Month: July 2011

Istanbul has tons of character. We decided it is Clean Egypt. Interesting things to look at, tons of cats (we walked by a cat either coughing up a hairball or yacking up a bone — cat spasms are pretty funny), very friendly people, but no trash. The cleanliness of Oman combined with the personality of Egypt. A winning combination.

We wandered around for a little bit, soaking in the feel of a new country and being stopped ever few minutes by people wanting to touch or hold Camille, inviting us to eat at their restaurant, or buy their carpets. Everything I read about Turkey said that the carpet salesmen are relentless and hassle you and you can’t get rid of them. We haven’t found that to be true at all around where we live. There is friendly banter, like one guy who asks, “Do you have any money left?” after looking at all of our kids or another one who asks “is it my turn yet?” whenever we pass by. 

There are tons of different outdoor cafes, but Josh wanted to try a particular place that he read about on Trip Advisor. He knew it was near our hotel, but didn’t remember the name. He said he’d know it if he saw it. I didn’t have much faith that we could wander around and stumble upon a place not knowing the name or the address, but I shouldn’t have doubted GPS Josh. We walked up a hill and he saw the name on the awning and said, “This is it.” Cafe Rumist. 

We ordered a shepherd salad which is chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, chilies, bell pepper and endive in a vinaigrette. We also tried pide (pronounced pee-DAY), which is Turkish pizza. It’s like American pizza with better crust and no sauce. The last thing we ordered was beef kebab, chunks of meat that have been skewered and grilled, served with grilled vegetables and a yogurt sauce,

Everything was *really* good. It all tasted really fresh and clean. That’s probably a funny way to describe it, but it tastes like food you would make at home, without a lot of extra stuff in it. It was so good we went back there for dinner tonight with Josh’s parents. (and I wouldn’t be surprised if we decide to eat there a third time before the week is up. It was that good.)

After lunch we walked by the main sites that are located near the hotel. We also found the nearest Starbucks, but didn’t find an Istanbul mug.

Then we went back to the hotel and spent time on the roof with the grandparents. There’s a two thousand year old building in the background, but Grandma is the main attraction here.

While I was sleeping on the flight, he played video games and watched movies. It was only about 20 minutes to our hotel, but he couldn’t make it.

The humor here is the woman wearing the abaya and the hijab is with the guy wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

We made it to our hotel and went right to the roof to check out the view. It’s beautiful up here. You can see the Bosphorous, which looks like an ocean, but is a big old channel/straight that divides Europe and Asia. One day I plan to have breakfast here and then go across to the Asian side so I can say that I had breakfast on one continent and lunch on another.

Breakfast is included every morning so we sit out here to eat and right now Josh and I are up here having late night coffee while the boys and baby are in bed in our room. If you set up a cot, I could pretty much live right here — free wifi, musical entertainment from the call to prayer every few hours, some food . . . what else could I need?

 

We also have a view of two of the most famous sites: Hagia (pronounced “eye-ya”) Sophia (on the left) and the Blue Mosque (on the right.) The Hagia Sophia is famous because it once was a Christian church that was turned into a mosque. I don’t know anything else about it except that we’re going to go visit it tomorrow.

The obligatory photo of the first cat Caleb saw in Turkey.

The baby is taking a nap — the irony being that she’s a horrible napper at home, but now that there are things to do and places to go, she’s out cold in the hotel crib. Well, at least now I have time to blog about yesterday . . .

We had a 3am pickup from our house to catch a 5:30 flight to Abu Dhabi. We only packed 3 suitcases for 6 people for 2 1/2 weeks. The 4th bag that Bob is carrying is the baby crib. If you have a baby and you travel, you need the Baby Bjorn travel light crib. It weighs less than 7lbs and sets up in 10 seconds. We use it for her bed at home too cause for $230, we’re making sure we’re getting our money’s worth out of it. I know that sounds like a commercial, but just search for the video on YouTube and you’ll be sold on it like I was.

While Josh was checking our luggage we found a lizard on the wall inside the airport. These little guy are all over Oman.

Getting squirrelly. They really are great travelers. They each have their own backpack with a sweatshirt (lesson learned from Frankfurt), snacks, books, camera and ipod touch/PSP. They pretty much do their own thing — order their own food and drinks on the plane, choose their own movies/video games. If they’re not fighting or tattling, I’m happy.

Waiting for our flight to take off. I have some video of Camille walking around the airport, but I don’t know if I can load it. If I can, I’ll put it here.

Waiting to take off. See my arm clenching the armrest? That is me having a brief mental breakdown. I was feeling fine and excited all the way up until we started to walk up the stairs to board the plane. I don’t know if it was the heat (it was 95 degrees at 5:30am) combined with wearing the baby and having not eaten or slept, but I started to feel flushed and sick and jittery like when you’ve pulled an all-nighter and drank too much coffee. Unfortunately, that’s also similar to how panic attacks feel when they first start and sometimes my brain can’t tell the difference. 

So mentally my brain started forming escape plans: 

“Quick, get out now before they shut the airplane doors!” 

“You can’t do that, you’ve been planning this trip for months. Besides, there’s nothing to worry about.” 

“But you’re going to be trapped on this plane . . . a tin box in the sky with no escape.” 

“What is wrong with you? You haven’t felt this way in YEARS. . .”

Anyway, it caught me by surprise considering how much flying we’ve been doing lately and I’ve never felt even a hint of my former issues, even when we were being evacuated, but it was time to break out the yellow pills. I took 1/2 a pill and within 10 minutes felt like my normal self, just in time for take off. It doesn’t drug me out at all, it just silences the racing thoughts in my head and lets the rational side of my brain take charge. Ha ha. I really do sound like a nut. Anyway, thank God for yellow pills — klonopin, in case you’re curious. (I would be.) The 45 minute flight to Abu Dhabi was fine.

We had a 3 hour layover so we found a comfortable couch in Costa Coffee and had a snack and a cappuccino. On the way home we have a 6 hour layover in the middle of the night so I was scoping out a place to sleep next time. I’ve already called dibs on this couch.

 I was really dragging and wanted to sleep this time, but there was too much going on and this baby was trying to walk everywhere.

Yummy and beautiful. 

We boarded the flight to Turkey to find that it was only about 1/2 full. Hallelujah! I snagged a full row to myself (well, I was sharing it with Camille, but close enough) settled in face down, and stretched out flat for a nap. I slept through the meal, the drink, the snack, and who knows what else. I woke up enough times to know that time was passing, but was happily surprised to find that the flight passed quickly as I woke up for good only a short time before we started our descent. Baby slept a good chunk of time too.

Upon landing we flew through passport control with our diplomatic passports and made it to the luggage carousel about 10 minutes before they even started unloading the baggage. I always want to take a picture of the massive lines that we leave behind, but you don’t want to start flashing a camera when people are deciding whether to let you in their country or not, so I’ll just show you Josh’s expression after we cleared customs.

We made it to Istanbul yesterday. I was trying to post a few pictures, but I might be working the internet connection too hard cause it keeps stalling out. It is too beautiful for words here. I’m sitting on the rooftop patio, drinking tea after breakfast this morning and it’s 80, sunny, and breezy.

Calvin woke up with puffy lips and eyes, so he’s having an allergic reaction to something, but otherwise we’re all doing great. Hopefully the benedryl will kick in soon and his lips will stop looking like he we took him to get collagen injections.

I’m about to run out of juice, so I better post this. Hopefully photos to follow soon!