My Thoughts So Far...

At this point, we have been in Turkey almost a week. The first several
days we were total tourists--taking pictures everywhere, wondering
aimlessly, paying too much for things. It's awesome to finally be
getting a feel for the city, even making it like home. I'm sure we
still look like total tourists though, haha.

I've met some people through two of the local language schools. I'm
hoping to interact with a few of their students. If they can show me
around and teach me about the culture, I can help them practice
conversational English. The schools teach grammar, reading and
writing, but it appears that conversational English isn't emphasized
as much. This is where the language school face the biggest challenges
as few actually offer native speakers as teachers.

I've also made some friends and a local cafe called Paul's Place, run
by a couple who moved from California! For those of you who know me,
you would know this excited me a great deal! It was nice to meet
people I understood ;-) I'm looking forward to going back there this
week.

There also may be a chance for us to take some formal language
training. We've been working hard on the language on our own, but I
think this would be very valuable!

Wish you all could be here! Turkey is marvelous!

by Noah