The Christmas Poinsettia – Ataturk Çiçeği

Posted on December 23, 2018 by livingtheturkishdream

It’s that time of year, Christmas Eve, Eve, in fact! Where festive things are all around, twinkling lights, pretty trees, tinsel, enough food to feed the 5000, endless tubs of chocolates, and perhaps a poinsettia or two!

It’s the latter that I want to talk about – up until last year I had no idea that our festive red poinsettias have a link to Turkey, and not the kind that forms our Christmas dinner!

In Turkey these beautiful flowers are called ‘Ataturk Çiçeği’. I have read that they were Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s (founding father of Turkey) favourite flower, and named in his honour as he encouraged the cultivation of them in the country – the beautiful red colour certainly matches well with the Turkish flag, doesn’t it?

I have 3 poinsettias adorning my table at the moment, a deep pink one which was a gift from a friend, a glittering, sparkly red one, and the one in the middle which is almost completely green, and overgrowing, as it has been in my house since last Christmas! When I got it last year it was red and glittery like my new one, and reduced to £1.50 in Tesco, so a real bargain! It’s not red anymore, though I have that read sticking it in a dark place for 12 hours a day will make the leaves turn red again so maybe I will try that… I tried to jazz it up with some fake berries. I’m amazed I managed to keep it alive, I’m not very good with plants… I’m a big fan of Christmas and start getting excited about it half way through the year, so I joked that the only reason it was still alive is because it’s always Christmas in my heart… of course Berkay said no, it’s because Ataturk is always in his!

Turkish village baggy pants..

Posted on October 20, 2017 by livingtheturkishdream

Every time we visit Turkey, I come back with at least one new pair of baggy pants! Last month was no exception.

Shortly after we arrived in the village to surprise Berkay’s family, his step mum suggested we go to the weekly market and go and buy some material. The market place in Beyağaç is actually where we had our village wedding last year so walking back through the undercover area bought back some memories!

A few stalls down, past the usual fruit, vegetable and shoe stalls, we came across a table full of rolls of material. All different colours and patterns, most flowery and quite obnoxious. “Choose one”, Berkay said, and I rummaged through the rolls, trying to find a pattern I didn’t already have! I eventually chose a black pair with white, pink and purple flowers on. The man selling the material asked how much we wanted but of course we didn’t really know, so he just looked at me, got his meter ruler out and guessed, cut it and gave it to us for 25tl. Usually, you’d take the material to a seamstress to turn it into a pair of baggy pants – luckily for us Berkay’s aunt is really good at making them so we left the material with her and picked it up a few hours later once she’d worked her magic!

Baggy village pants are my FAVOURITE thing. For years I never wore them, but then I bought one pair one winter while living in Calis and fell in love – so comfy! I never used to wear them outside of the house, apart from when in the village, but now I wear them all the time here in England. I use them as pajamas, something comfortable to put on when I get home from work, I even wear them to the shops ~~(it’s just one step away from wearing pajamas to Tesco..right?)~~

They come in every different colour and design, I think each region must have slightly different styles because when we were in Dalaman airport once, one of the security men asked if we were from Denizli – ‘yea, how do you know?’ said Berkay, the man pointed to my baggy trousers and said he could tell by them! They are worn all over the country though, I think it might just have been a lucky guess!

If you want to get some baggy pants for yourself, they sell them in Fethiye market, or markets anywhere really, but also in little back street shops, or you can just get the material from fabric shops. If you want some a bit less in-your-face with not so many brightly coloured flowers on, you can usually find plain black harem pants on the internet somewhere, but I prefer the more traditional, crazy look! When everyone else is wearing them, you blend in strangely well. The women in Berkay’s village usually pair their multicoloured baggy pants with a long sleeved top of a completely different colour, and a knitted, sleeveless waistcoat, in yet another mismatching colour.

Berkay’s friends and family all think it really funny how much I love my baggy pants! I have around 25-30 pairs now, even my old ones with holes in that have shrunk in the wash I still love and wear.

They might be the least flattering thing ever, but they’re definitely the most comfortable!!

AUGUST PHOTO SERIES – DAY 18 – Babadağ and Mendos

Posted on August 18, 2017 by livingtheturkishdream

Right at the far end of Calis Beach, behind Şat restaurant, sits a bit of a hidden gem! I took the photo in 2014, but I assume you can still access the area now, I know there have been a few changes to that end of the beach. We walked around to the furthest point of the beach, where it was impossible to go any further without getting wet! It’s where the canal meets the sea, where the water taxis travel on the route to/from Fethiye/Calis. I believe the area is a kind of nature reserve, with wildlife such as crabs, fish, birds and ducks swimming around, as well as lots of reeds, plants and pretty flowers growing. The views from here are spectacular, offering a slightly different view point of mountains Babadağ and Mendos.
❤

Turkey Day 2 – Paragliders, Emu’s and flowers..

Posted on March 26, 2016 by livingtheturkishdream

Even though I’ve flown to Turkey and back again since then, I’m so far behind with my blog that I have lots of ‘days’ to catch up on!
Back at the end of January I woke up in our apartment on the 2nd day of my visit. After not being with Berkay in person for 9 months, the little things are the important ones. Little things like waking up and cooking breakfast then sitting and eating it together. Our favourite breakfast is sucuk (Turkish spicy sausage) and egg, lovely served with fresh warm crusty bread and orange juice. Yummy.

After breakfast and a long, lazy morning we headed to Fethiye. Fethiye is our favourite place so whenever we’re thinking ‘I’m bored, what shall we do now?’ we usually end up back there. This time we ended up in Saliha Sultan Pastanesi for some lunch of the sweet kind. Saliha Sultan (Previously Sultan Pastanesi) sells amazing cakes, baklava and other sweet treats.. I had profiteroles with a crazy amount of chocolate sauce, and Berkay had a huge banana cake covered in a chocolate and pistachio shell… photos don’t even do them justice! Of course it was washed down with a glass of cay.

After walking around Fethiye in an attempt to work off a mere bite of our lunch, we decided to drive to Oludeniz. It was a fairly warm day, but rather cloudy so the sea didn’t look the usual magnificent shade of turquoise. It was very empty, apart from a bit of building work going on and a few paragliders floating above us. It’s always funny watching out for paragliders coming towards your head, you see the shadow of their parachute on the ground, turn to look up and realise you need to very swiftly move out of the way because its speeding right towards you to land! I giggled at the little reminder on the floor – brilliant.

We rarely venture into Oludeniz, I can count on one hand the amount of times we’ve been there in the past 6 years, and never to the ‘strip’ or any of the bars or restaurants, only to the beach – it’s not really my cup of tea, it’s somewhere that I think looks lovely from above, but a little disappointing once you’re stood looking at it from ground level. On the way back we took the road through kayakoy, just to enjoy the scenery – even the infamous Emu! SO fluffy and SO cute, in a weird way.

Just before sundown we went back to Calis and back to our apartment at Sunset Beach club. I love these apartments and we have stayed there several times – they’re very empty out of the summer season and we were some of the only people staying there – most of the pools had no water in them, but the one right outside our balcony door did which made for some lovely photos when the sun reflected off it.

When I’m visiting Turkey we don’t like to eat out in restaurants, it just feels more personal and more ‘normal’ for us to cook and eat at ‘home’ together. I always say that being in Turkey isn’t really a holiday for me, it just feels like going back home, so we like to do those everyday homely things that everyone else takes for granted. Berkay cooked our dinner this day and it was delicious – love that Turkish rice and homemade ‘real’ chips, yum!

After dinner we went to visit some of our other Turkish friends – on the way we drove past a flower seller who was asking people if they wanted to buy any. Berkay wasn’t going to stop the car so I jokingly said ‘ohh, don’t you want to buy me any?’ to which he responded by abruptly pulling the car over, jumping out, running over to the seller and coming back to the car with a big bouquet. ‘I was joking, you don’t have to buy things just because I ask, if I said I wanted an elephant would you buy me one?’ I asked – ‘If I could find one’ he said …. Bless him. Such a romantic when he wants to be… even if the days when I’d get cheesy roses are long gone.. (:

Autumn in Calis – waggy tails, pretty flowers & cold pools..

Posted on November 16, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

I’m sat writing this watching the lightening flash through my windows and the rain pelting down on the roof, but yesterday was the first day of bad weather we’ve had for 3 weeks, November has been spoiling us with daytime temperatures of around 24oc, although the evenings are very cool, I’ve even managed to get tan lines back!

November meant the hotel Berkay worked in closed, so he has been looking for work since, he’s found a temporary job at the moment but the pay is so bad and unreliable, I don’t think he’ll stay there long. We’ve been spending some much needed time together and alot of that time has been spent at the closed hotel, playing with Boncuk!

As soon as she sees us approaching the hotel she comes running over to us with a fast wagging tail. We sit for ages with her and play ball, she’s begun to love the water and has been running in and out of the shallow pool although all this rain we’ve had today probably means it will be slimy and green very soon as its not cleaned during the winter season …

We even braved the pool ourselves last week, I don’t know what possessed us, it was absolutely freezing! It was a particularly warm day for November, around 25oc, but the pool water was definitely not warm. It was the first time we’ve been swimming in over a month, Berkay jumped straight in but his face said it all, I eased myself in and after about 20 minutes ended up in the deep end although only for a couple of minutes as it really was so cold, it made my head hurt!

The hotel grounds aren’t very well kept in the winter, although there are still some beautiful flowers around at the moment keeping the place looking summery and cheerful.

Boncuk absolutely loves it there, when we walk past to get the bus to Fethiye we can see her through the fence wandering around and enjoying herself, although it breaks my heart everytime we leave her she runs up and down the length of the fence poking her face through the holes and crying for us. She knows now when it’s time to leave and runs in front of us trying to stop us getting to the exit, bless her! She’s being really spoilt with attention at the moment.

Just before I started writing this post, we popped down to the hotel to feed Boncuk and place her back in her kennel as she’s safer in there during this bad weather. The underneath of the hotel was all flooded and Berkay had to turn pumps on to get rid of all the water, it’s funny how quickly the weather changes, I hope the sun arrives back on Monday as forecast!

Breakfast with a view..

Posted on July 2, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

On Sunday we went out for breakfast in Fethiye, I hadn’t been out for breakfast in over a year, and this was well worth the wait!

We went to Boğaziçi restaurant along the promenade in Fethiye, who have a big open breakfast buffet every Sunday morning. It cost us 17.50tl each which was a little expensive, but when you consider the amount of food it’s more than worth it. We got free refillable Turkish tea too which is the perfect drink to accompany breakfast.

We sat at a table outside just a few feet from the sea, we had a lovely view of Fethiye and the mountains in the background.

The buffet was HUGE and had almost everything you could think of! First was a selection of Jams, honey and other spreads, I love how you scoop them out into little cups which are like tiny ice-cream cornets.

Next along the buffet table were 6 massive bowls of different kinds of olives – I’m not an olive fan at all so I avoided those! Of course they had plenty of different cheeses on offer, along with salami, cucumber, tomatoes and even some cold spiced potatoes which were delicious.

My favourite part was the pastries – I had one with spinach and white cheese in it and they had some potato filled ones too. Something else that just has to be part of a Turkish breakfast is eggs – they had boiled eggs, fried eggs and my personal choice – fried eggs with sucuk ( a spicy kind of sausage) yum! I just love Turkish breakfast, I love savory breakfasts rather than cereals etc, especially with some slices of fresh bread. I tried not to pile my plate up too high as I was saving myself for all the delicious cakes I had spotted!

There were plates piled full of delicious looking cakes and sweet treats all along the top trays on the buffet stand. Chocolate cake, fruit cake, fairy cakes, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry pudding, biscuits.. there were so many to chose from, we filled a plate with a selection to share and I ended up trying most of them…

We sat for a while and admired the views and done some people-watching while letting our food go down and then Berkay went off to the toilet and came back with another plate full of watermelon!

Needless to say after eating 3 plates of breakfast we were absolutely stuffed so we took a very slow walk along the promenade to Fethiye town centre. It was so hot and we were so full that we had to keep stopping on the shady benches. It’s a beautiful place to walk along – so many palm trees and pretty flowers and I just love seeing all the little fishing boats as well as some of the bigger boats heading out on the day trips.

I recommend this restaurant for breakfast to anyone who is in the area, it’s worth a visit and the food is delicious. I loved it so much I think we’ll be heading back there again next week after payday!

Park, Bluebells and Marshmallow Icecream..

Posted on May 5, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

This post is way over due. In fact it was over 2 weeks ago that these photos were taken, but one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place was so that I could look back over time on what I was doing ‘this time last week’, ‘this time last month’, ‘this time a year ago’… so i’m still going to post them anyway.

These photos were taken on Good Friday, the day before Berkay flew back to Turkey. We spent the morning in the park, first in the playground then through the woods and ruins.

The play area was full of children (duh!) but that didn’t stop us having some fun, Berkay enjoyed himself far too much, can you tell? He nearly fell off the funny little swing and had me in fits of giggles.

After the play area we went through the woods at Lesnes Abbey, it was so beautiful. We were the only ones wandering around so it was so peaceful, there were bluebells everywhere, which although we later found out we’re not supposed to pick – Berkay did pick a bunch for me! Sorry bluebells. I love being outside and just walking through the trees and flowers – although the insects, especially wasps, are the not-so-good part. Ewww.

I love these photos of us – we just laid down in the bluebells to get a good photo – look at our happy big brown eyes, ahh. (:

Anyone who knows me knows I love the minions from despicable me, why not embrace your inner child every now and then? I bought this Minion bag a while ago but never use it for fear of looking a bit nuts, but when you’re walking through the woods with nobody else around, why the heck not eh? Hehe. We had some fun with it – sticking it on the wall next to the ‘please keep off the wall’ sign – what a naughty minion 😉

After we’d been at the park for a while, my dad, step mum, brother and sister came for a walk too, since it was good Friday and everyone was off work for the day. My sister had fun climbing the tree and posing for photos. She kept picking daisies for me and running up to give them to me, she’s so sweet.

On the way home we got some ice-cream from the ice-cream van – I chose the marshmallow one was literally what it looks like – a huge vanilla whippy icecream covered in marshmallows and strawberry sauce, it was the best icecream I’ve ever had!! Yum!

I can’t believe this was over 2 weeks ago now – it seems a lot longer. Oh how time flies.

Picnic in the park..

Posted on April 16, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

Yesterday while I was at work Berkay text me and said we could go for a little picnic…I knew a cute little place a 15 min walk from dad’s house, so we decided to go there. I picked up some supplies from the shop after work and Berkay met me at the station when I got off the train.

We took a detour to a chip shop then walked up the hill to the park, which even though it’s literally around the corner to my house, I’d never been to before! It has ruins of an old Abbey on the grounds which makes it a really pretty looking place.

We found an empty bench, sat down and served up our picnic. Pasta, chips,crisps, bread, muffins..sunflower seeds 😉 By this time it was 6pm and everyone else in the park were just there to walk their dogs…they must’ve thought we were really strange. It reminded me of the good old days back in Turkey where we’d rock up to the beach fully clothed, pots and pans, cutlery, plates, food, blankets & salt pots in hand…while everyone else was sunbathing!

After we’d eaten we went for a wander around the park, through the ruins, which made for some good funny-photo opportunities 😉

I had no idea how old these ruins were before – but according to google, Lesnes Abbey was built in 1178 … That makes them pretty old!!

It was such a lovely place to just have a walk around – I think I’ll be going for a little wander around there myself once Berkay has gone back – so peaceful, yet popular with dog walkers and children on bikes. The weather was really good – Berkay has been lucky this time. Last April when we were both over, it snowed. He’s never seen England so sunny as it’s been these past 3 weeks, so we’ve been trying to make the most of it.

There were some really lovely trees and flowers around the park too – this being one very old tree – I can imagine it’s very popular with kids trying to climb it in summer, we just about resisted temptation to attempt to climb it ourselves, and instead settled for funny poses. Look at Berkay’s cool pose – all he’s missing is an Efes in hand ha!

We had a lovely 2 hours and it really made me feel like the whole day hadn’t been wasted at work as we’d had quality time together too. Only 3 more days before he goes back…