Thankful: Day 10

çay on a ferry
Today, my roomates and I went with a friend of ours on a ferry ride up and down the Bosporus today! We had incredible weather (about 70 degrees…in November!!) and enjoyed the ride and hike at the end!  Every time you take a ferry here, they offer çay and nescafe…i have never had the çay…until today…we all got çay and sipping it while we bobbed along in the ferry.  This çay also reminds me of the evening that I got to spend tonight drinking çay with some friends while helping them practice their English :)

thankful:
I am thankful for the ability to speak a language fluently.  While I would absolutely love to be fluent in a second language, for right now I am incredibly thankful for even the one language that I can speak without thinking about how to form a verb or what ending to add to a word.  Until living in another culture where i am daily forced to listen to a foreign language and carefully listen to every word being spoken, I had never realized how much I take for granted the privilege that I have to know English so well.  Tonight, I spent a couple of hours hanging out with friends who are learning English - I wholeheartedly admire anyone who takes on learning English as their second language - it is not an easy language to learn, especially when it comes to anything phonetical!  I am so thankful for the ability to communicate in English, and even for the few words that I have picked up in other languages!  Languages have always fascintated me, but now I am even more intrigued at the phenomena of having a native language from birth!