Woo! Hot weather!

That's two days now of serious balcony time, playing tavla and general relaxing... and Fife and I have gone into sandals... and I had an iced coffee at Starbucks and bought a sleeveless t-shirt. It must be summer.

There was a cassic moment in the pub a few days ago which I totally failed to blog, we were outside feeding peanut husks to the sparrows, and Kevin read the board that said Maç keyfi! G.S.-Adana 3 milyon. 'Is that a new type of kebab?' he said. 'A GS-Adana?'

I nearly fell off my chair...

* posted by nat 7:14 PM

Monday, April 28, 2003

I love teaching the kids... we've been doing lots of work on adjectives recently, and so in the final hour, as I hadn't really bothered to plan, we played "My insert person of choice here's cat". Particular favourites go to: "My gran's cat is an international cat" - "My gran's cat is a new cat AND an old cat." "My gran's cat is an eXample cat" and we also invented the word "verbing" for V. The outright winner, however, goes to Mert's "My gran's cat is an under-the-table cat." We did try to draw a few of them on the board, but it was far easier to make them up!

Holidays loom! I have some serious holiday organisation to do. In the meantime, however, reports and conversation.

* posted by nat 3:56 PM

Friday, April 25, 2003

Istanbul way back in November - they actually should work now! Starring my-favourite-place-Ortaköy - I think I've put them up to the right picture!

Ortaköy Camii and the first bridge
Late Afternoon Sun over the Bosphorus (from a boat near Ortaköy
Galata, from across the Golden Horn
Inside Mısır Çarsısı
Outside the Kapalı Çarsı

Off to the pub. We invented lexical Cheddar Gorge last night at conversation - I think this new version should be named Cheese and Pineapple Chunks...

* posted by nat 4:24 PM

Istanbul way back in November - they actually should work now! Starring my-favourite-place-Ortaköy - I think I've put them up to the right picture!

Ortaköy Camii and the first bridge
Late Afternoon Sun over the Bosphorus (from a boat near Ortaköy
Galata, from across the Golden Horn
Inside Mısır Çarsısı
Outside the Kapalı Çarsı

Off to the pub. We invented lexical Cheddar Gorge last night at conversation - I think this new version should be named Cheese and Pineapple Chunks...

* posted by nat 4:24 PM

Thursday, April 24, 2003

Much better on the whole sunshine thing - I'm out of my fleece finally!

Major living-in-a-Muslim-country-update-alert: I have finally been inside a real live mosque! (although it was the Sultanahmet Mosque/Blue Mosque, and it was full of tourists and a pack of small children from a private kindergarten doing the locomotion around the main part of it.) But anyway, I have now done that. There was a lot of yummy Iznik tilage, and it was just the sort of place you'd want to sit in for an hour or thirty to contemplate stuff were it not for the packs of aforementioned tourists who hadn't quite managed to cover their hair. Huh. And also the parents took me up to Kariye Camii, which is just divine. Divine divine divine. If father ever posts me the photos I might post them. And I don't think I can look fish-and-raki in the face for about another month.

And then I am stuffing my face with Mini Eggs, because I can.

* posted by nat 3:29 PM

Much better on the whole sunshine thing - I'm out of my fleece finally!

Major living-in-a-Muslim-country-update-alert: I have finally been inside a real live mosque! (although it was the Sultanahmet Mosque/Blue Mosque, and it was full of tourists and a pack of small children from a private kindergarten doing the locomotion around the main part of it.) But anyway, I have now done that. There was a lot of yummy Iznik tilage, and it was just the sort of place you'd want to sit in for an hour or thirty to contemplate stuff were it not for the packs of aforementioned tourists who hadn't quite managed to cover their hair. Huh. And also the parents took me up to Kariye Camii, which is just divine. Divine divine divine. If father ever posts me the photos I might post them. And I don't think I can look fish-and-raki in the face for about another month.

And then I am stuffing my face with Mini Eggs, because I can.

Oh, and here are some pictures of Istanbul way back in November (if they uploaded okay, which they probably didn't... I don't have time to check now as I've totally failed to plan this lesson for the Eles and I've got about 20 minutes to get a 3 hour lesson sorted)

Ortako&omul;y Camii and the first bridge
Late Afternoon Sun over the Bosphorus
Galata, across the Golden Horn
Mısır Çar.
Outside the Kapalı Çar.

* posted by nat 3:27 PM

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Sun! Cheese! Chocolate! Hot cross buns! Green & Black Easter Egg! Hot Chocolate split all down my dress! Woo!

I am also, apparently, as evil as a cupcake. Go me!

* posted by nat 1:03 PM

Saturday, April 19, 2003

Weather lousy. Non-stop rain!

As I'm in the middle of teaching the kids tongue-twisters (they're teaching me Turkish ones, so why not...) just a short link to the St Patrick's Day thing we had. Note my lack of appearingness in any photos - although I am actually in the fourth one down on the left - I'm the shadow in the back left corner! My happy-lovely-giggly Early Eles are in the top right photo.

* posted by nat 1:02 PM

Thursday, April 17, 2003

The puzzle is finished! Olay!

Yesterday Yasmin, Pete and I popped up to Taksim and had curry. Yum. Yum. Chana masala. Mmmmm! (repeat ad infinitum). The place is called "Nur Coffee House" - we suspect they called up the sign writers and asked for "curry house" and were comprehensively misunderstood... Also, in a fit of positivity, I bought a sleeveless t-shirt in OXXO. One day it might be warm enough to actually wear it!

Parents landing later, so that's a sure cue it'll rain all weekend...

* posted by nat 1:53 PM

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

On Sunday we went on a bear hunt (that's the kids and me, in class). There was a little too much slamming into walls, but we'd all like to point out that We Weren't Scared. Nuh-uh. Not even when Mert became the bear and chased us all the way back home.

And then we went to the pub (obviously not with the kids.)

On Monday I was lectured about Turkish playwrights, the Circassian language, and epileptic fits - my morning class is never dull! I even made vast inroads into my puzzle! Ooooooh! And the evening class got fits of the giggles about every ten minutes, which was really quite amusing!

And today the sun is out! Well, sometimes! And there are lots of power cuts! And here I am in the Net Cafe!

* posted by nat 12:13 PM

Saturday, April 12, 2003

The birds have disappeared, and I got home last night to find mountains of cooking going on. Fishcakes! Mmm!

Today the weather is lovely, and I'm just not in the mood to be indoors. I really am not getting to grips with my new morning class at all. I can't find what makes them tick. I am beginning to believe that some of them simply don't tick at all. Some of the boys are nice, though(!)

* posted by nat 1:50 PM

Friday, April 11, 2003

Girls' outing to Nautilus! Börek for breakfast and then the four of us did a quick supermarket sweep around Carrefour; then home to relaxing and Putting Things Off.

I noticed a lot of flapping going on on the indoor balcony: there's a pair of the brown-and-grey doves in there, probably looking for a place to nest. I went in to see if I could get the second window open to provide further exits. One of them was quite blas&ecaute; about my presence but the female decided to fall down the back of the cupboard and the dross piled up out there. So I had to pull it all out to give her a rescue path but she wasn't having it. So I put a trail of breadcrumbs out and have left them to it...

On to planning!

* posted by nat 2:08 PM

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

We're all agreed: the man in Baghdad with the Vase officially made our morning! We sat outside to play Tavla today, just by the Fener marina, and it was lovely. And I'm finally making inroads into my puzzle...

* posted by nat 6:46 PM

On Tuesday we woke up to find it snowing.

'We must never, ever make plans to do anything ever again!' said Yasmin. So we played Tavla and waited, and after lunch decided we would make a move, as it had stopped snowing, and we wanted a warm cafe. We made a brief stop at the BC for library books, and then went down to Karaköy to sit in the little red cafe amongst the nargiles and drink tea and play tavla. The owner remembered us from last time we were there - just over two months ago - right down to where we sat!

We then crossed the bridge to Eminönü managed to park, bought tea from the man in the Spice Bazaar and then went up to visit Mustafa in his shop, where I helped myself to a couple of sumer headscarves, and we drank yet more tea. Then we got hungry and headed off to a cold and distinctly deserted Sultanahmet where he had a very delicious bit of food in a Turkestan restaurant just off the far side of the Hippodrome, which was made even nicer by the fact we were all snuggled up against the heaters! It's a very atmospheric place; you feel like you're in a huge yurt, and it's all red carpets floor, wall and ceiling.

But there's a distinct lack of tourists about.

* posted by nat 6:44 PM

Sunday, April 06, 2003

On Saturday we were halfway through a picture description when the kids suddenly said "Leylik, bak teacher look!" (the fact they mix up Turkish and English all the time doesn't bother them one bit.) And there, flying low over the school, circling round on a thermal were a flock of large white storks, looking rather desperately for a mid-migration service station; IH obviously wasn't it. They look a bit silly in the air, storks, and were doing quite a good job of trying to knock each other out of the sky.

So I said to the kids, "What are they doing?" (target language, after all) expecting: Flying. Oh no. Not at all. "Going on holiday, teacher!" "Going to Afghanistan! Iraq!" "From Africa!" "Aeroplanes, teacher, flying to aeroplanes and airports and engines go boom! Going to fight, teacher!"

Serves me right for asking, obviously...

* posted by nat 2:58 PM

Friday, April 04, 2003

Hair nasty-frizzy. Must to talk to my stylist (the multi-talented Yasmin).

Living arrangement crap has foisted itself upon us all sooner than we thought it would. Meeting coming up. Eek!

Yaz geliyor! It really is very warm today; almost t-shirt weather! Woo!

Have practised past simple adjectives: Mutlu muydun? - Mutluydum degil, heyecanlıydım. (Hell to pronounce!)

Kiwi fruit. Kiwi fruit!

Edit: I've remembered what I wanted to blog here, I knew I had a reason - Thursday night I met Mali, who has been missing for a few weeks on competition; turns out he and his partner are now the National Ballroom Champions! It's having me as an English teacher, must be...!

* posted by nat 3:45 PM

Thursday, April 03, 2003

After eight hours of a house without water yesterday, and me feeling insufferably smug because I'd got up early enough to have a shower before it went off, Yasmin and I had played so many games of Tavla we'd consistently forgotten exactly what the score level was at, and we'd sent ourselves blind through too much Boggle, we took ourselves off down the pub for the football match. Which was perfectly fine, until Turkey lost, at which point things turned a little bit nasty though we got home no problem at all (apparently the police had to be called later, though...)

This morning we find someone has thrown a bomb/Molotov cocktail (depending on reports) at the British Consulate - obviously some disgruntled football fan! There was also a bomb up at the top of Bagdat Caddesi, towards Kadıköy (we were all watching the scrollbar on NTV this morning, it went Bagdat this, Bagdat that, and then suddenly Bagdat Caddesi came up and we all blinked quite a bit, rubbed our eyes... and then the gossiping started! (The street is several kilometres long, however, so that's still quite a way away.)

* posted by nat 3:55 PM

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Oh, the weather yesterday was so awful, the kind of day where you don't feel like doing anything except moping around. So Yasmin and I moped to celebrate our first weekend together in a while, and then we went and bought Yet Another VCD player - third time lucky! This one hasn't got games on it which is possibly A Good Thing for all of us, and then we sat down and wathced Monsters Inc. and then Fife came home cause Lafarge had cancelled so then we watched The Emperor's New Groove, wrapped up in blankets with big mugs of tea. Yasmin ate Mini Eggs, Fife had crisps and I ate sultanas. (Of course, I stuffed myself with Ispanaklı börek at lunchtime so I wasn't even too upset about not eating chocolate (three weeks to go, three weeks to go....)

Today is beautiful, warm and sunny, and the Internet Cafe opens mornings! I am making vast improvements at typing on a Turkish layout...

* posted by nat 8:48 AM