Lists

These two lists have been accumulating on my Facebook profile for months now, but some of you probably don't have access to that, so I thought I would add them to our official archives here. They may receive small edits in the coming months, but I think they are more or less complete. You may infer anything you like from the fact that the former is significantly longer than the latter...

Things I miss about America:
- pizza with sauce
- central heating
- English
- unfettered access to books
- football (real football)
- Campus Management (at least we spoke the same language and I was capable of asking them to fix things in our house)
- people who stand in line without shoving each other
- more than one kind of beer
- bacon
- walking alone down the street without any men hastling me for obviously being a Russian prostitute
- theatre
- liberals
- Mexican food/ Bıg Ten Burrito
- ovens
- clothes dryers
- grass, trees, general nature (they have these things other places, just not in İstanbul)
- good old friends
- recycling
- NPR (particularly Prairie Home Companion)
- my family
- a sense of control
- LIBRARIES!!!
- things that work the way they are supposed to
- a mold-free lifestyle
- not commuting 3 hours everyday
- feeling like I can do something to improve the world I see walking down the street (and not doubting whether that's even my place)
- shaving my legs - a lot of the things about our bathroom make this task virtually impossible.
- trustworthy roommates

Things I appreciate about Turkey:
- poğaça - a sort of buiscuity savory bread pastry thing
- chocolate-covered hazelnuts
- crazy English teachers
- riding the ferry across the Bosphorus - the city the way it was meant to be seen
- çay (tea) - all the time, every day
- the breathtaking rolling landscape of the countryside between İstanbul and the Greek border
- simit - the Turkish hot pretzel
- sending a basket out the window down to the shop four floors below to get milk and bread every morning without leaving the apartment
- good new friends that don't judge...well, not without making it funny.
- the guy on Istiklal with the giant prayer beads, crazy award-winning gray mustache, top hat, and red sash...I never know what he's doing, but whatever it is, he's got a good schtick
- using "Yabancı!" (foreigner) as a sort of battle cry
- the ever useful "çok" - it means very, a lot, many, much, and sometimes big.
- playing Magic like a 13 year-old boy in 1997, but with about $2000 worth of bootleg cards printed in the fabulously inscrupulous Turkish style, all for about $100.