Quick overview of what I did on holiday.

 

Well as the title suggests, this will be brief. I have so much I want to tell you all, and yet I'm so behind.

Last week, from Wednesday to Sunday, we had the Muslim festival of Ed-Ul-Adha. This is a holiday where people cut lambs and give half to the poor. Turns out, watch the lamb bleed to death is what everyone does. I started and then felt sick and couldn't watch the rest. Then on Monday, we had the national Independance Day. The Turkish Republic is only 89 years old and there is a ton of national pride in Izmir.

So here's the overview of my holiday:

• Spent 3 days in Tire where my grandparents have a house. (my host mom's parents)
• Met an insane amount of family, all very very nice people.
• Ate lamb for the first time. I have decided I don't really care for lamb. Maybe I just need to eat it a LOT more to really decide my feelings for it. (I don't think watching the poor thing choke to death helped my taste buds)
• Ate way too many sweets and drank too much tea. (not that that's a BAD thing hehe)
• Played Uno in Turkish.
• Came back to Izmir and met my other grandmother (my host dad's mom)
• Spent 5 hours in a car on the way to Marmaris.
• Spent the night on a boat!
• Played backgammon with a friend of the family and discoverd I need a LOT more practice. I got schooled.
• Improved my rock skipping tecnique.

So that's my Bayram (as we call it) in a nutshell. It was sort of fun, but like all holidays, you're ready to go back to school by the end.

The day I got back to school, though, was more Turkish Independace Day stuff. 11th and 12th grades got to march through part of the city preceeded by the band and a whole bunch of Turkish flags.That was pretty cool! People everywhere along the way were cheering from their apartments. Honestly I've never seen so much pride for one's country before. I mean, this is only the 89th year too. I want to be here when they have their centennial. It'll be amazing.

More coming later, I promise!

Monica