I Met Norm MacDonald Tonight

And it was as fantastically awkward as I would have hoped an interaction with Norm MacDonald would be.

I had just finished improv class and mentioned to my teacher that I had spoken with the principal earlier that day about turning in my registration form for a future class. I asked my teacher where I should put my form, and he said, "I'm not sure... I actually don't deal with that stuff that much -- Let's go find the manager on duty." So we walked to the office together. Little did I know that Norm MacDonald had just finished a show on the main stage.

[Outside the office]

Improv Teacher: [mischievous smile] Just wait behind Norm MacDonald to talk to her.

Bri: [GASP]

[POOF -- Improv Teacher disappears; Bri waits awkwardly, knowing full well it looks like she wants an autograph, when really she just wants to turn in her registration form; Finally, Norm exits, Bri smiles]

Norm: Hi, how are you?

Bri: Great, how are you?

Norm: Good -- did you have a good night?

Bri: Sure did, I was in improv class -- there's another room. I wasn't at your show. I'm just trying to turn in my registration form for another class.

Norm: Oh yeah? How long have you been taking improv?

Bri: About a year. [Realizes she's being rude] How was the show tonight?

Norm: It was pretty good. You have a good class?

Bri: Yeah, it was really good. We worked on finding the game.

[Manager finally takes my registration form]

Norm: I don't even know what that means.

Bri: [awkward giggle, tries to decide if she should explain UCB style to effing Norm MacDonald]

Norm's Manager: Have a good night.

Bri: [grateful for the out] You too!

The trouble with being a badass is...

The trouble with being a badass is that you don't know when to tell people that you're actually kind of in pain. Sure, my knee hurts some, and it's grossly swollen, but I mean, I'm fine. Seriously. I'll be fine. I've had 2 knee surgeries. Does my knee hurt, of course, but I'm fine. Leave me alone, I'm fine.

I started this blog post with the badass facade to reduce the feeling of idiocy that I'm feeling this evening. I fell. I caused a commotion. My knee is (actually, both knees are) really swollen. I'm fine. I shed some tears of embarrassment (shhh). But I re-enacted a good comical story afterward.

I don't actually remember the details of what happened, but I will try to relate them. Though many bystanders may deem me as "the drunk girl who fell in the bar and provided much comic relief for the evening," I will only ever claim that I was neither sober nor drunk, but enjoying happy hour.

I was sitting on a stool. A tall stool...an unnecessarily tall stool. My friend commented that it was a stool to which he needed to commit - there was no standing or quasi sitting - this was a stool on which you needed to sit. I committed and was sitting on this tall stool.

Said tall stool had some much welcome rungs to rest my feet. When you are that high in the air, foot rests are in fact very valuable. Your feet cannot reach the ground, so it is comforting to rest your feet.

My friends are funny, interesting. A conversation was occurring, and I wished to be closer to this conversation, so I leaned forward. And then life turned into slow motion.

I was wearing heels this evening. Not 4 inch crazy heels. 2 inch perfectly reasonable heels - my favorite work heels. Regardless, as I leaned forward, my legs and feet had full intentions of removing themselves from the rungs of this stool, and catching myself on the ground to support my wish to lean forward and better hear the conversation that was occurring. This did not happen.

My heel was stuck in the rung. I was still sitting in the stool. I continued to sit in the stool as it, and I, fell forward. In slow motion. Flat. Go ahead and let yourself have that mental image. It's probably hilarious.

When I, and the stool, were on the ground, my heel was still stuck in the rung. And somehow, my drink was still in my hand, unscathed. I, however, was not. I was soaking wet, as I noticed *someone's* drink did not survive the event. Friends were offering me shirts, napkins, comfort. Management executed the fastest cleanup of a spillage that I'd ever seen. I felt no pain (at that point), but I was mortified, and VERY aware, that I was THAT GIRL.

Suddenly, there was a shot from the bartender. I refused. This shot went to the friend whose drink I "did not spill", no, but "took with me" as gravity pulled me down. Next there was a full beer. Umm... okay.. thanks? Friends told me I was bleeding. I guess I *did* land on some glass. Management gave me a bandaid. I was apologizing profusely. The cute waiter told me not to be embarrassed or feel bad (yeah right). Management, after assuring that I was okay, had me write down my name and phone number. Still in shock, I told them I wasn't going to sue. He laughed, though he still knew what he was doing, and I still don't know why he took my number.

I continued to tell people I was fine. I was. I am. However, my skinny jeans betrayed my lies by showing my no longer skinny knee.


Okay, I admit, it was kind of fun to show off how swollen my knee was. Injuries without battle wounds are not worth the pain.

I guess that's the end of the story. I was embarrassed. Writing helps conquer embarrassment. My knee is swollen. I guess ice conquers that.

Sweet Treat Destiny

I'm not really one to believe in things being "meant to be." I tend to follow a more "build your own adventure" philosophy to life. Tonight, however, I had to question that philosophy.

This afternoon I had a craving for a sweet treat. I justified it to myself by noting that I had gone running the night before and even had a salad for lunch. But most of all, it was Friday, dammit, and I deserved a sweet treat. So I withdrew a dollar from my wallet and headed down the hallway to survey the vending machine goods.

Twix...Payday...cookies...fruit snacks...animal crackers...Snickers...Pop Tarts.............. Twix. Yes, definitely Twix.

The vending machine ate my dollar as I planned to eat my Twix - quickly and appreciatively. I hit the buttons to select my Twix, but as I did, I noticed that my Twix was a little farther back in the spiral than it probably should be...and the neighboring M&Ms were encroaching on my Twix's personal space.

I quickly made the decision that if my Twix held on for dear life to the M&Ms, rather than falling to the fate of my tummy, I would take it as a sign that I should not negate my good behavior of running and salad eating. I would let the Twix hang out, and I would neither shake the machine nor hunt down another dollar to free my Twix with a second. If I didn't need one, I certainly didn't need two.

Sure enough, my Friday afternoon was sans Twix bar. I was a little disappointed, but proud of my will power.

On my way to music practice this evening, however, that will power was gone. I simply could not shake my craving for a sweet treat. I decided I would grant myself the indulgence of a McDonald's chocolate milkshake after practice. I was oh so excited and content with this decision, and couldn't wait for my post-practice shake.

As arrived at the golden arches and pulled into the drive-thru, I noticed some signs for fancy new shakes. I still planned on getting the reliable and classic chocolate, but the marketing for these other shakes was enough to make me at least *look* at the menu.

My jaw dropped, as I was sure my eyes were deceiving me. Could it be?

"May I take you order?" I heard from the speaker.

I paused, then in a hushed voice asked, ".....do you still have... Shamrock Shakes?!?" as I longed for the neon green deliciousness staring back at me from the menu.

"Yes, we do."

Incredible. On April 8th. After I had failed miserably by watching March come and go without having properly celebrated this non-Irish tradition of the Shamrock Shake.

"May I have a medium please?!"

My happy taste buds and I smiled the whole way home.

Not usefully psychic

I had two psychic music weirdnesses today:

1) Occasionally I find myself with names stuck in my head, rather than songs. This morning, I found myself repeating the name of the hip hop group, "Bell Biv DeVoe," famous for such groundbreaking and profound hits as "Poison" and "Do Me!"

On my way to work, I learned that last night Jimmy Fallon tweeted that the band would be reunited on his show tonight. I thought, hmm... maybe in my sleepy stupor I heard this piece of news already, causing me to start saying this catchy group name.

I was just going to let this slide. But I have been known to have psychic instances before. And then....

2) Along with saying "Bell Biv DeVoe" over and over, intermixed with singing "Poison," I also strangely was singing "Ba de ya! Say do you remember!" Where did this come from? Am I so longing to dance in September, on this cold, dreary February day?

Nope, I'm just psychic. On the news this evening, I learned that students at the nearby Duke Ellington School of the Arts will be performing tomorrow with Earth, Wind, & Fire. whatevs.

Sometimes it's cool, and a little freaky, to have these random psychic occurrences. But they aren't very useful.

Blog revamp...but no promises

My mother keeps telling me I need to update my blog. I've said, I don't have much to say, and when I do, I say it in the form of Facebook status updates. I've gotten out of writing habit. Well, here's to trying to get back into it.

A lot has happened. I moved to a new apartment and now live by myself. My sister said, "Once you live by yourself, you'll never want to have roommates again." I agree.

I graduated with an MBA. I have a job doing federal human capital consulting and get to stay in DC, but I don't start for over a month, so I'm enjoying watching the World Cup, doing yoga, reading on my new Kindle (thanks for the grad present, Mom & Dad), drinking, visiting friends and family, and going to the pool. Summer vacation is fun.

My sister got engaged to a pretty cool dude. She's planning the most nontraditional wedding there will ever be. I'm still painfully single and awkward as ever.

I just returned from my 5-year college reunion, and my favorite people are doing well and are still silly and inappropriate.

I was in a film competition that didn't advance, but I still had a lot of fun and was covered in fake blood. Some of the folks who made this film have gotten together to form a sketch comedy group that will be posting silly videos to the web each month. I will be partaking, but also using a stage name, because some of their language would make Trey Parker and Matt Stone cry, so I'm not trying to get fired from the job I haven't started yet. But at least I have something creative to do while I'm waiting for said job to begin. I've written a song about first dates and farting. No one said this would be highbrow comedy.

Welp, here's to trying to keep this thing updated again.

Reasons I know I'm back in school

1. Cohort W coming in 5-10 minutes late

2. "It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN" cell phone ringer going off during lecture

3. People talking too much off topic

4. The "make my friend laugh in class through snarky comment on GChat" game

5. 4 hours of sleep a night

6. Freezing cold classrooms

7. "Yeah, I just wanted to say..." (internal scream: JUST SAY IT, DAMN IT!!)

8. Increased intake of caffeine

9. Awesome teams

10. Dysfunctional teams (stay tuned for future post on this topic).

The Adventures of a DC Commuter Continue

Ahhh it's been a while since I've been able to add another story to the series. It was bound to happen eventually though...

At my internship, because I'm technically a contractor, I'm not allowed to park on site. For the first few weeks of my internship, I bit the bullet and took public transportation, which I had been doing for the past year to get to school. The slight difference, however, was that it took me 45 extra minutes to get to my internship than it took me to get to school, making my grand total commuting time 1 hour and 15 minutes. Rockin.

Not only that, but I'm a 10 minute walk to the metro on my end (up hill on a path through some trees), followed by another 15 minute walk from the metro to work. Throw in the DC summertime humidity and a girl who needs to walk way too quickly because she's not a morning person and always late....and you've got a young professional who shows up to work entirely too winded and sweaty.

Then came the day when I was subbing on a softball team and a random temporary teammate told me that he used to work in the area of my internship. He gave me the sweet sweet tip that you can park on the roof of the CVS (which is right across from the metro) all day for free. This seemed too good to be true. I continued taking the metro for another week or so until one day I woke up entirely too late to make it on time if I were to metro. I decided that that was the day to live life on the edge and test out this sweet sweet tip.

I got to the CVS, and saw that on the lower level, there were signs that said "CVS parking only," "If towed call this number," and "Additional parking on top." I took my chances. I got up there and saw that neither of those first two signs were up there, and instead, there was only "No loitering." Well, I certainly wasn't going to be loitering...I was late! I had to get to work!

It was still risky, so I crossed my fingers the rest of the day (figuratively. Not literally. That would have made typing pretty difficult.) But low and behold, when I returned to my car, I had a car to return to. It had not been towed. This was a beautiful thing, and would make the commute a smidge better. And in DC, a smidge does wonders. I even figured out that if I walked the half mile to work on the other side of the street, I would be walking in the shade, which helped reduce the overheating.

Fast forward to today. The luck ran out. When I was walking down the ramp to begin my half mile walk to work this morning, a police officer passed me on the way up to the CVS rooftop lot. I should have known, but I didn't think twice about it. Sure enough, when I got back to my car this evening, I had a ticket waiting for me. Le sigh. Caught. Plan foiled. Extra half hour of sleep gone. I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!

The upside, though, is that the ticket is only $25. And it's a parking violation, which means no license points. Which means, I pretty much just paid for two months of parking for $25, and you can't get that *anywhere* in the city.

But alas, tomorrow I will be back to riding the train. The sweaty, sweaty train.

Revelation

Story of my birth -- I was born in January in Boston during a blizzard. My dad was shoveling the driveway nonstop, waiting for my mom to go into labor.

This is why I hate the cold and have no desire to live in New England or Chicago, and laugh at the thought of anywhere more north than that.

Winning the Candy War

My boss keeps a modest sized dish of candy on her desk. A few weeks ago, a member of another team moved into the empty office in our area. He too, keeps candy on his desk, though not a modest sized dish. It is a fish bowl. A loyal member of my team marched into the newcomer's office to say that she thought he was trying to make our boss look bad, and that we wouldn't put up with it. He said, "Bring it." It didn't help that my boss's candy dish happened to have one piece of candy in it that day. The newcomer walked into my boss's office and had the audacity to give her a bag of Dum Dums and say, "Looks like you could use some help."

It was on.

At our next staff meeting, our top priority was to brainstorm solutions and develop action items. By the end of the week, I had come through on my action item. What follows is the email to my team informing them of the good news.

"I hope this email finds you well.

To follow up on our vital initiative of regaining ground in the area of sweet tooth satisfaction on the 2nd floor, I put aside my less pressing assignments this Friday afternoon to do some research into this matter.

A simple Google search for "airplane M&M dispenser" proved to be quite fruitful. So fruitful, in fact, that I located the exact airplane M&M dispenser that rocketed my former coworker to the leader in attracting candy-seeking visitors.

Do view the link to this opportunity. Perhaps we could perform a cost-benefit analysis of purchasing the dispenser.

I appreciate your time and attention to this important, even crucial, matter.

My boss's response:

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I have had a team of highly qualified financial analysts conduct a cost-benefit analysis on the purchase of said airplane dispenser. Their study proved that the purchasing the dispenser would yield a positive NPV of approximately $2 Million. Let's proceed with the purchase. At our next 1x1, I will release the funds.

I like my team :-)

A Giggle in CVS

Soon I will be heading off to a birthday party this evening, so I needed to pick up some brewskies before leaving. One of the closest places to buy beer is the CVS down the road, so I figured, since I was headed to a pharmacy, it was a great time to refill my prescription. I dropped it off, went to the refrigerator section, and selected a 6-pack of Leinenkugel Classic Amber. As I waited in line, I noticed the person behind me had a box of tea ready for purchase. This reminded me that I had just finished off the last of my coffee, so I jetted out of line to get a bag of some Dunkin Donuts Original Blend (unfortunately, CVS's selection was not big enough to have the Hazelnut variety).

Back in line, I looked at my purchases of beer and coffee and giggled to myself, thinking about the prescription I had just dropped off -- Prevacid, a medication for acid reflux. A medicine that supports my heavily acidic habits of beer and coffee. Thank you, Prevacid.

Another catastrophe avoided

You've probably heard about this. I feel like I was one of the last to hear about it, and I was actually trying to ride on the Red Line. Funny how you can be annoyed with the delay in the Metro and have no idea what's going on. I was supposed to be meeting up with a friend, and I had to let him know I'd be late because of a delay on the Red Line, which really isn't all that uncommon. Delayed for "technical problems" huh? That's what 6 deaths is?

I decided to get off the line at Farragut North and walk to my Foggy Bottom destination because it was nice enough outside. That's when I got the first text from my dad -- "are you in the red line train wreck?" uhhh.....what? "it was slow moving for sure. I'm meeting someone in foggy bottom so I got off at farragut north and am walking." text back from pops -- "whew!"

Next text from a classmate who I had just spoken with the night before about my ungodly commute on the Orange and Red Lines. "Okay 2 metro trains collided on the red line ... Are you okay?" ohhhh so that's what was causing the delay, yeah that would do it. "Yeah, I didn't realized that's what happened. I was stuck in the delay though. Thanks for asking!" It was at this point I figured I should change my facebook status to let everyone know I wasn't in the crash. I got a few more texts and calls from friends checking up. The love is greatly appreciated. Then I started to think about it....

Flashback to 2007 -- I was in St. Paul to work a youth conference. I had gone over to the conference site, met some people who were also working it, and we all went back to the hotel together to get ready for dinner. While we were there, a few people turned on the TV and learned that the I-35W bridge collapsed, the bridge we had all crossed just a few hours prior to the collapse to get from the Minneapolis airport to our hotel in St. Paul. Immediate calls to the family and coworkers before news traveled back to them to worry.

And then let's throw in the Air France flight that disappeared 2 days after I was on an Air France flight coming back from Turkey.

Add those two incidents with which I feel somewhat connected with today's Red Line crash...I kind of started to freak out on the walk to Foggy Bottom. Still a little shaken up about it.

Turkey - Transition Day

The last two teams presented to their client (with whom I sang American karaoke at a Turkish bar on Monday night) yesterday. That meant yesterday was cause for celebration. To close out the residency, and once we got back in Istanbul after our 3 hour bus ride back from Bursa, we took a dinner cruise along the Bosphorus with a DJ and open bar. There was much dancing and rejoicing. And we of course rocked it out to our favorite new song, Hadise's Düm Tek Tek (YouTube is blocked here, but I found it on Google Video). Listen to it and love it. We are bringing it to the States.

That's our boat.I'm on a boat.
Rumeli Hisari, built in 4 months when Sultan Mehmet was only 19 in preparation for conquering Constantinople.

On Friday I'm getting on a Turkish Airlines flight to Bodrum for a week at the all-inclusive Aegean Dream Resort, discounted by the GW alumna who had our professor when she was in undergrad. Gotta finish those damn reflections so I can really be on vacation...

Turkey - Day Eight

Tourist Day. We had a tour guide take us around to the Hippodrome, Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia, and the Sunken Palace Cistern. We closed out the day with a helicopter tour of Istanbul. Yeah, that's right. It was pretty ridiculous. I took 143 pictures over the course of the day. Here is just a dabble. I'll probably try to set up a Picasa page or something, because I'm over 300 pictures already for the whole trip.

Hippodrome....looks vaguely familiar...
If you look closely you can see the pictures of the horses & chariots.
Blue Mosque, aka Mosque of Sultan Ahmet I, from afar. You can't see all of them in this picture, but this is the only mosque in the world with 6 minarets.
Part of the courtyard area of the Blue Mosque.Dome of Blue Mosque.

Didn't need to cover my head, but they were giving wraps to women whose shoulders were showing too much. I thought I'd be okay in my t-shirt. I guess not.Aya Sofia. Was a church in Constantinople. Then the Ottoman Turk sultans turned it into a mosque. Then Atatürk, who founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and wanted the country to be more Western, turned it into a secular museum.Istanbul is an example of how East.......meets West. (Images from the leftover Christian artwork from when the Aya Sofia was a church.)
Cistern from when Istanbul was Constantinople. Those lights didn't exist back then, though.Medusa. She is kept at the back corner of the cistern so people wouldn't turn to stone from looking at her. Don't look at her eyes.
Helicopter time. My group looking back and telling me to ride in the front since I had my Flip video camera. They received no protest from me. Stay tuned for the video of the ride.
Blue Mosque (front) and Aya Sofia (back). Now you can see all 6 minarets on the Blue Mosque.

Birdseye of the underground Grand Bazaar. Reinforces why it's so easy to get lost in there and you should keep a buddy. So huge.

What a day. Tomorrow we go to Bursa so the other 2 groups can meet and present to their client. The school part of the Turkey trip is over halfway finished. I still need to do a bunch of visit preparation forms and 5 reflections. Unfortunately I can't just turn in this blog...

Tamamlandı!

That's Turkish for completed, finished, DONE!! My team gave our client presentation today and ROCKED IT! I'm so proud of how well we did, and our client really loved it. A second team presented after us for the same client on a different topic (and they were phenomenal as well), and when they finished, and took questions, our client said, "I have a question for both groups: would they be interested in being hired at ITKIB?"

Not only did the team do an amazing job, but I got an incredibly kind compliment from my professor on my part of the presentation specifically. I was an unprepared wreck of nerves last night as we ran through some stuff in her room at 10pm, so it was especially nice to hear.

A third group presented today for a different client, and they were all offered jobs as well! ("I have a question - when you finish your studies, will you come to work for Pantera?) GW MBAs represent! We all feel a thousand pounds lighter. What a marathon. And the other two groups don't present until next week (after we go to another city on Sunday), so we can all celebrate together tonight.

Post Presentation Picture: Elation and Exhaustion

Also, yesterday was an incredible day for site visits and the Istanbul experience. Will write about it at some point. For now, it's time for a group dinner and celebration down by the Bosphorus. It's going to be a good night. But we can't be out too late, because we have tourist day tomorrow! Hooray!

Point of Power

Pardon the pause in daily Turkish updates as I work to finish the Power Point for my group's presentation on Friday. Rest assured, the tummy is better, I'm going on site visits and ohhh am I eating some delicious food.
Here's my team at our site visit on Tuesday to Mavi Jeans. "Mavi" means "blue" in Turkish. Get it? Blue jeans. Pretty creative.

Turkey - Day Four

Updates on drama

• Professor still doesn't have her luggage. It's back in the States from Brazil, but stuck at JFK. Delta says it's Turkish Airlines' responsibility. Turkish Airlines says it's Delta's responsibility. She order some suits online and they should arrive tomorrow. All the client gifts are in the luggage, along with her audio recording equipment she needs for the research she is doing in London after this project. At least we make her laugh.
  
• The invalids are feeling better. We went on our first client visit today and I was able to eat food. Lots of food.
• Presentation is coming along. Looking forward to Friday afternoon.
  

Today was a cool day. We visited Mavi Jeans, which for those of you who are not fashionistas, is a pretty high end brand. It's the leading brand in Turkey, does really well globally, and has one retail store in the Union Square area of NYC.

Wall o' jeans.

Next we went to a carpet store, which was kind of random, but it was cool to hear about that side of the textile industry, when we've been focusing on just textiles and apparel for the past 8 weeks. He taught us the difference between high and low quality wool and silk rugs. We saw some that were as much as 35,000 (I'm not sure if that was lira or USD, but it's still A LOT!). They were beautiful. We sang "A Whole New World."

On a magic carpet ride.

We finished at the carpet store a little earlier than expected, so we went to the Grand Bazaar to fill time before dinner. Wow. What a zoo. Huge. And talk about history. It was built over 500 years ago when the Ottoman Turks overtook Constantinople and it became Istanbul (cue They Might Be Giants). I didn't buy anything there, though, because we are going to Bursa on Sunday, and our professor tells us the market there will be cheaper and we will need to bargain less.

Just one of many entrances.

We closed out the night with an AMAZING dinner and alumni mixer at the Hotel Sultanhan. We ate on the terrace level, which had floor to ceiling windows, and were able to go on the roof top to see some ridiculous views of the city. Couldn't stop taking pictures. Here's one of them.

That's me, just Bri, in Turkey.

And it turns out I don't like Turkish coffee. That was kind of a disappointment. I'm not going to give up on it yet. I didn't have it with sugar. I will try again with sugar.

Bona Fide

It's official. I'm truly an international traveler now.

Our professor sent out an email last night when she got to the hospital saying WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. She appreciated that we were slow to call her last night because we were worried about her rest and well-being, but she emphasized that she needs to be called immediately in case of a problem. It's her job to take care of us, and we also mean a lot to her. We should notify her if we "get lost, in trouble, or don't feel well (even stomach problems)."

Hmmm....well, since you asked...

I'll save you the details, since you can probably figure those out, but let's just say the delicious stuffed potato didn't agree with my stomach as well as it agreed with my taste buds. I wrote to her to let her know, saying I had taken 4 Pepto tablets because I was worried about the 1.5 hour bus ride to our first client meeting this morning.

Cue page long email response -- stay in the hotel, don't risk it, yes it's your client, but this is more important, don't take meds, drink water, could be bacterial, let me know if you get a fever, drink water, but not tap water, eat the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apple sauce, toast), no dairy, trust me, I have experience. Alright, then. Luckily, today is probably the least eventful day on the itinerary, so if it had to happen, I'm glad it happened today.

So here I am, in my hotel bed, with 2 1.5L bottles of water near me and bread from breakfast to last me all day. At least it will give me time to work on the Power Point for our presentation on Friday, but yeah, this sucks. And it's 2am back home right now, so no one is on GChat to keep me company...whomp whomp.

I'm so happy to join the international travelers' club. :-/

Turkey - Day Two

Our professor finally made it to Turkey at midnight last night. She was stuck on the tarmac at Dulles trying to get to JFK for three hours. She missed her connecting flight, which was a direct flight. When she got to JFK she sprinted to her next flight option but, even though the plane was still there, the gate was closed and she wasn't allowed on. She got the next flight to London and had a 9 hour layover, just enough time to get a $150 day pass at a hotel for a shower and nap. Instead of hanging out with us this morning after breakfast, she had to wander around Istanbul to go suit shopping. To add on to the fun, she's 3 months pregnant (and had to find maternity clothes), has 150 undergraduate exams to grade, and hasn't returned our drafts of our deliverables with feedback yet. Poor woman can't catch a break.

After a class meeting and a guest speaker this afternoon, we headed to the Ortaköy area, which is by the water and, as our professor described it, a great place for dinner, shopping, and people watching.

Purdy.
Famous stuffed potatoes. This picture doesn't do them justice.
This gives a better idea of the height. My arm was tired after holding this while I ate.

Remember how I said my professor can't catch a break? Well, she decided not to join us at Ortaköy so she could continue with her work, sleep, and you know, take care of her unborn child. Unfortunately, we made tonight a little more exciting than she probably would have liked. The bus was going to pick us up and take us back to the hotel at 9:30. After having one drink (I swear, just one drink each) at a pub, we headed to the potato stands around 8:30 or so.

After one bite, one of my classmates collapsed in the middle of the street. She was out for a minute or two before waking up. In the meantime, we called our TA, but he was on a dinner boat, so it would be a little bit before he got there. We had broken up into smaller groups, so we didn't have our native Turk with us, so another classmate ran off to find her. In the meantime, we ran to the police down the street and they called an ambulance. One of the vendors gave us water for said collapsed classmate. Lots of Turks stopped to help. By the time the ambulance arrived, she was awake and sitting on a bench, with a rockin' knot on her head. The paramedics told her to throw up. Huh? It wasn't the food, she was sharing the potato with another classmate, and we were all eating them. Before she collapsed, she said her chest hurt.

The ambulance left because her pulse was back to normal and she was awake and we didn't trust them. Our Turk drove her, her closest friend, our first responder classmate, and our TA to the hospital. TA called our professor, who of course hopped in a cab to go meet them at the hospital. (Added drama - there was bickering as to whether we should call the prof because the TA was slow to do so).

Is the suspense enough? Classmate is fine. As some predicted, she was just fatigued and dehydrated. Apparently she hadn't slept in two days, and wasn't keeping up with the water, and something similar had happened to her one time before. Gotta keep drinking water when you are traveling, I've been told. I think they left the hospital about a half hour or hour ago.

By the way, apparently I'm not so good in crisis mode, especially during my first trip abroad. I was like a deer in the headlights with shaky hands. I stood back and let other people handle the situation. Better to not be in the way and not give wrong opinions on solutions. So don't get hurt or sick if you travel with me. I won't be much help.

General Thoughts - first trip abroad

My roommate for the trip just asked me what I thought about my first international trip. I realized I said some things to her that I didn't include in the first two posts:

• Free booze on international flights is pretty cool
• Sleeping on international flights is pretty tough (for me and my long legs), but I do like the sleeping mask they give you.
  
• There isn't a water fountain to be found in the Charles de Gaulle (Paris) airport
• When we were waiting for the bus, we had cabbies try to make deals with us (a group of 9) to take us to our hotel. Our professor warned us not to take a cab unless we wanted an adventure and/or didn't mind getting ripped off. We stuck with the bus.
• I mentioned the traffic before, but seriously, it's chaotic. But at least they are little cars, and no SUVs like in the States.
  

Other thoughts/occurrences:

• I peed in a hole in the restaurant last night. The toilet, that is, was a porcelain hole in the ground.
• Beer is measured in centiliters. 70 cl is a very large beverage.
  
• My bizarre sleeping habits have translated well and I'm not sure if I'm going to have trouble with jet lag. I went to bed at 11:45 Turkish time, and woke up at 6am, felt fine, but went back to sleep, got up at 8, and feel amazing.
  
• Our professor missed her flight out of Dulles. We got an email from her around 6pm asking one of us to leave a European power adapter for her at the front desk because she was going to get in around midnight and had lost her luggage....

Time for breakfast...

Turkey - Day One

I flew from DC to Paris with 4 of my classmates, and ran into 5 more classmates in Paris waiting for the flight to Istanbul, on which we all were flying. Did a little bit of sleeping on each of the flights (which were about 8 hours and 3 hours respectively), but nothing that would really make you feel rested.

We landed around 2:30pm Turkey time, 7:30am DC time. We waited for a bus to take us to our hotel, and traffic was terrible. But while were traveling to the hotel, we were observant of the surroundings, because, while on our project, we are going to be keeping a field log full of reflections. Our first is about our "first impressions" of Istanbul, so to drop the cliche, we noted and shared examples of how Istanbul is truly a city where "East meets West, tradition meets modernity." We drove along the coast of the Sea of Marmara, and I felt like I was driving along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, with people and families out along the park, having cookouts and playing soccer. But then we turn our heads to the left and saw all the ruins of the ancient city along with countless mosques.

Incluing waiting for the bus time, riding the bus time, walking from the bus to the hotel time, plus check-in time, I got to my room at 5pm. We can see the Bosporus Strait from our room. We hadn't eaten since noon-ish so a group of us decided to explore, since we don't have anything school related until 1pm tomorrow. We walked to the main strip with food, shopping, and lots of people - Istiklal Avenue. Whereas, on our drive we saw many women wearing head scarves and being fully covered, Istiklal could have been a just another packed street in NYC or DC. Perhaps U St, with all the skinny jeans and Converse that I saw. But throw in the occassional call to prayer from the many mosques in the city, and you are reminded of where you are.

Our group grew as more people got into town, and culminated in a fun dinner with "traditional Turkish food and beer" as our waiter marketed it to us. Four courses of deliciousness.




Back in our room now, we have our balcony door open so we can enjoy the perfect weather, hear the sounds of the still bustling street. There's also some traditional Turkish music being played, which makes closing out this evening that much more enjoyable. Sleep now. In country projects start tomorrow.