Ok so I owe you an apology for falling off the face of the blogging earth.  Sorry for the brief departure.  But I’m back!!  And I’m happy to say that I have nothing to blame other than the fact that I actually have a life now!  

After we got back from our NY/Germany trip in September, I realized that I needed to learn some more Turkish.  The Turkish courses that I took at NYU gave me a good base for communicating when we first moved here, but I realized it was not going to cut it if I ever wanted to have a semi-intelligent conversation with anyone here.  So I enrolled at a language school and began taking two different levels of Turkish at the same time, which meant I was in class 5 days a week.  Like a full-time job… with homework… and I was not getting paid for it – I was paying them.  

I say this all in the past tense because just this week I finished both courses.  Yes, I graduated!  So I have a comfortable fluency level now, but will take at least one more level after the holidays.  I must admit that it feels good to finally be able to get complete, coherent thoughts and ideas across to others.  I realize now how much we take advantage of the natural things in life like communicating in your native language.

So that’s been consuming my days and most of my nights, but my social life has also picked up at the same time.  To add to our great friends that we already had here in Istanbul, I’ve since made a lot of friends who are in similar expat situations… many of who moved here because of their husband’s job, they are having a tough time with the language, they are adapting to a new life and culture, they are having difficulty finding a job too, etc etc.  I’ve also connected with a group of professional foreign women here that are personally and professionally inspiring.  And out of all of this there are some that I’ve really really connected with.  And when you really gel with someone it’s beyond great.  Yay to good friends!

So classes are done for now, my personal life is feeling more settled, my social life is back, Onur’s company is continuing to do well, so what’s next?  Home for the holidays!  Yep, next week we head to the states for an OH and NY trip.  So excited!  Really can’t wait!  US here we come.