Kinks: Kate's Midway Bitching Session

Things are kinda hard here. I may have mentioned this before. I am looking forward to going home. This has not been my absolutely most favorite few months of all time. However, Mark and I are surviving (and I will confess that Mark has been much more steadfast about this whole thing than I have, in case you hadn't guessed that to be the situation). We struggle with missing family and friends, which will hopefully be rectified to some extent when we get home. We miss college (or at least I do), which will probably be words I eat next fall when both Mark and I are back in school.

We also have some issues with our current living situation: incessant dampness due to our lack of heating and the humidity, which consequentially breeds mold in various and inopportune places, including our dish cabinets, our bedroom walls, my favorite satchel-type thingy from Harry's Army Surplus, and I am sure new and exciting places we haven't discovered yet. And the cockroaches have come back (indicated by the one I found in our silverware drawer this morning).

And our roommates are...well, they're roommates (including the two cats, who are cute but sometimes irksome), and therefore they have this knack for being inconsiderate and annoying in various ways that deny us sleep or general sanctuary in our own home (I find myself spending my free time when Mark is working either at the Starbucks near our house - horror or horrors, but the closest place of refuge to read or study or whatever - or the internet cafe, just to avoid being interrupted by unwelcome socializers coming through the curtain that separates our bedroom from the kitchen).

Our kitchen light is broken again, but Mark and I can't do much because we can't talk to the landlord. Actually, our kitchen pretty generally sucks.

Our clothes, once we wash them, take about 4 or 5 days to "dry" in our cold, damp apartment, which means that with 4 of us using the same drying space, we can do laundry about every 3 weeks and therefore our clothes get rather dirty in the rather dirty city.

There is a ton of smog in this city, and dirt and grime and dust in general. There is also a distinct lack of green spaces, and a painful lack of libraries. And we can't really exercise because you can't really run on the streets in our neighborhood (for logistical, safety, and social reasons) and the health clubs cost a fortune.

* * *

However, despite the many difficulties, as of yet I cannot see a reason that we might regret this ordeal...once we get home. Meanwhile, we are half-way through our 10-month sojourn, and there are many things yet to look forward to. Mark and I are going to Lisbon for a week at the beginning of February. Ian, Jason, and Judy are coming to visit two weeks after that. And there are certainly some things we haven't seen yet in the city. And, hopefully, spring will come and we will be able to open our windows and air out our lives a bit.

Also, this venture has given me insight as to what I want my life to be like when we return. It's a long laundry list, and a lot of it is probably just daydreams, but hopefully some of it will be useful. And at the very least, we've gotten some kick-ass pictures out of it, and certainly the have earned the right to the stories that start "When we lived in Istanbul..." for the rest of our lives.