Merhaba!
I am doing my practical training in Istanbul Turkey, and İ have totally lost my heart to this place! People here are so warm-hearted and helpfull that you can not feel anything but happy here. Only bad thing I can think of is the time spent here is not enough (not even close!)
In the hospital nurses rarely speak english, so communication in english is with doctors or with the help of Google translate. Body language takes you a long way, and there has not been a situation yet which has not been sorted out. I have also learned some basic words and sentences in turkish, so every day communication gets easier.
Hagia Sophia in Sultanahmet
I have had a couple of funny situations with language differences. Best one is about my nametag, which says: ‘Nursing student AMK, Erika Isohanni TAMK’. I wore this nametag for the first two weeks at work and wondered why everybody is staring at it. I figured that ‘nursing student’ in finnish is so long word, that they have to read it all over again or something. But no…After two weeks one nurse had the courage to tell me, that ‘AMK’ is a short version of a really bad turkish curseword, and it means something like ‘f**k you’. I wanted to sink under the ground at that point 😀
Galata tower and view of Istanbul
One of the reasons why I love this city is because you can get anything here just by walking in the street. For instance food here is really fresh and cheap and almost every day I get a fresh orangejuice from some shop while walking away from work. There is also some weird things sold in the street. One time I actually saw a guy selling live goldfish in the street!
I have gained so many wonderful experiences and friends here, so I will definitely come back!
Görüşürüz! 🙂
Comments