Children's Day

Yesterday was a big holiday. It was Sovereignty and Children's Day. I've pulled some tidbits of information from various websites for a quick summary of this holiday. Turkey was previously Ottoman Empire and went to war to gain independence from occupation. It was April 23, 1920 when they laid down the foundations of an "independent, secular, modern republic." Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, "dedicated sovereignty day to the children and entrusted in the hands of the youth the protection of this sovereignty and independence." They do a big celebration every year.

Aside from this celebration, there is a pilgrimage on Children's Day every year. I am not sure why it's on Children's Day or even if they are related. Thousands (I've heard anywhere between 20,000 to 50,000) pilgrims travel from Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, etc to make the trip to the island and up a big hill (small mountain?) to a Greek monastery perched at the top. The island is a 30-min ferry ride away the city. There are no motor vehicles allowed on the island and residents and tourists travel by foot, bike, or horse and carriage.

This pilgrimage has some traditions entwined into it. Pilgrims run spools of thread starting at the bottom of the hill that monastery is perched on, all the way up the monastery itself. Why? No one knows. Maybe people think it brings them good luck. People also buy different colored candles (each color represent something you need prayer for like house, destiny, marriage, children, protection, etc) to light up at the monastery. They go there to pray for whatever they want/need - protection, healing, etc. And it isn't just the Greek Orthodox believers that go - there are also Muslims and people of other faiths. We saw a great many foreigners there. In addition to candles and threads, we also saw people buying small boxes of cubed sugar to pass out for free. Why? Maybe it's to curry favor from the Supreme Being above. We also saw cheap pins, coins, rings tied with different color ribbons representing the same things as the candles for sale. I'm not sure what they do those. Other things we saw were small piles of rocks on top of a rock wall leading up to the monastery which was also covered with candles. We saw strips of cloth tied on branches and trees for...good luck?

My language teacher makes this pilgrimage every year. She invited myself, G, and A to go with her, her husband, and two friends. On this perfectly gorgeous day, our little band met at the ferry and took it across to the island. Getting off the ferry, we were instantly met with an immense crowd. We got into line to wait for a horse and carriage to ride up to the top -- it ended up being a hour and half wait in the bright sunshine. The long wait and the jostling crowd began testing our patience a bit. We finally got onto a horse and carriage and enjoyed a ride through the picturesque island to the bottom of a big hill where the monastery was. We were met again with a crowd when we got out of the carriage.

We pushed A in a stroller up the rough, cobblestone road (it was ROUGH) amid the crowd coming down and the crowd going up. It was getting hot and our patience was wearing thinner and thinner. It felt like a mile up the hill. Poor A was such a trooper the entire day, hardly fussing except when she was bored with waiting or when she wanted out of the stroller. Even then, it was minimal. Then she was jostled up the road in a stroller, which was probably an uncomfortable ride. The stroller kept getting snagged in the millions of threads laid down by pilgrims. We were getting tangled in them and were snapping the threads to release ourselves.

By the time we made it to the top, the crowds outside the monastery were so dense that we didn't think we could get through to the monastery itself with the stroller. It was past A's nap time and she hadn't been to the potty yet. I was allowing for some irritability from fatigue (even though she was doing amazingly well) but I knew forcing her to endure the heat in a crowd, standing stock-still, waiting just to see a building would be too hard on her. We decided to part ways with our national friends and head back down the hill. By the time we arrived at the bottom and broke free of the crowds, we enjoyed the island breezes, the surroundings, and the sunshine. A enjoyed seeing all the horses. We walked the rest of the way down the island to the ferry. We didn't know the ferry made stops at all the islands on the way back to mainland so it was an hour-long ferry ride. Not a bad ending to a long day.

Despite the crowds, we enjoyed the island. It is beautiful with the surrounding sea, pine trees, old-fashioned houses, scenic overlooks, etc. We would love to return to the island on a normal day (in other words, without the crowds) and explore.

On the ferry to the island

My language teacher's husband on right, his friend on left - hilarious guys

My sweet language teacher

Morning boat out to sea

Rusted bike

Fun ride

Note how crowded it is 

Love the rich detailing

Horse/carriage and biking

Road up the hill to monastery, covered in threads

Found a break in the crowd to snap the threads on the ground

Scenic view of seagull and neighboring island

One of the many neat houses with Ottoman era architecture

Ferry stop at another island; a mosque by the sea

(If you are currently on the blog website itself, you can click on a picture and get a slideshow of the pictures in the post, with a bigger and better view of the pictures.)

Tulip Festival

It's Tulip Festival in the city right now. It's not a gathering with food, music, vendors, etc. It just means that tulips are blooming everywhere. There are several city parks that have tulips on display and even one park, on the other side of the water from us, has quite extensively designed gardens of tulips. I have mentioned that I love tulips on this blog and was looking forward to seeing them this spring.

On Saturday morning, G and I dropped A off for a playdate (thanks for watching her, dear friends!) and headed to a smaller park that borders the Bosphorous River. There were enormous tulips in bloom and some tulips weren't blooming quite yet. It was a smaller display of tulips than I'd expected but I hope to make it to the other side to that park with more extensive gardens of tulips next weekend. Nevertheless, the park was gorgeous, woodsy and natural that you could easily forget that you were smack dab in the middle of a gigantic, densely crowded city. It also had a couple of scenic views of the river with benches. I admired the tulips, G snapped pictures, and we enjoyed an early lunch in the park before picking up A and taking her home for her nap. It was fortunate because it started raining on our way home.

Some pictures of tulips:

Some other pictures:

There were other varieties of flowers

Park's scenic overlook of the river and city

There were clusters of them, never solitary

The city is home to millions upon millions of stray cats

Easter: A First

Testing the water

Easter this year was our first in two ways: our first in this country and first at a beach. Our small group took outdoor grills, meat, side dishes, and desserts for a potluck picnic to the beach in a long caravan of cars. The beach was about an hour away on the Black Sea. It was quiet and we had the beach to ourselves. It was an absolutely gorgeous day - sunny and warm with a strong, cool wind. The water was bitterly cold and no one could keep their feet in the water for more than a few seconds without pain setting in. It didn't deter A from wading in and out all day long.

One end of the beach, fun rocks with little pools to explore

Exploring

Grilling out: hamburgers, kebabs, BBQ chicken, etc

D on left, tossing a frisbee in high wind, pregnant and awkward on beach sand

Other end of the beach, rock cliffs

The kids played in the sand, the older ones went climbing and exploring. After the guys were done grilling out, we gathered together to eat and then we had our Easter service, sitting in beach chairs and on blankets. After that, we had an egg hunt for the little kids.

It was weird hiding eggs in sand and rocks - no bushes, grass, leaves, branches...

Egg hunts get more fun as A gets older

A's loot

I'd post cute pictures of the other kids hunting for eggs but I don't feel comfortable doing so without their parents' permission. Not every parent wants their kid's face plastered on the internet, believe it or not.

It was an altogether best day ever. We got away from the city, A had a blast playing and hunting for eggs, the weather was perfect, we hung out with awesome people, we remembered the Son and honored Him, and we were pleasantly pooped by the end of the day. We couldn't have asked for better.

Here's a cool picture to close this post:

Views

The building that we live in has only two apartments per floor. The stairwell and elevator shaft is in the center of the building so apartments occupy opposite ends of the building. That means that we have three walls to ourselves with windows all around. All our views are south, southwest, west, northwest, and north. So, I thought I'd post pictures of what we see out of our windows everyday. The pictures were taken at twilight so they're not the best. If I wait til bright daylight, I'll likely forget and keep forgetting so I figured I'd take the opportunity now and sacrifice quality.

North view

Close up of north view

Northwest view; from living room

The sun sets behind this building; west view from living room

Southwest view from living room

Southwest view

South view from Ava's bedroom

South view from kitchen; this is what I see while washing dishes below the window.

Not spectacular views. As urban as we are, we don't have views of an amazing skyline either. In fact, I'm not even sure there's many spectacular skylines in this city. Well, there you have it and now you can imagine the city life we live....

Wordless Wednesday (Some of G's City Photos)