Benim Dairem, falan filan

Sadly, I still don't have internet in my flat, but should by the end of this week. So there's some decent news. I also yesterday went to get my residence permit renewed at the Ankara Emniyet (..."security office", roughly, I think): I headed down to Kizilay, found a dolmus that said "Emniyet" on the side, and hopped on...
Only to have a nice hourlong ride through the completely wrong part of the city. The Emniyet that the dolmus passed wasn't the Emniyet I needed to go to. On the way back to Kizilay, this guy on the dolmus who spoke a little English asked me where I was trying to get to, so I showed him my residence permit and told him I needed to go to the correct Emniyet. By this time I'd figured out which dolmus I needed to go on, but he insisted that I could get there via subway, and was pretty persistent, so off I went on the subway line to Ankamall. Thankfully, when we got there it was indeed the right place. Ankara did yabancis a great favor by putting their Emniyet right next to pretty much the largest grocery store in Turkey: Ankamall is a shopping mall, anchored by a 5M Migros (Migros is a chain of grocery stores; the size of the store is proportionate to the number of Ms starting the name: MMigros is neighborhood supermarket sized, MMMigros is typical large suburban grocery store sized. MMMMMigros is massive). It's very recognizable.
I headed to the Emniyet's yabanci ofisi, and handed in all my paperwork, only to be told that my paperwork was Istanbul paperwork, and that I needed to fill out the exact same information on a form that was identical to mine except for the font. Bureaucracy, I love it so. The guy behind the yabanci desk then told me that the person who processed residence permits had left at 3:30, so I'd have to return this next week to get the renewal. Then he looked at my passport and saw that I'd been in the country for 2.5 months already. Apparently, even though the Fulbright office assured me I'd be fine, and getting my residence permit up to 3 months after entry would not be a problem, it was indeed a problem. The guy disappeared to go talk to someone about it. I started panicking and trying to guess whether they'd deport me, and if I'd be allowed back in the country. Luckily, the guy came back and told me I just had to pay a fine. But it was a tense few minutes for me. :P
After getting information but no residence permit, I headed over to the magical MMMMMigros for some shopping. It was wonderful. It even had an organic section, and prices were cheaper than at all the grocery stores by me. They even had premade salads/greenery other than iceberg lettuce, which I haven't seen in any other grocery store. It was fabulous. I bought a blender, magic-bullet-style, which promised recipes inside for 10-second mousse, and chicken salad, and smoothies. Sadly, the recipe booklet was not inside, so I'll have to experiment on the mousse (I don't know about the chicken salad...). It came with a juicer attachment, so I think I'll have fun experimenting in the kitchen with it. It was a good impulse buy, and it means I can satiate my hummus fix.
This weekend's been pretty quiet so far: today I spent the morning figuring out how to use my washing machine, whose cycles are helpfully labelled only as "A", "B", "D", "M", and "X". I tried M, and it seemed to work decently, except for the part where it took 2 hours for a single wash cycle. Maybe next time I'll try "A"... Tomorrow, I'm getting up early to try and find the Vatican Embassy for Mass, which should be fun and potentially an adventure as it's a ways away from my apartment. After that, I think I'm running with the HHH again and then getting my place ready for my potential roommate, who gets in to town Monday. So that'll be fun.
Hope you-all are doing great,
-R