I grew up in America, was born in New Jersey, then we moved to California and I spent my childhood in Los Angeles. When I turned 10, my father, who had spent a good 30 years of his life teaching in the U.S., returned to Turkey. Suddenly I became a transglobal child spending my summer holidays in Turkey with my dad. This opened up a whole new world for me, and planted the seeds of the roots I would later form here.So, 30 years ago, I took my first long flight alone from L.A. to Turkey and my father decided to break up the flights with a surprise visit in Brussels from a familiar face by way of his oldest friend from St. Joseph boarding school former Foreign Minister and Chief U.N. delegate Osman Olcay, who was serving as Turkey's permanent representative to NATO in Brussels at the time. He met me with an entourage as well as a briefcase filled with Belgium chocolate, Cote D'or to be exact, at my father's directive, which was my first introduction to how amazing chocolate could be.When I arrived in Istanbul, my father had arranged yet another surprise. As we headed to Kartal, where our summerhouse was located, my father had a horse cart, which usually served as a mobile greengrocer, waiting to take us the final part home, making it my first horse-drawn carriage ride. Thirty years ago, Kartal was not the mini metropolis it is now and was more like a suburb with apartment complexes with gardens and docks lining the sea. That summerhouse still holds a very special place in my heart. I made my first friends there who are still very much in my life and it was through many of them that I learned Turkish, my first foreign language. Needless to say, during my time there I had many firsts. I swam to my heart's content, I rowed a boat on my own and otherwise. I learned to fish and pick mussels. I also learned that a game of pushing friends off a sunken overturned rowboat is possibly the most enjoyable game there ever was, outshined only by waterskiing off a motorboat in my own backyard that was the Marmara Sea. It is also where I had my first sleepover with friends, my first slow dance, kiss and drink, which befittingly happened to be Malibu.One year I came to Istanbul in winter and my dad's home in Moda to attend a semester of high school, marked by memorizing the Turkish national anthem, "Çay" dance parties held over the weekend and endless hours spent in McDonald's, which was very much the scene here. I saw snow for the first time at my high school on Bağdat Avenue and had my first snowball fight. The next day schools were closed and everyone in the neighborhood gathered on all of the hilly streets for what became my first snow sledding experience. Life in Moda two decades ago was all about the "mahalle," which translates to neighborhood but means so much more. The "mahalle" is your immediate community around where you live and in those days there were set meeting points, on neighborhood streets where there would always be someone you knew that you could while away the day with.Like the time my friend decided to teach me how to drive in his mother's Volkswagen Bug. We went to an empty lot and he proceeded to teach me each step in order. So, I turned on the ignition, stepped on the gear and gas and off we were until we reached the end of the lot, which was a direct fall meters down into the street below. When he yelled, "break," I asked where the breaks were, as foolishly we had not gotten to that part of the lesson yet. We narrowly escaped by him pressing down on the breaks with his hand as I fumbled for the hand brake. It was 15 years until I drove again in Turkey and then I learned how to drive a stick shift, yet another first and a quite satisfying accomplishment at that.I got my first job in Turkey, which was to mind the portable satellite phone at Butterfly Valley, a touristic cove neighboring Fethiye's Ölüdeniz. My first time quitting a job was also in Turkey at Bodrum's "Hardish" Rock Cafe. Then I became an English teacher, yet another first, at a high school in Haydarpaşa at 19 to fill in for a teacher who left in the middle of the school year. I had to give tests and grade, deciding the fate of students that were just a few years my younger. In addition to my first plane and driving experience, nearly all of my boat experiences have also been in Turkey. I have driven a motorboat myself under the Bosporus Bridge, kayaked in the Golden Horn and in 2000 traveled from Turkey to Italy on my father's 15-meter long wooden Tirhandil sailboat.I went to my first soccer game in Istanbul and many thereafter when my father gave me another unique gift while on a Fulbright scholarship 10 years ago by way of a season ticket to watch Beşiktaş games at İnönü Stadium.I now spread my time between Istanbul and my home in a village in the Ida Mountains, where I once tried operating a tea garden in a town in Çanakkale, marking my very own first business. I also hosted my first television program on Çanakkale. I bought my first piece of land and plan to own my first house here and of course, it is in Turkey where I found my one true love and for which I will be eternally grateful.It is also where I lost my father just a few months back, joining the unfortunate club of those who have lost a parent. But this heavy loss leads me to think of my own "bucket list," which includes marrying the love of my life, tracking my dad's heritage and visiting Gaziantep where he was born. I want to go skiing in Erzurum, rafting in the Kaçkars, take a hot-air balloon ride in Cappadocia, paraglide in Fethiye and scuba dive in the Mediterranean, all of which I hope will be new firsts and twists and turns in this relationship I have with this country I am forever grateful to have made my home.