Friends will be Friends

It's time for all our friends living abroad to make their way to Turkey right about now. Mid-July - August is when we get to see people from our past, people who were our "best man" in our wedding, people who bought their first houses and invited us to see it first, people who still live "over there" - some enjoying their dreams, some yearning to come back.

So Thursday, we went to a surprise birthday party in NuTeras. Asyak is a gorgeous friend we met a few years ago - and her husband Sarp managed to get 20+ people together to surprise her. We went to Mikla by mistake at first - no it was Sarp's fault - he told us to meet at Mikla!!! My dad babysat for Tunca, we had a great time, apparently so did they.

Here's Asyak in all her beauty:
We spent Friday evening going to AltınKek for cake & lemonade for Tunca, then walked over to the beach to watch fireworks, very common during weddings in Turkey.

Saturday evening we were in Köşebaşı with my cool friends Pelin and Tolga and their daughters Mercan and Şiraz - Mercan goes to school with Tunca - Pelin & I went to the same middle school for about 4 years.

Sunday we were in Village Park with Cem & Pınar & Duru, then drove around Beykoz looking for houses. At night we went to Feriye for dinner with Burak's sister - I think that restaurant has the best view I have ever seen in the Bosphorus.

We actually spent the whole weekend eating. And with friends. It doesn't get any better than this.

edit: we got an email from another friend, Cüneyt, Sunday evening saying that they're all here in İstanbul as well, so we met them in Reina for drinks and dinner. Cüneyt was Burak's "witness"/best man in our wedding, Gökhan and Selen are one our oldest friends, Seyhan (sans her husband Burak) and Süreyya and Karen were there for a wonderful blue cruise back in 1997... We all see each other (maybe) twice a year, and life goes on, yet things to talk about never cease and our friendship seems to survive the thousands of miles between us all. Süreyya and Karen's son, Morgan, the "firstborn" to the whole group, was there as well and has truly grown up to be a gorgeous, kind, smart and polite young man - so mature for his age.