Rat Race Refugees: Life in the Slow Lane

Montreal Trip

2011-07-23T04:52:00.002+03:00

These are a month and a half old now, but better late than never. We took a short trip to Montreal over Memorial Day. Very cool city, fairly European-ish and foreign-seeming because of all the people speaking French. Not bad for only having to go as far as Canada, eh?

Bata Shoe Museum

History of Wine

Miscellaneous Montreal

Old Montreal Walking Tour

Museum of History and Archaeology

Edinburgh and Dublin pics

2010-06-14T14:12:00.002+03:00

Here are the last pics from our UK/Ireland trip...

Edinburgh

Dublin

Close Your Eyes and Think Irish

2010-06-10T04:28:00.004+03:00

I wrote this post while still in Dublin, and was waiting for Scotland pictures to get caught up before posting this one. However, Chris is taking too long, so I'm posting this one now. And as most of you know, we're in MI now, safe and sound! Hope to see you all soon!

Ok, so I said I loved Edinburgh, and I do, but Dublin definitely gives it competition! I'm so sad we only had 1 day!

So, everything went fine with the early flight and all, thank goodness. We got to our B&B, the Andorra, where our hostess kindly allowed us to check in and relax on the bed for a bit before we headed out. Not for long though, because I had read all over the Internet about this great walking tour of the 1916 Rebellion (The Easter Rebellion) done by two historians that was apparently completely fabulous. However, they do one tour per day, and it's at 11:30AM. So We only had about 15-20 minutes resting time before heading out for that.

It was a very cool tour. Our guide was hysterical, but also very knowledgeable. His colleague and he wrote a book (which we bought, of course) and he took us around the city to show us some key locations in the Rebellion, as well as monuments and important places of the key participants. If we had had more time I would have liked to proceed to the Kilmainham Gaol, where the participants were held and executed, but unfortunately, it is a ways out of town and we didn't have time to get out there.

That took a couple of hours, and then it was on for some Indian food!! We both couldn't resist samosas to start (veggie for me, lamb for Chris, accompanied by some amazing sauce!), and then the Tikki Masala sounded amazing enough that we both got that as well. OMG. I really could eat Indian twice a week for the rest of my life! As long as there were mango lassis to accompany it.

We spent the rest of the day walking around Dublin, purchasing my ornament and earrings, sitting in St. Stephen's Green, and just generally enjoying the city. It was warm and sunny, and perfect for strolling around and looking at the sights and tourists. (Sometimes the two were one...)

Being here for such a short time was really a mixed blessing: on one hand, I'm so glad I got to see this city, even for a short time! On the other hand, I feel like there is still so much I want to see! It's a little frustrating to only have one day in a place that really deserves at least a weekend, and a country that I want to take two weeks to explore. Next year perhaps...?

We'll fly home tomorrow, so see you all soon! We'll plan on keeping the blog going during our subsequent travels, and who knows, maybe another country is in our future...

Scotland pics, Part 1

2010-06-06T00:54:00.002+03:00

Now Barb is ahead of me with blogging. I don't have all the pictures ready yet for Scotland. Here are pictures of our drive to Scotland, and of the Botanical Gardens. The other pictures of Edinburgh will come later.

Driving to Scotland

Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh

Falling in Love with Scotland

2010-06-05T22:35:00.003+03:00

Driving to Scotland was when we realized driving on the left side of the road seemed normal now. Traffic circles could be interesting when we get back to the US. (After years of driving and never understanding them, I've finally figured them out- in England, of course!)

We arrived in Edinburgh with five hours still left with the car, but since we didn't really know what to do with ourselves, and I was desperate for a nap after my poor night of sleep, we dropped it off and got a ride to our B&B. We were staying at Ashlyn House, and to be honest, when we arrived, I don't know how they weren't fully booked! GORGEOUS interior, right next to the Royal Botanical Gardens, huge rooms, quiet part of town... it was perfect! Our room was absolutely stunning. They decorated it in the Victorian style, but not too overdone like so many. It had high ceilings (maybe 12 feet?) with beautiful double moulding around it, pink and white printed walls (although not too pink as to be girly) that looked like they were cloth-covered on the top half, with patterned plaster (paper?) for the bottom half, a padded, printed headboard with partial canopy that matched the curtains to the huge five foot windows. Like I said, gorgeous. I crashed for two hours and woke up feeling much more myself. Not wanting to miss anymore than we absolutely had to (due to time constraints), we headed to the Royal Botanical Gardens.

To both of our Moms: if you need a reason for traveling overseas, this is it! Just look at the pictures. We spend hours wandering in there and only scratched the surface it seemed! And even the things we DID see I want to see again! Huge gardens with an amazing variety of plants, all seemingly in bloom.

Dinner was Italian at a local place down the street. We ordered a bottle of red wine, some soup for me (still the throat thing) and some calamari for Chris, as well as a pasta and chicken dish for him and a dish of chicken with caramelized onions and peppers in a white wine and butter/garlic sauce for me. Exquisite! The chicken was so tender and juicy, and the onions went perfectly with it! I've kind of fallen in love with caramelized onions this past year.

We walked back to the B&B and had an early night, since the next day we wanted to do Edinburgh.

I pretty much love Edinburgh, and mostly because of one woman I met in a Christmas shop who was a total kindred spirit- foodie and Christmas lover who got excited when talking about either of the two, especially when she could point us in the right direction for her favorite food (unfortunately, we'd already eaten, so we couldn't work them in :( :( but next time for sure!)

So, I'm getting ahead of myself, talking about food. Let's back up to say that I once again slept very well the previous night, and after a light breakfast (for me anyways), we headed for Edinburgh Castle, a must-see according to every guidebook and website. I should also do a disclaimer that states that we were starting to get a little run down, all this traveling at the frantic pace, so if you notice that we're doing less and less in each city, that's why. We're exhausted!

So, the Castle. It has a really interesting history, although difficult for me to relate to you, since I get all the Charleses and Edwards mixed up. And the Bruces, Stewarts, and all the other inter-marrying monarchs. Go to Wikipedia.

Anyways, awesome views and we got to see the Scottish Crown Jewels, after once again encountering the Great Heathen Army. I was getting hungry and cranky before too long though, so we headed to find a pub for some cheap lunch (and ok, yes, some hard cider. Sue me!) I got a bacon cheeseburger American style, Chris had Italian Chicken, and we both left happy campers. (Well, happy until we found out the other places that had awesome food and we were too full to eat at them...)

I have been collecting Christmas tree ornaments from each country I visit this year, so I was on the hunt for a Scottish one (Yvonne, I forgot an English one, please get me one so I don't have a hole in the collection!) as well as some earrings. That's when we met the sweetie in the Christmas shop.

We walked down the rest of the Royal Mile to see the Castle at Holyrood, where the Queen of England stays when she is in Scotland. We didn't go in, partly because we were tired, but also partly because I think I heard people talking about Prince Charles either coming or being there. So closed to visitors. Back to the B&B!

Since we had to get up at 4:30AM to catch our flight to Dublin the next day, it was another early night.

Hexham Abbey & Hadrian's Wall

2010-06-05T22:33:00.000+03:00

Hexham Abbey

Hadrian's Wall

Walking Hexham and Limping Hadrian's Wall

2010-06-05T22:13:00.003+03:00

So by Wednesday morning I was still feeling pretty grim, but we headed out for Hadrian's Wall, although Chris promised that we wouldn't have to walk far on it. The drive from York to Hexham was beautiful and also driven safely, so it was a pleasant journey. We stopped in Hexham mostly because I was navigating and didn't know what we were doing. But we had been told at our B&B in York that the abbey there was worth seeing, so I guess it was ok.

They weren't joking. The abbey was really interesting, mostly because it really seemed like you should see monks walking around doing things as they did in the Middle Ages. One thing that immediately struck me was the wooden roof and wooden joint covers. Whereas in most abbeys the roof is either gilded, whitewashed, or painting, here it was left as dark wood. The abbey itself was pretty dark and cool inside. Besides the stunning stained glass, they also had a 13th century staircase that we went up, a Breeches Bible from the 17th century, and an Anglo-Saxon chalice. A quiet, peaceful break from driving.

We drove to the part of Hadrian's Wall that is where it's the highest, near Homestead Fort. After hiking uphill 1/2 mile (no joke, the information desk told us to expect that) and through another sheep pasture, we got to the wall. Snaking along ridges and over hills, it is in amazingly good condition in this spot. The workmanship is superb, the stones cut very square and stable enough to allow us to walk on it for a short while, just as the Roman soldiers would have done centuries ago. Looking at the views from the Wall, you can see why the location was chosen- there would be difficulty in hiding anywhere for miles! We really enjoyed the walk, but I was so sick and out of sorts that I couldn't do much at all before needing to turn back. I wish we could have seen more of it, but I guess that's for next time.

We stayed in a little village about 15 minutes from the wall called Wark in the Battlesteads Inn Hotel. Luckily for me, they had a restaurant in the hotel, so we didn't need to go far for dinner! It was also the place where I tried duck for the first time. I'm in love. It was beyond excellent, with an incredibly crisp, flavorful crust, but moist meat that fell off the bone, and then the bones fell apart from each other! Served with mashed potatoes, it was an excellent meal! I need to find duck in the US... Not sure what Chris ate or what he thought of it, since I was so busy rhapsodizing about mine that I'm not sure he ever got a word in.

That night wasn't good, as I couldn't sleep because of my cold. This is when I noticed that it didn't get completely dark outside until after 11PM, and began to get light at around 3:30AM. Are we in the Arctic Circle here?! Luckily, there was a lot of coffee for breakfast the next morning, and then we were off to Scotland!

(Continued next post)

York Pictures

2010-06-05T22:12:00.000+03:00

York

Hay Bluff Hike Pictures

2010-06-05T00:07:00.000+03:00

Hay-on-Wye and Black Mountains

York (The Old One)

2010-06-04T22:05:00.005+03:00

So, Tuesday we picked up our rental car, which had been upgraded for us :) to a Ford Mondeo Ghia, which was awesome. Big and roomy trunk space, Chris had more leg and head room than he knew what to do with, and it drove very smoothly. Hmmmmm, next car perhaps? Anyways, he proved once again what a fabulous driver he was by getting us to York alive and well, and without a scratch on the car! What a guy! I was sick by this point, so we didn't want to schedule TOO much, but there were a few must-see things on our list.

The first thing I wanted to do was visit the Jorvik Center, which is all about the Viking settlement in York. (You know me and my barbarian fascination!) Lucky for him, Chris was interested too! Also, Yvonne had told us that it was really awesome (my words, not hers, she only uses awesome to mock us) and a must-do. It is split into two parts: the first is a moving ride in which a narrator explains the scenes before you, and life-like statues move, talk, and work, showing what the village was like. You also get the smells: food cooking, wood smoke in the forge, and yup, the cesspool as well. I was a little nervous, since by then I was sick and not sure how my stomach would do, but I must say, after Izmir on hot days, this was nothing! The ride was my favorite part, mostly because it got us away from the Great Heathen Army (i.e. the kids). The second part was a bit more like an interactive museum with a few people in period piece explaining their roles, as well as computer animation, more statues, as well as some artifacts. We didn't stay there long, mostly because the Army had already invaded and overrun the place, and were pushing, shoving, and generally being disruptive. I am still a little disappointed we couldn't poke around for a bit longer, but ah well. And sorry, there's no pictures- not allowed.

Next we went for lunch at a lovely Chinese place. Because of my throat, I ordered hot sour soup (as well as a bunch of other food, of course). When it came, it was much different than I was used to, but really delicious! Then we had fried chicken with a spicy sauce and an order of Beijing dumplings. The sauce on the chicken was sooo divine, we actually liked that better with the dumplings than the vinegar they provided!

Feeling full, we waddled to York Minster, one of the most important cathedrals in England, or at least one of the most well-known. That is also divided into two parts: the basement, which has the history of the cathedral (going back to Roman times) and the modern cathedral. We both really liked the basement, they'd done excavations and therefore could tell us where we were in relation to the Roman basilica, then the Saxon church, then the Norman cathedral as you walked through. They also had a lot of the artifacts that had been recovered during excavations that were hurriedly done before the church was reinforced due to weakness and severe cracking as it slowly collapsed. There were things like the stone that fell and hit some guy while he was sleeping during church, but didn't kill him, so it was considered a miracle. There were also the faces on the decorative pieces that hide the joining of the roof beams. There was also a room filled with chalices and gifts to the cathedral throughout the years (nice and glittery, that room!), as well as other artifacts and 3-D models of the cathedral as it changed over the years. It was really cool, but sorry, we couldn't take pictures there either.

We COULD take pictures in the modern York Minster, however. And wow. It seemed that everywhere we turned there were things to take pictures of. Pictures don't quite capture how massive this building is though. And the acoustics! When we came in, there were services being held, and the choir was singing. Although the service was in a different part of the cathedral, it sounded as though you were standing in the middle of it. Really lovely, and set a nice atmosphere for taking pictures and thinking about the history. By this point in the day I was about done for, having wandered around in a medicine stupor. However, Chris told me I needed to see one last thing, and took me to the Chapter House, a room separated by the cathedral by a hallway. Inside, the octagonal room was like nothing I'd seen yet! The floor reminded me of tiles I'd seen in Izmir, the ceiling was gorgeous, and there were beautiful stained glass windows on seven of the eight sides. Between were pointed arches, and on each side were all unique faces (you'll see some in our pictures) and intricate wood carving. The administration of the cathedral still meets in that room, and inside each archway was a seat. A very unique room, and I'm glad Chris saw it!

I was completely knackered by this point, so we got back to the car and drove fifteen minutes to our B&B for the night, the White Rose Villa. Can we say GORGEOUS?! We stayed in the Lavender Room, and it was huge! The shower was great, tons of hot water at high pressure, just what you needed after a day of walking! The bed was one of the most comfortable I've ever encountered in a hotel, and our hosts were absolutely wonderful. We ordered pizza that night (I told Chris it felt like an anniversary- traveling in the car most of the day, feeling tired, eating pizza...) full of bacon, ham, salami, and pepperoni, and apparently butter. Divine! Slept like babies, and woke up the next day to a full English breakfast and the drive north to look forward to.

(Btw, in case you couldn't tell by the length of the post, I'm feeling better and am back to my normal long-winded self. Sorry to those of you who were enjoying the succinct posts!)

Hiking with Sheep

2010-06-04T21:49:00.002+03:00

Sunday we went hiking with Yvonne, Euan, and Yvonne's mum in Hay-on-Wye. I say hiking, because it was for me, although I think Yvonne and Euan would call it a walk :) As you remember from one of my previous posts (and if you don't, go back and re-read, slackers), Hay is just over the border into Wales, next to the Black Mountains, so the sites are quite amazing.

We hiked/walked up the Hay Bluff, going up the "easy" side, and down the more "challenging" side. Going up wasn't too bad, besides the fact that it was uphill. And windy. I mean, REALLY windy. When you look at the pictures, you can't see that the wind is actually pushing us around. I was wearing Chris' windbreaker (because I under-dressed, as usual) and I sounded like a flag snapping in the wind. Luckily, we were walking, and stayed warm enough, although there was definitely a nip in the air when we first climbed out of the truck! Also, I should mention that the areas surrounding the bluff, as well as the rest of Wales, are all sheep pastures. So while the views were amazing, I only saw them in snippets, because most of my attention was on the ground, trying to avoid poo. :) We got to the top, but because we came up the backside and all the good stuff is near the front, we headed that direction...

IS THIS A PLATEAU?! geez louise, every time we'd get to the top of a rise I'd think, "Ok, this is it, it's going to be awesome just over this!" and then I'd see more walking to do. We did get to the edge on the side though, and that created some great pictures. We even saw a glider taking advantage of the high winds and soaring almost eye level with us!

On the way back down, we went a different and more challenging route. Straight down is challenging, right? :) It was worth it though, because near the bottom was a herd of horses. I have no idea if someone owns them or if they're just there, taking advantage of the grass, but there were some very new colts posing for us and lots of gorgeous horses to admire. Maybe I don't need a puppy. Maybe I need a horse...

After letting Yvonne and Euan walk ahead to get the car and leaving us "snails" behind (yes, Yvonne, I talked to your mum and heard what you said!) we ran into more sheep and saw more lovely sites. Then relief arrived in the form of SUV, and we tiredly climbed in. We certainly earned the tea and cheesecake we ate when we got home! After the bacon sandwiches... And the roast chicken, cheesy broccoli/cauliflower, Yorkshire pudding, and potatoes we had for supper. MMMMM! I kind of want Yvonne and Euan to come live with us and cook every day!

All in all, a tiring day but worth the effort, because as you'll see, the pictures are gorgeous!

Warwick Castle pictures

2010-06-04T01:01:00.000+03:00

Warwick Castle

Castles, Nobility, Intrigue, and Power

2010-06-04T00:47:00.003+03:00

Wow, I think the title is almost as long as the post... (and probably more exciting)

Yvonne and Euan had Friday off, so we set out for Warwick Castle (pronounced Warick, btw), about a 90 minute drive from Eardsley. Unlike many of the existing castles now, which mostly consist of ruins, Warwick Castle has been restored to what it would have been like throughout various centuries. The drive there was gorgeous, and it was fun to have a day with the four of us doing something.

In the time of the War of Roses (Richard VI), the Earl of Warwick was considered the Kingmaker but died in the Battle of Barnet. Lots more history that I find interesting, but that would probably bore most of you.

Again, I'll pretty much try to let the pictures speak for themselves. Mostly because my head hurts too badly to try and form words to describe...

Bath pictures

2010-06-04T00:42:00.000+03:00

Bath

2010-06-04T00:21:00.003+03:00

Not pronounced like we normally would say it, it's actually pronounced Baahth. Just so you know. And because it's one of the only pieces of useless trivia I have.

So, we arranged to take the train there. The journey took us through part of SE Wales, which is gorgeous, and then East after we switched trains at Newport. A reasonably quick journey, uneventful (which we give thanks for these days!), although because their ticket-printing machine was having issues, we were about 20 seconds away from missing our train.

So, one of the first things we saw in Bath was a Nepalese restaurant, which was immediately chosen as our late lunch location. However, we had things to see first! We made our way to the Roman Baths, and it was there that we realized the schoolkids from England have this week off. OMG. Teenagers and kids are the same no matter which country or culture. Oh-ha! However, the Baths were very cool, lots of history (it was actually a site of worship as well as healing) and artifacts that had been recovered. To be honest, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. Just know that the complex was huge, and just seemed to go on and on! And the heating system was ingenious! Under the floor, there were ducts that would carry the hot air from the fires (also underground!) into the next room's floor, and also up the walls. Seeing these ducts, we realized that we had also seen them in private homes in Ephesus! That was what struck me the most, how similar the Roman buildings in England are to those in Turkey, even though the two are thousands of miles apart!

The cathedral was awesome as well, really lovely and interesting to look at. Covering all the wall surfaces and much of the floor were plaques and memorials to loved ones. And the ceiling was crazy! You'll see in the pictures...

Then lunch time. Mmmm. So Nepalese food is kind of a cross between Indian and Chinese. Quite lovely and delicious. We ordered popadams, then pork dishes with sides of rice, a chickpea and potato dish, chutney, and lentil-based soups. The spices made it really lovely, and our waiter was great. There was a French family dining at the same time, and they had a small girl, maybe one year old? The waiter played with her for awhile, then scooped her up and took her around the restaurant, showing her all the cool sights there. He later told the parents his own son, who is 3 1/2, is still in Nepal with his wife, and he misses him very much. He was also quite excited that we were from America, and immediately wanted to discuss politics, like so many other people we meet.

We then hiked up to the Royal Crescent, which was a relaxing way to sit, digest, and enjoy the sunshine. On the way back, we got lost, and again, thank goodness Chris was there. I would have freaked.

Our train was delayed 8 min, and while we giggled that they'd even announce that (after our 3 hour delay it seems a bit much to apologize for an 8 minute delay...), we did find that it meant we missed our connecting train, although there ended up being another in 30 minutes, so it didn't really matter. All in all, a really lovely day!

Pictures from Herefordshire and Wales

2010-06-04T00:17:00.001+03:00

Hereford and Eardisley

Hay-on-Wye and Black Mountains

Eeek, I'm Behind!

2010-06-04T00:02:00.002+03:00

So, I am sick. I will try to refrain from whining too much to you all, although I'm guessing Chris would love a break. Anyways, this sickness has allowed Chris to actually get ahead of me in the blogging process. I have a LOT of catching up to do, people! So bear with me...

First, I'll do separate posts for each place that we've been to. This will help if you only have 1 hour to read my post, not 5.

Second, I am getting Chris' help with remembering things, because to be honest, I'm really out of it right now. You'll notice the vacant stare in pictures. I am not drunk or high, just doped up on cold medicine and wishing I were dead.

So, overview of our time with Yvonne, although there will be separate posts for all the mini-trips we took in Hereford. First, I should say "Thank you" again to those two! Putting up with Chris and I for 9 days, cooking for us, driving us around, listening to us ask, "Are we there yet?" Not an easy job, that. However, we were able to cross many desired food items off our list: we ate Indian, Chinese (homemade ginger chicken, thanks Yvonne!), PORK, roast chicken with Yorkshire pudding and broccoli/cauliflower in cream sauce, fish and chips, Elderflower ice cream, a full English breakfast, homemade crepes...Ooofff, I get full just looking at that list! We're still wondering if Banoffee pie is a myth or not though. (If it's a myth, I won't worry about spelling, but if it's real, someone needs to help me out on that.) Oh, and we got addicted to English tea. We now drink it at least once a day, although more often if other people are having it. It's almost like it was in Turkey!

We went to Hereford on Monday and explored, then Tuesday we went to Hay-on-Wye, Wednesday was our sleepy day with laundry on the side, Thursday was Bath (see next post), Friday was Warwick Castle (see the post after Bath) and the Christy Moore concert in Hay, which rocked! Saturday Chris and I explored some pubs in Hereford, and then Sunday we went hiking in Hay. Monday was spent getting ready for the rest of our trip. So there's our first week in the UK in a nutshell. Now I can get started on the posts for individual places. Enjoy the pictures!

Welcome to England

2010-05-26T17:44:00.002+03:00

Well, I'm sitting in Yvonne's guest bedroom right now, thinking how awesome England is, and if it were just a bit more sunny, I would probably insist on living here. To recap the last few days:

Saturday, when we left Izmir, it was pouring rain and really quite horrid. We got to the airport, huge thanks to Pinar and her dad, and headed for the check-in line. Where we were told that our 10PM flight was delayed three hours. So we'd arrive in England at 3AM their time (5AM Turkey time). Not particularly happy news, especially when you take into account Izmir's airport: no bookstores, no magazine stands, just a couple cafe stands and a bar showing soccer. So we just sat and waiting, and people watched. This is also when we realized our flight was chock-full of babies and small children. Once on the plane, after about 20 minutes, the kid in the next row finally stopped screaming and thrashing around, and we were able to settle in for our four hour flight.

Arriving in England went smoothly, getting to our B&B was the same, although getting into the car with the steering on the right side threw us a bit. Our B&B was AWESOME, bed was so nice! It was actually getting light out when we finally crawled in (4:30AM) for about 3.5 hours of sleep. Then it was up, breakfast (real English breakfast, complete with coffee, tea, toast, eggs, tomatoes, ham, and sausage. omg. EVERYTHING looks better over pork products!), then back to the airport to catch our bus to Hereford.

Bus ride was normal, although long. But pretty comfortable and we saw some beautiful sites. England is really really pretty! Particularly the further west you get. It's very green with full-size trees and hedges along each property, as well as dividing fields and bordering the road. I have found that there is a reason English gardens are known world-wide.

Yvonne and Euan live in Eardisley, which is about 30 min from Hereford. It's a small but beautiful village, full of the famous black and white houses, one of which is their place. Although the doorways are a little short for Chris (he even managed to hit his shoulder on the stairway ceiling!), it's very fun to stay in a house that is centuries old! It used to be a forge, and there are pictures of it from the 19th century, as well as a sampling of the horseshoes that were made there. Because of its age, it's a little crooked and the floors are a little wavy, but it's all part of the fun! We'll try to get some pictures up on here at some point, as long as it's ok with Euan and Yvonne.

So, Monday we ran errands in Hereford as well as looking at their cathedral (which therefore qualifies it as a city instead of a town or village), the Mappa Mundi (a map c. 1300, the oldest medieval map still in existence), and the chained library (from the time where books were so valuable that they were all individually chained to the shelf). In between, we also grabbed a bite to eat (peppers, potatoes and goat cheese gratin) and stocked up on all the cheese that we have missed! That night we went out with Yvonne's family for Indian food. Mmmmm, how I have missed those flavors!!! Never fear though, we'll want to go out for much more Indian food when we get back home, so those of you who like it, be prepared!

Yesterday we headed to Hay-on-Wye, a town that straddles the border between England and Wales. It's world renowned Literary Festival begins in a few days, but we decided to beat the crowds and have a look around. A fun little village with massive numbers of bookshops, boutiques, gorgeous views, and fudge! When we came back, we tried all our cheese while we had tea. (Aren't you proud of my restraint, I waited a whole day!) We had Roquefort (my absolute new fav!), white cheddar, Red Leicester, Havarti, Swiss, a Hereford white cheese, and cream cheese with herbs and spices, all on crackers with locally-made chutneys. Bliss seems a bit of a weak word. How about nirvana? And it just got better. Yvonne cooked authentic ginger chicken with stir fry and rice, and we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. I watched her make it, and will attempt to re-create the experience once we're back home. However, I'm not at all confident it will be as good, especially since I don't own a wok, nor do I cook well on gas stoves (too clumsy with open flames). So we'll see. I'll pick some of you as guinea pigs to try it out on :)

Today is a chill day. We had some laundry to finish up, and a quiet day just doing not much sounded really good to both of us. Hopefully we'll get pictures posted soon so that you all can see how awesome this place is. And, just for Yvonne (who makes fun of our Americanisms), talk to you guys later! Miss you, dudes! It'll be awesome to see you all again!

The Neighborhood Association Meeting

2010-05-16T20:40:00.002+03:00

"What?" you ask, "I didn't think they were organized enough for that."

Well, they're not. But sure enough, I witnessed one today. So, story time:

Remember that dog that earned my life-long hatred for interrupting my sleep awhile back? The one who barked and whined all through the night and made it impossible for me (and approx 40 other families in the vicinity) to get any rest? Well, they've been keeping it indoors more often, but as the weather has gotten warmer and we've started opening windows at night, they've decided it'd be a good idea to let the dog out again. And it hasn't gone mute yet. (Really, if it was human, it would have lost its voice looooong ago. Can anyone explain that to me? How do dogs bark constantly for hours without losing any decibels, but if we try to yell for hours on end, we eventually go hoarse?)

So, I was hanging laundry outside today, the dog was out, and it must have seen something, a fly, a piece of trash, who knows, but it went nuts, barking, yipping, generally freaking out. A lady on a balcony in the building across from this dog tried shushing it, which didn't really work. Then, apparently, the owner made an appearance, because then it was her turn to go nuts. She was explaining (from what I gathered, my Turkish really does suck) that she has a baby who is sleeping, but the dog's barking wakes it up, and can the owner please make it shut up?! Well, he took offense, and they were off.

Less than 5 minutes later, Chris and I (I had to run inside and tell him to start popcorn and then look out the window, this was entertaining!) are watching and we see someone's head poke out of their window, then they see what's happening, that the dog owner is outside, and they come out on the balcony and start yelling too. This attracts more neighbors, who do the same. Before we know it, there are 6 different apartments' residents hollering, pointing, gesturing, and fist-pounding at the dog owner, who is hollering, pointing, gesturing, and fist-pounding in return. Then I hear the neighbors upstairs get in on the action. Then the ones below us. Then I see people from other buildings come out, and they join in.

I believe when I finally collapsed on the couch laughing hysterically, there were five buildings represented, a dozen accusers, one defendant and his son (everybody brought their children out to watch the fun), and one dog, which, with all the commotion, started barking...

Whooo hooo, School's Out

2010-05-15T20:46:00.002+03:00

For us, anyways :)

So, Chris and I will be coming home sooner than previously expected, everyone! YAY! We booked the tickets tonight for home for June 6. So exciting! Our new plan:

We fly out of Turkey on May 22 (holy crap that's coming up soon!) to London. We got a fabulous deal through Thomas Cook Airlines, but two downsides to that: 1) the baggage allowance is non-existent. literally. and 2) it arrives in London at 11:59PM. So we will be staying in a B&B for that night, then taking a bus to Hereford to visit Yvonne. Awesome girl, she's letting us stay for a week and showing us around England. After staying with her for a bit and relaxing (and catching up on gossip, of course!), as well as stocking up on pork, cheese, and good English ale, we're planning on renting a car to drive up through England toward Hadrian's Wall and Scotland, just taking our time and lots of pictures.

Next stop will be Edinburgh, Scotland, for a couple or few days, depending on funds and time. I'm really excited to see Edinburgh, it sounds so pretty and we have so many fun things that we're going to try and see. I'm sure we'll be blogging about it later.

After Edinburgh, we'll fly to Dublin on June 5 just for one night, mostly because we can't afford to stay any longer, but it'll give us time to at least see downtown for one day. We'll do Ireland right when we have more time and money. June 6 we fly out and we'll be in Chicago a little after 3PM! wow.

So, hope to see everyone soon after we get back and get on American time! And aren't you all proud of how short this is?!

Things that Shock Us Every Time

2010-04-29T15:41:00.003+03:00

Following in a similar vein to the post from a couple months ago when I detailed (in excruciating detail) the things that amused us in Turkey, this post will have some overlap, some areas which probably warrant their own post, and some things that you'll find boring. If you're not turned off yet, well, just wait :)

1. Turkish Driving

Now, I realize that I have whined and complained about this before. But I really do feel that it needs to be brought up again. I will try to be quick. First, I would never ever consider driving in the city here. I would kill/maim too many people/cats/numberous non-moving objects. Second, I believe in stopping at red lights. Doing so here is a great way to cause an accident. As is staying in 1 lane, not straddling the line. Third, I can't parallel park to save my life. Even in the US spots, which are generous enough for everyone's Hummer. Let alone the space only large enough to squeeze your car in and not leave enough room for people to walk beween bumper of either your car and the car in front of you, OR your car and the car behind you. I also am not a fan of double, let alone triple parking. Fourth, I would feel bad if I hit someone. Which I'm sure I would do. But I would also stop and feel incredibly guilty. Not keep driving without a second glance, figuring if they're in the road, they were asking for it. Even if it was a crosswalk. And they had the green light. And I had just run a red one (see reason number one above).

2. How many small family businesses there are

And how few large ones. Semis aren't really seen much around here, and I have been told that that is because there aren't that many large corporations that ship enough stuff to have need for semis. Things are changing gradually, and you are seeing more corporations coming in, like Kipa (owned by Tesco, a British company), Ikea (designer prices there, NOT the cheap place we're used to!), Marks & Spencer (another British company that is discount there, brand name here), etc. But for now, the clear majority of businesses are owned by a single family or a partnership.

3. How many of the SAME small businesses there are

Chris and I were walking along Betonyol the other day and were noticing, once again, how many of the same businesses there are. For example, our friend, Erol, owns a cell phone shop. In this shop he sells cell phones, refill cards for minutes on your phone, accessories, etc. When we (and I mean Chris) asked him the other day how business was going, he replied that he worked a lot, but still had no money. Çok iş, para yok. It's no wonder, considering there are 3 other cell phone shops exactly like his in a half mile stretch... The average street in Turkey is composed of apartments/flats on the upper floors, and businesses on the ground levels. These businesses will be eczane (drugstores), cell phone shops, bakal (convenience stores), bedding/furniture/appliance stores, and perhaps an electric or plumbing place, and some pide or döner restaurants. Thats about it. And they just repeat over and over again. All offering the same goods and services, but somehow they all manage to stay in business AND on good terms with each other. Quite remarkable.

4. How much Turks love children

In the US, if someone came up and starting touching your baby, most of you would instinctively jerk him/her away (or at least want to) and wonder what was going on with this person. When we board airplanes, we breathe a sigh of relief if that mother with the shrieking child walks past you toward the back of the plane (at least I do). Here, not at all. People get very happy when someone gets on a bus or ferry with a child, and they enjoy playing with the child, passing them around, etc. And the mothers like the fact that people are enjoying her baby. Along those same lines, if someone's child is misbehaving and the parents aren't looking, the neighborhood people feel free to yell at the naughty child, who actually pays attention and obeys!

Now, on the other hand, this also leads to children growing up pampered and being used to adults doing everything for them. Maturity tends to be delayed, and they don't have a concept about how to budget money, or even what things are worth. But enough on that, I'll save that rant for later.

5. How the country still functions despite complete unorganization and lack of preparation

Not for us. But Turks have perfected this art. This is one where I can't explain the concept, this is one that you must experience. But only if you have a lot of patience, or a lot of Xanax.

6. Fresh food and for cheap!

I know we've told you before about how cheap food is here. fresh baked bread: $.35, 4 lbs of fresh strawberries, $2.50, fresh farm tomatoes, 2 lbs, $.75. It gets ridiculous. And we're loving it! Although it sometimes saddens me to throw out chicken that is only 3 days old and has been refrigerated, I also know then that it didn't have a billion preservatives in it. And ground meat actually has a fresh flavor, probably because they grind it while you watch. You pick out which pieces of meat you want, and then they grind it for you. So none of that sneakiness of wrapping old, browned meat in freshly-ground red meat and selling it as fresh. Everything is so fresh, and because the growing season is so long, we've been eating fresh fruit and vegetables for a month now. Food is a beautiful thing.

7. Speaking of food, the lack of ethnic foods

For a country that is known as the country that connects the East and West, you'd think there'd be a lot of fusion restaurants, ethnic foods, etc, right? Wrong. Restaurant food here is very homogeneous, although very delicious as well. But all the same. You have your pide, kebap, lahmacun, çorba, mezes, börek, gözleme, köfte, and a few others, but to be honest, that's about it. Chris and I came up with our list of restaurants and foods we want when we come home. Frighteningly, we had the same ones. In the same order.

1. Indian food. Chicken Korma, then Butter Chicken, both with large amounts of naan and mango lassis.
2. Vitale's Pizza. With pork products.
3. Thai food. Pad Thai
4. Bonefish Grill, Bang Bang Shrimp

And after that, we don't care. Maybe we'll start back with number one again...

8. How expensive alcohol is

A bottle of Baileys is over 50TL, which is about $35. For one, regular-size bottle. Malibu Rum, which you can get for what, $10? Here, double that. I'm not exaggerating. A normal Chilean Sauvignon Blanc is 30Tl, or $20. (In the US, it'd be closer to $12-$15). Now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Well Barb, that's not THAT much more expensive..." but don't forget, the income here is much much less than in the US, so when you make something more expensive in the US, and then consider that a good income is around $1200 a month for a person, NOW you see why my eyebrows raise whenever I see the prices.

Which is why I've begun drinking beer. It's still gross, people, and I can't imagine actually WANTING to drink it, but so much more reasonably priced!

9. How expensive owning a car is

First, getting a car is expensive. Not so much the prices, but the taxes you have to pay on them. For Turks to get a car, the taxes in the price make a simple car about 2x-3x more expensive than in the US. If they want to pay US prices and import it, depending on engine size, they have to pay an import tax of up to 100% (maybe more, I can't remember, do you, Chris?) the value of the car. That isn't even including the shipping costs!

Then, taxes on the car. Holy crap.

Next, inspection is required every 2 years, I believe. On some larger cars, it's required every year. This is also not cheap.

Then we come to fuel. The average price here is around 3TL ($2). Not bad, right? Except that that is for a liter. Multiply that by 4, and you have the price per gallon. Ouch.

And did I mention there's no parking? Parking structures, or even lots, are very new developments here, and haven't made it to most areas. Meaning people park wherever they can, including sidewalks (where they exist). The city has started making curbs very high, planting trees, putting concrete posts or other decorative things on sidewalks to prevent people from parking on them.

And yet, because owning a car is a great status, a majority of people have one. And those who don't are saving for one.

10. Exactly how many people you can fit on a bus

A lot. Sardines have more room than we do sometimes on those buses. Often during rush hour, there is no need to hold on to anything, because we're packing in so tightly that you can't move, even to fall down. I've given away a lot of my personal space, and basically have no problem until I can't breathe because of all the people around me pressing in. Now think of this in summer, 100 degrees out, no AC on the bus, and very few baths taken that morning. I'm so glad we're coming home!!!!

If I've forgotten any, I'll try to add them later. For now, looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Odds and Ends

2010-04-20T13:52:00.005+03:00

I love doing postings like this, since I can be unorganized and discombobulated without having to feel bad: it's in the nature of postings with a title like this.

So, first, I guess some reasonably big news: Chris and I have decided that when we come back to the US, it will be a little more permanent than just a visit. I know, I know, it wasn't too long ago that I told you all that we were staying overseas another year, but I like changing my mind. So here is the current plan (also subject to change, of course):
We will come back this summer. I will work part-time while I crank out my master's degree in Library Science. Chris will finance said degree (the usual MO for us). Not sure where we'll live during this time, pretty much wherever Chris gets a job (and that is warm, I have gotten used to Izmir weather!). My program is online, so I can do it anywhere. After getting my degree, and a job in which I have summers off, we will live off my income, bank Chris', and then in the summers, travel on his money for 1.5-2 months. This way, we don't have to deal with bureaucracy stuff like residence permits, work permits, sponsorship, health insurance, banking, buying furniture for apartments, etc. And we'll actually get to travel, instead of living overseas and working all the time (that was Chris this year, not me). So this is our plan. However, if things don't work with this plan, we're keeping our options open as far as living overseas again. Who knows.

Other news:

The weather is FREAKING awesome! Low- to mid-70s and sunny everyday. We have been opening our windows everyday for some fresh sea air, and waiting for buses is actually rather nice now. Getting ON said buses is a little less fun, since they're roasting and stinky with a billion people packed on, but the waiting is nice, and usually we spend more time waiting for the bus than actually on it. This weather also means my students have been canceling in droves. I have two consistent students now, and that's about it. Which actually works well, since I quit my job...This is my last week. Then it'll be on to packing and getting ready to come home. A task that is a lot easier moving TO the USA instead of out of it...

Traveling and Trips:

Yesterday we went out to Yeni Foça to visit our friend Alis. For a place that's only about 40 miles away, it certainly took us long enough to get there! (I'm really really looking forward to having a car again!) First, we needed to get to the Otogar, our nemesis location in Izmir. It's from the Otogar that buses leave for all over the country, anywhere you could possibly want to go. However, it is a little in the middle of nowhere. Only a few buses go there, and not frequently (every half hour), it's not within walking distance of a metro stop, and basically just not fun to get to. I may have whined about it after our first trip to Ephesus, when we paid like 40TL for a cab ride out there...

Anyways, so we wanted to take the 54 bus that would get us there, but since we have to take another bus to even get to the 54 bus stop, we missed it. So before we got to the Otogar, we had to take a bus, the metro, then a taxi, all to get on another bus. Whew! However, once we got there, oh my....

Beautiful, peaceful, calm, serene...the list of positive adjectives could go on and on. You've seen the pictures from Çeşme, right? Well, Yeni Foça looks a lot like that only less developed and far less pretentious. A little more our speed (except maybe the pretentious part :D ) Alis' parents have a place that has a great sea view and a wrap-around veranda, which we sat on while sipping drinks, talking, and relaxing in the sun. Her parents also prepared us a HUGE meal, so good! We had köfte, marinated chicken, baked potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, all on a charcoal grill, AND side dishes as well as dessert afterwards! My stomach hurt for HOURS later because of eating so much! We also went for a quick drive around the bay, and Chris took pictures. Maybe he'll post them.

Getting back was another experience. But 3 hours after we left Alis', we were back home! AND we caught the 54 bus :)

We're hoping to get to Cappadocia before we go, all depends on timing. Cappadocia is another place that's not the easiest to get to. No train going there, you kind of have to go by bus. Another trip to the Otogar in our future? But our list of places that we really want to see before we come home is much longer than the number of weekends that we have left. And many of these sites, Cappadocia included, need longer than a weekend, since it takes at least a day of traveling to get there. So if we go, we'll keep you updated.

I think that's about it, everyone! Looking forward to seeing you all in a couple months!

* hugs

Selçuk and Ephesus

2010-03-27T18:58:00.002+02:00

Here are the pictures from our trip to Selçuk and Ephesus.

Selçuk and Ephesus

Ephesus, Take 2

2010-03-24T15:23:00.002+02:00

Since our last experience of Ephesus was in 100+ degree weather, several buses and taxis, and hoards of tourists, we thought we'd try something new and go when it was cooler, take the train, and avoid the crowds. Turns out, that was a brilliant experiment! (I will try to keep all of the minute details to myself and just give you an idea of our brilliance. But don't hold your breath.)

Chris had a day off *gasp* on Friday, so we got up, took the bus to the train station, and $6 were on the train for the hour ride to Selçuk, the town closest to Ephesus. Pleasant and cheap transportation, it doesn't get better than that! Our hotel was a 2-3 minute walk from the train station, so that was convenient as well. Right after checking in, we headed for St. John's Basilica and the Castle/Citadel on the hill.

St. John's Basilica was built by Justinian in the 6th century over the tomb believed to be St. John and in place of the more modest church that was already there. The Basilica was in the shape of a cross with the tomb in the center where the cross intersects. It is perched on a hill, just below the castle, and has magnificent views of Selçuk, Ephesus, the temple of Artemis (or what remains of it anyways-more on that later) and Isa Bey Mosque. It is considered a holy site, and thousands have made a pillgrimage there, including a Pope in 1967. We took lots of pictures, you can see those later.

At the bottom of the hill is Isa Bey Mosque. After interrupting (accidently!) two teenagers "talking" behind the mosque, Chris went in to take pictures while I stayed outside because I had forgotten anything to cover my head. Soon this man approached me and asked why didn't I go in? Before I could even respond, he told me that head covering wasn't a problem, shoes weren't a problem, come in! He then introduced himself as the imam of that mosque (!) for 25 years (he's now retired) and said he would give me a tour. So in we went, met up with Chris, who was coming out, and got a special presentation. Later, Mustafa wrote our names in calligraphy and told us to come and see him if we needed anything else while we were there. What an absolutely wonderful man!

So, yours truly was hungry by this point. (I know, what a surprise, right?) We walked for a bit and stumbled upon the restaurant that had been rated #2 on tripadvisor.com for places to eat in Selçuk, Mehmet and Ali Baba Kebab House. One of my students had also recommended it. The owner, Mehmet, was absolutely awesome, and although they had a very limited menu, it was divine! We ordered gözleme, chicken kebaps, and köfte. YUM! Afterwards, we ended up staying and chatting for a couple hours while drinking numerous cups of tea.

We were pretty tired afterwards, so we went back to the hotel and took a nap. We woke up hungry.

Dinner was at Ejder Restaurant, just down the street from our hotel. The owner, also Mehmet, does all of his cooking from fresh ingredients and cooks them over charcoal while we watch. Chris had adana kebap, I had suşi kebap, and we both had mercimek (lentil) soup. That was honestly the best mercimek soup I've had yet! Mehmet said it was "Mommy soup" and I believe him! He introduced me to eating green chilis along with the soup, as well as raw onion, green chilis, and bread together. We had a really great time in a lovely atmosphere, and I think I'm doing pretty good for not going on too much about the food, yes?

The next day we had intended to go to Ephesus, but when we were at breakfast, the owners of the hotel (brothers) told us they were planning a special luncheon for their mother, and would love it if we joined them. Because it was right in the middle of the day, that put a crimp in our Ephesus plans, but because Ephesus would be there tomorrow and this luncheon was a one-time thing, we put it off until Sunday and went to the Ephesus museum instead.

Wow. Some awesome stuff. Look at the pictures.

We also stopped by the market that they have every Saturday. Basically a huge bazaar, spread out and nice and airy. I like the Hatay bazaar, but I must say, this one was awesome. Bigger, more space, fewer people, more stuff. It had it all.

Lunch at Mehmet #1's again. More gözleme. More chatting. I liked him better and better, he's hysterical. When we left, a street vendor had started to do an impromptu demonstration of his vegetable slicer, and was attracting all the neighbors! Mehmet just sat back and grinned.

So, we went back to the hotel to go to this luncheon. When we got there, people were milling around, but no one seemed to be eating, so I figured we must have come late, although that didn't seem to be a problem. Jimmy, one of the brothers, got us a plate of food, sat us down, and then wandered off to talk with his family. We began to realize that we were the only hotel guests there, the only ones eating, and I started to feel a little awkward. But that was NOTHING compared to how I felt when one of the women in the other part of the room suddenly decided it was time to pray. Women covered their heads, and ten minutes later they were still going as Chris and I stared at each other and whispered, "Should we finish the food? Should we leave? What should we do? What is going on?" When it appeared that it wasn't going to end anytime soon, we quietly snuck away. After getting down 1 flight of stairs, I busted up.

Nap time again.

Then dinner time. And it was time for round 2 at Mehmet #2's restaurant. (Hey, he had a huge menu and we weren't finished trying new stuff! Or finished with with that divine soup.) This time, Chris ordered the suşi kebap and I ordered the mixed grill, which consisted of lamb cutlets, beef kebap, chicken kebap, and a small steak. Just as we were settling in and talking, two couples came in. When you're used to being the only ones in the restaurants, it can be surprising to realize that there are more people in the town! They turned out to be from the US and one couple was celebrating their 25th anniversary, so we got to celebrate with them. Mehmet even ordered (in secret, of course) a cake with their names on it, and picked some flowers from his garden out front. We all had a wonderful time and exchanged contact information. (After this trip, I came to the conclusion that Chris and I need business cards.)

Wine on the rooftop terrace, pictures and chatting with Jimmy some more, and then off to bed!

Ephesus is MUCH cooler (literally and figuratively) in the spring before the tourists come than in late July and early August! *Note: the sun is still lethal though- I have a crazy sunburn, and it's only March! This must be a record!* We had time to wander and see things we hadn't the energy or stamina to before, and this time we had enough money to pay the extra entrance fee and see the terrace houses. SO WORTH IT! That was, by far, Chris' favorite part, and probably mine too. While we were there, we met another American who is living in Ankara at the moment. We followed him around for the rest of our time there, bugging him to take pictures for us. Gene was a good sport though, and when we found out we were on the train together on the way back to Izmir, he put on a good face. Maybe he's just a good faker?

Train trip back was more crowded, and then we thought we were in the right place for our return bus (right across the street from where it dropped us off, yeah?) but apparently it takes a different route back, so we ended up taking a cab. Not the best ending, but a great trip. And now that we know Selçuk is only an hour away by train and we know people there, I have a feeling that we will be going down there for the weekend more frequently.

So, my post is only short story length, not novel. Progress is good.

Chris, if I've forgotten anything, feel free to add it in. But in your own post, this one needs to stay the length that it is, otherwise it'll be novel length as usual :)

Istanbul Pictures

2010-03-17T18:43:00.003+02:00

Thought I'd surprise everyone by actually posting the pictures the same day that Barb blogged about the trip. Don't get used to it.

I feel like we should start taking pictures of the food we eat, though, to better match Barb's exposition.

Istanbul March 2010

Istanbul, Round II

2010-03-17T09:33:00.002+02:00

It's been awhile since we were in Istanbul. About nine months, actually. So Chris and I decided it was definitely time to go back and see all the places we missed in Round I. My boss, who is desperately trying to convince us to move to Istanbul and stay another year in Turkey, offered to pay for the airfare up there if I would come into the office and work part of the day on Saturday, March 6. Hmm, let me think about th...uh, YES?! So after Chris finished with work on Friday, we headed to the airport.

I hate airports and I hate flying. Let's get that out of the way first. Now, let me add that I also hate flight delays, particularly when I'm hungry (I hate everything and everybody when I'm hungry though, so take that into consideration). You get the idea of our experience there, although I must add that when we checked in, they were kind enough to put us in the emergency row exit so Chris could actually sit in the seat like a normal person.

We got to Istanbul and took a taxi to a shopping center where we were supposed to meet my boss. When we got there, she had a surprise for us- Mongolian Barbeque!!! Omg, can it be?! ETHNIC FOOD?! What a concept! For those of you not familiar with Mongolian BBQ, you go up to a buffet with raw food (meat, veggies, etc) and pile as much as you can get into a bowl. I usually choose seafood and chicken, while Chris usually heads for the beef. At the end of the buffet, you also get noodles, then add spices and sauces. Then you take your bowl of goodies to the grill, which is a huge (HUGE) circular grill and they grill it for you. Absolutely divine, and no two things ever taste the same. This restaurant was even better than usual, since they had an employee who, after looking at what choices you had made as far as meat and vegetables, would then suggest sauces and spices to accompany it. MUCH better than I could have ever done (who thought oyster sauce was so good?!). So basically the best food I've tasted in months. Add to that a glass of red wine that actually tasted like wine (was that OAK I taste?) and Yeşim knows how to convince ME to move to Istanbul...

The next morning, Chris woke up ungodly early with me (what a trooper, and on one of his two days to sleep in too!) and we headed to the Istanbul Arlin office. Wow. They have multiple teachers, many classrooms....I'm impressed! I discussed TOEFL strategies with the teachers there and got new ideas. I also got to see Jaime, my friend who moved to Istanbul a few weeks ago. We left the office a little after 2PM and headed to Sultanhamet, the old part of Istanbul and also where Jaime lives. Chris and I were, surprise surprise, super tired, so when we checked into our hotel (The Agora Guesthouse, absolutely DIVINE!), we took a nap, agreeing that we'd meet Jaime for dinner later.

Dinner was... wait for it .... INDIAN FOOD!!! Our waiter was a little taken aback, I think, when we just kept ordering more and more food. We had lamb samosas to start, along with mango lassis, then Chris had chicken korma, I had butter chicken, and Jaime had a vegetarian dish with white beans in a red sauce that I couldn't pronounce, let alone write!

Let me tell you about each dish. Chris' was the most memorable, at least for me. Although the chicken was on the bone, which made eating it a little bit of a pain, the sauce is what was amazing. First, let me just say that Turks don't do sauce. Pizza comes with about one tablespoon of sauce on it. Sandwiches are usually rather dry unless you add your own condiments. Pasta is served with 1/4 cup of sauce. Just not really done here. Which is why the creamy, nutty flavored sauce with cinnamon tasted SO good with the naan we ordered. And the rice. By far the best chicken korma I've ever eaten (Sorry, Bombay Cuisine)! My butter chicken was also good, and thankfully the chicken was off the bone, so I didn't have to deal with that. My sauce was the typical butter chicken sauce, with lots of spices and flavorings. In other words, delightful. Jaime's entree was good as well, but I was so busy stuffing my face with Chris' that I didn't taste much of hers. However, I'm always amazed at how good Indian chefs can make vegetables and beans.

After taking almost 3 hours at the restaurant, there really wasn't much time to do anything else, so we headed back. On the way back, however, I made room for some roasted chestnuts, which are sold by street vendors everywhere. I hadn't tried them before, but omg, I am making up for lost time now! The shells flake off easily, and the nuts inside are soft, sweet and very good while they're still warm from the pan. I could eat those all day, seriously.

The next day, after a huge breakfast on the rooftop terrace, we went to Topkapı Palace. Chris took some pictures, although some of the coolest things we saw you couldn't take pictures of. For example, we saw sultan's clothing, dating from the 16th century onwards. We also saw several thrones, weapons, religious relics (John the Baptist's hand- gross) and an 80+ carat diamond!!!! (I want one.) The palace also had several courtyards and stunning views. Chris took pictures, he'll put them up one of these days. :)

Next, we went to the underground cistern. It didn't take long for us to walk through, probably only 20-25 minutes. But also probably one of my favorite things. Maybe because there were fewer tourists jostling me and pushing me along? But basically it's this huge underground cavern held up by 336 pillars, built by Justinius in the 6th century and forgotten until the 18th century, when it was restored. Also, there are two Medusa heads holding up pillars in the back corner. Pretty cool, esp considering their size, location, and position (one is upside down, the other turned sideways). Chris has pictures of this too, and you'll see why I liked it.

But, let's talk about our next meal. We were (predictably) starving by the time we were finished with the cistern, so we met up with Jaime and headed to Taksim (in the modern part of Istanbul) for Chinese. Ahhhh, Chinese. We orderd spring rolls and dumplings for appetizers. Those were the biggest spring rolls I'd ever seen! Chris ordered General Tso's chicken, I had crispy spicy ginger chicken and Jaime had...noodles. Made us look bad. But the food....I don't think any of you can understand how good it tasted unless you've been deprived for months. Think of how good that first slice of pumpkin pie tastes on Thanksgiving when you haven't had it since last Thanksgiving. Or your Mom's cooking if you haven't been home in awhile. It's a little like that.

Afterwards, we waddled out, and Jaime informed us that just 5 minutes away was a place that did a Bailey's-soaked brownie. Well, really, who can turn down brownies, let alone ones with Baileys?! So off we went. Crowded restaurant, rude waiters, but oh, that was a gorgeous brownie.

It was time to get back, pick up our luggage, and get to the airport. The flight back was uneventful (and on time!) although they weren't quite so considerate with the seats and Chris ended up contorting himself to wedge his knees in. Good thing it's only a 45 minute flight... And we'll keep that short flight time in mind. I think I'm getting a craving for Pad Thai...

African Encounter

2010-03-10T12:39:00.002+02:00

I thought for once that I'd write something on the blog and give Barb a break.

Anyway, we've now seen the sands of North Africa. We didn't visit Africa, however. It visited us.

I got out of work on Monday and noticed that the cars all had mud sprinkled on them. It had been raining, and I figured a bus had driven by and gone through a mud puddle or something. Then I noticed that ALL the cars were covered with mud. Then I noticed that it was still sprinkling rain, and that my coat was flecked with mud, too.

Apparently on a fairly frequent basis, there are big sand storms in North Africa and the Middle East and the clouds of sand make their way around the entire Mediterranean. So when it rains, the sand comes down in the raindrops. It literally rains mud. You learn something new every day.

Long, long overdue videos

2010-03-10T12:31:00.002+02:00

So, remember when Barb wrote about our Pamukkale trip and said there were videos from the trip? No? You don't? That might be because it was in November. Sorry about that. But I have spliced the videos together, compressed them, and put them online, and now I am finally getting around to linking to them in the blog. So here you go. There are three, one from each of the ancient sites we visited in November: Aphrodisias, Pamukkale/Hierapolis, and Laodicea. Enjoy!

From Videos

Velvet Castle Pictures

2010-02-28T11:46:00.001+02:00

Here are the promised pictures from our trip to the Velvet Castle (Kadifekale):

Velvet Castle

Things That Make Us Giggle Every Time

2010-02-25T12:12:00.004+02:00

A. Thunderstorms and car alarms:

So we had a thunderstorm Thursday night, a really loud one. Each time there was a clap of thunder, two car alarms would go off, pretty much only until the thunderclap was finished, then they'd quiet down. As soon as we got another clap, the alarms would go off again. It could have been annoying, but I think we were so overtired that it was just funny.

B. "Fashion," especially women's fashion:

I will try to get pictures to back up my statements/accusations on here. But it won't be easy because usually by the time I've finished gawking and asking Chris, "Did you SEE that?!" the object of my incredulous staring has disappeared. I will describe some recent sitings:

1) Chris saw this and wants to offer all of you ladies back home some advice- animal print, especially leopard, does NOT work on stockings! Instead of looking sexy, you simply appear to have a skin disease.

2) Never mix animal prints or mix colors of the same animal print. Please. Tiger stripes on a shirt do not go with giraffe patches on the jacket and leopard spots on the purse, nor do black and white tiger striped pants go with brown and gold tiger stripes on the shirt.

3) Unless you're a bird, you should not wear feathered headbands with feathers that stick up like a Native American headdress.

4) Unless you don't plan on sitting down for the entire night, sequined pants don't really make much sense. But they are fun to laugh at, so continue wearing them for people like me.

5) If you're over 25, you shouldn't have pink, purple, green, or blue streaks in your hair. And if you are over 25 and wearing a business suit while simultaneously sporting those streaks, don't be surprised when you hear snickers in your wake.

6) Actually, if you're over 25, you shouldn't wear backless shirts (75 year old with leather for skin, I'm talking to you!), skinny jeans, pigtails, or micro-mini skirts outside of clubs (and maybe not even then...)

7) If you dye your hair bleach blond from dark brown or black, PLEASE, PLEASE, continue to dye your roots!! You already look silly enough with that shade of hair, having 6 inches of roots showing isn't helping your image. Especially if those roots are salt and pepper colored.

8) Easy on the pink blusher...

9) Guys, easy on the hair gel. A little goes a long way.

10) And for heaven's sake, please leave the man-purses at home! Chris is pestering me to let HIM get one! (He's just kidding...I think.)

C. Alcohol Selection

"If you want beer, you may have Efes. I hope you like Efes, because it is the default beer in Turkey. If you're lucky we may have some Tuborg. Enjoy your beer.

Oh, you want wine! Well, would you like red or white? What do you mean, what kind of red? There is red wine. You know, kırmızı şarap? Well, if you want SELECTION, go to a store!"

"Hello, welcome! What can I get you? Wine you say? Well, I have a small selection. Only the supermarkets have bigger selections and the ones close to you close at 9 PM. I have 3 varieties, all for 6TL (that's about $4) or under! Which can I get you? OF COURSE it is undrinkably bad! It's 6TL !!!! What do you expect?!"

D. Asking a question and expecting a useful response:

This used to annoy us. Now we just don't ask questions, or, if we can't avoid it, we ask as many people as possible and see if there are ANY answers that are the same. We'll go with that answer. You see, it's an embarassment to admit that they don't know something, so even if they don't have a clue, they will make something up as an answer. This is problematic when we're asking for directions. One person says, "Yes, go down this street 5 min," while another person says, "No, you are going the wrong way," while still another says that our destination is a 15 min walk in a third direction. That is assuming, of course, that we can understand them.

Asking yes/no questions has it's own issue: people never just say yes or no. They launch into a whole story, which I can't understand, and when I explain that I don't understand because my Turkish is non-existent (literally, Turkçem yok = my Turkish doesn't exist), they seem confused as to how they are supposed to communicate with me if they can't tell a story. Just "evet" or "hayır" will do, sir.

Bus drivers have their own language. Even Turks have no idea how to communicate or understand bus drivers.

E. "Five minutes"

This means anywhere from two minutes (not often) to 25+ (frequently). Literally. Other numbers are a little more accurate, but if an Izmir Turk tells you "five minutes," plan on waiting for awhile. Pull up a chair, order a tea, and relax.

I'm sure I'll come up with more. Hopefully this will just be Part I of many such posts.

Ahhh, fresh air

2010-02-23T13:57:00.003+02:00

So we made it out of the apartment last Sunday. Finally. You know how even when the weather turns awesome, it's so easy to comment on how awesome it is while you sit inside your apartment/house/office? Well, that has been us for the last week. So we decided we'd visit Kadifekale, or the Velvet Castle. We can see it from our apartment (I think most of Izmir can see it, since it's on a mountain) and have been thinking since July that we should see it. The most interesting things there are (a) the walls, which were constructed in Hellenistic times, (b) the views of Izmir and (c)...well, actually, I think it's just a and b.

It was fun, although I have kind of gotten used to fitting in and not being noticed so much in downtown Izmir, and apparently the kids there can pick out tourists from a mile away, because we were hassled every step of our way. It's difficult because you don't know if the kids just want to practice their English, are asking for money, are trying to sell you stuff, or are trying to pick your pockets. And I hate being mean or rude to anyone, so I think that I encourage them by acknowledging them. Sorry, Chris.

Ooooh, funny (and kind of gross) story of our trip there. Pretty easy trip, just 2 buses. But anyways, we're on the second bus and Chris had gotten up to give his seat to a really sweet old man who had been shopping for fruits and vegetables at the bazaar. Suddenly, I feel something crawling up my calf. I kept thinking (hoping!) that it was just my jeans brushing against my legs as the bus went over bumps, but no. The seats are really crowded, so I couldn't move much, but I manage to pinch my jeans between my fingers, and something totally smushed, then oozed. EEEEEEEEE! I seriously had to consciously force myself not to start shrieking, since I didn't want to have everyone look at me. But OMG, gross!!!! I kept my feet off the floor for the rest of the trip. Worse yet, when I got off the bus (on wobbly legs b/c I had had them lifted up for 10 minutes) and rolled up my pant leg, there was no sign of the bug! Ewww, ewww, ewwww.

Ok, now that your skin is crawling, let's get back to the castle. Just a few more random details, then I'll just let the pictures do the talking. Oh wait, you all will have to nag Chris to get pictures put up. So, the castle was constructed during the Hellenistic period, the cistern system (way cool) was constructed during the Roman era and then renovated during the Byzantine period, and there are also ruins of a Byzantine chapel. The most exciting and impressive part was the view though, as you will see.

Otherwise, things are going well, although work is picking up for both of us and we haven't had much time to travel. Work and the rain. At least the temperature is warmer, and we don't have bedbugs anymore *knocking on wood* so life is looking up. We'll be going to Istanbul for the first weekend in March, and hopefully more pictures and blogging will follow.

As usual, we miss you all! Keep in touch!

Brrrrr!

2010-01-25T11:47:00.002+02:00

You know you're from Michigan when your clothes freeze on the clothesline.

Oh wait, that can be in Turkey too. Yes, it's THAT cold here. Not quite what I signed up for. I guess we have to pay for our awesome weather in December and the first half of January though, don't we. Thankfully, Chris bought a space heater for the bedroom, so we're not freezing at night anymore. Last night when he went in to plug it in, the thermometer said it was 57 degrees in there! And that was only in the evening! So yeah, I'm very happy to get another source of heat. Hate to think about the electricity bill, but love to be warm!

On the bug front, things are progressing. We actually saw one so we know for sure that's what we're dealing with. We also haven't seen much evidence of migration outside the bedroom, which makes my life much easier. (I was dreading taking down ALL the drapes and washing them every 3rd day, especially since you all know how close together the buildings are here. And curtains are good insulation.) We've been spraying Raid for all we're worth and *knocking on wood* have only gotten a few new bites. YAY!!! Doing laundry is really getting old though.

On the work front (I guess I'm covering our lives in this post, sorry if it's boring), Chris is beginning his new seven-week module today. He has level C, which is pre-intermediate. Basically the level of students he just finished up with. He is teaching skills, which means instead of planning 20 hours of lessons and teaching them once to the same class, he will plan 6 hours of lessons and teach them to three classes. So that should make his life a lot easier. That is our hope anyways. My students are on their two week semester break, so I'm basically out of a job for 2 weeks. I have a whopping 4.5 hours scheduled for this week. Not sure if I can handle that heavy of a workload. I may have to speak to my boss about it... :) Things will change a bit for me after the break though. First, I will be on contract, so there will be steady income each week. (Then all the slacker students who don't show up don't cost me money!) I will also be working for ten hours per week in a school, teaching the teachers there how to teach TOEFL. (Say that five times really fast.) So that will be a new challenge, since I've only been teaching TOEFL for six months. Ah well, fake it til I make it. Or just fake it and forget about making it.

I received the sad news from one of my very good friends that she is deserting me for Istanbul. Although I am incredibly happy for her ( I mean, what kind of crap friend would I be if I wasn't?!), I also am VERY sad to see her go, and a little jealous of all the delicious food she gets to eat there. Istanbul has such exotic dishes as Indian, Thai, Chinese, and Mexican. And you KNOW she will call to rub it in a little. (I wouldn't be friends with someone who wouldn't do such a thing, since it would make me look bad when I did it.) So she will be moving next month or in March, and I think all the friends here will miss her. We love you, Jaime! And keep blogging so I can steal your posts again.

Well, I hear my washer spinning out. If I want our blanket for tonight, as well as sheets and pillows, I should probably go take care of that. Hope you all are doing well and staying warm! We miss you and July can't come soon enough (for several reasons)!

EWWWWWWW!!!!

2010-01-17T00:32:00.004+02:00

Bed bugs!

Yes, that's right. And while the logical left side of my brain says that this could just as easily happen in the USA, that there are exterminators in Turkey, and that it's not that bad (at least it will make a good story, right?), the emotional right brain has been screaming with disgust for about 2 days, drowning out all logic. Researching on the internet isn't helping matters, since mostly what we read either (a) grosses me out further- they LIVE in my mattress, and only come up a couple hours before dawn to crawl over me and bite- (GROSS!!!! EEEEW, I itch just thinking about it, and the couch looks so good), or (b) focus on how hard it is to get rid of them, with the only option really being an exterminator, and even then, not an easy (i.e. cheap) task. Great. For those of you who are wondering, simply washing the linens doesn't work (it has nothing to do with being dirty, you all know my housekeeping isn't THAT bad!), nor does replacing the mattress. We need chemicals, people!

So how did we acquire these new little pets, you ask? (I requested a kitten or a puppy, not bugs!!!) GREAT question. We have no idea. We haven't been to a sketchy hotel lately (Pammukale was a while ago, people, I've already thought about it), we haven't had friends over or stayed at anyone's house, we don't have pets, nor wild animals roaming in our apartment... All I know is that two days ago, I went to bed fine, and woke up scratching. Yesterday I had new bites to scratch, and today I have even more souvenirs. Lucky girl, I know. You're all writhing with jealousy, aren't you. Or are you squirming because you're imagining being bitten by bugs while you sleep?

So if anyone comments, PLEASE don't tell me stories that (a) will further gross me out or (b) detail how hard it is to get rid of them. A little sympathy and comfort for my whining would be good. That and a care package of calamine lotion...

Hoş geldiniz, 2010!

2010-01-07T12:44:00.003+02:00

Chris and I were talking the other night, and we both agreed that although 2009 was fun, we really do hope that 2010 is a little less...surprising. Although I am sure that I will never regret this experience, the act of giving up my home, "career," car, and stuff to travel to Asia and live there is something that I think I need some recovery time from before I do it again.

We had an extraordinarily low-key New Years, as is our usual MO. My students all canceled, so I had the day free, but Chris had to work. When he got home we ate, and then watched a movie. Now, I had been pestering him for awhile to watch "Cleopatra" with a young Elizabeth Taylor. I just don't see the fascination with the old lady, and I wanted to see what everyone was so obsessed about. Four painful hours later, I was still wondering...

It did serve to pass the time until 11:45PM though. We turned on our TV to try and find the Turkish version of Ryan Seacrest (Chris swears he's out there! Scary) and instead stumbled upon probably the biggest train-wreck of a New Years Eve show I've ever seen. Although I will try hard to make this believable, let me assure you all that I was having a hard time believing my eyes.

There were 3 hosts. The first was a singer. Although she was quite pretty, her fashion sense was a disaster. First, imagine a gown that is knee-length in the front, and floor length in the back. Now color it magenta (that's bright pink for you men out there). Now add feathers to the back. And her wrists. Within the feathers on her wrists are huge, thick diamond cuffs. So it looks like the feathers got caught there. She also has a matching necklace, although perhaps a more appropriate term would be neck-and-shoulders-lace; oh yes, it was so wide it went from around her neck to draping over her shoulders. And as Turkish women are wont, waaaaay too much blush. So that was her.

The next host was a man who was probably about 70 years old. His hair was dyed jet black, however, which just looked weird, but did match his suit. He had a huge mustache, and was trying very hard to make this a serious show. When he sang, he sort of bobbed around (dancing?) and every once in a while, did a shimmy that just served to look like he was possessed.

The third host was a younger guy who looked surly. I don't think he smiled once.

During the course of the show, feathers were lost, there was a dog on the stage, a cake with sparkler candles, an audience full of old, extremely drunk ladies, audience members on stage dancing, certain audience members hustled off the stage by the older host after they didn't dance well enough (the good (and hot and young) dancers were left alone). But the best part? 11:58, they went to commercial! And Turkish TV doesn't do short commercial breaks, I think the shortest I've seen is 10 minutes. So somewhere between an add for Ayran and an add for chocolate, 2010 was rung in. A ship in the harbor blew its horn, which is how we knew when to clink glasses and smooch.

We opened our windows to watch fireworks. This was partly because we found it so cool that it was warm enough to leave the windows open, and partly because I still haven't washed the windows, so in order to actually SEE the fireworks, we kind of needed them open. We were able to see fireworks all around Izmir, all around the bay. Absolutely beautiful.

So that was our New Year's Eve in Turkey. Low key, but just like we like it. We both hope that this year is as fun and exciting as last year, although perhaps a little less dramatic. We also hope that all of our friends and family have a blessed year in 2010. And that someone will come and visit us. :D

Love you and miss you all!

Home Sweet Home

2010-01-05T22:38:00.004+02:00

Here is a video that my awesome wife made of our apartment. Sorry this has been so long in coming; I know we've been promising it to people basically since we moved in. But this was the first time the apartment was clean enough to be deemed video-worthy.

Theoretically, we'll add some more videos showing more of our neighborhood. Don't hold your breath, though. I'd estimate another 4 months.

Btw, once you follow this link, there is a link in the upper right-hand corner that says "View HQ video" if you have a fast connection and want to see it in higher resolution.

From Videos

Genius

2009-12-28T13:03:00.002+02:00

I heard a quote that I have loved ever since- "Smart people copy. True geniuses steal." So in keeping with that spirit, I'm stealing my good friend Jaime's posts from her blog. They are similar experiences to mine, only she writes about them much better than I could. And she notices the little day-to-day silliness that I giggle about and then promptly forget to tell you all about. So here it goes. By the way, if you want to read more of her blog, you can find it @ http://jmillerrapp.blogspot.com/. Happy Reading!

Gevrek Geliyor (or, The Bagel is coming)

I've heard him many times before. Walking around the neighborhood, hollering something to draw attention. And despite his daily tour and incessant wailing, I could never understand what he was saying--is he collecting junk? talking about vegetables?--until yesterday. I left the house at 8:28, still in a fog of sleep. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, a teenager sauntered by with a tray of gevreks (the Turkish equivalent of the bagel--only waaaay cheaper and more common and CAKED in sesame seeds) resting on his head.

He hadn't finished his first holler before I recognized him. It's you! You're the one disturbing the neighborhood's peace. Every. Day. At about 8 am. I sped up, wanting to evade his path. When I was a mere meter in front of him, I could sense an immanent holler. The air behind him was sucked into his massive lungs and experienced a momentary vaccuum right before he wailed.

"Sicak gevrek." (Hot gevrek.)

God it was loud. Sort of sing-songy but unappreciated since I was still technically asleep. My hollerer kept hollering.

"Gevrek geliyor!" (The gevrek is coming!) I walked faster, joining the few other people heading to work. No one looked particularly excited about the hot, coming gevreks, let alone rush over to him to buy their own piping hot gevrek before all the gevreks are gone. In fact...

"Sicak gevrek... bir lira... Gevrek geliyor!" (Hot gevrek... 1 lira... the gevrek is coming!)

... Everyone else was ignoring him, too, rushing away, trying to avoid the blast of sound emanating from his fit, soon-to-be-man lungs. He should still have been in school. Maybe he's practicing to be an imam, I wryly considered. He could do the call to prayer without the frigging megaphone broadcasting to the neighborhood.

I kept my pace up. After awhile, he stopped hollering about the gevreks being hot and simply kept repeating that the gevrek was coming.

Eventually The Hollerer must stop and set up his tray somewhere like all the other gevrek vendors. God only knows where he stops, but he uses my neighborhood as part of his route to the eventual resting point. It's a trade-off: Would I want him anchored to my corner, hollering all day, or would I be happier with his current morning route? I don't know but I'm just glad it's not me doing the hollering.

Domates--Bir Kilo, Bir Lira

I am living the life: sitting on my balcony in a light breeze, drinking my morning Nescafe and eating my muffin, watching the waves a few hundred meters away.

A truck rolls slowly down the street. The driver is on a loudspeaker blasting: "Fresh tomatoes--one kilo for one lira." The message ricochets off the tall walls created in the corridor of apartment buildings lining Mithat Paşa Street. His son stands in the bed of the truck, yelling a similar message at a lower volume.

The truck--laden with tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers--stops midway between the two small grocery stores in front of my flat. The driver gets out, stands in the street and hollers about his tomatoes again.

Women in the flat directly above the truck start to notice. A couple poke their heads out of windows and lean off of balconies, craning their necks to see the produce. One on the sixth floor confirms the price with the driver and disappears into her flat, only to emerge a few moments later on the street to buy.

A head appears in a second floor window; her friend from the sixth floor buys her tomatoes for her.

The driver, as he looks around at the tall flats and balconies, notices me peering down at him. He hollers about tomatoes at me, but I sink back in my chair, out of his line of sight. Thankfully I didn't have my camera out right then when he looked at me. What a yobancı...

No one else comes to buy and he climbs back into the cab, his son braces himself against the truck walls and they continue their crawl down Mithat Paşa.

This kind of thing happens regularly in İzmir. Farmers with local, fresh produce park their truck--often in the street--and set up temporary shop. I can't imagine that local manavs (green grocers) are happy about this, but what can they do?!

Maybe I never lived in a big-enough city in the States, but this approach to food is entirely new to me. I think that there would be all sorts of red tape stopping my farmer and his son from selling their veggies on the street: no business permit; health and cleanliness standards that someone in a white coat would be willing to quibble about; disturbing the peace with all that hollering.

Then there's the moving traffic violation of his son enjoying the morning sun in the back of the truck... Not to mention the crime of selling tomatoes for so absurdly cheap: At today's exchange with the American dollar, that's 32 cents a pound for fresh, farm-picked tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes. Beat that Monsanto.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

2009-12-25T22:13:00.002+02:00

I hope you all are having/had a great day! Chris and I really enjoyed ours!

My first Christmas abroad was remarkably like being home! I made cookies last night, woke up this morning and went over to our friend Nesta's house. She had cooked a feast for us! We had pork (a beautiful, beautiful thing, forbidden pork...) that she had gotten when she was in Greece, potatoes, candied carrots, fried mushrooms, apricot dumplings, with gravy all over it. Absolutely divine! For dessert (it's not Christmas without dessert!), she made us a New Zealand special dessert, which is basically a homemade marshmellow cake, baked until it's crispy on the outside, but still marshmellow-y and soft on the inside. Smother it in whipped cream and put some kiwi on top, and you're set! The rest of the afternoon was spent in a food coma. Absolutely wonderful.

Tomorrow we're meeting one of our new friends. I was in Starbucks the other day, heard English being spoken, and almost got whiplash when I tried to see who it was. I introduced myself, and found out that he is from South Carolina, is here doing logistics for the military, and his wife is visiting him for the holidays. Since she likes shopping as much as I do from the sounds of it, I suggested we meet up sometime soon. :) Later we will go to our friends' Roxana and Ata's house for a Christmas party. It's strange that it is beginning to feel like Christmas only now. I have another week to enjoy it though, since in Turkey, Christmas is celebrated as New Year, complete with the "New Year tree," "New Year Santa," and gifts. So I kind of get Christmas twice. I love this tradition. (And Chris loves Turkey because he doesn't have to deal with any Christmas!)

I have managed to get Chris' cold. I'm not going to complain too much though, since, as he pointed out, I've avoided being sick for many months when he has been nothing but sick. It's just a cold, and I'm sure with all the great American medicine that he brought back I'll be fine soon. We're going to have to invest in gallons of Nyquil though...

So tomorrow it's back to work for us, although a short day. It's been a wonderful day for us, and we do hope you all have enjoyed it as well. Miss you and we are thinking of all of you, especially today.

A Balmy December Day

2009-12-20T20:04:00.000+02:00

It is 8pm on December 20. It is also a pleasant 66 degrees (19 Celsius). There are certainly SOME advantages to living in Izmir.

It's My Birthday!....

2009-12-18T20:51:00.001+02:00

and I'm sick. This sucks.

On the up side, there's a T-storm going on, and I love storms. And I never get them on my birthday in MI.

Thanks, everyone, who emailed and Facebooked me birthday wishes! I smiled at each one!

Quick Note- I PROMISE

2009-12-01T22:31:00.000+02:00

For those of you that I promised videos, they're all ready to go, Chris just needs to compress them because I talked way too much on them and they're too long.

For those of you that I promised a video of our apartment (mostly the same people), I've been lazy and haven't done it yet. I'll do it when the house is clean (i.e. sometime in the next 3 months).

Be patient.

Pictures from Munich, Germany

2009-12-01T22:28:00.001+02:00

Ok, this is Barb, posting as Chris. He's a slacker and I want the pictures up. (Actually, he's being productive and I'm avoiding doing housework. :D Our usual MO )

Munich

Dachau

Castles

Dachau

2009-12-01T22:21:00.000+02:00

It's hard for me to post a blog entry about Dachau, which is why it's last. Most of our blog is light-hearted and upbeat (intentionally, trust me) and yet I can't make light of this experience. I'll try not to make it too depressing, but it's not going to be a Hallmark card. And I really mean it when I say not to look at the pictures if you're in any kind of sad or depressed mood.

Most of you know that all through university, I was fascinated by genocide and the circumstances in which they occur, as well as the mindset of both the perpetrators and the victims, as well as the response of the international community. Almost all aspects of it fascinate me, and I took all of the classes that GVSU offered on the subject. One of my greatest regrets of my university years was not being able to take a trip with a professor of the subject to Poland and Germany and see the sights myself. This trip to Dachau helped lessen that regret, since it was one of the places on the itinerary for that trip.

One of the first things that struck me about Dachau was its proximity to Munich. It is actually able to be reached by city train, and not at the last stop either. Of the four zones radiating from the center of the city, it is in the second-nearest one. A five minute bus ride from the train station and we were there! In my imagination these camps were always far away from civilization, tending to be in the middle of nowhere and easily hidden from the public. This cannot be said about Dachau.

Another aspect is the size. I didn't know it before, but Dachau actually had several dozen sub-camps of various size near to the main camp. Although we toured only a part of the main camp (the remainder, which is huge, by the way), there would have been many other smaller versions scattered nearby as sub-camps.

We chose to do a tour, and we agreed later that it was a great idea. Our tour guide's area of study and expertise was in Munich and the surrounding area from the years 1918-1950, which fit perfectly into the time of the Dachau Concentration Camp. He taught me more in the first ten minutes that I had ever dreamed possible. For example, the idea of concentration camps was to consolidate the power of the Nazi party. After Hitler became Chancellor and began to feel solidly in power, high Nazi officials were actually shutting camps down, seeing them as unnecessary since they had done their jobs and power was solidly in the Nazi's hands. However, Himmler, who lived in Munich, saw the economic potential of these prisoners. Appealing to Hitler's obsession with architecture, he suggested that the camp at Dachau be used to supply Hitler with materials for building (while at the same time Himmler became rich on the profits). Hitler was convinced, and put Himmler in charge of the operation, which quickly spread to other areas. Our guide explained to us that the sites of work camps were all chosen for their proximity to quarries, mines, and other areas of natural resources or manufacturing. Because Dachau was the first of this kind of camp, later camps, such as Auschwitz, are based on the Dachau model that Theodor Eicke developed.

Also of interest was the early history of the camp. It opened March 22, 1933 near abandoned manufacturing plants under the rule of the Bavarian police, who actually had a pretty amicable relationship with the prisoners. By April 10, the SS had taken over and within two days began terrorizing the prisoners. The SS actually had a training school adjacent to the camp. Although some of the recruits were already hard-core Nazis, most of the new recruits were there because of other incentives. For example, many poor local boys joined because they went from not having enough money for shoes to having a Hugo Boss uniform issued to them, three meals a day, and a warm place to sleep. For others, it was the realization that they could become an officer much more quickly if they were an SS official. Promotion to officer positions through the army was difficult, but much easier for SS officials. It was details like this that made our guide stand out from what we had expected of a tour (the same boring information that any well-read person probably already knows).

Probably the most difficult area for me was the "new" crematorium. (Picking a most difficult area is not easy in Dachau.) There was an older crematorium that wasn't big enough, so the SS had priests build another, larger building. What was surprising to me is that it was not used too much, since most of the workers either died from being worked to death or were shot or hanged, not gassed and then cremated. All prisoners who died, no matter the manner in which they did, were supposed to be cremated. As death numbers rose, the need for a larger crematorium became greater. What made this difficult was that this is the original building. Not long after the war ended, there was a movement to tear down the building and get rid of it. Former prisoners put forth a great effort to save it for future generations and as a memorial. Fortunately, they were successful. However, it is very difficult and extremely wrenching to walk through the path that countless prisoners did in their final moments. It's impossible not to think about what they may have been thinking and what their executioners were thinking at each stage. The rooms seem to close in on you, and I really was relieved to get outside and feel that I could breathe again. I've never experienced anything like that before, and while it was disturbing, I also firmly believe that if everyone visited a camp like this, genocide would no longer be allowed to happen in this world.

I don't have much else to say. It was a deeply moving and important trip that we took. I do need to thank Chris, however, for being interested enough to inform me that Dachau was so close to Munich and to suggest that we go. What a great husband. And for anyone who is interested in more information, I have a book of text and photo documentation of the camp from 1933-1945, the twelve years that it was in use (the longest of any camp).

Castles, Castles, and More Castles!

2009-12-01T22:18:00.000+02:00

Sunday we woke up with plans to go to Neuschwanstein Castle, which many of you will remember the poster we had in our apartment of it. Chris was there many (many many :D ) years ago, and I was pretty excited to see it. We woke up reasonably early for being on vacation (8:30 is early!) and after eating a leisurely breakfast and dessert we headed out. To get to Füssen, the nearest city, you have to go the central station in Munich and get a train there. When we got to the central station, there wasn't any information about trains going to Füssen, so we went to a ticket machine to see if we could find it. Thankfully, it had an English option, and we got our tickets for there and back. We found the train, and when we asked to make sure it was the correct one, the guy told us that we took this train to the end of the line, then switched trains to get to Füssen. OK....

The first leg of the trip was about an hour. When we got to the end of the line and switched, we found out that we would have to switch AGAIN at the next station! Are we ever going to get here? The castle closes at 4, it's now well after 1, and we still have another hour to go, not including time spent waiting for trains to leave after we switch. We did really enjoy the journey though. Bavaria is absolutely stunning, so peaceful. It actually reminded me a lot of Michigan in many places, with the patchwork of fields, woods, and countryside. (The weather was about the same too, only sunnier.)

We got to Füssen at 2:45 and had to wait until 3:05 for the bus to take us to the actual village of Hohenschwangau, which is nearest to the castle. Although we knew it was getting late, it was 3:15 and we figured we could get in. Not so much. We were informed that the last tour had been scheduled for 3PM (what a rip-off, it doesn't close until 4, and the tours are only 30 minutes! You need to do a tour at 3:30, people) and we had missed it by 15 minutes. You can't go into the castle without being part of the tour. We were told that we could visit the other castle, Hohenschwangau Castle, which is where Ludwig II, who built Neuschwanstein, grew up. Of course, even though it closes at 4 as well, there was a tour starting at 3:55. Bastards. Anyways, we picked that, and figured at least we'd get to see one castle today!
That castle turned out to be really cool. The outside was the coolest, since inside we had the weirdest tour ever, which was an audio tour with a live guide. Strange. We also had some really really obnoxious Americans in our group, which made me wish I knew German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, ANYTHING besides English so I could have not been in the same group as them. They were an embarrassment to all Americans everywhere. (Yes, I'm still a bit hostile about them.) Our tour guide was lovely, and really knew a lot about the castle, although we didn't get to talk much to her since it was an audio tour.
We left and were going to take the bus back. We saw that we had missed the last one and the next one wasn't coming for another forty minutes. Uh, we'll get something to eat, and catch the one coming in an hour and a half. It's FREEZING. We ate our very good meal and went back to wait some more (the 80-minute-later bus never appeared, the first and only time that happened in Germany). It was much later than we had planned on, after 7, but we figured we still had time to get back to Munich and eat more sausage at Marienplatz. We probably would have too, if we had caught the train that left the station before we could see where it went. (Oh yeah, it went to Munich, without as many changeovers. Geez louise!) The next train wasn't coming for another hour. Chris quickly got bored and decided we needed to go exploring.
It was actually a really good thing we missed our train, because we got to see a third castle! Not really publicized, we had noticed it on the bus to and from Hohenschwangau. We were able to walk up to it and explore around the courtyards at our leisure, which was nice, since we had an hour to kill. Can we say awesome!? Chris took a bunch of pictures, which actually turned out incredibly well since it was pitch black. They'll be on the blog soon.

After walking around for a bit, we were able to catch the trains (yup, a total of 4 trains between there and our hotel) and got back at 11. The latest night to be followed by the earliest morning wasn't ideal, but it was worth it. And maybe next time we'll get to see Neuschwanstein. :)

Trip to Munich, Part I

2009-12-01T22:14:00.000+02:00

So our trip to Munich (as you can probably tell from the title) was quite successful and absolutely wonderful!! Because it was such a long trip, and because I'm long-winded, I'm going to break it into sections. So I'll have this post about Munich in general and food (always food!), then our trip to Dachau, then our castle excursion, each in its own posts. Maybe Chris can even coordinate the pictures with the posts, how cool would THAT be!

So, Munich. My new favorite city. I want to live there. I want to be German. It really is a fantastic place. First, let me wax on about our hotel, then I'll move on to their food.

The hotel couldn't have been more different from Pamukkale if it had tried! We arrived to a quiet, discreetly decorated lobby 5 hours before check-in. I asked the kind, ENGLISH-SPEAKING front desk clerk if there was a place to store our bags, since I knew it was before check in. He winked and said he was pretty sure they could accomodate us right away. Sure enough, 5 minutes later we had our room key and were headed to get some much-needed sleep! (Our plane had flown at 7AM, so we'd been up since 3:45AM.) Later, when Alis called, she said the front desk had been hesitant to put her through because they knew we were sleeping! How kind and wonderful is that?! The room was absolutely beautiful, complete with HEAT and...wait for it... HOT WATER! whoo hoo! (They even had a radiant heater in the bathroom, with towels draped over it for heated towels!) And not a mosquito in sight! Beer and wine glasses were provided, in addition to feather pillows, comfortable beds, and a balcony. We were in heaven.

Now, for food. Ahh, the food. I think I ate more sausage than in the past 5 years, no kidding. I was craving something new, and Germany had it! So, first, on Friday, the Christmas markets in Munich opened, which means really yummy food stalls with reasonably cheap food. (I say reasonably because nothing was cheap in Munich, sadly enough.) So right away, Chris and I bought fresh bratwursts while we waited to meet up with our friends. I really was in heaven then! They were hot, greasy, and absolutely not Turkish! We met our friends and they showed us the glüwein stalls, which is mulled wine (hot wine spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and other deliciousness). Alis, the friend we had flown with over there, introduced us to her boyfriend, who is a history major in Munich. He took us all over the city center explaining the various buildings and their history, as well as the sections of the markets and all that we could get there. It was such a festive and fun evening! After they left for dinner, Chris and I ate at Hofbräuhaus, one of the most famous beer places in Germany. I had the best saurkraut ever! Slightly sweet, very sour, with cloves. Accompanied with sausage, of course. And fresh pretzels. OMG. Chris had pork with cracklings, potato dumplings (those were a bit weird, spongy and not all at like we thought they'd be), and we split au gratin potatoes. An absolutely wonderful meal!
The next morning we were headed to Dachau, and needed breakfast before going, so we went back to Marienplatz (pronounced mar'eenplots), the city center, to hunt down a restaurant. We found one serving the traditional Bavarian breakfast of, you guessed it, sausage and beer! WHOO HOO! The sausages were veal with herbs, the beer was amazing (you know that's good coming from me!), and the prezels were good as well. I also had a really spectacular cappuchino. Afterwards we went out and grabbed a mulled wine and some candied peanuts before getting on the train to Dachau. (Seriously, this was an eating trip!)
When we got back from Dachau, we stopped at the city center again and grabbed another bratwurst and some more mulled wine for supper. (Are you sensing a pattern here? :D ) Then we went shopping for Chris for some shirts so he could have more than 2. Luckily, Bavarian men are tall too, so we found some, and bought 4. So yay for new clothes! I also bought a Christmas ornament (you know me, I love Christmas time!) that is handmade and gorgeous. We were going to get crepes but someone (i.e. me) was cranky and tired, and just wanted to get back to the hotel. So we went, laid down and relaxed for a bit, and then went downstairs to the Italian place where we got pizza and (guess what) beer. The restaurant was run by Italians, and was really quite good!
Sunday morning- breakfast is the same as the previous morning, because it was so delicious and we hadn't had enough. It's just so weird to be drinking at 10:30AM (and on a Sunday!), looking around, and realizing that everyone else is drinking beer too! The Bavarians know how to do mornings right! I could probably learn not to hate getting up if I got to get up to that every morning... We snagged some deep-fried apple slices and mulled wine for dessert too, before beginning our journey to the castles.
While we were in Füssen we had supper, which was a plate of various thinly-sliced hams for Chris, and another breakfast for me. We also had lots of beer and mulled wine. Although we still planned at that point to get back to Marienplatz in time to try crepes and more sausages, we didn't end up having time. (See the castle post for more on that.)

Monday morning we didn't have time for breakfast, so I was sad. :( However, we COULD have had one last beer in the airport, they were selling it to go with breakfast. I love Germany. :D
Before I wrap this up, I also just need to add that the train system was awesome! Complete with *gasp* timetables, schedules, and MAPS! It blew our minds! Also, so many Germans speak perfect English that we had no trouble getting around. I loved it. When we got directions from the DHL driver to our hotel (apparently it's only in the US that DHL doesn't exist anymore), it was in perfect English with landmarks and specific instructions.
Germany was so clean, so well organized, and so relaxing, Chris and I both agreed that it was nice to back in a country so close to what we're used to in the US. If I'm honest, I am having a hard time being back in Turkey right now. One can't help but make comparisons, and other than Germany being colder and more expensive, Turkey doesn't come out looking well. I wonder if Germany is hiring...

Pamukkale Trip Pictures

2009-12-01T20:21:00.000+02:00

Here are some pictures from two weekends ago, our trip to Aphrodisias, Pamukkale and Laodicea. Captions are (mostly) by Barb.

Aphrodisias

Pamukkale and Hierapolis

Laodicea

Turkish Driving

2009-11-25T19:13:00.000+02:00

I just got hit by a car tonight.

No, I'm not kidding. I was walking along, next to a parked car. He suddenly decided he needed to move, steered right into me, and as I fell onto his hood, continued driving, not looking or stopping to see if I was ok. That's Turkey for you.

I have strong feelings of hatred right now.

I Need a Prescription for Xanax

2009-11-25T18:49:00.000+02:00

I'm not kidding. Yes, this is the ranting post.

So our hotel that we stayed in in Pammukale was CRAP. Like, the worst hotel experience I've ever had. Let's go through it step by painful step, shall we?

First, we got there and although the owner was very nice, the price was pretty high (60TL/night instead of the 25TL we'd planned to spend). We were extremely tired and hungry at this point however. Also, it was dark and we knew we could drive around for a long time looking for pansions that were cheaper and open in the off-season. He showed us the rooms and they seemed very nice, with a view from the balcony of Pammukale. Although the heat wasn't on because there were no other guests, he showed us that each of the rooms had its own heater. (The fact there were no other guests SHOULD have tipped us off, but sadly, we remained ignorant until later.) Nesta talked him into 50TL/night, we paid, turned on the heater, and went to hunt for dinner.

Like I said in the previous post, dinner was amazing. We returned to the hotel and found to our surprise that although the heaters were running, the rooms were still well below 50 degrees! We put our hands up in front of the heaters, and they were blowing out mostly lukewarm air with spurts of hot air. Great. We're freezing. We drank a little wine to help us warm up and then got ready for bed. I went to wash my face, and lo and behold, there is no hot water! Chris went and asked them to turn it on, and they were still banging around when we went to bed an hour later.

A few hours later we both woke up, wide awake, and freezing. We were awake for hours, finally going back to sleep at 4:30, after checking that there was indeed hot water. We woke back up 3.5 hours later, took hot showers, which unbeknownst to us would be the last time we felt hot water at that hotel. We went downstairs and met Nesta for breakfast, which was made and served by the hotel owner/manager. It was very good, which was the only part of this hotel that was...

It was during the day that I first noticed my face itching, and looked at Chris. The right side of his face had approximately a dozen mosquito bites on it! I had much fewer, but whoa. We saw later in our room there was an infestation of mosquitoes! Gross. And just what we need.

We planned to go to bed earlier that night, thanks to our bathrobes that would keep us warm. After Nesta left, we stayed up a bit talking, and were about ready to turn in when there was a knock at the door.

Nesta called to Chris that he needed to open the door and have is ikamet (his residency permit) card with him, because THE JANDARMA IS THERE!!!! The Jandarma is a cross between the police and the military, usually armed with automatic weapons, and looking scary. I about peed my pants. We opened the door, and sure enough, there they are, all 4 of them, the hotel owner, and Nesta in her PJs. It's 10:45PM.

Chris hands them his paperwork, and since I don't have one, and I didn't bring my passport since we're traveling inside Turkey, I give them my driver's license. (Lame, I know, but how was I to know that the police would be knocking at my door?!) After looking at both carefully, they gave them back and proceeded to search every room in the hotel, looking on the balconies and inside the closets. It was probably 20 minutes later, just as I was calming down, that they knocked again, and asked to see our paperwork again. This time they took it with them downstairs. After 30-45 minutes, they brought it back up again, and left for the night. And how am I supposed to sleep then?! And a hot shower couldn't help because once again, there was no hot water.

Nesta knocked on our door the next morning asking if they had dropped her ikamet off at our room, because they hadn't returned it to her. Lovely. The hotel owner knew nothing either. They were just getting ready to drive around to all the Jandarma outposts (there are several) to ask for it when Chris, being the brilliant man that he is, decides to look at the reception desk. Whew, there it was! As we were checking out that morning, the Jandarma was back again, this time with a whole vanfull and the police. We still don't know what was going on. I am just happy to be out of there!

Moral of the story: If you go to Pammukale, skip the Yildizhan Otel.

Ah, the Life of a Tourist

2009-11-25T10:09:00.000+02:00

So last weekend we took our trip to Pammukale. Because it was a long trip (3 days) and because I have so much to say, I'm splitting the blog into 2 parts: the good stuff and the usual omg-how-has-this-happened-to-us stuff (yup, one trip without it was all we got!). This one will focus on what an awesome time we had. I'll save the ranting for the next post :)

Have I mentioned that our landlady, Nesta, is one of the coolest people I know? If so, let me state it again. She agreed to drive Chris and I to Pammukale, which is about 3-3.5 hours away, but also suggested that we stop at a few places along the way. The first one was Aphrodisias, and all I can say is O.M.G. We had over 3 hours to spend there, and it STILL wasn't enough! And personally, I liked it even better than Ephesus. Less tourists, prettier surroundings, and just a lot more on-site to see. It was also more spread out, whereas Ephesus is one main road. And yes, I am comparing it to Ephesus, even though it's not nearly as well-known (half the Turks I talk to said, "Where?"). As usual, Chris will post pictures when he's good and ready, and there's even video with yours truly narrating! The coolest part was by far the stadium though, which seats 30,000 people and is amazing condition. Whereas many stadiums there will be missing seats, or parts that are ruined, this was basically intact except for the entrances at the top. Originally used for Greek sporting events, one end was converted for Roman blood sports later on. There were even several small openings that I like to think were where the wild animals were released from. Carved into the seats were various graffiti symbols, which denoted whose seat it was, whether belonging to a guild or a family, or people from nearby cities. One thing we're still unsure of is the holes bored through some of the seats. Maybe flagposts or something? Your guess is as good as ours.

A close second to being coolest was a whole wall of faces we happened to see on our way out. After years of excavations, they had all these carvings of marble faces in relief, and they put them all together to form a long wall. I took pictures and video, that will show you what I mean. They were incredible though, all very different, different expressions, features, and in such good condition that some of them really appeared like they were alive and looking at you! (A little creepy, that.)

The theatre was also really cool, in similar condition as the stadium. The stage was even still there! That is rare, usually it's just the seats. There were several other awesome sites as well, including the massive gate that was the entrance to the temple of Aphrodite. The gates are gorgeous, and perched on a grassy knoll with a stunning background. Perfect picture place! The temple was cool but not in particularly good condition. Lots of stones and carvings still laying around. When Christianity came to the city it was turned from a temple into a basilica, and a lot of what we saw there was from that time; crosses and other Christian symbols.

Anyways, enough about Aphrodisias, otherwise this will be a hugely long blog. So next we drove into Pammukale and planned to see that the next day. (We had a FANTASTIC meal that night, a mixed grill that included lamb, steak, chicken, and köfte, along with rice pilaf. We also had mezes of sarma (stuffed grape leaves), the best we've ever had, and eggplant salsa, ALSO some of the best I've ever had. It was one of those really great meals at the end of the day when you're starving!)

Pammukale translates to "cotton castle" and as is obvious from the name, cotton is a big deal here. Before we tackled the hills of Pammukale, we went shopping! We bought bathrobes ($15!!), towels ($6.50 for those huge bath sheets, $3.50 for hand towels), and looked at sheets but couldn't remember how big our bed was in centimeters. After that, we snogged down some gözleme and got ready to climb!

As you'll see from the pictures, Pammukale is famous for it's white hills. In ancient times it was called the frozen city, not because of the weather but because the hills look snow-covered. Interestingly, it's quite the opposite of frozen: it's the site of thermal springs that were thought to be healing in antiquity, and the community developed around the hot springs, similar to Bath in England. So once you climb to the top of the hill, over the white stuff (I think it's something like calcium being leached from the limestone by the thermal waters, but this is where it gets science-y, and I suck at science) there are ruins at the top. So we started climbing and very soon were told to take off our shoes, since for the rest of the way up they could hurt the environment. Now was the time I REALLY wished I had gone for that pedicure before we left... But a very cool climb, and even now I still can't believe how much like snow it looked, but yet how warm I was. (Think sunny day, white reflects heat, oh yeah, it didn't feel like November!)

At the top, we were amazed by the size of the ruins. We had thought there would just be a few here and there. No, this was a very large and well-developed community! Well, we didn't really have time to look at everything if we were going to be back down before dark (it gets darker earlier because the sun goes behind the mountains sooner) so we basically picked 2 things we wanted to see: the ancient pools and the necropolis.

The ancient pools were actually in a temple (of whom I can't remember right now) and the thermal waters are actually open to the public to swim in. There are parts of the ruins at the bottom of the pool, which you can see because of the crystal clear water. So basically you get to swim where ancient people swam, and with pillars and such at your feet. Cool, huh? Yes, except that it was completely surrounded by a food court, lounge chairs, and people. It ended up looking more like a unique hotel swimming pool than anything else. Major disappointment there.

The necropolis was better. Pammukale is also known for it's necropolis, which is where people were buried in the hillside, and there are these cool little entrances to their tombs. We saw some as we were walking, but they were far off the path, and we weren't sure if we were allowed to stray from said path. Then as we got closer via the path, Chris made the executive decision that we were going to go for it. Good call, Christopher! Because we saw some awesome stuff! And there were no other tourists around to bug us! Amazing concept. We also saw the Northern necropolis later, which is along the pathway, and it wasn't nearly as cool. I mean, it was cool in that we got to see a lot more variety of tombs, and a lot more in number of each variety, but they were all crammed together and again, the tourist issue. (Why is it that while we all are tourists when visiting other places, we hate other tourists getting in our way? Same for cruise ships, we love to be passengers, but hate all the other ones...)

At this point, it was getting time to leave. I was exhausted (you'll read more about why in the ranting post) and my feet were hurting, and the thought of taking the 20-30 minute walk back and THEN going down the hill was more than I could bear. We called Nesta, who came to our rescue in the car. Bless her. We bought her dinner that night. (Dinner that night was similar to the previous night, but added in another eggplant dish, this one with grilled, smokey-flavored eggplant mashed with garlic, onion, and lemon juice. again, omg. Chris had the same mixed grill, Nesta had steak and freshly-made fries (YUM! I think I snitched as many as she got to eat), and I had köfte and rice again.)

Sunday we woke up, exhausted again (again, see ranting post for details) and headed for a quick view of Laodicea (one of the 7 churches mentioned in Revelations, for those of you who are interested). Although Nesta had been there 2 years ago, and said there wasn't much to see, which is actually part of its appeal, the fact that it's not all reconstructed, a lot had been done in those two years. A lot. Other than the fact that it was gorgeous, I really don't have much of a sense of it, mostly because I was dead on my feet. Maybe Chris can fill in some gaps, since he looked around more carefully than I did.

We drove back that day, and I slept for half the trip. A very fun and full weekend! I'll have to do the rant post tonight or tomorrow, since I just got an SOS call from my friend, who needs some lunch and sympathy. Hope you all are having a great time preparing for Thanksgiving! Mom, I miss the pumpkin cheesecake already!

Şirince

2009-11-18T21:02:00.000+02:00

Some actual recent pictures! These are from this past weekend's trip to Şirince, which Barb has already described using the 1000 words approach. But here are my 15000 words worth of pictures. Actually, Barb took most of the pictures (using her camera phone, since we forgot the actual camera, brilliantly). But I'm still taking credit for them, so she needs to write another 14000 words to catch up.

Şirince

Sibel and Yağmur

2009-11-18T20:47:00.000+02:00

Here are some pictures of Sibel and her daughter Yağmur, who are our Turkish neighbors who speak almost no English. That hasn't stopped us from having some fun times with them, though. Sibel's son and husband weren't around when we took these pictures, or we'd have some of them, too. These pictures are kind of old (late September).

And although many Türks are fanatically devoted to Atatürk, footage of him isn't permanently on the television, Big Brother-style. It's just a coincidence that there was a commercial showing him when I snapped the fourth picture. Really.

Sibel and Yağmur

Ephesus

2009-11-18T20:45:00.000+02:00

Here are some ancient (pun intended) pictures of Ephesus (Turkish: Efes). Yes, that is the Ephesus that we visited back in roasting-hot August. Somehow our pictures from that trip never made it up here.

Efes

Pictures from US Trip

2009-11-18T20:38:00.000+02:00

Taking advantage of our NEW HOME INTERNET ACCESS, I am going to post a backlog of pictures.

Here are some pictures from the day I spent wandering around downtown Chicago while I was waiting for my work visa from the Turkish consulate:

Chicago

And here are some pictures of my family and Barb's family from when I was in GR:

Family

The Greatest Day in the History of the Internet

2009-11-18T20:32:00.000+02:00

So, guess where I am right now.

I am sitting on the couch in our apartment. Why is this worthy of a blog post, you ask? Because, as you may have noticed, I am also using the internet. Yes, the long-awaited day has arrived: we now have internet access in our apartment!

So, now I will have to find a different excuse for why I post to the blog so infrequently.

Yay for şarap!!

2009-11-18T15:14:00.000+02:00

So this weekend something amazing happened. Chris and I actually left AND returned to Izmir WITHOUT ANYTHING GOING WRONG. whoa. Let me say that again. Nothing went wrong! So those of you who thought you'd read about our latest disastrous trip, sorry, you're SOL. Not only did everything go right, I got wine out of the deal too!

So we kept seeing the name Şirince on wine bottles and hearing the name from Turks who said it was an amazing little wine village. Well, you had me at the word "wine" so we've been trying to arrange to go there for, oh, two months or so. We always wanted to go with people, but it never seemed to work out. So I finally had enough waiting, and laid down the law, which stated we were going this weekend, come hell or high water. (Plus we were down on our wine stockpile.) After quizzing 3 different people about the possible ways to get there (we've learned our lesson- NEVER trust anyone's directions, ALWAYS double-check, and ALWAYS ask multiple people), we decided to take a dolmuş (a mini-bus basically, and super cheap!) from Uçyol (near our apartment) to Gaziemir, and from there another dolmuş to Selçuk, and then a third one to Şirince. Since Chris walked up to Uçyol the night before and checked, we knew we could at least get the first dolmuş. So we did, and wow, it went flawlessly! Lots of waiting (the total trip was 2.5 hours) but we didn't mind, since we didn't have much else planned for the day.

Can I just say that Şirince is beautiful?! Of course, I forgot our camera in my anxiety and misgivings about just what would go wrong this trip ( I don't think I believed that we'd actually get there). So sorry, I only have pictures on my phone, and Chris will have to figure out how to get them onto the computer and then onto the blog, and I'm really not even sure if they're big enough to do that with. Anyways, yes, it's gorgeous. Up in the mountains, with white houses and wooden shutters, stone streets zigzagging throughout the village, and a very intimate feel. Of course, there were a billion tourists, which (going on a tangent for a second), I really felt annoyed by and disgruntled towards. But then again, how can I be disgruntled since (a) I am a tourist as well, (b) I couldn't have gotten there if there weren't tourists and a demand for dolmuş routes there, and (c) it has made it so many villagers speak English, which was nice to hear. But I'm sure you all know how yicky and disappointing it is when you expect to have some space to breathe and end up jostling with tourists and looking at hideous trinkets for sale everywhere. But I digress, sorry

So yes, it was gorgeous, and we tasted and bought bunches of fruit wines, as well as some merlot. We even got some homemade merlot, so this should be interesting :) We were only in the village for a few hours, but we enjoyed our time there, especially the church that has been excavated and restored. Then, later, we found another one, although this one was earlier in the process of restoration, so it was pretty rough. Who knew there'd be room in this tiny village for not just one but TWO churches in antiquity? Cool stuff.

Well, enough for now. This weekend is Pammukale, which I'm sure I'll have more to write about (3 day trip vs 1 afternoon) and some pictures.

Archaeology Museum Pictures

2009-11-05T16:09:00.001+02:00

As promised, I am posting the pictures from the Archaeology Museum. I must give credit to Barb for helping out this time. I took most of the pictures and set up the album in Picasa, but she added the captions and did the actual uploading, since she had our laptop at the office, where they have internet, unlike at our apartment, where we still don't. (We're making progress on that front though! Going to get residence permits tomorrow so that we have proof of address, which we can use to get internet service. Woo hoo!)

Archeology Museum

YAY! We DID something over the weekend!

2009-11-04T16:09:00.000+02:00

FINALLY, I have something to write about! So, since Chris and I no longer work weekends (have I mentioned how truly wonderful and free I feel since getting back to a 5-day workweek?) we decided to do something this past weekend. There is an archeology museum in Konak, just a short bus ride from our place, and since I pass it every day on the bus, we decided to go there. As is the usual MO, Chris will post pictures at some point in the future. (I'm not promising it will be the near future, but he will post them!) Let me describe some of what we saw. Since there are no pictures, I will use the thousand words instead :D

Part of the museum's collection is actually outside, which I thought unusual but pretty neat. They have a whole garden area with stuff placed in them like a Roman sarcophagus from the 2nd century AD, a HUGE amphora, and (my favorite) a statue of a barbarian!!!! (You all know I LOVED the barbarians in my history classes!) They also had another section that was less garden and more just stuff displayed. These included a row of statues, pillars, relief carvings, and more sarcophagi (wow, I had to look that up, what a weird-sounding word!), which were really neat. We also met a cat who decided she loved us. I've never had a cat who almost knocked me over because she pushed so hard against my legs as she was weaving in and out of them. Eventually, however, the cold got to us (ok, me) and we headed for the entrance.

We didn't make it inside before we made more feline friends. And a dog. Seriously, this place was FULL of really sweet animals, all of who looked well-taken care of, which is unusual here. Chris managed to drag my increasingly-freezing body away, and we explored inside. It was pretty sweet inside, smaller and more delicate items than outside. There were 2 floors, one of which was ceramics (zzzzzzzzzzz: I can only look at so many pots, then I stop caring), the other which was more statues, smaller accessories, and more delicate carvings. There was also a mosaic that they're working on, although we couldn't get close to it and it was covered.

What was probably the coolest thing though was that all of this stuff was SO OLD, when we saw stuff from the 19th century, which would have been amazing in the U.S., we didn't even bother to look; it wasn't old enough. Some of the ceramics were even 2nd millenium BC, which kind of blows my mind. So much of this stuff was worn, but still perfectly recognizable as to what it was. At the risk of sounding hallmarky, it was quite moving. To think that someone who lived thousands of years ago actually touched this, carved this, and although they're long ago dead, I can see their work, appreciate the beauty. Makes one think about the big picture, and how we fit so small into it. So what do we have to show for ourselves that people will look at later on? OK, enough of that. Sorry, I go off on these little random wonderings.

We were thinking about leaving when a crowd of school kids poured in, which quickly made our decision for us. Back out into the cold we went. The two cats we'd met when we came in returned, and one of them almost came home with us. She was pregnant though, and although Chris is more seriously considering giving in to my pleas for a kitty, he also knew getting a pregnant one wouldn't be the best idea. So we're waiting 2 months, and then going back, and this time she WILL come home with us!

So that was our excursion this weekend. It was a good thing we picked Saturday to do it, since Sunday it rained. November is their rainiest month, and it's been proving it so far. Cold and rainy, although it's been a bit warmer today. We're hoping it'll hold off for this weekend long enough to go to Şirince for wine tasting and exploring.

Anyways, sorry to cut this short, but I have a student coming in 15 minutes, and I should probably consider getting ready for them. Start bugging Chris to post pictures, they're much cooler than my talking about them. :)

YAY for Christmas!

2009-10-30T16:16:00.000+02:00

Yeah, yeah, I know that for the rest of you it doesn't come until December, but haha, I got it early! Wednesday, actually. For those of you who don't know, Chris was back in the U.S. for a week to get his work permit. He got that, and then went to visit our families and do a wee bit of shopping for his wife. ;) Two of our biggest suitcases later, he flew back into Turkey! Now, of course, seeing him was the best present, but let me tell you, it was Christmas for Barbie in the Hatay apartment on Wednesday! I got new clothes, health and beauty items, and even some pancake mix! YES! So for everyone who helped Chris out (you know who you are) and especially Becky, thanks. You totally made another 9 months here livable.

Things have been going a little too well here, I'm warily waiting for something to happen. I actually managed to convince my boss that we really did need another teacher, and we actually got 2! Or, more accurately, I got two, since I got to do the interviewing. THAT was a new experience, especially since both candidates were in their 50s, and I'm less than half their age. Can we say weird? So apparently I'm the de facto office manager now too. Traci, I need to know how much office managers make so I can ask for a raise :) So the end result is, neither Chris nor I have to work on Saturdays, freeing up our weekends to travel. Now we just need Chris back on Izmir time, and we'll be set to venture out!

It was a national holiday yesterday, with fireworks and everything. Although the view wasn't quite as good in GR, we got another straight-shot view of the fireworks from our apartment. They were really awesome, we enjoyed seeing them, although it was weird to be celebrating Independence Day on the 29th of October! Definitely made us think of the July 4th that we missed this year. :(

Well, believe it or not, this is about all I have to write about right now. You can tell we've been having an easy time of it when I don't have a huge blog post about something that has gone terribly wrong and can entertain you all. I'll try harder next time :)

Pictures from our apartment

2009-10-03T14:16:00.000+03:00

OK, I know I haven't posted any pictures for a very long time. I won't bore you with my list of excuses. But here are a few pictures I've taken from our apartment that give you an idea of what our view looks like.

View from Hatay

Settling In- Kind of

2009-10-02T16:11:00.000+03:00

Well, I don't have any exciting stories (read: miserable experience that turns into a jolly fun tale) this time. For which I am not particularly heartbroken. We needed a break from those stories. Normally I would think it would make this a shorter post, but I know from previous experience (and you do too) that just because I have nothing to say doesn't stop me from talking.

So we have settled into a schedule of sorts. Chris has started at IEU, and works from 8:30-4:30. Because the bus takes a while from our place to Balçova, he has to leave pretty early. I was scheduled to work evenings 5 days a week and then Sat AM, so Chris is also working Sat AM with me. 10-2, so not bad. However, we had some schedule changes, and now I'm working afternoons instead of evenings (awesome, I'll actually SEE my husband!) and no weekends. So now poor Chris is stuck working weekends, which he only agreed to because I had to. Ooops. We'll get him out of it somehow. So my schedule is basically 1-6:30, except for 1 late night. Not bad at all, I get to sleep in, which makes me much happier than getting up early. Less money being spent on an IV drip from Starbucks as well. So while we're settling into our new schedules, things do continually change and present new challenges.

One thing that teaching academic vocabulary to students is that my own vocabulary is becoming inundated with words I haven't used since writing papers in college! The same thing had started to happen to Chris (and when you consider what his vocabulary already was, it's a frightening prospect indeed!) but now he's teaching beginners (they know NO English coming in), which means that soon he will start pointing to his ears when he wants me to listen to him, and enunciating his words carefully, using very simple language. We're going to be quite the pair.

The weather continues to cool off, although not nearly like the kind of weather in Michigan. By cooling off, I mean it's finally comfortable to go for a walk in the afternoon, and breezy enough in the evenings to warrant a light sweater. (Darn, something else I HAVE to go shopping for. Breaks my heart, I tell you.)

I do have some very fun news though. Because he needs to have a work permit, Chris will be flying home sometime within the next month to get his paperwork. YAY! I won't be coming with him though, because as I told him, if I fly to Michigan, I'm not flying back here. Ever. So he will be coming alone, but with an empty suitcase that will be filled with goodies before he comes back. Things makeup, my two dozen pairs of winter shoes i left behind, the soft bedsheets, you know, the necessities of life. :D I'll give you all more details when I know them, but although he won't have many days in GR, some of you may get to see him. Take him out to eat good food, ok? And if anyone has a request for something from Turkey, get them in soon, and maybe his suitcase won't be so empty :)

Anyways, my next student will be here in 10 minutes and I suppose I should at least give the impression that I'm prepared. Miss you all!

For Richer or Poorer, 'til Customs Officials Do Us Separate

2009-09-18T17:39:00.000+03:00

Uh huh, I think you all can guess by that title how things went for our trip to Chios, Greece, to renew our visas to Turkey. It has taken almost a week for the bitterness to dissipate enough for me to blog about this little "adventure." Let me tell you the whole saga.

Chris and I planned to go to Chios, which is just off the coast of Turkey, on Saturday. We had planned to go with friends, but because of weather (it was supposed to rain), the friends decided they were going to postpone their trip. We, of course, HAD to go. So we woke up early to rain, and got ready. We went down, took a city bus to the bus station where we were planning to get a bus to Çeşme, then take the ferry to Chios. We weren't sure if the ferry left at 10 or 10:30, so we planned to get there by 9:30 to make the ferry if it left at 10:00. We got off the city bus at the bus station, and went to the bus headed to Çeşme and got on. An employee got on after us and asked us for our tickets. Well, we'd never needed any tickets for the 10 other times we went to Çeşme, so we didn't have any. He pointed out the ticket booth and told us we needed them. As we were talking with the guy in the ticket booth, the bus, full now, drove off. The man told us the next bus would leave in 20 min. Oh, and we DIDN'T need tickets for that one. At this point, we had left early enough that we still had enough time that we could wait.

The next bus pulled up and we got on. It was a smaller bus than usual (usually it's the nice motor coaches, this was a short bus and I will personally slap anyone who makes comments! :D ) but we figured if it went to Çeşme, it was fine. We got on, and it left on time for the hour trip to Çeşme. Except that part of the way there, it took the scenic detour. We went through a little village, randomly picked up some people, and continued to take the country roads (although calling them roads is being rather kind) until we got to Çeşme. And did I mention our driver was like the slowest driver EVER?! So, and HOUR AND FORTY MINUTES later, we finally get to Çeşme. Now it is well after 10, so we're hoping the ferry leaves at 10:30, and even then we'll have to hurry. We walk/run the quarter mile to the port, where we are told that the ferry left at 10 and there is not enough one until 6, which doesn't come back until the next morning. Well, we have no clothes, nothing for staying overnight, so we decide to take the Tuesday ferry. So now we just need to turn around and go back to Izmir.

We realized about then that we had no idea where the bus depot was. Our bus had just dropped us off at an intersection, not a bus stop. So bless Chris for knowing a bit of Turkish, we stopped a man on the sidewalk and asked. He was a sweetheart, he walked us the whole mile and a half to the nearest bus station, THEN bought us tea and talked with us while we waited. That was the good part of the day. We caught the bus back to Izmir, and decided to just take a taxi home and forego the city buses. We grabbed a cab, went home, and decided to go to sleep and pretend this day hadn't happened. Ah, if only it was that easy.

The next day (Sunday) we needed some food for breakfast, so Chris offered to go and get some. Five minutes later he came into the bedroom and said, "Barb, have you seen my wallet?" Oh yes, you guessed it, the wallet was lost, along with 400TL (about $300), his bank card, and drivers' license. And because it was Sunday, we could only call the 1-800 number, where we were told they had no record of his card, so we would have to call LMCU on Monday. Fabulous.

Monday we called and canceled the card, and no charges had been made so far. Whew!

Tuesday we got up an hour earlier than Saturday-we were NOT missing this ferry! Once again, we got on the city bus, then the Çeşme bus, and then to the port. Ah HAH, the ferry was still there! Now we just have to get through customs! We waited in line for about 20 min before it was our turn. The boat will leave in 10 min. The official takes one look at our passports, and starts fiddling with his computer, after which he tells us that we are one day over and will have to pay a fine. 163TL per person per day. So 326 TL total, due NOW, in CASH, and of course there's not an ATM. Well, we don't have that much money. So they get annoyed, and find a ferry employee, who will take us to an ATM back in town where we can get the cash out. Chris has to stay with the customs people while I go get the cash. This man, bless him, drives like mad, honking his horn to get us through, until we screech up to an ATM, I get out money, and then we FLY back. We now have about, oh, 2 minutes until 10:00. The customs official insists on writing out 2 separate receipts, and you'd think it was a penmanship quiz with as carefully (read here: SLOWLY) he wrote out these receipts. We RAN to the ferry, hopped on, and then spent the first 15 min trying to calm down. This trip, between the cost of the ferry (INSANE!!!), the lost wallet, the trips back and forth from Çeşme to Izmir, the taxi, and now the fine, we had lost a whole month's rent for our apartment. Ouch. At least we weren't deported.

Our time in Chios actually wasn't that bad. We had a pizza with bacon and ham on it, did some wandering around, and, after checking with the tourism center, we purchased 4.5 lbs of bacon and 3 lbs of cheese to bring back. We had no trouble getting on the return ferry, and were actually in pretty good moods. This quickly changed when we began a conversation with some other people who had gone to renew their visas, who told us that bacon was forbidden in Turkey and we couldn't bring it in with us. We would have it confiscated and possibly even have to pay a fine. You've got to be kidding me. Well, I WASN'T giving up my bacon, so we decided we were going to smuggle it. In my purse. All 4.5 lbs of it. With umbrellas on top to hide it. And people wonder why I carry such a big purse? Here's why :D

Well, we got past the customs without any untoward looks, and had bacon and eggs when we got home.

And GOOD NEWS! Wednesday, as Chris and I were leaving our apartment to have tea with our friends down the street, we were stopped outside our apartment building by a man who started talking about a taxi. We were like, "No, thank you, we don't need a taxi." Then he pulled out Chris' wallet!!!!! Turns out he had been sick the previous weekend and someone else drove his taxi. When he came back to work he found Chris' wallet, tracked down the driver to get our address, and was coming to return it, money intact!!! Amazing even more because 400TL is a LOT for a taxi driver, and all he had to do was pocket it and pitch the wallet and no one would have been the wiser. So yes, we have Chris' wallet, our money, and our faith in people's goodness restored. Turkey IS the land of extremes.

Crap, Why Did I Get Myself Into This

2009-09-07T12:09:00.000+03:00

No, no, not moving to Turkey (although there are many days when that IS my thought...). This time I have invited some new friends over for dinner on Thursday night. Sounds like fun, right? Sure, except that now I have to cook. Those poor, poor people. I think we will be crossed off their friend list after Thursday.

Even if you don't know me well, you know I don't cook. At least not well. This is due mainly to 2 reasons: 1) It takes too long. I have many other things I'd rather do than come home and then spend an hour in the kitchen preparing, cooking, and then cleaning up with Christopher. All for 15 min of eating? I think not. and 2) and I get distracted part-way through, go and check my email, oh, I should put in a load of laundry, and is that the phone and then oops, I smell something burning... This is not my only problem here in Turkey, however.

I can cook a decent American meal when I have to. I don't know how to cook Turkish food yet. And I can't find the ingredients for an American meal. So I'm left with the dilemma of what on earth am I going to cook for our guests?! I have to work late that night, b/c AFTER I invited them, a student re-scheduled. I guess I have 3 days to get it figured out. And I welcome suggestions, but keep in mind, it has to be a big meal, b/c I'm serving them their first meal in over 12 hours (remember, it's Ramazan here, they haven't eaten all day). AND, Chris and I were invited over to their house on Saturday night, and it was a 4 course affair. Delicious and all homemade, of course. (We started out with soup and salad, then had a delicious eggplant and meat dish with yogurt, which is ALWAYS present, then pasta, then fruit for dessert, THEN tea and cake later. whew!)

So these friends are a blast, btw. We met them when I saw the woman and her little girl on my way down the hill to catch the bus. (In a side note, have I told you all that to catch our bus, we have to walk down the hill, and by the hill I mean about 3 city blocks of steep, sloping steps? Insanity... And coming back UP the hill? We're going to be in EXCELLENT shape if we keep this up!) Anyways, so being me, I stop to admire the baby and although the mother speaks no English, and I speak no Turkish, we manage to communicate a bit just fine. Well, then we began seeing them everyday that we come down to catch the bus, and began talking, using a LOT of miming and hand gestured, and that lovely Turkish-English dictionary! The mother's name is Sibel, the baby's name is Yamur, and there is also an 18 yr old son named Doan. We met the father on Sat night a little after 10PM, his name is Mesut. He works 12 hours 7 days a week at a tea (chai) restaurant. (Remind me of that whenever I whine about 5 days a week for 8 hours...) You would be amazed at how much we can talk about and find out about each other with the limited language that we know. And surprisingly, although it is frustrating every once in a while, Sibel is such a good sport about it that we actually have fun. Yamur is in LOVE with Chris. I get ignored, she just goes right over to him, grabs his pinky, and hauls him wherever she wants him to go with her. She's 15 months old, and has quite a mind of her own. We both pretty much adore her.

So I got the bright idea to invite them to our place on Thursday night to return the favor of the meal and also just to spend an evening with them. Really wish there was takeout food I could pretend was mine :) Ah well, I'll just wing it somehow.

Anyways, it's almost lunch time, and Chris should be here any minute. He is attending orientations every couple days at Izmir University of Economics, and getting ready to start there in a few weeks. Hope you all are well, and sorry this post was a little random and discombobulated, but you'll live. Love you and miss you all!

Our Best Weekend Yet!

2009-08-24T14:09:00.001+03:00

Well, close anyways :) The other weekends are kind of in a blur, everything has been happening so fast for so long! I was writing an email to my parents, and realized that what I was telling them would actually made a decent blog post, and unlike my usual self, it'd be SHORT!

Things are going well here, I got a call this morning and I have another student, so that will be a little more money for 2 weeks anyways. Apparently he has taken the TOEFL (English as a Foreign Language, they need to take it to go to school abroad to prove they know English) and will get his score in a few weeks, but just in case he didn't pass, his mother wants him to take some lessons with me. Uh, ok. Seems like a bit of a waste of money when he may already have passed, but hey, it's their money. So this makes it so I have a total of 6 students now. Lesson planning is getting a little hectic :) Socially we're settling in though and things are getting hectic in a good way!

Friday night we got together with some of our CELTA friends, just to hang out near the sea and relax, have drinks and chat. They all brought some of their friends as well, so we met some awesome new people as well.A very late night, but it was so good to see these people again! and to feel social :)

Saturday we hung out with Pinar, who was in our CELTA course. She took us to Metro, which is similar to Sam's Club. I bought some artwork for the apt, some school supplies that we needed, and a couple other things. A way fun store but no way of getting there by bus, so we'll have to go whenever she goes. It was nice to be able to get some things that we otherwise can't find in the traditional Turkish supermarkets, and also just to hang out with her. we have plans to meet up again on Friday, although that may need to be bumped back a little now that I have that new student.

Yesterday Chris and I went out to the village our landlady lives in. Not a pretty village, but it was very much a picture of an authentic village. We absolutely loved it. She took us to another village along the water, where we had gözleme ('guz-luh-may), which is similar to a quesadilla only WAY WAY better. The lady who had the stall was so funny, she was an older lady, VERY spunky, and so funny! She even made us fresh sarma, which are the stuffed grape leaves. I tried Ayran again, which is that salty yogurt drink that I found totally disgusting last time. Apparently it's an acquired taste, and Nesta (our landlady) told me that it went great with gözleme, so I tried it again. Yup, still gross. But I am quite determined that I will learn to like it, pretty much every Turk does. One of my students was actually really upset that I didn't like it, so yes, I will learn. Anyways, after that we drove to find Teos, which is an ancient Greek town, in ruins of course, but you're free to wander around w/o paying a fee or anything. It's just kind of sitting there, waiting to be excavated. We found it and we'll explore at a later time when it's cooler. Then we went to the beach, which was a blast! Very relaxing and the water felt just like Lake Michigan, chilly but awesome on a hot day! That evening Nesta took us back to her house and made us baked chicken legs, potato salad, corn-on-the-cob, bread and butter, and bean salad. Quite an American-type meal. It was very interesting, their corn here isn't sweet corn. It's actually much more similar to the field corn that my parents grow. So yeah, a little chewier and different tasting that I have been used to in the past. But it was all good. So yeah, all in all, a great weekend! I expect our next few weekends will be good too, we are actually booked up for the next 3 weekends!

Ok, despite my temptation to write more on here, I promised a shorter post this time. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Oh yeah, before I forget: I've only heard the drummer once b/c I was awake for a bit. Apparently I sleep through it, since Chris ASSURES me that the man comes down our street every morning at 3:15 AM. I can't say that it breaks my heart that I don't hear him...

Learning to Let Go

2009-08-21T14:44:00.000+03:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm letting go of sanity. But mostly, Turkey is teaching me to let go of my ideas of schedules, etiquette, orderliness, and logic. Which may be a good thing, since I am entirely too neurotic by half. By the way, I have a feeling this is going to be a rather rambling post. For those of you who are bothered by my habit of jumping from topic to topic without warning, this post will either drive you batty or teach YOU to let go. :)

For anyone who knows me even slightly, you know that for me, rude people absolutely grate on my nerves, and will make me angrier faster than about anything else. It is unsettling to be in a country where I don't know the rules of etiquette, and may very well be a rude person myself! And trust me, I can't just do as I would in the US and hope that these things are universal. Um, no. Not unless I want to be completely obvious in my foreigner status. (Actually, funny thing, I've been told many times that I look Turkish and whenever someone needs directions or has a question, guess who they ask? Oh yeah, that would be me, the one who knows basically NO Turkish. Awkward.) So anyways, it's little things like you don't talk to some strangers, but you can to others. Like, NO ONE talks at a bus stop for example. (It's a good thing that's not a rule in the US, Chris and I never would have met!) People either listen to music, talk on their cell phones, or stare into space, but the stops are pretty silent places. Staring is not considered rude, or at least I don't think so, because I get stared at a lot, and so does Chris. And people are completely unfazed when you meet their eyes and catch them staring. They just keep right on! Pretty much no one says anything to bus drivers, taxi drivers, delivery people, or other shoppers in stores. However, it's perfectly normal to exchange pleasantries with shop keepers. I'm not sure I've heard a "please" (lutfen) since I've gotten here. People can come across as abrupt, but when EVERYONE is that way, it's me who has to do the adjusting. Which I am, I can play snob (by US standards) very well. :D

Mostly what I'm finding difficult about manners are the little things. For example, if someone invites me in for tea, are they doing it just to be polite, or would it be considered rude to turn them down? How long do you stay? Turks aren't quick people when it comes to eating and drinking, but really, other than "Thank you" and "Very nice", what am I going to say to a Turk who doesn't speak English? I HAVE learned to always take off my shoes before entering someone's house, but that apply to offices as well? If not, is it rude to take off your shoes in an office? Should I apologize (in my pitiful Turkish) for not speaking Turkish? Is it something to be sorry about? What is ok and what isn't? Honestly, I could go on and on, but I can see this is getting a bit redundant.

I know I've complained about things not working, or not working well, before. I am gradually learning to never take things working for granted, and always have a plan B. Because this is just how things are in Turkey. If something doesn't work, people are completely unfazed, shrug it off, and continue on. Whereas in the US, there would be irate customers, managers falling all over themselves to give away free things to make up for the non-working this, here it's so expected that no one throws tantrums, no one gets bent out of shape, and no one even tries very hard to fix the problem. Again, not only my desire for orderliness but also working in customer service jobs way too long interferes with my ability to walk away as easily as the Turks do. Although I can manage to not throw a tantrum right then and there, poor Chris DOES get to hear all about it when we get home! I think that one is going to take awhile. I think I'm making progress though, simply because there have been a couple times when I could just shrug things off. That needs to happen a little more frequently.

As far as things being illogical here, it can be summed up quite neatly (and short too!): a friend (a Turk who has lived in America) told me, "If it's logical, then you won't find it in Turkey." Yup, makes sense to me now.

The sense of competition between businesses is something that still fascinates me. Mostly because there really isn't any. Hard to believe, but picture this example: Chris and I need to find a stationary store to get things like binder clips, 2-ring binders (ah, ANOTHER tirade I could go into but will refrain), notebooks, day planners, etc. Our landlady told us we will need to go to Konak, to a certain section of town, because that is the section with all of the stationary stores. Each type of business has a certain section of town, and all of them are next door to each other. If one doesn't have it, they'll simply send you next door for it. No competition about better locations, LOGICAL locations (um, by universities, anyone?) carrying different products, etc. Nope, they even help each other out with breaking big bills. Amazing. And it's all of the types of businesses, not just stationary. I walked through the electronics section the other day, and there are furniture sections as well. Very interesting. But in a way, very nice too. Not so blood-thirsty, dog-eat-dog type of business dealings. (I'm sure there are exceptions, this is just generally what I've observed)

Noise ordinances? Non-existent here. Contruction next door + no noise ordinance = no sleep until after midnight for me = cranky and whiny the next day. Again, I'm going to have to get used to this and see it as a positive thing: we can have wild loud parties and no one can do anything about it. :)

LOL, actually, speaking of noise ordinances and lack of sleep, you all will love this. Ramadan started last night. For those of you who don't know Islam very well (which included me until I got here), Ramadan is a month during which Muslims eat before sunrise, and then fast until sundown, when they then have huge and wonderful meals. Fasting includes food, drinks, and cigarettes. So, it started last night. Apparently there is a drummer who walks up and down the streets at about 4AM to wake people up so they can eat their breakfast before the sunrise. This will be every morning for a full month. I don't know HOW Chris and I slept through it this morning, but I have little hope of that being the case every morning. I just hope people aren't as cranky as I would be if it were 90 degrees and I couldn't have water or food. I'll keep you updated on that front.

I see that is is turning into a really long rambling post. Sorry for all of you who didn't have much time and got stuck reading it. Anyways, Chris and I both miss you all, and hope to hear from you soon.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

2009-08-10T21:02:00.001+03:00

Easier said than done, especially when it's 95+ degrees every day. :) sorry, poor joke, but i couldn't resist. as you can probably tell, i'm in a much happier mood than last time i blogged. mostly because we got our water back! showers and flushing toilets are a beautiful thing, that's all i'm going to say. i'm just crossing my fingers that the power isn't next, i can't live without AC right now! (Although that WOULD be a perfect excuse of why we just have to spend every day at the mall....)

Chris and I went out to Cesme last week on Thursday, and taught our first students! Poor kids. One of my students must have known what she was in for, she canceled! Chris is doing SAT prep (thank goodness, that's the more difficult one!) and TOEFL, I am doing TOEFL and one General English course. TOEFL is mostly for students here who want to get into good universities here in Turkey, if they do well on that exam, they can skip the prep school year in which they take English courses before they can enter university. the SAT prep is pretty self-explanatory. we got paid cash at the end of the day, so that was brilliant! we're headed out there again tomorrow and thurs, and hopefully after that the students will be back in izmir with their families. (we've been out in Cesme because everyone except us is on vacation.)

still no internet in the apt, this is turning into quite a fiasco. lucky for us, we have WONDERFUL turkish friends who have been helping, but it's just a complicated process. we wanted to get the 3G offered by turkcell. however, after phone calls (made by our turkish friends, of course) we found out that even though it's being offered all over the tv and billboards, they had problems with it and right now it's not available. So we looked into turk telecom. In order to get internet, you need a phone line. in order to get a phone line, we're pretty sure you need a utility bill to prove your address. and all of this requires going to several places, making several phone calls, etc. again, all in turkish. we owe our turkish friends a drink, i think. (i won't subject them to a home-cooked meal, they've been punished enough with this fiasco.)

other than those things, it's going well. we still love our apt (i did laundry, yay!), we're finding our way around, and chris' turkish is getting better. mine is still non-existent. i may need to actually start trying...

anyways, this may be my shortest post yet! but i've been sitting in this chair for over an hour, and my rear is numb. i'll type more later. as usual, we love and miss you all!

Home Sweet Home

2009-08-04T16:40:00.000+03:00

Good news everyone! Chris and I found a place to live, and it’s not a box in an alley like we feared! Rob, one of our tutors from the CELTA course, put us in touch with one of the teachers @ IEU who had a FURNISHED apartment to rent in Izmir. Umm, can we say PERFECT? A landlady who speaks English, an apartment that is furnished and air conditioned (believe it or not, this is not the case in all apartments in Izmir, even though I think it should be a crime not to with as hot as it is!), and in the city we need it to be! We were also about to be kicked out of the dormitories, so we needed to find a place quick, although many Turkish friends offered us a place at their apartments. (Thank you, all of you, we really did appreciate your generosity.) Anyways, we looked at the apartment Friday, moved in Saturday morning, and we’re here now. I will describe it, although I’m sure Chris will put up pictures as soon as we get internet connection (I’m doing this in the internet café down the street.) Oh, and I should preface this whole blog post by saying I’m sick, doped up on cold medicine, and really really groggy, so if something doesn’t make sense or I don’t finish sentences, you know why.
What sold us right away (well, besides the English-speaking landlady, the furnished state, and the location) was the view. OMG. If we thought our view at IEU from the dorms was amazing, this blew us away. Believe it or not, even better than the view in GR (sorry, Gina!). Mostly because we not only see the city, but we look over the bay. There are huge windows everywhere, so it’s even better.The apartment is quite high up, so it’s quite a panoramic view. AND we see a beautiful sunset every night over the water and behind the mountains. I couldn’t ask for a better view!
The apartment has 2 bedrooms, one bathroom with a washing machine (finally!), a kitchen, a living room, a balcony complete with a clothes line (YAY!) and ( my favorite room), a sunroom with windows on all sides, facing the bay, perfect for breakfast and plants. Mom, you will LOVE this room! Nesta, our landlady, redecorated a couple years ago, and basically it’s exactly like how I would have done it! So yes, we feel VERY lucky to have gotten this place, and at a very reasonable rent rate as well. Oh, and did I mention that, unlike some parts of Izmir, it’s not stinky? This was a huge requirement for me; as we’ve walked around a bit in the past, there are certain areas that smell like sewage pretty strongly. I did NOT want to live in such an area! Gross. I think we’re high enough up that the breeze of f the bay takes care of that for us. It’s pretty much perfect.
Or at least it was until we woke up this morning to no running water. We hoped it was just a quick thing, but after about 10 hours, we walked next door to the building manager, who said that it is a huge area without water, and is supposed to remain that way for 4 days. Four days without running water, so no laundry, no showers, no washing dishes, no washing hands, flushing the toilet, etc etc. omg, I don’t know if I can handle this. UGH.So those of you taking hot, long showers, think of me and try not to laugh. And I will think about it and try not to pout. I’m just glad we had the job interview yesterday! We called Nesta and she said that this happens about 3-4 times a year. I was afraid it was going to be every other week or something! But I guess since the water pipes are quite old, I can understand them needing to fix leaks and such. Understand, yes. Stop whining and feeling sorry for myself, no.
Despite this cold that I managed to get right after CELTA ended, we have some leads on promising jobs. One possibility is at IEU, where we took the CELTA course. We’re waiting to hear from them, which should be within the next couple days. That would be a plum job, health insurance included and being paid on time a given. Ahhh, the luxuries! It’s just a really nice place to work, and many people have to work at crummy language schools before universities will hire them, if then. We got lucky because our tutors loved us J The other job was the one we interviewed for yesterday in Çeşme. It’s for a language school, but different that other language schools in that it’s more one-to-one tutoring, and getting students prepared to take SAT exams to study abroad. The pay is quite good, the hours flexible (possibly a little too flexible? We’ll see), and the couple who own it seem like good and honest people. The husband was actually born and raised in Chicago, so he knew where GR was! And BethAnne, he regularly sends Turkish students to MSU, so he’s quite familiar with that area too. Chris and I got along with them quite well. At least I thought so, I was so doped up on cold medicine we could have completely flubbed it and I wouldn’t have known. I guess we didn’t though, since they offered us both a job, starting this week. We kind of wanted to wait to hear from IEU, but if they don’t hurry, we’re taking this one and we’ll figure out what to do with IEU later.
Well, I can see that as usual, this is way longer than I intend for it to be. One last thing though: Sherri from CH, I think if I’m going to stay in Turkey any length of time, I may need a WTF stamp like you have. Seriously. Miss you all, and hope to get internet access soon as I can start actually sending individual emails to you all again.

Ahhhh, Life After CELTA

2009-07-29T15:30:00.000+03:00

Well, for those of you who don't know, Chris and I both finished our CELTA course last Friday. We both passed, thank goodness! Even though I am VERY happy to not be stressed, losing sleep, and trying to plan lessons until late at night, I miss my students and other teachers a lot! It's weird how quiet the dorm is now: we all used to meet in the hall to let off steam, laugh, and go a little crazy when needed. Now, it's just silence :( But it looks like our students want to stay in touch with us teachers just as much as we want to keep in touch with them, so hopefully we'll get together soon.

So the last day of the course the teachers (us, whoa) planned a farewell party for the students. Some students offered to bring a couple things, so we of course accepted. Well, turns out "a couple" really means "massive quantities" and we had 3 tables of food! I will post pictures on here later, but safe to say we all had a blast. And I got to have dolma (stuffed grape leaves), one of my favorite! When students found out how much i liked them, I had about 3 offers from them to teach me how to do it. Sweethearts, all of them.

One of the students, Mesut, organized a bus to take whoever wanted to go to Çeşme (remember, the awesome place we have pictures of on here?) and for us all to go on a boat trip. First, let me explain these boat trips. You get on in the last morning, it leaves, plays dance music, and people just relax on big pillows strewn all over the deck, which varies in number, but ours was 3 decks. You go to 4 different islands and swim there, or stay on the boat and relax/suntan/sleep. They also include a lunch. These trips usually last for 6-7 hours. and it's all of this for under $20. Can we say AWESOME!!!!! So yes, a bunch of the students went, and quite a few of the teachers as well. (Again, I'll have pictures up for this too. Or Chris will. :D ) Chris and I both got really sunburned, but since the students told us this was predicted to be one of the hottest days (and it HAD to be well over 100 in Izmir!), we were certainly glad to be on the water! And one of the students took us to a drugstore and arranged for us to get some sunburn lotion that worked BEAUTIFULLY! No pain at all, which was awesome.

Sunday we slept and didn't leave the room except for breakfast/lunch. The sun was unbearably hot, and I just couldn't stand to be out in it. Instant headache. So a rather unproductive day, to say the least.

Monday we went job hunting with 2 of our dorm-mates. A little cooler, so it was bearable. We dropped off CVs (resumés) at 5 different places. At each one, we ended up talking to the directors, who basically gave us mini-interviews! Craziness. However, it sounds like most of them already have teachers for the upcoming semester. There were a few promising ones though. We'll follow up.

Yesterday Chris and I went to Ephasis to meet up with Yvonne, the woman who stayed in the dorm next door to ours, and who we went to downtown Izmir with before the course started. Ok, first, I should tell you that it's weird but I found someone who isn't related to me but who is almost exactly like me. To say that we clicked and had a blast with each other is an understatement. So, we planned to meet up with her and her bf who is in town now from England. By the time we got to Ephasis, they had already been through it twice, so they headed to the hotel while we went through it. Very cool, but to be honest, it was so hot and crowded that all I could think about was being DONE. We're planning on going back in the off-season, which will be cooler AND less crowded. We then met up with Yvonne and hung out with them for awhile (as usual, having a blast) before heading back here.

Whew! I think that's the rundown! Now my back is hurting from sitting here for so long, so I'll just plan on writing more later. As usual, miss you all!

Three Weeks Down, One more to Go!

2009-07-18T22:00:00.000+03:00

Wow, it's been awhile since we've posted! Well, maybe for you all it doesn't seem that way, but it seems like FOREVER for me. I swear, a month has never felt so long in my life! I really don't have a lot of interesting news, but felt that I needed to let everyone know that we're still doing pretty well and that we haven't forgotten anyone :)
As most of you know, I have been teaching intermediate-level English students, and Chris has been teaching beginner-level. Well, this past week they switched us to the opposite group. I have a whole new appreciation for the hard work Chris did in the first two weeks; this is HARD! I like to talk, and they don't understand most of what I say, even when it's simplified and spoken slowly. They are also a much younger group. Birth dates came up the first day and most of the class was born in the 1990s! OMG, I felt so old! Although I guess it does help with the whole teacher-student relationship. In the intermediate class, most of the students were my age-I'm friends on Facebook with half the class. I miss my students though, they were so much fun! We've tentatively planned a boat trip after the class is over. More practice for their English, and maybe I can finally pick up some Turkish!
I really can't believe that we're almost done with the course. I mean, it feels like yesterday was a week ago, and last week was a month ago, but still- a week from today I will be certified to teach, and be expected to come up with lesson plans every day and teach all day. whoa. can we say UNPREPARED?! On the other hand though, I couldn't take much more of the intensity of this course.
Homesickness is really kicking in for me. I'm sure it's exacerbated by exhaustion, stress, and the fact that it's hitting 100 degrees almost every day. But I really miss everyone a lot. The first time I get home to visit, we all need to get together for a wine party. You know who you are! :D Chris has been great with all my whining and crying though, bless him. A more patient man I couldn't have found...
On a happy note, those of us CELTA students staying the dorms have been having a blast together. Pretty much only on weekends, since the rest of the time we're too busy to even eat, but wow, weekends and Friday nights when we're over-tired are too much fun! I am beginning to think I should have been born in Britain, I LOVE their sense of humor. Very sarcastic.
Anyways, I am hoping that after next week I can get back to sending people personal emails and not just communicate through this blog. Thank you for all of you who have left comments and encouragement though, it's meant a lot to both of us.

Anyways, bedtime for me. Iyi Akşamlar (Good evenings, a common greeting long past evening, and one that I manage to slaughter every time I try to use it :D I also probably mis-spelled it, so feel free to correct it, Chris)

Çeşme and Alaçatı

2009-07-09T21:21:00.000+03:00

Here are pictures from our excursion last weekend to Çeşme. Alaçatı is the town next to Çeşme that Barb mentioned, with lots of cool stone buildings and good food and drink.

Çeşme

Alaçatı

Çeşme

2009-07-07T21:02:00.000+03:00

Ooooh, that last post was BITTER! Sorry about that. I think anyone who knows me well will be able to figure out that last week was not my best week. Completely and utterly overwhelmed, I did waaaaaay too much crying. I’m much better now though, since we had a weekend off and I spent it in one of the prettiest places I’ve seen yet! (I’m sure you’ll get a chance to agree w/ me after Chris posts pictures J )

So, we went to Çeşme (pronounced Chesh-may) for the weekend, thank to a classmate of ours and her and her boyfriend’s generous invitations! Çeşme is a very popular summer destination, and for good reason! Beautiful warm Caribbean-like water, lots of shops, restaurants, and events, and lovely weather with constant breezes, it’s definitely a place I’d like to be too! We took a bus there on Saturday afternoon and stayed until late this afternoon. We went to the bazaar that they have there on Saturdays, and I bought 4 dresses, one long one and 3 shorter ones. Jeans and even capris are just too hot when it’s mid-90s. Bazaars are fun though; I really like the variety of things to see in them! Anything from fruits and veggies to window squeegees to clothes to textiles to shoes to kitchen items. It was hot, but the breeze was nice and made it a little more comfortable. We then headed to the pansion to drop off our things and head to dinner. Dinner was ABSOLUTELY amazing, but unfortunately I can’t even really tell you what it was, since we had so many new things and I didn’t do any of the ordering. All I can say is lots of meat, Turkish pizza, thick yogurt, pita bread, and pure deliciousness.

We then headed to a little village on the outskirts of Çeşme. Again, I can’t really remember the name of it, I will see if I can find out. Anyways, it was gorgeous, lots of stone buildings and little boutiques! Chris took pictures, so even if I don’t know the name of it, you can see how cool it was. Anyways, then we were running late to the concert, so we headed there.

The concert was in an ampetheater (sorry, no idea how to spell that and I’m not getting any suggestions from the dictionary) and was apparently one of the most famous pop stars in Turkey. We were so fortunate to get to go! And I can see why he’s so popular; I’m a fan now too! I got excited when I kept hearing his songs on the way back to Izmir today! We had an absolute blast there though; it was such a fun performance and so cool to be outside and feel the breeze and see the city! A definite highlight for me! We snacked a bit after the concert (I got to try stuffed mussels w/ lemon and a new flavor of ice cream, it was gum flavored, like the real gum. can’t really describe it b/c we have nothing remotely similar to it in the US), and suddenly it was 1:30AM! Sleepy time for the lazy Americans…

This morning was another fun day. We woke up and had breakfast provided by the hotel. We then got a tour of Çeşme from our classmate and her boyfriend. We got to see both of their summer homes, and go wading in the Aegean. Beautifully warm water (although she thought it was cold, I thought it was so much warmer than Lake Michigan or Lake Huron!) and crystal clear. We got to eat (is anyone besides me seeing a pattern here?) at a place known for their burgers: milk-fed calves’ meat. Can we say delicious? Then it was time to catch the bus back.

We found out the hard way that we should get tickets for the bus back WELL in advance. We stopped at the ticket office at 2 before we went to eat and were told all buses were full until 10! Whoa, popular place. Keep in mind, this is just buses going back to Izmir, not any other cities around here! We were lucky and able to finagle 3 seats on a 5:00 bus (again, thanks to our classmate!) so we got back at a decent time.

Anyways, an absolute FABULOUS weekend with some much-needed relaxation and distance from homework. However, I DO have lesson planning to do, so I need to wrap this up. I will try to blog again next weekend, but right now we’re just too busy during the week to keep up with this. Plus, the stuff we do during the week is boring. Lesson planning, observation, and class time for us, in addition to some written assignments and such. Blah blah blah. Hope everyone had a happy 4th!

btw, I'm posting this under Chris' name, but it's really Barb. Sorry about the confusion!

I'm baaaaaack

2009-06-30T21:31:00.000+03:00

Whoa, HOW long has it been since I posted?

First, some disclaimers: I am exhausted. If this post is crap, let's not make (probably accurate) assumptions about me and we'll blame it on exhaustion. Second, I am cranky and also not feeling the best. So suck it up, people, and read on!

So, we started class on Sunday. I've been in "intense" courses before, but seriously. whoa. This is a bit out of control. A LOT of information coming at us all at once for 8 hours, and then HW afterwards to round out the night. Oh, and did I mention that today (my third day of class) I got to get up in front of 15 guinea pigs (also called students) and teach a lesson? I am thinking perhaps me making a fool of myself has endeared me to them...Yes, let's go with that.

No, they really are a great group of students. We have a very large age range, from 17 to 35, I believe. They are at various stages of "intermediate English speaking," which I found out today is an incredibly useless label. Basically, some of them are basically close to fluency, while others struggle to correctly form sentences and pronounce words. They have all volunteered to take this course to work on their English. Poor souls, imagine spending a month of your summer getting up for a 9:30-12 class 5 days a week with teachers who have never taught before! I think I know who's getting the short end of this stick. Chris is in the elementary group, which means they speak either none or very little English.

I have time to write this tonight only because I don't have to teach tomorrow. I'm supposed to be doing other work, of course, but my splitting headache and need to NOT look at that hated notebook have landed me here. But yeah, basically don't expect as much blogging for the next month. Firstly because we're just doing the same boring thing day after day, and secondly because I simply don't have the time for my usual novel-length blogs. If something interesting actually happens, I will try to catch up on the weekends.

So our days are structured like this: Class begins at 9:30 with our students. For the rest of our month, 3 of us will teach 45 minute lessons to the group each day. (The next day, the others in the group will teach their 45 minute lessons- we will have a day on of teaching, then a day off.) At noon, when the students leave, we go for our hour lunch in the cafeteria. I have discovered cafeteria food, no matter which country, really does all taste the same. We return at 1, and from 1-3 we have our own class time, with our instructors teaching us the finer points of ESL teaching. At 3 we break into our groups again and have a feedback session on that morning's teaching. Those can be brutal, I can already tell. Lastly, we round out the day with lesson planning for the next day. Then we go home and either work on lessons, papers, reading articles, etc. So very busy days. On the plus side, it means I'm sleeping VERY well at night!

We dropped laundry off tonight. Tomorrow at 8PM we will have 2 1/2 weeks worth of clean clothes. YAY! It's weird, they don't have self-serve laundry here. You either have maids do it, or else you drop if off and someone else does it for you. I would LOVE this arrangement (laundry has traditionally been my responsibility at home) except that it is not cheap, and therefore I fear I may be relegated to doing laundry in our bathroom sink. Which will make the self-serve washers and dryers of the US seem like paradise. I was just happy to have found a way to do it! Apparently laundrymats are really rare, so we were lucky to have this one.

I have made a few observations of Turkey in couple weeks I've been here. I know some of you are dying to know these answers, since we discussed them before I left. So I'll take care of them now, at least as many as I can remember. First, there ARE Western toilets most places I have been. TP being stocked is a little trickier to find, which has forced me to add yet another item to my already bulging purse- a roll to carry with me. (BTW, for those wondering, we have seen the Oriental style toilet, but at this point, I'm not going near that!) So far though I have found them fairly comparable to bathrooms in the US. People to not freak out if you say ummm. That's all I'm going to say on that topic. The food is just as good as what I raved about in all my previous posts. That has remained a highlight for me with my time here. I miss sidewalks in the US, where they are not used as substitute parking lots, are wide enough to walk on, and are flat concrete. My high heels have been taking a beating on these cobblestones! I miss GPS. And Oliver Wine. I think that will wrap up this section.

Actually, this may wrap up my post. I'm starting to stare very hard at the screen and my brain is shutting down for the night. I will try to post again this weekend if I have anything new to add.

Izmir Waterfront

2009-06-27T20:27:00.000+03:00

We made a new friend with one of our classmates for the CELTA course, a British woman named Yvonne. The three of us took a bus to the Konak and Alsancak areas of Izmir, in the city center along the waterfront. It was a very nice stroll. Pretty hot today out in the sun, though. But it was refreshing to see something of Izmir other than the university and the shopping areas nearby. I've added some pictures to our Izmir album:

Izmir

I have already noticed that my ability to understand spoken Turkish is improving. When I first got here, I could read some Turkish and could figure out what a lot of signs said, but couldn't make out much of anything anyone said to me. Now I am picking out a lot more.

We're feeling a lot more settled in now that we've met someone else from the course, and have gotten a little further afield in Izmir. Tomorrow our course starts, so we're anxious to meet the rest of the class and see how the course is going to go.

Izmir

2009-06-25T14:37:00.000+03:00

We've been settling into Izmir the last couple days. We found a couple places to shop and got some groceries and other necessities. We were pretty geeked that you could get a loaf of bread for 0.54 lira (about 35 cents), so we got that and some olive oil to snack on in our dorm room, along with a few other things.

Our biggest shopping frustration has been trying to find a ceramic hair dryer for Barb. We found one really nice one at a Phillips store in the mall (and one of the salesmen even spoke English), but it was 110 lira ($70), which was more than we wanted to spend. So we are still in search of one...

We've been getting a lot of exercise walking. The university is at the top of a hill (well, not the very top) and all the shopping is down the hill at sea level, so coming back is quite a steep hike.

We're getting better at communicating with people. I'm getting better at using the Turkish that I know, and Barb is learning more Turkish, and we're finding that some people speak a little English once you speak a little Turkish to them. I think everyone involved just needs to get beyond the "Oh no, how am I going to talk to this person?" stage of freaking out. The waitress at the tea garden asked us if we were from Germany. Don't know if we look German, or sound German, or if they just get a lot of Germans around here.

We haven't gone too far afield in Izmir yet. We've just been around the university and the shopping areas in Balçova, the district of Izmir where the university is. I'll be interested to see what the rest of the city is like, since I don't want to general our impressions of this area to all of Izmir, because I think different areas have different characters. We may do a little more distant exploring tomorrow and Saturday.

Pictures - New and Improved!

2009-06-25T14:34:00.000+03:00

I went through our picture albums and tweaked the contrast on them. Most of the pictures from Istanbul were from inside places where you weren't allowed to use flash, so they were kind of dark. I think they look better now, especially the pictures from the Mosaic Museum. The colors pop a lot more. So take a second look if you're interested.

Call to Prayer Video

2009-06-24T15:33:00.000+03:00

So, this is really more for the audio than the video. I was on the rooftop terrace of our hotel in Istanbul when the Muslim call to prayer started. I had our mini camcorder with me, so I decided to record it so that everyone could hear what it sounds like. I panned around showing the view from the hotel, just so you have something to look at while listening.

The video is pretty big (25MB) so if you have a slow connection, you could be waiting a long, long time.

From Videos

P.S. Thanks to the Corporate Color crew for the camcorder. The original video is HD and looks much sharper, but it's also 190MB. It compresses it down for sharing on the web.

Türkçem çok iyi değıl

2009-06-23T20:50:00.000+03:00

That means "My Turkish isn't very good," a phrase that I have used many times in the last two days. As Barb said in her post, we have been in for something of a rude awakening coming to Izmir. In Istanbul, many people spoke at least some English, and a decent number spoke pretty fluently. So far in Izmir, we haven't found any who speak fluently (except the program coordinator) and only a couple who have even spoken a little. On the one hand, this is forcing me to use the Turkish I know, so it will get better. On the other hand, we feel like idiots everywhere we go because we don't know what's going on. It is definitely an isolating feeling. I'm sure once the other people from our program get here, they will speak English (it IS a program for English teachers, after all), and we'll have a few people we can talk to.

There are also a few Americans in the dorm for a program learning Turkish. I just talked to one of them, and it sounds like they'll be around for about the same time frame as us. It was nice to speak a little English with someone else, but she has a ton of homework to do, so I decided to leave her alone.

More pictures

2009-06-23T20:43:00.000+03:00

OK, here are a few more picture albums that I've set up:

Blue Mosque in Istanbul

Barb and Chris in Istanbul

Misc Istanbul

Hagia Sophia

Izmir

On to Izmir

2009-06-23T20:25:00.000+03:00

Our trip yesterday from Istanbul went well, although very tiring. We took a taxi, ferry, train, bus, and another taxi to get here, but we are here, as are all of our bags. I hope to never have to deal w/ that much luggage again. yick.

Izmir is a LOT different than Istanbul. 80 and low 90s instead of mid-70s for temperatures. And whereas in Istanbul it was rare to see women w/o a headscarf, here it is rare to see one. Lots of Westernized dress and fewer people. However, in Istanbul most people spoke fluent English, which made it easier for me to ajust. Also, restaurants and stores were just a few steps away. Here, not so much. We haven't found ANYONE who speaks English besides our CELTA coordinator, and most of the restaurants, stores, banks, etc are a little over a mile away. That whole isolation thing people were telling me I'd be feeling? Yup, pretty much. We were told the other non-Izmir students would be arriving later this week, and I'm hoping some of them will speak English. But so far, I'm kind of sad to say, I'm feeling very uncomfortable and obviously foreign here. Kind of hating that. It's very hard to communicate with other people when I speak basically no Turkish (except "I'm sorry" and "Thank you") and they speak no English at all. Even going to get something to eat has turned into a little bit of a fiasco. Questions we take for granted like, "Where do we order?" and "What is in this dish?" are pretty much out of the question for us. So I'm relying on Chris to get by on the little Turkish he knows; I just smile and nod. And the waiters just stare at us and us back at them when we can't understand each other. Can anyone say uncomfortable?

Ok, enough whining, sorry about that. I will talk about food, as that seems to get me geeked and helps me forget my crankiness. We didn't eat much yesterday, since we were traveling and there wasn't any time in between modes of transportation for things such as food. So last night we walked down into town and got supper. I had something (sorry, again I don't remember the name- I was tired, ok?) that was little medallions (I'm guessing lamb) in a dish with sauteed onions and tomatoes. Very good! Chris had adana, which he said was also good.

Today we walked to the tea garden, about the only eating establishment close to the university for lunch/dinner (we slept through breakfast). We both had a döner 1/2 etmek, which is the döner meat on half of a small french baguette. Very good, although I gave most of mine to the 3 tiny kittens who came over for the food. Absolutely adorable, I had so much fun with them. We both had ice cream for dessert as well, which was good! It was much more like sherbet, and we had strawberry, raspberry, vanilla, lemon, and chocolate flavors. Chris also bought me some chocolate, since I am in desperate need of it. Basically delicious, tastes like Dove chocolate!

During our walk last night we also found a mall, which, as you can all imagine, overjoyed me! Ahhh, AC (most other places don't have it), multiple floors, and things to buy! YAY! Unfortunately for me, we bought boring things like a desk fan, hangers, and tissues. But now I know where it is for future reference ;)

I'm hoping tonight to find a store that sells olive oil, since we purchased fresh bread today. I also need to find an open-air market that has fresh fruit and vegetables, since I know they're in season here. Eating out every day for 3 meals gets expensive, and I'm hoping to have simple meals that I can eat in the dorm. We have a mini-fridge, but that's it.

Oh, speaking of the dorm, get this: there are MAIDS who come in every day to empty the trash, change the towels, stock toilet paper, change the sheets, and mop the floor. SO weird for a dorm! I feel like it's more of a hotel! And it was even weirder this morning- the maid walked right into our room while we were still in bed, and after some misunderstanding between her and Chris in Turkish, she proceeded to clean the room while we were just waking up! (Yes, go ahead and laugh, I did after she left.) So I'm laying in bed, JUST waking up, and she's mopping 2 feet from me. One of the strangest ways I've woken up...

Ok, this is getting long again. I'm sorry, I'm sure once everything isn't so new to me my posts will get shorter and a little less full of boring details, but as of yet, quit reading whenever you want :) I'll make it easy for you this time.

Fun in the Big City

2009-06-21T20:57:00.000+03:00

Since tomorrow Chris and I have to catch the ferry at 7:00AM, luggage in tow, I thought I'd better update our blog now since I won't be doing it tomorrow. And just when our sleeping schedule was getting back on track. (We slept the night through last night for the first time! Sad the things I get excited about these days when I'm sleep deprived...)

Chris and I had a fun day today, as well as yesterday. I know he already posted comments about the Mosaic museum, so I'll skip that. After coming back for a quick nap that turned into a lengthy nap, we got up and got ready to go over the Galata Bridge to the New Town side of Istanbul. We have been staying in Old Town, which is where most of the ancient historical sites are located, and also where most of the tourists are located. New Town is the modern section of Turkey, and also the more heavily populated. (These are both on the European side; the Asian side of Istanbul is mostly residential, with most people commuting across the bridge to New Town to work.) Before leaving the Sultanahmet area where we've been staying, we stopped at a little cafe for a döner sandwich. Yes, I'm going to wax on about how wonderful it was-skip to the next paragraph if you don't feel like reading about it or if you are hungry at all. Made completely of lamb (they have a chicken one too, but chicken döner is cheating) , they slice it off the spit in much thinner slices than restaurants in GR. You can get it wrapped in a fresh pita, or put into a sliced baguette, and topped with lettuce and fresh tomato. YUM! I could so live on them. Fish sandwiches for lunch, döner for dinner. I'd be set!

We headed to Taksim Square, a popular location that would be similar to Times Square in NYC, to meet with a couple contacts we had made before coming here. Umm, if I had known how INSANE that place was going to be, I may have suggested an alternative meeting spot. I'm still not sure how we managed to meet up, since all I could see everywhere were heads. The pictures you see of NYC sidewalks clogged with people? Now picture them all talking Turkish, and that's basically what the Square was like. We ended up having a blast though. Apparently the love of shoes, shopping, and wine is pretty universal with women, because I made friends quickly with the girls we were meeting. We went for some Turkish coffee (I still can't get over how good that stuff is!) and desserts. I lied- I'm going to talk about food again. I had a couple very good things. First was a pistachio roll, which was basically pistachios held together with honey inside of shredded wheat, also soaked in honey. They were then sliced so you could see the green pistachios inside. Very good, but also very rich. Chris had to finish the last half. I also ordered some delicious thing that I don't remember the name of. It was a hard chocolate cylinder filled with brownie w/ chocolate chunks, another layer of something else, and topped with cherries, with cherry sherbet on the side. Pretty sinful.

To work off all that sweet food, we decided to take a walk. The best shoe and clothing stores were pointed out to me, and after navigating various side streets and alleys (alleys that my whole hometown could fit in to!) that were completely filled with people, we ended up at a fun little bar where we rested our feet for a bit. Such a small bar and w/ no empty tables we ended up being seated by the waiter at a table with 3 other people. Kind of weird, I am not used to that. They just talked amongst themselves, we talked to each other, and it was like 2 separate tables except that we were sitting thigh to thigh with them. It was also getting pretty late by then and we decided to head home.

Between yesterday and Friday we've managed to try out most of Istanbul's public transportation. A little confusing at times, but we managed, and it was much cheaper than taxis!

Ok, just realized this is getting REALLY long. So I'll summarize today quickly. We went to the Blue Mosque, very cool but because we're visitors they have you stand behind a wooden railing, so we couldn't really get up close and personal with the blue tiles and other cool things they have there. But yeah, huge and awesome. I had another döner sandwich today b/c I am obsessed, and then had Turkish ice cream, which is not like any ice cream I've ever had. Almost elastic-y, I think Chris has a video where you can see someone in the background with it. Expensive too, but good for a warm day! Other than that, just getting re-packed and ready for our early morning tomorrow. Cross your fingers for us that our traveling goes as well as the traveling over here. Because I'm so ready to NOT haul around 160 lbs of luggage!

Hope you all are doing well. Keep commenting, it makes our day to hear from you all!

Mosaic Museum pictures

2009-06-21T16:27:00.000+03:00

OK, here are some more pictures. They are from the Mosaic Museum in Istanbul. These mosaics are all from the Byzantine imperial palace, and are believed to date from the time of Justinian (6th century AD). The museum basically just roofed over the mosaics where they were found, so they are on the site of the actual palace. (Although there was a huge amount of preservation work done to the mosaics.)

These mosaics aren't quite as spectacular as the ones from the Chora Church with all the gold, and the colors aren't as vibrant (they are 700 years older), but I have always loved this kind of Roman-style mosaic. The subject matter is very different. The Chora church is all religious subjects, whereas the palace mosaics are more scenes from life and a few from pagan mythology. There are lots of animals and hunting scenes. It is amazing to think that what remains is only a fraction of the originals; the palace floor would have been covered with this kind of mosaic. Cool to think we can look down today at the same floors that Justinian walked on 1400 years ago.

One last note: Barb has a headscarf on in these pictures. No, she hasn't converted to Islam. We were planning to go to the Blue Mosque after the Mosaics Museum. It is still a functioning mosque, so she was wearing the scarf to be respectful.

Mosaic Museum in Istanbul

Chora Church pictures

2009-06-21T16:18:00.001+03:00

So, apparently Barb is in charge of writing, and I'm in charge of taking and posting pictures for the blog. I feel like I've been slacking, since there's a lot more text than pictures posted so far. I will probably do some writing in the future, as well, but so far I haven't found the time. Plus, Barb is doing a pretty thorough job of covering what we've been up to.

Rather than posting the pictures directly to the blog, I'm going to try out Picasa web albums (Picasa and Blogger are both Google products, so theoretically they should work well together).

Here is a link to the web album with pictures of the Chora church:

Chora Church in Istanbul

Hansel & Gretel in Istanbul

2009-06-20T16:11:00.000+03:00

Well, we got lost for the first time yesterday. Ok, so I was lost, apparently Chris knew (kind of) where we were. Since I'm posting, you can tell that we made it to the hotel ok, and I didn't have to be sedated for hysteria, so it all turned out ok. But not necessarily my most fun experience so far. You all know my complete lack of any sense of direction, and the tall buildings and narrow streets w/o street names made it impossible for me to figure out which direction we were headed or anything. Thank goodness for Chris, but I miss my Garmin!

Anyways, it WAS an awesome day yesterday. I got my fish sandwiches, and OMG, i hope they have them in Izmir! Very simple, just fresh fish, cleaned and grilled right on the boat, put in a sliced baguette with lettuce and onion on top. Absolutely delicious, and only about $3! It was packed all around where the boats are, so we knew it had to be good! I could have that for lunch every day, cheap, filling, and healthy.

I guess I should start at the beginning of our day though, instead of jumping ahead to our yummy fish dinner. We started the day walking to the bus hub (maybe a mile away?) to go to the Chora Church Museum. The bus was pretty typical of any bus, nothing really exceptional. (Except that when I got on to the full bus on the way back, a gentleman actually gave his seat to me. Whoa. Chivalry is not dead everywhere...)

The Chora Church was exceptional. Actually, probably my favorite thing we've done so far. It's a church built in approx 1100 with later mosaics and frescos EVERYWHERE. I mean, thousands upon thousands, in excellent condition! Our necks were sore from gawking at the ceilings. I'm hoping Chris will have time within the next couple days to post some of the pictures that we took. Really really amazing. Oooh, I see he's working on sizing and editing them now :)

We also saw some of the old city wall, which was pretty cool, although not as cool as the remains of a Roman aqueduct that our bus drove under. Totally awesome, kind of hard to wrap my mind around even now. It's kind of crazy how they inter-twine the very ancient with the modern. For example, the city walls had some small portals, and they use them as parking spaces for cars. The aqueduct goes right over a major road, so they built a lane of the road to go through each arch between the support beams. I love that they work with the ancient sites instead of destroying them for modern improvements.

We got back, had our fish sandwiches, and then, because we were RIGHT across the street from it, we headed over to the Spice Bazaar. The Australian couple I met on Thursday (I think it was Thurs? My days are completely screwed up at this point) recommended it over the Grand Bazaar, saying it was a cooler experience and with less pushy salesmen. Mom, you would have had a heart attack with all of the awesome spices heaped EVERYWHERE! Every time I turned my head, there were spices, dried fruit, cheeses (I about had the heart attack there!), Turkish delight (just for you, Bob) and other candies, fish, food vendors (I can have my doner kabop whenever I want, they're everywhere!), in addition to non-food items such as cooking utinsels, fabric stores, clothing stores, SHOE stores (here was Chris' heart attack moment, he hustled me past those so fast!), and pretty much anything else you could ever possibly need. It was because I was so excited about all the shopping opportunities that I forgot to mentally map which turns I had made where, and so when we were ready to go, uhhhh...

So we spent a little time wandering, but Chris figured out where we were and it actually ended up being a much shorter walk back to the hotel than if we had gone back to the bus hub and walked from there. So it all ended up ok. And I didn't even cry. :)

Today we went to a mosaic museum, these were from the Roman times, and less religious. Very very cool, but since it was Chris' favorite, I'll let him tell you about it. I'm headed to go get a snack and some coffee, and enjoy the sunshine.

Just a Couple Random Thoughts

2009-06-19T11:56:00.000+03:00

So apparently 3:00 AM is my new wake-up time. For those of you who know me well, this means I'm not getting my full 9 hours, and it is starting to show... Wow, if you could only be here and have seen me staring into space for the last 5 min trying to think of what I was going to type in here, you would laugh. For those of you who have had to listen to me whine about being tired the last 2 weeks, sorry. But you haven't heard the last of it :D

The Australian couple I lent my computer to yesterday turned out to be awesome, and we had a great time talking. Perhaps Australia will be next on our list of places to visit. (Although I think the demand for English teachers there may be quite low, ya think?)

I have a new favorite beverage (well, besides wine, of course, that still remains the ultimate favorite!). The apple tea, which I mentioned in my first foodie post, is now my drink of choice for non-caffeinated beverages. Absolutely amazing! I've seen orange tea on the menu as well, but haven't had a chance to try it. Chris and I are going to attempt to try the famous fish sandwiches (I'll have the proper name later) today. You go the pier and the fisherman come in, grill their fish, sometimes still on the boat, slap it btwn bread, and apparently it's one of the best tasting things you can get. I can't wait! And if it turns out that we have to get there early, well, I'm up @ 3 AM....

More to come later :)

First Pictures

2009-06-19T08:50:00.000+03:00

Well, Barb and I promised pictures on this blog, so I thought it was time to deliver. The first picture is a photo I took of the Blue Mosque from the rooftop terrace of our hotel at night. The streaks in the air are gulls that fly around the minarets.

Second picture is the Blue Mosque, taken from inside Hagia Sophia.

Third is a picture of the restaurant across the street from our hotel. This is the one Barb mentioned in her post (Seven Dreams).

The rest are mosaics from inside Hagia Sophia.

Hagia Sophia

2009-06-18T16:57:00.000+03:00

Today we walked the whole 1 block to Hagia Sophia (pronounced aya sophia, btw) to check it out. This has been a place I have wanted to visit ever since becoming interested in ancient history. Having it so close to our hotel is completely awesome, I kind of can't wrap my mind around it.

First, just a little history for those of you who don't know the significance of this building. (And I'm just going from memory here, so there aren't any definitive dates or anything here.) It has been built 4 times, the most recent during the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian as a place of worship for Christians. (Folklore says he looked at it when it was finished and declared he had outdone Soloman.) When the Muslims conquered Constantinople, they were so impressed by the structure that they spared it, adding minarets and converting it to a mosque. Christian symbols and mosaics are alongside Islamic caligraphy and art (after they've been uncovered, of course). For over a thousand years it was the largest place of worship in the world. It's main dome (there are several all over the structure) has become the face of Istanbul. So basically it's a very cool, very ancient place.

Ok, enough facts, now my impressions. (I'm pretty sure Chris will post later with his.) I was a little let down, to be honest, and I felt terrible for that feeling. It seemed to me that while having some very very beautiful features, it had an empty feeling. (NOT for lack of tourists there, trust me!) There were a lot of bare walls, and really nothing there except walls, pillars, and tourists. It would almost be similar to ancient ruins, except that they're working so hard to preserve it. A bit of a different feel. The main dome which I had read so much about was under renovation, with scaffolding going up the several stories to the top. While I am definitely glad that they are working to preserve this building, it did impede our full appreciation for it.

I wasn't completely UN-impressed though, please let me assure you! There are mosaics on some of the upper story walls that are thousands of years old and absolutely gorgeous! The stone in the building is also absolutely beautiful. Slab after gigantic slab of marble, granite, and other stones that I have no idea what they were but even prettier than marble. And it just went on and on and on. We also were able to see the Emperor's door, which during Byzantine times, only the Emperor was able to use. We saw where the Empress would have observed the religious proceedings from her specific location. The caligraphy and designs decorating walls, ceilings, and carving on pillars were exquisite. I was in awe and can finally understand how skilled workers could have spent their whole careers constructing and decorating this building. I would still strongly recommend anyone visiting here to take the time and see it. It is like nothing else you will see in your life.

After a nap, I am ready to go and find some food. I haven't eaten since breakfast at 11, and it is now almost 5. Breakfast was fun though, it was on the roof of our hotel, surrounded by potted plants, and consisted of bread with butter, jam, and a soft cheese, fresh FRESH tomatoes (Mom, you would LOVE them!) and cucumbers, a hard boiled egg, and fresh black olives, complete with black tea. Absolutely delicious and light.

Ok, there are an Australian couple who needs to use a computer and I have offered mine. I will try to get Chris to try to upload pictures tonight and I will post again tomorrow.

We're here!

2009-06-17T22:22:00.000+03:00

Whew, where to begin? We're here, and ummm, wow. (Hey, I can say ummm when I'm talking to you all!) I'll try to start at the beginning and fill you all in w/o making this post a novel (which yes, will be difficult for me).

Thanks again, Daddy, for driving us to the airport. Things actually went well. O'Hare isn't too bad as far as airports go. We were CLOSE on luggage though! 2 of our bags weighed exactly 49.5 lbs (the max is 50 before you have to pay $150 extra!) so there was a sigh of relief. (Becky, sorry about the huge mess we left at your house while whittling my bag down from 65 lbs to 50!) We also actually did pretty good for the plane! They did an upgrade for us, so Chris actually had leg room. And then I could relax :) The flight went pretty well, I guess we had strong tailwinds so it went faster? sure, sounds good. all I know is that apparently I don't sleep well on planes. talk about a loooong night.

Heathrow was ok, I guess. I was such a little zombie that I pretty much wasn't aware of anything going on around us. Thank goodness for Chris :) The flight to Istanbul went well too, and we had GREAT seats! (Not quite first class, but hey.) I do believe we have both picked up colds from the planes though.

Istanbul is insane. Really. For a farm girl from a town of less than 2000, quite overwhelming. Probably not so much so for anyone from NYC or something. Lots of traffic (of which they make their own lanes), pedestrians going wherever they want, little streets that should be one-way but are two (cars have to back up or go onto the sidewalk to let opposing cars pass), and so many ancient buildings, walls, and monuments it makes my head want to explode and my eyes pop out. I definitely stand out as a tourist here :)

We ate across the street at a place called Seven Dreams and had the most helpful host! I understood his English, and he was extremely helpful with directions (and with chatting, which endeared him to me right away). I think we'll be eating a few more meals there. We have to tomorrow, b/c we didn't know whether to leave a tip or not, and so we didn't, and ooops, apparently we were supposed to. However, for all of you wondering, NO, I have NOT said "ummmm" yet (at least not that I know of...), and YES, I have been picking up a couple Turkish words. Mostly having to do with food and apologizing. :)

Speaking of food, foodies read on. Those of you who don't care, you can stop here. I had one amazing meal today! Since I slept through breakfast and lunch (and only had breakfast yesterday), I was STARVING when we finally got food today. It is typical for a large meal to order a cold appetizer, and hot one, and then your meal. Chris and I ordered hummus, stuffed grape leaves, "cigar-shaped pastries filled with cheese" (I swear, that's the name of it on the menu!), and then he ordered lamb kebabs and I ordered Adana Kebabs (which our host promptly changed to adana wrapped in filo dough and fried crisp, assuring me it was better). I also ordered Turkish tea and coffee, and Chris ordered an apple tea, which basically tastes like hot apple juice with a splash of tea. Yum! Zeytin restaurant in Ada is actually pretty authentic, for those of you wondering. Many of the spices and flavors were the same, as well as menu items. Even if NOTHING else goes right on this trip, I can deal with it b/c the food will make it all better :)

Anyways, I am sure I have more to say, but believe it or not, I am tired after being up a whole 8 hours! I will try to post more soon. And make it more fun, this felt like I was just touching the surface. Miss you all!

It's like a Garage Sale, only Free!

2009-06-01T23:25:00.000+03:00

Ok, I did promise you all a list of our things that we're going to be getting rid of, although we're giving our loyal followers a chance to grab them first. I'm making a list below, please feel free to ask any questions about the items. Let the snatching begin!

Note: Crossed-out items have already been claimed. You snooze, you lose!

Black living room chair
Small Black Square Table
VCR
DVD player
1 Desk in the office
Large boombox
Small boombox
5 & 3 shelf bookcases
1 semi-working laptop
2 mosaic plant stands
Shredder
2 office chairs
3-in-1 printer
Table and 4 chairs (the old one, sorry guys!)
Microwave
Night Stand (1 drawer)
Toaster
Patio Chairs (4 + lounger)
Toaster Oven
TV stand
Mini Fridge
Single-room Humidifier
1 large Suitcase 70s style (total magnet for the opposite sex!)
Bike Rack for Car
Plastic/Tupperware containers
15 drinking glasses
Many Picture frames
Hot roller set
1 set towels
Candles
Nesting Shelves (2 sets of 3)
Wall Clocks
Over-the-door Shoe Rack
Seasonal Wreathes (4)
Stemware Racks
Xmas Paper
Gift Bags
Bread Box
Spice Rack
Large, sturdy folding table
Blue table lamp
Down comforter
Plastic wheeled filing cabinet

...and anything else that I haven't listed that you have your eye on. (Although I do reserve the right to keep it :D )

My last day of work was Friday, 5.29. so the packing has frantically begun. I will accept any volunteers wishing to assist....

Chris has set up a local (well, for some people anyways) phone number for us through Skype that we will be using in Turkey. Please feel free to email either of us or call our current cell phones to get that number.

I still can't believe we're doing this.

The Slow Lane

2009-05-18T03:54:00.000+03:00

Sometimes as I think about the adventure that we're about to embark upon, I think that "Slow Lane" is just about the last thing that it sounds like. We'll be moving to a new country, learning a foreign language, adjusting to a different culture, switching careers, finding jobs and an apartment, and meeting lots of new people. Sounds hectic!

But what the slow lane is about, at least for me, is trying to really take the time to experience life and to take in what the world has to offer. Too often, my life has gotten into a rut, consisting of simply a rush from one obligation to another, with my mind on either the next thing that I need to be doing, or on what I would rather be doing. Going somewhere unfamiliar is a way to break the cycle and get out of the rut.

But even on vacations, it is all too easy to fall into this trap -- to rush from one sight to the next, worried that I won't be able to see it all. A couple weeks a year of vacation isn't even enough to scratch the surface of what I'd like to see or do in the world.

So where does the slow lane come in? Since we'll have an extra 50 weeks a year to experience the rest of the world, there's no need to rush. We can take it slow and keep our minds on the present moment and really see, hear, taste, smell, and feel the world in a way that would be difficult or impossible as tourists.

This fact really came home to me when I was thinking about our ferry/train trip from Istanbul to Izmir. The trip will take most of a day. At first, this felt like a "wasted" day. But then I realized that we have all the time in the world. So we can sit back on the train, relax, take in the countryside, meet people, and enjoy a meal or two (supposedly the food is quite good on Turkish trains!), without feeling like we're missing anything. To me, that's the slow lane.

Turkey Map 2.0

2009-05-16T16:14:00.000+03:00

I have created a custom Google map to show some of the highlights of our trip to Turkey. We're flying into Istanbul and we're staying there a few days to do some sight-seeing. Then we're taking a ferry/train to Izmir, where we'll have a few more days before our CELTA (English teaching certification) class begins. The map shows where we'll be traveling and some of the sights we're planning to see.

Click here for the map.

I'll be updating the map periodically throughout our adventures in Turkey.

I Hate Moving

2009-05-06T19:51:00.000+03:00

Well, it is my first foray into blogging. Chris and I both figured this would be the easiest way to keep everyone up-to-date on our plans, where we've been, what we've been doing, and the sights we have seen. We'll also try to keep it mildly entertaining. (If we can't manage that, we'll at least keep it short!)

For anyone who isn't aware, Chris and I will be moving to Izmir, Turkey on June 15 of this year. (Here's a map of where that is: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Izmir,+Turkey&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.634084,64.248047&ie=UTF8&ll=38.426832,27.129707&spn=0.057154,0.125484&z=13&iwloc=A ) We're not sure how long we will be here- if we like it, it might be a few years, if we don't, not as long as that. For the first month, we will be taking a course through Cambridge University to teach us how to teach the English language. Then we will be on our own to find jobs and teach Turks how to speak our language. We chose Turkey for a couple reasons: (1) all of that awesome ancient history stuff that both of us get geeked about and (2) it is actually possible to get work permits in Turkey, unlike most of Europe.

Preparations are coming along, although, as my title states, this is not high on my list of favorite things to be doing. We have a lot of stuff to decide what we're doing with it. I will be posting a list before too long on here of things up for grabs.

Anyways, enough whining about moving. I mostly just wanted to get this set up and get myself familiarized with this blogging business before we get over there. We'll always be open to questions, so ask away!