Saturday, March 5, 2016

Clean floors and the Ottoman language


After a long day away at work (teaching English in group and private lessons), I came home to an empty apartment. I quickly took the opportunity to sweep and mop the floors since for the last few weeks I've noticed that an unpleasant whiff would escape every time the door was opened. I know our doorman notices since he has to knock on our door at least three times a day. Poor guy! I think the real clincher was when I went into my neighbor's home yesterday to stuff my frozen food items into her freezer since our fridge just broke. Their floors were spotless! Shiny! Unsmelly! Very the opposite of mine! So when I realized everyone was gone, I rushed to open all the windows to let the air through the house. It was such a beautiful day! The colors of this city were revealing themselves through the usual layer of grey today as I walked the streets on my way home. The tips of each wave on the Sea of Marmara glistened. Istanbul really has a magic that you don't appreciate unless you're able to walk the streets frequently, which I can do now that I took that leap and quit my previous job. So, anyway, I mopped our floors vigorously. The mop head collected all the dust bunnies that my broom didn't catch, which were abundant, and it pried the stickiness of Atticus' pineapple juice spills off the kitchen floor. I felt so much more pride in my home after I was finished because I know that all my Turkish neighbors or anyone that enters my home won't be grossed out by the nastiness of my floors. Clean floors are a standard here in Istanbul if you didn't know.
Now I'm sitting in my cozy apartment. My kids have returned and are playing the WiiU. My husband sits nearby in his own world, a separate world he has created out of necessity in order to finish his dissertation. Since I'm waiting for him to hang out with me I decided to take a picture and submit it to google translate. His response:

 I don't think Google translate has the Ottoman option. Sorry Christine.

The more time we spend here in Turkey and the more specialized Jonathan becomes, the more I think we'll end up here longer than we thought. Someday I'll write a post about all the pros of living here in Istanbul, but for now I just want to say that if Trump is elected president, we might be staying here forever.

1 comment:

otherwise known as Sam said...

Just reading again. Hope you are enjoying clean floors and breezy breeze. It is such a breath of fresh air, as always, to read your posts. Perhaps I'll suggest a job in Turkey if Trump is elected. They need designers there, right? ;)