19 days and X kilo’s later

I know, some time has past since my last blogpost.
Well, as I said in my last post, this one will be about school. I don’t know exactly how long I’ve been going, a big 2 weeks I guess.
I’m going to start with telling about my first school day.

It was a sunny september Friday. My mom and I walked to school.We arrived at school, but first we drank Turkish çay. Actually, only my mom drank çay, because I was afraid my stomach wouldn’t be able to handle the stress in combination with çay.
After that, we walked into the school. The students were standing in some kind of square, their faces turned to someone, who I guess is the principal, who was giving a speech about the toilets. During this, my mom and I stand next to the square, not knowing what to do. During this, I felt all these faces turning to my mom and I. I felt so ashamed, I didn’t know where to look. I could read from the faces ‘Who is she?’, ‘What is she doing here?’, ‘Why is she standing there?’, ‘Why is this woman with her?’.
After this, an English teacher told me to come with her. I would have two lessons of English with her first, because my class had a lesson in Turkish.
After these two lessons, a girl from this class showed me my real class. I came in, not really knowing how to behave and what to say. Someone offered me to sit next to him, so I felt a little more comfortable.
My first day was, euh, really hectic. Everyone from my class was asking a lot of questions and, well they are just very loud. Now I’m really used to them. I feel like they’re my friends.
In the lessons, I’m kinda bored. Because most of them are in Turkish (but I’m lucky, I’m in languages and I have 12 hours of English). Mostly, I read a book or try to sleep a bit.

Here are some facts about my school here/Turkish schools:

-We have a kantine, and it’s probably my favourite thing about Turkish schools. The whole day, you can buy food there (so cheap!!). They have coffee, ayran (<3), actually all kinds of drinks, also dürüm, pizza, toasts and cookies.
-After every lesson (40 minutes) we have a 10-minutes break. One of 45 minutes for lunch.
-Every Monday morning and Friday after the lessons, we have ‘ceremony’. The whole school gathers to sing the national anthem. We look at the Turkish flag and sing Istiklal Marsi. I can sing a little more than half of it, but I want to know all the words.
-During the breaks, we are free to be in our classroom, in your friends’s classroom, in the corridor, outside, in the kantine…
-Physical education is 10 minutes of running and stretching, and 2 hours talking with your classmates.
-We wear a uniform: the school t-shirt (in black, blue or white) with black trousers.
-Make-up is not allowed, but tattoo’s, piercings and coloured hair are.
-The toilets are shit.

Bye bye!
xx Jülide (my Turkish name, because Judith is too hard sometimes)