Izmir and Urla

Murat, Mehmet, Kadir, and I arrived, after an exhausting and uncomfortable 8 hour bus journey, in Izmir at 8 AM. We then took a shuttle bus to an area called Narlidere where their cousin Çağla (pronounced Chah-lah) met us, and took us directly to Urla. Urla is a small town about 30 km outside of Izmir on the Aegean Sea. Çağla's family has a house there and Murat's parents have been living there for the past four months or so. It is a huge house with many rooms.
This was good because there were going to be a ton of people staying there. I got to meet Murat's aunts, uncles, grandmother, granfather, cousins, and more cousins. I got to know his mom much better, but unfortunately his father was called to Adana for a family emergency. Everything ended up OK, but for a couple days everyone was worried. I learned how to play a really fun game called OK. It is my new favorite, but you need 4 people to play it (instead of the 2 needed for backgammon). Murat and I went for a drive and to take a few pictures. The area is so quite after Istanbul. It is very lovely as well.

Fisherman! We could understand how they got all the way out there at first.

After a day we met up with Serdar and I went with him to stay with his family for a couple days. I got to see his grandfather, who I love so much. He always tells me stories in German with a Turkish word here and there. I heard about the wars he fought in, the bear he killed in Eastern Europe, and about how big the world is :).
We went to visit the family in Turgutlu as well. Everyone looks great and it was a complete surprise that I was coming. Everyone was so happy to see me and I was happy to see them as well. Serdar and I hung out in the evenings with our friend Levent, who I have know for sometime as well. We watched the very depressing FB match, hung out at the wedding salon (owned by the Bakkalci's), and went to internet cafes ;).

Me and Levent
Me and Serdar

After two days, Murat and everyone picked me up and we went to hangout on the Kordon in Izmir.
It is the main place to hangout and go to cafe's and restaurants. We drank some hot chocolate, laughed, walked and watched the sunset.

Mehmet and Murat (by Kadir)
Us being silly (also by Kadir)

We went back to Urla where we made Gozleme (Turkish crepes). I helped make the filling and even turned them on the grill for a bit. They boys played with a home made slingshot and we even played some Dodgeball :0).

Murat's mom making Gozleme and his aunt cooking
Me cooking ;o)

The next say we made our way to Narlidere to spend that last two day before we left. I had to spend a lot of the time working on my aromatherapy class so I could complete my module. Finally we had our 2 bus ride home. It was much shorter and more comfortable than the previous one. I had a wonderful holiday!