Burgazada

This photograph was taken in 1994 in Burgaz ada. Ceni and I are in the picture. That day we got together with friends. I don’t remember if we came from Büyükada that day to visit Burgaz or maybe there were friends in Burgazada, we went to visit them. This is how my wife and I met. I had a friend, Izi Goldenberg who was the owner of Grundig radios and televisions. He used to manufacture gloves before, gloves for men and women. He was at Sultanhamam in the five fingers building. We also founded Rutli-Goldenberg, an agency specializing in hardware but it did not work afterwards. My current wife was working in a shirt store around there. When Goldenberg was working on gloves, she came one day to buy a pair and we met there. I helped her carry the package she bought, we took it to the store. She was a beautiful woman, would you date me, I said. Yes, I will date you, she said, but not alone. I had friends, we went out together. We went out one or two times. Later we continued. After a while she started asking about marriage. I said, I cannot marry before my sister is married. She told this to her mother. Her mother said, ask if she has money. She came to me and asked, does your sibling have money. I told her that the older brothers that are in the United States and the ones here, they will all give. She then told me I have a doctor. If your sister gets engaged, I will enter your house too, I want to get engaged too. I said, o.k. We made a date at a bakery in Beyoglu, so they can meet. My older sister came with my older brother, and I with Ceni, and doctor Sami Reytan came alone because he did not have a father or such. He was a good man, later on he became an internist, they liked each other a lot. They decided, came to our house, got engaged and later on married. They got married and we got married. The wedding went very well. There was no evening party. We got married, we immediately went home, undressed, changed, took a small suitcase and went immediately to the hotel. We went to Heybeli ada (the third one of the Princess islands, on the Marmara sea, south of Istanbul) for our honeymoon. We stayed at a hotel there, Halki Palas, it was a nice hotel, the food was very good.