Last weekend was really nice... I went to an island in the Marmara Sea and had a ride in a horse-drawn carriage. Certain colleagues dismissed this as bourgeois... but then, as I like to remind certain people, we are working for a school built by an Eastern-European centred construction corporation.
Going through the usual oscillation of loving İstanbul and all there is to do and see here, and feeling vaguely appalled at the possibility of staying here for another two years, minimum... Some things I do like about this country though
- people think its cute when you try to speak Turkish. (I think). This is great, because cute and mildy entertaining is really all my Turkish can offer right now. In order to practice I find myself saying lots of basically untrue things (tomorrow İ will go to the palace, I like bread, I am tired). These are 'white lies', or something, because I usually am tired-ish, and bread is ok, and I suppose there was some possibility of me visiting the palace. But mostly I said them because I was so proud of the sentence I have learnt.
- I have a very supportive and generous hairdresser. Getting my hair straightened regularly makes me quite happy.
- Kebaps. Cheap, not appalling unhealthy, and everywhere.
- every now and then I come across something that is really very Agatha Christie/Ottomon Empire/Orient Express-ish, and it is so cool to engage with a culture that I never really thought I would. Of course, finding a real-life example of anything that has been romanticised in popular culture, especially the popular culture of your childhood, is a pleasureable experience. But while I was pretty seriously committed to seeing Catherine Gaskin's Ireland, I never really thought about Turkey as a kid. And thus, the 'remembering' of the scene in front of me is kind of sweeter, and less open to disappointment, perhaps!
Ok enough for today.
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