Update from the ‘bul-

As far as day-to-day stuff goes, things are moving along well for us! I’ve been teaching the owner of a business on the Asian side, as well as one of his employees, 8-10 hours a week. Now his nephew (another employee) wants 8 hours on top of that! I’m pretty thrilled with my schedule now, as they’re all right after one another, and in the mornings. Double the hours at the business definitely makes the transportation time and costs less icky, too! They’re all great guys, too, really rewarding to work with. It has been so cool for me to get the opportunity to start working with absolute beginners and watch them grow. I know that everything they learned, they learned from me-a very cool feeling.

Ace is hanging in there with work- he’s been seeing some major improvements in his students’ classroom behavior, which is a definite triumph for him, even though they’ve still got a long way to go. He’s definitely on the countdown now, though, as his last week of teaching real classes is the last week in May. The three weeks after that are mostly testing and helping the students are behind.

The job hunt has gone through some major changes- the contract that Ace was working on in Honduras fell through, but we’re both perfectly happy with that. It’s definitely a blessing in disguise, as we were pretty worried about quality of life in San Pedro Sula as well as discipline and management problems in the school. Now he’s applying to one school in the capital of Costa Rica which is miraculously still hiring, which would be fantastic. We’re pretty excited about plans if he doesn’t find a school, either, though. If we don’t have any definite plans come the end of summer, we’ll take some more time at home, have more time to relax (or frantically prepare) as the wedding approaches, time to enjoy our little honeymoon, write thank-you’s together….all things we wouldn’t be able to do if he had to rush off to a school in August and fly home for the wedding. Then we’ll head off to do the travelling around South America that I’ve always wanted to do- a combination of backpacking and WOOFing. WOOF stands for Worldwide Organization of Organic Farming, and it’s a worldwide program that hooks small organic farmers up with travelers who are willing to work the farms for a few days or more in exchange for meals and a place to stay. Ace is really excited about the possibility of getting to learn some farming techniques, and we’re both really interested in the off-the-beaten-track experience of South America that we could get this way. After we got tired of being on the move (or start getting short on cash) we would either pick a good place to stop and find ESL jobs or Ace would accept a position with this organization that finds emergency International School teachers for schools that lose a teacher mid-year. We could end up anywhere through them, which could definitely be interesting! I’m hoping we’ll find a way to stay in South America, though, for the sake of our Spanish. If he does find a steady position this summer, though, these plans will just have to be scooted back till next summer.

Istanbul has finally decided to accept spring, and we’re really enjoying the sunshine and longer days. Tulips are blooming, the birds are muttering as usual (ok, we only have pigeons), and the neighborhood kids are graffiti-ing local buildings with chalk sunshines and dragging each other around on cardboard pulled from the trash piles until 11:00 at night. Last weekend was a three-day weekend, and we managed to get in a beautiful walk along the Bosphorous, hang-out time with several different friends, and walk with our professor friend and his students as they visited and discussed different statues around the city. We also discovered a park that’s pretty nearby that we didn’t even know existed- pretty excited about that, as my only problem with living in the middle of the city is the major lack of green. We’re excited to check that out again soon. Ace posted some spring in Istanbul pictures a few weeks ago, so check them out on our photo site if you haven’t yet!
Much love,
Kait

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted! I’ve been keeping really busy with work lately. All of the students studying in England and such are home for spring break, so there is lots of test prep to be done.
Last weekend I took a long weekend with two girlfriends and went to Plovdiv, Bulgaria (again). We did pretty much all the same things as last time. We stocked up on stuff at the grocery store that you can’t get in Istanbul (Easter goodies, different cheeses, cheap oatmeal, good beer), roamed around the pleasantly empty streets (there are twice as many people in Istanbul as there are in the entire country of Bulgaria), visited the local monastery (very crowded with people lighting candles for Easter), and enjoyed just roaming the cobblestone streets and munching on Bulgarian food. It was cool to be there for Easter- church bells were ringing and hundreds of loaves of sweet bread hung out in the central areas, waiting to be given out courtesy of some political party. As the only place you could buy return train tickets was closed for a 5 day vacation, we were a bit worried about getting back. We ended up getting tickets on an overnight bus, though, which was really good considering what it was. Reclining seats, personal TV’s, a bathroom…pretty much just like a plane. We all returned sleepily but safely with shiny new stamps in our passports.
Other than that, not much new…we’re still trying to figure out what we’ll be doing next year (ugh), I’m taking my weekly Turkish lessons and inching along, and we’re getting wedding stuff slowly checked off the list. I recently found shoes for myself and the bridesmaid’s dresses, and we’ve been working on our vows! Fun.
The weather has just turned nice, and the city is an entirely new place. Tulips are popping up everywhere, there are boxes of kittens all over the place, and Ace and I actually have a desire to leave the apartment! We’re excited to go check out the palace that we still haven’t made it to this weekend. Erin also has friends visiting, so hopefully we’ll get to take over guide duties some and have excuses to get out and about our beautiful city.

Much love,
Kait

PodCasts

Oh, I almost forgot to mention my new discovery! I know I'm a few years behind on this, but I just started listening to Podcasts (the free radio-ish channels you can get through ITunes). They're AMAZING. I've been able to get an unlimited supply of absolutely fascinating history lessons, random funny quiz shows, interviews with intellectuals, cool stories told by average people, and fun mini-lessons on everything from how bail systems work to how carbon credits work. Ok, I know I'm a nerd, but I'm so excited- this makes all the time I spend cruising around Istanbul on the bus so much more interesting, fun and useful! Who knows, I may even end up being able to hold a moderately intelligent conversation about history, politics or current events one of these days!

Ace and I have both been busy bees lately. He is continuing with the endless stream of job applications, planning, and grading. He’s had some success with his students lately though- through a ton of hard work, he’s gotten some of them producing pretty decent 5 paragraph essays! Our friend Erin is taking her Model United Nations club to Russia next week for a competition- both cool and terrifying. I picked up yet another-also awesome- student in my area, and am probably going to be getting a few more hours with a former student- so I’m doing really well, and about to be doing even better. Hooray!

I’ve also been working on resumes and cover letters, as I found a job advertised online for an Online Writing Lab Tutor starting in August or September. It’s through SMARTHINKING, Inc.- a really reputable American company that provides online tutoring services to high schools and universities, and I’d basically be doing exactly what I did in the writing center. If I got the position, I could work anywhere from 9-35 hours a week (I think 10 or 15 would be plenty, though- don’t want to spend all day on the computer) from anywhere in the world with a reliable internet connection. So that would guarantee me at least some work at a decent wage while in South America next year! They look like they’re pretty choosy, but here’s hoping!

Last weekend I got to hang out with some new friends- a bunch of Americans working at various language schools. It was really great to find some people who are on similar schedules as me- it’s been hard knowing mostly high school teachers who are working hardest when I have free time! I’m planning to go on a weekend trip to Bulgaria with two of the girls soon  Ace and I also had a Mexican food night at Anna’s on Friday, worked and celebrated Missy and Hussein’s birthdays on Saturday night, and lazed around the house all day Sunday. I cooked up a massive batch of super-veggie pasta sauce to keep us fed for those busy days. I also started up my Turkish lessons again- I know I don’t have that much time left, but I really feel like I should leave here knowing more than I do.

This weekend we’re looking forward to a scavenger hunt planned by a friend I met while subbing at the international school and yet another birthday (another teacher we met on the last Bulgaria trip). The weather is supposed to start looking up again this weekend, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to start exploring again- it’s just been too icky and cold lately to try to climb to any viewpoints or visit nearby cities or anything.

Anyways, things are good here-Ace is surviving school and squeezing in some fun on the weekends, and I’m getting more work and getting to spend more time with friends. Keep your fingers crossed for our future job prospects, please!
All our love!

Things have smoothed out a bit around here this week. Ace got paid the wages the school owed him for the last two months, which is pretty exciting, even though I was excited about the prospect of having some weekday-morning movie festival and hangout sessions if he had to strike. We were also able to get all the info on our bills, so were able to do the math and figure out that we do indeed owe the landlady money- $10.33. She is displeased with this information, as she wants us to pay her $200, but we don’t really care. We’ll pay her what we owe her, and plan on pretty much ignoring her unless she comes up with any new info or arguments. So far, so good. Glad that’s sorted, at least for now.

I started with a new evening student yesterday, which I’m excited about. It’s nice to have some more work, and he’s going to be fun to work with. Plus, I can walk to his place, which is much closer than any of my other appointments. Good news. I’m still looking for another student or two, though- my evenings are getting a bit busy, but my mornings are still a little quieter than I’d like. It’s funny, I never thought I’d wish for the 9 to 5, but after two years of not 9-5ing, it’s starting to look really good. In Korea we were working evenings, which was ok, but put us on a really weird schedule. Also, I wake up feeling like being productive, and get antsy and grumpy if I don’t have anything to get me going first thing. Same problem here in Turkey- I certainly can’t complain that I’m working too much, but on weekdays where I don’t have a morning lesson I feel sluggish and end up moping around the house being lonely more often than I should. It’s gotten me wondering what I should do next year- if I should work at a language school or something in the daytime and supplement my income with private lessons, or keep doing what I am now. If I could find an exercise class or volunteering first thing in the mornings, that might do the trick as well. I guess I’ll have to wait and see where we land for next year, anyways.

Other than that, nothing much new here. We’re looking forward to hanging out with some of Ace’s work friends this Saturday, and going to a Picasso exhibit with a Turkish friend and his girlfriend on Sunday. I’m pretty happy about that, as I feel extremely guilty for not taking advantage of all the art and music in this city. It’s nice just knowing it’s there, I suppose, but I’m not benefiting from it much via osmosis.

Oh, and our anniversary weekend was nice! It was a pretty long trip- about two hours from apartment to ferry to bus, then 3 hours on the bus. And Agva (our destination) is still technically part of Istanbul- unbelievable, right? The weather was grey but it didn't rain on us much. We hung out in our tiny little wood bungalow, played with the giant dogs roaming the area, and paddled a little paddleboat on the very muddy river. The hotel provided some really yummy food, we watched some good DVD's, and we played a lot of backgammon and GoStop (the card game we picked up in Korea). Before leaving, we went further up the road and took a peek at the Black Sea. It was nice to get away.

Not much news on the job front for next year, either- Ace is still sending out applications and calling schools, but no particularly promising leads yet. There are some job fairs in the UK and the US in a few months, and he may fly out to one or two of those if nothing comes up before then. That’s really late in the hiring season, though, so we’re hoping he doesn’t have to wait that long to secure something.

Lots of love from us both! Just 3.5 months more- we’re both starting to look forward to home.

Ace and I celebrated the three-year anniversary of our first date this week! We celebrated the day of by going out to a nice Korean restaurant…then leaving immediately when we saw the menu. 30 bucks for a bottle of soju (which is about 75 cents in Korea)! 65 bucks for a meal that cost us 5 when we were there! Ok, yes, we’re not starving students anymore, but still….we went across the street to some yummy Chinese food instead  We’re celebrating the weekend by spending it in Agva, which is a Black Sea and river-front little town which is a favorite for Istanbullus who want to get away. It’s three hours away by bus- which is about how long it takes to even make it out of Istanbul. We’re renting a little bungalow in an area that’s not accessible by car- we’ll take a little cable car over the river to the facility. The weather isn’t supposed to be great, but we’re planning on huddling in our bungalow, watching DVD’s, hanging out by the fire in the lodge, and just relaxing. Should be great!

Things are pretty normal other than that- Ace is surviving work, and work is looking up for me. Things have been pretty quiet for me lately- I’d actually been getting a little bored- but I’ve gotten a few messages from people interested in starting soon. Last weekend we hosted our first Couchsurfers, which was great. For those that haven’t heard of it, Couchsurfing is a social network site like Facebook, but for travelers. People who are coming into your area send you a note asking if you’d like to meet up for coffee, hang out, show them your favorite places, and/or let them sleep on your couch. When you go somewhere, people do the same for you- kinda a “pay it forward” sort of hospitality mentality. You can build up a global network of friends in no time. We absolutely loved Kamel and Franck (from France) and hosted them for two nights. They spoiled us by doing our dishes and feeding us massive amounts of imported cheese and chocolate. Tonight we’ll have dinner with them again and saying goodbye, as they’re heading back home tomorrow.

We’ve been having some trouble with our landlady, which has been seriously stressing me out. We made an agreement at the beginning of the year that we’d give her 150 extra and she’d pay our bills. Our bills have been over the last few months, so we told her we’d be happy to pay anything she had to pay out of pocket- i.e. anything over the 150, as long as she could get us the receipts or records for the bills. She’s refusing to get copies of the receipts for us and getting extremely upset that “we don’t trust her”, and saying that we need to pay her any time any of our bills are over what she thinks is normal, no matter what the bill total is. I.E. if she thinks our internet should be $20 and it’s $50, we owe her $30, even if all the bills added together are still under 150. I.E., she wants to make a big profit off of us. None of this is in the contract! I thoroughly despise confrontation, but am also not willing to be taken advantage of. Sigh. I’m getting lots of nasty emails, too. This is one of the disadvantages of living abroad…due to the fact that I’m not familiar with the laws, the language, where to go for help, etc., I feel pretty vulnerable and helpless in these kinds of situations.

Wish me luck getting it sorted out…I’ll need it.

Other than that…not much! The wedding website is officially done, so check it out :)
http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleId=7721822499807563

Lots of love to all of you!
Kait

Two weeks in India

Well, it’s hard to know where to start with the India trip- so much happened!
Well, I guess we can start by saying we were unbelievably lucky- things almost never go so smoothly in travel as they did for us on our two week vacation in Southern India. People were kind, lodging was decent and cheap, nothing was lost or stolen, transport was time-consuming but not too painful… really, I’d say our biggest inconvenience were buses and trains being an hour or our and a half late. No big deal. Plus we had a blast together 
Overall impressions- I had heard so much about what an incredibly challenging country India can be- the overwhelming crush of humanity, the poverty, the scams, the chaos, the insane public transit- that I’d really prepared myself for the worst. Fortunately, none of our experiences were anywhere near as overwhelming or exhausting as we’d expected- actually, not overwhelming or exhausting at all. Part of this might have to do with the places we picked- the south is generally known for being more laid-back and relaxing than the traditional tourist routes in the big cities and north-west.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time- not a cloud in the sky. The people were very accommodating, with the only even moderately bad experiences being with snippy auto-rickshaw drivers and hordes of kids (mostly in the rural areas) whose only English words involved asking for money. The kids saw us as walking wallets, for obvious reasons in a country where the minimum wage is about $2 a day. It was irritating after the 50th time in a row, but most of the kids cracked huge smiles and forgave us our stinginess when we offered to take a picture of them. We got lots of great pictures, as it seemed like every person we met asked for us to take photos of or with them.

The landscape in the areas that we visited was mostly very green and tropical. One of the biggest things that we realized on our trip is that we have to come back. India is such an enormous country, in size and cultural and geographical diversity, and we were only able to get a tiny taste of a few little dots on the map. Many of the lucky travelers that we met were in India for a month or several.

We started out in Cochin, a town in Kerala. The area is famous for its laid-back attitude, lush green landscape, and criss-crossing waters. We spent a night there recovering from the trip, eating amazing meals at local restaurants (we could both eat extremely well for $2 in the right places) and trying to get a feel for things. Then we took a local bus south about an hour and a half to Alleppey, right in the middle of the backwaters, where we stayed in a homestay on a tiny coconut and rice farming island and walked around, getting a feel for local life. We then took a super luxurious overnight trip around the backwaters in our own personal houseboat, with our own personal cook and driver. Amazing!

We then took an overnight train to Gokarna, a tiny off-the-beaten track town with stunning beaches. There was just enough tourist development for us to be able to eat well, use the internet and stay in a fun hostel- no more. The gorgeous Om beach was quiet and tranquil, and we spend one lovely day hiking between beaches and watching cows strut their stuff in the surf. We cut our stay in Gokarna a bit short to move an hour north to Goa, one of India’s bigger tourist areas. It’s known for stunning beaches, but most parts are more developed and touristy than Ace and I like. We headed up there because I was determined to be able to hit a market, which we did, and it was well worth it. I had a great time browsing bed covers , funky sandals, patchwork sari wall hangings and cushion covers. It was well worth the stop, but the next day we decided to move on to Hampi a day earlier than expected.
We booked an overnight bus, which turned out to be quite the experience- we shared a little sectioned off mattress in the back of a big bus. Our spot was just big enough for both of us to sit up and look out the window or lay down and try to sleep- as long as nobody tried to roll over. Most of India’s roads are in pretty bad shape, so we found ourselves suspended completely in midair, then slammed back down on the mat repeatedly on the 13-ish hour trip. Fortunately, we’re pretty great at sleeping, and we both felt surprisingly decent when we arrived in Hampi.

Hampi was our favorite- there’s really no way to describe the landscape- you’ll just have to look at pics on our photosite  http://kateandace.shutterfly.com/ We spent a lovely three days, two nights here, scooting around between gorgeous ruined Hindu temples, exploring the amazing landscape, visiting monkeys, and getting blessed by the temple elephant. We then took another overnight train to Bengalore for our flight out. What we saw of Bengalore was pretty nasty- overall, a very dirty, charmless, noisy city- but that was expected. We managed to pass a really nice day there, though, as we’d booked a cooking class. We learned how to cook our favorites in the home of a lovely woman, then went to the grocery store to stock up on spices to bring back. We also watched half of a Bollywood movie in the theatre, something I’d really been wanting to do. We left halfway through, as the movie wasn’t in English and there were no subtitles, but I still got my fix of song-and-dance numbers.

On the trips to and from India, we had 16 hour layovers in Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates. They actually turned out great- we had a lovely day exploring Sharjah on our way to India. Our overall impression was of a very clean, organized, quiet town. Everyone was super polite and the roads seemed extremely wide, quiet and empty after Turkey. On the way back we were able to take a short busride into Dubai, where we hopped on a bus tour and got to see the sights. We were pretty exhausted, but still really enjoyed getting to see the gigantic malls and hotels and wander around on The Palm.
A great trip- we can’t wait to go back and see more of this super interesting country.