This week it feels like winter has well and truly hit Istanbul. Today it was 9 degrees outside! Apparently it can actually snow here, though no signs of any yet.
L's in the middle of another month's language course and on Monday he had to give a 20-25 minute presentation in class - in Turkish of course - on a topic of his choosing. He spent much of the weekend working on that while J and I had a trip to Kadıköy, just across on the Asian side. I'd spent the best part of two weeks within a quarter mile of our flat and really felt I needed some open space and J hadn't been on a ferry for quite a while. So a trip on the public ferry across the Bosphorus, a quick lunch outside for us both, space for J to run around on the promenade next to the sea, cats for him to watch/chase and a return ferry journey in time for his afternoon nap was perfect. And it was warm - so warm that J was running around in a t-shirt and jumper without me getting told off by anyone for not having enough layers on him!
This is in contrast to yesterday, where despite having wrapped J up in a coat and hat over his vest and long-sleeved top for the approximately 10 minute (if you average out my walking speed while carrying J with J's walking speed) walk home from a friend's house, I still got told off by someone in the street for J not wearing enough layers. I think it was because there was a small gap between his coat and hat that meant part of his neck was exposed.
But I'm not complaining because as often as someone gives me advice in the street, someone else will offer to help me if I'm out by myself with J. Saturday was a case in point - to get to the ferry landing station required travelling a couple of stops on the metro and a short funicular ride. Generally, the metro system here is super-pushchair-friendly. As in, I can enter a metro station, take the metro wherever I need to go and exit without having to take J out of the pushchair.
However, if the lift you need is out of order, you have a slight problem. This happened to me on our way to Kadıköy at the worst possible place when I discovered that the lift that replaces four escalators, a travelling walkway and a couple of minutes walk was out of order. But, after making my way up one escalator carrying J in one arm and the pushchair with the other hand, a man offered to take the pushchair and carried it all the way out for me, even though I'm not sure he was actually planning to take the exit I took. And on our ferry trip out, someone else carried the pushchair as we were disembarking. And even better - by the time of our return a few hours later, the lift was fixed.
I guess this is life in a big city! Interestingly, L and I both feel that the transition to living in a huge city has been one of the biggest adaptations we have had to make in moving here. Although the transition to big city life has probably been compounded by the cross-cultural move, and vice-versa.
Oh, and if you wanted to know what L's presentation was on, it was about babies, cats and aliens as L presented his 'theories' that babies were actually either (a) a member of the cat family or (b) aliens with super-powers. Personally I think it was just an excuse to show his classmates photos and videos of J.
