Hi all. Sorry for not updating this more recently, but I had been unable to due to a combination of a lack of WiFi/useable power converters/adapters/unwillingness to take my laptop out of my backpack/the inability of the blogger app to work on my phone. Now that I’ve managed to overcome these many, many hardships, I’m back and there’s a lot to catch up on…so good luck.
To start off, the plane rides here were quite good. I highly recommend Turkish Airlines. Food was solid for airplane food. Lot of amenities too, considering we flew economy and all. Beyond that, there wasn’t anything noteworthy, except for seeing a sunrise on an airplane. Unfortunately, the picture I took on my phone wasn’t the best quality, and Instagram filters can only help so much, so I may or may not include it here (I haven’t decided yet).
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| I swear the sunset looked a lot better in person |
Our little stop in Istanbul was quite fun. It was surprisingly easy to get in and out of the airport. Getting to the restaurant recommended by my sister’s Turkish friend, on the other hand, was not as trivial. The address that my sister had was wrong, so it took a while to get there. The taxi driver also didn’t use his GPS, and instead relied on asking random people on the street if they knew where the restaurant was going. It got to the point where he would park the car on the side of the street, get out, and ask someone. When we got to the wrong address, someone there thankfully knew where the restaurant actually was, and we managed to get there fairly quickly from that point. In spite of the hour or so spent in the cab, it still only cost around $20, which was remarkable. The food at the restaurant (
Uludağ), was phenomenal. I had a döner kebab, which was delicious. Also had this one delicious thing for dessert. I don’t remember the name, but I remember having something like that at the calabash place in Myrtle, and this was actually edible, so that was good.
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| I want this again. Like right now. I'm not even hungry. |
On our flight to the motherland, we stopped at the Maldives, which was super cool. The airport is so beautiful and flying there is a great experience (picture below). Most of the people on the plane actually got off there, which is understandable.
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| From the runway. Flying over this place is amazing. Unfortunately my pictures taken in the air weren't that great. |
Being in the motherland has been good so far. On our first day (Friday), were picked up by my mother’s niece, nephew and sister (although she wasn’t the mother of the cousins. I may make some sort of family tree later to clear up anything confusing/to help me actually understand who is in my family. The tree will include what we refer to the family members as to help improve my/your Sinhala) at around 3 PM (9.5 hour time difference; not sure whether or not I’ve actually stated that before. I’m not actually connected to the internet right now and I’m just typing this into Word). We then went to my mother’s childhood home, where my mom’s older brother (the parent of the aforementioned cousins) now lives. I have vague memories of the house itself, but I definitely remember playing in the rice paddies next to the house 12 years ago. The picture may or may not be below, but it is on my #instagram/Facebook, so you’ve likely already seen
it (especially if you’re actually reading this). After having dinner (since we all know how much I love Sri Lankan/Indian food (I hate it), I had Chinese food. In Sri Lanka, it’s much spicier, which isn’t a bad thing), we were driven to my dad’s older brother’s house where we’ve been staying ever since. On our way there, we stopped by my dad’s youngest sister’s pharmacy where we got to say hi to some of our cousins (the elder of which I remember playing with a lot the last time I was here. Thankfully, his English is very good, so we were actually able to talk to him). In my dad’s older brother’s house, we all are sharing the one air conditioned room since we’re spoiled Americans. I’m currently typing this in that room since I don’t feel like sweating right now. And the reason why I’m typing this in Word is the lack of WiFi in this house (for now. Dad’s actually getting a router as we speak). Since we were pretty tired, we didn’t do too much the first night (it was kind of late anyways). The only other thing to take note of is that my dad’s older brother looks like a combination of my dad (80%) and Alan Thicke (18%) (the other 2% are Willem Dafoe’s eyes). It’s weird/cool.
Day 2 was a lot of fun. Whenever we finally got out of bed, we were driven (driving here is ridiculous. That’s gonna get its own blog post…) down to my dad’s childhood home (I’m also going to later get a map of the country and show where everyone lives to give an idea of where we’ve been going), where my grandmother and one of my dad’s younger brothers (he has 3) and his family lives (if I have pictures worth sharing, they’ll be below. I don’t remember what I took.
UPDATE: I didn't take any pictures of the house itself. Only my sister did. Oh well). It was definitely nice being there. Had some coconut water (it wasn't referred to as that, but I think that's what it tasted like) straight from a coconut, and while my dad visited some of his childhood friends, the rest of went for a walk to the nearby river that my dad and his family used to swim in as children (again, the picture may or may not be included. It’s on Facebook/Instagram).
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| A half minute walk from my dad's house. |
On the way, we saw a stray puppy, which was really cute, but a little sad (not too sad, though. There were bowls of food in the little house thing it was napping in. I think animals, if not just the stray animals, will get their own post later). A picture of the puppy will either be included below or in the blog post mentioned in the parentheses.
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| He looked so sad, but he did have food (not pictured), so at least it could have been worse. The animals are honestly treated fairly well, but I'll get into that later. |
When we came back, we hung out for a little bit and then went to my dad’s uncle’s house, which was fairly close. This house used to be my great grandparent’s house, and it’s actually where my dad lived for 4-5 years of his childhood (he’s the second eldest in a family of 7 so there was hardly room for him or Alan Thicke uncle in their own house). There we got to see how cinnamon is prepared for market. Had a bit of the bark to try. It wasn’t very good since it was bark. The fact that it was cinnamon made it bearable. Anyways, when we went back to my grandmother’s house, one of the two younger cousins who currently live there (the youngest of two boys; their older sister is at boarding school) was home. Unfortunately for us, he doesn’t speak English, so there was no communication there. I think he had no idea who we were, although I’m sure it was explained. He was watching Ben 10 in Sinhala, which was funny (it was also the only time I had ever watched Ben 10, so there’s that). Eventually, him and my dad were talking about cricket, and somehow it turned into my dad wanting to play cricket with him. My brother and I joined. It was quite fun. Right after we started, the other cousin showed up and joined us. It was definitely a lot of fun. Dad was pretty bad at bowling. So was Nipun (aka Booshtar aka the younger brother). I managed to get a wicket on my second bowl on the youngest cousin. When batting, I did fairly well (albeit I was playing with two kids who were no older than 10 or 11). Got a few sixers (I’m not going to explain cricket rules here. Just look it up on Wikipedia. Though if I’m nice I’ll include a link here). Unfortunately, after getting hit with a ball in an unfortunate location by the elder of the two cousins (who bowled much faster than everyone else because he’s at that age where he wants to show off #iknowthefeel), I lost my mojo, and he soon got a wicket on me (on an offspeed bowl too that I should have crushed). Nipun was pretty horrible at batting. He managed to hit the wickets with the bat twice, which counts as a wicket. It just never happens because you have to be really bad to do that (in his defense, there was much less room between the wickets and the crease than normal given that we were playing in a very small space). After finally getting us to stop playing (it was getting dark (it gets dark really early, like at 7:30 or so)/we lost the ball), we had some ice cream which was really good (better than what we get in the states) and then we left.
Yesterday (Sunday) was pretty cool too. We went to my mom’s second oldest sister’s house (which was really nice) and got to see two of our older cousins (everyone on my mom’s side is way older than us. Everyone on our dad’s side is either our age (the eldest cousin is a year older than my sister) or much younger). The younger of the two took us out to lunch with his mother. Went to a Chinese restaurant (because I’m well known for being a picky eater. I’m not as bad as the last time, but they stocked up on the food that they remember me eating), and it was very nice. Had some watermelon juice with lunch which was delicious. After lunch, we went to one of my dad’s childhood friends’ home. It was very close to the restaurant/my aunt’s house, which was convenient, and man was it nice. 3-4 stories. Rooftop pool (I’ll have a picture when we go back, but for my loyal Snapchat story followers, you’ll have already seen it). Air conditioning. A nice TV and a solid selection of DVDs. We was all quite content. They also spoke English, which was really nice for us. It was actually one of our first conversations with people here since only my sister speaks a little Sinhala, which my brother and I only kinda understand it. Shortly after we arrived, we went to this place that recreated life in the olden days (like Williamsburg/Sturbridge Village). It was pretty nice. There was a small zoo there so I have some pictures of animals (we’re supposed to go to the big zoo here later today so I’ll have pictures from that up later).
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| Chickens were kinda just walking around the place. Little children (myself included) spent more time chasing them than looking at the different parts of the old school village. |
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| Snake charmer. It was kinda freaky. I almost got a cobra wrapped around my neck. I somewhat regret not doing it. |
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| He liked me/the camera. |
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| Star shelled tortoise. |
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| Porcupines eating some coconuts |
On our way back to my dad’s friend’s house, we drove past the Parliament building, which was so nice. I couldn’t get a good picture of it, so it may not be included, but it’s on an island in a lake. When we were back at the friend’s house, we watched some TV while the adults mingled, and then had dinner which was pretty good (had chicken curry because that’s the only Sri Lankan food I’ll eat). We then came back to my uncle’s house and my youngest aunt and her two sons came by (mentioned them earlier; the eldest speaks English), so that was nice. I didn’t get to go to sleep until 1ish, so we had a late start to today. To the point where we haven’t done anything yet so I was bored enough to write this blog post. We’re supposed to leave for the zoo in a little bit, but it’s already after 2 PM here and our parents are still not home yet from shopping, so I’m a little doubtful that we’ll have sufficient time there (
UPDATE: I was correct. There was not sufficient time. We have an early day tomorrow, so we decided it’d be better to stay here and rest. I'll maybe write my blog posts on different aspects of life here (specifically driving, feral animals, and the fruit/food) if I feel like it. Unfortunately we haven't gotten the WiFi working yet). Anyways, that’s all that’s happened so far on the trip.
Au revoir tout le monde!
