Cecilia, 16 August 2007
Germany , Munich

Daily Life

Servus!

Being back in Munich now for 4 months now I haven’t forgotten you So here again some pics and news.

Again there are some pics from Istanbul – well – in the past 4 months I had been there again four times in an almost two-three week rhythm

Wedding
My first Turkish wedding! I had no idea what to expect. I knew that around 200 people would come (ok, for some of you this might sound normal – but believe me – for any other German this is a looooot of guests invited!) but that’s about it. Of course I had this idea in mind, that the wedding would start sometime during the day. But what a surprise: it would only start between 7 and 8 at night and it would take until 8:30pm until Nevra & Ulas would appear And instead of partying until 3-5 in the morning (as usually in Germany) Utku and I arrived already around 1am at home!

Besides this surprise it was just like you would imagine a Turkish wedding: many people, music, dancing, way too much food and of course a great experience

Hayirlisi olsun Nevra ve Ulas!!!

Kina Gecisi – Henna Night
Before the wedding of course the women are celebrating as well!!! This is called the “Henna Night”. Usually only women gather together, eat and of course: dance!!! Besides this Nevra wanted to have it a little bit in the traditional way: sometime later at night she dressed in old traditional kina gecisi clothes (I guess this has a certain name – don’t ask me for this!), her friends followed with candles. Afterwards she sits down, the girl friend circle her with the candles and in the back there plays one special traditional song (for the ones that had been to Turkish AIESEC conferences: the Bursa-Roll-Call Song I was surprised – I thought this song would have also been a children song *lol* ). Later she gets henna on her hands (see pic) and the dancing goes on. In general the others also put henna in the middle of their hands – but not too much of Tradition is possible in nower days. In some positions with customer contact (e.g. bank) it is even forbidden

Family Issues
Actually everything runs well – doing much more with my family lately. Living at home with my parents is actually quite nice up to now – no problems whatsoever. My sister joined in for a trip to Istanbul in May. She liked it a lot – even though she was quite astonished at her first morning: suddenly around 5am somebody started screaming… *lol* she didn’t expect the Imam to call for the Morning Prayer

Zürich
What can I say about this city? Zürich feels a little bit like Munich, if it would be built right next to the “Starnberger Lake” …and of course: there are more “big” cars, rich people, expensive shops, and of course: banks Why I went there? I visited Claudia (one of my old high school friends) as she is working there. It was a really nice weekend with hiking, sight seeing and relaxing. The special event of the weekend was going to the restaurant which is called “Blind Cow” (“blinde Kuh” für alle Deutschen). It is a restaurant where it is so dark that you cannot see a thing and it feels like you would be blind. It was a great experience and I can only advise everybody to go to one of those restaurants if you have the chance!! And try to order meat: you have no idea how hard it is to cut meat with a knife in suitable pieces if you cannot see a thing!

Home
... now here’s the real reason why I am writing my weblog: I finally started writing on my thesis (university is coming to an eeeeeeeeeenddddddddd!) and of course I am the biggest procrastinater ever!!! So writing the weblog was one of the things I could still do instead of reading in my books… *sigh* my room is already cleaned up… so no work there

I hope you are all fine!

Hugs & Kisses
Cecilia

…and all my love to benim Bääääääääär!!!!!!!! …can you imagine it’s been already 2 years now?!?!?!?