Reminiscing – Calis 2010

Posted on October 25, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

I’ve been looking back at old photos recently and reminiscing on ‘the good old days’. Although my first visit to Calis was only in 2010, a lot has changed in the past 5 years, and yet still so much stays the same.

I was on holiday in Calis staying in a hotel Berkay worked in, and it’s so funny now looking back on photos I took around that time, totally unaware how things would pan out in the future. It was Grand Vizon hotel in Calis where I stayed, and where we met. I remember sitting on the balcony taking photos of our view over the pool just to remember the place by – little did I know I’d end up living around the corner to this hotel for 3 years, or be walking around the hotel grounds in winter playing fetch with our dog, Boncuk, or having weekly winter BBQ’s with Berkay, sat next to the empty pool long after the tourists had gone home and the summer season finished.

It’s also funny to think that one of the other waiters who worked in the hotel when I met Berkay would become one of our best friends and that I’d be sitting in the house of him and his wife every week for tea and biscuits and playing with their baby son!

Whilst some things have changed, some things never do. This photo of me walking down the road leading to the hotel just sums me up perfectly… animal mad, ever so slightly crazy cat lady. This was taken just on a daytime stroll back to the hotel, where I seemed to attract a small army of kittens. 5 years on this still happens – if there’s a stray cat or dog somewhere I’ll normally end up sat on the floor playing with it! I still do this now in England on my way to work, there’s a cat who wanders around the bottom of our road and on my way to the train station everyday if I see him I stop and talk to him (yes, talk) in fact, I even missed my train once because I stopped to stroke this cat…

Calis itself is of course just as beautiful as ever, apart from a lick of paint on the umbrellas which are now multicoloured, the wide uncrowded beach, the gentle waves of the sea and the backdrop of Babadağ mountain remains much the same. Tourists still come and go every summer and thousands of people fall in love with the place every year.

I wonder how many other tourists like me have sat their bottoms on the stoney beach of Calis and not realised how much the place would change their lives? Or not realised that the place they were visiting for a week’s holiday would turn into a place they’d call home? Do you have any stories of how this place changed you forever?

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! (:

Army life, a sad week and kittens..

Posted on September 12, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

If you’ve been in Turkey for the past week or seen the news stories and videos shared around social media, you’ll likely have heard reports about the Turkish soldiers killed in a PKK terrorist attack last week.

Although it was hundreds of miles away on the Turkey-Syria border, it sparked off peaceful (for the most part..) protests across the country and in tourist resorts many bars closed early as a mark of respect during a 3 day period of national mourning. It was lovely to see so many people come together, with even people holidaying joining in the minutes silence and standing in respect of the national anthem which was played in some bars during the week.

One of the soldiers who died was from Fethiye, and on arrival of his body by military plane at Dalaman airport, thousands of Turkish people took to the streets in cars and bikes adorned with Turkish flags to pay their respects. They drove around cities and towns beeping their horns, united in grief and respect for their fallen soldiers. A very patriotic country.

click HERE for a video of the drive by of cars draped in Turkish flags in respect of the soldiers. Credit to the original poster via Facebook.

There was also trouble in some areas due to the age old Turkish-Kurdish conflict, and a lot of Pro-Kurd offices were attacked – which was horrible to see, like everything, the acts of a few terrorists does not define an entire race, religion or population. I wont discuss the political side of the events or conflict further, but the fact that so many young men died was a real eye opener.

Some of the soliders were young men doing their national service, and it could easily have been Berkay. He’s in a ‘safe’ place at the moment, but soldiers are being sent from his base to border towns every week, so the possibility is always there. It upset and angered Berkay and I think it’s been a tough week for all.

It’s an unsettling time, and although there is no danger to tourists and life in resort continues as normal, it is a scary time to be in the army, whether or not you’re in there for a career or doing national service. It’s not a training exercise in a summer camp, it’s real life!

It’s not all bad, a cat somehow snuck its way into the base camp in Kayseri and Berkay has befriended it – there’s something about a bunch of soldiers sat around playing with a tiny kitten that is highly amusing, and given my previous sentence on this post, I realise the irony. Cute, though!

We’re still unsure whether Berkay will have his 10 day break in October, and it’s looking like I won’t be able to go and visit anyway as it will be too late notice to take a week off from work – so the next time I’ll see him will be February, 10 months since the last time! Boo.

143 days and counting.

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.’

New job for me, farm life for Boncuk & the army countdown continues..

Posted on July 2, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

I haven’t posted here for over 6 weeks now, I have a lot I want to post and write about but I just haven’t had time.

The main reason for that is that I FINALLY found a full time job! I started 3 weeks ago and I’m enjoying it. I’d been looking for work since December but had no luck, other than a few days for an agency. I had applied for hundreds of jobs and kept getting knocked back, even after going for interviews etc. Finally my luck changed and an agency put me forward for a 3 month placement for a really interesting company who are based inside Canary Wharf – I went for the interview and got the job. It was overwhelming at first, I’m not a ‘people’, so the first few days of travelling to Canary Wharf in rush hour was a bit of a shock, but not quite as overwhelming as the chaos that is lunchtime inside, and around One Canada Square and Canary Wharf. Thousands of people queuing up, buying, sitting and eating their lunch all at the same time – it was really horrible at first. I’ve found ‘my’ spot now where I sit everyday for lunch and read my book (oh, hello Mr Grey 😉 ) , and even though it’s still busy and overwhelming, the initial shock has worn off! This is the view I face everyday whilst eating my sandwich – isn’t it pretty? I work inside that middle building, on the 30 something floor – eeek. I’m actually enjoying the role and it’s such a relief to be back into a routine and earning money – the last 3 weeks have gone very quickly so keeping busy at work certainly makes the days tick by faster.

Berkay is also being kept busy in the army. He’s finding it a lot harder than he anticipated and he can’t wait to get out and have some freedom. He’s still based in Kayseri, although there was a scary moment where he faced the prospect of being moved to a more dangerous area – thankfully he didn’t have to go. He gets a few hours off most weekends so he can go outside and speak to me on skype and he’s made two good friends there who get the same hours off as him so he wanders around the nearby shopping centres with them for hours. He says they are all the ‘oldies’ and people refer to them as such, because they’re mid twenties and most people doing their national service are a lot younger than that. I’m glad he’s made friends. He’s been in there for 5 months this week – another 7 to go, and he’s counting every single day.

I’m still moving the marbles from my ‘days to go’ jar into my ‘days down’ one, and it’s a relief seeing nearly equal amounts in each! Berkay has a little list of days in the shape of ‘365’ that he’s ticking off one by one – bless him.

One of the things I was most worried about when Berkay went in the army was Boncuk, where she’d go and how safe she’d be. Initially she stayed with our friends for the first 2 months – and when I was there in April we took her to Berkay’s family’s village instead. Berkay’s brother promised me he’d look after her, but I was still worried because although they have farm animals and care for them, a dog is different. Turkish people don’t really like dogs like we do. They have their own dog, used to guard the sheep – they don’t feed it proper food, just bread and the occasional sheep/goat hoof when slaughtering time comes around. Needless to say, when we turned up with Boncuk, her bags of food and asked Berkay’s dad to save her a bit of fish from his dinner plate so that we could get her to take her worming pill, they thought we were nuts. Thankfully, Berkay’s brother is lovely and has been looking after her nicely, sending me photo updates and answering all my ‘Boncuk nasil?’ messages! He says she loves him and jumps up him wagging her tail whenever she sees him. He even takes her for walks, which is unheard of in the village, people look at you like you’ve got two heads if you’ve got a dog on a lead but think nothing of someone walking along with a flock of sheep instead. Last week Berkay’s cousin was visiting the village and sent me some photos – I was sat on the train coming home from work when I got them and it made my whole day, Boncuk just looks so happy doesn’t she? Such a relief.

149 days down, 219 days to go!

P.S I’m off camping this weekend, but I hope to have another post up sometime next week – I still have a lot of lovely photos of Fethiye to share. If you’re interested in more photos, join our Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/TurkishDreams where me and 3 of my friends post daily photo challenges among other Turkey related things! (:

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!

Army life – 1/4 of the way there.

Posted on May 9, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

It’s been 3 months since Berkay walked through the gates to the army base, put on his uniform and started serving his country.

The first 2 months he was in Izmir everything felt a bit surreal, and it was really hard, but he was doing ok. We got to speak every single day over the phone and had 3 or 4 skype sessions during his few hours off at the weekend. Then, once he’d finished training in Izmir, he had 10 days holiday and I flew out to him in Fethiye for a week, I was worried how strange it’d feel being back together after little contact for 2 months, but it was like we’d never been apart. It was the first time we’d really talked about his army experiences as the phonecalls were too short to have any conversation other than ‘hi, how are you? What are you doing?’. He told me stories, and he showed me photos of his friends and the base, it made me understand it all a lot more. Reality really hits that you have a soldier boyfriend when all his life possessions are taken everywhere with him in a giant army holdall.. and even more so when he opens the bag and the stink wafts out… apparently they can only wash ‘small’ things at the base, the big jackets, trousers etc are expensive to wash so nobody bothers.. this resulted in the apartment we rented for the week looking like a camouflage explosion in a launderette, after I’d washed them all for him!

On 13th April he made the 13 hour bus journey to Kayseri where he’s spending the rest of his army service, as far as we know, although he did say he might be moved elsewhere. He’s currently still training to be an ambulance driver and is a commando which means he gets to wear a fetching blue berret! He doesn’t get paid a penny, they’re supposed to get something ridiculous like 30tl a month, but he’s not received any yet, not even for his bus fare which he was told he’d get something for. As with everything else in Turkey, it’s all very sponaneous, no such thing as forward planning!

He’s not had a day off at the weekend since he’s been back, due to a couple of fellow soldiers having a fight and sacrificing everyone else’s days off as a result! He’s hoping he gets a day off this weekend though, when I spoke to him earlier they had just finished washing and cleaning their dorm and different areas of the base, a ‘boss’ was coming to inspect it and if it meets their standards they get their day off back!

These photos are the official army ones that everyone has taken when they start their service, they are SO cheesy, superimposed onto different backgrounds..

We’re a quarter of the way through now, so that’s good. Even though time is not going fast, it is ‘going’. I have a countdown on the go, it tells me there’s 270 days to go! The part I find hardest is the lack of contact, even though Berkay calls me everyday it’s for a couple of minutes at the most, and its hard to have any kind of meaningful conversation, I can’t tell him about my day and he can’t tell me about his, it’s quite sad, really. You all have probably heard that new song in the charts right now with the words “it’s been a long day without you my friend, and I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again” – that sums it up perfectly on so many levels. Definitely a favourite of mine at the moment.

Berkay doesn’t have a phone or internet access in the base, so when a photo was sent to my Facebook last week I was very pleasantly surprised! He had been sitting in a field with his army friends who were picking flowers and arranging them into their girlfriends names, then taking photos and sending them. His friend let him borrow his phone to send me the photo, it was so cute. I did giggle though, nothing says big, strong, scary soldier like picking flowers in a field, eh?! Bless them. He even said there weren’t enough to make the letters in my name so his friend ran off trying to find more… They are a funny breed, these Turks!

270 days and counting.

Simple yet delicious – Turkish Tost…

Posted on May 4, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

One of my favourite, quick, simple and most importantly – cheap, lunchtime snacks in Turkey is tost.

Not to be confused with ‘normal’ toast – it’s a big, Turkish bread sliced down the middle, stuffed with delicious fillings, pressed and served with a side of spicy, hot pickles. Yum.

The fillings are pretty basic, the most popular is a mixed tost, or “karışık tost” in Turkish, which is a toastie with cheese, sucuk (spicy Turkish sausage) and usually tomato too. I often have this, although my favourite is just a plain, simple cheese and tomato one. There aren’t really very many more variations to the fillings, although whilst in Berkay’s village he had one with scrambled egg, sucuk and cheese in, an odd mixture which tasted surprisingly good.

I love the simpleness of tost so much we used to always make our own at home, but you really can’t beat the way they’re made in cafe’s under a proper, heavy iron press instead of the usual toastie machines. The only downside to how delicious they are, is how unhealthy they are, it’s a bit of a carb overload, eating half a turkish bread in one sitting, and the bread is usually covered in butter on the outside too so it can be rather greasy. Delightful though!

The best cafe serving tost like this in Fethiye is İksirci Tezcan. It’s a small cafe (well, more of a large hut really) on the corner of Fethiye harbour, next to the blue culture centre on the main town square. You can’t miss it, it sits under a shady tree and has pretty, very traditonal low tables and chairs, painted in bright, vivid colours. It’s very popular with locals and often at lunchtime you’ll struggle to find an empty seat amongst the many school children who flock their during their break. It’s almost famous in Fethiye, ask a local or expat about the ‘toastie place’ and they’ll know where you mean!

Tost is the only food on the menu here, along with the usual soft drinks, water or their other speciality – freshly squeezed fruit juice, usually orange or pomegranate but it varies depending which fruit is in season. Don’t be put off by the simplicity of the menu though, the toasties here are all amazing.

It’s a good place to sit and people watch as locals and tourists wander past, boats sail in and out of the harbour and street animals play (I shared my tost with a cat!)

The best thing of all about this cafe is how cheap it is. This was our bill, 10.50tl for 2 mixed tost, a can of cola and an ayran.. at today’s rate this is just over £2.60!
Whether you’re on a budget or not, it’s a fantastic price and a fantastic place to spend half an hour watching the world go by, and you’ll be able to tick ‘tost’ off the ‘Turkish street food to try’ list.

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!~~