A Day in Çanakkale

I can't believe I only have one week left before I go home. I don't want to leave so soon, I'm having too much fun. This morning my friends called me and we arranged to meet up so we can spend my last weekend in Turkey together. We went to a really nice cafe where there was the most delicious food- all sweet things. I got a raspberry and chocolate cake which was really nice but I couldn't finish it, it was too rich for me. Then we just hung out for awhile, looking around the shops and just relaxing. They took me to some cute little boutiques and they bought me a really nice necklace. I am going to miss them when I go back to New Zealand but I hope one day we will meet again.

My delicious cake and a Turkish sweet my friends bought me- it's a little like toffee

My friends and also the necklace they bought for me (it's the top necklace)

Some Pictures from my last few weeks in Turkey

One day we all went to the hair salon and got our hair done

Mira's hair and mine

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We also all got glitter tattoos at the hair salon

My host mother getting hers done and Mira's one

And mine

Trojan horse at a cafe

The painting I did at Mira's academy. The kids were painting element faeries so I did as well.

I couldn't get a picture of the other kids paintings because they all finished theirs before me and they got put away- the academy is having a show to display all the artwork done by the kids.

The sunset one night. I thought it looked quite pretty.

Friends

I have really settled into school now and I have made some really lovely friends. We are managing to have pretty good conversations, they know more English than I realised. They are a couple of years younger than me but to be honest there is no difference between us. They are really great people and I know that I have made some friends for life. It makes me sad to think that I have to go in a couple of weeks when I'm just really starting to making fantastic friends. The other day I took my camera to school and the girls in my class loved it. They took turns taking photos of each other and we had a great time. Although not all of them liked having their photo taken and some were sick and at home.

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My Weekend

I just had a very long but a great weekend. On Saturday I went to my little sister's academy like I do most Saturdays. This is where she does painting, piano and ballet. I've joined her painting class, the other kids are about 7. I left the academy early to meet up with two very nice boys, one is an AFS volunteer who is from Çanakkale. We walked over to a park where he had organised a pillow fight. I played for the first round but then I decided to sit out and watch. We also looked at the big wooden horse that they have in Çanakkale. It is in the Morabbin Park on the waterfront, the horse was made for the 2004 movie 'Troy'.

Me in front of the wooden horse

The Pillow Fight

Then we went to the Çanakkale Naval Museum. We got there a bit late so we had to look around everything quite quickly. It was really cool, there is little museum with things from WW1, like bullets and flags. There was a section for the Gallipoli Campaign. There were Australian badges found in the ground at Gallipoli. There was also a boat you go on that has a presentation about 18th March. It was in Turkish so I didn't understand what they were saying but there was a video showing the ships and the mines so I got the general gist of what happened. There is also a fortress. It was built my Sultan Mehmet in the 15th century. Around the grounds are mines and cannons on display from WW1.

Some bullets found at Gallipoli and a British flag that was taken by the Turkish

The Fortress

Afterwards we met up with my host family whose Harley Davidson friends had ridden Çanakkale from Istanbul for the weekend. We all went out for dinner, they are really lovely people and very funny. On Sunday we went to say goodbye to them but we ended up going for a ride with them, halfway to Istanbul. It was a lot of fun, I quite like being on the back of a motorbike. By the end of the weekend I was very tired but I had had a lot of fun.

More Istanbul

Spent 3 days shopping in Istanbul, Very exhausted by the end of it and also a bit short of money. I bought lots of clothes. On Sunday we went to the bazaar near where we stayed in Istanbul. Everything was really cheap so I bought even more clothes.

The bazaar

It was raining for most of the weekend, so I didn't really get the chance to take many photos. It stopped raining on Sunday but it was really foggy. I took a few photos they're a bit hard to see because of the fog, sorry. The buildings are really tall, everything in Istanbul is massive.

Istanbul

I am in Istanbul for a few days over the weekend. We arrived late last night, it is about a 3-4 hour drive from Canakkale. On our way to Istanbul we stopped in a town called Tekirdağ. It is really famous in Turkey for its amazing meatballs. So we stopped and had some for dinner, they were really nice.

Today we went to Istinye Park which is a HUGE shopping mall. It has nearly 300 stores and is very easy to get lost in. We were there for about 8 hours and now I am very tired. I did a lot of shopping, I bought a few things from H&M and few other stores that we don't have in New Zealand. The prices were quite cheap so I didn't actually spend that much money.

The Shopping Mall

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My days shopping

Turkey

Life in Turkey has been great, I have been settling into life here and trying some new things. Last weekend I went for a ride on the back of my host fathers Harley, it was very cool. I might have to save up and buy myself a motorbike.

School is good, I sometimes go to different English classes so they can practice speaking English, they are really good. I've been to most of the classes at the school and the kids are really funny. At school there is a canteen with lots of different lollies and things. The woman who works at the canteen knows I don't speak Turkish so she tells me how much things are by holding up her fingers. My friend Elifcan bought me this chocolate treat the other day. It comes in a small tube (like a toothpaste tube) and is filled with chocolate- like Nutella. You suck it out of the tube, it tastes really nice!

Nutella in a tube