Anna's Bakery

Oh my. So deelicious..... a real berliner, a real chocolate croissant, and a real latte! Hard to believe this happened in Turkey.
How did it happen, you may ask with good reason. My coworker was determined to find a German bakery somewhere in Istanbul. He did, but it was in Göktürk, a part of the city that doesn't connect well with Sarıyer by public transportation. He convinced another coworker (who has a car) to join in the quest, and since I was there at the right moment, I got to come along, too.
Göktürk is saturated with boutique shops, especially French and German ones, and its central area hardly looks like Istanbul at all. We speculated that it was a kind of Turkish Truman Show set. There were plenty of people and cars, but this photo is basically what it looks like:

The bakery, however, was the real thing. It was so much fun to drink a cappuccino that can be distinguished from a latte! (My coworker took the photo, so that's why the latte was featured.) I brought home some tasty treats so we can extend the mystical bakery experience a couple more days...

Happy Solstice!

From: NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day

More Snowy Pictures from Campus

Some of my students hadn't seen snow at all before, so they were eager to take photos from the classroom (during class, of course). In exchange for a 2 minute "snow break," I asked to get copies of the photos :D
Here are a few of those:

Now it is all melted... no surprise since it was a wet, slushy snow to begin with. Maybe we'll get more later, who knows?

First Snowy Day

After much anticipation, and a teaser of sleet yesterday, this morning we have a blustery, truly snowy day. From the inside, I'm a lot more impressed by the wind than the snow. We'll see if I think the same later today. Some of my coworkers were hoping for a snow-day today. If that really happens, the threshold for "too much snow" is very low. I guess there's still time, but I very much doubt that we have a free day today.

Here's the view from the porch this morning:

Here are a couple photos of campus later in the day:

Winter is here!

Also of note, my mini-bus commute was rather exciting as we fish-tailed up the hill to the main road. When we arrived on campus, I wanted to applaud! On the way home, I got a ride from a coworker, which was much better.

Fall Semester Countdown!

Two more weeks of teaching to go... and yes, I'm counting!

The last three weekends have been crammed with grading and a bit of hasty planning :((( I've been forcing myself to use the Pomodoro timing system to keep focused (see http://tomatoi.st/ixka ), and it works, but I'm really sick of it. This is when it helps to have a little more experience in a job because you know when the assignments will pile up and can try to spread them out better. I didn't; now I cry, cry, cry.

In the meantime, the weather has finally turned cooler. It'll be close to freezing when I go to work this morning. The rest of the week is supposed to rain in the low 40s, which means icy rain overnight, I bet. We're keeping warm in the apartment all the same. On campus, the rooms are overheated, so students end up opening the windows--energy efficiency, what's that?

The final exams will be on December 23rd and 24th, and the grading day is the 25th. I've been told that we can grade at home--woohoo! I'm a bit vague on the next week or two, but it's not break. It seems to be a planning period for the Spring Semester and a tutoring time for students who will be taking the university entrance exam in the first week of January. Out winter break starts January 11. The big news is that Alex and I are going to visit his family in France for part of the break--this has been a goal for a looooooong time. From Istanbul, the flight is just over 3 hours to Lyon... not so bad!

Oh! It's 7am already--time to get movin!