Bursa To Teach English

I have to say that I am very happy with my choice to go to Bursa to teach English.  Fabulous accommodation, fabulous school, great food, and great, great girls whom I already love.  

Fabulous brand new room with flat screen tv, security, internet, an attached restaurant, balcony in our room, beautiful garden area for writing/reading, and the best amenity-the gym! The gym has a brand new(not even used once) treadmill, elliptical, and pilates/yoga studio.  The teachers have no interest in fitness so I basically have the whole place to myself.  I think this opportunity was worth it for just the gym and school alone-both so nice. The private school is also brand new and super nice with all kinds of amenities: internet, smart boards in the classroom, and fun extra-curricular activities like paint balling. 

My roommates in my flat are a 25 year old from the UK who is just lovely and another 35 year old from Mexico-very nice girls.  Across the hall there are two girls from Texas and also another girl from the UK who are both outgoing with a great sense of American humor like me=)  

The area we are staying in is a student area of Uladag university, which is one of the biggest universities in Turkey.  It was named after Uladag mountain, which is the highest mountain of the Marmara region.  It is quite popular for skiing and trekking in the summer, which I would love to do, but was told it is extremely expensive. 

The town area itself is a quite a happening little student town with nice restaurants, bars, cafes, and good quality super markets.  The students in the area are always friendly.  On our first night, we had a bbq where we were blasting Turkish music and dancing together. 

My sunset runs are amazing.  I run through a windy road with lots of hills right into the pink sunset.  The sunset is setting for what feels like a couple hours.  The whole sky is just pink and the hills are alive with the sound of my music ha!  On one side there is the sun setting and on the other there is a full moon.  It ends up setting at about 9:20pm, which makes it a late sunset with a dash of night.  People never bother me when running and they just smile and keep walking and people are stopping in cars being perverts like Egypt-it is so nice and relaxing. Occasionally, there is the sheep herder in the road with big herds of sheep and the smell of cow dung is around sometimes, but I do not mind it at all.  There are crops and bright purple flowers that stand out on the side of the road.   The horses are in the backyards of old stone homes and it just feels like a place from a fable or old story.   

Passing by the main town area, I stopped to watch a bit of the Turkish wedding with everyone joining in and sitting down surrounding the bride in a circle.  The bride dances like a statue, but she looks stunning in her long strapless, pearl white wedding dress with tiny silver sparkles. 

From Broken Seats to Tea and Crumpets

Going from Istanbul to Bursa to teach English, I booked the Metro Bus.  It is a luxurious Mercedes bus with the staff dressed nicely with dress pants and white shirts with suit ties, the seats fully recline, and each seat has a flat screen mini-television.  The seats literally feel like absolute heaven.  They offer you tea and cakes and orange juice.  Going from the loud, obnoxious buses of Egypt and Nepal was again one extreme to the next, which makes me appreciate the glamour and comfort of Turkey.  The old, hunched over, little lady on the bus shared her sesame roll with me and  she was adorable with her kind smiles.  We went on an unexpected ferry from Istanbul to Bursa, which was lovely with the seagulls flying over the boat and the crisp, cool wind blowing in my face.  Ahhh Turkey you are so precious so happy to be back and so thankful for these glamorous bus rides!

Right Place at the Wrong Time

Back in Istanbul, the city looks more beautiful than I remember.  From one extreme to another, Cairo to Istanbul can not even be compared.  While Istanbul experienced some inflation with the prices, I can definitely see why-it is so precious.  While I walk the streets, I can't help, but wonder about him.  Is he okay? I finally make it to Turkey and he is in the South of Istanbul.  I have waited a year and a half so what is another couple weeks.  If you can't fall in love in Istanbul, where can you fall in love? It really is such a romantic place.   

Walking through the streets to my past time places, the same local man who sells my favorite apricots, the outdoor cafes, the smell of spring in the air, the park, and the amazing food.  It feels good to be back.  I meet with a couple old friends and we go eat at the same place that I love for dinner.
Even though, it is almost June it is raining and a bit cold in Istanbul.  I guess I expected hot, summer weather, but not just yet.  Summer in Istanbul starts in July and goes until September. 

The Amazing Quote

This quote was from an article on "Self esteem" from the Zaman paper.

"I will not sell my soul to the highest bidder, but rather I will stand strong and play fair in this game we call life regardless of what is happening in my world."

Priscilla Goes Back to the City That Took A Piece of Her Heart .

The Turkish airway flight was the shortest flight ever in my history of flying. We went up in the plane, had dinner, I read the Turkish newspaper, chatted with some Turkish locals, and then we landed. On the plane, I sat next to an adorable Turkish guy who jokes that he says he loves Mission Impossible and jokes that he is the Turkish Tom Cruise.  He is so sweet and kind in his mannerisms-welcome back to Turkey.  He saw me leering over him out the window and he said, "You come here." He got up and pointed to his seat for us to switch.  This is the kind of guy all of us women should be with, but always go for the opposite.

"The guy who gives up his window seat for you." 

Speaking a little bit with him and the other Turkish man who works in textiles, it was a delightful flight.  I also met another guy from LA who is Egyptian and actually lived very close to my old address-what a small world. 

When I looked out the window at Istanbul, it really just sparkled at night. It was gorgeous and I sat staring out the window into the dark sky with the lights shining so bright right into my heart.  My heart was beating faster thinking I was back to this place I love so much and to a friend I had been longing to see for what felt like forever.  Istanbul was the place where I came 1.5 years ago and it was one of the best experiences of my life.  It was a place where I felt on top of the world and felt like the luckiest girl in the world.  Would this same feeling come back to me or would I just be fooling myself into happiness?

Sometimes LIFE changes our Plans

My original plan had been to go to Dahab in Sinai, cross over to Israel, and take a flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul around June 10. 

But LIFE changed my plans. I decided that I just could not travel anymore-Yes you heard right. I needed a break from everything and I needed routine and to be in a familiar place.  My conflict in Egypt was obviously not helping me make a decision to keep exploring Egypt-it was not the time for Egypt. 

In Cairo, I had applied to summer jobs in Turkey for teaching English and received overwhelming responses.  While I had a job lined up for July, I also had the option to start working June 1. 

During this contemplative stage, I received news that my friend's mother was not doing well.  Acting with my heart, I decided that it was best for me to go to Turkey early to be there for my friend and to start working.

Sometimes our plans change because people change them.  When you care for someone, things are blurred and you just act with your heart.  And I would like to emphasize that life is unpredictable.  We never know when we can take our last breathe and with everyday we should be thankful to be alive. 

5th Class Train Ride

For the Egypt train, there are first class, second class, and third class tickets. I had decided that second class was good for me, but I was not able to buy a ticket because they were sold out.  Walking around a bit confused, I was approached by a young kid just a few years past twenty offering help to me.  He speaks broken English and is so nice taking my hand and leading me like someone taking hold of a lost puppy dog.   He takes me to the counter to try and buy a ticket and says, "Buy ticket on train, no seat, no problem."

For 55 Egyptian pounds-to have no seat for 10 hours is a problem, but I figure that I could work something out on the train(Naive thinking as I should realize that I am in Egypt and not in India).  My little friend, Ahmed, is a Arabic singer from Cairo.  He says he is an upcoming, "Superstar" and plays his music for me.  He actually sounds quite good and I compliment him on his voice. He introduces me to his mom and brother who are also both heading back to Cairo.  We walk back and forth talking, drinking some mango juice, and waiting for the train to board. An hour goes by, then another hour, and the train has arrived, but it is just sitting in the station not moving. 

Still wondering about Mamoun and contemplating on staying, I sneak away from Ahmed and use the phone to call Mamoun.  I tell him, "I want to see you." He says to take a car back to the ferry, but I request for him to come and get me.  He says,  "I am busy wait two hours."

That was not the fairytale story I was hoping for ha! I was hoping he would say, "Yes, I will come get you now." But go figure I always meet the hott, unavailable, distant, aloof men. 
I am contemplating staying and decide it is time to flip the coin. I flip the coin and lands on "Leave to Cairo" five times in a row so I take that as a clear sign to go.  It was unclear because my intuition told me to go, but with all the train confusion I thought maybe I should just stay. 

With his aloof response, I decided to stick with my buddy Ahmed and board the train, which finally departed three hours later at 11:45pm.  It was quite the ordeal- switching the trains, unloading the cartel, and loading it on another.  While I was enjoying my time with Ahmed and his family, he soon became a bit annoying as he had changed his friendly manner.  He now decided that he was in love with me.  "Princess I love you." "Baby, I love you." With a dead IPOD, a Muslim man snoring in front of me, a pitched black window, and difficulty falling asleep-I was just sitting there stuck in this moment. 

After a few short hours in our seat, I was just starting to fall asleep when I was tapped on the shoulder and awoke to see  an overweight Muslim lady shouting at me, "Stand up", which sounded like the only two words that she knew.  I sadly stood up and began walking with Ahmed through the train all the way to the back where people were in the "in between" carts sleeping in random places and smoking. I was hopping over them and told Ahmed, "Please find us a seat." It felt like such a low moment for me. I should have not got on the train without a seat. 
Eventually, it was time to ditch Ahmed and just find my own seat because I was crabby and wanted to sleep. It was now 4am in the morning. Walking into the nice AC compartment, I decided to create a seat for myself behind the last seat.  This was actually not so uncomfortable, but most would not agree with a silver bar sitting in the middle and be cramming my butt in between the bar-I was surprised I could actually fit in this space-leave it to being resourceful. 

Unfortunately, Ahmed found me and he sat across from me behind the seat.  He just kept saying, "Baby, I'm sorry." I told him, "It is fine, please stop with the baby." He kept on so I just put my scarf on top of my head and dozed off for what felt like a total of ten minutes of sleep.  Another moment where I was thinking, "What am I doing?" Is this an adventure or just pathetic? But it really was not my fault there were no seats as I paid money to have a seat and thought one would come up. 
Sitting in this small crevice for 4 hours, one would think an Egyptian man would give up his seat.  "Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore."

Thankfully a seat opened up and I was able to sleep for a half an hour before arriving to Cairo.  Bye bye to Ahmed and back to Cairo to stay with my nice family before my next move....

PRIS