Out on the town

On the way home the other day, Tolga and I stopped at a bakery to order a cake for Teoman's birthday.  I usually make a cake because because they are kids - and chocolate is chocolate.  Not to mention that no one in our house right now should be eating cake... but with the baby coming, I probably won't have time, so we we checked out the store.  In classic Turkish style - they asked us what we wanted, we looked at pictures on Google, and the chef stood by saying which ones he could or could not make.  We didn't come in with any ideas and so it was hard to weed through the internet. We started with a car theme, then moved to monster trucks, and then finally settled on a Batman themed cake.  When we got home, we told Teoman we got him a surprise special cake for his birthday.  He said,
"Is it a batman cake?"

Walking down Tunali

It's been a long time since we walked on Tunali.  Tunali is a busy street, one way traffic, with lots of unique shops in relatively nice part of town.  We parked the car and headed to one of my friend's shops.  She was teaching with me last year - and on the tail end of a very bad year, decided to take a break from teaching.  Her husband owns a shop, and she opened a second one nearby selling collector toys.  Teoman was impressed with the batman toys, but could not understand the idea or a collector item - and we were falling in our explanations.  It's one thing to translate from English to Turkish or vice-versa.  It's another to explain an idea to an almost four year old.  In the end, I told him "these are toys for big people who don't know how to play with toys."  Overall, Teoman wasn't impressed because they didn't sell Batman masks - his new obsession.

We sat, had tea in her shop, chatted, and headed out with small purchases and gifts.  On the way out we passed another colleague of mine with her family who had the same things in mind visiting old friends during winter break.  She spotted my kids before me.

Eating "truffles" at Lungo Espresso Bar

From this shop it was an easy walk to another friend's shop.  The next shop was someone Tolga used to work with back in his Rio Tinto days - a woman I knew as well - who had opened a tiny espresso bar.  We sat in her shop, drank tea, and I bought sweets for the kids.  Truffles actually.  But "truffles" were written in quotation marks - so I'm not exactly sure what that was supposed to mean.  Tomris said, "Thanks mom," and gave me hug when I gave her the "truffle."

(She can be weirdly grown sometimes.  And patronizing.)

Another of Tolga's old friends joined us - and we ordered some food as well then made our way slowly back.

Tolga and I both commented how we hadn't done something like this for a long while - sought out friends and hung out with different people with our kids.  It wasn't easy, but it was fun.