About this blog
When Sharon lived in İstanbul in the 2000s, she wrote for publications such as Time Out, Lonely Planet, Taste Anatolia, and a local Türkiye-based newspaper. Much of her work focused on food and culinary culture, but she also wrote a weekly column called Life Along the Haliç, capturing the rhythms, characters, and quiet moments of life by the Golden Horn.
One night, the entire online archive of that newspaper vanished. Years of stories, observations, and memories were simply gone. This blog is her way of bringing some of those lost pieces back to life — revisiting a city in transformation through her words, and preserving small moments that deserve to be remembered.
Settling Into Fener/Balat: Chaos, Curiosity & the Unexpected Education of a Neighbourhood
A candid look at what it’s really like to live in Istanbul’s Fener/Balat neighbourhood — the noise, gossip, colour, and community rituals.
A Feeling of Community - From Outsider to Belonging: A Life Shaped by Places That Never Fully Claimed Me
A personal story about feeling like an outsider in Alice Springs and unexpectedly finding belonging years later in Istanbul.
Learning Turkish as an Expat - Colloquial Turkish Explained: Everyday Language, Grammar Breakthroughs & Culture
A look at colloquial Turkish expressions, grammar breakthroughs, and the realities of learning the language through daily life.
Learning Turkish as an Expat - Bilingual Childhood vs Adult Turkish Learning: A Left-Brain Struggle
Adult language learning vs a toddler absorbing Turkish like oxygen… one of us is struggling and the other is thriving.
Learning Turkish as an Expat - From SOAS London to Bosphorus University
Learning Turkish has been one long mix of determination, embarrassment, tiny victories, and total grammatical breakdowns…
Tea with biscuits - The Well-Meaning Driver, the Goat Man & an Istanbul Detour
Read how this story ends…
Tea with biscuits - Rain, Buses, Detours & the Strange Tenderness of Istanbul
The story begins here…