Vacation Conundrum

After just one month of classes, we have a week long vacation because of a religious holiday, Kurban Bayramı (Feast of the Sacrifice). Those who can have gone home to visit family, and the rest of the us left behind are planning various activities: walking in the woods, a day trip to some islands in the Bosphorus, seeing some art exhibitions, hosting dinner, etc. I'll have time to do some fun things like knitting, drawing, and reading, but there are lots of other tasks that I'm hoping to get done this week as well--hence, the conundrum. How to balance fun, rest, and work? So I'm trying to make lists... what to clean, what to buy, what to do for school. It's a little overwhelming as you might imagine.
One of the most important tasks is to buy myself a pair of rain/winter boots. Shoe shopping has never been fun for me, and shopping for shoes in Turkey reminds me of the experiences I had in early high school before stores carried anything above size 10. So far, every time I've asked about size 11 (size 42 here), I've gotten that look of pity and horror for someone whose feet are that big. Yes, I could get men's shoes, and that may well be the solution...
For now, I'm thinking about buying a crochet needle and one of these:

These are awesome--they boil the water super fast and keep the tea hot in the carafe above. Where have you been all my life?