Hello,my name is Sevil and I am from Turkiye. I am Comenius assistant in Nautico. I'm here to attend English lessons as an English teacher assistant and also supposed to cooperate in doing other Comenius projects.Primarily for TURKISH COMENIUS PROJECT…
Now I want to tell about our first trip to Istanbul to meet our partner school of this project.
On 17th January 2010, in the Catania Airport four people from Nautico were ready early in the morning to go to Istanbul. They were the headmaster Giovanni Totis, the physical education teacher Giusy Burgio, the teacher for practice of navigation Salvatore Ambrogio and the Turkish interpreter Sevil Toker - me! :)
You know there is not any direct flight to Istanbul from Catania..We have to change our plane in Rome..
We arrived Istanbul Ataturk Airport at 14:00. We were excited and curious about the experience of a new culture - of course the others were curious about Turkiye, I was mostly excited to visit my country. After taking our luggage back and exchanging money ( In Turkiye, we don't use Euro, we have Turkish Lira), we looked around to find Turkish teachers. Because they informed us that they would come to airport to pick us up. Then we met three people: The headmaster Yakup Erdogan, the vice headmaster Senol Ozcan and the English teacher Bulent Ertas.
After we left our luggages to the hotel, we went to a nice and elegant restaurant. It was near bosphorus and as you can guess it had a perfect view of Istanbul bosphorus. We had great time there together. The Turkish food was very delicious and the atmosphere in the table was obviously friendly.
18th January 2010
According to the plan,we were supposed to meet in the school. The lucky people -Mr.Totis,Mr.Ambrogio and Mrs.Burgio were taken from their hotel by Mr.Ozcan. The poor girl, I went to school by bus in 45 minutes :) ( I am just joking )
In the school,we were trying to arrange the structure of the project:
*What is the aim of this project?
*Which subjects will they work?
*What do they expect from this project?
We worked in the headmaster's room that had a nice view and warmly decorated. It was certainly the best place to decide something together. For lunch, we stayed at school and had delicious kebabs in our "special" room… After that "full" lunch, I did not expect us to move but the students who are in the project were waiting for us in the meeting room: PIRI REIS
Imagine that Mr.Totis was talking in Italian,Mrs.Burgio was translating in English and I was translating in Turkish!!! :) Luckly, later the girl who is teaching Italian to the Turkish students attended the meeting and we eliminated English.
The students were very nice and shining in their uniforms.In Turkiye the students have to wear uniforms until university.They were curious about Italian teachers,students and the school. We showed a video of the school and then compared the education system in both schools.It was a nice moment that there was no formality between each other.
After we finished the school stuff and -of course- took photos inside the school,we went to a nice place to relax :)
19th January 2010
As it usual,we were in the school in the morning to talk about project issues: Talking about travels,trying to find hotels,flights,activities……. We wanted to talk everything about the project to make everything easy.
As you can guess we were there to talk about project issues and also to learn and understand a new different culture. Therefore we did ccome cultural trips in Istanbul.
Nargile time: I know there is an expression in Italy: " Smoking like a Turkish". Yes Turkish people smoke a lot but I think the real reason is "nargile". It is a kind of smoking that was used commonly at past,but now it is used just for fun not so commonly.
Mr.Totis,Mrs.Burgio,Mr.Ambrogio,Mr.Erdogan and I went to a "Nargile Bar". We ordered two types of Nargile: with strawberry and with cocktail (banana/chocolate/honey)
We tried to create strong big smokes but it was a bit difficult :) Another nice moment in there was when we wre trying to be a 'chimney', a Turkish boy came and told us he was one of the best Nargile smokers in there :) ( How lucky we are) The he showed us the tips of good-smoke-creating. Yes,then we succeeded :))
20th January 2010
After we finished our meeting at school,we went out to visit some places. The first one was: Marine Museum. There were models of old types of ships,equipments and historical information about Turkish marine history.
Then we went to "Sultanahmet".There were two important and big mosques there.One of them is "Sultanahmet Camii" ( Blue Mosque ) and the other one is "Ayasofya Camii" (Hagia Sophia).They are really diffirent from the one in Cassibile.
When we completed our visit,we went to a bar to eat something. It was a nice time to talk and to laugh together.
Now it was shopping time!!
round Blue Mosque,there are some shops to buy ariginal and typical Turkish souveniers.Of course we couldn't stop ourselves not to buy those colorful and beautiful things.
At the end we went to another shopping center called "CEVAHIR" ( It is the same Auchan but bigger one)
There we met Mr.Ertas-the English teacher.Again and again shopping..
When we compare the prices with Italy -of course it's because of using Euro and Turkish Lira- those shops seemed cheaper than here.. ( Good news for shopping-lovers:)
21st January 2010
The time to say goodbye….
We had good time with Turkish teachers….
We laughed!
We did jokes!
We shared nice moments!
But at the end we had to come back to tell these things to you..
We said goodbye to eachother…
We said "see you in May" to each other…
I think we like each other….
If you don't like something, change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it…