Hello friends, fellow travelers, adventurers and language-learners!
I am excited about this new blog, where I intend to post stories and pictures of my travel adventures as well as my language-learning and other educational adventures. Posts will be in English, Spanish, Turkish and whatever other language I happen to be working on at the moment. If you don't understand a post, try reading the next one, or try your luck with GoogleTranslate! (Alternatively, try commenting with 'anlamadım,' 'no entiendo' or 'huh???')
The end of this year is already chock-full of plans for adventurous sightseeing and learning...
I'll be leaving for Turkey in two weeks, where I will spend three months studying, traveling and perfecting my Turkish with good friends in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and maybe Kapadokya and other places. I'll be traveling with my dear little daughter Maria (7), who is as excited about the trip as I am.
My first adventure will be an intensive CELTA course in Istanbul, where after four weeks I will hopefully receive a certificate which will open some teaching doors down the road; Next, sightseeing around Turkey; Finally, if my friend shows up from California, I hope to travel to (one or all) Italy, France and Spain with her. I'll be arriving back in Chicago on December 10.
The next day we'll be heading to Costa Rica for a family vacation, including everyone, since they can't all come with me to Turkey. My parents will hopefully show up for part of the trip as well.
My husband, parents and I discussed this trip to Costa Rica last year, but I was disappointed, thinking we wouldn't be able to go after all. Turns out, my husband is eager to drag himself onto a beach where he can spend some long hours turning into a lobster while being eaten by mosquitoes, reading his book and being buried in sand by our enthusiastic children.
I plan to take advantage of being in a Spanish-speaking country and refresh my very rusty Spanish, which will especially need refreshing after my intensive language experience in Turkey. Aside from speaking to every local I encounter, my plan is to drink all the coconut water on the beach, swim with the barracudas and sharks, take a canopy tour, zip line through the cloud forests, go bird and turtle and monkey watching, go kayaking, visit some deserted islands, and generally relax...
Everyone says that you always need a vacation when you get back from vacation. It looks like I'll get to test this out and see if it really works. Are two vacations in a row really better than only one?
Before leaving for Turkey, I have been reading through an entire library of books about language learning and teaching, grammar, educational philosophies, etc. I am averaging a book every two days (which is saying something, for those of you who don't know about my reading habits) and I'm really learning a lot!
My favorite book so far has been http://www.tesl-ej.org/books/lomb-2nd-Ed.pdf Polyglot: How I Learn Languages by Kato Lomb. Really fascinating. I cheated a bit by listening to it with my "Free Natural Reader" electronic reading software--for the non-readers among us.
Stay tuned for some really amazing pictures of Turkey and Costa Rica in the coming months. Feel free to leave some comments and snippets about your own travels and language-learning experiences!
This is me, signing off...
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