December countdown..

Posted on December 6, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

It’s the 5th of December already, as my advent calendar reminded me this morning, which means only 11 more sleeps until Berkay is here! (:

Still cant quite believe that its December already, or that I have been back for 10 weeks. Its crazy!

I’m still at my job, and have found another temporary job at an office, as of next week I’ll be doing 2 jobs working up to 12 hours a day, going to be bloody hard! Both jobs are temporary until January. The most frustrating part is that any money I earn won’t count for anything towards helping Berkay get his visa to live here, I have to be earning £18,600 a year for 6 months for that, feel like I’m stuck and not getting anywhere fast, but it could be worse…

Berkay has been looking for work since the beginning of November, and has been getting pretty desperate as he had to buy new food for Boncuk, luckily he found a job and started yesterday, working 15+ hours a day, starting at lunchtime and finishing after 4am. All that work and all those hours for just 25tl a day, the equivalent to £7.50 a day. Ridiculous. 😦 It’s mad to think we ever survived on that.

Boncuk is settled in nicely and enjoying her home in the hotel with Berkay, she’ll miss him when he comes here for a few weeks, but our good friend is looking after her so I know she’s going to be well looked after (:

Hopefully I’ll be back with another post again soon, just finding it hard to think of things to write, and struggling to find time to write them.

Happy Christmas shopping everyone 😉

New home, Boncuk & work..

Posted on November 7, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Loooooong time, no speak. Apologies for the lack of posts lately, have been really busy and struggling to find time to think about what to write.

A few new things… number one, I have a job. Nothing exciting, it’s only at Argos and only part-time, but hopefully I’ll get alot more hours in the next few weeks with the Christmas rush! Anything is better than nothing (:

Number two, Berkay has moved out of the apartment we shared 😦 He has moved into a room under the hotel he worked in during summer, and is staying there for the winter. The hotel is all closed up but he’s staying in a little room underneath and has taken Boncuk with him too, hopefully she’ll settle in okay and not miss her home too much 😦 The good news is this means he won’t have to pay rent, and will hopefully be able to save some wages. The bad news is he has no internet there so we won’t be able to Facetime each other, boo.
Here are a few photos of Boncuk checking out the new abode!

Bodrum Day 1. Hotel, beaches & food.

Posted on October 2, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

It seems like such a long time ago now, but it was only actually two weeks ago today we went to Bodrum. We had a great time and it was lovely to spend some time together, they were the first days Berkay had off work since April!
These posts may be photo-heavy, I get very snap-happy with the camera…

At 9.30 am, just after Berkay came home from work, we boarded the little bus to Bodrum. It cost 35tl each and I can’t say it was very comfortable.. it was tiny and full. Luckily, most of the people were going to Mugla and we had the bus to ourselves for the second half of the journey so we could spread out.

Four and a half hours later, we arrived at Bodrum otogar (bus station), we hopped on a Dolmus to Gumbet and found our hotel (The Best Life hotels) When we arrived at the hotel, they greeted us with this little non-alcoholic cocktail. Yummy.

The hotel was so, so quiet. Apparently it was half full, but since the guests were mainly party people, they literally slept all day, and went out to bar street all night. No complaints here, we had the pool to ourselves most of the time and only 1-2 other couples at dinner/breakfast with us!

We got settled in our room then went for a little swim.

The pool was freezing, so after a quick dip and a game of volleyball, we headed out for a walk.

I wasn’t impressed with Gumbet at all, the beach was packed, everyone crowded on sunbeds like sardines, barely an inch between the beds. It was so dirty too. The roads and sidewalks were filthy, definitely not a fan. Our hotel was right next to bar street, but compared to the rest of the town, I actually liked it there (surprisingly for me… I normally hate loud, obnoxious bars. haha) By this time it was really cloudy, which made the place look worse. It still made a nice change though.

After our walk we headed back to our hotel room. We sat and played Triominos for a bit (hello, old granny game!) and had showers then got ready to eat.

We booked our hotel half board as we thought it would be cheaper than eating out, it cost 100tl extra for the two of us over two days. It was well worth the money, the food was amazing! Tomato soup for starters, then Turkish mixed meze (a lot of it!), salad, bread, 2 bowls of manti (Turkish food), a bbq with a huge selection of chips, rice, steak, chicken and meatballs. There was desert too but we were far too full to eat it. I was really impressed, it was so tasty!

After dinner we took the dolmus to Ortakent. This was definitely a Turkish resort, I only saw 2 English people walking around in the 2-3 hours we were there. Berkay’s brothers work there so we had a catch up with them and a wander along the seafront, it was really pretty. It reminded me a lot of Calis Beach, only less British influenced.

After all that, we went back to our hotel in Gumbet, sat by the pool for a little while then went up to our room, after having no sleep the night before, we both fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow, despite the banging music we could hear coming from bar street!

Where have I been?

Posted on September 22, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for not sticking to my promise of ‘blogging everyday’, it’s been nearly a week since my last post. I haven’t fallen of the face of the planet, but I have been really busy and had a lot on my mind.

We spent two days/nights in Bodrum last week, it was a very last minute thing, we booked the hotel on Tuesday and left first thing Wednesday morning. It was Berkays first day off work since April, and we were so grateful for the time together, it was lovely. I’ll do a separate post about it all later on.

The next thing that happened was I booked my flight back to the UK for good. I had been putting it off for as long as possible but the prices were getting more expensive and I couldn’t find anymore excuses not to book. It’s booked for Thursday night. This is the main reason I haven’t posted, I’m not really in the mood to be posting about all the wonderful things about Turkey when I’m about to give it all up. I’ll explain why in another post.

I have also been busy finishing a cross-stitch order, it has to be completed by mid week and I am running out of time!

Today we went for a lovely picnic with our friends, the last one for a long time. I’ve been trying to make the most of my last few days here. It still doesn’t feel real that I’m leaving. It’s not going to sink in til I’m sat on that plane alone, flying up and watching all the things I know and love be left behind on the ground.

I have 3 or 4 posts coming up really soon, but after that I’m not sure what or when I’ll be posting on here, but I will keep it as up to date as possible. Thanks for reading as always.