We went on a boat trip round the islands today, which was relaxing and quite lovely. Wink’s eye looked rather worse this morning and she felt quite self-conscious – at least she can wear sunglasses to hide the bruise and the swelling had diminished by this evening and we hope it’ll be a lot better by the time she’s back at work.
Apart from my underwater venture, I have learned something else this trip, and that’s my passport number. The wifi password is our room number plus passport number and you have to re-enter it after leaving the site, and it because simpler to learn it than to keep having to look it up.
i have also, rather startlingly, gained a suntan. That is pretty well unheard of for me. I don’t sunbathe, ever, or rather I didn’t. I seem to be managing all the new experiences I can at present. I’m afraid it won’t end well, my nose is so brown that it’s bound to peel. There are good reasons why I don’t sunbathe.
A good many English ex-pats live in the area – we were chatting to someone who has lived and worked here some years. She said they are divided into two sorts of people – the ones who work and integrate with Turkish people, and the ones who retire here, to spend a lot of time drinking and lying in the sun, complaining about the Turkish government and way of life. I suppose that tends to be the way, though – it’s not that easy to make friends if you’re not fluent in a language and, however lovely a place is, it’s hard to keep a sense of purpose in everyday life if you haven’t a lot to do.
the comment box didn’t appear yesterday. I’m sorry, I don’t know why. If it doesn’t again, I’ll have a look, give up and ask Ronan for help.
Oh good, here it is after all. Ronan can stand down, then.
Kas? Kalkan? Antalya? Fethiye?
Was the ‘boat’ what they call a gulet?
We went from Fethiye, but we are staying a bit up the mountain from Ölüdeniz. And yes, I believe so.
It looks a glorious part of the world Z. And we do hope your sister is feeling a bit more the thing (that sounds rather a soppy sentence – but you’ll know what I mean). We only met her the once (at the first blog meet you threw) but she does make an impression, and we both remember her well. Please giver her our warm regards.
Interesting about the ex-pats. I’ve heard this so many times, that if people don’t learn the language, they’re hugely disadvantaged and marginalised in so many ways. And then they blame the locals rather than blaming their own feebleness.
“…that if people don’t learn the language, they’re hugely disadvantaged and marginalised in so many ways. And then they blame the locals rather than blaming their own feebleness.”
Come to my local town and look at many of the Eastern Europeans to see that it’s the same the world over.
But, we pander to them in this country and are made to provide official service leaflets in hundreds of different languages, and to provide FOC interpreters to people who can’t speak English in order that they are not inconvenienced in accessing sevices.
Something not quite right somewhere…
She’s feeling and looking a lot better, thank you.
I was remarking more on the gap between those ex-pats who feel part of society and those who only group with their own kind of people, really. It’s one thing to learn enough of a language to get by in shops, another to be fluent and confident enough to socialise with the local people. If you retire to another country, it must be really hard to learn the language in your sixties, and how many people have even a smattering of Turkish? Hard enough in Europe to integrate.