Expectation-busting

Sometimes it feels like one of our biggest challenges is communicating to people back in the UK what it's like to live in Central Turkey.

Often when we say 'Turkey', people think 'package holidays on the beach'. The Mediterranean and Aegean coasts of Turkey are very lovely, but they are also incredibly different from Central Turkey where we live.

I love the city where we live. But it is most definitely not a beach holiday destination place (for one, we're a rather long way from the sea). I have to be careful how I dress and how I act because I know that as a foreign woman, I am watched and scrutinised.

And just as people sometimes think all of Turkey is like the beach resort they visited once, sometimes they think that it's always warm here. Or at least always warmer than the UK.

So just in case you happened to think that, it can be cold here. Colder than the UK. In fact, the weather forecast for tomorrow says that it's going to reach a high tomorrow of -1 degrees (with a low of -8 degrees). But that the -1 degrees high is going to actually feel like -5 degrees. And it's snowing at the moment. This is pretty typical weather for our city in winter, so it's not exactly a surprise. But I am definitely looking forward to spring!

Off the beaten track

We love how green and spacious our city is compared to Istanbul. At the same time, a lot of the green space in the city is made up of relatively small parks - a children's playground, a patch of grass and a few trees/shrubs. What we miss are woods, or a country park, and having a good walk in that sort of scenery but we don't really live in the right sort of place to find places easily to do that. Although on the plus side, we can go for a walk in summer and hope to see a lizard.

So when I saw a friend posting some pictures on Facebook of their family exploring, I quickly found out where they'd gone and we headed there one Saturday afternoon not long after. I'm looking forward to going back, and I've also heard of another place to go exploring not too far away.

We love that here, it's easy to see where there is a stream or river because there is almost always a line of trees (often poplars) on the river bank that stands out for miles.

And obviously I am far later in posting this that I wanted to be - this all happened back at the start of November. So the photos reflect autumn here rather than winter!