Mersin Lists - Sarah

I’m sitting in my “room” in Mersin after a day climbing through ruins (a special Turkish blend of Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine tinged with Ottoman) and finished with my first swim in the Mediterranean. Pretty rough- I must admit!

The mother in my host family has several guests over today so after a brief visit, I took my leave for some rare downtime before the music concert tonight.
We spoke so much about our lists at the outset that I thought I’ll include some current lists from on the road:

Things I miss from home:
· Family and friends – of course but it can always be mentioned! Love and hugs especially
to Dad and Gma!
· Regular internet access (wawa…)
· Mexican food! And spicy – hot—food. Turkish food is very spiced and flavorful but rarely
does it ever register on my heat meter. Not to mention I miss my cilantro!
· Being able to NOT eat meat. Especially red meat. Thank god the FWMoA staff has been
helping me to become more meat-venturous!
· Autonomy. I know it’s for our protection and the intentions are nothing but the best—but
it would be great once in a while to explore unchaperoned
· Venti amounts of caffeine
· Smoke free indoors. Turks love their cigarettes so it will be interesting when the indoor
smoking ban goes into effect in July.

Things I thought I would miss but really don’t:
Driving
Texting
Work (or even knowing what’s happening…)
My own bed
The majority of my clothes
Television—the season finales of the shows I regularly watch