Reasons my roommate hates me

I think my blue eyes are getting me somewhere in this town! Today, my roommate and I ate at Arbys-ha! They gave me my food, but we had to wait while they made her curly fries. So I stood and munched on mine while we waited. She started to tease me that she was getting new ones, while I had to eat the old ones. I smarted back, "At least I'm getting to enjoy mine now." The server brought her fries to her, and then asked if I wanted to have hot ones too. He took my half empty container away, and refilled it with hot, fresh curly fries. I gave her a ha-ha look and walked away to our table.

We left the dining area of the mall and headed to the movie theatre. When I went to purchase my ticket, the man asked if I was a student. I said yes, but I don't have an ID. He charged me 8 million for my ticket, and then charged schroomie 9 million. She said she was going to post her own blog about why she doesn't like this country.

Lest you think the world is rosy perfect for me here because of my blue eyes (they're seen as a good luck charm), I'll share my experience of trying to buy a receipt book and index cards yesterday. I walked into a paper store, and said, "Turkce bilmiyorum," and a look of panic entered the salesclerk's eyes. I looked around for what would resemble index cards. When none were to be found, I finally pointed to a small booklet that I could cut up to use as flash cards for vocabulary. Then I pointed to the receipt part of the cash register, to the booklet I was holding, and hoped he would understand my hand gestures. No such luck. I pulled out my dictionary and said the words for receipt and book. Still no understanding on his part. (I have a theory that people who don't speak English see light skin and blue eyes, and automatically assume that they will NOT understand ANYthing from that point forward.) Again and again I say "receipt, book" and make motions of me writing a receipt. Two older salesclerks have an entire conversation about how they know I'm saying receipt and book, but they sure as heck don't understand me. The younger one walks away, comes back, shows me a receipt book, and asks if this is what I wanted. "Evet!" I shout. Yes! Small tasks can exert so much energy.

And I got laughed at today when I asked how much something was, and didn't understand the response. Straight up, mean, junior high laughed at. Maybe it wouldn't be so hard if their prices weren't all in the MILLIONS--that's alot of numbers to comprehend in a flash second. Thank goodness they're changing it with the new year and getting rid of all those zeroes. Just a few occurances of every day life from the eternal nomad--and my roommie doesn't really hate me.