Tag Archives: birthday

Turkiye’s Very Own Polar Vortex

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In case you have been living under a rock the past few days social media in Turkiye has been blowing up with both the expats and Turks alike going on about the crazy cold weather we are having right now.  Soğuk, çok soğuk! (It’s cold, very cold!). Talk about “Keeping up with the Kardashians”, Turkiye goes and freezes over just to be like their fancy neighbours.

All over the country the weather has been abysmal.  Villages and towns have been snowed in, flights cancelled and even here in Mersin hell has literally frozen over.  I mean really – it snowed!  I know right!?!

Mersin snow

This shouldn’t happen.  I was only writing here about how hot it was a couple of months back.  This is an extreme turnaround and it really isn’t acceptable to me.

Electricity is scant and this transforms The Turk from his manly man Turkish self into, well, into a bit of a girly princess.  As expected this transformation has also pushed The Turk into his “I want to go back to Australia” phase of his re-entry into Turkish life.  We don’t have a soba here (Turkish fireplace) so when the electricity dies then icicles begin to form over any uncovered appendage.  The Turk is definitely concerned about his favourite appendage freezing and breaking off and has been checking it regularly.  Last night I threatened to move into the Hilton just for a hot bath and internet access (side note – what is it with Turkey not having instantaneous hot water?  Install a fecking Rheem for Christ’s sake!!).  But no I stayed and suffered in silence, well relative silence compared to The Turk that’s for sure!

But it is not just us who are suffering in the cold.  I feel for the stray animals that live in our village.  The kediler are breaking into any house with an open door trying to find a warm spot and I swear I saw a pack of kopekler milling around an open fire on an empty block.  I am not going to say that they started the fire but … it looked very suspicious.  My Hurley Dog is refusing to go outside and when I finally got him outside his pee froze mid-stream!  True!  I swear!!

I know I am ridiculous.

Yesterday was my birthday.  Did you know?  Yah happy birthday and all that!  I made a pretty strong statement on FB the other night saying it might be cold but there’s no way it will snow and certainly not on my birthday.  I will eat my hat.  Well as I was reminded by a well-wisher yesterday that it did in fact snow – soooo – would I like fries with that hat?  Humfph!  The Turk also reminded me of my wording off this morning and handed me his beanie and the salt and pepper shakers.  I didn’t eat it as that was his hat.  I agreed to eat mine.  Technicality?  Yep but I am going with it.

So happy birthday to me – and welcome to the Ice Age!  Bbrrrr!

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Birthday

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The most important event that took place in Turkey this past weekend was Daughter’s birthday party.  Her birthday is not actually until next week but as we will be in Sydney it was imperative that we threw her “the party of the season” before we left.

Alright I can do this, after all I have thrown 11 other birthdays for her so one in the Village can’t be that different.  I did, however, give myself a sneaky lesson in Turkish birthday etiquette while recently attending her cousins 10th birthday.  It is clear that birthdays are not huge events here even though Daughter considers it should be “the party of the season”.  Here in the village a birthday is celebrated with family, a cake and maybe a few balloons.  Easy.

Sunday morning I was up early cleaning the house.  Daughter had had a sleepover the night before and they attempted an all-nighter so she was as grumpy as a toothless troll in the morning.  I threw her in the shower to wake her up and sent the girls downstairs for breakfast (there were kids everywhere on Sunday morning so I took advantage of my sister in law who had arrived from Adana the day before to feed the masses).

The Turk and I left to get the cake and a few last minute items and when we returned less than 15 minutes before the party was due to begin we arrived to find Daughter had turned our living room into a balloon pool.  She had blown up every single balloon in my “Mega-bag” of balloons that I recently purchased at Metro for the bargain basement  price of 10TL.  That means close to 200 balloons were blown up.  It was crazy.  There was also music blasting, the Wii was set up and the piñata that I had put away (as I considered that it fell under the heading of “ostentatious”) was now hanging in the garden downstairs.

Cousins arrived.  Friends arrived.  More friends arrived.  Chaos ensued.  Music blasted (I think I heard Adriana Grande’s hit “Problem” about 20 times).  Cake was eaten.  Pinata was destroyed.  Balloons were popped (and one eaten by My Hurley Dog).

Here are a few snaps from the party.  If you are wondering the significance of the “A” it is a reference to Daughter’s favourite television show, “Pretty Little Liars”.  Only 3 days until the Season premiere people – I know this as Daughter has been counting it down for weeks now.  Will we find out who “A” is?  Only time will tell.

birthday collage

Was this considered the “party of the season”?  Yes, yes it was.  I have also fallen into the category of “Coolest Mum Ever” with Daughter’s friends which sits well with me because it is true!

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Birthday Lunch

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Daughter took me out for my belated birthday lunch today.  We left the Village behind us, passed by the historical (and chaotic) Carsi and travelled west to the more European inspired area of Mersin for lunch at the new Marina.

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Arriving at the Marina is akin to arriving back in Sydney and going for a day at Darling Harbour.  Lots of sunshine, tourists, designer shops and European-styled restaurants.  Daughter picked a great looking restaurant that had good old fashioned burgers and, although it was empty when we arrived, 20 minutes into our lunch we were surrounded by a bus load of German tourists who appeared to be drinking their way around Turkey.  They were travelling from Alanya and were expecting to continue their historical tour of Turkey by visiting Tarsus this afternoon.  Honestly I cannot imagine how they will fare wandering around all the historical sites that Tarsus has to offer – I should watch the Haber (news) this evening to see if there was a group of German tourists arrested for disturbing the peace.  They were a very rowdy bunch but Daughter thought they were excellent value and befriended them.  She was having an awesome time.  She taught them some Turkish swear words and they reciprocated by teaching her some not so appropriate German.  It’s great to have a multi-lingual child!

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After lunch we spent time in the sunshine just wandering along the waterfront.  It was such a lovely afternoon – we stopped for cay at a tea house, Daughter befriended some puppies (and tried to convince me to take one home) and we brought freshly roasted chestnuts to nibble on while watching old men fishing from the wharf.  As the sun began to set on my birthday day some ominous looking clouds appeared on the horizon.  Rain?  Nah!  But we better find a dolmus just in case.

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Incidentally it has only rained four times in Mersin since September.  That’s over 120 days of sunshine.  I get quite excited when I see the clouds and the prospect of rain but it just never eventuates.  I know that Australia is sweltering in 50 degree heat and America is suffering with their “polar vortex” but I must say that winter in Mersin is extremely pleasant.  So lucky!

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How Many Turks does it take to change a light bulb?

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Last weekend was The Turk’s birthday.  I am not allowed to say just how old he is however Daughter has been known to him a moruk (geezer) so you make a guess.  I looked around the Wonderful World Wide Web for a few historical snippets relating to his birthdate of 7 December to reference in his birthday card but no one really famous – well no one I knew anyway – was born (or died) on 7 December.  7 December has the ominous distinction of being the day that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour – 7 December 1941 – but this was to be a celebratory day and I do not want to bring down his groove.

There was no chance of a lie in for The Turk on his birthday as the electricity had blown (yet again).  I reset the system again and attempted to put on the heater but it blew almost immediately.  At 7 on Saturday morning it was 4 degrees and with no air con or heater . . . well let me just say it was cold.  So I woke The Turk up to complain and for him to let Hurley out (after all it was way too cold for me and I crawled straight back into bed).  He was very proactive about it though and by 8 am he had left the house to have a shave and to go and track down the electrician who installed our wiring.  I went to buy the bread and when I had returned The Turk had arrived back home freshly shaved and with a boy in tow.

“This is the electrician?” Thank goodness he didn’t speak English although I would think the disbelief in my tone would be clear after all the child standing before me could be no more than 18 years of age (I concede he may be an adult but no way he is an electrician).  The “cocuk (child) electrician” had a long conversation with The Turk and explained that the issue is not with the electrical it is with the air conditioning unit.  Can I holler balderdash?

So most of the morning was spent listening firstly to the cocuk electrician explain why there was nothing wrong with the wiring, and the air con people came and told us that it was the electrical system.  Now I may not Benjamin Franklin but it does not take a fool to tell you there is a problem if you are shorting out 10 times a day!  The cocuk electrician left unsatisfied however promised that his elder brother (who I was guessing is the actual electrician) would return in the afternoon.  The Turk’s birthday was definitely turning into a disaster so before any other calamity presented itself Daughter and I grabbed him and took him into Mersin for a celebratory lunch at Cigeri Apo.

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To truly experience a typical Turkish restaurant in Mersin you cannot get any better than Cigeri Apo.  It specialises in meats cooked over the coals and the menu, although very simple, is delicious.  I was pretty unsure about the choices (The Turk mentioned lung at one stage) so I kept it pretty basic with an order of beef kebap and he ordered unknown meat on the skewer.  Within minutes 5 different salads were delivered to our table along with a glass of Ayran for each of us.  Ayran is a Turkish drink of yogurt, salt and water blended into a thick shake.  Although refreshing on a hot day Ayran tastes pretty good any time of year.

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After a wonderful lunch we wandered down to Ataturk Park and hopped on a harbour cruise that was about to leave.  In hindsight this was probably a mistake as it was freezing on the harbour but it was reasonably short and we were rugged up sufficiently well.  Although the cruise did not leave the harbour it gave us views of the dull city skyline, Luna Park and the Free Trade Zone.

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Returning home the cocuk electrician’s brother arrived and he checked the circuits.  Watching the actual electrician with The Turk I started to wonder whether they would ever get to the bottom of the electrical faults.  Hmmmm.  The Turk said to me later on Saturday evening that watching me trying to control my agitation with the electrician was the best birthday present he could have received (well that and Fenerbache winning their futbol match on Saturday night).

All in all a good day for The Turk.