Tuesday, April 7

Brian was back to school today, and Rob and I and the kids were off to the museums. We visited the Museum of Ancient Anatolian Civilizations first, and the girls did a pretty good job of being tour guides. Aeden and I watched the fish in the fish tanks in the snack area for a good chunk of the time as he got bored with the exhibits. It was good to go back to the museum again though and notice different things than the first time I went and was completely overwhelmed. The tiny cuneifom tablets and envelopes are just too amazing to think about. It was also neat to see the display on King Midas's tomb again since we'll be going there on Thursday.

Some pictures Lacey and Maren took at the museum:






We wandered up the hill to the Koc Museum to have lunch in their courtyard and wander the museum a bit. Lunch was great, and it was fun to explain the menu to Rob, who so far has been game to try as wide a variety of Turkish food as possible. Lacey had grilled salmon and was ecstatic over it...good to see that she really is a true Pacific Northwesterner!




We took the short stroll through Ulus in the rain and then grabbed a taxi to head home.

I brought home Aspava takeout for dinner to introduce Rob to cucumber soup, tavuk sis, and iskender kebap in the comfort of our own home. Then we watched Bolt on the big screen since we just got a special delivery of a BUNCH of DVD's from Grandpa Don and Grandma Evie (via Rob's suitcase!). Even after the movie we stayed up and talked forever and it was so great to have a chance to chat with him!

Rob brought us all kinds of goodies, including my Christmas presents that traveled to Turkey in November and then were returned to California for some reason. I am the proud new owner of a Canon G10 camera and a new Kindle! I'm scared to change cameras, but I'm sure I'll adapt and enjoy the added features...and I'm also sure I can adapt to having more books available to read on my Kindle from Amazon instead of just from the local bookstore here!

Ankara-Monday, April 6

Cross-stitch, math worksheets, science fair project, mopping, laundry, vacuuming, and referee-ing between the kids. That's today! We're all set for Rob and Brian to return from Istanbul tonight. Maren's room is all cleaned up and ready to be Rob's for the next few days and so far she's tickled to be sleeping on the hard-a** floor in Lacey's room.

Ankara-Sunday, April 5

I finished reading "Porcelain Moon and Pomegranates" by Ustun Bilgen-Reinart today. It has really resonated with me and I'm still thinking through the different parts of the book. It is written by a Turkish woman who was born in Ankara, lived in Canada from teens to middle age, and then returned to Ankara and it chronicles some of the non-touristy issues in Turkey...like the gold mine, the PKK fighting in the southeast, prostitution, dams, all that happy stuff. I'm glad I found it hidden away on a bookshelf in an English section at D&R. The author is currently teaching at the University literally 5 minutes away from our apartment...maybe I'll think up some excuse to try and meet with her before we leave.

We kept ourselves busy today with a trip up to the tennis courts behind our building, some painting and potato stamping on the kitchen floor (Aeden stamps with gusto!), and even made some finger jello and used cookie cutters to cut Easter bunnies, flowers, and other shapes before chomping it down. The strawberry flavored "Jel" worked fine, but the apple-kiwi Jel precipitated and never solidified in the pan. How disappointing!

Ankara-Saturday, April 4

Brian headed out to the bus station this morning for his trip to Istanbul with Rob. Hopefully I'll be able to get some words from him to accompany the pictures, and we'll just do 2 entries for each day while he's away. Fingers crossed :-)

We stuck around the apartment today and cleaned and played and slept. It is Spring Break! Vacation time!

I fielded calls from Brian in Istanbul (which bus stop do I get off at? is this the right hotel?) and Rob in Paris (missed my flight to Istanbul...oh, that's not the right hotel, try this one...) to get the guys squared away. It didn't sound like Rob was too upset to have to go into Paris for a while and kill some time before the next flight to Istanbul. I'm sure Brian figured out something to do to keep himself busy while waiting for Rob...even if it was simply watching TV in their fancy hotel room at the Ceylan Intercontinental overlooking the Bosphorous.

Friday, April 3

Easter parties at preschool and Oasis. The Oasis one included a telling of the Eater story. Maren let me know when she got home that she thought it was creepy and didn't want to talk about it anymore. I guess her version of it was more graphic than I would have expected. She informed me that she learned the weakest part of the hands from the story though... Ugh.

The girls and I went to the U.S. Embassy for an Easter Egg Hunt and barbecue dinner. What a rough bunch of kids were there! A little boy fell off the play structure (previously known as Big Toy, but the kids don't even know that term anymore!) and broke his arm before the hunt even began...and during the hunt another little boy got his finger twisted when someone else snatched an egg from him. Luckily we made it out of the event without any injuries and with some candy even!

We all enjoyed the barbecue fare quite a bit. Real hot dogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, mini bags of chips, complete with Hefty paper plates, Heinz ketchup, Hunt's mustard, and (drum-roll) A & W root beer. I was so nervous the root beer would run out before I got some, but it worked out OK. There was chicken doner sandwiches also, but the chicken was visibly uncooked, so I wasn't about to forego a nice thick hamburger for food poisoning in an effort to eat the local food. Besides, everyone there said doner like "donor" instead of like "donair" and it felt a little off. It was strange to be able to eavesdrop on conversations again though, since everyone was speaking English. It was like a backyard barbecue from home transported to the middle of the embassy district in Ankara. Weird. I guess they do it every Friday night during the summer--I can see why people would attend to visit with friends and let their kids run wild...there's no way they can get out of the compound and no way for extra unwanted visitors to get in, that's for sure.

I guess I'll register my complaints later...like the fact that I had to have an escort (another teacher from my school) to go to the event even though I'm a US citizen and here on a US State Department program. Oh well.

Maren especially liked the hot dogs and kept asking for more. She ate 3! She was busy telling a group of adults about how much she liked them and how she ate "3 whole hotdogs!" when an older man in a suit inquired about which condiments she likes on her hot dogs. "These ones were just plain," she said. He commented that she was missing out on the best part by leaving off the ketchup, mustard, and onions (which I have to agree!), but that it was probably better anyway since you could double the calories of the hot dog if you use enough condiments. After he left the group I asked who it was that Maren was chatting with...it was the US Ambassador. OK, now I've looked up his name: James Jeffrey. He just started here in the last few months, as Brian met the outgoing ambassador last fall shortly after we arrived. He must be crazy busy getting ready for Obama's visit, but he put in his appearance at the Easter Egg Hunt!

And they're off!

Maren in action

I paused to take this photo, and then a little boy came and grabbed both of the eggs that were up in the tree! I informed him he needed to give one to Maren since she found them first and he complied.

I've never done an egg hunt at a field enclosed in serpentine wire before...

Nor one near half a dozen signs pointing the way to the decon shower...

Maren got one! (Actually, she got about 15!)

Maren and Megan at the barbecue

Maren with one of her hot dogs, #1, #2, or #3, I don't know for sure

Lacey strutting her stuff (don't ask me what was up...)

The barbecue hut at the embassy, full of American barbecue fixin's.

After freezing as the sun went down and waiting for dark, we're finally ready for the big kids' round with flashlights. Here they go!

Thursday, April 2

I'm behind on the blog updating since I've been working on a project for school. After spring break we are having "Around the World" for our theme for a few weeks and we're helping the kids to make a book of flags with icons from each of their countries on them. So I spent a few hours each night surfing the internet for images to use for the preschool flag books for 14 different countries, all with students currently at our school. Dare I say I had fun with the project? I learned some very basic information about the countries (things you'd think I might already know) and some not so basic, as I was searching for images and information to use. Example: I didn't know the capital of Malaysia. Did you? Now I do. And now I know why it says Kuala Lumpur on Uzeir's RoboCon cap! I also didn't know that the most common Arabic hello is Marhaba. So every time Lacey mispronounces the Turkish "merhaba" she just sounds like an Arab. Or maybe not :-) But today I turned in my "homework" so I can get back to doing more fun things like reading books and updating our blog.

I had a little triumph today. Brian needed a bus ticket to get to Istanbul. I wanted to take care of it without help from a Turkish-speaker (all the books say it is "so simple" to get bus tickets...). So I ventured out to the bus station I've walked by so many times on my way to Armada, walked in with my slip of paper with names, dates, and destinations, and walked out with my bus tickets. Amazing. The first clerk passed me off on someone who spoke some English, but still, I got the tickets on my own. Whew. The simplest of things can take so much energy here it is just crazy. But it does give a better sense of accomplishment than, oh, grocery shopping at home or buying something online from a website that works properly.

I also learned today that the Turks will refer to the two sides of Istanbul as "European Side" and "Anatolian Side", not to be confused with "European Side" and "Asian Side". Little labels make all the difference I guess.

Triumph #2 was finding a travel agency to get us a minivan rental for the weekend and a hotel in Cappadocia. I had been poking around on TurkeyTravelPlanner.com (as I often do) and found a recommendation for Argeus Travel in Cappadocia. I emailed them, and within 45 minutes received a telephone call back from an English speaker quoting me rental car prices and telling me he'd call back in about 30 more minutes with hotel information. It was a miracle to get such fast and complete service! I only hope I don't have to report problems with our trip, but so far, so good, and I can only say good things about the agency.

Wednesday, April 1 April Fool's Day

No news to report today, just a regular old day. Not even any great April Fool's jokes, sorry!