This week end also marks the beginning of Kurban Bayram, or the 'Feast of the Sacrifice' holiday. It's more commonly recognized with the beginning of the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca which is associated with the same holiday. Sacrificing a sheep during this time is very common and this will begin in earnest tomorrow. The roads were awash in sheep being carried home on the backs on trucks or poking their heads out from the half open trunks of cars. Sheep could be seen tied to trees or fences in the yards of the homes who had already made their purchase. The holiday officially started this afternoon and will last four and a half days with most activities returning to normal on Friday. It will be a very quiet week at work and perhaps a chance to get caught up slightly. The roads are also notoriously extra dangerous during this Bayram...even more so than Ramazan Bayram...another good reason to stick close to home.
There hasn't been much worth writing about over the last few weeks as we have more or less been in a regular work and school routine. Other than some glorious weather at the beginning of November, the rest of the month was on and off rain. We did manage a walk around Haç Kadın (spelling?) one Sunday afternoon. It's a large outdoor area full of walking trails and beautiful large pine trees just outside of Uşak. Mostly reforested it appears and well looked after as the Turkish people tend to do when it comes to treed areas. Pound for pound I would venture to say that Turkey plants more trees than Canada does. This past week brought the sun out again and things have had a chance to dry out. Nino attended a parent/teachers day about two weeks ago. This was conducted on a Saturday if you can imagine and all the teachers were available and Nino got around to talk with all of them in a few hours. Not having been directly involved in such things in Canada before, I can't say for certain, however I doubt if Saturdays are a common day to hold these events on back home?
Nico has adjusted very well since his first week of delinquency and although not challenged much academically at this point he is coping very well by all accounts.
Galina is doing exceptionally well and the amount of praise she keeps receiving is making us very proud. She deserves every bit of it though.
The big family event for us was Nico's birthday on the 23rd of November. We don't tend to get very carried away with these things as a rule and we were most excited about the fact that he started riding his bicycle without training wheels the day before he turned five. Quite an accomplishment it was too. He had been talking about giving it a shot for a few weeks and when it dried up for a few hours on the Saturday before his birthday, I asked him if he wanted to give it a shot. Off he went with not even a hint of falling, up to the end of the street and back again. I was impressed but not as much as Galina who had prepared him, (and herself), for at least a few bad crashes. So that milestone has been reached now for them both.
Although the piano pre-purchase visit was first on our list with the Izmir trip we did finally manage to also visit a few sites in Izmir that we had been putting off until now.
One of the 'Seven Churches of Revelations' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Patmos) existed in the old city of Smyrna which Izmir was known as long ago. It's growth has long since absorbed all of the old ruins which can now be found in different parts of what is now a sprawling metropolis of about three million people. It is much like Rome in that respect and in fact Smyrna could claim the largest Agora, (a kind of Roman market/business complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora) outside of Rome during it's heyday. 
We found ourselves first at the very old Smyrna ruins which existed much before the Roman era and the church as it turns out and logically so considering the time period, was not actually there but somewhere near the Agora which is the newer, if you like, area. It must be kept in mind that Smyrna, along with Ephesus, has probably one of the oldest records of continuous habitation known in Asia Minor....5000 years or more. As interesting as the Agora was though we never did find any reference to the general location of the church.
Another little piece of interesting information that Nino came across on Saturday night when we discovered that our first attempt to find the location of the Church had failed, was the existence of Saint Polycarp Catholic church downtown that we have driven by several times and never really noticed. It seems St. Polycarp was affiliated with the Revelations Church. We walked around the walled city block that the church grounds occupy inside but entrance is apparently only by prior appointment. Inside there would probably be information as to the location of the church referred to by John of Patmos but we had to leave it for another time. http://www.allaboutturkey.com/izm_site.htm
Note the bacon in the pan. A stop at the large Migros grocery store in Balçova for some foodstuffs on our way back to Urla brought with it the discovery that they now sold bacon. We ignored the 11.80 ytl price and snapped up two packages....each 80 grams. What you see in the pan is the contents of one package-in Canadian dollar equivalence, each strip is worth about $1.80.
We made a slight detour on our way home to have a road side picnic with leftover Kentucy Fried chicken and take in a stop at Alişehir where ancient
Philadelphia was located and the site of another of the seven churches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ala%C5%9Fehir . Not much remains now but the site is worth visiting nevertheless.