Leave the Path

I had spring break last week and community week the week before that. It was really good to get a break from the exhausting routine of classes and tests that had filled the last 10 weeks. Seeing sick kids and visiting family always puts things in perspective. Liz visited for a few days right after classes ended. I’m always happy to see her, and I wasn’t expecting it so it was all the better. Then I did community week for a while and it was great, but very fast paced. I saw lots of great kids, but obviously didn’t take any pictures. I also learned a lot about the history of vaccinations and colors of baby poop. I guess doctors need to know these things.

At the beginning of spring break Emre and I went to my grandparents’ house for a while. We all fishing one day out on Baden Lake. Emre and I actually got up at 6:00 a.m. in mid-March to go sit in a boat on a lake.

It was pretty, but bitterly cold and windy. Notice the frost on the dock. We did catch some fish, but we headed in before lunch when we realized we had all started lost feeling in our hands. The highlight, in my opinion, was when Grandpa tried to swing a fish into the boat suspended from one of his 8-foot rods. A gust of wind hit it and it smacked me in the face. Due to my excessive protective gear, I didn’t even see it coming. I have never been so surprised in my life.

Emre and I also went to see my parents in Bessemer City. Their new house is really nice. My mother has put a lot of time into decorating it and now she’s working on the landscaping. My dad seems to like his new job. They seem really happy there. The town is also a far cry better than Roanoke Rapids. It’s actually smaller, but there seem to be more shops and more kinds of restaurants. It’s also really close to Gastonia and Charlotte, so whatever metropolitan treasures one would hope to find in North Carolina can be accessed within the hour.

While we were in town, my mother took us to a giant garden near Belmont. It inspired me to want to plant something. It is spring, after all.

There were lattices and flowering trees and fountains. The highlight in my opinion, however, was the topiaries that all sort of looked like unfinished dinosaurs. Seriously, what else could this be?

When we got back to town, I did lots of errands and then my brother Jon came to visit. We played board games and ate food with various friends, including Jason and Rachel and Abhineet. We also went to the Duke Lemur Center.

Ringtail lemurs smell really bad, for the record. The males do something called “stink fighting” whereby they rub a fluid from scent glands onto their tails and flick it at one another. How you would win at this contest is beyond me, but it keeps them from fighting. The other less-stinky lemurs were pretty neat and they were all pretty active when we visited. And it was good to spend some time with Jon. We only live two hours apart and I feel like I never see him.

In other news, we got more pictures of the baby. Volkan and Hanzade’s daughter Zeynep was born in January. Periodically we get updates and photos.

We gather that she’s healthy, growing, and clever. We can’t wait to go meet her. That’s just one of many reasons to go traveling again soon. We haven’t left NC since October and I’m feeling a little stir-crazy. My friend Stacey is in Belize at the moment, Grandma Mattie just got back from Hawaii, and many of my friends from school are going to exotic locals this summer. I’m a little jealous; we’re probably going to stick around here this year. Currently I want to go to Botswana. I’ve been reading the #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series of books. They’re fantastic and paint what seems to be a realistic portrait of what it’s like to live in the relatively peaceful and comfortable African nation. I know I won’t actually going any time soon, but it seems like a really interesting place. Maybe one day I can take my own pictures of giraffes and lions.