HOORAY!!!!!!!!

I'M GOING TO TRABZON, TURKIYE!!!!!!!!!!! And guess what!?! I have the best host family ever! I have two lovely parents Nurhayat & Ayhan and three beautiful sisters Ecren, Ecmel, & Ecesu! My host mother, Nurhayat, is an civil engineer and my host father is a mechanical engineer and owns three restaurants and a cosmetics company! Ecren is 16 years old and Ecmel is 14 - we will all be attending high school together and luckily both speak some English which will be really helpful for me when trying to learn Turkish! Ecesu is 5 and she's absolutely adorable! I can't wait to meet them all, they are going to be so perfect :) They live in an apartment flat in the city and it's only three miles away from our high school (Kanuni Anadolu Lisesi). I will be in the same grade as Ecren and she will help me with my studies :) Trabzon is very beautiful and is on the Black Sea coast. From Istanbul by bus it's about a days worth of travel...it's way far out in Turkey! But I absolutely love it and I'm really going to enjoy my time there. I just wish I could be there now..September 5th is when I will see them! Çok heyecanlıyım! :)

Nurhayat - Ayhan (with little Ecesu) - Ecren - Ecmel

Such a beautiful family :)

Trabzon City! 

It's so beautiful! 

I love my sisters! Can't wait to meet them :)

TRAVEL INFO!

Finally got one of the e-mails I've been awaiting for quite some time..I am officially flying to New York on August 31st. Orientation will occur there until September 2nd and then later that evening I will start my long journey of flying to Istanbul, Turkiye! I won't return to the US until February 12th - however I want to try and stay longer if possible (but that's another story). They said we would be hearing about our host families within the next few weeks so I'm quite anxious. I have an official day count: 43. Still so much to do in preparation! Everything finally seems to be falling into place and I'm truly thrilled. Although I've been having an amazing summer with my friends and I'm so lucky to be enjoying the time here before I leave. It's making the time go by much faster! Acele et Türkiye! Ben endişe ediyorum! (Hurry up Turkiye! I'm anxious!) Here are some summer pictures prior to my departure:

I'm so happy!
(Cadillac Mountain)

I'm sure the ice cream in Turkiye will be much better..but this was pretty scrumptious

Beautiful Maine - I will miss..but only a little :)