Monday, Exams are Over and the Word is Relax.

Most of the students are on another holiday, so Hasan and I are sitting around Funky Cafe watching videos of Bodrum folk dances. He seems very excited to return, though I have been assured he will be making regular appearances here in Istanbul. I suppose when you get used to a city pace of things, permanently leaving is never really possible. It makes me wonder, when I return to the states, will I spend my time in the cities I before shunned.
Last night I went to the little restaurant near my home, ordering can be hard when no one expects you to speak any Turkish, but things went smoothly and my Kuzu Shish came up with no worries. How should I describe the restaurant? It has no name visible on the building, though their card names the place "Haji Baba." Outside there is a cart outside loaded with vegetables and seasonings that signals to passers-by the building is a restaurant. Squeezing into the building no larger than ten meters by five, half of which is a kitchen, you sit at one of two tables, usually sharing it with a delivery driver taking a tea break. All the food is cooked over a grill of hammered copper on iron spits. There is an older man in his fifties who is the main cook, and probably the owner. He has several men in their late teens or early twenties who act as waiters and delivery drivers, and there are a few young boys who clean and serve tea. This is the kind of establishment I like because it forces me to act out of my element and I have to pretend I'm Turkish.
I'm beginning to think more and more that pretending is more important than knowing in languages. After I have corrected a page of bad grammar for a student and attempted to teach the student when to use who and whom, I always encourage them to just pretend they are using correct English since so few speakers of English actually follow the rules. Confidence bordering on arrogance is the big secret to communicating in English!