5 Great Things About Living in Turkey

1) The Yogurt. I think I will never be able to eat thin, chemically tasting Yoplait again. The yogurt here is amazing. So far we've tried Blackberry - with chunks of half berries in it, Apricot Fig - Geoffrey's fav, Pear Banana - sooooo good, and Cherry Vanilla - real cherry not flavoring. Fortunately the nutrition labels are in Turkish so I can't tell how many calories or fat grams I'm eating.

Sorry I don't know how to rotate that. Just lean your head to the right.

2) We walk everywhere! In San Antonio, nothing was close to our house. You had to get on a freeway to get anywhere. With all Geoffrey's traveling and my driving the kids to music lessons in Canyon Lake and Live Oak, our gas bill was somewhere between $700-$900 a month. Ouch!! And although gas is more expensive here we will be driving so much less. I will be so much happier putting that money towards our IRAs or even toward taking big trips. And I love it that we have more physical activity built into our day.

3) The Turkish people are very friendly and customer service oriented. I told you about the shopkeeper and the apple tea.  The man who is employed to mow our lawn for us until our mower comes also waters the grass, takes the garbages to and from the curb, trims the bushes, and washes the rental car. When we took the family out to the Alley for a meal on Friday night we were brought complimentary salad before our meal and complimentary fruit plates afterwards. The waiter tried very hard to bring us some of his special tea - actually we couldn't quite work out if he was saying special tea or specialty. But as we were unsure of the whole tea thing, we politely turned it down. (The food was amazing there. I'm so proud of my kids. They all tried very Turkish dishes and we had a tasting contest to see whose dish was the most delicious. I won. Apparently my bad restaurant karma was left behind in the States.)

You probably can't read any of those little labels but then again, I can't either!

4) I love the house!! This is the kitchen. Its gorgeous! Ignore the random stuff on those beautiful marble countertops. With the exception of being very loud (I promise to do my best to change that before you come to visit Dad.), the house is so nice. And for being small, it makes such great use of space. New appliances, a nice laundry room, lots of storage, a lovely tiled back porch, large bathrooms, custom closets with enough shelving that we won't need our dressers. Its great. The appliances are all American with the exception of my dishwasher, which is Turkish. It requires a special dishwasher salt in addition to dishwasher soap and I had to have the housing guy explain the controls to me.

5) Jet Noise. Yes, that sounds strange but one of the things I liked about living in the flight path of Hill AFB was hearing the F-16s. That distinctive roar overhead always made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than my own small family concerns and stresses. I've been told that fighter pilots are on the pointy end of the sword and at least for the 34th Rams, those pilots didn't fly well without good medical care from my husband. Here in Turkey the aircraft noise I hear ripping through the trees from the flight line isn't always our planes. This is a Turkish Air Base after all and we share the flight line.  But if you think about where this country is and who its bordering neighbors are,  we are really way out there on the end of the sword. Together with our Turkish allies we are defending that line in the sand. And my family is part of that. That's pretty cool.