just a taste

Since I slept through breakfast and lunch on the plane, it was time to find something to eat.

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,

Caleb enjoying the pide. 

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.

Now to explore Istanbul:
We grabbed our suitcases and found our ride (the hotel sent a driver so we got to be those people looking for the guy holding our name on a sign). On our way to the car Calvin was falling behind so I reached out to help him with the suitcase as we crossed the street and some old guy whizzed between us and ran ahead, pushing our suitcase. I tried to take it back from him, but he insisted and I sighed, knowing we were back in the land of "anything for a tip." 

What a difference some sleep makes!

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 view from our hotel. Sultanahmet is the name of the area where we are staying -- it is the oldest part of Istanbul. It's made up of all these small side streets, cobblestones, tiny shops and cafes. 

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

And the second cat -- I'll spare you the rest of the cat photos. The kid is in cat heaven here.

airport antics

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.

Late night + early morning = tired eyes. 

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're in Istanbul

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!

emirates palace

Before we head off on our next trip, I wanted to finish sharing photos from Abu Dhabi. One morning we visited Emirates Palace, a 7 star hotel that people visit just to peek at the extravagance that they'll never get a chance to experience in real life.

Out on the front steps. This place looks like a castle with fountains, well groomed grounds, and everything looks expensive. I thought it might be weird to just walk in the hotel to look around, but everyone smiled and ushered us in like they were used to being a popular tourist stop. (Since they're in the guidebooks as a "must see" site, I'm sure they are.)

Inside everything is GOLD. Gold walls, gold ceilings, gold with gold accents . . . it looks like King Midas threw up all over the place. It's amazing to look at, but the Grand Mosque with its white marble and flower gardens made of stone mosaic is much more my style of beautiful. 

 

My camera can't capture the size of this atrium. It reminded me of when we went to the capitol building in DC and stood under the dome. The room is the size of a football field and then you look up to see this:

A stunning dome, but dumb me, I was standing off center. It was little difficult to take pictures around the baby's head. 

 

She's usually a good sport about cruising around to all these different sites -- as long as I keep moving.

 

The boys were amazed by the prices in the restaurant. $300 dollars for seafood soup? Or, if you're on a budget, in the "small eat" category you can get a $50 salad.

 

The inside of the hotel kept going and going. It was a bit of a gold overload. The place was almost deserted. I guess all the people who can afford to stay here can also afford to come during high season, when it's not a bazillion degrees outside.

 

I don't have a better picture of this because it was in an area labeled "no photography," but I couldn't pass up the chance to take a picture of a gold vending machine. Not a gold colored machine that spits out snacks, but a vending machine that sells bars of gold. You put in your cash (cash only -- who carries enough cash to buy gold?!?) and select the size bar that you want. Then you can cruise around Abu Dhabi with gold bars in your pocket. I'm obviously not rich enough to even begin to comprehend how gold bars would be useful, except maybe if you were playing poker and ran out of chips. If you plunked down a gold bar and said "All in," that might be kind of impressive . . .

 

Throughout the main floor there were glass cases filled with antiques, ancient artifacts, and other "priceless" items. Most of what I saw was pretty ugly. I'd much rather have a gold bar, even a tiny one. 

Out front was the best part of the hotel. There were all these fountains spraying out of the ground like at you see at a water park play area. I'm sure they were for "artistic purposes," but they were really fun to walk in. I'm sure the very upscale parking valets, doormen, and security were all thinking, "what are those crazy tourists doing in our fountains?" 

 

 Looking quite classy, huh?

A girl and her baby

Nana sent a fun surprise today. A doll for Camille. Her first baby. 

They look more like sisters than mommy with baby since they are both bald and chubby.

She also got some fun clothes from Auntie Amy to dress her baby and a baby carrier so she can wear her baby just like mom.

But she should probably learn to walk a little better first. 

Oasis

A few days ago we went on a desert adventure. Josh has this book called Off-Road Oman that has directions and maps to all these places you can visit that aren't normal tourist spots and many of them require a 4x4 vehicle.

I wasn't sure that I wanted to 1. Ride in the car for an hour and a half to take a precarious road that the guide described as "a little tricky" 2. sit out in 115 degree heat in the middle of nowhere with a baby. But, since I'm a good sport, (and because Josh bought good snacks) I went along.

On the way there Caleb kept complaining that he wanted to "go to Wadi Shab and go cliff jumping" instead. (that's where they went last time. If you missed that post, go HERE.) One of the reasons Josh selected this place (it was called Wadi something-or-other) is because it was "family friendly" since we could drive right to the final destination, unlike Wadi Shab where you have to park and hike for a while to reach water.

Once we left the paved road we drove into the wadi (following tire tracks) past thousands of date palms. From a distance we knew there had to be water ahead because you could see a green patch in the middle of the desert from miles away. A wadi is a dry riverbed in the desert. During the rainy season you have to be careful because they flood without warning.

I haven't figured out why some of the dates are red and others are yellow. Different varieties? Is one tree just slower to ripen than another? I'm too lazy to google the answer . . .

Normal Josh. Sunglasses and coffee. Even while four- wheeling.

Goats! Tons of goats. This village was actually on the edge of the wadi, off the main road. I wonder how often they get trapped by the flooded wadi.

Our destination: these pools of water in the middle of the desert. They didn't look like much at first, but it ended up being a great spot to relax (for me) and to play (for the kids). We threw down our wadi mat and cracked open the coolers and ate, swam and hiked. Except I didn't hike. Because of the baby, of course.

We went with our friends, another FAO family because well, we like them, but also because when you drive out into the middle of nowhere to a place that requires 4-wheel drive, it's stupid to do it by yourself.  More about that later.

There were tons of these tiny little fish. The boys took off their shirts and used them as nets to catch them. They swam and "fished" for hours.

The water was the perfect temperature and depth. There were a few deeper places (maybe chest deep), but baby and I sat in the shallow water up to our necks and kept cool.

The boys all caught frogs. Calvin managed to catch two in one grab.

Patience and stealth: a fisherman at work.

Camille kept trying to drink the water. Yuck. So far she hasn't developed a nasty bug so either her immune system is strong or much fun awaits. Hoping for the former . . .

After they got tired of playing in the water, the boys decided to climb the mountain. 

They almost made it to the top before they started calling for help to get back down. Dads to the rescue.

Our private oasis. If it were winter we could have brought our tents and camped, but after a few hours I felt plenty cooked and baby was getting tired so we headed home. On the way out our friends drove across a shallow part of the creek that had a hidden drop off and one of their tires went off the ledge and they started to tip over. The kids (Carter was in their car) climbed out the car door that wasn't in the water and they went running after our car to try and catch us. Unfortunately we were far enough ahead that we didn't see them and we didn't have cell phone signal out there so they couldn't call us to come back. 

We were waiting for them at the start of the paved road and were wondering what was taking so long to catch up when they finally arrived. After they got the car back on dry land and opened the doors, water poured out. They were fortunate that water didn't get in the engine or they really would have been stuck. Lesson learned. Always use the buddy system and always stay in sight of your buddy -- especially when you can't rely on cell phones.