Thursday, November 24, 2011

Hannah goes to Turkey


Two weeks ago, for Eid break, my friend Hacer (pronounced Hajer) and I went to Turkey. We visited the village that Hacer is from, called Kahramanmaraş or just Maraş, it's small but beautiful. Currently Hacer’s family is building a house there. We stayed in one of the rooms that was finished but the place still has a ways to go.


 The trip began at midnight Abu Dhabi time when Hacer’s dad drove us to the airport. We then flew to Istanbul, and then took a short beautiful day plane ride to Maraş.


The lake


Once we landed, we drove to her house, which is on a mountain, and she showed me around. Her house has 4 floors, 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a pool (pictured above), a tennis court, an elevator, and 3 porches. Lucky!


After the tour Hacer and I played with her Husky puppy Joey, who is adorable!


Then Hacer showed me her goats Cinnamon and Rice Pudding, Cinnamon the male goat is pictured above.


Right next to the goats are the chickens who share a pen with the turkeys, haha turkeys in turkey :)


While we were enjoying the animals the sun was setting, it was beautiful! Although it was sunny, it was very cold and we had to wear lots of layers. We also had heating problems so we spent a lot of time drinking hot tea which her grandma would make us, 24/7. Her grandparents spoke only Turkish so I picked up on a few words, Yok-No, Tamam- Okay, Sal- Thank you.


The next day the donkey that Hacer rented arrived, we named it Donkey. But while we were taking it to its stall we opened the door and were shocked to find another goat. We named it Fluffy.


Sadly we later found out that Fluffy was Hacer's driver's Eid goat, that they would sacrifice on the night of Eid :(


Me and Fluffy. The rest of the day was spent riding Donkey, playing with Joey, and pampering Fluffy. That evening we went to Hacer’s Uncle's house, who lives on the same mountain, and had dinner there.


Hacer and her Uncle's cat


The following day we rode the donkey and played with the goats and dog. There was always something to do.


The next day we all went to her grandpa’s farm which was 45 minutes away. Along the way we saw herds of sheep ready for Eid.


The farm was very nice. This picture shows the entry road to the farm.


The farm’s gazebo


One of the 3 farm dogs


Hacer’s cousin Sami and his friend. After a nice day at the farm we had a very nice Eid dinner, but were sad to hear that Fluffy was no longer with us :(


The day that followed we went downtown to do a little shopping. It was very nicely decorated for Eid.


The days that came after those were spent watching movies, playing with the animals, drinking tea, skyping, hiking, shopping, and enjoying the sunsets.



Me on the last day.


Me and Hacer on the last day.


The transferring flight had an 8-hour lay over which Hacer and I spent in the world lounge, fancy schmancy. In the end the trip was tons of fun! It was a great experience and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to see Turkey!

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