MDNA2012!

When I arrived in Istanbul, my cousin asked me if I liked Madonna and I said that I did, so he asked me if I would like to go to her concert on July 7.  I was SO excited for it, until I heard that my cousin was giving up his ticket for me to go. I felt so bad, but he told me he didn't really want to go and that he doesn't really listen to her,but he was only going for his girlfriend, 'cause she really likes her.

I have the best cousin in the world! - Anyway, I met up with Eda (cousins gf) at Kanyon Shopping Mall in Levent, where we met up with the rest of her friends and we went to eat at Saray Muhallebicisi.

Eda and I at Saray Muhallebicisi

my ticket!

After dinner, we went to Pinkberry to eat some frozen yogurt, it was so good.

Then, we took the subway to go to Turk Telecom Arena - soccer stadium. It was so crowded and hot, you could feel everyone just breathing heavily you could see sweat on everyones foreheads and you could smell sweat! I just couldn't wait to get out of there. 

at the stadium

Me, Eda, Esra, Sandy and Berna!

soo far!

opening

Eventhough we were quite far - couldn't hear properly or see, it was mad fun!!

Eda and I managed to find two empty seats, a little closer, we couldn't see still, but we could hear better. We couldn't see Madonna with a naked eye, she was the size of an ant, Eda had brought her binoculars with her, so that helped!

I'm glad my first concert was Madonnas concert! 

Thanks to Arican for giving up his ticket for me!! <3

Istanbul

I'm done with school and done with exams, time to get out of Libya for a short while.

My family is back in Benghazi, so I traveled alone, which I was totally looking forward to, but then when I arrived at the airport and saw the people I was surrounded by, I sort of freaked out. I was getting dirty looks from people that looked like they were members of the Muslim Brotherhood - not literally, but they looked pretty conservative compared to me.

Plane ride wasn't so bad, there were a few kids and they were a little irritating. Plane food is always good.  The guy next to me wasn't so bad either, he kept to himself.. up until when we landed he said to me ''are we in Cairo?'' and I was like ''OMG, NO! WE'RE IN ISTANBUL!'' then he chuckled and he said he was joking. Phew!

It took us a while to land, we had to circulate in the air until we could land. We were behind schedule, so as soon as I got off the plane I hurried to passport control and that when I saw Turkish actor Selcuk Yontem standing in the same queue as me. he's not such a big deal, but it was cool seeing someone you see on TV for real I guess. I would have taken a picture of him, but I thought it would have been awkward.
Here's a picture of him off the internet:

Anyway, so I get out of passport control and move along to get my luggage and that's where I come across another ''surprise'' - one of my dads long lost cousins. He met my sister in Libya and she told me about him and I met him in Turkey - it really is a small world.

Moving on, my cousin and his girlfriend were there to pick me up. We left the airport at around 12.40am when I should have left at like12am. We came home at around 1.40am. I went online to tell my mom that I landed safely and all and that's when I see that there's been some bombing going on in Benghazi. It's pretty amazing how things change within a matter of hours when you were JUST there. They bombed the Benghazi check-point which is like several feet from our house. I was worried for my family. However, momma told me everything was under control now and that I should get some sleep.

Benina Airport

Full moon!

not a very clear picture of the moon.

Istanbul

View from my window

Little birdy on fire escape

People going for a dip in the Bosphorus.

Cute doggy I came across at the park!

Emirgan Park

My aunt took me to Emirgan Korusu (Park) which  was pretty cool, there are so many trees and so much greenery, I loved it! It's a good place for families/friends to have picnic's or whatever.

If you're ever in Istanbul maybe you should visit this place. 

Read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirgan_Park  

:)

My life is lacking excitement...

Well, I think my last post was back in January and it's May now. Nothing exciting happened in that period, I guess my life is a bore.

I guess I'll try to highlight what I've done in the past few months.

February - The anniversary (Feb17)

Supposedly, we should be happy on this day because we've finally came out and told Gaddafi that we've had enough of his crap and we're no longer putting up with it. I didn't want to go out and celebrate really, just felt like staying home and watching everything on TV but my mother made me come out with her, my sister and her friends. We didn't do anything special. We went to Kish Square where we got harassed by annoying Libyans. So, we left and drove around town, I don't think I took any pictures because there was nothing worth taking  pictures of. Well, except for me  :D

When we got home, we lit a sky lantern and watch it fly away.

So a year later, has my life been any different?
No. If anything, I hate this place even more. I just can't stand being here anymore.
I can't even begin to describe why I hate this place. Honestly, I think that Libyans will never change, they always want things the easy way. They will never change the way they think and it disgusts me. I hate the fact that the Islamists are getting things done their way, sort of. For example, the little cafe down in Dubai street, Costa, was bombed because a lot of young adults/teenagers would go there to interact with their friends, male AND female, and that was an issue for them. Like, what now? they're going to deprive us of hanging out with our friends?  and it's not like we have many places to hang out here. So we don't want them to be blowing up shit. Not only are they blowing up public places, but they're barging into peoples homes, and shaving their heads for partying. Are you serious? We can't have a little bit of privacy?
In addition, they claim that they want to close down the wedding halls, because it's wrong to celebrate your wedding or something? I don't see why they should because the weddings here are not mixed, so it shouldn't  be an issue for them. They're really getting on my nerves and I hate driving around town and seeing those men with those ridiculously bushy long beards. I sometimes wish Gaddafi was still here, because they feared him. And they wouldn't come out and do the shit that they're doing today.

I know it takes years to rebuild a country, but I'm not one for being patient.

So, enough of that for now. I have a chance to leave this country for good, but I have to do well in my exams, which are starting next week. Hopefully, I'll do good. I got a conditional offer at the University of Central Lancashire, I hope I don't screw it up.

Spring Break started late March and we were off for three weeks. Didn't go anywhere and didn't do anything. Should have studied, but didn't.  I'm one hell of a procrastinator.

Also, during spring break I went to see a nutritionist. Why? Cause clearly I'm not eating the right things and I need to lose the extra pounds. So far it's been going good, some days I hate it, but I've lost 11kilos (24lbs) in 3 weeks. Which is good, I assume. I've been to a couple of nutritionists before and usually I quit going after about 2 weeks, but this time I'm not giving up. Wee!

April 20th, was my dear friend, Amro's birthday. We've been friends since 1st grade. 11 years of friendship and counting...

I made him a card :)

His girlfriend made him a cake, tasted heavenly.

The Birthday Boy himself!

Amro, Anas, Dah, Judy, Hesham, Lyn, Hashim, Seeko and myself.

School started on April 22 and we've only been preparing for our exams. My exams start on May 11 and end on May 29. I hope we all do well and good luck to everyone, xoxo

I'm back in Benghazi and I just had a round of exams. I got my IGCSE's alongside my AS Level exams done and it was kind of hectic. I had a total of 11 exams, 3 AS Levels, and 8 IGs. If it were up to me, I think I did pretty well, but we'll see what the examiner thinks.

I think my most difficult exam was Math. I hate Math, and I didn't exactly study well for it, but ehh, what's done is done now. My results come out in March, and then I have another round of exams in  May which include 3 AS Levels, and 2 IGs and those results come out in August.

I'm currently waiting to hear from the university I applied to. Their deadline for applying was on the 15th of this month and I know it's going to take a while for them to reply, but I just can't wait anymore. I hope to be hearing from them soon and I sure hope it's good news.

I go back to school tomorrow, I'm kind of excited, I miss going to school and all and as part of Student Council I'm going to try to manage to organize more events/activities for school this term.

Last term we weren't very 'fruitful' on organizing events or activities. We just set up 4 girl volley ball teams and had a volley ball tournament. We were pretty lucky on having enough girls sign up for the tournament; actually we had to beg for some girls to sign up as girls here aren't very active or sporty. It's kind of annoying sometimes. Some of the girls just decided to bail out and it was just bad. But however, we got through it. The boys organized a soccer tournament and that went pretty well.

Also, we had to work on the 2010/2011 school yearbook, which I thought was completely unnecessary. I suggested we should just make like a 2010/2011/2012 yearbook because when the uprising started school shut down, so basically we missed half the year. So, when we came back in September, I was rushed into getting the yearbook done and I hate rushed work. I was told I had to give it in before Eid break, but that was physically impossible because it wasn't together yet. I was kind of working on the whole thing on my own and obviously I needed help. I got help from 2 guys from the 11th grade. They were sort of confusing at first, but we worked a few things out and then something happened, apparently I was kicked off the yearbook team by our principle and then I thought that was crazy because I was in charge of the whole thing, but then the 2 guys, didn't want me to get upset about it, so they tried to make me stay, but I refused, so I handed in all the yearbook data, and just let them work on it.

Excuse me, but honestly their outcome was pure and utter shit. I'm not even going to buy a copy of it, cause it's THAT bad. It was just SO badly done. 

However, we're hoping that this year, we won't have any interruptions or another revolution, so that we can have a pretty neat school yearbook.

Well, this feels almost pointless, but what the hey.

2 meter Kebap!

We went out to dinner with the family in Kadikoy(Anatolia-Asian side) It took us a wee while to get there. 
First we had to take the subway from Levent, to Taksim, from Taksim to Kabatas, and from Kabatas we took a Ferry to Kadikoy, then Kadikoy to Kartal. I even managed to take a nap on the way, and when I woke up I said ''Good Lord, I traveled all around Istanbul, just to eat a damn Kebap, it better be worth it!''
I forgot the name of the restaurant, however, this place is famous for it's extremely large Kebaps.  The size depends on how many people your table has. Our Kebap was about 2meters long. We were 10 people, so each person got about 20cm of Kebap!

It was SO delish! SO DAMN WORTH IT!

:)

Happy Belated New Year!

Okay, I know I'm five days too late, but I've been a little bit busy, studying and shopping, you know trying to make the most out of my last days in Istanbul.

For NYE, my sister, our friends and I planned to go to a street party. We were told to avoid Taksim Square because i'ts like douche-bag-central on NYE. So we crossed that off our list. Then there were a bunch of other places like Nistantasi or some club, but then we forgot all about those places as my aunt invited us to dinner, and we thought it would be rude if we didn't go.
We had this delicious dinner! Turkish food obviously, and we had some really good roasted turkey! Gosh, my mouth is watering as I write this.
  

Turkey Time!

My cousin, Gurcan and I :)

We had Pumpkin cake for dessert, YUM!

After this delicious meal, we all slipped into a food coma. The house went quiet for a bit, then we all gained conscientiousness again, and it was time for the countdown, and that's of course, the power went out in the last 5 seconds of 2011, it wasn't too long before they were back on.

I certainly made no resolutions this year, I make some every year, but never end up doing them, so I think I'm just going to stick to my old ones, and try to accomplish those, before making new ones.

Well guys, have a happy New Year, let's hope 2012 is better than 2011 :)