Kurban bayramı and trip to Canakkale

Kurban bayramı is a very important feast based on islamic religion. This year it started on 24th September and ended on 27th- it's always 4 days. One day before that people tidy up their flats and houses so everything looks super nice. At these 4 days people usually meet their older family members like own parents, grandparents, uncles etc. and eat together. At these days it's very important to show respect to the elders. For this, you have to kiss the hand and touch it with you forehead by putting the hand on it. For me it was quite new and special because in Germany there isn't anything like that.
Before I continue I should explain why Kurban bayramı is celebrated. As the english name -Feast of sacrifice- shows, it is about sacrificing. It is told that the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) was willing to sacrifice his son for God. But as God saw his trust in him, he stopped him. To show how thankful they were, they sacificed an animal. Nowadays every muslim should sacifice an animal and share it with the poor and with there relatives.
I have to admit that not everbody sacrifices animals and so my host-family doesn't do it.
So at these 4 days almost everyone goes to family and friends, but also they might do holidays at this time.Childrens usually get money or other presents. So my 9 years old brother got money and I just stood there like - Please... just 1 Lira (30 cent). Haha just kidding.  My family and I visited their relatives just the first day. First we went to my mother's parents, then to her grandmother and at the end to my father's parents, where we had dinner. We ate sacrificed meat but actually I don't know which animal it was :D

Promegranate tree - at the summer house of my host-father's parents

 fresh fig from the tree

The other 3 days we went on a trip to Canakkale which is over 5 hours away from us. We stayed at my host-mother's friend's flat. I really felt comfortable there and it's a really warm-hearted family. After our arrival there we went out to see a little bit of the city.  It's a beautiful city with a lot of history! 

Here they rebuilt Troia- it was once (veeery long ago) a city in the area of Turkey.

 The original trojan horse from the famous movie "Troy".

This place where the cat is sitting was super crowed but she just didn't give a fuck :D

I found a piece of Germany , made me quite happy :)

 The next day we continued the trip but we were on the European part of the city. For that we took the ferry over the Çanakkale Boğazı.

There we drove to several places and saw different historical places. First I was in an very small museum, then we went to a very important memorial - Şehitleri Anıtı. There over 253.000 Turkish soldiers participated at the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 during the First World War. Also it's a place for many graves of fallen soldiers.

                                       

The next stop was this historical place:

 and this:

 On Sunday, the last day, we planned to drive back home  but we made a suprise stop in Assos and I had a wonderful view there! After that we finally drove home.

                  

That was all for today ! Hope you liked the post because I really try to make it very well so it takes me more time. My posts will probably come up later than they should but I think it's not a very important thing :)

See you soon! Kendine iyi bak! (Pass auf dich auf- Take care of yourself)