Originally Posted by jibber

Came here May 1st 2009 for a month-long backpacking trip to celebrate graduating uni. I had every intention of going back to Canada 1st of June and trying to find work and do the career thing. Two weeks into the trip I got to this little beach "town" called olympos. I met some really cool people working there who I clicked with instantly, and also faced the tough reality that journalism was one of the industries hardest hit by the economic crisis, jobs were practically non-existent, especially photography jobs. So when I saw the "help wanted" sign at the bar at the hostel I was staying at, the temptation was too much.

I talked to the owner of the hostel and asked if I could come back after a couple weeks travelling and work there for a month (I was sure i'd get bored after that long). So I pushed my return ticket back to July 1st. Two weeks later I pushed it back again to end of august, having decided to stay the whole summer. Then august rolled around and I really didn't want to go home. I'd applied to a few jobs from turkey back in canada and got nowhere with them. I had a TON of friends who were planning on moving to Istanbul for the winter (and many more who were already there), so once again I called air canada and cancelled my return ticket altogether, and set about trying to find a teaching job.

Got a job 2 days after getting to the city and an apartment a couple weeks later, and my plan was to stay for 10 or 11 months, then go travelling to the middle east for 5, and be home for christmas in 2011. Now the plan is to come back to Istanbul after christmas, and stay here for another year and a half. So very very long story short, my one month trip has somehow ended up as over a year, with another 2 years to go.