Farewell Anatolia - By Dido Soteriou

I just started reading a new book. I've only read about 30 pages but I think I'll enjoy this one a lot. I read some reviews of the book on Amazon and they are pretty good. I am reading the book in Turkish though. :)

Dido Soteriou

The writer was born on 1909 in Izmir, Sirince. (Izmir is one of the largest cities in Turkey and is located by the Aegean sea.)  However, she migrated to Greece when she was only 13 years old due to the wars going on in the region at the time. She had to migrate because she was Greek. It was very hard for the writer to forget the childhood memories she had so she wrote Farewell Anatolia to somehow satisfy her longing for the lands that she grew up. 

Book Cover

I believe Dido Soteriou's book will help me realize how lucky I am that I have the freedom of choosing where to live whether this place be my hometown or somewhere that is miles away from my hometown. I would be devastated if someone told me that I was not allowed to go back to the places that I was raised in.

I believe the author went back to see the lands that she grew up after many many years.

Muhammed Yalçın: A mentally handicapped painter

Muhammed with his paintings and tools :)

This morning I was watching the news when I came across Muhammed Yalçin, a mentally handicapped painter. He lives with his family in Ankara, Altindag. Muhammed is 23 years old and does not know how to read or write. However, he attended Çagdas Egitim Uygulama Kulubü, where he learned how to paint and won the first prize among 150 other students with his paintings. His desire to paint is supported by his parents and Muhammed has nearly finished painting all of their house! Muhammed's father says that they cannot afford to buy canvas for his son and Muhammed had to satisfy his desire to paint by using the walls, doors, cupboards etc. Currently Muhammed is in need of financial aid from possible supporters. I think that his talent needs to be recognized and appreciated. The news about Muhammed can be found here in Turkish.

Muhammed with his father and mother

Macarons

It's been a long time since I wrote a post but I've been traveling a lot. We came to Turkey for our holiday and we've been doing a lot of traveling in Turkey too. We just came back to Ankara yesterday. I feel really tired and just want to rest.

Sweet and Colorful Macarons

Weddings are common during summer. Last night my parents went to a wedding and when they came back they brought a music CD and two macarons with them. The music CD had 12 songs and I guess the songs were played during the wedding. However, I was mostly interested in the small macarons; one was pink and the other one was cream. Macarons were given as wedding candy.

All my friends and family know that I love sweets so it is safe to assume that I will love macarons too. This was not the case, I don't know maybe a lot of people recommended macarons so much that I thought that I would love them and had high expectations but I tried them and I think they are reeaaallllyyy sweet and eating a single small macaron is enough to satisfy my "hungry" sweet tooth. However, I am still willing to try macarons so if you have any bakery suggestions in Turkey or in U.S. I will keep them in my mind and try them out.