This past weekend I found myself partying halfway across Turkey. Literally. Friday afternoon I went over to a friend's house to, well, wait for my friend to get back from having her hair done. As soon as the girls came back, we were off. First stop...a circumcision party near downtown Ankara. This marks a coming of age in a boy's life and usually takes place between 6 and 12. In this case, the boy was 10 or 12 (I kept getting different answers). He's been battling cancer for a while and had to wait until the upper end of the age range for his party (an presumably circumcision, although I never did have the guts to ask).
Party number one down and it was off to the village, about an two hours east of Ankara. Crashed out for the night at my friend's house in the village. Saturday morning we all crawl out of bed, have breakfast and get ready for a marathon wedding day. First the village wedding party, about a half hour east of my friend's village. We ate (men first then the women), we danced (Turkish folk dances), the women gossiped (so did the men), we danced some more.
Then it was time to leave the village wedding and head east to Sivas for the groom's side to have a wedding party. This is the farthest east in Turkey I had been so far. Five hours farther east is the town of Erzurum and after that comes Armenia. The Sivas party was a little different than the village wedding in that it was inside, there was no meal, and company was mixed. Other than that, it was fairly typical. We danced folk dances, guests (friends and family) pinned gold on the bride and groom and we ate cake.
At about 10:30 or 11 everyone headed for home, we for the village. I was in bed by 3 am and...drum-roll, please...slept in until 8:40. Yes, this is a miracle. Still slightly in shock that I traveled all the way to Sivas to dance folk dances and eat cake.
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