Did Somebody Order Room Service?

So, have I mentioned that we have the best neighbors, ever? The other day Melissa was a bit ill (probably didn't wear enough clothes to bed the neighbors would say--see previous blogs if you are confused because this makes perfect sense to me), and our neighbor came by to invite us over for dinner. Melissa was a bit too ill to come over for dinner so instead our neighbor brought us this great tray full of Turkish food! How great are they. Just love 'em. And the soup was yummy.

Last night was our second Global Cafe ever and it went really fabulous. I was so pumped. And, it deserves to be noted that (Welcome to Turkey) the power went out towards the end and people still stayed to play games by candlelight! It went that great. We branched out a bit and played some conversation games and they loved them! We made a few friends, but I am definitely not allowed to work at Starbucks whenever I come home. I traded with Melissa and acted as stand in barista and then later had to turn the coffee pot back over to her when a couple of my Turkish friends hinted (basically just told me without any tact) that my skills were not quite up to par. I'm more of a social girl anyways, so I turned coffee duty back over to her... begrudgingly.

Funniest moments of the English conversation games we played: (note that not all of the people who came to the English cafe spoke the best of English, I can sympathize and empathize.)

3.I sneezed and at one point one of the Turks looked at me and instead of saying, 'God bless you', he makes eye contact with me and says, 'I bless you the God'. Good try.

2. We were playing a game where you had to go around and say what you were going to bring to Thanksgiving dinner and you had to repeat what everybody else before you had said they were going to bring. We went around the room from A to Z. You come up with a new thing depending on what letter you are, but before you share, tell what everyone before you said. So we get around to one guy who really doesn't speak alot of English and the Americans are not helping by saying they're going to bring random things like a 'Bulgarian' to Thanksgiving dinner...I had trouble remembering that in English 15 letters down the line much less in a second language. So we get to the one confused guy of the night and instead of saying, I'm going to bring hot chocolate...He can't quite get it out and just ends up saying, 'I am hot chocolate', very proudly. Much funnier if you were there and if you, too were learning a second language. So everyone called him hot chocolate for the rest of the night. I know I've probably said I'm worse than hot chocolate at times in Turkish. Actually, I know that I have. The neighbors like to quiz me on all of the crazy and sometimes inappropriate things I have said while trying to remember a new language with the correct words and pronunciation at the same time.

1.Last, but certainly not least, we played a mixer game and it's not scandalous, but definitely spiced things up that we played co-ed since for the first hour of the cafe we sat girls on one side and guys on one side. So we have pairs, for example: hot & cold, salt & pepper, etc. Mine was camera and my match was film. Everyone has a word taped to their back that they do not know and you have to figure out what you are and then find your match without anyone using the actual words that are taped on our backs. So, I'm walking around talking to everyone, making motions very animatedly, being a good sport because it's my game, looking for film and finally one of the guys figures out that I'm asking him if he is film and he says, 'No. But I would like very much to be the film in your camera'...

Enough tales from the Global Cafe. Till next time...maybe we should keep it guys vs. girls...