Quick Trip to Boone and Back

December was quite the month 'o travel for little ole me. Our December began in the middle of a vacation! It was the second Muslim "Bayram." Remember, the first one we went climbing in the Aladag mountains (beautiful!) and it was the "sugar holiday" where everyone fasts for the month of Ramazan or Ramadan or whatever YOUR locals call it and ends with children getting candy from neighbors--much like trick-or-treating but with a prequel of patience and much delayed gratification.

The second Bayram is important for families to spend time together and sacrifice an animal of some sort. Usually the animal is a goat and several families get together on a goat, do the sacrifice, and have a big feast. If you're rich, you can afford to go in with others on a cow. It was for this holiday that we took our first big road trip in the mighty Buda (yes, one "d" as is it's short for Budapest) down to Turkey's climbing Mecca, Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast. It was a great trip, but I'm leaving it to Tim to post about that, because this post is about what happened on the way back.

We were on the road, driving back home, chatting about our trip and getting excited for our ski vacation only 3 weeks away, when we got a phone call from my Mom in the middle-of-nowhere-Turkey (technology is truly amazing). My grandfather had passed away the night before. We weighed our options, I took a short ride on the emotional roller-coaster, and then two days later I was on a plane bound for NC.

I made it Boone the morning of the funeral and even got a day with my brother, saw family and family friends--some of which I had not seen in five years--and generally had a really good time remembering our great patriarch. My grandfather was incredible. He had just turned 99 and had spent the last year and a half in a nursing home. He lived by himself before that and suffered from macular degeneration, meaning, he was for all intents and purposes, legally blind from about age 80. But he just kept going. He was caring, and funny, and actually touched many more people than I realized. His funeral service was full to the brim with people who knew, appreciated, and loved him, and it was beautiful to have him remembered so eloquently by so many who knew him personally.

In a nut-shell, wow am I glad I went back. 24 hours of travel and a hefty plane ticket is nothing when family and close friends are concerned. I'm glad we had the resources to send me there and that we have supportive people around us who come together to make everything work.

I got to spend about five and a half days with my family and visited some friends. One of my best friends had just had a baby on Thanksgiving day, so I got to meet the new addition. And I got to see the Klamborowskis and meet their son for the first time. It was a very satisfying thing to say goodbye to my grandfather with my family and meet some new little people too.


When I got back to Turkey, we had about a week left of school, and two weeks to Austria.....