The Frustrating misconceptions about visas.

Posted on October 6, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

If there’s one thing that gets me most passionate, most vocal, and most annoyed, its the topic of visas.

Visas, ah, bane of my life. Our whole life is determined by visa applications and the result of them, the verdict reached by someone sat a desk in an office making assumptions about our intentions and relationship. I can deal with that, it was a choice we made, a life we chose to follow when we met each other and started our relationship, although recent changes in the law have made things more difficult, it’s still something we just have to accept.

What I do find hard to deal with, and what really frustrates me more than anything is people’s ignorance.

4 years ago, we applied for a visit visa for Berkay to come to the UK for a 3 week visit over Christmas. I was living with him in Turkey, he had a full time job, was a student, had money going in and out of his bank account every month, rented a house, had family ties and we had letters of support and a sponsor (a member of my family) in the UK. The visa was refused, because they didn’t think he’d return, despite the hundreds of pieces of paper we supplied as evidence that he would. We applied again a week later with even more evidence and got the visa granted, and he’s had two more granted since then, but knowing the time, effort and cost of the whole process just for a week’s holiday makes it really hard to accept ignorant comments from people such as:

“Turkish people rip us off paying £13 for the visa”
“This Evisa is so hard, I don’t even have a printer, It’s too much effort to print it”
“England should take a leaf out of Turkey’s book and charge people to visit”
“We have property in Turkey we should be able to visit when we want”

Now, where do I start to address these comments? These people have no idea. To put it into perspective, this is the amount of paperwork my partner had to show in order to convince the entry clearance officer that he was a genuine visitor to the UK…

Just some of the things we had to show to convince them to give Berkay a visa for his 3 week holiday included a 20 page form, list of all his family ties, proof he was a student, proof of address, rent contract, 6 months bank statements, a letter from his boss stating he had a job to return to, insurance papers, police check, a 5 page letter explaining why he wanted to visit, a letter from me, proof I exist, photos of us together, a planned itinerary + expenditure, a letter from one of my family members who would be his sponsor, proof they exist, proof of address, bank statements, job status and a letter stating Berkay could stay with them for the 3 week holiday.

Can you imagine having to show all of the above just for a 2 week holiday to Turkey? If us British people had to show all of that to visit, we’d never bother to leave the country! Doesn’t it put it into perspective, it’s not really that much effort to log on to the evisa website, submit a few details and press print is it? That’s not even considering the fact that that can be done from the comfort of your own home (unless you haven’t got a printer..) To apply for a visa to the UK, Turkish (and most non eu-nationals) have to travel hundreds of miles away to their nearest British visa application centre. For us, it was Izmir, 4 hours away from Fethiye, and 4 hours back again – an 8 hour round trip. Some people even have to travel to different countries to apply. Plus the running around involved in getting all the documents from the many different people and places, and printing, photocopying and translating them all into English. Compare that to the effort it takes to fetch your passport from a hidden drawer somewhere in the house and enter your name, date of birth and verification code on the evisa website…. there really is no comparison, is there?

As for the £13 fee, the fee for Non-eu nationals to visit the UK is £80, plus the bus/train/car journey to the visa application centre, and the fee back again to collect the decision 2-3 weeks later or the fee for the courier to deliver it by special delivery instead. There’s also the fee to print, photocopy and translate the documents… so the £80 fee turns more into a £250 fee. £13 doesn’t look like such a ‘rip off’ afterall, does it?

The last point was something that I saw posted on a Facebook group recently. “We have property in Turkey we should be able to visit when we want without visas” – well, in theory perhaps, but when the situation is turned around and family’s in the UK are separated from their non-eu partner at Christmas because they are unable to get a visit visa for a holiday, people say “you should have thought about that first, you made your bed now lie in it”, does the same principle not apply then? Why buy property in a foreign country and then complain you can’t visit as often as you’d like due to visa restrictions?

A lot of people also seem to assume that the difference in difficulty and price is because of the fact that ‘foreigners visiting the UK get nhs and benefits’ .. really? If it was safe to do so I’d post a copy of Berkay’s visit visa on here which clearly states on it “no recourse to public funds” which means no benefits, and no free healthcare. He had to purchase travel insurance before travelling to the UK, just the same as we purchase travel insurance to cover us for medical issues when abroad.

I think a lot of people truly do not realise just how difficult the process is for non-eu nationals to visit the UK. We are blessed that Berkay has been granted 3 visas, but that doesn’t mean he will be granted future ones, there is always the possibility of refusal and all that wasted time, money and effort. It’s something we, and millions of other people just have to deal with, but please do spare a thought next time you complain about the visa process for visiting Turkey. It’s not a rip off, it’s not a lot of effort and it’s not that the Turkish government has a vendetta against British holiday makers at all.

Instead, be thankful that we have British passports which allow us visa free and/or fairly easy travel to most countries in the world, and be thankful that Turkey doesn’t have a reciprocal agreement and invoke the same requirements for a visa as the UK, because then most of us would probably never have visited the beautiful country in the first place.

❤

Army life – broken foot & time off?

Posted on September 20, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

Its not unusual for Berkay to call me and tell me he’s been at the hospital all day, as he’s usually driving the ambulance back and forth between the base and the hospital when people get injured during training etc, but yesterday when he called me he told me he’d been in hospital all day, as a patient, after breaking his foot!

Apparently he was doing sport, as they do everyday, and when facing one of the obstacles on the course – jumping down in and out of a ditch – he jumped in and landed on something hard which shouldn’t have been in there, and broke his foot…

Since then he’s been on bed rest, only allowed to get up (with crutches) to use the phone, having all his food bought to his bed. He says his foot hurts a lot and is like a ‘balloon’ (swollen) and he has a cast on it… I hope he’s milking it for all it’s worth!

I’m actually quite pleased he broke it. The world works in mysterious ways, 2 weeks ago he was saying how he wanted to volunteer to go to the border towns to fight against the PKK after the recent trouble there, so having a dodgy foot has definitely ruled him out of that, for the time being!

I’m not sure what it means for his holiday – he wasn’t sure if he was going to get his 10 days leave in October and we’d decided that I’d not visit anyway so we was going to cancel it and finish 10 days early at the end of his service instead, but now he might be forced to take sick leave because of his foot, not much use as an ambulance driver with a plaster cast… He may get a few weeks holiday but it’s doubtful I’ll be able to visit since it will be too late notice to get time off work, and the fact that he doesn’t really have anywhere to go – his village is around 10 hours away from his army base by car, and Fethiye is around 12 hours away, not a nice distance to travel at the best of times let alone with a painful foot in a cast.

So it looks like I won’t be seeing him til February as planned, but at least he’s safe for now, even if a little pained, and less than 4 and a half months to go! (:

Struggling through Army life..

Posted on August 23, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

“It’s about who you miss at 2pm when you’re busy, not at 2am when you’re lonely” – I saw this quote recently and thought how true it was.

We might be half way through the army but instead of getting easier it only seems to be getting harder, and more stressful.

Its been over 4 months since I last saw Berkay, which is the longest we’ve ever not seen each other since we met – even before I lived in Turkey we saw each other every 3 months. People say to keep busy to take your mind off it, but that doesn’t really work, does it? Out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind, and as the quote above says, it’s not about missing someone at 2am when you’re lonely and bored – it’s about who you’re missing during the day when you’re surrounded by company and are busy. Little things where you think ‘I wish they were here to see this’. I went camping with my mum last week and really enjoyed it but the whole time I was thinking how much Berkay would have loved this or that and wishing he was there..

He was supposed to have holiday booked for the beginning of October, but it’s now not certain whether he’ll get the leave or not due to the rising tensions in Turkey… Some of his fellow national-service men had holiday booked for last week and got called to go back to base early, so it’s really impossible to make any plans or book flights for me to go and visit since the dates are so uncertain. I’m still hoping to go if he can get holiday, but if it’s too short notice I won’t be able to get time off work (if I’m still working there as that too, is uncertain since it was a temporary contract). It’s very frustrating not being able to make solid plans, anyone who knows me knows how much I need plans to stick to, I hate not knowing.

Now is a pretty scary time to be doing national service or serving any kind of time in the army. It’s a fairly safe country, just like any other, but in the last few weeks there have been a few incidents where Turkish soliders have died through terrorist attacks from the PKK, and with the events going on in Syria, the border between that and Turkey is a fairly scary place to be right now too , I expect. A lot of Berkay’s army friends have been sent to ‘bad places’ recently, and although Berkay hasn’t had to move base from Kayseri yet, it is a possibility, one we hope he can avoid. People in the UK who say “bring back National service for the youth of today” need to have a reality check – it’s not just a fun little army training camp, it’s real life, real situations and real people, and that’s scary.

Berkay isn’t enjoying it at all, he’s finding it difficult and struggling more than he lets on, I think. We rarely get a full conversation as the signal is bad or we’re busy. There’s no deep meaningful conversation, just a simple “hi, how are you, what are you doing” – no time for anything else. It makes you feel really distant.

Perhaps the scariest part of it all, is knowing that in five and a half months time it will all be over, and we’ll be free to move on, finally. Although he’s only been in for 6 months, the army has been a huge obstacle for a long time, and once it’s out of the way we’ll be ‘free’. Free to live together without knowing we’ll be separated for a year later on, have a permanent home rather than a temporary one, be able to get married, have a family, etc without the army lingering over us. This is a relief, but also overwhelming, and the future is just so uncertain. I know nobody has a crystal ball, nobody knows what is going to happen tomorrow, a week from now or a year from now, but we can’t even plan which country we’ll live in. I don’t earn enough for Berkay to get a visa to live in the UK, hopefully I will eventually, but what time limit do we put on that? Do we just live apart even after the army has finished in the hope that one day I’ll get a payrise or find a job offering more money? I have to be earning the set amount for 6 months before applying, and we have to be married, so there’s something else to think about. Do I save and go there instead? People keep asking me ‘what’s your plan for once he’s finished?’ – the answer is I don’t know. Neither does he, and we don’t get to speak to each other for long enough to even contemplate or discuss it.

There is so much more to this whole ‘army thing’ than just missing him, it’s a big part of our life, and it really sucks. People say ‘it will go quick, half way has gone already, it will be Christmas soon then it will be really close’ – well, yes, I don’t doubt it, but it doesn’t just end there once he gets his completion papers. A year of our lives will have gone, forever and we’ll probably still be apart for longer.

For now, we’ll keep plodding along. Day after day, putting marble after marble in the ‘days down’ jar, and hoping that everything will eventually come together.

“Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it’s not yet the end”.

The cost of living in Turkey – revisited.

Posted on August 18, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

Last week I met up with my friend who lives in Turkey. While we were chatting, she said something that I’d been thinking for years, – “I can’t believe how cheap everything is in England now”, she said.

The most popular, most read post ever on my blog is one regarding the ‘cost of living’ that I wrote last August. (click here to read that) I received mixed comments in response to the post, some agreed that living in Turkey isn’t cheap, others said it was if you learn to live like villagers, some people made me feel as if I wasn’t entitled to an opinion, because I didn’t work there and lived purely off Berkay’s wages, which obviously means things are tougher.

As mentioned, my friend lives in Turkey. She has for years. She has children in school there, a husband with his own business and a kimlik and full time job herself – they are just a normal family, and on her visit to the UK if she notices how ‘cheap’ things are in the UK in comparison, surely that must mean something?

Like for like, things may be cheaper in Turkey, but compared to wages, they’re not really. Things take up a bigger proportion of a monthly wage which means they’re not really cheaper at all.

One of the things which prompted the discussion was the price of cinema tickets – I know, going to the cinema is a luxury, but just for comparison – an adult cinema ticket in the UK is around £10, an adult cinema ticket in Turkey is around 20tl (around £4.60 at today’s exchange rate). On first glance it seems cheaper, but when you compare wages, it’s not – minimum wage in Turkey (1000tl a month) would buy 50 cinema tickets. Minimum wage in the UK (£910 a month) would buy 91 cinema tickets – a big difference.

The same goes for a lot of everyday things, for example – 1kg chicken breast in Tesco is roughly £6, in Turkey’s Kipa 1kg of chicken breast is around 11tl, this means on minimum wage in the UK you could buy 151kgs of chicken, in Turkey you could buy just 90kg. In Tesco, 1kg of diced beef is £7.50, in Kipa the same beef is 36tl – which means on minimum wage in the UK you could buy 121 kgs of beef, in Turkey just 27 kgs.

In Tesco, their own brand newborn nappies (pack of 58) is £4, whereas in Turkey, Kipa’s own brand of newborn nappies, back of 60 is 20tl – which means in the UK you could buy 227 packs a month, in Turkey just 50. A huge difference.

In Tesco, a mid range 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner is around £3, in Kipa it’s around 9tl, which means you could afford 303 bottles on minimum wage in the UK and just 111 bottles in Turkey. The same prices apply for a mid-range fabric softener. Big differences, again.

In Tesco, a 1lt bottle of own brand olive oil (which is used ALOT in Turkish cuisine) is £3.45, in Kipa, the same own brand 1lt bottle is 23tl. This means you could afford 263 bottles on minimum wage in the UK, and just 43 bottles in Turkey.

My own experience shows white goods, cars, petrol, household items, pet items and baby items are mostly all most expensive in Turkey than the UK.

I could carry on with the comparisons all day, and most of the time the same result would be seen. Day to day items, and luxuries, are all more expensive in Turkey than the UK in comparison with wages, the everyday necessities take up a larger proportion of the monthly wage in turkey, than in the UK.

Of course, there are cheap alternatives for things, but there are too in the UK. Lidl or Aldi instead of Tesco or Sainsburys, Bim and Sok instead of Kipa and Migros… growing your own fruit and veg instead of buying it, eating pulses and cooking from scratch in big batches instead of store bought things and ready meals, no days out and living on the bare minimum – but that’s not ideal, in either country is it? I believe in the UK there is more of a conscious choice to live a certain way, whereas in Turkey you don’t have that option – if you are trying to live off minimum wage you have no choice but to be frugal.

There are things that are cheaper in Turkey, like fruit and vegetables – there were often times when we’d walk around the market for hours frugally trying to find the cheapest deals, even if it meant saving a few kurus or lira, and I still remember the shock on Berkay’s face when he came to the UK and saw one pepper for 45p.

Rent is also undoubtedly cheaper in Turkey, but then I guess it depends where you live, village or city, and whether you have a mortgage or rent. And then there’s the issue of taxes, which are lower in Turkey. Perhaps, with this considered, the cost of living in both countries does even itself out in the end, then?

One thing is for sure, in my eyes, it’s not cheaper to live in Turkey, at all. When people say how cheap all the supermarkets, clothes and shoes are I have to rub my eyes in disbelief and think ‘really?’, and I’m always very pleasantly surprised when I find people who agree with me, especially those who are in a relatively good position in Turkey and still notice this.

Perhaps the cost of living is no cheaper in Turkey, but the quality of life may be higher? Less materialistic and more family orientated, more freedom for children to remain children for longer?

What do you think?

400,000 views!

Posted on August 9, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

Last week marked another milestone for my blog as it reached 400,000 views!

As I type, the total number now is 402,991, which is pretty good going considering I’ve been neglecting it lately and not writing as often as I should. In fact I’ve only written 7 posts in the past 3 months, so the fact that people still make the effort to click on my page and read back on posts is lovely.

It’s not just my loyal readers who visit my blog, but also new ones who find it through search engines like google… I get a report on the search terms people type in to end up at my blog. Some of them are self explanatory “turkish men”, “cost of living in Turkey”, “Fethiye” – and others are a little more unconventional and hilarious – “sex with Turkish men”, “why does my Turkish man hide me from his family” and “are Turkish people clean” – I often wonder what they think when they click on my link and whether or not they stick around to read a few posts.

So I’m curious, how did you all find my blog in the first place? I’m glad you did!

However you found me, thanks to all the lovely people who read, like, comment and share my blogs. I promise to get back into a flow of writing more regularly again! ❤

Army Life – Half way there!

Posted on August 4, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

This morning I woke up, took a marble from the ‘days to go’ jar, put it in the ‘days down jar’, looked at the calendar and realised that we’d reached the half way point – equal number of marbles in each jar! 4th August, exactly 6 months since Berkay started his national service, which means ‘only’ another 6 to go.

People say it’s gone quick but I’m not so sure, although it is definitely going faster now I’m working and keeping busy. He’s hoping for a 10 day holiday in October so that will break up the time nicely too, although it will be 6 months since I last saw him then, the longest ever!

For now, we make do with our almost-weekly skype sessions and 1 minute daily phonecalls.

At the moment I can’t even imagine life without the dreaded army lingering, even though he’s only been in there for 6 months it was always a worry and a big part of the reasons I moved back to the UK in both 2013 and 2014, so to have it finally out of the way will be a strange, but good feeling. Then it will just be visa issues to tackle instead…

Overall the last 6 months haven’t been too bad… but I still say roll on 2016.

183 days to go.

A Drive around the Fethiye Peninsula

Posted on July 13, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

The Fethiye penisula is a beautiful place to drive around, with stunning panoramic views of Fethiye, Çalis, Şövalye Island and the Mediterranean sea.

While I was over there in April and we had a rental car, we took full advantage and drove around after a BBQ at Aksazlar koyu. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we had Boncuk with us so off we went, windows open, ears flapping and tongues out, cruising along the single, circular road.

We passed Aksazlar koyu and the huge private hillside resort of Letoonia and pulled over the car at one of the many popular look out points. There were a few cars there, people on scooters, mopeds, quadbikes, some had wandered down the cliff slightly and were sat among the trees eating sunflower seeds, while others, like us, just stopped to take in the views and enjoy the tranquility.

You can never quite capture the moment through a camera lens, you have to be there to appreciate just how beautiful the views are – to the right, Babadağ mountain makes a wonderful backdrop to the green trees, red roofed houses and sails of boats in Fethiye harbour, and to the left, views across the water to Calis and it’s beach.

We got back in the car and carried on driving, but not for long before we had another ‘photo’ stop, if you do drive along here you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say you’ll want to stop every 5 minutes because at every turn you’re greeted with a different, stunning view. Along the way around you come across and go past several little bays, Küçük Samanlık Koyu, Büyük Samanlık Koyu, Boncuklu koyu and Kuleli to name a few – plenty of places to drive to and stop for a drink and a dip in the sea, we often go to these bays with our friends for picnics and the calm, sheltered water makes them ideal for children swimming and paddling.

We bypassed them all and just drove. As you get further around the hillside, the drive does became a bit..hairy. Narrow road, pot holes, bumps and falling rocks. It’s quite nervy when you’re in the passenger seat and all you can see to the right out of your window is a steep drop down to rocks and the deep, blue sea, I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing the drive at night, we did once, at twilight, and the road isn’t lit at all…eek!

I could just pack up the car with a picnic blanket, food, book, music and sit and look at the views for hours. Calm blue sea, sailing boats, crickets chirping – pure serenity.

You can’t beat the feeling you get when you pull up in the car, get out and stand at the edge overlooking the place we all love, standing next to strangers admiring the same view, and give each other that knowing look – ‘we are so lucky.’

Aksazlar Koyu – a beautiful BBQ spot

Posted on May 21, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

Aksazlar koyu (Aksazlar bay) is one of the many calm bays around the Fethiye peninsula.
It’s a beautiful place to sit, relax and look across to Fethiye town. To get to it you drive through the main town centre, past Ece Saray and along past the boatyard, Aksazlar koyu is the first beach, before Letoonia resort and the other bays. To get there by bus, look for the dolmus that goes along the main Fethiye town centre road with the orange front and the words Taşyaka-Karagözler on it.

It’s a private area, you have to pay an fee to enter which curiously varies each time we visit. It’s something like 10tl per car (but don’t quote me on that), but there have been times where we weren’t charged at all! There is a small beach area and a restaurant/bar. We’ve never used the restaurant so I can’t comment on the menu or prices, but I’ve never seen it busy. There are sunbeds available on the beach, along with large beanie cushions, hammocks and the more traditional shady köşks too, all at a price to rent, but again we’ve never used these so I’m not sure of the fee. They also have tents to hire and you can camp overnight in the great outdoors!

We bypass all of the above go to Aksazlar purely for the beautiful surroundings which makes it a perfect BBQ spot. If you drive straight past the restaurant and beach you’re greeted with a forest of tall pine trees providing much needed shaded that is very welcome in the summer months. There are little picnic tables dotted around the area where you can sit and eat, although there aren’t that many and they do get full quickly, especially on a Sunday afternoon when all the locals go for BBQ’s.

It has been a favourite place of ours for years, the first time I went there was over 4 years ago with Berkay and his friends for our first BBQ picnic together back in January 2011! Its so peaceful just sitting watching the food grill, having a chat and listening to water lapping gently onto the shore. I love it. I have lots of photos of good memories made with different family members and friends there.

Good memories in the bay back in 2011 & 2012

There are only two bad things I can think to say about the place, one being the amount of wasps that are around, especially in the height of summer. The other bad thing is the disgusting state of the toilet facilities, nearly every time we’ve been (and we used to go alot) the toilets have been so bad that I walked in busting for a wee and walked straight out determined to hold off til we got home – not pleasant, and I expect clean toilets are something people look for when spending the day somewhere. I have heard that the restaurant is under new management, so perhaps they will improve things!

Aksazlar is a bit of a hidden gem, although it’s become a bit more well known recently with the arrival of the Bubble Sea Park – the loud, big, brightly coloured inflatable slides/play area on the sea. I have mixed feelings about this, no doubt it will bring in money to the restaurant business and hopefully this will enable them to improve the services, however it is a big eye sore and it ruins the atmosphere when you can hear the loud music and screams coming from that direction even from the other side of the bay. Locals in the area will tell you not to swim in the bay at all as it’s so close to the dockyard and the water becomes dirty from the oil and petrol from the boats, but tourists don’t seem to mind. Arguably it’s good for children, as it’s shallow for quite a way out and is very calm, but it’s certainly not the clear blue Mediterranean water that you might expect.

All in all it is a lovely place, we love it, in fact it was the first place we went when me, Berkay and Boncuk were all reunited back in April, yes Boncuk loves it too. It’s the perfect spot for a bbq in summer or winter, and a good place to spend the day and relax with yummy food while enjoying the view across the bay to Fethiye. Definitely worth a visit!

Two Separate lives?

Posted on April 20, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

Since I’ve been back from Turkey in this last week, it has never been more apparent to me that I am living two separate lives. One life here, one life there in Turkey, and the two rarely, if ever, cross over. It’s quite an unsettling feeling, being pulled in both directions, feeling ties to both countries and never really feeling at peace or at home. This is my favourite quote and one that I feel will stick with me for a long time.

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” ― Miriam Adeney.

It’s 100% true and goes a little way to describing how I feel on a daily basis. Not only are me and Berkay currently living very separate, polar opposite lives, which thankfully is only temporary, but I’m also having an internal battle within myself, one that I think shall go on forever, whichever country we end up settling in.

I have friends and family in the UK, and friends and family in Turkey. The two have never met. My family has never met Berkay’s family and I doubt they ever will because neither really has the desire to meet the other, and even if they did, communication would be non-existant. This is always going to be awkward, because neither really has any idea how the other lives, and their lives are so totally different that any reunion would end up being like a terrible version of “meet the Fockers” or that Turkish film ‘ay lav yu’ (watch it, it’s hilarious).

The lifestyles I myself live in both countries is so different, it’s like I have two different lives, two different personalities, two different homes. In Turkey I rely on Berkay for a lot of things, he pays the bills, we do the shopping together, we visited friends together, got on the bus together… in fact when I lived there there were times where I’d go days or weeks without having a conversation with another person face to face (apart from Berkay, of course). This didn’t bother me, at all. We done everything together, I hardly ever went out alone, and I liked that. Here in the UK its the total opposite. I have to do things for myself, I’m always alone, travelling on the train, bus, going to the shop, buying things, I’m in a house surrounded by people but outside these 4 walls I’m alone, and that takes some getting used to after so long.

The whole mentality of people here in the UK is different – want something, buy it. Throughout my time living in Turkey I learnt not to be this way, I wasn’t fussed about the latest gadget, I wasn’t the slightest bit ‘into’ fashion and I really never bought things to treat myself, I don’t need to, nor want to. Being back in the UK though, I can sometimes feel the urge to splurge and waste money on stupid things, I find myself falling back into this habit, one I didn’t have for so long. For example, the other day I spent £9.50 on 3 bottles of fancy shampoo. At Today’s exchange rate this is nearly 40tl. When we were in Turkey, we’d walk to the furthest, cheapest supermarket and search the shelf for the cheapest bottle. Here I went online, ordered a ridiculously expensive one and had it delivered. A moment of madness, although my hair is thanking me because it smells amazing.

The most difficult thing I’ve faced since coming back, is learning how to fit in again, and it’s really not very easy at all. I spent 19 years of my life here, It should feel like home, right? It doesn’t. You see, I’ve spent such a long time away from home, from family, from friends, that when it comes to sitting around a dinner table with them it feels weird, like I’m an outsider looking in, that’s the best way I can explain it. I’ve been back in the UK for over 4 months and that hasn’t really changed. These people, friends and family, who were once all I knew, are now so distant from me because they can’t comprehend the life I had in Turkey, for them it was all one big holiday, they only saw my life through the photos I posted online and the things I told them, last year none of my family visited me in Turkey, and my friends never have, they never saw my house there, the things I saw and walked past everyday, the places I went, the things that were a part of my everyday life, and somehow that makes me feel very distant from them.

In Turkey, everyone sees us as ‘Dan & Berkay’ – we lived together, had a life together. The last time Berkay was in the UK was April last year, 2014. That was the last time he saw any of my family, so I guess for them instead of ‘Dan & Berkay’ they simply see me as just ‘Dan’, this was particularly evident at Christmas when I got cards addressed just to me. “Why don’t they write Berkay too?” I kept asking myself, it’s not their fault though, it’s a habit. He’s not here, not a part of my life in the UK so why would they include him?

Everything is different, from the places I go, to the people I see and even the food I eat. Walking in supermarkets is always a weird one for me. I remember moving back here from Turkey and going to Asda with my mum, I was totally overwhelmed by everything on the shevles that I hadn’t seen for months, years. Cadburys chocolate, British brands, salad pre washed, cut and in a packet. The same thing happened this time when I went back to Turkey and walked around Migros. Things that you’d never consider have a way of making you reminisce. “Aww, we used to use that washing powder. Oooo look, remember this drink? Oh, we used to buy that rice.” Really, really weird things that just jump out at you and say “this was your life once”.

When I got off that plane at Dalaman 2 weeks ago and walked out through the exit doors, I immediately became ‘Turkey Danni’ again, rather than ‘England Danni’, I once again had Berkay by my side doing the daily chores, going shopping together and walking hand in hand. I once again saw all the familiar places and faces I once saw everyday, and it was like I’d never been away. We went to friend’s houses for tea and they welcomed us with open arms and full glasses. We visited places we used to go to every week, the market, the beach, Fethiye. Then, a week later, I got back on the plane, landed, turned the key in the front door, walked upstairs to my bedroom, unpacked and became ‘England Danni’ again. It’s truely bizarre, and really quite sad.

It’s something that will never really go away, I’ll always have ties to both the UK, and Turkey. Berkay will too. At one point in the future, one of us is going to have to ‘give up’ one of our countries, and both of us will no doubt miss something from whichever country we’re not in. Any future children we have will also be torn between the two countries, both sets of grandparents, families, lifestyles. As the quote above says, this is the price we pay.

Would I change it though? No way.

A week in Turkey..

Posted on April 17, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

It’s the 18th of April and I’ve not updated my blog at all this month, mainly because of my week-long trip to Turkey last week during Berkay’s army break!

I was a little nervous before going, I can’t really explain why, it was all a bit of mixed emotions. Excited about seeing Berkay and Boncuk, worried about how Boncuk would react and if Berkay would still be the same person or whether army life would have changed him, happy to be visiting, and dreading coming back to England again all in one go! Oh my poor head, I never knew it was capable of that many emotions at once.

Once I got there though, all those emotions vanished and I was beaming from ear to ear, it was like I’d never been away and I was so happy to be there. It really is my home. It was my birthday while I was away, my first ever birthday spent in Turkey and it was brilliant. We also visited Berkay’s village and experienced snow there, yes snow! I had an amazing week, took thousands of photos and made lots of new memories – once I get back in to the swing of things I’ll be posting here more regularly as I have lots of new photos and material to write and share with you all!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a post, but for now, I’ll leave you with one of my favourite photos from last week.

All reunited together, although very briefly.
~~293 left days and counting!~~