Blog Catch-up - Izmir Trip

       Sorry for the long absence. A deadly combination of internet access problems, two trips, and the delivery of our household goods shipment with ensuing chaos has kept me from posting. So . . some catching up is in order.
       In September Geoffrey and I flew to Izmir, a popular tourist city on the eastern Mediteranean coast. We had a date to meet up with the Tangs - our Aussie friends from San Antonio - who would be passing through on a cruise. We would have one day to spend with them and two days to spend just the two of us.

This was my favorite painting. Its St. Augustine watching a child play at the beach. The story had something to do with understanding the Trinity. I just liked the paining.

       Our hotel was in downtown Izmir and we spent our first day walking around the city and along a pretty boardwalk. We found the small military installation there and took a tour. We also found the old cathedral that the Air Force has rented from the Catholic Diocese for more than 50 years. The church is hidden behind a steel fence topped with barbed wire and you have to be buzzed in and show a military ID to a guard to get in. But its a beautiful church with huge fresco paintings on the high vaulted walls.
      We also rented a car that first evening so we would have it for our adventures the following day with the Tangs. Having been told where to purchase a toll card and gas, we set out during rush hour to procure both. And got lost. Very very lost. We had maps and my husband's fantastic sense of direction and my mediocre navigating skills.  But the Turkish signage never tells you what street you are on or what streets the exits are leading to. Instead, the signs tell you only what area of town that exit leads to. The maps, however, label only the streets.  So it took us almost two hours to accomplish what should have taken 25 minutes.
      The next day we managed to get out of town and drive the hour and a half to the port town of Kusadasi where the cruise ships dock. We were only able to find a small rental car, a sedan that had room for 4 comfortably. Our plan was to find another car to rent in Kusadasi to accommodate the Tangs and their friends the Woolleys. But no rental cars were to be had, so we all piled in, circus clown style and drove to Ephesus.

      Ephesus reminded me of Machu Picchu. You can see pictures of it and think you have a grasp on what its like. But a visit there gives you a totally different experience.  Ephesus was amazing! To walk on stones and touch pillars that were there when Christ walked the earth. To see the amphitheatre where Paul preached. To see the buildings and sculptures this culture created without the use of modern machinery or building techniques. It's astounding. I highly recommend it.
       I always feel so distinctly American when I visit places like this. We have so many positive wonderful aspects in the US. We are so unique. Despite our imperfections, we are the most benevolent super-power history has ever seen. But in the greater scope of history we are SO dang young. And so as an American I feel a bit like a kindergartner being allowed to walk across a college campus. I think I'm pretty great because I've managed to learn my letters and colors and I hardly ever eat the glue sticks or run with scissors. But who knows how I will do in the next five or ten centuries?

Chantelle is the middle and her lovely friend Norelle is on the left.

We shelled out the extra Euro to go into the terraced houses exhibit. Fascinating stuff and cool to see the excavators at work. Once we were finished touring the ruins we visited the museum which housed many of the statues and artifacts found in the ruins. We also found a little place to have some lunch. Honestly the food was not great and I wished we could've found a better representation of Turkish food for our friends.

All you Texans - notice the Buckee's shirt that Mark is sporting?

     Once we got back to Kusadasi, we walked out a long jetty of sorts to a random ancient building turned park at the end where a nice kid who worked on the cruise boats shot a couple of pictures for us. Then we had to say goodbye. It was so great to see friends from home and make some new ones as well. We tried unsuccessfully to convince them to sneak us into their suitcases and then drove back to Izmir.
      And almost died. Repeatedly.  That little street map problem I mentioned earlier? Well, we missed our exit and it reared its hideous head again. Honestly, I have never been so terrified in a car. Ever. At one point we were caught between two semis both merging into our lane. I actually covered my ears. When the crisis was over and we were miraculously not dead, Geoffrey asked me why I covered my ears. (He knows I do this during scary movies so I won't hear the scary music.) I told him it was so I wouldn't have to hear myself screaming while we got squooshed and died.   Somehow we finally got back to the right section of town and were only a half hour late returning the rental car. We walked back to our hotel and I was never so happy to be walking in my whole life. I like the Turkish people. Until they get into a car.
     Our last day was a commercial tour we had booked through the base travel agency along with our plane tickets. We shared the tour with a charming retired military couple from Idaho and an interesting Russian Swiss man who had very distinct political views. He and the tour guide had several heated discussion on our drive out to Pergamon.  We saw some more ruins that day including the steepest amphitheatre in the world. They were not as impressive as Ephesus but our guide was knowledgeable and the day was beautiful. The highlight for Geoffrey was seeing the ruins of the Asclepium, hospital complex where patients could bathe in healing waters, take naps and then have their dreams interpreted, or listen to soothing musical concerts. Hmmm. . . sounds more like an expensive spa than a hospital. The famous physician Galen - whom Geoffrey knew all about - worked at this hospital for many years.

Here's Geoffrey with a statue of Galen. 

       After a long day of touring we were dropped off at the airport. We were the last ones to be dropped off and Geoffrey spent the last leg of the drive discussing language dialect and pronunciation with our guide. He had been taught English by both an American and a Brit and wanted to know which country's English he more resembled phonetically. We couldn't say but Geoffrey rounded out his education by teaching him some Southern redneck expressions and word corruptions. (Think ya'll and fixin tah ' and the like.) He caught on to these very well. God forgive us!
       So that was Izmir. A great trip that both Geoff and I needed. Stay tuned for an account of the family trek to Germany.


       

Birthday boys

We've finally finished our birthday season. From the first week of August to the first week of September we have four of our five child birthdays and one anniversary (which got completely overlooked this year.) Brannick's is next after Delaney. His birthday was rather low-key, kind of like him. We had his favorite Cafe Rio pulled pork salads and a super moist chocolate cake with cookie dough ice cream. Because he is waiting anxiously for the new kindle fire to come out, presents were small and few.

But we did spend the evening together as a family and even had Geoff there to cut up a bit during picture taking. Brannick started his job at Pizza Hut right after his birthday and has been a working man ever since. Luckily they are good about letting him have Sundays off but I think he even got some over-time last week he worked so many hours!

He is pretty excited that his work uniform came in his favorite color. He's one handsome dude and I'm so proud of him. Now that he is getting closer to leaving home I realize more and more how much I will miss him.  He makes me laugh everyday. Granted, it's sometimes when I really need him to be serious and do his schoolwork or other task but I love his sense of humor and his happy outlook.

Last of the birthday bunch is Evan, who turns double digits this year! His mean mom did make him do some school work on his birthday but I also took him out to the Thursday market and the Turkish commissary - neither of which he had seen yet. I am getting to spend much more time with Evan than I have the last few years as he decided to be homeschooled this year. He is a smart and willing learner and I enjoy spending the days with him. Although he feels like he is not growing nearly fast enough I think he is well on his way to becoming a wonderful young man.

Carson had come up with a great idea for Evan's birthday and since I am pretty birthday-ed out by the time his rolls around I was happy to go along with it. Carson and Delaney created a scavenger hunt to lead Evan to six different places around the base to find his presents. Then we rented this Fred-Flintstone mobile tandem bike from the Outdoor Rec Center for our scavenger hunt.

Since Brannick was working that night, the first clue lead us to the BX, where Brannick gave Evan his first present.  We had a great time and actually got a pretty decent workout pedaling around the base. We even ran into Geoff's boss all dressed up for a formal function. That sighting became the talk of the clinic the next day. Since we rented the bike for 24 hours, Carson and Evan spent the next afternoon riding around the neighborhood giving rides to all Rory's friends.  Brannick even got to go for a spin before he had to head off to work. He can't wait until his tricycle comes with the rest of our stuff. (not kidding)

After we had collected all the presents we headed back home to enjoy Ayten's dinner, which we shared with Geoffrey's co-worker, Dr. Jones. By Evan's birthday no one wants cake anymore so we celebrated with some brownies and called it good. A game of Uno-spin capped off the evening and that ends birthday season! Mine is next but not until next month.  I wonder what we could rent for that?

Introducing the cobbler's elf. . .

This is Ayten - the sweet Turkish grandma lady who comes and works magic in my house every Thursday.  I haven't had someone come and clean since Geoff was in medical school and I had a baby and two toddlers.  It was wonderful then and it's no less so now. Having every room of my entire house clean AT THE SAME TIME is like a miracle. And being able to teach school, grocery shop and generally get things done WHILE this is being accomplished is beyond fabulous!

Ayten washes all the laundry - including the bed linens, and she irons. She also cleans the kitchen, wipes out my frig, cleans my stove drip pans, cleans the bathrooms and the showers and sweeps and mops the whole house. (I would hire her just for that.) But best of all - she cooks. Always at the beginning of the day so she can thoroughly clean the kitchen afterward. So far she has made rice pilav - which is this amazing version of Rice-A-Roni, you know, rice and short little pasta sticks seasoned with lots of chicken bullion. She has also made chicken tava which is a baked dish with potatoes, onions, tomatoes and chicken thighs.  I asked her if chicken breasts were okay to get for this dish. She grabbed her upper leg and said, "I think this is better for you." Hee hee. So I bought the thighs.

Last week she made two kinds of yufka. I had a hard time figuring what I needed to buy for this one as I had no clue what yufka was or the right cheese to buy. So in the end I gave her some lira and she bought the ingredients. Yufka is a thin dough like huge tortillas. She made one kind by rolling up the turkish white cheese inside the tufka and then frying them. Those are called cigarette yufka. The other kind she made with chopped fresh spinach and ground beef layered between the yufka and baked. Both were so delicious. I had found some of the pomegranate syrup that the Turks put on salads with oil and had her toss a salad of fresh tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce with it. That was Evan's birthday dinner.  This week she is making stuffed eggplant and peppers. Eventually I want to help her cook so I can learn to make these dishes too. But for now, its just so great to be relieved of cooking duties once a week.

She speaks broken English (again, much better than my Turkish). Most of the time its okay but we've had a few small issues. I can not figure out what kind of scrubbies she wants me to buy to clean the drip pans with and don't know how to tell her that housing will give me a new set when we are ready to move out so don't stress too much about them.  I've bought three types of scrubbies already and none of them are right. Also, I can't seem to communicate that those nubby dryer balls are supposed to go in the dryer. When I try she keeps talking about checking the children's pockets before she washes. But neither are very important so it's fine.

She loves Rory especially. When I asked if I could take her picture she immediately grabbed Rory and put him up on the counter next to her to be in the picture. Its actually useful because you can see how tiny she is. And no, she doesn't clean in those clothes. She keeps a set of cleaning clothes and shoes here at the house but she does always keep a scarf around her hair.

And yes, I do that crazy thing where you run around the house picking up because the maid is coming and she might think you are a slob! But in the end it's a good thing. I want her to be able to clean surfaces not spend her time picking things up off of those surfaces. And no, the magic doesn't last all week between her visits. (sigh) But it certainly gives me a huge leg up on trying to keep on top of the mess and chaos.

I wish everyone could have an Ayten.  I wish you could have one.

Hello Baby!

Yes, he is sitting on a giant cabbage. 

This week was the first week of school, which means I am no longer a lady of leisure (hah!). But I did steal away for an hour or so on Thursday to visit the market with my friend Karen. Behind one stall we saw three little boys eating their lunch - a chopped up mess of vegetables with a loaf of bread and some hunks of cheese. They were very confused as to why we wanted to take their picture and kept getting up to pose. But we finally convinced the younger two to sit back down at their meal.

I love that they are eating this wonderful fresh food for their lunch. I love that one of the boys is sitting on the hugest cabbage I have ever seen.

Here are some of those big cabbages. Karen assures me they will get even bigger.

Because I know just what my mother is thinking I have to point out a couple of things.
1) The produce here tastes SOOOO much better than it does in the U.S. You just wouldn't believe how flavorful everything is and its cheap! You don't have to pay extra for 'organic' produce. If we fed these kids US produce, they probably wouldn't eat it.
2) These kids, as adorable as they are - were chubby. It might not look like it from the picture but they were. So don't talkto me about curing America's child obesity problem. But yes, kids in the US should eat more like these kids. We all should.

Here is the best part.  After we had finished our shopping and were walking back to car we passed this stall again. The oldest boy, who is not in the picture and was only maybe 10 or 11, runs up to the edge of the stall and calls out, "Hello Baby!" to me. His friends all think this is hilarious and giggle like teenage girls.  No idea where he learned that English phrase but he was very excited to have a chance to use it. 

We also got some AMAZING peaches (sheftali)! Sooo good!

There is cereal under there but its just the vehicle. I wish I had my canning stuff so I could can up a bunch of these.

That night we had our first power outage. Apparently all of Adana was down for a bit. We had no flashlights or candles but all of us have a flashlight app on our ipods so we were good. Thank you technology. Rory was pretty freaked out so we went on a walk to try and find the hedgehog that Geoffrey and I had seen on our walk earlier in the week. We walked back to the place where we had seen him which happened to be near a guard tower. Seeing the silhouette of a Turkish guard with his gun didn't help Rory's anxiety level much. And the hedgehog was a no-show.  But on the way home Delaney did catch a frog which cheered up Rory. Frog hunting is something of an obsession with the neighborhood kids.

Most of the neighborhood was outside so we visited a bit until the lights came back on. I guess that happens pretty frequently here so we will have to get some candles and such (or just make sure our ipods are charged up.)

Geoffrey has been working so hard all week. He spent last Friday, a down day, at work all day and has worked late several nights this week. Today is Saturday and he is at work at a meeting. But last night he and I went to dinner near the lake in Adana. The lake is huge and all along the shore there are restaurants and parks. We went to a very nice restaurant. The maitre 'd or head waiter spoke passable English. (I never criticize anybody's English as its always better than my Turkish and I think English would be a bugger of a language to learn.) He liked to say Bon Appetite a lot. So I guess he is tri-lingual!!

They brought out a Turkish salad which is tomatoes and red peppers and cucumbers and herbs, bread, hummus, and several vegetable condiments like spiced onions and finely chopped tomatoes in olive oil. There was no menu. He said, "I am menu. Man Menu." So Geoffrey ordered lamb and I ordered grilled chicken. Both were simply prepared and excellently seasoned. For dessert they brought us a fruit plate. "Fruit plate house-ling" which meant it was on the house. And this other dish that was like shredded wheat soaked in honey with sliced pistachios and served with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Very good. I have seen the shredded wheat bread at the Turkish commissary. Maybe I can get Ayten to teach me how to make it.

Most of those dishes were brought out with the salad.

This was just a part of our view. We were up high on a hill over-looking this enormous, beautiful lake. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Call to Prayer

It is full dark outside, cooler now than during the daylight but still warm. A moment ago I stepped outside to get something from the car and heard the call to prayer from the local mosque in Incirlik. I hear this sound several times a day. Most of the time there are other competing noises and I catch only a few notes. The masculine, undulating melody is strange to my American ears and I have no way of separating the tones into meaningful words but I love it all the same.

Today I was very very brave and drove with the kids down to the mall in Adana. On our way we saw at least a half dozen sharply spired minarets. The mall stands opposite the large central mosque shown above. (In fact, I took that picture from a third story restaurant in the mall). As beautiful as the blue mosque is, I loved seeing the smaller minarets and imagining times past when someone would stand in the small, high opening and sing out the call to prayer without the modern day aids of loudspeaker systems.

Tonight's call to prayer comes through speakers that allow it to be heard all throughout the village and base. The reverberations create an delayed echo that makes the one male voice sound like two - a plaintive duet. I lean against the carport pillar and listen until the song fades away.  It is a surreal moment, a reminder that I am far away from the safe and comfortable, living in the strange and wonderful.

I love that there is a call to prayer five times everyday. If I remember to say a pray in the morning before my day takes off, bless the food before each meal and pray before I drop into bed at night, then my daily prayer total is roughly five per day. But its not the number of prayers that I love, its the call to pray itself. Its the moment when somebody intrudes into daily busy-ness and shouts, "Remember your faith. Remember God. Remember to talk to Him."

Now I don't claim to be well-versed in Islam and maybe I am grossly mis-representing or over-simplifying their prayer practices but that's what the call to prayer says to me. Its the same feeling I used to get driving down Evans Road at sunset, rounding the corner and seeing the stunning San Antonio temple, my temple, silhouetted against the sunset. "Remember God." 

We probably all hear calls to pray at times in our lives. Visual reminders of our beliefs or even challenging experiences can bring our minds and hearts back to our faith, back to the God we were raised on.  I have a framed pencil drawing done by an incredibly talented childhood friend of Geoffrey's, David Michael Grey http://www.davidgrayart.com/#home (you can see his work at that link.) The drawing is of a woman. Behind her is visible a robed figure, shown from the shoulders down. The marks in his outstretched hands identify him as Jesus Christ, the Christian God. David drew the woman in the act of turning around -  turning toward him. I love the message of the piece - that we all have to turn back to God.

My next post probably won't be quite so deep, more of the adventures and misadventures of an American mom living in Turkey. I might even relate my harrowing drive home from the mall in rush hour traffic. But I hope you didn't mind my indulging myself in a few late evening reflections.  

Delaney's Birthday

My sweet daughter is now 15!! How she has managed to grow up into such a beautiful, happy, confident young lady is a little beyond me but I'm so grateful that she has. She seems to have escaped much of the teenage angst that plagued me at that age. And true to form, she has adapted wonderfully well to the major upheaval of an overseas move. She has already made friends with great girls, planned a full and active schedule for the next school year, has babysitting clients and seen more of Turkey than I have! She is on track to achieve her goal of finishing high school in the next two years which means when we move again she will be off to college. I'm excited for her but sad for me.

But enough of that. On to her birthday celebrations. I had a little more advance notice for this one and was able to order a present online and do some shopping off base for a few more. We started her special day with breakfast in bed. She is the one who is usually doing this for other family members of their birthdays so I wanted to make sure she had some pampering on her birthday. She also had a card from her Grandpa Leo (thanks Dad) and her first present to open - a pair of earrings with evil eye stones that I bought out in the Alley.

Looks yummy, huh? Don't be too impressed though - those are Eggo's.

Her dad took her out for lunch at the mall off base. They had Pizza Hut (I have no idea why). She also got to watch Geoffrey get a hair cut experience at the Pretty Women Man Salon in the alley. He had gotten a really bad haircut at the club barbershop that morning so he went somewhere else to have it fixed. He walked out an hour later with his hair cut perfectly, his eyebrows trimmed and threaded, his nose hair trimmed and his ear hair singed off with some flaming candle thing. He said he had no say in the matter and that the eyebrow threading hurt like heck but they did follow it up with some soothing creme and a massage. All that set him back all of $13.

That evening we had a back to school party with the branch at the base pool, which they had rented out. Everyone sang happy birthday to Delaney at dinner. The party was great and even though Delaney, Carson, and Evan had been in their swimsuits every day that week at the Wet and Wild Week, they still had a good time. I even went off the diving board a few times and down the water slide, much to my children's delight.

Sunday afternoon we had one of her favorite dishes, Angel Chicken Pasta, for dinner and brookie sundaes for dessert. (Brookies are brownies baked with globs of chocolate chip cookie dough in them. Super yum! You should try them.) And she opened a few more presents. I had ordered her a Ipod docking station/CD player for her room. She had a small alarm clock docking station that recently died so it was a good choice. I also bought her a pretty lamp off base in one of the stores.

Apparently these lamps are kind of a touristy thing but they are very pretty. She was very happy with her gifts and with her birthday celebrations.

There she is - my only daughter. A refuge of femininity in this sea of testosterone that is our mostly male family. I would say she's growing up too fast but really she's just right on schedule. I enjoyed her when she was a darling toddler and a sassy kid holding her own against her brothers and I enjoy her now as a sparkling, vibrant young lady. And though I am glad that so far all her boyfriends are not real . . .

I know one day she will be the best thing that ever happened to some lucky young man who could never really deserve her.

Swimming in the Med

On Saturday we took our first family day trip. A family in our branch was going to their favorite beach and invited the branch and a few other families along. We drove for about an hour or so, passing the Snake Castle that the kids went earlier in the week. The beach tuned out to be quite private, no one else was near us at all.

The water was warm and the sand was smooth. Not as fine and lovely as Florida white sand but a nice beach all the same. The Bowens had a small propane grill and cooked hot dogs and brats and the rest of us had brought drinks and chips and such. I had made cookies to share - just the cheap Betty Crocker mixes that use an egg and a stick of butter. But because they were in a covered glass pan and it was so hot outside, by the time we ate them they were warm and gooey and tasted like they had just come out of the oven. Everyone loved them which I found funny. Wait until I get my KitchenAid - I'll show you what good cookies are!

We all swam and had a great time. Rory got in with Geoffrey for a while but he spent most of his time playing in the sand (yes, I know. That will remind my parents of me playing in the sand with my back turned to the Red Sea.) Geoffrey also spent a good part of his time resting on the sand. The rest of us spent nearly all our time in the water.

So here are the two moments I will remember most about this fun day.

1) At one point I was out in the water with my older three kids. Someone on the shore was flying a kite so Brannick started to sing "Let's go fly a kite" from Mary Poppins. (Who knew he knew the words to that?)  Pretty soon we were all belting out the song, followed by all the other Mary Poppins songs we could remember. Sometimes that Pratt blood just comes on out.

2) Out in the surf with Brannick and Delaney, a small flying fish landed on Delaney's shoulder. It was so small she thought it was a fly at first. Then she looked down and there it was flopping around on her shoulder.  She screamed and just about then it hopped back into the water and swam away.  Now we've both been attacked by flying fish.

Today we are all sunburned. No, I take that back. Yesterday we were all sunburned. Today, Carson, Brannick, Rory, and Geoffrey all have beautiful tans. Delaney and I look like lobsters and Evan has red ears and cheeks.

Next Sunday one of the families that was with us is going back to that same beach to baptize one of their kids. I think we will try to go along. Makes me wish we were going to be here when Rory turns 8!