February 27

Today was the official test day, but I had already finished 3, so I only had one left – art and architecture – left to take. After about 2 hours, I was finally finished. Though no one (at this point at least) had any interest in going to the Turkish bath, I still wanted to go, even if by myself. When I realized the bath was only just around the corner on the main street, I made up my mind. This would be a treat for finishing my tests. I won’t go into the details about the experience here, but I will say that nudity is much less of an issue outside of America.
An hour and a half later, feeling clean, relaxed, and very happy, I headed out to the bazaar buy a few more gifts. I next headed to the Starbucks (my home away from home) to sip a latte and read my book. While out I passed by a restaurant that was playing The Gypsy Kings, my favorite band from about age 8. Mom and I listened to them whenever we felt like playing some fun music and hanging out around the house. That was a great moment.
It was mid afternoon by the time I got back to the hotel. Sarabeth was finished with her tests as well and feeling much better (she got very sick last night and was up every hour with nausea). I talked her and Allie (whom I ran into on the way into the hotel) into going to the bath. Today was Allie’s birthday and I knew it would just be a memorable experience for her and make her birthday even better.
In honor of Allie’s birthday, everyone finished with the tests went out for dinner that night. Half of us walked the 45 minutes into Taksim, the modern, Europe-side of Istabul (the city is divided in half by the Sea of Marmara, and half is on the Asian continent and the other is on the European continent). On the way, I bumped into a man from Charleston! He is actually the brother of the owner of Sermet’s, one of my favorite restaurants downtown. We chatted for a few minutes about Charleston and his carpet search in Istanbul. Small world. Taksim was very busy. People were everywhere and everything was open and lit up. I finally got the chance to wear my white leather jacket as it wasn’t too cold and tonight was a special occasion.
We all met up for dinner and ate a at great restaurant. The only problem was that for some reason, this place didn’t serve alcohol. But we went out for celebratory drinks afterwards. The guys had already scoped out a pub a few nights before, so we went to this great bar called the James Joyce Pub, where we heard live music by Chico (unbelievably, he also played some Gypsy Kings) and hung out for a while. My taste for wine has grown since being here, but I still don’t really like beer all that much. I caught a taxi back to the hotel with Trent. We both wanted to finish packing and get at least a semi-decent night’s sleep. We need to be on the bus at 7 am tomorrow to catch our flight.
And of course, I packed up my suitcase and transferred all my heavy books to my carry-on bags. My suitcase is so heavy now! Even leaving the readings that we are finished with isn’t helping all that much. I can’t wait till Mom comes and I can put some of my purchases in her suitcase!