Merhaba!
I must be getting tired because I really ran out of steam this week. We did celebrate Penny turning 6, and since she was born in Turkey she wanted this week to be Turkey Week. But other than a library book run, photo viewing, and some Turkish lessons, I didn’t have energy for much else.
But I must say, Mike and I had one of my favorite dates ever on Saturday night! We signed the kids up for Parent’s Night Out at our gym and so we had 5 glorious hours to ourselves. We knew we wanted to get dinner at a Turkish restaurant, we were originally thinking Briarmart – a favorite, but wanted to go see the Turkish import store first. It was nice but nothing we would ever be able to buy.
We left there intending to go get dinner, but I thought I knew of another, more Turkey-focused store, in Manitou, so we looked it up and found this hidden gem: Mavi Turkish Arts.
It was wonderful! The store was like walking through the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, and on the side was a Turkish doner cart! We wandered through the store, then had doners, baklava and Turkish coffee next door while we talked about what we liked and reminisced about our year in Turkey.
Mike had fun practicing what Turkish he remembered with the employees, and when we finished they opened the shop again for us and helped us choose a beautiful mosaic lamp for our bedroom. We also bought a copper Turkish coffee pot and plan to get some cups next time.
Two gentlemen spent almost an hour talking with us, sharing stories of growing up in Turkey, concern about the recent attempted coup, and our year teaching English there and the places we were able to visit. We left reluctantly, needing to pick our kids up, and just smiled the whole way home. It was a wonderful Turkish date to end Turkey Week on!
