In the 1970’s I was a child on the beautiful Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia. My childhood was full of sunshine, fun times and forever memories. Another thing my childhood was full of was rugby league. My family supported the Mighty Sea Eagles and I learnt the love the brutish, forceful art that is the footy.
Living in Turkey and being a good Turkish housewife I support The Turk’s forever team of Fenerbahce. I have previously hung my head in shame and disclosed to you that The Turk is a futbol hooligan and quite the embarrassment when his team is winning. He is even more of an embarrassment if his team should, God forbid, lose.
Last night Fenerbahce clinched their 19th Turkish league title with a 0-0 draw against Caykur Rizespor. The match itself was a bore. To me a 0-0 draw means that nothing feking happened. It means that there were grown mean running up and down the field chasing a little ball and no one found the goal. It also means that these grown men got to behave like little girls – a lot – by throwing themselves on the ground and crying foul on the other team, cursing each other and basically acting like a bunch of toddlers at every opportunity. To prove my point that they are a bunch of girly girls there were in fact no male supporters allowed at the match yesterday evening – the biggest match of the year had no men in the stadium! It seems that Fenerbahce was being punished for bad behaviour at an earlier match and male supporters were suspended from the crowd. This is just surreal. I cannot imagine someone telling my brother or his mates “Sorry guys you can’t go and watch the Eagles today as they are being punished”. Pffttt!
Anyway Fenerbahce are the 2013/2014 Champions and The Turk and his friends went wild, running out of the house whooping and yelling before disappearing into the night. When he returned this morning he smelt like a brewery but, despite his obvious hangover, he was still celebrating his team’s victory.
“This is a historical moment in our lives,” The Turk said to me over his kahvalti (breakfast) of two headache tablets and coffee. “A great victory and we are blessed to be a part of it”.
Now this is football
Honestly I just don’t get it. I want to see these “Champions” survive just one game of rugby league. See how you would cry then, ya big babies!
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janeyinmersin 
or Aussie Rules…
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or Irish football. or better still Irish hurling, where the give you big wooden sticks to hit a small leather ball and if you miss the ball you hit the opponent . Soccer makes me laugh too. Especially when they are on the ground with fake injury
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Omg Irish football sounds sensational! I think I’d love it.
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I still dont get how and why they’re such fanatics – especially Fenerbahce supporters….(im not a follower YET but when we move to Turkey i know we’ll be following Trabzonspor lol)
Bulldogs are topping the charts this year…..go the doggies!
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Damn Doggies! Trabzon and Fenerbahce came to blows a couple of weeks back. Total bedlam. I thought The Turk was going to have a breakdown he was so agitated.
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Haha and its not just the men who have a near or actual breakdown.
My father in law whos visiting us in Oz at the moment has warned me to get use to it.
Cant wait
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Are you going to be living in Trabzon?
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No, hubby is from Samsun so we’re going to be living there. We did consider building and living in koy but it will be a bit of a travel for the kids schooling.
Im from kayseri so theres more business and english speaking schools there but living there doesnt seem like an option lol
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You know I think complete immersion for the kids is a better choice anyway. If Daughter had the option of going to an English school I dont think she would have learnt the language so quickly. When we arrived all she had was ‘Merhaba’ and “yok”. She has truly achieved greatness with her language skills now.
I also believe that foreign kids are ostracized quite a bit. We were very lucky that the village kids took Daughter under their wing and included her straight away.
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Omg see the main concern i have is my kids lack of turkish – they understand basic discussions but im worried how behind they ll fall behind in school.
What do you think of the public school system ‘devlet okulu’?
I know hubbys koy only has a likited amount of students so they dont have have morning and afternoon classes.
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Daughter started yr 5 last sept (obviously having nearly completed it in Sydney). The school is small, old (dare I say decrepit) there are morning classes and afternoon classes. She had NO turkish at all. Conversationally she is doing great. We have a teacher that comes to our house twice a week (used to be more) who helps her through the lessons that she didnt understand. She talks closely with her actual teachers to ensure that Daughter isnt left behind. Daughter achieved really good scores on her report card. Her Turkish teacher has just handed her most recent assignment to the principal for excellence (write a story of at least 3 pages about the moon and the stars). Hers was 18 pages long all in Turkish – she wants to be a writer.
Yes the school is not great. It is our intention for Daughter to also complete yr 6 at the village school and then continue her education at a private school (if financially viable)
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My eldest is in year 4 here, ive been told during ilkokul the devlet schools are fine its once their in year 7 , i should be considering private schools.
Cant believe how expensive private schools are in turkey.
Im lookong forward to the move just wished we could go sooner but we have to wait for hubby to sell his business, & kids schools.
Another question (so sorry) what would you say is a good amount of income and expense for a family of 5 (3 kids) to live a similar financially comfortable sydney life we have. In other words eating out, bbq (hubbies concern) & holidays.
So sorry again with all ky questions
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I have inboxed you
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