To-Furkey

So I just caught up reading my mom’s blog and now I feel very sheepish and wonder if and why anyone’s even checking my blog anymore. Not that I’ve been posting much lately.  That woman can write! If you haven’t checked out her blog yet, do it. You’ll be laughing out loud sometimes and reaching for a tissue to dry your eyes sometimes, if you’re anything like me. The address is http://windsunexpected.blogspot.com/.

Anyway, I haven’t been posting as much lately I think because the countdown inside of me has begun. As much as I have loved this place and this experience, Dorothy had it right when she so astutely stated (10 times in a row) that “there’s no place like home.” Well, my ruby slippers are on and I’m clicking my heels every day, waiting to open my eyes and find myself surrounded by the people I love most.
But that doesn’t mean life doesn’t continue on in a unique and exciting fashion here in To-furkey. Speaking of To-furkey, I just want to make sure everyone knows that there is in actuality a type of tofu called To-furkey. No, I have never tried it before, but it’s on my bucket list. So, the rest of my time off was cool, but I don’t have much desire to write about it for some reason. So if you want more details, come to my Turkish feast on August 23rd. Or ask me about it next time you see me. It really was so fantastic. I want to get back here as a tourist someday when I can spend more time exploring this fascinating place. My other destinations included Gallipoli (which I accidentally called “Gallopoli”—like Monopoly or the Galapagos Islands--in front of my new Australian friends who went into fits of laughter, said that was “so American of me to say that” and then didn’t let me live it down for 2 days), a festering little hostel where I slept in my clothes overnight and brushed my teeth with water because I had only been planning to take a day trip and ended up staying two days, and Troy. Troy rocked. I want to read a book about the Trojans and Spartans now. And recreate a Trojan horse in my backyard someday for a playhouse for my children.

So after my days off, I flew out Monday night to meet up with the family at Sidika’s father’s home in Bodrum. Bodrum is a HUGE yachting city where many of the wealthy Turkish families go for their holiday get-aways. It’s beautiful there. Sidika’s father’s home is more like a hotel, except he doesn’t rent it out or anything. It consists of a couple villas and 6 or 7 suites (one of which I had to myself). There are three permanent house workers, a driver, a yard worker, and who knows how many other staff that I didn’t see in my one day there. Yes. I did say one day. Funny story.

So I flew in Monday night and was informed upon arrival that we would be staying there for 8 days. That was the plan. We had our plane tickets, some of Chem and Sidika’s friends from work were there with us, we had all unpacked our things. Now Zeynep is a child with a will. And she has decided that she doesn’t like going to bed at a normal time…she doesn’t even like to go to bed at a late time. She wants to go to bed at an utterly insane time…especially for a 7-year-old. That means she usually ends up shutting the eyes at 1:30 or 2:00 am. No joke. That’s how it’s been all summer. So she’s been tired. And poor, sweet Mary Jane has to stay with her until she’s asleep or she’ll scream and cry and won’t go to bed. So Mary Jane hasn’t been getting much sleep. Well, finally Zeynep’s bizarre sleeping schedule caught up with her and she got a little sick my second night there. The next day she was completely better, but told her mom she wanted to go back to Istanbul. And so that’s what we did. We changed the plane tickets to that night, packed up the things, and left. HAHA. I just feel bad they flew me down there for one day, but oh well. I was happy to be there for the one day that I was because Tuesday was the day they went out on the yacht, which was an other-worldy experience. I forget how much I love boating until I get on a boat. I love it SO much. It was a gorgeous day of cruising along on the sea, looking at the breath-taking views, swimming in the crystal clear water, and eating an INCREDIBLE 10-course lunch where Sidika herself chose the huge fresh fish that they cooked up and served to us. About 4 different appetizers, various salads, breads, olives, main course, and three different desserts. It was heavenly. Oh man, my mouth’s watering just thinking about it. I am my father’s daughter.

So, I’m unexpectedly back in Istanbul, but I’m glad. I love it here. And I’m happy to get a little more time here before I leave. Today Sidika took me to the Spice Bazaar because my day tour hadn’t taken me there. It was pretty sweet. It reminded me a lot of Jerusalem’s Old City. I asked Sidika if locals ever shop there and she laughed and said no. It’s a total tourist mirage. They play it up for the tourists hardcore, but it’s still real fun to walk through and peruse all the merchandise. It connects to the Grand Bazaar and between the two you can find more random junk than you thought possible to exist, much less be accumulated in one area. Oh, sweet junk for sale--something that every place in the world has in common. Something I find hilarious is the fact that actual Turks never eat Turkish delight, but of course the tourist areas are CRAWLING with the stuff. It comes in every shape, size, color, flavor imaginable (and unimaginable). So, what do you think I bought at the spice bazaar? You got it. Turkish delight. I’m bringing home 3 boxes for anyone who wants to sink their teeth into something that looks pretty much repulsive to me. But I guess I shouldn’t judge before I try it. I’ll give it a fair chance.
Something I loved about the spice bazaar was all the animals. They sell animals of every breed there. Ducks, chickens, iguanas, puppies, cats, turtles, geese, bunnies, parrots, the list goes on and on…And the funniest thing about it is that every shop sells the same animals and they all have the same pyramids of dozens of different types of cat food/dog food/birdseed in front of their shops. I wonder how they all stay in business…no one specializes! They all sell the exact same stuff. Funny. Anyway, on the way out, Zeynep wanted to buy some chicks. So we packed up three baby chicks in a box, but at the last minute Sidika decided a bunny rabbit would be easier to take care of and asked Zeynep if a bunny would be okay instead, which of course she consented to. So we came home with an actually very cute baby bunny that Zeynep named “Bitsy.” I love it, this family goes to the market and just comes home with a bunny. No biggie. We’ll just buy a bunny today. Cool.

While I’m thinking about animals, here’s something interesting about Turkey: although it’s really modernized and European here, there are stray dogs EVERYWHERE, like in Mexico. The difference with these stray dogs is that the government takes care of them. They get a clip in their ear and then the government takes full responsibility for them, providing food, shots, etc. Isn’t that interesting? I think that it gives people a higher incentive to abandon their animals and not worry about it…but I think it’s interesting all the same. The government is spending money on homeless animals when there are plenty of people in Turkey who live in poverty. Interesting.

Something else that’s funny about this place is the driving. Similar to Israel, the lines on the road are more guidelines or suggestions than concrete lanes. And Turkish drivers can squeeze through openings so small it makes you wet your pants a little…not that I’ve had any personal experience with that or anything…cough, cough. I’ve already written about the honking, which I actually think is great. But I can’t try to start a fad with it in America because I’d get shot or run off the road. The lack of road rage here is very refreshing. I haven’t seen a single person get flipped the birdie or even a driver make an angry you’re-such-an-idiot-and-deserve-to-be-shot face at a fellow roadman. And I haven’t seen a single accident either.

There’s more to tell, but this is long so I guess it’ll have to wait. Cheerio, dear friends. Go eat some To-furkey for me.

Istanbul was Constantinople

Oooo, this is as painful as getting behind in my journal writing! So much to say, so little time. I think I’ll keep things brief here and if anyone’s interested in more detail, come to my Turkish feast and slide show when I get back.
So, I said goodbye to Cheshme, hopped on a plane and landed in Istanbul last Wednesday afternoon for my 4 days off. Guys, I fell in love with Turkey. Up until my time off I had really enjoyed Turkey, but I hadn’t quite understood why people had raved about it to me when I told them I was coming here. But now I understand completely. This is my true story.

Wednesday night I hung around at the house and rested, which felt great. Vera, the Moldovian housekeeper who doesn’t speak a word of English came up to my room with her envelope of pictures of her family and we spent half an hour communicating through hand gestures and a little bit of online translation help. It was such a sweet experience. This woman is here for 6 months at a time, away from her family and friends, cooped up in a house working her tail off every day. Her husband and two kids and precious granddaughter are at home in Moldovia and she’s working to hopefully save up enough money to get them out of Moldovia someday. It sounds like Moldovia is a mess. Most of the housekeepers/nannies/maids that I’ve met here who work for wealthy Turkish families are from Moldovia. It’s a whole different life. I feel so, SO blessed when I put the opportunities I have next to theirs. And Moldovia isn’t the only country like that. Mary Jane, the nanny from the Philippines who also works her tail off is a college graduate and certified teacher. Yet here she is doing hard manual labor and watching spoiled rich kids for a living. There’s just no money to be made in her country. I came here for the experience and the fun…they came here for survival. I feel a little sheepish. And mostly blessed, blessed, BLESSED. But I digress…

Thursday I slept in and showered and then Sidika sent me to a mall here…but it wasn’t just a mall. This was like a small planet or star-destroyer community or something. I could not get over how HUGE this shopping center was. You can’t even imagine. It would probably take you 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other going in a straight line at a fairly good pace. It was pretty sickening. Thousands of posh stores, mostly high-class American ones that were all selling the same stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff. I didn’t stay long…hailed a cab and went home, where I spent the evening figuring out my tours for the next three days. I decided on a day tour of old Istanbul for Friday and a day tour of Troy on Saturday. That was the plan. Here’s what went down:

Friday day tour was RAD. Holy smokes, I love Istanbul. I was on a tour with probably 30 other folks, led by a man named Erol. We started in the Roman Hippodrome where Erol proceeded to tell us the history of Istanbul. It was Constantinople, you know. Anyway, very cool history. In the Hippodrome you can see a legitimate Egyptian obelisk and a wannabe Egyptian obelisk built by a Turkish sultan to try and one-up the Egyptians (didn’t really work), as well as part of a cool bronze sculpture with a really cool story that I can’t remember right now.
After that we walked over the Hagia Sophia. Too. Dang. Cool. This was one of those experiences where you come face to face with something you’ve learned about and heard about your whole life and can’t quite come to terms with the fact that you’re actually seeing it at last. The building is a miracle. The Turks tried to duplicate it many times and successfully built large mosques designed after it, but were never able to build one quite so big, not for lack of trying though. So this mosque was built by the Byzantines under Justinian in 537 and served as a Christian Basilica for nearly 1000 years unitl the Turkish Sultan Mehmed captured Istanbul and converted the church into the Ayasofya mosque in 1453. It served as a mosque for nearly 500 years until the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Christians began to clamor for its return to them. The founder and President of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk (whom I LOVE), decided it should be accessible to all people and so declared it neither a church, nor a mosque, but a museum in 1935. Needless to say, it was a building with loads of history and character…the Muslim aspects and the Christian aspects of it are spectacular and amazing. I’d be happy to tell more to anyone who’s interested, but I think I’ll leave it there for now.

A funny thing at the AyaSofya…a man from India on my tour named Ibriham decided to take it upon himself to become my personal friend and tour guide. He would grab my elbow and pull me around the church, repeating to me every fact that our tour guide had told us in the beginning when we first came in. I think he thought I couldn’t understand Erol’s accent or something, because he literally repeated the ENTIRE tour to me. HAHAHaaaaa. It was so funny and tickled me enormously. I had him take some pictures of me in the church while he was giving me the second tour, none of which even had him in them, and he gave me his business card and asked me to e-mail them to him. Haha. It was so choice.

Next we headed to the Grand Covered Bazaar. Enter Ena and Noreen. Ena, short for Philemena, and Noreen were the two Irish grannies I spent the day with and who I love so, SO much. They just travel the world together because, as they told me, they “don’t have much time left.” On this trip they’re doing Turkey and the Greek islands. They were the best. I had spoken with them a few times during the tour previous to the Grand Bazaar, but when we got to the bazaar and I faced the prospect of entering, by myself for our hour of free time there, this labyrinth of shops and trinkets that one could easily get lost for days in, I shuffled up next to them and asked if I could tag along with them. They graciously accepted me into their party and we headed off. Oh, it was hilarious! These grandmas knew how to work the haggling system and were very quick to tell me that I was no good at haggling at all and showed me how it was done. I just stood back and watched the fun…these ladies had seen the world in all its haggling glory and let me tell you, they were pros. After they took me under their wing at the Bazaar, we were buddies for the rest of the day. They honestly were my favorite part of the day, but seeing the old city was a close second.

The Grand Bazaar concluded our first half of the day and will conclude this entry as well. It’s late and I’m tired after a day of sun on the yacht!!! (More to come!) So stay tuned for the next installment…there’s still so much to tell!

Quick pics

It's been a while and I don't have time to write right now, so I'll just post some pictures and hopefully I can get the accounts up soon. The short of it: I flew back to Istanbul for my 5 days off and had a wonderful day tour of the Old City. Then I took a bus down to Gallipoli and Troy for two days of touring there. Everything was FANTASTIC. Can't wait to get some of my adventures up here. I'm flying out to Bodrum in a couple hours and will be there for 5 days (I believe I won't have internet access there, but not positive), then I fly back to Istanbul for 5 more days and then I come home! Hope everyone's doing fabulously!

Ohhhhh, we're halfway there

This week has been one of accomplishments for me; I am now halfway done with my time here and I finally feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this place. Below you will find some of things I am proud to have finally figured out:
1) I finally mastered correct flushing of the toilet. The toilets here don’t tidily spiral down with one flush…they flood with water and then drain. However, if you flush incorrectly the water will continue to refill until the toilet is flushed correctly. I have been taught and told by more than one patient teacher on how to flush correctly, but after 3 weeks I was still going to Mary Jane and telling her “I can’t make the toilet stop” or would hear Sidika tell Jane when she came home from a night out and the toilet was still running to “show Heather how to do it.” But after losing battle after battle with the white porcelain beast I finally came off conquerer two days ago and discovered the secret technique that works like a charm every time. Hurrah!
2) Sidika taught me how to make Dolma this afternoon. Oh, it’s so scrumptious. And there are so many different varieties. Before coming here, dolma to me was the Greek rice wrapped in grape leaves, and they do have that here. But there is a whole world of dolma that I had no idea existed. My eyes have been opened, and now I see the rice. The make mixtures of rice and meat and onion and tomato and stuff it in miniature bell peppers, hollowed out squash (my personal favorite), and tomatoes. And they eat plain yogurt on top of the finished product. I can’t tell you how good it is. I’m going to make a Turkish feast when I get back and everyone’s invited.
3) At long last I finished learning how to count to 10 in Turkish. Oguzhan had taught me up to 8 before he left, but that was the extent of my numerical knowledge. I took Zeynep over to a neighbor friend’s house the other day to have a play date and they taught me the last two numbers. Bir, eke, ooch, dart, besh, alta, yede, sikis, dokoos, oun. HA! So glad to finally be a 1-year-old speaking level. I can say yes, no, please, thanks, thank you very much, hello, goodbye, numbers 1-10, hot, water (this was a necessity and I learned it very quickly because they drink tea here ALL THE TIME and I very quickly learned how to say that I just wanted water, thank you), come on, tomatoes, half, apple, and book(s), and I just learned how to ask “how are you?” (But I don’t know how to answer so I guess it doesn’t really matter). The way they make things plural here (like adding our s) is adding “lar.” So “book” is “kitap” and “books” is “kitaplar.” I was so proud of myself when I figured this out on my own. Anyway, my 20-word vocabulary is growing slowly, but it’s enough to get by.
4) I watched Gone With the Wind for the first time in my life. Okay, I know this has nothing to do with Turkey, but I felt rather pleased to have finally watched it. It was good…I was really into it…but the end was so incredibly unsatisfying! Agh! I wanted to pull my hair out! Actually, I wanted to pull Scarlet and Rhett’s hair out. I get so into romances (or lacks thereof)!
5) Last but not least, I think my body has adjusted to the heat here…I know what to do now when it’s hot…try not to move. If you can avoid any form of activity when it’s stifling, you won’t sweat. Or you can just hop in the water when you get hot (but I still don’t want to conform to the Turkish habit of changing my swimsuit every time it gets wet).
Well, keep on keeping on, I guess!

A Bowl of Cherries

Well, life here continues on pretty much the same. After all this talk about life being wonderful and all, I decided to watch It’s a Wonderful Life on my computer one night just to unwind, and yes, I bawled as hard as ever at the end. So good. So good. Since nothing very different has happened, I decided I wanted to jot down some things that are different here in Turkey than from in the states, just so I don’t forget these unique little things someday, because they make me happy.

The first thing that was funny to me at first was the swimsuits here. Not the swimsuits themselves, more how the Turkish people use them. So, they go to the beach wearing a swimsuit. They sit in the sun for a while, then get hot and so get in the water for a few minutes, then get back out. But instead of going and drying off while lying in the sun, they go and change their swimsuit and then sit in the sun some more. And when they get hot, they’ll dip in the water and then get out and change their swimsuit again. This goes on all day. Zeynep will often go through 6 or more swimsuits in the course of our 3 or 4 hours at the beach. They change their swimsuits after getting them wet. The classic story in our family has come to my mind many times here that we always laugh so hard about…when Julie was 2 or so she was playing in a little kiddie pool in the backyard and mom went inside to get something really quick. When she came back out, there was Julie standing in the kiddie pool, stark naked. Mom asked, “Julie, why did you take your swimsuit off?” To which Julie replied, “It got wet.” I feel like if I were to ask the Turks why they change swimsuits so often, they’d give the same answer. Just kidding. But seriously. Just a funny little thing they all do that I have not figured out the reason for yet.

Laundry. No drying machines. Everything is hang-dryed…which is probably better for your clothes. But the best part is, after drying, they iron EVERYTHING. From the underwear to the dish rags. No joke. Cracks me up…hard. I don’t iron my need-ironing blouses and skirts, much less my underwear and dish rags. Haha. Oh, I love it.

No microwaves. Anything that needs heating is put on a pan on the stove (or out in the sun as Mary Jane did for the butter she wanted to soften). There are virtually no frozen, prepared foodstuffs and almost no canned goods. Everything is fresh and cooked by hand. The fridge is always packed with ripe, fresh fruits and veggies…large, luscious peaches and nectarines, deep pink, crispy watermelon, and bowls full of freshly rinsed, sweet-beyond-all-belief cherries. I would love to say I’m going to be like that, with no frozen or canned foods when I get back and when I’m a mom someday, but I know I probably won’t. But it’s really cool to live like that for 6 weeks.

Meal “times”. There aren’t really specific mealtimes here, but ther general vicinities of meals are very different than in the U.S. Breakfast is when people wake up…usually around 10 or 11. Lunch is usually between 1 and 3, and dinner is in the 7:30-9:00 arena. No better or worse, just different.

Finally, “vacation” here is different than what I’m used to. But that may just be because my family is AWESOME at vacationing. You see, the wealthy families that fill these seaside summer towns don’t really DO much in the first place. Sure, they have jobs, but beyond that they have hired help for EVERYTHING. People to watch their kids, to clean their house, to cook their food, to pack their luggage (no joke…I woke up the morning before we left for Cheshme to find people in the house packing our luggage while the family entertained guests), people to fix things, to buy things, to drive their cars, really people for everything you can think of. So it’s not like they work super hard in the first place…the things they do for work at home they still do here on their laptops and over the phone, etc. Most of the men fly back and forth between Istanbul or wherever they work and here during the vacation season. Chem has already flown to Italy and Istanbul and come back in between trips. But this is their vacation. And what do they decide to do? Nothing. They go to beaches and eat food all day every day. At night, they go to house parties and fancy restaurants. It’s all just so very interesting to me…very different than the kind of vacationing I’m used to. I’m used to vacations that expand my mind and teach me new things. Exploring new places, seeing new things, meeting new people, all with my family—that’s vacation for me. Learning more about the incredible world I live in while being with the people I love the most. Now don’t get me wrong, our family can definitely appreciate a relaxed day on the beach. But what I’ve learned is that that relaxed day on the beach is so wonderful mostly because we’re there together. Here I am, in this incredible resort town, going to marvelous Mediterranean beaches, being catered to hand and foot, every day. But it doesn’t feel like vacation because I’m not with the people I care about most. Without them, it just feels empty. I’m not complaining though, it is wonderful to be here and to be getting paid to go to these magnificent beaches and be catered to hand and foot. And I do love this family. What I’m getting at is that “vacation” means two very different things to the Ustunberks and to me…they bring hired help to watch their kids so that they don’t have to deal with them and so they literally can do nothing. But that’s kind of the opposite of vacation for me. It’s all just very interesting.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot about the family scene for these wealthy families here in Turkey, all of whom have nannies and au pairs to raise their children. I can see that the Ustunberks love their children a lot…they really, really do. But I wonder if it isn’t a kind of love different from a mother’s who sacrifices and works hard for her children every day. A mother who reads her child bedtime stories at night, or who giggles with the ticklish child while rubbing sunscreen on them. A mom who doesn’t go shopping with her friends every day, or who gives up going to parties or get-togethers in order to get the laundry done and the meals cooked. I was talking with Sidika right when I got here and we were talking about some of the hired help she has. She said something like, “It’s very different here than in America…in America I think the mom does everything, right? The laundry and cooking and everything. It’s too much. I’m so glad I don’t do all of that,” as she laughed. She thinks American mothers are crazy…but I think they are noble. I am so grateful for my own beautiful mother and her exquisite life of sacrifice and making me and my siblings her first priority. I could go on about this for a while, but this is already too long.

I just want to end with saying that I feel such profound gratitude for God’s plan for families and for the special place that mothers have in that plan. For their nurturing, and patience, and long-suffering, and teaching. I commend and respect those women who choose to make their children their career…it truly is the most selfless, yet influential role anyone can play. I love you, mom. Thanks for being my mom.

Wonderful Life

Falling asleep and waking up to singing birds

Sitting down to a tasty lunch after a busy morning at work

Listening to the engine in my car as I change gears

--Bonnie Hepler

the beautiful

sentinel it stands. hovering oer the earth. steady orbit. comforting and graceful.

the moon has lifted me this week. First was after a long day when it's hazy semi-circle seemed to say: "Welcome home, Allie. I know it's been a long day, but I'm still here and life is good. You can relax."

Friday, at almost 2 am, as I stuttered out of the cannon center, a wannish, nearly full moon seemed to whisper approvingly "Good work, you did it.."

Last night in a stadium full of rioting soccer fans and fireworks, my eye could nowhere match the transcendent beauty of the full moon. Luminescent orb. steady. sure. divine.

in a dark, swallowing universe that overcomes us for half of every day, the moon remains. Reflecting the sun. Reminding us that no matter how engulfing the world may seem, the source of light is never gone. and life all around us reflects that light-- sometimes in slivers, or half filled spheres, and sometimes in radiant, glowing fullness.

--Allie Jacobs

Earth's crammed with heaven...

I love the way Elizabeth Barrett Browning put words to it:

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware.


It is this "common bush" beauty that moves me most--the divinity at the core of all creation. Why do our restless eyes brush past the ordinary, anxious to find the "ideal"? Life needs no airbrush or facelift or whitening. The warm, ruddy tomato that I harvested in my suburban backyard tastes like sunshine and open space and summer. Spectacular. A tiny spider lives on my porch and creates a miniature masterpiece of spun silver overnight--then does it again after Maricella sweeps away his efforts with the flick of a brush. Gorgeous. I can sit silently, with a hand resting on someone I love, and pure communication passes between us. Wondrous. Ordinary human beings overcome fear with faith, forgive imperfections, stand up for principle in hard places, process pain and loss into patience and compassion, sacrifice for the sake of another. Miraculous.

Day by day I hope to live with my soul-eyes open to the perfectly imperfect beauty of life, The unlikely, the broken, the patched together, the belated, the almost, the feeble, the hopeful, the quiet, the undistinguished touch me. Who needs glossy and digitally enhanced? Give me unshapely grace and splendor without symmetry. I'll take life--beautiful, beautiful life. Barefoot, breathless I stand. I may never wear shoes again.

--Jerie Jacobs
http://windsunexpected.blogspot.com/

some beautiful moments (keep 'em coming ya'll!)

some beautiful moments from the last few days:

feeling a three-year-old's heart beat under my ear

sitting in bed with two little girls, telling stories, feeling like I have sisters

hearing and feeling a Montana thunder rumble

being asked to pray for this owie and that owie and that there won't be another scary storm tonight

playing Bach with my eyes closed

--Annie Sandholtz

The Tortoise and the Hare

Americans move fast. Really fast. We schedule our days down to the minute and tend to feel unproductive if we don’t spend every moment of our day doing something. I don’t know if it’s because it’s summer, or if it’s because Turkey is just more laid back, but life here is slow. The ticking of the clock here is more like a heartbeat than like the American metronome—it’s soft, slow, gentle, yet steady. In the U.S. we eat on a schedule and get upset at restaurants when it takes over half an hour for our food to come. We watch our specific TV shows at specific times and exercise for exactly one hour and continually pull out our cell phones to see what time it is. Here, I have no phone, I have no watch, there are no clocks in our house, and I couldn’t tell you what time it was at any given point in the day. I have never lived like this and it is new and refreshing. Chicago must have been in Turkey when they wrote the lyrics, “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?” No, I don’t.

The past couple of days have passed in a hazy dream of passing the time by passing the time. We haven’t made it to the beach for a few days for various reasons, which I’m okay with…it gets exhausting being out in the sun all day every day. We’ve danced in the front room and chatted on the patio. Sidika has shown me how to make various Turkish foods, she stirring pots of sauces in the kitchen while singing along to blasting 70’s Turkish music (AWESOME) and me emptying the dishwasher or coloring with Zeynep at the counter. Cem has come back from Istanbul for the weekend and jovially struts about the place humming Turkish songs and teasing Zeynep. Mary Jane tells me about the Philippines as we prepare lunch or play with Zeynep or make the beds.

It’s just been slow and steady, and that’s just fine with me.

P.S. Thanks to those who sent beautiful things in their lives…I would still love to hear more if anyone cares to share!

the beautiful

Tonight on our sunset walk, Emerson exerted his will. He would not walk, would not ride in the stroller. He screamed until he was carried, even if I walked around the corner and out of sight for five minutes. Even when I went inside the house and watched from the front window to make sure that his screams of, "I'm going to get kidnapped!" didn't turn out to be prophecy. When I was tucking him in bed, he wanted me to pray. I asked that he would be able to use the strength of his will to bless this world, to bring about good. After the prayer, subdued, he said, "Do you know that I love to go to Church?" Beautiful.

A few minutes ago, I laid Oliver down in a pile of socks I was folding. He softly cried for a second until I put the pacifier in his mouth. Then he sighed, a deep baby sigh, closed his eyes and relaxed, one hand cradling his cheek, the other raised as high above his little head as he could manage. Beautiful.

While her brothers slept, Lydia sat at the computer playing Zoombinis, singing at the top of her lungs. Beautiful. A few minutes ago, she asked Julie, "Do you know how to sign 'shrimp'?" She wiggled her index finger. Radiant. Just now, as I typed, she crawled up on the bed next to me and whispered in my ear, "Dad, whenever I stumble, I want you to get my back." We read a children's book version of Will Smith's "Just the Two of Us" the other day. I laughed. She smiled that four-year-old smile. Exquisite.

I know a girl who gave birth to a boy who broke her nose with his wrecking-ball head. (It's a good head--round and solid--well-built.) Tonight she made that boy dinner. Nurture. Communion. Sustaining. Sacramental. Lovely. My wife--beautiful.

The scriptures talk of "the beauty of holiness." It seems that there's a connection between the word "beautiful" and the Latin "beatus"--blessed. If that's not true, it ought to be. Beauty is a manifestation of our blessedness, a synonym. Ecclesiastes says of God, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time." This time is beautiful, quiet, holy beauty. The holiness of the everyday. The beauty of this life.

--Robbie Taggart

it IS a wonderful life

friends and family... especially having 3 grown kids who still love to do things with me.

--Brian Grant

It's a Wonderful Life

Isn’t life beautiful? The answer is yes: Life Is Beautiful. I remember thinking dad was a little crazy and senile as a kid because his favorite movie was always the Frank Capra classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. I also remember the first time I discovered myself bawling during the film for no apparent reason. That movie so aptly portrays the beauty of people and of life and of just living. My life is filled with breath-taking beauty. Here are some of the simple beauties that have been on set in my own personal “It’s a Wonderful Life” lately:
• My day with Oguzhan. Zeynep decided yesterday that she did not want to go to the beach, so she and Mary Jane went to her cousin’s house and Oguzhan, Sidika, and I headed off for Babylon. Yes, the name of the beach is Babylon…it was actually full, so we went next door to Sole Mare, which was perrrrrfect. Oguzhan and I spent the day swimming, playing, laughing, and climbing up on one of those inflatable water trampolines. There were some kids there who were saying unkind things to Oguzhan (which I didn’t know because I couldn’t understand them—otherwise they would have had a few words from me), and Oguzhan slid into the water and said, “Come on Heather, let’s go.” When he told me they’d been saying mean things about him, my heart just broke. I have come to love this plump little 10-year-old so much. I was grateful to have this day with him since he’s leaving tomorrow for the rest of the summer and I may never see him again. One funny little thing about Oguzhan that I love is that he uses the word “gangsta” as a synonym for bad or evil. Hilarious.
• Dancing with Zeynep. Zeynep has been teaching me the dance to Hannah Montana’s song “Ice Cream Freeze” and she never fails to correct me when I add any kind of life or spunk to the moves. So now I like to exaggerate the moves a lot, which leads to Zeynep saying, “No! It’s not like that!” (Said while jumping around waving her limbs wildly in imitation of me). It tickles me. She gets this look of complete concentration and sings along, slightly off-key, with unintelligible words while she demonstrates the right way to do it. Golden. Never fear though, I am bringing her up right and making sure that Hannah Montana does not completely commandeer her mind. I am teaching her the Thriller dance and she LOVES it. Thank you MJ. P.S. they lu-HUV Michael Jackson here. Which makes me love Turkey that much more.
• Baking an apple pie. Have you ever tried cooking without American measuring cups? It’s an adventure, to say the least. The only measuring device we had here was for a teaspoon. So I set out on a quest to figure out the calculations for a tablespoon, then half a cup, then a full cup, filling various drinking devices to find out which one was approximately a cup or whatever. Just so ya’ll know, 3 teaspoons is a tablespoon and 8 tablespoons is a half cup. Done and done. Anyway, despite the lack of normal measuring devices and ingredients, the pie turned out beautifully. I guess it’s hard to mess up fruit and sugar. Zeynep helped me pour and mix and stir, which was fun. However, when the pie was baking she came downstairs and exclaimed, “That smells disgusting!” Consequently, she didn’t try any. Oguzhan had some and said it was good, but hasn’t touched it since (they’re used to a sort of apple pastry Mary Jane makes with all sweet apples, whereas I used tart green ones). Sidika is on a diet and so hasn’t had any either. Cem is out of town. That leaves me and Mary Jane to get the job done. Two girls (one of whom is very thin and who hardly eats anything), one apple pie. Life is beautiful.
• Onion rings at Burger King. Not eating them, though. I picked up two of Zeynep’s onion rings last night and put them up to my eyes. After that, everyone wanted a turn taking a picture with onion ring glasses. We even convinced the very proper and manners-aware Sidika to do it. Classic. It was a fun night at the beautiful port where all the yachts were docked at sunset. Another favorite thing of mine is Mary Jane wanting me to take pictures of her ALL the time. And she wants me to take at least three shots in every place and pose…it’s hilarious. But she’s on to something there because between the three shots at every place, she always has one she’s satisfied with. I think I might start doing that.
Life is beautiful. It’s a WONDERFUL life. Maybe I’ll try to make it big as a screenplay writer by making a movie about a Jewish Holocaust survivor named George Bailey who has been stuck in a small little Turkish town his whole life, baking apple pies in an attempt to convince his son that he’s in a contest to win an army tank. Or maybe I won’t. But I will challenge anyone who reads this to find some small beautiful thing in their life, write a paragraph about it, and e-mail it to me (wunderpiggy@gmail.com). I’m going to post them on this blog, unless you expressly tell me not to. I’m totally serious right now. Please just take one minute to think about something beautiful in your life and shoot me a few lines about it. I think it will be uplifting for me and for others. Thanks, all you beautiful people.

Groundhog Day: Part II

Turkish TV: Basically American TV with Turkish voices dubbed over it, which in itself is pretty hilarious. However the hilarity goes beyond the unmatched lips and voices.

Pretty much everyone and their grandmother has seen the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day—a painful comedy in which one man is stuck in time on Groundhog Day for an indefinite amount of time. He wakes up to the same radio announcers saying the same thing, interacts with the same annoying past acquaintances, and watches the same TV shows…over and over and over and over again. Well folks, I have developed a new sympathy for Bill Murray and his suicide attempts.

The TV is always on here. And it is always on Disney channel. Which is much preferable to most of the foul things on the tube these days. However, there’s a catch. Disney only airs 3 dubbed-over Turkish shows here: Hannah Montana, Jonas Brothers, and Wizards of Waverley Place. But wa-wa-wait…it doesn’t air all the episodes of these shows. No. It airs 1 dubbed-over episode of each of the aforementioned shows…over and over and over again. So basically what I am saying is, everyday Disney channel is on all the time, and everyday Disney Channel Turkey-style shows the same three shows continuously. It has a very strange effect on my sense of continuance of time…all the days kind of blur together in a mass cycle of Hannah Montana, Jonas Brothers, and Selena Gomez. I find myself pausing what I’m doing to watch for the line where I’ve painstakingly figured out what they’re saying through lip-reading (I’ve really become quite proficient at it…or maybe it’s just that Miley Cyrus opens her mouth really wide when she talks). Either way, I have a profound new respect for Bill Murray. They probably sent him to Turkey for a year before filming so that he could accurately play the part of a crazed man stuck in time. Just kidding. But seriously.

The really funny part is that the kids haven’t caught on. They still watch TV a TON. Meaning they still watch these three shows a TON. They sit on the couch, faces turned upward and cast with a slightly bluish electric glow, watching the shows in all earnestness. I haven’t even caught them quoting lines or looking bored yet. The amount they watch, it seems they should be able to quote each show from beginning to end. I’m sorry, but one can only take so much of any one show (except Princess Bride and Pride and Prejudice, both of which I CAN quote from beginning to end with sound effects and music). I just keep hoping that one day something will snap inside of them and they will sit up and look at me and start laughing and realize that they can end the Groundhog Day cycle whenever they want to by just turning off the TV. Until then, I guess I’ll continue to hone in on my lip-reading skills day by day, just as Bill Murray learned to play the piano day by day (although thankfully I don’t have to offer $1000 to some random lady to give me lessons—but that IS one of my favorite parts in the movie).

On a side, one of my favorite things now is my morning walks to the market with Oguzhan. He wakes up earlier than Zeynep and so he and I head off to the market for fresh bread and a newspaper. [I love the bread here…it’s gorgeous, fresh-baked loaves and buns and they sit in a cabinet and people feel and squish multiple loaves until they find the perfect one and grab it with their hands and take it to the counter where the gentle, old salesman puts it in a plastic grocery bag. And nobody sues anybody for germs or hygiene or anything ridiculous like that.] Anyway, I treasure these walks with Oguzhan. He’s more himself than during the day with Zeynep. He talks and teases and laughs in his broken English and asks me questions and teaches me Turkish. He leaves on Wednesday and I am really going to miss this chubby, enthusiastic 10-year-old. I learned today that he lives with just his mom, who sounds very…interesting, with no siblings and not many friends. I’ve got such a soft spot in my heart for this boy and hope I’ve been able to help him feel loved. It’s been a blessing for me to get to spend part of my time here with him.

As far as everything else goes, life is good, God is great, and we are all His children. It is so wonderful to interact with the gorgeous people here in Turkey and realize that there are beautiful children of God filling this wondrous earth and that every continent is brimming over with good people trying their best and touching the hearts of those lucky enough to bump shoulders with them, like me.

G.I. Joe: the Architect

So, time in Turkey is different. It doesn’t exist. Life is just life, and you live it. We eat dinner when we’re hungry, not because it’s time to eat dinner. (Which means we’ll often eat after 9:00 or 9:30). Because of this beautiful take on living, Turks often stay up very, very late. Consequently, they sleep in very, very late. This brings me to my next favorite little tidbit about Turkey—their blinds. Turks are serious about their sleep and no dainty, thin, IKEA blinds that feebly attempt to keep out the sun in the morning will do. The sun here is hot and unforgiving and there’s LOTS of it. That is why many moons ago the Turkish government contacted G.I. Joe to find the kryptonite for their morning-time nemesis. The result? Blinds made from army tank armor. Seriously. They have electricity-run blinds that lower down over every window like a garage door. Try getting through that, Mr. sun. The effect is marvelous—a cruise ship cabin darkness as late as you want it. Although, now that I think about it, I guess I don’t mind getting woken up by the sun tip-toeing past my old, feeble guardian-blinds every morning—there’s something terribly romantic about it. I guess I appreciate both options—the Gary Cooper old-timer and the Robert Downey, Jr., Stark Industries new-age thing. Do you think I could make it as a venture capitalist by investing in tank armor blinds in the U.S.?

Ketçap

Sometimes I look at the influence the U.S. has on the world and I believe all that “City Upon a Hill” stuff. Other times I shake my head sadly and cry myself to sleep because of our detrimental influence in some areas. One such example? Ketchup—the unnaturally red, slightly sweet but at the same time tangy, beacon product of American Food Processing. I’m in Turkey, right? Surrounded by sundry exotic, mouth-wateringly scrumptious delicacies and vitals. But what do you think is the sauce/topping of choice for the kids? Ketchup! What do you think they eat on their noodles? Ketchup! What do you think they eat on their rice? Ketchup! What do you think they eat on their toasted cheese sandwiches? KETCHUP! Okay, okay, so I know when I was like FOUR I went through a BRIEF phase of making my “secret recipe” that consisted of a slice of bread with mayonnaise sandwiched with a slice of bread with ketchup on it, but that didn’t last long...at least not after I realized there was actually a wonderful world of food out there. Goodbye Heinz. Hello Yoshida. Anyway, it makes me sad that we have permanently polluted Mediterranean cuisine. I think I'm going to cry myself to sleep tonight. After I write Al Gore.

CHEESE, Gromit!

Oh dear. There is such a multitude of things I want to write about, but there just isn’t time. The short of it? I love it here. I LOVE it here. Things I love about this place (in no particular order):

1. The honking. I don’t know how, but Turks have mastered the art of honking. For any or no particular reason, drivers will give two short, gentle honks while on the road—when passing another car, when pulling onto a street, when trying to get someone’s attention, when the light turns green, whatever! But I just love their soothing little honks. When they honk I feel safe and secure on the road…it’s like an old little babushka assuring me that everything’s going to be okay. Hard to describe, but so rad.

2. Eating 4 different types of cheeses for breakfast every morning. No joke. Four types. Every morning. How could life get any better? Not to mention the olives. Oh, and have I said anything about the hazelnut paste? They have this hazelnut paste that is literally TO DIE FOR. I’m bringing some home and we’re all going to have a party. And I want to try using it on a chocolate cake. Oh man. (When Sidika realized how much I ADORE this stuff she told me that for the rest of my life, whenever I need more I can e-mail her and she’ll mail me some. She was smiling and had a twinkle in her eye, but little does she know that I am going to hold her to that promise until my dying day.)

3. The literally Mediterranean breeze. Right now we are at one of the Ustunberk’s summer homes on the Mediterranean in a place called Cesme (pronounced Cheshmay) and I had my first moment on my own out in public today. I was sent to the market just down the road from their house to fetch some things and I relished the few moments of time to myself. I walked along slowly and closed my eyes a bit to just feel the breeze on my slightly-sunburned skinned (yes, mom, I did put on sunscreen today). It felt wonderful. The almost cool, barely humid swirls of air make you feel like you’re swimming in water from another universe. It’s not wet water. It’s the lightest, freshest, softest little swirls of other-worldly material your skin will ever set feelers on. Anyway, it made me think how funny it is how often we reference “Mediterranean breezes” and here I was actually feeling a literal breeze from the Mediterranean Sea on my skin and lu-huh-uving it.

4. Teaching English. Once again my passion for teaching and desire to do it for the rest of my life has manifested itself in a simple and sweet way. One of my favorite parts of the day is sitting down with Zeynep and Oguzhan (pronounced OH-saan) and reading with them and teaching them new words. At first I was having a hard time getting them to just sit down and read with me…all they want to do is play (which we do a lot of). So I had Sidika take me to the mall to get each of them their own notebook, (one Hello Kitty, one basketball) and flashcards to do activities with. The new system works like a charm. When they come across a word they don’t know in our books, we write it on a flashcard with the meaning on the back, and each day we go through the flashcards of new words. But their favorite part is the notebooks. I’ve set up the notebooks with a letter of the Alphabet written at the top and then have various activities that focus on that letter such as writing 5 words they know that begin with that letter, then drawing a picture of one of those words (they love that part), talking about 3 new words that begin with that letter with me and then writing a sentence for each new word, matching, fill-in-the-blanks, etc. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to see things making sense for these kids. To have Zeynep give an even better explanation of a new word than I did once she understood what it was. Or to have squirrely, sometimes-too-cool Oguzhan light up like a lamp when I excitedly tell him “Yes! That’s exactly right! Great job!” I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this. I could go on forever…I have to share one more experience. Oguzhan has been slower to warm up to me than Zeynep. He has a harder time understanding me because his English isn’t super good, and Zeynep demands a lot of my attention, so this 10-year-old BOY didn’t think much of this foreign GIRL at first. (You know the age). Anyway, as he has come to know the true me (a more than willing opponent in billiards, swimming, futbol, basketball, games, etc), he’s loosened up and we’ve become buddies. But I didn’t realize how much my encouragement and positive reinforcement meant to him until today when he pulled me aside and confided to me that he had finished his Diary of a Wimpy Kid book that he started a few days ago. He made sure that I understood that he finished it yesterday even, not today. And when I said, “Awesome Oguzhan! That’s so great!” and gave him a high five, he looked like he would burst with pride. Everyone, EVERYONE, needs someone to think they’re great.

This is already too long, so I’ll leave it at that, although I could write my own Encyclopedia of Things Heather Loves About Turkey. If anyone has questions about the beat here, feel free to shout ‘em out…it might help me to focus my writing instead of blabbering on for ages. Well, I guess all there is left to say is: Goodnight, Wesley—sleep well. I’ll most likely have to kill you in the morning.

Plants vs. Zombies

I’m sitting here listening to the call to prayer at the end of a wonderful Sabbath. The minarets here are comparable to church steeples in Utah—they’re EVERYWHERE. As you drive through Istanbul you weave in and out of hills and valleys, each climb ending in a gorgeous view of a valley covered with brightly colored buildings…with pointy minarets poking out all over the place. Istanbul is like the cactus of geographical locations. The geography here actually reminds me a lot of Israel’s, and the housing is exactly the same, packed tight on every front, except that here it’s all different colors instead of the law-mandated white limestone required for all house fronts in Jerusalem.

So I woke up and got ready for the day and then headed down to breakfast. Oh my goodness. Can I tell you how much I love the Mediterranean? The table had an array of small white dishes full of different kinds of cheeses and olives. There was a basket of bread and different varieties of jams and honeys. My favorite was this rose honey—it’s like honey with rose petals in it. Scrumptious. It was heavenly. After breakfast I looked up the address of the church branch here in Istanbul and Zavfish and I headed out. I’m glad we left an hour early, because Zavfish had a hard time finding the building. He stopped multiple times to ask people for directions and finally took me into this huge Catholic church where a priest named Zadik showed us where to go.

The branch here is small, but stalwart. There are maybe 30 people on a good day, they say. I met some dear people though, one of whom was named Shanna. She is probably somewhere in her early 50’s and is from Utah. She’s in the process of getting her master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies and is here by herself for 8 weeks to learn Turkish at a University. We became immediate friends and she said she would love to do things together in the evenings sometimes…she sounded pretty lonely. I can imagine.

When I came home the house was all a-bustle with preparations for our summer vacation. That’s right. We leave Wednesday morning for Chesme in Izmir on the Western Coast of Turkey. Supposedly it’s very near to Greece and you can see some of the islands from the beaches we’ll be at. We fly out Wednesday morning (the driver will drive all of our things down on Tuesday so that we don’t have to deal with luggage at the airport—it’s an 8-hour drive) and will be gone for 2 weeks. I think we might also go to Bodrum. Both are hopping tourist destinations with yachting, beaches, and buzzing markets. I’m really, really excited. There actually isn’t internet in their house there, so I’ll have to post all my writings about it when I get back.

Okay, so media here is hilarious. The TV is on 24-7, even while the kids sleep, and is pretty much in every room of the house, including at the kitchen table. The funny thing is that Disney is the most frequented station and most of the shows are the teeny-bopper ones in America, but with dubbed-over Turkish. I wonder what it’s like for kids in other countries to grow up watching shows where the characters’ mouths are never quite in sync with what they’re saying. Although, it’s funny because you can tell the dubbed-over voices are trying to speak in a way that makes their mouths move like on the screen…pretty much the funniest thing ever. But something I realized while in France and that’s been confirmed here is that Americans have HUGE mouths. We open our mouths so much when we talk!!! Classy.

So, TV=funny. But one of my favorite moments since being here was when Zeynep decided she wanted to show me her favorite computer game. Name of the game? Plants vs. Zombies. No joke. The game consists of you strategically planting a variety of verdure with different offensive capabilities to defeat the zombies. If you lose, the zombies eat your brain. A male voice shouts, “Nooooooooooooo!!!” and slimy green writing pops over the entire screen saying, “Zombies ate your brain!” AHHAHAHA!!! Who thinks of these things? Someone pretty awesome. My favorite was when it looked like Zeynep was going to lose and I asked her if the zombies were going to eat her brain, but she managed to kill the threatening ones off and told me, “No. If again they will come they will eat my brain.” It was so RAD hearing that come from a 7-year-old in all sincerity.

Agh! This is already getting so long, but I have so much more to write! There’s so much to say about this place! The Ustunberks live in this gated community of extremely wealthy people…birds of a feather kind of thing. Anyway, there’s a large community pool and cabana club that we went to yesterday since Zeynep didn’t want to swim in their backyard pool. They eat dinner late here. We ate out on the patio at around 8:30 after I played sports with the kids outside. Dinner was FABulous. Gyro-type meatballs, tomato/cucumber/onion salad, marinated green beans…I can’t tell you how good the food is. It’s funny, the kids usually eat a little bit of whatever we’re having and then their favorite thing to eat is “spaghetti” with ketchup on it. (They call every kind of pasta “spaghetti” here, as well as calling every kind of women’s swimwear a bikini, including my very conservative one-piece. Haha.)

I’m going to leave it here for now, even though I could go on for days. I’ll probably try to get one more post up before we leave for Izmir, but then it will be nothing for two weeks, unless I can find an internet café to use. Hope everyone’s doing well.

My Life in Turkey: Act I

Meet the Players

Zavfish: The family’s private driver who picked me up from the airport at 1:00 am. He had a sign with my name on it. I know, right? I felt so important. He doesn’t speak a word of English and I don’t speak a word of Turkish, so it made for a pretty quiet hour-long ride home. I was, however, able to find out through various hand motions and affirmative and negative sounds that he is married with two children, ages 10 and 1. His eyes lit up when he was “talking” about his kids, which made me like him right off the bat. He reminds of a Turkish Sam-wise Gamgee—a little pudgy with a good heart.

Sidika: Zeynep’s mother, who was waiting for me at the door when I arrived at 2:00 am. She is a wonderful woman and I think we will be good friends. She is warm and very conscientious of me and my needs…I like her a lot. At the same time, she is a different kind of mother than what I’m used to. While it’s obvious she loves her daughter very much, she plays a very minimal role in her upbringing. More to come on that front.

Jem: The father who was sitting in the kitchen smoking a cigarette when I came in last night. Fortunately he doesn’t smoke inside very often and, I’m not sure how or why (I think it is the biggest tender mercy to me), but for some reason the house doesn’t smell like smoke…like, at all. I’m very grateful for that. He seems like a good man though who loves his kids a lot. I’m still not sure what he does, but it must be very lucrative…these people are SET UP.

Mary Jane: The 28-year-old Filipino nanny who has already become my bosom buddy, showing me the ropes and being very patient with me and my ignorance in this new household and culture. Okay, so before coming I thought that the nanny already here was the nanny/housekeeper who kind of did everything. No, no, no, no, noooooo… Enter Vera. And…Vera. The Vera’s are two middle-aged women from Moldovia who rotate as housekeeper here every 6 months. Yes, they’re both from Moldovia, and yes, they’re both named Vera. They’re both here right now because they’re switching soon. One stays here as housekeeper for 6 months, then goes home for 6 months while the other comes. Wow. That’s already a lot of money in plane tickets, not including their salaries. But after eating their cooking I completely understand why the Ustunberks keep bringing them back. Oh. Baby.

Ohssan: k, I’m not quite sure what the relation is, but he’s a 10-year-old kid here right now for 20 days. I think he might be Jem’s son from a previous marriage or something. Anyway, picture quintessentially chubby 10-year-old kid who doesn’t care to talk to you that much, but can’t resist any kind of fun like soccer or hide-and-seek. He’s becoming my little pal…I think he appreciates my affinity for being active.

Zeynep: Finally we arrive at the TRUE head of the household. This little 7-year-old has got the rest of the house eating out of the palm of her hand. She has every toy imaginable, along with every toy not imaginable (some quite creepy, actually…make I’ll try to sneak a photo later). Her room is perfectly coordinated and matching and she doesn’t lift a finger to keep it clean because other people do EVERYTHING for her. But you can’t blame her…no one asks her to do anything for herself, they just do it. She is VERY indulged and starts to “cry” when things go less than perfectly for her, which isn’t very often. Oh man, this isn’t fair to start off with this because, much to her credit, she is a very sweet and endearing girl. She isn’t super demanding and is happy to sit in her room coloring or watching TV by herself without having all the attention in the house. I really like her a lot…we have fun together.

Lilli and Lola: This list of characters would not be complete without mentioning the household pets. Lilli is the nicest tiny dog I’ve ever met. Usually tiny dogs are mean, but Lilli is a sweetheart. I hate to admit it, but I like her. Lola, on the other hand. She continues to add to my long list of why I hate cats. She’s actually pretty cool-looking…she’s a pure white Turkish Angora with one blue eye and one green eye. But she’s basically second-in-command in the house, after Zeynep. She bites or scratches anyone who comes near her (except alpha Zeynep, of course). I actually watched her draw blood from Mary Jane today. She’ll be lucky if she makes it my full stay without a….I’ll let you fill that in. Oh, and the family also has two hedgehogs which they allow to roam free in the backyard. I haven’t gotten to see them yet as they hibernate during the day, but I’m dying to lay my peepers on those little guys as I’ve never seen a real hedgehog and they look soooooooooo cute in pictures. I’ll keep you posted.

Well, that concludes our list of characters…for now. I’m sure there will be more to come.

La Vie En Rose

Well, it happened. I fell for it. I succumbed. I fell utterly and unabashedly in love with Paris. It’s never been on my “must-see” travel list and I was so sure I wouldn’t like it, although I’m not exactly sure why. It may have been because everyone raves about it so much and I didn’t want to be mainstream. Or maybe it’s because I’ve heard so much about the snobby French. Ethnocentrism maybe? Too grand a love for greasy burgers and apple pie? Who knows. The point is Paris fully and completely and quite unexpectedly enchanted me. Oh man, I got to live the ultimate movie moment. You know when you see things in movies and think that’d it would be so great to have an experience like that while at the same time knowing it will never happen? Well it did. And it happened in Paris.
It wasn’t anything huge and exciting, like visiting the Eiffel Tower (which was actually a let-down for me). It came after my visit to Notre-Dame Cathedral, which was fabulous, by-the-way. Notre Dame was top on my list of what I wanted to see in my 8-hour layover in Paris. After countless humanities class discussions about it, looking at dozens of pictures of it and its famous rose window, I had to get there. And it didn’t disappoint. Gothic is so cool. Anyway, one of the most charming things about the Cathedral is the neighborhood it’s located in. It’s surrounded by shaded, narrow streets that lead to who-knows-where, brimming over with sidewalk cafes and lazy lovers. Time is just slower there. I can’t really describe it, but it was different from the hustle and bustle of our big cities. After cruising through the Cathedral I walked around the side and to the back. At the back is a grove of big trees with lots of benches and walkways. The benches were all occupied by romantic duos softly talking or kissing or just sitting there silently holding hands. And get this, I couldn’t believe it, right as I started to walk by the grove I heard the soft strains of “La Vie En Rose” floating towards me from a street musician nearby. I can’t tell you how romantic it was. I vowed right then and there to get back there someday with my one true love.
So all that was wonderful, but that wasn’t even the movie moment yet. I crossed the Seine and entered the neighborhood of little shops and narrow roads and found myself at a creperie. And this was my Sabrina moment. I sat at a little table outside the café and ate my delicious Suzette crepe and just watched and observed and thought and thought some more. And then I fell in love. It was so peaceful. Life is just quiet there. A French couple sitting next to me talked softly to each other and an occasional person on a cycle with a basket or a moped rider would pass by. I watched two friends meet up with joy and hugs and kinship as they mingled in the street talking and laughing quietly. It was shady, and cool, and slow, and perfect—a true human experience that makes you appreciate the quirky, unexpected world we live in, even with all its hurting and shortcomings.
I’ve seen some of the world, but not a lot. But the more I’m exposed to it, the greater my awe at the beauty of the human race. We’re all just people trying our best, aren’t we? I ran into the missionaries at the metro and I was telling them about my disappointment with the Eiffel Tower and one of the elders agreed and said something like, “the Eiffel Tower is only cool because it’s in Paris. If it was in Texas, no one would care two sticks about it.” And it’s kind of true…sure the Notre Dame Cathedral and Arc d’Triomphe and popular places like that are cool to see, but it’s the people that have surrounded them and that do surround them and who have woven a rich past and history around them that make them so wonderful. People truly are God’s greatest creation and they never cease to amaze me. I’ve learned that you’ll be surrounded by beauty all the time once you learn to see it in people.

Bienvenue á bord. Welcome aboard.

Today’s been a big day for me. Well, I guess it’s technically two days...I just haven’t gone to bed so it seems like one big memorable day. Memorable, yes. Why, you ask? My suitcase was 65 lbs this morning when we weighed it and I whittled it down to 49. Memorable. I cried all the way through the security line for the first time because I said goodbye to my brother for two years. Memorable. And I survived a 10-hour plane ride and ended up in Paris. Memorable.
Guys. The plane ride? Besides the beef bourguignon they served for dinner, nothing special. But the people on the plane? RAD. Some prime people watching times, folks. I sat next to a couple from New Zealand with very enviable accents. Does everyone know that I have always wanted to marry a Polynesian or New Zealander? Because I have. So, I was delighted to find out they were from New Zealand. We talked, they mentioned that they have children about my age, and I was thinking this is looking real good for my future prospects. I ask, “how many children do you have?” They respond, “We have three girls.” Dang it. But they were great plane buddies so I didn’t hold it against them. Okay, now on to my favorite people-watching victims. FRENCH PEOPLE! I can’t tell you how fascinating it is to watch French people. They’re so…FRENCH! There was a French version of Rolph from Sound of Music sitting a few rows ahead of me who was all smiles and helping hands for the other passengers…and of course he was with Leisel. Seriously, they looked like they could have come straight from the arms of Julie Andrews. Then there was the French woman-baby who I named Claire-Marie, a little toddler whose face just LOOKED like a grown French woman’s.
And then there was my favorite—Cyrano De Bergerac. If I had to sum him up in one word it would be SHNOZ. Capital S, capital H, capital N, capital O, capital Z. His nose made Barbara Streisand look like a frostbite-on-the-nose-and-had-to-amputate survivor. He started off the day by reading “Le Monde,” the French newspaper, then later moved on to “Les Super Bonus Du Foot.” I don’t know what that means, but it makes me happy. But my favorite part of the day was when he sneezed. You would have thought he’d bring the plane down with a sneeze, but it was the most tiny, dainty little sneeze I’ve ever heard come out of a man. Hilarious.
Breakfast was a perfect example of the French man contrasted with the American girl. They brought us a tray with various dainties on it, one of which was a roll with chocolate in it, as well as a plain roll and a small tray of cheese and meat. So I immediately scarf down the chocolate roll. I then proceed to pile the meat and cheese onto my roll, along with the soggy lettuce leaf garnish and the cherry tomato that came with it. Mmm…nice, loaded breakfast sandwich. This is the point at which I look over and see Cyrano breaking off little chunks of his roll and eating them, and then cutting up his little meat and cheese triangles with his fork and knife and gently putting them into his mouth. WOW. I felt so…American. I watched in fascination as he finished up his meal with his little chocolate “dessert” roll. Haha! Oh, it was glorious. Overall, a first rate plane ride.