… a snack.
… before heading out on the town to walk the hills of Lisbon and work off said snack.
Despite one minor setback in the airport in which I had to re-organize all of my (heavily-laden-down-with-cheese-pork-and-good-wine-and-port) bags, we were in the air and back to Istanbul, where I secretly vowed to live a devout, monastic, non-calorie-driven life and did, for the first few hours at least…
Besides Portugal, the months of January and February have been reasonably uneventful, but interspersed with late breakfasts and weekend trips to castles and islands, trying to take full advantage of any day it isn’t snowing or raining.
And thus begins another year in Istanbul.
Rubyshoesroxanne goes perambulatin' 