porridge for new year

blaaaah. my driving teacher said that although i can probably pass the driving exam next week, he suggests maybe taking just 1 extra class to make sure. because he thinks i dont handle the steering wheel smoothly enough in tight corners. but its not like i hit anything. hmm, and i am not so good with shifts, i forget that stuff... :( yesterday on my 3rd and supposedly last class we were just driving ALL around kadiköy and moda. the streets were crazy busy with people shopping, so i honked the horn a lot. only hit one lady tiiiny bit, but she was walking straight towards the car, as if on purpose, so really she can blame herself, and my teacher didnt have any problem with it either. people should watch where the fuck they walk. but it was nice driving in this very area where i live, our street, the bar street, the shopping street (bahariye) etc.

yesterday we headed to Elin's & Cagri's dinner party first. tasty lamb shoulder and salads and tiramisu... :) and 2 lovely cats that in the end made me sneeze of course. i was super stressed about getting to the european side after 10pm, but we checked the online traffic info and all the roads were 'green', so we just hopped on a shared taxi and took it all the way to Taksim, over the bridge. there was zero traffic indeed, so it felt like we were on Turkish Airlines rather than a car... the trip was just 30min. 1h 1min door-to-door. Taksim square was starting to fill up when we passed it. there were these riot busses in a row and hopping off the taxi i almost bumbed into a police with a machine gun prominently in front of him. the heavy duty black busses are intimidating though. then, there was a row of ambulances too, of course. the city was getting ready to party :D

so we went to Oytun's office party, where the punch materials were waiting for me. it was actually quite slow there, we just sat and ate tasty salads and lentil meatballs etc. we left before 5am and the traffic had turned horrible. we took the shared taxi towards Kadiköy... the bridge was completely stuck and i fell asleep. we were home before 6 and slept way too late today. so the first day of the year is short for us.


at Elin and Cagri last night














last night at Oytun's office, after everyone left.
















temaki sushi earlier this week.















a couple nights ago, someone was selling tea on the street, round midnight.
















we made helmipuuro the other night, Senni brought me a package of the potato starch its made of. doctor was skeptical based on the looks but then he fell in love :) omg it was so tasty :)