One of the perks of living in this region is that we are entitled to Funded Environmental and Morale Leave (FEML) — a nice way of saying that no one can live here for two years without needing a respite. They will pay for plane tickets for us to go somewhere, we just have to pick the place. We are nearing the end of our window of opportunity since it can’t be used during our last 6 months here. (Are we really moving that soon?!)
We were thinking of forgoing it since the plane tickets are not the only expensive part of traveling when we have to pay for shelter and feeding 4 kids and we’re trying to be responsible and save up for the expenses related to our next move. But the other night I was going back through my blog, looking for posts about our trip to Jordan to pass on to a friend who is traveling there for their FEML. I pored through all the posts about Petra and Jerash, floating in the Dead Sea, visiting the Jordan River . . . how could I give up another opportunity to travel with these kids?
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| Amman |
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| Jerash |
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| Petra |
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| Petra |
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| Dead Sea |
So we’ll be traveling this Christmas.
Deciding where to go was a little more difficult. We wanted to maximize the amount of money we were allotted by flying somewhere that would be too expensive for us to travel to normally, but I didn’t want to fly very far and eat up 2 days (or more) of our vacation with traveling and jet lag. So no New Zealand/Australia or Bali. We also wanted to travel to a country where we could eat and sleep on the cheap, so we could vacation with as little expense as possible. That ruled out most of Europe — Paris, Spain and Italy. Besides, if we get orders to Germany (fingers crossed), we can hit those countries next year. So that pretty much leaves India.
I’m sure traveling to India would be very similar to how I feel about eating Indian food. I never crave it, but when we end up having it I always enjoy it more than I thought I would. But no, I’m not going to India for my Morale leave — I’ve seen enough episodes of the Amazing Race teams in India breaking down in the middle of masses of people to know that that’s not what I need for a vacation.
Sri Lanka is supposed to be really nice, tropical, close, inexpensive . . . I settled on that location until I started researching. 20 bazillion rupees is about 35 US dollars so it might be cheap, but 5 minutes in and I realized that I am too tired to run all those big number currency conversions over and over again. And I was reading something about how you have to hire a driver and they stay with you and you either have to arrange for lodging and food for the driver or just leave your trip in the hands of the driver and he will book lodging for you that has a driver’s room included. My brain can not figure out another country right now and add in the fact that it’s a totally different culture than the one we’ve been immersed in for the past 3 years? Too much work.
So we’re going back to the country that we’ve talked about returning to since we visited the first time. The location that was my favorite in our year of travel. The place that we spent several weeks and could have spent another several. Now we get to.
Yep, Turkey.
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| Hagia Sophia |
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| Galata Bridge crossing |
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| Grand Bazaar |
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| Turkish bath |
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| Hippodrome |
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| Galata bridge |
And these are just the photos from Istanbul. I’ve ordered my guidebooks and have been living on TripAdvisor for the past 48 hours, dreaming of possibilities. It will be Christmas and cold, so definitely different than last time! And yes, we’re going back to Cappadocia and staying in another cave hotel. It’s the first question the kids asked. Christmas in a cave. Merry Christmas to us.
