Happy New Year! İyi Yıllar! Hope everyone had a great New Years. I didn't do much here, just ate dinner with my family and my anneanne and watched the Turkish New Years shows on TV. We also played the Turkish version of bingo and the game was completed dominated by 5 year old Yilmaz.

Today, not only could the greeting "İyi Yıllar" be heard, but another greeting, "İyi Bayramlar", was also common. This is because there is another holiday happening now as well. It is a four day holiday called Kurban Bayram. Kurban means sacrifice and that is one of the main traditions of the holiday. Families sacrifice an animal on the first day, cook the animal on the second day, and eat it on the third and fourth days. Not all of the animal is eaten however, part of it is saved to be given to the poor people in the community. Contributing to charity is a very important part of Islam. My family didn't sacrifice an animal, but my anneanne did. This morning, there were trucks going around the city collecting the skins of the animals that had been sacrificed.

I went to Sandıklı today with my family to take anneanne back home and to visit the many family members that live there. I also met more relatives today, the ones who live in Antalya, that I didn't meet during the last bayram. Kurban Bayram is a holiday celebrated all over the country and everything, businesses, schools, shops, are closed during it. It started on Sunday and goes through Wednesday, so I only have two days of school this week, which is also nice.

Happy first day of 2007 everyone! Hope it's a fantastic year.