A week after school closed, we headed home to Istanbul. We usually go to Bodrum when we visit Turkey because it’s down south where the kids can spend time on the beach and we can all relax. But this year I wanted to go to Istanbul instead. Istanbul means I can run errands that I often do at home. Like fixing my jewelry, buying clothes for the kids and me, borrowing clothes from my mom, etc. It also means seeing my childhood friends.
Since we weren’t going to the South, we also decided to spend two days in Burgaz, which is a small island where I spent most of my summers as a child. This island has no cars. It’s tiny and what was amazing is that 30 years later, all the staff was still the same everywhere. The same ice cream store, the same doner shop, the same pastry shop, the same grocery store, etc. I love how it all was so much of the same. I love the idea of going back somewhere and having it be the same after all this time.
The kids loved Burgaz too. They swam in the pool, they ran around and had the best ice cream in the world.
All in all, being in Istanbul (instead of Bodrum) was a mixed blessing. It meant we got to spend time with my friends and we got to go to Burgaz. But it also meant the kids were indoors most of the time because it was excruciatingly hot. Next year we’ll have to figure out a different plan.
Stories from 2016 is a year-long project for 2016. You can read more about my projects for 2016 here.
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