Görüşürüz Izmir!
My time in Izmir is coming to an end and it feels very wrong to me to say this. My city, my flat and my people here became my home and I can not imagine leaving this place anytime soon but I have to. At some point of all journeys you need to reenter your own life back again and think of what comes next.It’s impossible to summarize my adventures here in Turkiye. So much has happened as always.
In the beginning of february my boyfriend came to visit me which was one of the happiest weeks of my life. It was so great to see the same places of my everyday life through his eyes. I had imagined how he would interact with my new international friends that I consider as family and what he would think of the city that I discovered for my own and that I fell in love with. I cried the whole next week when he flew back and left me here alone again, but day by day the pain vanished and my thoughts got occupied by the crazy full schedule that I always manage to organize for myself.
At the end of the month I took multiple planes with which I travelled 8000km to Krabi in Thailand with a girls group of us volunteers for Oliphie’s birthday. I saw the most amazing landscapes which served as filming locations for Avatar and Jurassic World. It was a great trip and I am super thankful for the other girls that we encouraged each other to actually do this. I would have never done this alone. Actually it felt like a joke when this idea was first mentioned in the kitchen between us.
I made my way around the region: I travelled to Chios, a greek island close to Cesme, with my Polish friend during the Ramadan holidays. The weather was not on our side but we spent some cozy evenings together and fought against the wind to walk all over the small island from the windmills to the villages in the south.
Next to Ephesus there is Bergama, the biggest tourist attraction of Izmir. I got lucky and my friends were taking me with them by car to there. For everyone: I really recommend going there! The archaeological sight lays above the lively city and as a visitor you get a great panoramic view from the cablecar. The whole place is very well preserved and you can imagine what ancient life looked like thousands of years ago.
On the same night as my trip to Pergamon, my family visited me as well. It felt weird to see them- they didn’t fit in at all. They are part of me and my life but not of my life here in Izmir. I felt like I had changed too much and that they wouldn’t understand the person that I became here, since they did not see or hear me for a long time. I struggled with myself and put a lot of pressure on me to show them around to make them have a good time but by this I was acting more like a tour guide then as a family member.
Maybe I am getting too personal here hahaha but I’m using these blog entries kind of as my diary to look back at my time and to let others know about the real me.
As I said before: Too much happened. I was also travelling to Cyprus, to Bursa, to Fethiye… My siblings visited me too and of course I worked a lot.
By that time a big change was about to come too: Volunteers that were accompanying me my entire stay here were leaving and it was different now that they left a big hole in me and my daily routine. Especially my separation from Giovanna, my soulsister, was hurtful. But I also miss my drinking besties, Robin and Gael, and the most special tea auntie and Bridgerton lover, Kasia.
But it didn’t get quiet in Karsiyaka for a long time: New volunteers arrived and I found again my people that I would have laughattacks with but it felt a bit like a betrayal until I came to the conclusion that one can never measure love and replace it by others. Every person that you are getting in contact with is a new beginning of a relationship.
People will come and people will leave, only the memories remain and I have lots of them.
I don’t regret anything and I am so glad to have had this meaningful experience here.
I thank everyone from the deepest spot of my heart for this! I love you! xo xo, Sina