October goings-on

This blog has been rather neglected recently. Life has been busy! Here's a round up of some of the things we've been up to the last few weeks.

• L did his first 'talk' on a Sunday. This time he spoke in English and it was translated into Turkish, but his next one will be in Turkish. He's already hard at work preparing it.

• A bit of a cold weather snap at the end of September turned into some lovely warm and sunny October days, like a little extension of summer without the need for sun hats and sun cream and worry about over heating and sunburn and adequate hydration. J, S and I made the trek across to our nearest big green park on Monday morning to spend a couple of hours there with some friends.

• We've been passing colds round between us in what seems like a never-ending cycle. S is the only one with a proper cold at the moment, I'm hoping (perhaps optimistically) that after his goes, we might be done with colds for at least a week or two.

• L's been doing a course on Saturdays, with three out of six sessions done. He's finding it really useful and is able to record the talks for me but I have to admit, having him gone from 8am - 2pm each Saturday at the moment is a bit wearing!

• S turned 5 months old today. I can't believe that his first few months have gone already, it's a cliche to say it but time flies so fast! This week he's started rolling from his front onto his back (admittedly mostly unintentionally). As he can already roll from his back to his front, he is now able to execute a commando-type roll to get towards things and places that look interesting. Of course, the most interesting thing to a 5 month old is his big brother's train tracks and trains.

• J has started attending a weekly morning play group that a friend of mine is running in her home. It's lovely as it's a group of mum friends who all have toddlers roughly the same age and live close to each other and we're all taking it in turns to help run activities in the group and support my friend who is hosting it. I've been helping the last few weeks so tomorrow will be J's first time there without me - eek!

• I've started working with a new language teacher. I have to do a lot of prep for her lessons but my weekly lesson with her is balancing really well with my other language sessions, where I basically just chat with a student for a couple of hours. The first is good for pushing myself to express more complex ideas and use longer sentences whereas the second type of sessions are better for general chat and fluency.

• Our home group has started again!

• I've been attending a weekly seminar on the Reformation. I've been to five sessions now, with the final one on Monday. The first three were in English translated into Turkish and it was really useful to hear an English sentence then hear what Turkish words were being chosen to express that concept in Turkish. The last two have been in Turkish, and I've been pleasantly surprised that I've mainly understood them - although I can't yet read long quotes on Powerpoint in Turkish and listen to the speaker at the same time!

• Our year-long Müzekarts (museum cards that allow access to lots of museums and historical sites in Turkey) that we got when we went to Ephesus this time last year were about to expire so we thought we'd better hurry up and visit Topkapı Palace, which we hadn't yet been to. We spent a fun couple of hours one Sunday afternoon exploring there. J was particularly taken with the swords in one of the exhibition halls. Interestingly there's a section of the palace that has a number of religious relics attributed to various prophets and kings - for example a staff said to have belonged to Moses and a sword said to have belonged to King David!
• I (with J and S) went to a surprise baby shower for a friend last week. It was the sort of baby shower that involved 8 children aged two and three years and 3 babies, so rather chaotic but fun!
• And we've had the usual busyness of life with two small children! Language study, trips to the park, time spent with friends, a visit or two to the aquarium to make the most of our annual passes before they run out in December, hilarious conversations with J, lots of laughter and middle of the night feeds with S...

At the aquarium

When in Istanbul...

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

So when in Istanbul, do as the Istanbullus do.

That's my justification for the fact that today I told a man sitting on a metro train that my friend, who was standing close to him, was rather pregnant. He got the hint and immediately stood up to give her the seat without me needing to continue to make my point.

If I had been in the UK, I would never have dared do such a thing. I would hope that someone would see a pregnant lady and offer a seat but I'd never openly suggest such a thing. In fact, being very British, I would probably have just glared at the man taking up a seat, exchanged 'isn't-this-ridiculous-I-can't-believe-no-one's-offered-you-a-seat' glances with my friends and made a couple of impatient huffs with a pointed look towards my friend's 7 and a bit months pregnant bump.

But I'm not, I'm in Turkey where it is expected that when an elderly person or a pregnant person or a person carrying a baby gets on a train, someone will immediately stand up to offer them a seat. And where the typical British reserve and unwritten rule that you don't usually initiate conversation with fellow passengers on public transport doesn't exist either.

So in that context, my suggestion on the train today wasn't out of place at all. It was more shameful that no one had offered her a seat to start with. And the fact that the man immediately jumped to his feet showed that he knew exactly what was expected and what the culturally 'right' thing was to do.

But it's also slightly strange to realise that you're adapting to a country sufficiently to do something that you'd never dream of doing in your own country. Living here is changing me - there's now a small part of my character that knows that in certain situations and countries, suggesting to a stranger on a train they should give up their seat is a completely acceptable thing to do.

Although I probably won't be trying it on a train in the UK any time soon.

Daily life #3

While we were walking home from the park, I saw this scene and grabbed my phone from my bag to take a picture. It encapsulates so much about our daily life here, apart from the fact that when there's a car or lorry blocking the road, the queue of vehicles is usually quite a bit longer and involves multiple drivers beeping their horns repeatedly. Also I was a minute too late in capturing the water delivery guy on a motorbike who got around the lorry by riding his motorbike onto the pavement.

The streets in our part of Istanbul are mostly narrow, one way streets like this, with apartment buildings rising sharply up on each side. I think each apartment building is meant to be self supporting. However, whenever I see a building that has been knocked down to rebuild in its place, there are almost always wooden beams stretching across the space that the apartment used to fill, bracing the apartment buildings either side. You can see straight into your neighbour across the road's flat if neither of you have net curtains drawn.

The narrowness of the roads and lack of parking means that if there are any deliveries to be made to an office or house on the street, the van will just stop outside for as long as it takes to load/unload and any cars behind will just have to wait (or reverse).

The roads are technically one way, as in there is a 'no entry' sign at one end. In practice, the no entry sign seems to mean 'no entry unless you are (a) on a motorbike; (b) reversing up the street; or (c) driving fast to make it to the other end before a car comes down the road the right way'. Although I did just look at this photo and see that the van blocking the road is facing the wrong way and doesn't seem to fulfil any of the exceptions, but there's always an exception to the exceptions.

And then there's a man with a horse and cart selling melons. The horse and cart isn't a really common feature of life in our part of Istanbul (this is the only one we regularly see) but people pushing hand carts down the street to sell filled-bread-type-things or the rag and bone man shouting "esskiiiiciiiii" (which translates as 'rag and bone man') is a pretty common sight. Incidentally the horse and cart remind me of Bradford, where rag and bone men on a horse and cart can still be seen (at least, they could 18 months ago).

Our life in Istanbul :-)