Istanbul musings......

on some levels I feel so at home in this city.....on others I am a foreigner, a gringo, an ex-pat. Call it what you like, i'll never be a local.

In so many ways i'm typically British; inherently crap at languages that I would like to blame on genetics and cultural programming, but I suspect is partly due to inherent laziness and a short attention span. If I spent half as much time actually studying Spanish as I do thinking about doing it I’d be significantly further along than I am. Mind you I'm probably the only person who comes to Turkey and then decides to resurrect his Spanish studies.

That said I keep being told by all the people I work with how good my Turkish pronunciation is; maybe because it is very Welsh in terms of its use of the back of the throat; and also maybe because I entertain them with my utterly random phrases;
“nash nash” means “get lost” when dogs or annoyances are near by;
“uff la” when something is going wrong; (particularly with a throw back of your head)
Gay-vez-eh” is chatterbox
And my absolute favourite is Bu iş, bir çarşamba pazara gibi literally: “This job is like a Wednesday Market”. Equivalent to “piss up in a brewery” Genius.....

I'm back in Istanbul tonight.....it's a balmy 6'c. Ankara today was -19'c though....brrrr!!!

There's a wonderful mix of different cultures on our course and then multipied by many living in different locations yet again. i think we need a "random" page on our new website for those truly random "Wednesday market" musings....mmmmm......