So, mostly culturally uneventful week, except two things, really. 

First, yesterday, Claire, Teresa, John, Austin, Dan and I went to a hamam. We were given directions by our friends who had been there last week, and told to be prepared to get naked. The directions were as good as they could be considering the hamam was on a "shady" back street in Ulus, the old, awesome but confusing part of town. Finally, after being stared at a lot and asking for two or three sets of directions, we found it. It wasn't a touristy hamam, so the boys and girls went our separate ways. We went in to the outer room where we stood around looking confused for a while before they directed us to our changing room, and then gave us these sweet wooden geisha sandals and directed into the inside part. Inside everything was grey marble, with faucets pouring into marble basins for us to do some preliminary washing. The ceiling was vaulted with domes that had maybe eight or ten skylights shaped like six- or seven-pointed stars - so beautiful. At some of the basins were other women, some our age and size but most magnificently large, mostly naked women - they were beautiful in such a natural way. They reminded me of the little mother goddess statues at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. 

Then, we hung out in the sauna for a little while before the woman called for us. She scrubbed so much with this exfoliating glove that the top layer of my skin pilled up and formed little rolls. Then, a quick massage and rinsing and soap and I was done. Afterwards, my skin was so smooth that when I sat down and tried to rest my elbows on my knees, they kept sliding off. Afterwards, we were all so relaxed that we all hardly talked while eating lunch - at a kebap place called Kebabistan. 

Then, today I went to church with Joseph and John. On the way in, they swiped us with metal detectors - not something I'm used to when going to a church. After that though, everything was so familiar, I almost forgot I was in Turkey - except that we sang some of the songs in Turkish, and some in a mix of Turkish and English. Prayer was in all different languages - Turkish, Persian, English, Korean... So cool! Kids were running around everywhere, and nowhere have I seen so many gorgeous children in one place. I went out to lunch with the lady who runs the child care, and hung out with her four-year-old daughter, who kept asking if I was going to come to her house afterwards :).  The woman said if I was going to be here in a few weekends, she'd love to have some help. In the end, I'm going to be helping out with the kids on a substitute basis when I'm in town. So quick!

Anyway, now I'm home and we're gonna go eat pudding at the neighbors in a minute. I was supposed to hang out with Ufuk and Co. tonight, but Ufuk woke up with a cold she caught from little Hande, so that's put off until later. I hope she feels better.  Today was a gross day - being sick right now would really suck. 

One thing I'm kinda bummed about is that my Turkish hasn't gotten that much better in the last week, partially because we haven't learned anything in class. Most of it's my fault, though. I haven't really been trying. 

Well, I think I'm going to Adana this weekend, so more after that probably!