What a strange few months!

Posted on July 22, 2020 by livingtheturkishdream

It’s been a long time since I posted on here – just as I was getting into the swing of blogging again and writing all about our trip to Istanbul at the beginning of the year, corona virus arrived, changed all our moods and took over our lives! It just didn’t feel right, writing on here about all the things we did in Istanbul and sharing my photos of the busy city streets from January because they made me sad, it felt like a million years ago, not two months!

Like everyone else in the country, we spent nearly 3 months in complete lockdown – instead of doing the commute for 2 hours a day, I began working from home and the longest commute I made was from the bedroom to my living room. Berkay was furloughed, and going a little more insane with each day that passed. Other than when he was in the army, this was the longest period he’d not been working since he was about 14 years old. I adapted easily to the ‘stay-at-home’ life, but Berkay really struggled. Knowing that Turkey had banned all flights from the UK really affected him, he felt trapped here and just wanted to get back there.

We had a trip planned in April. We were going to fly out the day before and then check into Jiva on my birthday for nearly two weeks. My family were going to fly out as a surprise, they had organised it all with Berkay and I had no idea. I’ve spent years conniving my dad to give Jiva a go, despite him not liking the idea of all-inclusive at all, and when he had finally decided to go, nobody was allowed to leave the country! It was a big disappointment. We also had our 4th wedding anniversary in April too.

In the middle of June, Berkay heard there was a repatriation flight to Izmir and he decided to book his seat. At the time there were still no normal flights, so it was a big risk and we weren’t sure when he’d be able to get back home to England – though I’m not sure he particularly cared! Luckily, the day he flew, somewhat-normal flights resumed from London to Istanbul, and with internal flights back in service in Turkey, he was able to book one back home for the beginning of July. Whilst he was in Turkey he spent time with his family in Beyagac (whilst following all the corona and mask-wearing rules!), saw Boncuk dog, visited Calis & Fethiye, and he even bought an apartment in Denizli. He plans for it to just be an investment for us, and hopes to rent it out until he can sell it. Here are some photos he took on his travels:

When Berkay came back to London, he had to do the two weeks of quarantine, this time he wasn’t even allowed out of the house for a walk, so that was a struggle too! As soon as his two weeks were up, he was back at work, so now he’s back to his usual commute and daily routine – keeping him busy. A couple of days after Berkay came back, our Turkish sister-in-law gave birth to a baby girl – our first niece! I can’t believe Berkay missed her by just a few days. I still have posts to write about their big-fat-village wedding almost two years ago, too!

As things start go back to normal-ish, we hope we are able to holiday in Turkey as planned in September, 8 days in our favourite place – Jiva, and then a chance to meet our baby niece, fingers crossed. I’m excited to go and meet up with some friends there but I know that it won’t be like ‘normal’ so I’m a bit nervous.

In the meantime, I’ll start searching through my photos and dedicating some time to writing on here again – keep your eyes peeled.

Visa renewal time – an unfair system?

Posted on March 3, 2019 by livingtheturkishdream

It’s been a few months since I posted on my blog, now its 2019 and it’s March already, can you believe it?!

Now that we’re already into the 3rd month of the year, it’s time to start thinking about renewing Berkay’s visa. He arrived at the end of 2016, on the ‘spouse visa’ which enables him to live and work in the UK for just over two and a half years. It cost around £2500 at the time, and when we got it, there was that relief of knowing there were no more visas to worry about for two years! Of course, now those two years have flown by and its time to start gathering all the paperwork, and money, to renew it!

I think visas are one of those things that nobody really understands the process of, until they know someone who has gone through it. I think people assume its easy for people to come to the UK, we’ve all read those newspaper reports about ‘foreigners coming here, getting our benefits’ etc. I probably had those misconceptions before too, to be honest.

Even though me and Berkay have been together for nearly nine years, and he has been living here, working for two and a half years, applying for the extension of his visa is still stressful and full of uncertainty. It’s not just a case of filling out an application form and ticking a few boxes – it’s a lot of work.

When he initially applied for the visa two and a half years ago, Berkay had to pass an English exam. To renew it, he has to pass a higher level exam, which he will actually be sitting this week – that’s not cheap either, £150, so fingers crossed he passes or he will have to keep trying and paying out for it.

Then there’s the cost involved – the application fee is £1033 currently, but this will go up again in April as it does every year. There’s also a NHS surcharge, which has just doubled from £500 to £1000…despite the fact that Berkay earns a fair wage (he found a job within three weeks of arriving in the country..) and pays national insurance like everyone else in the country with a job, he has to pay this £1000 towards the NHS as part of the application, so essentially he’s contributing twice! If any of you reading this have heard people say before ‘foreigners come here to use our NHS for free’ please inform them of this! I can understand if he wasn’t earning and needed to contribute something so that he wasn’t just coming here for the sole purpose of abusing the National Health Service, but when he’s already paying taxes and national insurance every week this seems very unfair!

So, total so far is £2033 + £150 for the English test, assuming he only needs one attempt at passing, but the fee’s don’t end there either… If he applies via the standard service, it can take months and months to get a decision, and they keep his passport all that time, so if there was ever a family emergency in Turkey, or he wanted to travel for whatever reason, he wouldn’t be able to, which leaves the option of paying a further £630 for a priority service, with a faster decision within a few days. So, £2033 + £150 + £630 = £2813, before travel costs to the visa application centre in London, sometimes they charge extra for the appointments where you hand over the documents, also! With the fee going up again in April, we will undoubtedly be paying over £3000 for this visa extension.

Perhaps finding the money to apply is the easy part. We also have to prove our relationship is genuine, with letters of support from friends and family, evidence we live together in the form of letters and bills addressed jointly to us at our address, spread across over the two and a half years he’s been in the country, to show that we have consistently lived together. Luckily, I knew that this was a requirement so I have folders of letters filed under my bed in preparation for this! We also have to prove we have the right to live in the property, with land registry documents, mortgage statements etc, and proof that we meet the £18,600 income requirement, with evidence in the form of payslips, work contracts, a letter from my HR department, etc etc!

Once this visa is granted (fingers crossed!) we will have to go through the same thing again in another two years time, only next time Berkay will have to pass a further test, a ‘life in the UK’ multiple choice exam paper, with general knowledge questions such as ‘when was Hadrians wall built?’, ‘how many members of the Scottish Parliament are there?’ and ‘When did the first Christian communities appear in Britain?’ – questions that seem better fitted for contestants on ‘The Chase’, rather than someone wanting to settle in the UK – I don’t know many Brits that would pass this 24 question test, by getting 75% correct.

As you can see, we have a busy couple of months ahead, getting all this paperwork organised, scanned and written, so that when we are able to apply in May/June, we are ready to do so. I’m not really complaining about the process, I understand that rules have to be in place, but everyone I explain this process to, unless they know someone who has done it themselves, seems to be shocked when I tell them what it entails. With Brexit bringing out the worst in people recently, I have seen more and more people stating that ‘UK has no control of its borders, no immigration rules, no checks on people entering the country’ – I’m writing this post in the hope that if any of my readers believed this before, or have heard people making these assumptions, please, educate them and tell them you know differently!

It is very frustrating, handing over piles of paperwork to a complete stranger, to judge us based on the evidence they have in front of them, like we are some sort of criminals, and pay them £3000 for the privilege or believing we are genuine, or not.

Two village weddings, some bizarre traditions and saying goodbye to the summer..

Posted on November 5, 2018 by livingtheturkishdream

Last Wednesday we returned from our end-of-season trip to Turkey. We wouldn’t normally visit so late in the year, but we mainly went out for Berkay’s brother’s wedding. Berkay went out 5 days before me to help with wedding preparations, and then I flew out the day the wedding celebrations began (all 3 days of it)…. I missed the actual ceremony as that was earlier in the week, but was there for 2 full days of wedding parties, one in the brides village, one in the grooms. It involved some bizarre traditions, like men beating the groom, having him dress up in women’s clothes then cooking his wife an egg… Thousands of people came to the family home and the final night ended in a few tears after police were called and closed down the wedding due to several fights…… Honestly, if I didn’t have photographic evidence of all this stuff you’d all think I was making it up…

Anyway, after surviving 4 nights in the village, with the help of some ‘rescue remedy’ drops (seriously…) I breathed a huge sigh of relief when it was finally time to drive to Calis. Berkay’s brother and his new wife came with us for a few days too. We stayed in our favourite hotel, Jiva Beach Resort, which was lovely but also not without its surprises, partly because there was a loud, intimidating, narcotics anonymous convention in the hotel for a few days while we were there, with people from all over the world gathering… After a few days, that was over and during the end of our stay we were one of very few occupied rooms left…in fact, we checked out the morning the hotel closed for winter, so we had a very quiet last two days and practically had the hotel to ourselves! In amongst all that, we did the usual things, watched some beautiful sunsets, visited some old friends, made some new furry 4 legged ones and ate a lot of food! We also had some new experiences, visiting the new beautiful park in Calis/Fethiye was definitely a highlight, as well as hopping over to Sovalye Island for lunch, a first for us! Also somewhere amongst all the fun, we’re sure Berkay broke his toe.

As with everything, all good things must come to an end. Saying goodbye to our family and friends is horrible. Even saying bye to the hotel staff was hard, its funny how quickly you get into a routine of doing things and seeing people and then it’s hard to leave them all behind and go back to reality! I could never be one of those seasonal workers, making friends and knowing you’ll probably never see them again…I know they’re used to it and probably don’t really care about the people going and coming, but even for them I think it felt a bit weird right at the end of the season, there was definitely a strange atmosphere around! The hardest goodbye of all, was when we left the village and had to say bye to our Boncuk dog, she had the happiest face when we were around, and the morning we were leaving she just knew, she had the saddest face ever and she just broke my heart!

While we were out there, the clocks went back in the UK, but stayed the same out in Turkey, meaning the time difference is now 3 hours, long enough to leave us with a little jet lag on our return!

All in all, it was a good 12 days away, even if a little….very…stressful at times… It was the perfect end to the summer.

~~Now we’re home it’s full on CHRISTMAS mode…~~

5 Year Blog birthday!

Posted on August 18, 2018 by livingtheturkishdream

Today is my 5 year blog birthday!

In August 2013 I was living in Turkey and had been living there for two years, I decided to start writing a blog to share my experiences and let people see that living there wasn’t all one big holiday! A month after starting my blog I actually moved back to the UK (which ended up being temporary..) and then it became more of a place just to write my thoughts about moving back. Then a few months later I moved back to Turkey again, carried on writing about life living there and exploring the area. Then of course, Berkay went into the army for his national service so I wrote about that a lot, if you’ve been following me since 2015 you will remember my countdown posts! He finished the army, we got married, applied for his visa and now we live in the UK.
I haven’t really been concentrating on my blog as much over the last year as I kind of fell out of love with the country a bit, having seen too much of a side I don’t really like… however, after our most recent holiday back in June I fell in love with the place again and have been trying to be more regular with my posts!

Back in April I finally reached 1,000,000, ONE MILLION views, which was very exciting, so thank you for everyone who reads my posts or follows me, really much appreciated!

Just for fun, here’s a link to my first ever blog post where it all began:
https://livingtheturkishdream.com/2013/08/18/a-little-about-me/

2017 – A Year in Photos – Happy New Year!

Posted on January 1, 2018 by livingtheturkishdream

2017 was a good one for us, we bought our first home, we celebrated birthdays, our first wedding anniversary, we had holidays to Turkey, Berkay settled into his job and got a promotion and we have just enjoyed our first Christmas in our own home together. When the clock chimed at midnight, we looked back on 2017 fondly, but look forward to 2018 and what it brings!

For the last 4 years I have shared our lives on my blog, and at the end of each year, done a round up of my favourite memories of the year through photos, so here it goes, a look back over our 2017.

January/February
In the first week of January we went to view a flat, the first one we’d ever looked at in person. A couple of weeks later, we started the process of buying it and dealing with solicitors and all that grown up stuff! We spent February slowly gathering things for our house, and spent nearly 4 hours in Ikea on one occasion, ending up with a big shopping trolley full of essentials! We really enjoyed house shopping, even Berkay loved picking out stuff and going to look at fridges, sofas and washing machines, who would have thought that could be so much fun! 🙂

March
On March 17th, we got the keys to our flat and moved in! We loved making it our own and getting all our furniture delivered and sorted out – even my giant 6ft teddy bear moved in with us 🙂

April
At the beginning of April, I celebrated my 25th birthday, with the help of a lovely cake from Berkay. Towards the end of the month, we visited Turkey and whilst there, celebrated our one year wedding anniversary in Jiva Beach Resort Hotel in Calis. We started off a little tradition where each year, we take a photo of us holding the photo of us the previous year, eventually we’ll be holding a photo, of a photo, of a photo, of a photo, etc etc, hard to explain but it will make sense the more we do!

May
During our trip to Turkey, we also visited Berkay’s family in Denizli, and of course got to spend a couple of days with Boncuk, who was very happy to see us.

June
June meant warmer weather and we enjoyed having our balcony and looking out over the view! Our favourite thing to do in Turkey was have BBQ’s so we got ourselves a small little BBQ to keep on our balcony and we enjoyed a few of those over the summer!

July
In July, we went on Berkay’s first ever English camping holiday for a few days with my mum, stepdad and their dog, Brad. I knew Berkay would love camping and the simple life and he really did. He loved sleeping in the tent, going off to get water, doing BBQ’s, walking through the fields and even the toilet/shower blocks didn’t matter to him. It reminds me a lot of village life, which he loves. He still talks about this camping trip and always says he wants to go again, so hopefully we’ll do another one soon!

September
Apparently nothing exciting or photo-worthy happened in August, it was mainly spent looking forward to September, because in September we visited Turkey again, this time a few days in the village visiting Boncuk and Berkay’s family, and then a week at Jiva hotel in Calis, which was the best holiday we ever had! We’d never really had a ‘holiday’ like that before, and we always used to walk past Jiva Hotel when it was being built and think we’d never be able to afford to stay there, we stayed there for one night in April, but a whole week there in September, enjoying the sun, the pools, the all inclusive food/drink and entertainment was just so good! It’s now my favourite place ever.

October/November
At the end of November, Berkay went back to Turkey, alone this time, to visit his family and spend time with his step mum as she had been quite ill with kidney problems. He was there for 10 days and made friends with the new baby cow on their farm, her name is ‘Zilli’! This was a month ago, so I expect she’s a lot bigger than this now! Meanwhile, I was in England getting ready for Christmas, my favourite time of year, and putting up the decorations. One of my favourite decorations this year is this key, ‘First Christmas in our new home’.

December
In December we celebrated Berkay’s birthday with a caterpillar cake and a day out at the very wet, cold, Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. We went to the circus and on a few, very expensive rides and had a great laugh – I love this photo of us on one of the rollercoasters.

Then of course, it was Christmas day. Our first Christmas in our own home, and our first time cooking Christmas dinner! My mum, stepdad and their dog came for the day and they definitely rated our dinner 10/10, even with the improvised ‘no pig’ pig-in-blankets, made from Turkey bacon and chicken sausages so that Berkay could eat them. Berkay surprised me with a white gold diamond ring on Christmas morning, which he had bought in Fethiye whilst he was in Turkey alone a few weeks earlier, I love it!

Last night we stayed at home for New Year, we sat on the sofa with our blankets and watched a film, then watched the fireworks on TV and from our balcony.

Who knows what 2018 brings, but I’ll be sure to document it on here. I hope we, and all my friends, family and readers have a very happy and healthy year!

Visiting Turkey, buying a flat & Boncuk…

Posted on March 9, 2017 by livingtheturkishdream

Berkay has been here in England almost 4 months now and he is slowly settling in. He has spent most of his time working, and working really hard. Last week he done 54 hours, more than any other member of staff in the whole restaurant, and he gets so much praise from staff and customers! All the other members of staff want him on their shift because they can stand around and relax because they know he runs around like a headless chicken making sure everything is done, even when I tell him to relax a bit and not work so hard he says he can’t and that’s just what he’s like! So much for ‘bloody foreigners’ coming over here and not working and expecting everything for free, eh?

Part of the reason he’s working so hard is that we’re in the process of buying a property! It’s only a one bedroom flat but it’s perfect for us…We went to view it back at the start of January and we are close to exchange and completion so it’s very exciting. It’s a part rent-part buy scheme which was really the only way for us to ever be able to afford to move out and get a place of our own, London house prices are ridiculous! We’re really looking forward to having our own space again and living properly as husband and wife – it doesn’t feel like we’re married most of the time! Who knew shopping for washing machines, fridges, irons, kettles, toasters and dustpans could be so much fun?! Berkay certainly enjoyed his first ever trip to Ikea a couple of weeks ago!

Something else we are saving for is a visit to Turkey at the end of April. Berkay really misses Turkey and wanted to go back to visit and I wanted to go too, partly for a holiday, partly to make sure he gets back on the plane back to England afterwards!! Although I’d love a proper summer holiday as I haven’t really had one in 6 years, flights and accommodation are just too expensive in the height of the season, so we’ve booked 10 days in April/May instead. We got a good deal on flights, in fact the return part of the journey only cost us £18 each! The best thing about it is we arrive in Fethiye the day before our one year wedding anniversary – can you believe that it’s been almost a year already?! I think it will be really nice to be back there to celebrate and I hope we get as lucky with the unreliable early season weather as we did last year! I am looking forward to going to visit but part of me also isn’t really jumping up and down with excitement. Turkey hasn’t really held the same place in my heart as it used to for a while now, since Berkay had to do his army service I guess. I don’t know if I just told myself so often ‘It’s ok, I don’t miss Turkey’ that I started to believe it and now I can’t change my mind, or whether I just really need a break from Turkey and a visit somewhere else instead. Of course I still enjoy Turkey and it’s a beautiful country, but when we are there it’s not like a holiday at all. There’s just too much pressure to visit everyone, friends, family, our favourite places… every time we go we end up with a huge list of things to do, people to see and places to go, and end up having no actual time to just relax. I love Fethiye and Calis but I just want to go somewhere different, where we don’t know anyone or anything and can just explore or lay by a pool without putting so much pressure on ourselves to fit everything in. A part of me resents the fact that we can’t just book a cheap ryan-air flight and a week away in Spain like everyone else, because Berkay’s visa only allows him access to the UK, and although visas to Europe for him aren’t too difficult or expensive, I just can’t be bothered to go through even more visa stress and paperwork, it already takes over our lives so much! I don’t think he’d want to visit anywhere else other than Turkey anyway.

Of course, while in Turkey we will visit Berkay’s family in their village, and also Boncuk! Everyone always asks me about Boncuk and how she’s doing. She’s still living happily in the village, looked after by Berkay’s brother. He really loves her. A few days ago he was working in the village centre when his friend from the council rang him and gave him warning that the council dog catchers were going around to his side of the village and rounding up stray dogs. Obviously she’s not a stray, but they did used to always let her roam free around the farm and she’d often take herself off on walks down the road and follow Berkay’s brother to work etc. When he got the call, Berkay’s brother panicked and called his mum to get Boncuk and tie her back up…which she couldn’t manage to do, so off he ran all the way home to get her secured safely and in her kennel. Bless him, he knows how much I love her and does a good job looking after her.

2017 is looking to be another good year for us.. and everything seems to be coming together, slowly but surely!

2016 – a year in photos

Posted on January 2, 2017 by livingtheturkishdream

So, as the clock stuck midnight last night we bid 2016 a fond goodbye. While many people were glad to see the back of the year, on a personal level it was a good one for us, and definitely the most eventful of our lives! Berkay finished the army, we planned a wedding, got married, had TWO weddings, applied for Berkay’s visa, he moved to the UK and we spent our first Christmas as husband and wife together. For the past 3 years I’ve done ‘a year in photo’s’ recap posts, so here is this years!

January 2016

On 18th January Berkay completed his 12 month army service, which was a huge relief. It was like a huge weight lifted. His army service had kept us apart for most of 2015 so the start of 2016 when we knew the end was imminent was very exciting. A week after he finished his service I travelled to Turkey to meet him, it was the first time we’d seen each other since April 2015 – 9 months, the longest we’d ever spent apart. I spent 10 days in Calis/Fethiye with him and love these photos from those few days – all bring back lovely memories. Of course I had to watch a few sunsets while I was there, and take part in our favourite past time – playing backgammon and drinking tea in seafront cafes! The weather was unusually warm too, it was definitely interesting to spend a January day on the beach fishing in a vest top!

February 2016

By February I was back in England, but we had celebrating to do – after I got back we decided we’d get married that year, and I started planning things with my family. Me and mum went wedding dress shopping, which was the most bizarre experience, I wasn’t at all intending on getting a big, white, wedding dress but after trying one on, that is exactly what happened, and we celebrated with champagne cocktails!

March 2016

After only having been back in England for 5 weeks, I found myself boarding another flight to Turkey mid-March, this time only for 4 days. They were a very busy 4 days, spent running around offices to hand in our marriage paperwork and book a date. Berkay even had to have a blood test, but once it was all handed in we had the date confirmed – 27th April. Amongst the 4 days of rushing around, we managed to enjoy a bit of time together.

April 2016

April was obviously the best month! At the beginning of the month things became to feel real when I had my hen ‘party’ afternoon tea. A few weeks later, I flew to Turkey with a suitcase full of wedding-related things, met Berkay, and started to prepare mentally for the week ahead! Slowly over the week other members of my family flew out to join us – my nan, grandad, dad, stepmum, brother, sister, mum and step dad. Just having all of us in the same county was lovely, especially with it being Turkey, as that was the place that I called home for so long, yet some of them had never been to, or hadn’t been to for a long time, and never ever all at the same time! Having everyone there, being able to show them things and places and for them to meet some of our friends and Berkay’s family was nice. On the day of the wedding, 27th april, we first drove around Fethiye, Calis, Kayakoy and Yaniklar for a pre-wedding photoshoot. At 6.30pm, My dad and little sister bridesmaid, walked me down the aisle where I was greeted by a crowd of our friends and family, and my mum bawling her eyes out!

May 2016

Unforuately, just 4 days after getting married, on 1st May I was on a plane back to England. It was tough getting back to reality, but I had plenty to keep myself busy with!

June/July/August/September

The summer months were the most boring, I just worked, worked, worked, and when I wasn’t working I was sitting at home gathering piles and piles of paperwork ready for the visa application. I remember sitting at home every night watching the Olympics on tv while writing visa letters and scrolling through 5 years worth of Facebook messages trying to collect and organise them as proof of our relationship! Eventually, it was all ready for the application.

October 2016

1st October, bright and early, I flew to Dalaman again. The first day was spent driving 4 hours away to Berkay’s village in Beyagac, Denizli where we had our 2nd wedding party. Over 5000 people invited, with well over 1000 actually turning up. It was an experience, that’s for sure, and pretty traumatic for a shy girl like me! The best thing was that I was reunited with Boncuk, albeit temporarily. I hadn’t seen her for 18 months and thought she may have forgotten me but she hadn’t at all, she was so happy to see me and smothered me in kisses! Towards the end of the week, we drove to Antalya to apply for Berkay’s visa. Handing in the application was a huge relief and we anxiously awaited the result, our fate in their hands. To relax a little, we checked into the 5* Titanic Lara Beach resort hotel for a night and absolutely loved it – I’d never been in a 5* hotel before and it was definitely exactly what I needed after a week of stress!

The last week of October deserves it’s own little section – after nearly 3 weeks of frantically checking the tracking website, finally the ‘decision made’ box turned green and Berkay got his passport back in the post – we opened it on Facetime together, and inside was a great big shiny visa! What we’d been working towards for years was finally a reality! As it happened, me and mum had booked into a spa the weekend after, so we used that as an opportunity to celebrate.

November 2016

After what felt like a very long month, 18th November finally came around and Berkay arrived at Gatwick airport, greeted by balloons, banners and a lot of my family. Such a surreal moment, knowing he didn’t have to go back.

December 2016

Always a month for fun and festivities, Decemeber didn’t dissapoint. I’d spent the previous two Christmas’ and New Year’s without Berkay, so having him here to help celebrate our first as husband and wife was lovely, even if he doesn’t totally understand the madness of Christmas, Santa and all that goes with it. Last night as Big Ben rang out, me, Berkay, my dad, stepmum, sister, brother and his girlfriend all spent the evening together, celebrating the end of the year but also the start of 2017.

Berkay is still adjusting to life here in the UK but we’re working on it.
Who knows what 2017 holds but I hope it’s kind to us all. I hope all my friends, family and blog readers all have a happy, healthy new year.

Hos Geldin 2017.

Submitting the visa application…

Posted on October 16, 2016 by livingtheturkishdream

For those who don’t follow my Facebook page – I have just come back from 8 days in Turkey! Amongst many other things during the very, very busy week (including our big village wedding party…) a major event happened – we applied for Berkay’s visa!

This has been a very, very long time coming. Ever since I came back to the UK in December 2014 this visa has been the end goal, but it has been the main obstacle in our relationship since day one. The whole time Berkay was in the army I was working hard to find a job earning the minimum income requirement, then once I found that 18 months ago, I began slowly ticking the other things off the list of visa requirements.

Since July I have spent every waking moment after work gathering paperwork as evidence and organising it all – hundreds of pieces of paper, constantly writing letters, perfecting them, making sure everything was explained, printing, reprinting, proof-reading, triple-checking everything, getting paperwork from outside sources to prove everything, collecting wage slips, bank statements and saving enough money to apply. Then, a few weeks ago we finally had everything ready, paid the extortionate total £2500 visa fee and booked our appointment to submit the papers in Antalya on 6th October.

So, while I was there last week (after a couple of late nights on the terrace having a final run through of the paperwork) on Thursday morning we woke up bright and early at 5am and made the 2.5 hour journey to Antalya. Actually finding the visa application centre was a mission in itself – thank goodness we had GPS on Berkay’s phone, although him trying to drive on the massive, extremely busy Antalya city centre roads was rather scary too, nothing like the Fethiye roads we’re used to which are tiny in comparison! There was so much pollution too, the whole city area was all smoggy. We arrived in plenty of time so we stopped for some breakfast – delicious meat borek and a glass of cay.

We eventually did find the visa application centre, which was in a big multi-purpose community centre with a lot of different rooms and security scanners on the doors. It was very modern looking and had a lovely big water fountain outside. Berkay had to register in a small room and I was allowed to sit in there with him while a man rummaged through the paperwork. Seeing him reorder the paperwork that I had painstakingly ordered and labelled according to my contents page was hard to watch, that paperwork has been my treasured possession for months, I felt like snatching it all back! After the intital registration, we had to wait outside another room – there seemed to be at least 5 other people there with the same appointment time as Berkay, and there was no order to people being called into the room, it just seemed to be whoever managed to make eye contact with the man on the door first! He eventually got seen 30 minutes after his appointment, I wasn’t allowed in so I had to sit outside but I could see him through a section of glass in the door and was trying not to make him laugh when he realised I could see him. They took the paperwork, shoved it all in an envelope, took Berkay’s fingerprints and a photo and then that was that.

It was a relief that it was all over – I had gone over the paperwork so many times and was happy with it, I was confident that we had done all we could and shown all we could possibly show, but I always ended up second guessing myself and trying to add more, so having it finally sent off and knowing I could do nothing else was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders instantly.

The decision usually takes 12 weeks, but we paid £450 to prioritise the application which means a decision should be made within 3 weeks – a huge difference and well worth the extra money. There is an online tracking system that tells us exactly where in the process the application is currently at – it’s so addictive, we keep logging in to check, even at completely random times of day when we know the office is shut, even at weekends. Berkay wakes up during the day and checks it then goes back to sleep, I check several times a day when I wake up, during work, when I come home… The day when it changes to ‘decision made’ I think our hearts will stop beating for a second!! Unfortunately, the decision won’t be known until they send it back in the post and Berkay opens the envelope and searches through the passport for visa or a refusal letter.

Our whole future is in someone else’s hands at the moment… please keep your fingers crossed for us!

Next visit to Turkey & Visa Paperwork…

Posted on September 4, 2016 by livingtheturkishdream

I haven’t posted on here for a month now, this is because every waking moment outside of work I have been preparing visa paperwork!

It’s been over 4 months since I last saw Berkay, after leaving just 3 days after getting married, but I am going back to Turkey in 26 days time on 1st October. While I am there we are planning on doing a little road trip to Antalya to submit his visa application. It has taken me months of planning to get all the paperwork together and we’re still only half way there!

In order to apply for the visa we need to supply evidence of every single detail of our lives and the people in it. The main things are proving that we are in a genuine relationship, proving that I earn above the income requirement, proving that Berkay has a safe place to live in the UK, and proving that he can speak English. We do this via piles and piles of paperwork as evidence. Letters, 18+ page application forms, declarations, passport copies, birth certificates, bank statements, wage slips, a letter from my employer, contract, a house inspection report, land registry documents, mortgage statements, letter from the house owner and other letters of support from my family, proof of address, utility bills, passport details of everyone else in the house, university certificate, army papers, English exam certificate, criminal record check, insurance papers, blog information, marriage photos, wedding cards, engagement cards, photos of us over the whole 6 years of our relationship, visa stamps, evidence of every flight I ever took to Turkey, extracts of Facebook, MSN and Skype conversations and call logs over the 6 years, etc, etc etc. These are just the things I’ve thought of off the top of my head, there are many more that I’ve forgotten.

Gathering all this information is painstakingly time consuming, especially scrolling through the 180,000+ Facebook messages we have had together and picking a few conversations from each year of our relationship to print out and show them – a nearly impossible task! It’s also frustrating trying to gather paperwork we need from other people, like getting blood from a stone! It seems people don’t realise the importance of this application and all the information that goes into it.

With all the documents, application fee, house inspection report fee, NHS surcharge, translation fees, travel to/from Antalya to the application centre and the £450 fee to prioritise the application and get a slightly quicker decision, the total of the application is well over £3000 – a huge amount of money.

It seems so surreal that in October, when Berkay goes and hands in the paperwork at the application centre, it will be out of our hands, we will be totally out of control of our future. The decision of where we spend the rest of our lives will be in the hands of someone we’ve never met, sat at their desk reading through our pile of paperwork, all we can do is put our blood sweat and tears into that pile of paperwork to make sure it leaves no doubt in their mind that we are a genuine, loving husband and wife just trying to live together and settle down. It’s nerve wracking, and we’ve been working towards it for so long that when the application is submitted I won’t know what to do with myself or my free time – I expect I’ll spend every waking moment tracking the application status online and praying that we get a quick decision!

I’m trying to keep my blog updated in the meantime, but all my effort at the moment is going into work and the visa… In October I’ll hopefully have lots of photos and thoughts to share from my trip. Other than the road trip to Antalya, we’re also planning on going to the village to visit Boncuk too, with a stop-over at Pamukkkale, and the usual BBQ’s, sunsets and breathtaking views of Fethiye of course!

26 days to get everything ready to go!

Izmir & the English test..

Posted on June 30, 2016 by livingtheturkishdream

This morning straight after finishing his night shift at the hotel Berkay headed to Fethiye Otogar and got the bus to Izmir.

The journey takes 5hours and 45minutes, so it’s quite far away and not the usual place he’d spend the day – he only went because that is where he needs to sit his English exam tomorrow morning.

This English exam is really the first step to applying for his visa to join me in the UK. The whole process is very long, very expensive and very time consuming, but as part of the requirements he has to pass the IELTS English life skills A1 test. It has to be taken at specific visa approved test centres in major cities like Izmir, Istanbul, Antalya, Ankara etc, and although Antalya is slightly nearer, Izmir was the only place with a slot available within the next few weeks, so that’s where he had travel to.

He was quite willing to get the nightbus, travel all night and arrive in the early hours of the morning and wait outside for the test centre to open but I convinced him to book into a hotel overnight so he could relax and get a good night’s sleep before the big exam at 9am Friday morning. He has a good knowledge of English, very understandable but not fluent, so he has spent weeks practicing for the exam, watching sample tests on YouTube and downloading English teaching ebooks on his phone to listen to while he sleeps. I’ve tried to help him as much as I can but I think he’s really nervous about it – he FaceTime’d me from his hotel room tonight panicking a bit and had all his pens, pencils, rubber and blank sheets of paper ready just in case, even though it’s a listening exam, bless him.

The exam itself cost us around 820tl / £200, so it’s not cheap. Plus the travel there and back, along with the hotel for the night. By the time we apply for the actual visa, we’ll have paid out around £3000, with no guarantee it will be granted, so it’s an awful lot of money. The exam only lasts for 18-25 minutes, so the 11 hour round trip is an awful long way to go just for that. I’m sure people don’t realise this when they’re complaining about ‘foreigners’ coming to the UK so ‘easily’ and ‘not even being able to speak English’. It’s really frustrating being on the other side, seeing the hoops we have to jump through just to live together and knowing that people are so oblivious and unaware of the effort, time and money it actually takes.

On the plus side, Berkay gets a day away from work, he won’t get another one until summer is over. He had a few hours spare this evening and went for a walk around Izmir – it’s very much a big, built up city, nothing at all like the places Berkay is used to, so it’s all very new and overwhelming to him although he did spend the first few weeks of his army service there last February. Whilst out on his walk he took a little detour and managed to get lost. “I lost myself in Izmir and found myself again” he said. Bless him!

He’s had quite a busy week, my grandparents are out in Calis at the moment so he’s been meeting up with them most days – it’s probably nice for him to have some company. Straight after his exam tomorrow morning he’ll be making the 5 hour 45 minute journey back to Fethiye again, hopefully in time for dinner with them before they fly home tomorrow night.

We’ll know in a couple of weeks time whether he passes or not, but please wish Berkay luck for his exam tomorrow morning at 9am Turkish time… we really need him to pass to get the ball rolling visa-wise! It’s just the first of many nervous long waits!