We saw the stars!

If we were back in England, we'd be on camp for at least one week this summer. It seems a little strange to sit here in 30 degree plus temperatures and think a little wistfully about a muddy field in Wales, but this is the first year ever that L won't be on camp (yep, you read that right. He's been going since he was a baby!). I've been on camp for the last 9 years and last year we took J at 5 weeks old (and my mum. If you ever go to be assistant leaders on an outdoor camp while in possession of a 5 week old baby, always take your mother).

One of my favourite things to do on camp was to look at the stars. Being as the camp is in a small valley in a very rural part of Wales, there is no light pollution and the stars are amazingly bright. On a clear night, you can see the Milky Way. A few times we've taken campers bivouacking out on the hills and it's coincided with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower and I've gone to sleep watching shooting stars. (Just in case that seemed a little too good to be true, it's worth adding that at that point I'm in a sleeping bag inside an orange survival-bag-slash-reinforced-bin-liner surrounded by a bevvy of teenage girls chattering away.)

I hadn't seen the stars since we moved here. There are no street lamps here, but with the buildings so densely packed, there is always some light of some kind in the streets and so, like any big city, your chance of seeing the stars is fairly non-existent.

However, earlier this week, we saw stars! Electricity and water cuts are not uncommon here but when the power suddenly went out at about 9.30pm, it was our first power cut at night. And suddenly not only was our flat completely dark, everywhere that we could see was completely dark. Before that sounds overly dramatic, from our front window we can only see up and down our narrow, one way street so it wasn't exactly surprising that we couldn't see any lights. And after grumbling to myself about it for a few minutes, I realised that there might be an upside.

And so, leaning out of our flat window, we looked up and slowly, as our eyes adjusted, we could make out a handful or two of stars. I never thought I'd see stars from our flat's window! No matter how many times I look up at the stars, they never cease to amaze me, to remind me how small I am and how astounding it is that each of them are known by name. But also that the One who is mighty in power, who determines the number of stars in the sky, is also the same one who knows each of us so intimately. How great he is! The same yesterday, today and forever. The same in a canvas-covered field in Wales, the same in Turkey. The one who does not change, the one who will fulfil every promise he has made. How amazing, how wonderful!

Comfort zone moments

Sometimes our lives look quite different from how we lived in England. Most of the time, our lives are pretty similar but with a slight twist. Or, depending on the occasion, a bit more than a slight twist and more a 'turn 180 degrees' kind of twist. You get used to it, but the first time time of doing most things is usually involves some twists and turns. Or multiple twists and turns - J's vaccinations being a prime example and a saga that is not yet complete.

But sometimes I get to stay in my comfort zone and do something for the first time exactly the same way I would have done it back in England. Getting biro marks out of the sofa (yep, I was foolish enough to leave a pen unattended on the sofa within reach of J) - my mum was still my first port of call and the supermarkets here also sell Vanish. Trying out a new recipe. Doing flour and water finger painting with J.

(Although for the finger painting, I have to confess that I found the instructions online but L chivalrously did the finger painting with J while I studied.)

I know the times I got to stay in my comfort zone because when I look back on the first time doing them, I look at the 'what' and not the 'how'. I see the end result and don't think about how it got achieved. I look back at them and there are no associations of uncertainty, stress and helplessness that pop into my head.

Moving here is a huge change, don't get me wrong. Even when things here look outwardly very similar to Western countries, this country has a different soul. I'm not always particularly thankful to be living in such a big city, but I am also trying to remember that the upside of spending our first two years here means that we can adjust to Turkey a bit more gradually and enjoy those comfort zone moments.

What's this 'consolidating language' thing about?

In a recent update to some of you, we said that this month we aren't going to language school but are working to consolidate our language studies so far.

So I thought it would be good to explain a little about why we're doing it and what it looks like for us.

Intensive language school is pretty intense. Sounds obvious, but there it is. You cover a lot of material in one level and add quite a bit of vocab as well - the list of words I have either learned or am in the process of learning is now just under 2000 words. It also seems like there's a step up between each level in terms of expectations of listening and fluency. For example, the first course (according to L) was mostly conducted in English, moving into partial Turkish at the end of the course. The second level course has been almost entirely in Turkish.

It is therefore very common, and often recommended by other foreigners, to take a month between intensive courses to practice and to absorb the material so far. And after two intensive courses back-to-back (which takes us to about GCSE level), L and I both knew that our brains needed a little bit of time to take in everything we've learned up to this point. 

So how are we consolidating our Turkish this month? Here's a list of some of the things we've been doing, in no particular order.

• Going over grammar notes and doing grammar, listening, comprehension and writing exercises
• Learning vocab - we both use a phone app called Anki that allows us to create our own flashcards and uses spaced repetition to help us learn. A lot of the vocab we learn is from conversations in class or from other students giving example sentences, which means that there are quite a few words I covered that L didn't, and vice versa. So we are also plugging holes in our vocabularies
• Getting out and about to practice listening and speaking. There are often opportunities to have a quick couple of minutes conversation with people as we go to the shops and the park and use the metro, or just chance to be listening out for the snippets of conversation you hear as you go about your daily life. Some of our best practice has been while either waiting for ferries or on ferries
• Watching Turkish TV on Youtube. Sometimes L and I watch a Turkish sitcom. We get some of the words used but to be honest, most of it passes us by at the moment. However, we have discovered Turkish children's cartoons on Youtube, which is much more our level! (i.e. we understand maybe one third to one half of what is said!) There's one called 'Can' which is a particular favourite of ours and J's. Recipe videos are also useful, as they tend to be nice and slow
• Practising speaking with each other
• Meeting up with language helpers
• Reading (slowly, with heavy use of a dictionary and accepting that we don't yet know all the necessary grammar) children's books in Turkish and a favourite book of ours (with the English version open next to us). (NB: narrative passages in our favourite book only. Letters from an author with a penchant for long and complex sentences are definitely too advanced for us right now!)
• Tackling our to-do list, which usually necessitates Turkish practice. For example, phoning up to get new drinking water, reading the text messages from our mobile phone carrier to find out how we get our next month's plan, buying some of the household things we still needed

So far, we're finding this consolidation time to be really valuable - although I'm sure we'll be ready to go back to language school when the time comes.

One of Istanbul's best kept secrets

Did you know that Istanbul had islands? Neither did we until we moved here.

Adalar (as they are called in Turkish) is a group of 9 islands located in the Sea of Marmara, not too far from Istanbul. Four of these islands are open to the public - and with some of our family making some quick weekend visits, it was the perfect opportunity to explore.

The islands

The islands are reached by public ferry, with the ferry calling at each of the four islands in turn and it takes about 90 minutes to get to the last (and biggest) island. The ferries themselves are part of the experience - the islands are a very popular day trip from Istanbul, so on a summer weekend it's necessary to get to the ferry in plenty of time to queue up (with bonus points if you can strike up a conversation with a Turkish person whilst waiting) and then rush onto the ferry to try and bag some outdoor, shady seats. Being out on the ferry in the Bosphorous gives a completely different view of the city and almost immediately brings a sense of calm at being surrounded by open sea, in contrast to the density of the city - until someone comes round loudly selling simit and çay. 

My dad entertaining J on the ferry

We've visited two now: Büyükada and Heybeliada. Both were lovely - full of forest and greenery, with a small town on each.  Private vehicles are not allowed on the islands, so transport is either by (a) horse and carriage, (b) electric scooter (if you're a local), (c) bicycle, or (d) foot. The horse and carriage is a very traditional way to tour the island, but we chose to walk.

Look! Green space!

Exploring Heybeliada

The perfect way to escape from the city for a day!