A Very Happy Birthday

The night before my birthday, somebody knocked on my kitchen window, some gigles and then the candle lights on a delicious cake. Can there be a better surprise?

So we paused as my favorite chilren's book series heroin Aysegül (Debbie in English, Martine in French) by Marcel Marlier and Gilbert Delahaye which made me believe in such a beautiful world.

The morning after which was my birth-day, we all agreed to go out for a modest breakfast in the junction of the Black Sea and the Bosphorus that you can see behind H on the photo.

Although we born as "one" and we die as "one", we need our happy crowd along the way.

Laughed loud, ate all well and paused for the occasion.

Aren't birthdays about this happy crowd in life?

The night when I was going back to my bed, I realised I felt so happy and safe like our little hazelnut in her mom's arms.

I remembered my birthday last year, not a cheerful one at all. As an abondoned amusement park in winter.

Having lost my job with 260 employees in the company due to the crisis, friends and family came in but there was a silent sadness in the air as the boyfriend didn't show up, neither called. A birthday of sudden losses.

We own so much to our happy crowds. we must never stop being grateful about them.

Making A Home, So Far Away from Home

I have joined to sis' friends to be together for a special sunday breakfast in Polonezköy in the occasion of a good friend 's birthday

Polonezköy is in the countryside in the very north of Istanbul

ut what makes Polonezköy so special and so different than the texture of Istanbul is not only the greenery,

The history of the village is quite interestng. It was built as an emigration center to Polish in 1842. So far away from home..

Hence the name Polonezköy which means Polish Village in Turkish.

"At the beginning, the village was inhabited by 12 people, but there were no more than 220 people when the village was most populated. In the course of time, Adampol developed and was flooded by a lot of emigrants from the rebellion in November 1830, during the Crimean War in 1853, and by runaways from Siberia and from captivity in Czerkieska. The first inhabitants busied themselves with agriculture, raising and forestry. After Polish independence in 1918, many returned to Poland. Before World War II, the first tourists already began to arrive to the village. The remaining inhabitants of Adampol (Polonezköy) took Turkish citizenship in 1938."

Still the inhabitants speak the Polish language and the signs are both in Turkish and Polish

Today Polonezköy is an excellent escape for Istanbullers like us on weekends.

The spring, the unaging spring is already here. I enjoyed my short walks to take photos and caught up the birthday wishes at the end of their long wee session.