The Sugar Bayram (Festival)

Well, I've managed to wait a while between blog updates again, but my excuse this time will be that I sent out an email update in-between, so for most of you, that would cover the gap. Life has been going pretty much as normal. Outside of the trip this past weekend, life is still concentrated on the Turkish language. The only other bit of news is that my plans for next semester are in the midst of shifting again, but probably not quite as drastically as the last couple times. :) Now, about the weekend...
The weekend summarized: I crossed the Straits of Dardenelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus Straits, and swam in the Aegean Sea. That's actually a really bad summary, but it sounds grandiose and exciting, so I wanted to say it. :)
The trip was from Istanbul to Altinoluk; the occasion was the Sugar Bayram [Festival] that is at the end of Ramadan; the location was Dersan's family's home. Dersan and Duygu and I left Thursday evening, arriving in Altinoluk around 6:30AM Friday. We got some sleep, had a big breakfast and spent the afternoon at the beach. I was one of the ones that got in the cold water for a second swim and got sick for my efforts; (about all that's left of that is the head cold now. ) We had a lot of fun, played games, and talked for the other major events of that day.
Saturday we spent a fair amount of time visiting people as is traditional for this Bayram. Then we ended up playing more games and talking till quite late that night too.
Sunday we didn't do much other than travel back to Istanbul. The trip started about 11AM, and we got to the house just after midnight... it's a long story. Nothing bad happened; things just went slowly.
During the trip, we had a very fun time trying to communicate over the weekend. There was lots of crossing of English and Turkish since none of us are really good at both languages. We had loads of fun, a lot of really good food, and good quality time together.
Over the course of the trip I managed to finish/read two books which was nice, since I haven't done a whole lot of reading the last couple weeks.
Two foods of note: Homemade baklava is incredibly better than what comes from the store (Zach, you have to come visit... it won't last through the mail.) Secondly, there's a meal called yaglama. It is amazing! The closest thing I can compare it to is a soft taco pie, but that really doesn't describe it well... it is layers of soft "taco shells" alternating with layers of a meat sauce that is very good. We ate well that night, even after we were full!!!