When I thought about my motivation and reasons for hiking on the
mountains, I asked myself, “Could it be possible that timing and altitude
of birth place affects a person’s choices in her life?” I was born in a
remote village in the mountains of Turkey, where my mom and dad were
teachers. According to the Turkish authority, government officials have
to work at remote villages in the first 5 years of their job. I don’t
remember much about this village because we moved to Eskisehir,
which is close to the capital of Turkey, when I was 4 years old. Later,
Istanbul became my home during my university and working life.
Istanbul is the only city in the world that built on two continents-Europe
and Asia. I used to live in Asia, but my company was in Europe. So, I
used to drive from one continent to another by crossing the Bosporus
bridge every day. I had a busy work and social life there. I was doing
everything what I was supposed to be doing without looking inside of
myself until the endless cycle of work-commute-eat-sleep was broken.
After living about thirty years in Istanbul and working as a
software engineer for the last ten of those years, my husband and I
moved to Redmond in 2002. My first impression of Redmond was very
different than I had anticipated. Since Redmond is located in Northwest
Washington, I expected a cold, icy and crowded town; but instead, I
found a green, rainy, beautiful small town surrounded by mountains. It
was a mystery for me to know what people do for the weekends here
until one Saturday we found ourselves at Mt. Si’s parking area. I didn’t