So here's a rundown from some of the events from the past week.

First, I got shingles. :((( It started as a couple itchy, tender bumps on my shoulder and then spread to my ear area and didn't go away. I was really freaked out for a bit cause I thought it was some kind of weird bug bite and since I thought there might be bugs in my bed I was having trouble sleeping :P Which is kinda a vicious cycle in the end because shingles is aided by stress. Anyway, I went to hospital a few times and started treatment and now it's all good. I just feel terrible now cause one of my friends has it really bad all of a sudden and I know it's not supposed to be contagious (except to people who haven't had chicken pox, which doesn't apply to her) but I still feel responsible :(

Last weekend started off with a couple of our Iranian friends cooking dinner for Caitlin, Ivy, and me. It was sooo good. It was nice to get a change of cuisine as well. We had some really great and interesting conversations during dinner, talking about gender issues and love and all that. It was interesting to get the perspective from these Iranian guys. Something they said that I thought was really interesting was that although women are required to cover their head when out of the house in Iran, they thought that women in Turkey, where head covering is not required, are much more submissive and cautious of men than in Iran. Of course, it's not just about the head covering but about the conservativeness that the head covering reflects. And then conservativeness in this context is often correlated to gender stratification. They said specifically that they felt that their female peers in Turkey seemed to cringe away from them when they didn't know them and the boys started talking to them, which apparently isn't the case in Iran. I mean, it's hard to tell what this might actually be the result of. Maybe these girls were intimidated by the fact that they were male and foreign. Maybe it's because they don't feel comfortable speaking English with strangers and feel more pressured around men. At any rate, the fact that Turkish girls don't shy away from me when I talk to them probably means that this is a gender issue, but I don't know if we can make the cross-cultural comparison yet :P

Last weekend was Ivy's birthday!! We went all out. The theme was pink (Ivy's favorite color) so everyone had to wear at least something pink. Starting out, Ivy, Caitlin and I got dinner in Taksim (just Pizza Hut lol but it was DELICIOUS), and then we settled into a hostel with Tim, Max, and Paul. We got all dolled up and spent the rest of the night between ESN (Erasmus Student Network bar), K-Box (a karaoke bar where Paul and Max are now soul mates with everyone who works there), and Riddim, which is always a good time for me. During that day I'd made Ivy a not-red red velvet cake, decorated like an armadillo (requires lots of imagination to see it) because that's her favorite cake and favorite animal. So when we got back to the hostel around 5 am we all ate cake :) :

This weekend has started out pretty solid as well. Thursday night we went to a trivia night in Taksim. I contributed to one question (the answer being "Colin Firth") the entire night, but I still enjoyed it a lot and learned some things (that I have since very successfully unlearned). Yesterday during the day CIEE took us to an exhibit at the Sabanci Museum called Treasures of the Ağa Han. I think Ağa Han is just the family that owns all of these beautiful Islamic artifacts. Some were so incredible, especially the Qu'rans. I'm not sure if this is one of the ones we saw, but just so you get an idea of the type:

It was also really cool that the exhibit included works from all over the Islamic world, India, Iran, China, as well as the Ottoman Empire. There was so much creativity, it really made me want to find a script to decorate lol. Maybe I can do Shakespeare's sonnets or something ;) After the exhibit Tyler, Emily, Ethan and I met up with Jamie and Kelsey in Taksim. We got super cheap dinner (small plate of meatballs and potatoes + bottle of water + limitless bread = 3 TL = $1.80) and then went to an INCREDIBLE chocolate cafe (which was WAY more expensive). My blood sugar rose in anticipation just entering the place. They had all different flavors of hot chocolate and way too many incredible desserts. I got coconut hot chocolate and Emily and I split a caramel cheesecake. And the ambiance was so nice, really cozy and they played Ella Fitzgerald and Edith Piaf the whole time. I'm eating all my meals there from now on, btw. Afterwards we went around, had a good time at K-Box but wasn't so much fun at any of the other places. There was an Erasmus party but it was full and somehow we didn't really find anything good. It's alright though. By this point I was in a group with Alanna, Paul, Ethan, and Kelsey, none of whom I know very well so it was a good opportunity to hang out with them. In general that's been a good point to this weekend cause I hung out with newbies on Thursday and yesterday during the day as well.

Tonight I think I'm going to stay in :P Also, my host family is having guests over so that might be a really great opportunity for me to practice Turkish. Other than that I think it would be a good idea to do some homework at some point :D