Ah...the sweet joys of still not knowing enough Turkish

Just when I am proud of my Turkish knowledge, I have yet another situation that proves I know nothing.

I got back two days ago on Sunday night (LATE) from my 10 day trip to Milan. I tumbled off the bus around 11:30pm and somehow figured out that the guard on the West side of campus (where I live now) didn't want me to walk to my house by myself because of the packs of wild dogs that live near my house. Yeah...wild dogs. The conversation went something like this (the Turkish words that I understood are in English):

Security guard: "Blah blah blah," shakes his head and gestures for me to stop.

Me: "Why?" (In Turkish)

S.G.: "Blah blah blah dogs."

Me: "Problem yok!" (No problem.) I then proceed to make a symbol of my fingers walking. Then I say "I want!"

S.G. "Blah blah blah...they're coming...blah blah blah."

Me: (In Turkish) "How many minutes?"

S.G.: Twenty!

Me: I make the ever so helpful sign of me walking with my fingers again. "My house! Fifteen minutes!" (It takes about 15 minutes to get to my house). I then proceeded to show him how I could scare off the dogs by pretending to throw a rock at them. (It really works!)

He wouldn't let me go. We then stood there for another ten minutes or so making more awkward conversation. I did pretty good, considering I had Italian on the brain. Then the security guard drove me to my house (which was quite sweet, actually) and suddenly I was home.

I have GOT to study more.