I fell asleep sometime around one last night. We had gone over to Dan’s for a rooftop teras barbecue, which was lovely- Steve was there all manic and wired with his fabulously decadent girlfriend Özlem, and Dan has a new girlfriend, Esra, who seems to be dragging him happily from his quiet little shell. Esra had made a fine çoban salatas and some eggplant salad and ezme and grilled eggplant slices, which all tasted lovely and fresh, made even yummier by eating them on a starlit roof teras overlooking the red roofs of Istanbul all the way down to the Golden Horn. Istanbul is trying very hard to make me miss it, even while I am still here. I must remember the winters. I must remember the winters.
So sleep came late but my phone started ringing around 7am, with absent drivers and sick teachers and miscommunications. When I got to work, there were so many new timetable changes over the weekend that had to have an impromptu meeting with Banu and Zeynep before I had even finished my tea. Lots of new kids’ classes, which should piss off a lot of child-resistant teachers who must get press-ganged into them. Most of our kiddie-teachers are away for the summer because the scheduled kids’ classes finish in June. Suddenly we have 3 brand new 1-1 intensive classes with 9 year old kids and a staff room full of business/TOEFL/TOEIC teachers who haven’t a clue what to do with a child in a classroom. *sigh*
So we bought our plane tickets Saturday. The price had gone up another 20 euro due to fuel surcharges. I am now waiting for the confirmation call to make sure Lola can ride in the cabin. Oya said she was 99.9% sure it’d be fine but since we are flying in high season and they only allow 2 cats on every flight, I am still a bit stressed. It’s quite odd, though, how blasée I am feeling about all this- we’ve bought our tickets and I’ve sold the contents of my flat to Meagan and I’m researching travel in Central America and teaching jobs in Oman…but it really hasn’t hit me yet that I’ll be leaving Turkey in less than 6 weeks. I’ll be working right up til I go. Then boom, gone. No more Istanbul. No more office with Steph. No more Bosporus. No more drinks on Nevizade. No more insanely steep hills to climb. No more gözleme and mant at Hala. It’s odd. Very odd.
