December 11, 2011

I tiptoed into the kitchen so as not to wake up Caroline who had settled comfortably in the living room couch with many cushions and pillows. The heating unit works perfectly as long as I keep the door closed. Made my coffee and went back to bed to read for a while from “Bee Season”, a book I found at the embassy’s lending library. Caroline got up a couple of hours later and I offered her coffee, flat bread and cheese for breakfast while I had my customary hot muesli. She left early, after insisting on doing the dishes in my frigid kitchen, as she had to prepare for another workshop tomorrow.

I went to Ryan’s flat for lunch to map out our trip to Istanbul and hopefully buy our tickets online. There were three children there, the TV on full blast and the computer as well where the children were playing online games. He served me a red bean and beef spicy soup, flat bread and chicken baked with potatoes, carrots and zucchini. Yoomie had declined to show up so early on a Sunday and he told me he wasn’t ready to buy his ticket yet and had no idea regarding places to stay or sights to see. I was most disappointed as I had no need to come over to his place to be told that. I emailed Yoomie and told her that unless she was ready to purchase her ticket this week, I was going to buy mine on my own. She replied saying she wasn’t sure she’d be making the trip after all as she wasn’t sure she’d be staying in the country after January. I see myself already traveling alone, which is not a bad idea after all.

Word had gotten around already about Peter’s resignation from the ELF program and Ryan wanted more details. I told him to contact Peter directly as I was not free to discuss such personal issue. Yoomie also asked me about it in her email and got the same response from me.

I did laundry and tried to air out my apartment after I burned the persimmon claufoutis I was baking hoping to share it with my neighbor Mariam. Opening the windows is a risk for they don’t have screens and I usually end up with lots of flies and mosquitoes inside the flat.