and so I resurface from the depths of writers block...or laziness

Alright, alright, I'm back...in case I have any diehard readers that were missing me.
I haven't felt like writing lately, so I haven't (novel concept, huh?) but quite a bit has happened.

Christmas was nice in Zagreb. It was quite a Christmas-y place--snow, the center of town all light up, Christmas markets in the squares, giant Christmas trees everywhere... (I couldn't get over the one in my school)

Though most Croatians are Catholic, not Orthodox, the tradition is to get the Christmas tree on Christmas eve. I think it's partly a space issue, since most people live in small apartments. We had a fake tree and brought it out on the Saturday before Christmas. Most people spend Christmas eve with their families. I was told that lots of people go out after midnight mass, but it was cold and snowy, so that was not on my agenda.

I went to Turkey with my host family and two other exchange students. Turkey was one of the places that I had in the back of my mind as "That would be cool, but unlikely" so I was really excited to actually be going.

First and foremost: I found the sun! I had missed it so much. I've been spoiled growing up in Colorado, where the sun rarely stays hidden for more than a few days. I noticed I felt a sense of entitlement, and was taking the endless string of grey days as a personal insult. I'm more appreciative now; after going more than a month without sun in Zagreb, I was so glad to be able to sit outside.

We went to Antalya, which is more or less in the middle of the southern coast. The region is dominated by rugged mountains rising right out of the sea. The contrast is impressive. Sitting on the beach, surrounded by palm trees, orange groves and perfect turquoise water, I could look up and see the snowy windblown tops of massive mountains.

We saw tons of ancient Greek and Roman ruins. They were so plentiful, in fact, that people didn't feel obligated to build a museum around every one. I saw them sitting in hotel courtyards, peeking out from between buildings, even partially paved over by roads.

It wasn't as different as I expected, but that could be partly due to the fact that, as far as I could tell, we were in the Cancun of Turkey. Still, there were plenty of novel things, the most vivid for me being my visit to the city of Antalya.

Never before had I felt so conspicuously out of place. Bruna, Kelsey and I went to Antalya one day on the public bus, and we were not prepared for the size of the city, or for the fact that the bus we caught at the hotel wouldn't take us to the center, but would instead drop us in a parking lot somewhere on the outskirts of the city. From the moment I stepped onto the rickety little city bus, I knew there was no chance of passing for someone who belonged. The bus was filled past capacity and sagging in the back with the weight of the passengers-almost entirely Turkish men-who filled the five long benches, as well and the narrow aisle, ducking to avoid banging their heads of the ceiling, and as we climbed aboard, they stopped their chatter and stared.