Our visit to Izmit: capital of the Roman Empire for a few years

This week, Bethany and I got to spend sometime in the Turkish city of Izmit; it apparently has a bad reputation, at least as far as vacation spots go.  When we told our friends we were going away for a couple days to celebrate our anniversary, they were glad.  When we would tell them where we were going, they wrinkled their noses... not a promising start.  But my research told me that it should be a nice, quiet town with a few sights to see if we cared to, so we went.  

İzmit's Landscape

Arriving in the city was not at all promising as the industrial section and the seaport are the first things you see.  However, once we got to the normal part of town it was nice.   Most importantly, it was quiet: it lacked the noise of two small daughters and also the other 20+ million people that normally surround us. Wonderful... If you're ever interested in visiting, I created a public map with a list of Izmit's top sites since there's not much else out there other than the Wikipedia article.

As I referenced in the title, this city was once the capital of the Roman Empire under Constantine.  While it's certainly bigger now than it was then, it also is probably a better vacation spot, at least by today's standards.  

my Google map -  stuff we found to do either by looking beforehand or by finding it there.  

The Obscured Origin of English Grammar

English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

― James Nicoll

I can't say that I haven't felt the sentiment which inspired this quote as I've taught, or tried to teach, over the last weeks or months. The area which this quote, or its more colorful cousin which concerns English vocabulary and is found in other places online, does not cover is spelling. English orthography (spelling) seems to me and to my Turkish friends and students to be a most unnecessary hinderance to learning the English language.

See, Turkish has nearly perfect orthography.  Certainly, there are some aspects of pronunciation which are not demonstrated in the letters; and while native speakers often don't recognize it, there are some pronunciation differences in practice; but at least the letters all stay in their own region of the ballpark.

Having said all that, thanks to the various English teachers who invested in my learning the boulevards and alleyways of the English language. Your insights are still useful to me.