And herein lies the reason why my day today was Texas:
1. Since it was our last evening in Cyprus last night, our trip organizer arranged for us all to go to a local pub for drinks and conversation to celebrate the end of a great weekend. We arrived back at the dorm at 1:30 AM this morning.
2. Our flight was to leave at 7:50 AM, so we had the pleasure of waking up at 5:00 AM to grab the minibus to the airport at 5:30 AM.
3. The flight was delayed 30 minutes. Nobody likes flight delays no matter how short or long they are.
4. After arriving in Ankara, in nearly perfect (okay mildly acceptable) Turkish I asked the taxi driver how much it would cost to drive to Hacettepe. He quoted a price, in English, that was higher than I knew we should pay. So in my lovely Turkish, I counter-offered. He declined. Three times. The others did not want to pay the extra money for the taxi so we took the bus to the metro then walked the rest of the way home. It was about a two hour journey, at 9 AM, running off of minimal sleep.
5. Upon returning to our dorm, I was the only one who wanted to go into the hospital this afternoon since we only have four days left of our internship. So while the others caught up on sleep, I helped to put away patient own medications that were brought into the hospital and put stickers that said (in Turkish) "high risk medication" on hundreds of ampules and vials.
6. Thinking I was on a productive roll I decided to do laundry after work. I went downstairs to get the key from reception for the laundry room and was told via iTranslate on my iPhone I could not have it until 7:45 PM. I did not know the reason why and I was very impatient to get my washing done. So, I took my bag of laundry to the room Mateusz had previously shown me in his section of the dorm.
7. Washing machines in Turkey have Turkish writing. Good luck selecting the proper cycle for your valuable clothing articles. And also, select the temperature you would like the water to be in Celsius. Playing the guessing game and crossing my fingers I started the washer. Less than ten minutes later, I feel my slippers getting wet. I look down and half of the floor is covered with soapy water. So, I do what any reasonable American girl in a flooding laundry room inside of a college dormitory building in the middle of Turkey would do...call Mehmet and yell "Emergency!!!!" into the phone.
8. When Mehmet arrives he is talking with the reception lady who told me I had to wait until 7:45 PM to do my laundry. Ummm, caught red handed with cookie crumbs on my mouth and my hand still inside the jar only begins to describe how I felt. Mehmet was able to translate for me that the reason I had to wait was because you had to sign up to use the washers in advance and the laundry room that I had (accidentally) flooded was for boys only. The reception lady agreed to let me finish doing my laundry on the boys side thanks to Mehmet's kind persuasion.
9. We tried to start another washer and realized it wasn't plugged in. Upon plugging it in and starting it up the power shorted out. On to the next machine, which also started leaking once we started it up. At this point, we gave up and Mehmet offered to let me use his washing machine at his place.
Currently while typing up this story using Mehmet's wifi at his apartment, I am doing my laundry and eating take-out pizza. This is just one example that demonstrates the incredible hospitality I have been shown by the people that I have met during my few weeks here. At the end of the day, even if it was Texas, it has still been a learning experience here in Turkey.