I’d love to start this post by writing that I go to my local market in Göztepe in Istanbul every Monday but I can’t. My husband’s the one who goes. He’s known to the vendors as the Turkish looking foreigner (his mother was Italian) who buys the food for his family, rejects any apples, strawberries…
I’m a long time Kadikoy resident and I love it. The maze of backstreets with no names where it’s easy to get lost as you stop and stare, duck in and out of little shops to taste and touch and buy. However when you’ve only come over on a day trip from your hotel in…
I’ve lived in Turkey for about 15 years now, and have almost completely adapted to the way of life. I’m no longer surprised if I’m offered a piece of stinky cheese direct from a goat skin and can use even the most basic of squat toilets without needing to hold my nose. I’m so assimilated…
In my many years of living and travelling throughout Turkey, I’ve met a lot of different people, all of whom called themselves Turks. I’ve written about some of the most memorable people in a piece called “The People You Meet”. Here’s an extracts from the story “Working here as a teacher has given me a…
Everyday, in a suburb somewhere in Istanbul, a weekly street market is being held. One of the one of the many traditions brought to the big city from small towns and villages, vibrant, crowded, noisy Turkish street markets persist, despite the increasing number of supermarkets opening up every year. Trucks loaded with produce criss-cross the…
A Turkish friend recently invited me to attend a mevlit to be held for her mother. Her mum had been failing for months, going from being a chirpy chatty woman to a small silent figure swaddled in a now too large bed, who no longer spoke but always smiled when she saw her darling Meral….
“Being Australian and living in Istanbul, one of the hardest things to cope with at first was the difficulty of finding a pool to go swimming in Istanbul regularly. Prior to 1980 life in Istanbul was much like life in Sydney. People spent their summer days swimming at beaches along the Sea of Marmara and…
Behind the mundane route of the Istanbul Metrobus system lies another world. Find out more in this extract from my story “Metrobus Dreams”. “At Uzunçayır, I envisage the long fields to which the name refers. Fully grown sheep and brilliantly white newborn lambs dot meadows covered with long blades of grass swaying gently in the…
In a recent interview with world famous Turkish photographer Ara Güler in Today’s Zaman (Nov 14, 2014) he said,“The Istanbul that I lived in wasn’t Istanbul. Actually, I didn’t see Istanbul either. Istanbul was already over. And Pera is over, too. When the Russian invasion happened in 1917, the White Russians came here, that Asmalı…
When I started writing about Turkey, it was with the idea of sharing my thoughts and experiences. When I moved to Istanbul, I hoped to give people an idea of what everyday life is like for an expat here. Many of my posts have made people laugh, and a few have made them think, leading…