Summer is here! 
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
A five hour 'nap'
We arrived in Nelson today and a quick nap after lunch for Musti and Papi turned out to last until evening!
Arrival in Chch
After two days journey we arrive in Christchurch. We don't look too worse for the wear, do we?!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Meet Papatya Party
Hi everyone. We're heading off to Istanbul on Monday night (23rd Jan) and will be on a plane to NZ on Saturday the 30th.
We're in NZ for 5 weeks, most of them in Nelson. We plan to be in Wgtn from the 10th of Feb until about the 17th - 19th of Feb. We are having a bbq party for Papatya (and me as I turn 30 on the 11th!) on Sunday the 12th of Febuary at my aunty's place in Paramata. I'll let you all know the details by email when they're all sorted, but keep that Sunday free!
Papatya's well. We went to the Dr for a check up on Friday and she is now 5.25kgs and 58.5cms. The weight gain is normal, but the dr says that babies generally grow about 8 cms in there forst 3 months... Papatya has done that in 7 weeks! Hopefully she'll slow down so she can actually get some decent wear out of her clothes!
Hopefully she'll be a good traveller, the train'll be fine, it's the plane I'm a bit worried about. Fingers crossed.
Looking forward to seeing everyone in NZ very soon! xxx
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
Paptaya's 40th
Earlier this week Papatya passed a major milestone in her life. She turned 40 days old. This is an important day for a baby in Turkey as it means that they can finally go outside. It is also the day that they get told their name. Whenever we’d been out before this time, especially in the first couple of weeks, and people asked us how old Papatya was we got lots of tut tuts and comments on how it wasn’t right and she was really too young to be out wasn’t she?! Not the done thing here to give your baby fresh air, especially in winter. Think of all the bad things that could happen… I just told people that it was her NZ side we were taking out, her Turkish side was all wrapped up in many layers at home.
So we traveled to Istanbul by train, a great way to travel with a baby. Once she got to sleep she was out all night. Wonderful. If only she’d got off to sleep a little earlier! Istanbul was freezing cold, but so beautiful. I try not to look at how lovely it is these days, it just makes me sad as we don’t live there and we never have enough time there to spend just hanging out anymore. Maybe one day in the future we’ll live there again, but I don’t see it happening any time soon.
We stayed the first night at Musti’s sister’s place. We went out during the day to Sultan Ahmet and Papatya met Tayfun and Tarik. On the way back to Dilek’s we stopped off to get kebabs from Kizilkayalar in Taksim (one of the best doner places in Turkey) and then got caught in traffic. You forget how bad the traffic there is. That was enough to remind Musti about why he didn’t like Istanbul so much these days.
The next day we went off to the village to Musti’s parents’ place (not really a village anymore as Istanbul has grown and the area is now an outlying suburb with new buildings and housing complexes sprouting up around it.) The whole village then arrived at the house to get a good look at Papatya. Papatya was so good considering it was a bit like pass the parcel. We got all the advice on what we should be doing and what we shouldn’t. Things like the woman who was feeding her kids chicken noodle soup from about 4 weeks. Also almost everyone telling us we were under dressing her (the fire had been stoked up so much that everyone was pretty much sitting around in T-shirts and still sweating, but they insisted that Papatya still needed a few more layers…). Everyone has different ideas about bringing up kids I guess. We just listened and nodded our heads, different strokes.
After such an exhausting day Papatya slept quite well, though not in her own bed. She was a bit upset and it was all a little much for her so she slept on her mummy’s chest for much of the night. Not that I minded of course!
Monday was her 40th (It’s not many people who get to celebrate their 40th twice!). Me, Musti and my dad were interested to see what all this entailed as we all had no idea. First Papatya was washed in water into which some gold had been dropped. Then I had to use the remainder of the water to wash myself. After she was dressed up nicely certain parts of the koran were read by Musti’s dad (we were taping all this and thought that when they said ,‘will read from the Koran’, they meant out lud… this was not the case, not the most exciting video to watch then!). After reading from the Koran Musti’s dad then whispered ‘Papatya Michelle Selime’ three times in her ear.
This was all done before the hoca (person who knows the Koran really well) arrived. By the time she got there the house was again pretty full. Everyone had some sherbet. All the men then had to go downstairs as they weren’t allowed to stay due to the hoca being female. She then read from the Koran (out loud this time) and prayers for Papatya were said. After which rice with chickpeas and ayran (yogurt drink) were passed out and we all washed our hands with rose water and had a pinch of blessed sugar (not sure of the significance of that). And that was that. An interesting day, though not so interesting on video.
On Tuesday we left the village at lunch time and headed over to Michelle’s place until we caught the train back to Ankara in the evening. It was lovely to see everyone and Papatya handled it all really well. But it was great to be on the way home again. One of the best bits about having gone away was seeing Papatya’s face when we got back home. She was so smiley all morning. Our sofa has stripes which she loves to look at and it was obvious that she recognised these and was glad to see them again.
All in all not bad for a first trip away. Hopefully this means that our next trip, to NZ in a couple of weeks, will go as well.
By the way, the name Papatya was chosen as it’s such a lovely name and quite unique, even in Turkey. Michelle after our friend (photo below) who introduced Musti and I. Selime (not an official name, but she may end up being called this in the village) was Musti’s grandmother’s name.
So we traveled to Istanbul by train, a great way to travel with a baby. Once she got to sleep she was out all night. Wonderful. If only she’d got off to sleep a little earlier! Istanbul was freezing cold, but so beautiful. I try not to look at how lovely it is these days, it just makes me sad as we don’t live there and we never have enough time there to spend just hanging out anymore. Maybe one day in the future we’ll live there again, but I don’t see it happening any time soon.
We stayed the first night at Musti’s sister’s place. We went out during the day to Sultan Ahmet and Papatya met Tayfun and Tarik. On the way back to Dilek’s we stopped off to get kebabs from Kizilkayalar in Taksim (one of the best doner places in Turkey) and then got caught in traffic. You forget how bad the traffic there is. That was enough to remind Musti about why he didn’t like Istanbul so much these days.
The next day we went off to the village to Musti’s parents’ place (not really a village anymore as Istanbul has grown and the area is now an outlying suburb with new buildings and housing complexes sprouting up around it.) The whole village then arrived at the house to get a good look at Papatya. Papatya was so good considering it was a bit like pass the parcel. We got all the advice on what we should be doing and what we shouldn’t. Things like the woman who was feeding her kids chicken noodle soup from about 4 weeks. Also almost everyone telling us we were under dressing her (the fire had been stoked up so much that everyone was pretty much sitting around in T-shirts and still sweating, but they insisted that Papatya still needed a few more layers…). Everyone has different ideas about bringing up kids I guess. We just listened and nodded our heads, different strokes.
After such an exhausting day Papatya slept quite well, though not in her own bed. She was a bit upset and it was all a little much for her so she slept on her mummy’s chest for much of the night. Not that I minded of course!
Monday was her 40th (It’s not many people who get to celebrate their 40th twice!). Me, Musti and my dad were interested to see what all this entailed as we all had no idea. First Papatya was washed in water into which some gold had been dropped. Then I had to use the remainder of the water to wash myself. After she was dressed up nicely certain parts of the koran were read by Musti’s dad (we were taping all this and thought that when they said ,‘will read from the Koran’, they meant out lud… this was not the case, not the most exciting video to watch then!). After reading from the Koran Musti’s dad then whispered ‘Papatya Michelle Selime’ three times in her ear.
This was all done before the hoca (person who knows the Koran really well) arrived. By the time she got there the house was again pretty full. Everyone had some sherbet. All the men then had to go downstairs as they weren’t allowed to stay due to the hoca being female. She then read from the Koran (out loud this time) and prayers for Papatya were said. After which rice with chickpeas and ayran (yogurt drink) were passed out and we all washed our hands with rose water and had a pinch of blessed sugar (not sure of the significance of that). And that was that. An interesting day, though not so interesting on video.
On Tuesday we left the village at lunch time and headed over to Michelle’s place until we caught the train back to Ankara in the evening. It was lovely to see everyone and Papatya handled it all really well. But it was great to be on the way home again. One of the best bits about having gone away was seeing Papatya’s face when we got back home. She was so smiley all morning. Our sofa has stripes which she loves to look at and it was obvious that she recognised these and was glad to see them again.
All in all not bad for a first trip away. Hopefully this means that our next trip, to NZ in a couple of weeks, will go as well.
By the way, the name Papatya was chosen as it’s such a lovely name and quite unique, even in Turkey. Michelle after our friend (photo below) who introduced Musti and I. Selime (not an official name, but she may end up being called this in the village) was Musti’s grandmother’s name.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Papatya and Friends
Here's Papi with some of her new friends. Michelle (who Papatya gets her middle name from) and Diana.
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