Turkish life
Turkish way of living
First of all, you have to know that it is easy to recognise a Turkish guy in the street: brown hair, tanned skin, brown eyes and … a huge moustache! #Stereotype
Then, here a description of the Turkish culture describes the activities of an ordinary day. You will notice that food is present in many moments…
A Turkish guy never gets up early in the morning. In fact, before 10 a.m. nobody is in the town! But from 10:30 the town begins to wake up, everybody is out and tradition requires that a day never begins without a Turkish breakfast.
Moreover Istanbul is full of people outside from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. it is absolutely impossible to be alone in the street at this schedules. That’s for me a safety aspect of the town.
You can see Turkish Grandpas playing backgammon on the corner of the street in a little cafe.
Other young people smocking shisha on comfortable sofas.
Ladies usually to drink their tea with baklava.
Around fifty fishermen are fishing from Galata Bridge in the Golden Horn at any hour of the day or the night.
If you walk in Istiklal, the most central street of Istanbul you can be sure to meet some groups of musicians singing, playing instruments and dancing their traditional songs.
Moreover you can’t ignore the many kebabs in all the commercial streets.
As a Muslim country I thought that girls would be treated differently. This is absolutely not the case, boys look badly at girls. Everyone is respected. In the street you can see some veiled women and others wearing shorts and skirt. People don’t differentiate.
Of course every five hours the Muslim priest calls the faithful to prayer. And it woke me up at 5a.m. at the beginning but now I am used to it and I don’t hear it anymore.
Turkish adaptation
In this paragraph I will expose my adaptation in my university and then in the town.
Firstly in my university it is great because the classes are not composed exclusively of Erasmus. In fact all the courses are in English, even for the Turkish students. That’s why in some courses I am the only Erasmus student. At the beginning of the year I was a little bit worried to be the only stranger in a class. And then I realised that the welcome of the Turkish students depend on their level of English. For example in one course with a level 1, I was the only Erasmus and I tried to integrate myself in the class and speak with the students. But they didn’t really care about me and I was very upset about that. And in a class level 3, I directly noticed that Turkish students were interested in me, they were very happy to meet a Parisian girl and they love to speak with me. Some of them invited me to take coffee because to practice their French. Concerning the teachers, they are all nice with me and always propose their help.
In town, the adaption is very different! Because the Turkish people in the street really don’t know how to speak English. But no problem, language of sign is very useful in this case. Hopefully I learnt Turkish quickly and now I can do my market and ask questions to people. I noticed that Turkish are always welcoming with stranger in general. I think that maybe they want to show a good image of Turkey. For instance if I ask them the way they accompany me until the place.
Turkish language
I learnt Turkish language at the university. It was fun because we were only Erasmus students from many different countries and the teacher laughed a lot because of our different accents. For the French and German people it was so hard to imitate the same sound as the Turkish or Arabic language. Some words come from the bottom of the throat and European people are not used to it!
Vocabulary and expressions
merhaba: Hello
nasılsın? : How are you?
ben iyiyim teşekkür ederim: I am fine thank you
teşekkür ederim / Sağol: Thank you
güle güle: bye
süpermarket nerede? : Where is the supermarket
kankas: friend
restoran: restaurant
asansör: elevator
kuaför: hairdresser
As you can see there are some words similar to French.
Turkish Job
First I thought that I could work in a shop to earn some money. It is very easy to find a job in Istanbul, you just meet the owner of a shop and he employs you easily. But it is not well paid, something like 6 Turkish Liras per hour that is about 2euros. So I posted a message on the Facebook Group called “ Français à Istanbul” saying that I can give French classes or babysit children. And thanks to this, I give French classes to a little Turkish girl and a Turkish businesswoman. It is another way to integrate into Turkish culture and society. Because now we have a close relationship, they invite me to have lunch and to family events. I love to be with them because I missed the family atmosphere a lot and the Turkish one is very warm.
Turkish administration
Humm… writing about Turkish administration reminds me of such bad memories! If you study or live in Istanbul you have to create your Residence Permit and that is the single most complicated thing to do here. I had so many papers to look for in different offices in Istanbul. Do the procedure on Internet, find the offices, ask and tried to be understood by the people was such a difficult adventure…! And when is done and you finally have the Resident Permit’s card in your hand you feel so proud of yourself!
Turkish transportation
Istanbul is a huge city that has two sides (European and Asian) but is very easy to move from place to place. One card allows to takes all the transportations: bus, metro, boat, ferry, funicular and tramway. Each way costs less than one euro. To recharge the card, you just need to go to a kiosk near to a bus or metro stop. Thanks to this card, you can go wherever you want!
French in Istanbul
When I arrived in Istanbul I had registered on the web site Arian that list all the French abroad. I also came to the French Consulate to create a card that means that I am registered by the French administration in Istanbul. I always have this card with me in case of problems. Thanks to those two registration I received an alert or email that told me when there is danger in a place in Istanbul. Also, the French Consulate organised two parties during the year for the French students and for the Turkish who study in France.
- Cihangir -
- My flat is the little pink one -
- University in Balat -
- Fener -
- Sunset in Fener -
