turkish delight

my new year's bird scare

2007-01-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

ok so the kids and me recently moved to a new place...and the cat and dog stayed behind with my ex. the kids really wanted another pet and had been bugging me for a bird. since we all love Robin's cockatiel, Jasmine, so much, we decided that santa would be bringing a cockatiel for Christmas.

2 weeks before christmas, i saw an ad in the paper for hand-raised baby cockatiels, so i went to have a look. this guy had a tiny little house with a cat and 2 kids and a whole slew of birds flying/running around. you couldn't walk without crunching on birdseed shells....the place was a madhouse.

my original intention was to have a look and put down a deposit, then return on Christmas eve and pick up a bird. i tried to handle a few of the baby cockatiels and most of them tried to bite me or wouldn't sit on my finger or whatever. except for one. this one came right to me, sat on my finger, and climbed around on my coat, checking me out. she had such a nice personality, i knew she was the one. i knew if i left and came back, i'd never get the same bird, so i decided to take her with me then and just tell the kids that Santa brought something a little early...

anyway, fast forward to Christmas day. Mohawk had been with us for 2 weeks and was really friendly with the kids and me. she was a perfect pet. so my mom and brother came over and wanted to see the bird. but when we got her out of her cage, she was limping. more than just limping really, she wasn't using one of her legs at all. i was really scared.

the leg didn't appear broken or injured in any obvious way, but she just wasn't using it. i took all the high perches out of her cage and put a towel on the bottom to try to keep her from hurting herself worse. i read on the internet that warmth was important, so i broke down and turned up the thermostat for her. i spent a week expecting every day to come home and find her dead. but i didn't. she was extra clingy though and i even slept with her a few nights. she slept right on my neck all night...such a sweet little birdie.

by New Year's Day, her foot seemed much better. she was using it again. i was very relieved. i started letting her out of her cage more. this particular time, she was sitting on Jillian's shoulder and all the kids were watching cartoons. next thing i know, the bird is hopping over to me and i notice this huge bloody looking bubble sticking out from her stomach! OMG....what the heck happened? i picked her up carefully and tried to get a better look but she wouldn't let me near it. i was freaking out. the bird was freaking out. i put her in her cage for a while so we could all calm down.

i couldn't figure out what could have happened. was it a hernia? do birds get hernias? was it some sort of secondary injury related to the hurt foot/leg? i had no idea. but i felt sure my poor birdie was going to die. i looked all over the internet for bird hernias. all i knew was i certainly can't afford to pay for hernia surgery on a bird...

i was so sad...i had gotten so attached to the poor little thing. and now her intestines were falling out of her abdomen....

i took the bird out of her cage so she wouldn't have to die alone. she walking around on my shoulder acting like she was perfectly fine with this huge red bubble sticking out of her stomach. she let me touch it gently and i thought...i dunno...maybe i could gently push things back inside where they were supposed to be...

that's when i realized. my bird didn't have a hernia. she had a freaking piece of candy stuck to her feathers. jeeeeeeeeeeeeez.

she'll be gone

2006-12-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

in a moment she'll be gone
but you'll never know it
not till much much later
there'll be no slamming door
no jealous accusations
no threats
no storm clouds overhead
no outward sign at all
it's a delicate balance
a tipping of the scales
one final fatal misstep
on your part
snuffing the last remaining ember
in her heart
then her silent departure
and all is cold
take it from someone who knows
one minute she's with you
the next she'll be gone
it's like the flick of a switch
the silent press of a button
the straw that brought the camel down
she'll love you like there's no tomorrow
and you'll never see it
never appreciate
never see the grass is just as green
in your own back yard
misunderstood intentions
you'll take her for granted
until she's gone
and when her heart is gone from you
you'll never convince it to return....

The Dirty Things People Say at Thanksgiving Dinner

2006-11-24T19:05:00.000-08:00

1. Talk about a huge breast!

2. Tying the legs together keeps the inside moist.

3. It's Cool Whip time!

4. If I don't undo my pants, I'll burst!

5. Whew, that's one terrific spread!

6. I'm in the mood for a little dark meat.

7. Are you ready for seconds yet?

8. It's a little dry, do you still want to eat it?

9. Just wait your turn, you'll get some!

10. Don't play with your meat.

11. Just spread the legs open and stuff it in.

12. Do you think you'll be able to handle all these people at once?

13. I didn't expect everyone to come at once!

14. You still have a little bit on your chin.

15. How long will it take after you stick it in?

16. You'll know it's ready when it pops up.

17. Wow, I didn't think I could handle all of that!

18 That's the biggest one I've ever seen!

19. How long do I beat it before it's ready?

steven wright is the awesomest

2006-11-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

here are a few of my favorite quotes:

A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths.
Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?
For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier... I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.
I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.
I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world... perhaps you've seen it.
I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas, people behind me stop, and I'm gone.
I installed a skylight in my apartment... the people who live above me are furious!
I live on a one-way street that's also a dead end. I'm not sure how I got there.
I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.
I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.
I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights, so it looks like I'm the only one moving.
I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second.
I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.
I went to a general store but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific.
I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.
I wrote a song, but I can't read music. Every time I hear a new song on the radio I think, "Hey, maybe I wrote that."
If God dropped acid, would he see people?
If you can't hear me, it's because I'm in parentheses.
If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer?
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?
In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.
It doesn't make a difference what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature.
Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
Last week the candle factory burned down. Everyone just stood around and sang Happy Birthday.
My school colors were clear. We used to say, "I'm not naked, I'm in the band."
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.
There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.
Tinsel is really snakes' mirrors.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child... eventually.
When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, "Did you sleep good?" I said "No, I made a few mistakes."
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

a moment of silence

2006-11-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

i have been in the process of moving out of my house for the past week or so. i got a pod and put all the stuff in there that i'm planning to take to my new place. my neighbor came over one night helped me move a couple of the heavier things that i couldn't lift by myself.

that's when we discovered the rhinoceros corpse in my living room.

rhinoceros beetle corpse, that is.

we were lifting the antique dresser given to me by my grandmother and there he was, lying underneath. all stiff and crispy-like. what he was doing under there i have no idea. maybe he was trying to lift that big heavy thing and had a heart attack. the dresser was certainly more than 850 times the weight of that brave little beetle. musta just been too much for the poor little guy. i haven't had the heart to tell the kids yet. i'd rather they go on thinking he escaped back to the outside world where he is roaming free and happy, doing...whatever it is that rhinoceros beetles do.

he was a good rhinoceros beetle and we'll miss him. my grief is eased only by the knowledge that he's gone on to a better place. i'd like to propose a moment of silence for good old...whats-his-name.

*********************************************************************************

the pee burgular

2006-10-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

apparently our house was burgled last night while we were sleeping. well, i guess i can't technically say it was burgled because nothing was taken. instead it seems that *something* was left behind.

dna evidence, to be exact, which was unfortunately flushed down the toilet and lost forever. so we will never know who the alleged burgular was, but i am passing the word anyway so all my neighbors and friends will be aware of his (or her?) rather bizarre and disturbing m.o.

so this is how it happened. the kids got up for school this morning and after breakfast, my son went to brush his teeth and use the bathroom. he is the one who discovered the burgulary and raised the alarm. according to him, *someone* peed in the toilet and didn't flush. he claims it was not him and he has a rock solid alibi, as do the other 2 kids. none of them dunit. i certainly didn't do it. the cat is not toilet trained and the dog was outside all night.

the only possible remaining conclusion we could come to is that somebody broke in to our house, peed and ran away... (cue mission impossible theme song and imagine that)....

so the kids have now decided we should booby trap the house in case the so-named pee burgular returns to victimize us again...

i'm a jeanious!

2006-10-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

it's true... by combining exactly the right elements of my exellent problem solving abilities, my sometimes devious thought processes and my astounding physical hyperflexibility, i've actually managed to defy and defeat a law of physics.

you know, the one that says you can't be in two places at one time?

it all started, as most great accomplishements do, with the presentation of a dilemma.

my mom contacted me at 14:00 hours on Tuesday afternoon to explain that she had been called to a secret emergency round table meeting of elementary school principals that was convening the following day in Salsbury, Maryland. for this reason, she would be unable to transport my offspring to and from their educational enrichment center for the day. i would be left to handle the job myself...

that presented a problem because, well, the children would need to be removed from their aftercare program prior to 18:00 hours. that presented a problem because my wednesday night anatomy and physiology lecture does not terminate until 18:00 hours.

also of note, neither the children's school nor my college have yet installed teleportation equipment. no, i would have to seek a more old fashioned way to overcome my quandary....

my first instinct was to just bag class. i mean, my class attendance record so far borders on the anal retentive, so what would missing one teensy weensy little lecture hurt, right?

wrong!

i refuse to allow my education suffer because of a simple timing discrepancy. i just knew there had to be another way....

then a brilliant idea hit me.

i temporarily acquired a hospital-owned dictaphone from my office and brought it with me to class. at the predetermined moment, i set the device to record and excused myself from the classroom. then i dashed to my car and drove like a madwoman to the children's school, which was a half hour drive away, collected them quickly and returned to my college campus. i sauntered back into the classroom just as lecture ended, as if i had only just returned from a somewhat extended visit to the ladies room. i collected the dictaphone (along with a recording of the evening's lecture) and departed for home.

later, my offspring and i celebrated the success of my brilliant scheme with a trip to the golden arches. and once again, all is well in my world.

i hate my *#^@)! commute...and other illogical semi-related ramblings

2006-10-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

i know, whoever is reading my blog (if anyone) is sick and tired of hearing me bitch about my commute. but honestly, it's sucking the life out of me.

with the construction traffic on I-95 lately, it's been taking us longer and longer to get home at night. i leave work at 4:30 p.m. and sit on I-95 for a wrist slicing hour and a half (cruising along at an average of 3 mph) to get the kids from school, then it's another hour and a half until we get home. lately, we've been stumbling in the door at 7:30 p.m. (even later on nights i have class). that leaves only an hour to make dinner, eat dinner, clean up after dinner, make sure everyone has their bath/shower, then we're off to bed so we can survive another day of that bs.

at last count, i/we spend an average of 4 hours and 45 minutes a day (and ~150 miles) sitting in the car.

it's getting to the point where i hate the thought of driving anywhere, even down to the corner store. i don't even feel like i live in my house anymore. for the most part, i just go there to sleep.

but what irks me the most is this. this is the year 2006. almost 2007. i find it completely incomprehensible that, with all our technology and scientific advances, we are still no closer to teleportation than we were 30 years ago when the idea was introduced by such brilliant multimedia creations as Star Trek and The Fly.

ok, so things went a little badly in the latter, but at least experiments were done, right? so what, have we completely abandoned the idea? we've built space ships and made many other technological breakthroughs that, quite honestly, really don't benefit mankind at all. sure they're neat, but a working teleporter in every place of employment would completely change society! the global warming process would halt in its tracks and air pollution and smog would be distant memories. so what if there were a few freakish body part mixups along the way.

i think the scientific community really needs to get their priorities in order here.

i have a big fat jiggly butt

2006-09-26T06:48:00.000-07:00

who'd have suspected the lowly jump rope could be such a shockingly blunt and forthright indicator of physical conditioning (or more specifically, the lack thereof)???

i'm working at home today and my internet connection is being incredibly slow. i'm just sitting here, twittling my thumbs waiting for each job to load up so i can type it.

then, in one of those light bulb moments, i remember the jump rope i saw in the garage the other day...that would be a productive way to pass my down time...

i've been trying to get in some sort of shape lately (preferably a firmer and more concave shape). i'm not exactly fat or anything but i could definitely use a little toning (i didn't realize quite how much...). but finding the time for an exercise program (not to mention the energy) has been a little difficult lately. however, i'm disgusted enough with myself on this particular day to get up off my lazy behind and go give the jump rope a whirl.

boy, i'm not so sure i'm glad i did! i came to a couple of very disturbing realizations after the very first jump. first, i'm not an 8-year-old anymore so any fancy stuff is definitely out...and second, i'm way more out of shape than i thought.

to put it succinctly, i did oh, maybe 10 or 20 reps on the jump rope and stopped.

*certain* areas of my anatomy didn't, um, exactly stop when the rest of me did....

how mortifying!

regardless, i'm gonna keep my new exercise apparatus around for awhile. it's kinda like that brutally honest friend who always tells it to ya like it is...even if it's not nice to hear.

and there's nothing quite as motivating to get in shape as the knowledge that ya jiggle when ya jump!

ah, life is good

2006-09-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

yep, it seems the stars have finally realigned in my favor.

for starters, it's friday and i don't have class tomorrow morning, so i can actually sleep in for once. i'm really looking forward to it...even tho i'll be totally unconscious and unaware of how much i'm enjoying myself.

and besides that, the new season of grey's anatomy premiered last nite...and OMG, meredith and mcdreamy apparently (oops) mcdid it again!! that's almost too much excitement for a thursday nite. i can't wait to catch next week's episode...

as if all that weren't enough, robin and i are planning a rather exciting and economical expedition to the exclusive DAFB commissary on sunday, weekend domestic goddesses that we are.

and since i tackled the jungle in my back yard last weekend, i only have to tangle with the front grass this weekend.

who knows, i might even find a few minutes to sit back and sip a tall refreshing glass of... something refreshing. ;)

so for now, all is right with the world.

it really doesn't take much to make me happy, does it?

silly words

2006-09-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

These are great. I've bolded my personal favorites.

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.The winners are:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (V.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

my insane, crazy whirlwind of a life (in a nutshell)

2006-09-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

My alarm goes off at 3 am this morning, just like it always does. I stumble out of bed in a haze of confusion, just like I always do. Reality gradually sets in and I realize with profound disappointment that it's only Wednesday and I've gotta get ready for work. I'm exhausted. It's been a crazy coupla weeks and I could reeeeally use a sick day.

But I quickly decide that there's really no point in calling out sick. The kids have to go to school, which means I have to get dressed and drive them to my mom's. Which is halfway to work. And I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay this past week, so I have to go to the post office today and ship it out. And I have class tonight, which is closer to work than it is to home. So I decide I might as well get up and go to work. Besides there is free coffee there...

On top of all that stuff...kids, work, nursing school, my insane 4-hour-a-day commute, helping the kids with their school work, getting a fledgeling eBay business up and running...(as if that weren't enough), I'm currently goin' thru the big D (an' don't mean Dallas). So there's obviously a lot of other stuff going on that I really can't/shouldn't blog about right now, loose lips sinking ships and all that. I had to go to my state-required parenting class last night, and again next Tuesday...then the kids go in October. And I'm getting ready to move. Both of those things are pretty stressful and I just want to get them over with.

Then I can take a much deserved vacation with the kids. Which is another thing in the planning stages that's causing me stress.

Whew. Last night, I didn't even have time to make dinner. I had to call the pizza place from my cell phone while flying down Rt. 1, swing by there and pick up something for the kids, put it on the table then hurry out the door to my parenting class, then didn't get home until it was time to put everyone in bed. Then I had to make school lunches and clean up the kitchen. I cleaned out the diswasher but didn't have the energy to refill it with the dirty dishes from the sink. There were clothes in the dryer that need to be folded and more clothes in the washer that needed to go in the dryer. They still sit were they were, with this morning's breakfast bowls in addition to what was already in the sink. Dirty dishes in the sink drive me crazy, but sometimes you just gotta let it go, right?

So here I am at work. I've gotta run out at lunch and mail my eBay packages, then I have class, then have to get the kids, drive home, make dinner, make tomorrow's lunches, do something with the laundry before it gets mildewed....

My weekends are filled up with grocery shopping, house cleaning, catching up on laundry, cutting the grass, my Saturday morning class, running the kids around to wherever they need or want to go....etc. I'm getting by on about 5 hours of sleep a night during the week, and that's on a good night. I've put 33,000 miles on my car in the past year, most of that just going to work and back. I was presented with the "hell on wheels" award at work recently. People say they don't know how I do it. Sometimes I don't even know how I do it. I just do it. Sometimes it almost even seems worthwhile.

Like this morning, the kids and me were riding up to my mom's house. My son out of the blue decided to thank me for buying the pizza last night. Then he said to the other kids, "Aren't you glad we have this mom!?"

And they all actually agreed with him. ;)

A lot of times I wonder if I'm doing the right thing and making the right decisions. Or I think I'm not being the kind of mom I really want to be, not doing a good enough job or whatever. But moments like that, I know it's all gonna be OK.

there's a rhinoceros running loose in my house!!

2006-08-31T07:04:00.000-07:00

oh, i meant to say a rhinoceros beetle...

the kids found this really cool rhinoceros beetle at school the other day. so we took it home. apparently, rhinoceros beetles are proportionately the strongest animals in the world and are able to carry 850 times their own weight. i didn't know this before or i would have put the thing in a stronger container.

so in the middle of the night last night, this little beetle pried the lid off the tupperware container it was in (that had a book on top of it for goodness sake) and made its escape.

i'm expecting to come home tonight and find my furniture rearranged or something.

bubble cars

2006-08-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

bubble cars are my answer to the modern problems of traffic congestion and air pollution as well as auto accident fatalities. i dreamed up this nifty little invention several years ago. i'm planning to patent my idea and someday in the very distant future, i'll be filthy, filthy rich.

so what is a bubble car you ask....?

well, first of all, instead of being made of metal or plastic, a bubble car is made of a different material that I have not invented yet. it's tough yet flexible, very smooth and "skinlike" and...almost slimy. that's because there are tiny pores all over the car that exude a sort of friction-reducing lubricant much like vaseline. in fact, that's the only thing you have to add to the car. super expensive gasoline bills will be a thing of the past. there are also no wheels on a bubble car and the only door is a hatch in the roof. the car is smooth and oblong in shape. because there are no wheels, there is also no steering wheel. you press panels inside the cockpit that shift the car's weight and cause it to move left or right. the car's speed is controlled by magnets in the car that communicate with magnets imbedded in the road.

the kind of roads needed for a bubble car are different than the roads we use today. they are not made of asphalt but rather of a tough vinyl like stuff that doesn't offer a lot of friction. the roads are also not flat but rather like covered tubes, flatter on the bottom, rounded and clear on top and banked around corners.

so bubble cars can cruise along, pulled by magnets and guided by the balance shifting panels in the cockpit, on a thin film of lubricant. when traffic is heavy, bubble cars can just bunch together with other bubble cars. they slip and slide past eachother, protected again by the lubricant exuded from their pores. in tight traffic conditions, as bubble cars crowd together on the highway, they squish a little and become slightly elongated. this allows a lot of cars to pack together without having to slow down; their speed is kept constant by the magnets.

auto accident fatalities will be nill with bubble cars because they don't dent and shatter like our prehistoric automobiles. if one bubble car hits another bubble car, a slight indentation will form in the "skin" of the car and then the cars will bounce off eachother and continue on their way. you don't have high-speed collisions because all the cars are kept at a constant speed. with bubble cars, you don't have to worry about avoiding collisions; in fact, it is normal and expected to make contact with neighboring automobiles as you slide down the roads.

drunk driving worries will be a thing of the past. now you can be totally blitzed in the cockpit and not have to worry about causing a wreck. just don't barf in your bubble car or out the top hatch. this will mix with the lubricant and cause a nasty mess on the highway.

so obviously i've got a lot more work to do on my little brainchild before its ready for mass production. but you wait and see. someday bubble cars will be big. and they'll make today's PITA commutes a distant memory.

Delaware Flag

2006-08-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

Here's an (admittedly rudimentary) artist's rendition of the new Delaware flag. I have personally commissioned this drawing as I think it is an appropriate replacement for the old Delaware flag. You can't go anywhere in the first state these days without running into construction, detours, and traffic hangups due to road or bridge refurbishing. I mean, I think it's great that we take care of our roads here but can we do it ONE freaking ROAD AT A TIME folks?? I mean, I'm starting to think Del DOT has more employees than it knows what to do with, so it constantly sends them out to fix roads that aren't really in need of fixing. For example, I was late for work this morning due to (among other things) the fact that the road in front of the hospital was completely blocked off by orange construction cones. What is the reason for this? That road was perfectly fine as it was. Apparently Del DOT has got a wild hair up its @$$ and has taken it upon itself to completely reroute traffic in the area. This could have profound effects on the health of children, as hospital employees and ambulances and doctors are left scratching their heads and driving in circles trying to get to our facility. But does Del DOT care? No, they're too busy tearing up perfectly good asphalt, spending our tax dollars, causing commute headaches and annoying the hard working citizens of our fine state. I wholeheartedly protest!

way to....go!?

2006-08-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

just when i thought i'd heard it all....reuters reports:

Police Crack Down on Striptease Funerals

Wed Aug 23, 11:09 AM ET

Striptease send-offs at funerals may become a thing of the past in east China after five people were arrested for organizing the intimate farewells, state media reported on Wednesday.

Police swooped last week after two groups of strippers gave "obscene performances" at a farmer's funeral in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, Xinhua news agency said.

The disrobing served a higher purpose, the report noted.

"Striptease used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai's rural areas to allure viewers," it said. "Local villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honored."

Wealthy families often employed two troupes of performers to attract a crowd. Two hundred showed up at last week's funeral.

Five strippers were detained and local officials "issued notices concerning funeral management," Xinhua said.

Now village officials must submit plans for funerals within 12 hours after a villager dies. And residents can report "funeral misdeeds" on a hotline, the report said

drive by creep out

2006-08-21T17:44:00.000-07:00

we're all familiar with the drive by flirt. you're riding down the highway and a member of the opposite sex passes you in another vehicle. they smile or wink. you smile back. every now and then you engage in a little game of car tag, passing each other and exchanging coy glances while you're riding down the road. mostly it's an innocent confidence booster...a nice distraction from the long commute or the traffic or whatever. it's like the little cat and mouse games we played at recess in 4th grade only at much higher rates of speed.

but today for me, it went badly, badly awry.

i was driving down the road, minding my own business. i'd had a long day at work and school and i was pretty much exhausted. i was late getting the kids home 'cause of my evening class, so we'd stopped at mc donalds for some quick dinner. i was busy handing chicken nuggets, burgers and soda cups to the hungry mouths in the back seat and collecting the trash as they finished their food.

thats when i noticed him.

i happened to glance over and there he was, cruising along right next to me in a late model beige ford taurus. he was maybe 26 or 27 with coke bottle glasses, the remnants of teenage acne and clean cut hair and clothes. he was staring right at me. it caught me off guard, so i automatically just smiled at him. i know the drill.

but this guy didn't smile back. he just kept staring. in a split second our eyes met and i knew. there was pure evil lurking behind that geeky exterior....the components of macdonald triad littered his past, as certainly as mcdonald's hamburger wrappers littered the floor behind me. i was sure of it. when this guy was a kid, he tortured small animals and started fires just for the heck of it. behind his straight-faced stare lay the immistakable persona of a chronic bedwetter. all the telltale earmarks of the stereotypical serial killer.

the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up.

i slowed to a stop at the next red light. i was about 10th in my lane. my newly acquired stalker was only third in his. whew, i thought, too bad for him, he'd have to pull past me and then i'd be able to hang back and lose him. but he didn't. he stopped short right next to me, disregarding the line of cars honking their horns behind him. he sat there right next to me, unsmiling and staring right over at me. the seconds ticked by for what seemed like an eternity. i tried to turn up the radio and ignore his staring eyes steadily boring holes in my passenger side window, but the tension quickly became unbearable.

finally, i saw that the turn lane arrow had turned green. i almost scraped the bumper of the car in front of me as i sped from the line of cars i was sitting in over into the turn lane and away into a neighborhood where i was able to elude my would-be assailant....

yes, i was able to escape this drive by creep, but take heed, innocent citizens of dover. he's still out there...lurking...

dreamy dentist

2006-08-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

my dentist is gorgeous. it's mostly his eyes. they're precisely mediterranean blue. i could go without novocaine gazing into those eyes.

but i wouldn't...not really. first of all, if i did that, i would miss out on his impeccable needle giving technique, which never ceases to amaze me. i know that sounds weird, but he can give me a needle anywhere in my mouth and i never feel it at all. it's incredible.

besides, i'm a total chicken at the dentist.

but enough of my drooling. figuratively speaking anyway. my mouth is still pretty numb, so some literal drooling is not out of the question for the next hour or so.

i had to go get a cavity filled today. i guess the hygienist was busy with another patient, so my dentist drilled me solo, which he's never done before. i hardly felt a thing and he was done so fast i almost missed it. it seemed like he was just getting started and then all of a sudden he says,"ok chicky, all finished..."

so i'm like,"wow, that was fast". to which he replies, "that's 'cause you were so awesome". and so i reply,"no, YOU were awesome", and he goes (laughing), "no, it was you"...

we went back and forth with that a couple more times, giggling. him all cute and me all stupid with my fat lip, huge feeling tongue, crooked smile, and stroke-like lack of left-sided facial sensation.

it was such an incredibly goofy moment... ;)

policed

2006-08-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

i came back from a few days of vacation last week. due to circumstances beyond my control, i arrived home very late on wednesday night. after oh, about 3 hours of sleep, i had to get up and go to work the next day. i was very tired. i was also running late, and on top of that, i had to stop for gas. on top of that, my mom (who usually takes my kids to summer camp) was out of town, so i had to take my daughter all the way to elkton, md, before driving to work in wilmington, de. ..*plus* there was no food in the house, 'cause i'd been away for a week, so i had to stop off at wawa for breakfast and lunch food for my daughter...

so yeah, i guess i was in kind of a hurry...

then driving up rt 13 through dover, i notice something weird. there are these 2 guys standing in the middle of the highway waving to me....

crap, they are wearing police uniforms, aren't they? *%$#@! !!.

i pull off the highway and stick my license & registration out the window. as i do, i notice that, *&$%#@ again, my insurance card is expired.

the cop arrives at my window and asks me the million dollar question...do i know why he pulled me over? um, i'm not 100% sure, but i can venture an educated guess...(do they ever give a prize for correct answers to that question?)

what a slap in the face, back to reality. i'm not on vacation anymore.

while the cop is doing his thing behind me, i call my boss to let her know i'll definitely be late now...the cop returns to my window to inform me that he's graciously knocked down my speed from ~15 over the limit to *only* 5 over. I've gotten enough speeding tickets in my lifetime to know they always do that... am i really expected to be grateful?? oh yeah, and it's a mandatory court appearance 'cause of the expired insurance card...wonderful. i get on my way, now later than ever...

so now fast forward to the very next morning....

same basic scenario...i was so tired last night that i didn't do any grocery shopping. my youngest wanted to go to pizza hut for dinner and (since i felt guilty for going away for a few days and leaving her with grandparents), i indulged her. so i need to stop at wawa again for food. i take rt 1 up north to avoid yesterday's speed trap. i'm making pretty good time, heading up otts chapel road, almost to the kids' camp in elkton....when suddenly i spot a cop on the side of the road. i instinctively slow down, although i really wasn't going very fast to start with. but *&^%$$#!! the guy pulls out after me! what is up with the cops this week?? it's only the first week in august so it's not like they're panicking to meet their quota or whatever...

i pull over and i'm not feelin happy. i mean, who gets 2 tickets in 2 days??? there should be a clause prohibiting you from getting another ticket within so many days of the first one...or something.

i hand the guy my registration and yeah, the same expired insurance card from yesterday. crap. then i'm fumbling through my purse. can't find my license for some reason. i wonder if the cop from yesterday accidentally forgot to give it back?? this cop apparently hasn't had his coffee and doughnuts yet today...he's obviously feelin kinda grumpy. he makes some remark like,"do you even have a license??"

that's about all i can take. i start throwing things out of my purse onto the floor of the car. finally i locate the elusive license. yeah, i've got a freaking license...

i call my boss *again* to tell her what's goin on. i'm clearly freaking out/sobbing/hyperventilating/etc on the phone. she's not used to hearing me like that...i'm usually much more...collected. but it's been a long time since i've allowed myself a good cry. apparently, today's the day.

the cop returns to my window and announces that he's been so wonderful as to knock my speed down from the insane 11 mph over the limit i was going (61 in a 50) down to a mere 5 over.

oh, i guess he was he expecting a hug or something???

i'm still sobbing a little as i'm signing the ticket. i guess he felt a little bad for me or whatever, since i was obviously taking this whole ticket thing kinda hard. he asks if i'm late for work....i can't even answer him...i just bust out bawling out loud. he just kinda shakes his head and walks away back to his patrol car.

i can just hear the stories he'll exchange later at the dunkin doughnuts about the emotional trainwreck he pulled over that morning...

i don't care though. it's pretty funny now, looking back. i'm not usually so...emotionally volatile. it kinda felt nice to just let someone have it instead of faking a smile and acting polite or whatever.

so a couple days later, i'm taking my daughter to camp. we are stopped at a red light. my daughter looks around, sees that we are stopped and asks me, very serious, "mommy, are we policed again??"

i laugh and explained to her that no, we are just stopped at a red light...

i am listening to istanbul

2006-07-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

by orhan veli kanik

i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed;
at first there blows a gentle breeze
and the leaves on the trees
softly flutter or sway;
out there, far away,
the bells of water carriers incessantly ring;
i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed

i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed;
then suddenly birds fly by,
flocks of birds, high up, in a hue and cry
while nets are drawn in the fishing grounds
and a woman's feet begin to dabble in the water.
i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed

i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.
the grand bazaar is serene and cool,
a hubbub at the hub of the market,
mosque yards are brimful of pigeons,
at the docks while hammers bang and clang
spring winds bear the smell of sweat;
i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed;
still giddy since bygone bacchanals,
a seaside mansion with dingy boathouses is fast asleep,
amid the din and drone of southern winds, reposed.
i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.
now a dainty girl walks by on the sidewalk:
cusswords, tunes and songs, malapert remarks;
something falls on the ground out of her hand,
it's a rose i guess,
i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.
a bird flutters round your skirt;
i know your brow is moist with sweat
and your lips are wet.
a silver moon rises beyond the pine trees:
i can sense it all in your heart's throbbing.
i am listening to istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

translated by Talat Sait Halman (1982)

religious intolerance/misperceptions

2006-07-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

disclaimer: this is *only* intended to be my personal take on things and is based solely on my admittedly limited knowledge on the subject. i am going to try to write it with respect and tolerance for all religions, for that is what i feel. i will try to refrain from discussing particular religions that i really am too uninformed about to discuss intelligently (which really only leaves 2: christianity and islam).

it's a subject i'm usually pretty mum about, and with good reason. religion, like politics, is a risky thing to discuss in polite company (not that i'm ever actually in "polite" company). i'm happy to believe what i believe and i likewise respect the right of others to believe what they believe. religion, church, god etc. represent a very powerful establishment in our world. religion can be a very good thing. it can bring people together and lift people up. most churches serve the community and reach out to the poor. like any powerful entity, however, religion can also be a very dangerous thing. look at the great crusades. look at 9-11. the spanish inquisition. the list goes on and on. all are circumstances of great violence and bloodshed that happened in the name of religious intolerance - mainly the christian and muslim religeons being intolerant of each other, or various christian sects being intolerant of other christian sects.

what causes religeous intolerance? these days, i believe its root cause is ignorance. it is human nature to fear the unkown. hate is based on fear. it's a simple chain reaction. we attack entities that we feel threaten our way of life (whether they actually do or not). i was raised christian and i still believe a good many of the basic principles i was taught as a child. however, i now realize that i grew up with many misperceptions about other religions and cultures. i have recently spent a good deal of time (in turkey) participating in dicussions with people who were raised muslim. they likewise have been raised with many misperceptions about christians. each of us grew up with a very "us and them" mentality. however, in the course of our discussions, we found that as people, we are actually very much alike. particularly (interestingly enough) in our feelings and attitudes toward the religion we were raised in...

the christian and muslim religions - with the exception of some admittedly unreconcilable differences - have many similarities also. for example, did you know that the muslims say a prayer that is almost word for word the lord's prayer? or that the exact same 10 commandments that are in the bible are also in the koran? or that, in fact, the koran and the bible are extremely similar up to the point where the new testament begins?

the differences arise, as they do for a lot of religions, with regard to jesus. who he was, what he did, and what it means. christians believe jesus was god, that he died for the sins of the world and then rose from the dead. muslims do believe that jesus died on the cross, however they do not believe that he rose from the dead. they believe he was a martyr and a prophet and he died and went to heaven. they also do not believe that jesus was god. they believe it is blasphemous to think that god would place himself in human form. they do not believe in the concept of the trinity (father, son, holy spirit). in islam, there is one god and that he has one face or personality. i think muslims perceive christians as worshiping three gods in a sense, although i could be wrong about that. christians believe that when they sin, they need only to pray for forgiveness and their sins are covered by the blood of jesus. muslims believe that their good deeds must outweigh the bad. in the way of making atonement for sins committed, devout muslims believe in making a yearly animal sacrifice, following the example of abraham sacrificing the lamb, although they do it differently in modern times. if i understand this correctly, each muslim who is devout in his faith is compelled to purchase an animal...maybe a sheep or a chicken...pay to have it slaughtered and then donate the meat/skin/etc. to a charity, say an orphanage or something.

another misperception i think a lot of americans have is that the majority of the world is christian. this is quite untrue. i've been told that muslims are fast outnumbering christians, and that budhists outnumber both christians and muslims. of course there are also many jewish people and mormons, etc., thrown in there too. i'm not saying that's a bad thing. it's just a perspective thing. it goes to show that there are many, many millions of people in the world who believe differently from each other. yet we all share the same habitat here. we really need to start respecting our differences, appreciating our similarities and get on with learning to get along when we can and leave each other alone when we can't.

but back to the subject of religeous intolerance. another cause of religeous intolerance lies in how individuals interpret the scriptures of their particular religion. in the old testament of the bible, god tells his people (the jews) to destroy all unbelievers or "infidels" as they claimed the land of israel. there apparently is a similar passage in the koran, although i am not sure what the context is there. the crusaders were following this commandment when they waged war against their enemy. they believed they were just following god's commandments. so did the perpetrators of 9-11. and probably the spanish inquisitors as well. most modern day christians don't observe this particular commandment anymore, and thankfully neither do most modern day muslims. of course, there are individuals, probably on both fronts (and others), who still believe the other should be destroyed. consider the al-qaida extremists for instance. people like these, unfortunately, will always be a problem for the human race.

finally, there is the tendency of people, and therefore religions, to believe that they are right, which of course also means they believe that everyone else is wrong. i think it is pretty safe to say that there is no religion on the face of this earth that will admit there's even a teensy weensy chance it might be dead wrong. they can't possibly all be correct in their versions of the truth, but each one believes it is and will happily explain to you in detail why it believes it is right and why all the others are wrong.

after my experience learning a little bit about islam, i've come to think it is very important to learn as much as one can about each of the world's religions and to develop a sense of informed respect for each. especially if a person of one religion has a major problem with people of another religion in particular. that's the only way we're all going to learn to truly get along and understand eachother, and just as importantly, to see that our similarities greatly outweight our differences. besides, we just might learn a thing to two.

was that mean?

2006-07-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

****names have been changed to protect the innocent caller****

last night the kids and i fell asleep watching the movie Zorro. i woke up around 11:30, covered the kids up where they were sleeping on the couch and moved to the bedroom. just as i crawled into bed and got comfy, the phone rang. who the heck could be calling this late i wondered. i dragged myself up out of bed and looked at the caller ID. it was a Humphery sombody. i was pretty sure i didn't know this person, so i didn't pick it up. they hung up when the answering machine kicked on. i crawled back into bed. then 2 seconds later, the phone started ringing again. it was Humphery again. again, i didn't pick up the phone. i thought for sure this time they'd realize they had the wrong number when the unfamiliar voice came on the answering machine. again, they hung up and i sat back down on the bed.

2 seconds later, the phone rang AGAIN. good grief. it was Humphery again. the machine kicked on and he hung on the line this time. after the beep, Humphery starts on this long, obviously drunken tirade that was clearly directed toward the woman in his life...how SHE was the one who wanted her space and how he ONLY wanted to be with her...and how circumstances weren't as they seemed and he realized that it looked bad, blah, blah, blah...

they guy was clearly trying to worm his way out of some predicament he got caught red handed in the middle of...

this went on for at least 3 or 4 minutes. i really intended to pick up the phone and let this poor guy know he had the wrong number but i was was having too much fun listening to him spilling his guts onto my answering machine...

he called back again immediately after hanging up from leaving this looong message. i was getting a little annoyed at this point but i decided to spare him any further embarassment (and stop the incessant midnight phone calls)

Me: Hello?
Humphery: Um...
Me: YEAH, UM...I think you've got the wrong number...
Humphery: Uh...
Me: CLICK!

so...was that mean of me? ;)

i'm considering saving his message as my outgoing greeting. i think that might scare the telemarketers away....

freaky turkish baby dolls (for the little monster in your life)

2006-06-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

How'd you like to wake up and find one of these lying next to you?? A vendor was selling these cuties at a little stand outside the ruins of Perge. Since I was too scared to death to actually buy one (I was afraid it would come to life at night and try to kill me) I just took some pictures.

hammama mamma

2006-06-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

this morning we are taken by bus to adkeniz university for a brief lecture and a meeting with the rector. as with everywhere else we have been, we are treated to tea and cookies. we tour the campus and learn that most of the students here are preparing to be involved in the area's huge tourism industry.

we have a nice visit but i'm getting a little aggravated. we are leaving antalya tonight and flying back to istanbul to connect with our flight to amsterdam then back to new york. we were originally scheduled to fly out at 10 p.m., then have a 6 hour layover in istanbul. some of the great friends we've made in istanbul are planning to meet us at the airport there to say goodbye. i am really looking forward to being in istanbul for just a little while longer. but they're trying to switch our flight out of antalya to a later time so our layover in istanbul won't be so long. i'm hoping to keep my ticket just the way it is, but my 2 cents doesn't carry enough weight and the tickets are changed.

after our visit to the university, we are taken to a nearby shopping mall for lunch then dropped off again in the old city of antalya for some more shopping time. i visit the same internet cafe as yesterday then wander the streets and buy a few souvenirs. i still have a couple hours to kill and there is just one more thing on left on my "turkey to-do list".

i ask the souvenir shop guy if there is a turkish bath (called a hammam) nearby. he says there is and he takes the time to escort me there. i am taken inside the bath and greeted by a middle-aged turkish woman who speaks no english. she hands me a towel and points me to a changing booth. i am unsure if i should strip all the way down or what...so i do anyway. next, i am led through the bath house, a veritable maze of doorways, rooms and corridors that all look the same. the rooms are round in shape and lined around the edges with marble benches with spickets spaced out along the perimeter that are dripping hot water into marble basins. there are no lights per se, but the ceiling is dotted with cutout skylights in the shapes of stars and circles so there is plenty of natural light streaming in from outside.

the woman who is escorting me motions for me to sit down. then she hands me a metal bowl and directs me to splash hot water over myself from one of the basins. i am left alone to do this for a half hour or so. then the woman reappears and leads me into the next room. there is a large marble table in the center of this room and i am directed to lie on top of it. she then proceeds to scrub every inch of my body with a rough cloth. little rolls of dead skin appear all over me. she's a little rough on my sunburned back (i actually think she has broken the skin at one point!) but it's not unbearable. after this, she washes me all over with a soapy cloth then sits me upright and washes my hair. next, i am thoroughly rinsed with bowl after bowl of scalding hot water that are dumped and thrown over my head. i think this woman is having a little fun with me now... ;) finally, i am handed a towel and led into a little sitting room where an elderly turkish woman applies a seaweed masque to my face and i am served cup after cup of hot apple tea as the masque dries. next, the masque is rinsed from my face and lotion applied, which is massaged into my face, neck and shoulders. i get this whole treatment for the modest price of 37 turkish lira...about 27 american dollars...not half bad!!

we meet the bus at the designated time and place and are driven back to the dorms to pack and load the bus. then we are driven to an out of the way (non-touristy) restaurant deep in the winding alleyways and cobblestone streets of the old city. here we dine on course after course of delicious food as musicians play some traditional folk music. we dance, laugh and talk...i can't believe this is our last dinner together. three weeks ago, i didn't know a single one of these people but now they have somehow become like my family and i realize how much i am going to miss them.

after dinner is over, we are taken by bus to the airport in antalya. we unload our luggage and say goodbye to all the wonderful friends we have made here and begin the long journey homeward.

ah yes...this is the life!

2006-06-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

today our presence is required on the bus extra early, but no one is complaining. we're clad in our summer duds with bathing suits underneath. we all know where we are going and everyone is excited. the bus takes us to a marina on the mediterranean coast where we board the sinbad...a 150 foot wooden sailboat. we are taken for a day-long cruise along the coast of antalya to hidden cove and private beach. the water of the mediterranean is brilliant blue and we can see ~50 ft down straight to the bottom. it is absolutely beautiful. we drop anchor and jump in for a cool salty swim. meanwhile, the boat staff prepares a delicious cookout lunch for us of fried fish, spicy burger type patties and various turkish salads, then watermelon for dessert. we swim, rest and swim some more. finally we raise anchor and head back to harbor sometime in the afternoon. i lie on the deck where the motion of the ocean rocks me gently to sleep...

after disembarking, we are driven to the old city of antalya for some free shopping time. i immediately ditch the group and duck into an internet cafe for an hour or so. upon leaving the cafe, i bump into hakan and we share a couple of ice creams (they have this ice cream pop called the 'magnum' that is *awesome*). while we are eating our ice creams and chatting, a little boy approaches us selling sunflower seeds...he's maybe 8 or 9 and he is painfully thin with big, sad brown eyes. i don't really want any sunflower seeds but i buy some from him anyway and purposely pay him too much. this brings the sweetest smile to his face...

after the group reassembles, we walk through the old city and grab dinner at a turkish pizza place. it's a little different than american pizza but it's still good. then i notice that all the local people are smothering their pizzas with ketchup and mayonaise! ugh!! gross!!!

we finally arrive back at our dorm rooms around 11 p.m. most of the others are going to a carnival that is visible from the university campus, but i decide to indulge in a nice hot shower (yes, they've turned the hot water on for us), paint my nails and go to bed.

club med??

2006-06-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

i intend to wake up early this morning and catch the sunrise over the mediterranean on our last day in side, but i don't wake up until about 8 a.m. i'm running behind and by the time i do my hair i have missed breakfast again. so i decide to head down to the cabana for a cup of coffee. several of the friends we have made in side are there and we have pictures taken together. everyone has been so nice to us here but it is time to move on to the next (and final) city we will visit on our trip.

the bus we will have for the next leg of our journey is tiny and several people are forced to sit in the iasle or in the back on top of the luggage. but spirits are high and no one is complaining. we are supposed to visit alanya and then head to antalya, but due to our cramped riding conditions, tony makes the executive decision to skip alanya and head straight to antalya, which is only about an hour away.

we stop along the way to explore the ruins of an ancient theater...then switch gears for a couple hours of free time inside a modern western style shopping mall. wow, i am back on my home turf now! i make myself completely at home, find a store i like and try on a bunch of stuff until i find a couple outfits i like. the prices are decent and the clerks are sooo nice and helpful...

we meet in front of the mall at the designated time, board the bus and head to the hotel that will be home during our stay in antalya. i am really looking forward to this one. we've been told that we'll be staying at the club med in antalya right on the beach....everyone is psyched. but alas, this turns out to be either a vicious rumor or a cruel joke. we and all our luggage are dropped off instead in front of the student dormitory of adkeniz university. um, this is the club med?? our rooms are on the 5th floor and there is no elevator. we begin lugging our heavy suitcases and bags of books up allll those steps. in addition, there are no towels (again), no phone, no internet, no a/c, no hot water and....NO toilets!! yes folks, our bathroom is equipped with a hole in the floor...which have affectionately become known as "the squatter". on the upside though, marita, geeta and i have a huge room with an awesome view of the moutains...and considering what we have paid for this trip, we have no room to complain.

we get settled in then back on the bus we go. we are taken to visit the ruins of the ancient roman city of perge (pronounced PER-gay). this is really cool...there are so many artifacts here...pieces of pottery and marble. even after all the centuries, there is enough left over for most of us to walk away with a little piece of history tucked in our pockets...

next we switch gears again. we are taken to a huge resort on the mediterranean coast called "magic life". it's kind of like a turkish disney land. some people go swimming on the beach while me and some others do some exploring around the resort. this place is awesome. like side, it's very touristy, but in more of an upscale way. also like side, most of the tourists here are european. again we are mistaken for german, dutch, british...anything but americans. we have dinner at the resort, which is buffet style. while we are eating, this crazy clown makes rounds in the dining room giving people rather bizarre massages at their tables (much to their embarrassment ;)).

after dinner, we endure yet another folk dancing demonstration (my 3rd this week). i excuse myself to use the wc and take some time to wander around the resort for a bit. i'm secretly looking for some sort of an internet connection (yes, i've really got it that bad!!) but i don't find anything. finally we are taken back to the hotel.

i need to find an atm machine so marita and i venture down to the guard shack at the university gate to ask if there is one nearby. one of the guards is kind (?) enough to walk with us to an atm that is right down the road. when we get back, he and a few of the other guards invite us into the office to have some cola with them. they speak very little english and we don't speak enough turkish to keep up. i get the feeling they are making fun of us or something. marita mentions that she wants to go swimming and one of the guards offers to drive us down to the beach in his car. we head back to the dorm to change into our bathing suits, but we have a bad feeling about the situation and decide to just go to bed instead.

finally a day to relax!

2006-06-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

this morning i get to sleep in for the first time on this trip. i finally roll out of bed around 10:30 a.m. our morning is free, so i lay on the beach for a while then head to the hotel dining hall for lunch. after lunch, we gather in the cabana on the beach (yeah, we have it sooo rough!!) for a discussion on globalization and its positive and negative effects on turkish culture. (hey, this *is* supposed to be a class after all...)

then we are free again...i doze on the beach for a while longer then a bunch of us engage in a friendly game of beach volleyball. it's been so long since i've played...i was actually named MVP though--for the other team... ;)

i feel for all the world like i am back home at rehoboth or cape henlopen...the only difference being that hardly anyone here speaks english. after dinner, a bunch of us walk to a nearby internet cafe that is about a 10 minute walk down the road (cabs are wayyy to expensive here!!). we kill some time there then head back to the hotel. marita and i decide to go for a midnight swim in the mediterranean but on our way to the beach, we run into hakan, emily and dodo and all of us end up sitting on the beach, chatting and sipping drinks under the moonlight until it is time for bed. it was a nice, relaxing day after the crazy past couple weeks.

birthday girl

2006-06-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

today i pack my bag and turn my key in at the front desk of our hotel in konya. the clerk wishes me a happy birthday and gives me a pink rose. i make my way to the dining room for breakfast and everyone starts singing happy birthday...it is just the beginning of a day full of surprises and well wishes.

after breakfast, we pile onto the bus and begin the long drive to Side (pronounced SEE-day). I sit in the front of the bus for a while so i can take pictures. we are driving through the mountains now...and our bus driver is completely insane! you don't realize it sitting comfortably in the back, but up here i am frighteningly aware that he is flying around hairpin turns, driving in the wrong lane and passing other cars in complete disregard to oncoming traffic! but the views are beautiful and miraculously there are no mishaps...

we stop for lunch at a mountain rest stop. i have a tomato and chick pea soup and then order a turkish coffee. the coffee is brought to me completely wrapped in a napkin...it is placed in front of me and then the napkin is set on fire! wow, they don't even know it is my birthday! i give them two thumbs up for presentation!!

finally we arrive in side. our hotel is situated right on the mediteranean! the hotel lobby is really nice....but then we are led to the guest houses where we will be staying. they are kind of a different story. there are 2 rickety bunk beds in the room where me, marita and geeta will be spending the next 2 days. there is no internet, no phone, no air conditioning and no towels. no separate shower stall either...just a spicket on the wall and a drain on the bathroom floor next to the toilet. but at least it is an american toilet...and the guest houses are right on the beach, so i don't do a whole lot of complaining! we drop off our things, change into our bathing suits and run down the beach for a dip in the mediteranean! wow, what an awesome birthday!! people are parasailing, sunbathing, jet skiing, surf sailing and swimming. i witness a beautiful sunset and the rise of a huge full, red moon over the mediteranean...

dinner is served in the cafeteria and then we take a bus into town to do some shopping. there is a major tourist trap on one side and the ruins of an ancient theater on the other. marita decides to get a tattoo of the turkish flag on her back! i keep her company at the tattoo shop, where jewelry is also sold. we sat and had tea and chatted with the shop owners for a while. they discover it is my birthday and give me a free silver charm...then i am able to bargain a sweet price on a nice silver bracelet that catches my eye. we say goodbye to the tattoo shop guys and then hit an internet cafe. i'm beginning to realize how email addicted i am...i start to get really antsy if i'm not able to check my email at least once a day. i'm getting used to the turkish keyboard too...there are four or five extra letters in their alphabet and some of the letters are placed differently on the keyboard.

i get my internet fix and then we walk along the ruins of the ancient theater and village that lie next to the rows of shops. side is very touristy here but unlike the other cities we've visited, most of the tourists are european instead of american. the vendors shout out to us in german, dutch, french, etc. when they finally figure out that we speak english, they guess we are from the u.k. we get blank looks when we say we are from the u.s.

we catch the bus back to our hotel. i am exhausted and ready for bed but some of the other girls want to check out one of the many discoes along the strip in side. they insist i go along...after all, it is still my birthday!! we call for a cab and he takes us maybe 5 miles away to a club that he recommends...for the insane price of 40 lira (that's about 30 american dollars!!). inside the club they're playing techno music and people are dancing. there's a large video screen at one end of the club playing videos as a backdrop. it's all very european. there's a guy dancing in a wolf mask...we have our pictures taken with him. the bar brings me a free drink for my birthday...it's got a little umbrella and a lit sparkler stuck in it. but the guys in the club start to get annoying so we finally leave. the cab back to the hotel costs another 30 lira...i think we're definitely being taken advantage of because we are foreigners...

onward to konya

2006-06-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

morning comes and we board the bus to begin another long drive to konya. once again, we are traveling the silk road. we stop to look around at the ruins of one of the ancient rest stops along the way where merchants took shelter for the night. supposedly it hasn't been used for centuries, but i swear the place still reeks of camel poop!

we see more herds of cows, sheep and goats along the way. then we see some gypsy tent cities. the gypsies are nomadic people who move about the country. although they are not turkish citizens, they do contribute to the local economy by selling various items to the local farmers.

we move away from the mountains and volcanoes of cappadocia. here the land is flat and we can see for miles and miles. we arrive in konya and eat the most delicous food we've had to date....lamb and chicken kebabs, a tomato okra soup, salad, tea and turkish coffee.

we visit the tomb & museum of mevlana, the founder of islamic sufism. mevlana would meditate and then begin to dance, spinning around and around. thus the order of the whirling dervishes was founded. the sufis believe in tolerance and love for people of all religeons and ethnicities. their sect was eventually dissolved by attaturk's secular government but it remains of cultural, religeous and historical significance, especially here in konya where it was founded.

in the museum i see a man standing before a glass enclosed box, praying intently. on further inspection,the box claims to contain the beard of the prophet mohammed, a very holy relic to the islamic people.

after leaving the tomb of mevlana, we briefly do some shopping and i purchase a cd of sufi music. then we are taken to the hotel where we will be staying tonight.

our host in konya, halil, has arranged an amazing dinner for us. i'm still stuffed from lunch but the food is so delicious that i can't help but eat it all anyway. we dine on salad (which is different from american salad - it is full of fresh veggies and very little lettuce "filler"), bread, warm yogurt soup, beef and chicken kebabs with grilled vegetables and some baklava for dessert.

later, we are taken back to the hotel. halil has arranged for several of the students to go to his home and meet his family. others are going to play soccer at a nearby field. my sneakers are packed away in my suitcase (we are only staying in konya for one night so we were asked to pack one nights worth of clothes and leave the rest of our luggage on the bus) so emily and i go walking to look for cigarettes for her and an internet cafe for me. we find both and i am able to check my email.

back at the hotel, we sit in the lobby and chat for a bit. the soccer players return and join us. the desk clerk brings us a free bottle of wine...then he learns it will be my birthday tomorrow and he brings me another bottle on the house.

the wc

2006-06-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

thats what they call the bathroom here...everywhere there are signs for the wc (water closet). wc bay is the little boys room and wc bayan is for the girls. i became very well acquainted with wc's all around cappadocia today. i am not feeling very well and i think i ate something bad. i try to tough it out anyway and i'm glad i did. we went to an area where there are many cave homes, cave monasteries and cave churches that date back to about 300 a.d. the cave homes are very cool. tables, benches, and shelves are cut right into the rock. it stays about 68 degrees inside them all year round, so the cave folks stayed very comfortable. the cave churches were absolutely amazing. ceiling domes, arches and altars were all cut into the rock and the walls and ceilings were painted with the most beautiful frescoes. i took lots of awesome pics...will be posting them soon.

we stop for lunch, but by this time i am feeling too sick to eat so i sleep on the bus while everyone else is eating. after lunch, we stop at a carpet making shop. i didn't see very much other than the inside of the wc (sorry tmi) but marita took pictures for me. after that, i ask to be dropped off at the hotel. i missed seeing the underground city but marita tells me it was basically a big hole in the ground and nothing too exciting so i don't feel too bad...

cappadocia

2006-06-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

today we take a 4 1/2 hour bus ride to nevşehir in the cappadocia region of turkey. along the way we see a beautiful purple salt lake then the snow capped peaks of mountains and volcanoes. tony points out the ruins of ancient 'rest stops'...we are traveling the famous 'silk road' between here and china. these ruins are where merchants would stop at the end of the day and find shelter for themselves and their camels. finally we arrive in nevşehir. we tour a vocational college then have lunch in a small cafe. we visit a pottery making studio and watch a piece of pottery being made on a pottery wheel. we see more pieces of pottery being painted with intricate designs. i am getting quite good at bargaining and i get what i feel is a very good deal on a couple pieces that catch my eye.

next we visit some fairy chimneys and cave homes that cappadocia is famous for. the rock formations are like nothing i have ever seen before. they are formed by the erosion of layers of volcanic rock and ash from the nearby volcanoes, the 'three sisters'. i took a little camel ride...

we take a walking tour of the city, which is very old. the people here are very traditional and there are a lot of tourists. it seems like most of the local people are peddling souvenirs. as in çankiri, the children are very curious and friendly. we check into our hotel. the good news is that it has a pool. the bad news is there is no internet connection. oh well...

we have dinner at the hotel then go to a place with cultural dance. first we see some whirling dervishes, then a traditional turkish wedding dance. it depicts the brides acceptance of an arranged marriage. historically in turkey, most marriages were arranged but there still had to be a formal acceptance by the bride. in the dance, the groom offers gifts to the bride, which she rejects. she finally accepts him after he expresses his love for her. there are bellydancers, fire dancers and knife throwers, then everyone is pulled up on stage for a giant line dance. it was fun & we had a good night.

great day in cankiri

2006-06-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

early this morning we board the bus and begin our long trek to çankiri. we leave the city and are soon in the foothills. we see herds of cattle and sheep guarded by shepherds...there are no fences. we see women working in their gardens and walking along the higway carrying buckets on their heads. soon we begin our ascent into the mountains. the road becomes very narrow and winding. passing opposing traffic is difficult around the hairpin turns.

we visit the university in çankiri and listen to a very informative lecture on islam. i learned a lot that i didnt know before. for example, the difference between sunni muslims and shiite muslims is that the shiites believe that all imams (islamic religious leaders) should be direct descendants of mohammed while sunnis believe the job can be done by anyone who is qualified. we also learned about islamic sufism, a kind of islamic mysticism. this is the denomination of the whirling dervishes. they have a saying that goes:

dance as if no one is watching you; love as if you have never been hurt before; sing as if no one can hear youİ work as if you dont need the money; live as though heaven were here on earth (Jalal al-Din Rumi)

next we toured a small mosque in çankiri. this is our guide hakans hometown and he has arranged for the imam to read some verses from the koran for us. he doesnt just read them though...he sings them. it is so very beautiful it makes me cry...and i am not the only one.

we tour a portion of the old city of çankiri. the children here are so curious and friendly toward us. çankiri is an out-of-the-way little town and not many tourists pass through it. many of the children have not seen americans before. they crowd around us, smiling, giggling and waving and some of them speak to us in english saying hello and welcome to turkey. they love to have their pictures taken, especially when we can show them the picture on the digital camera.

next, we divide into groups and families of the faculty of çankiri university take us to their homes for tea. marita, wendy and i visit the home of umran (19) and murat (15), their mother fatma and their father. they serve us grape leaves stuffed with rice, a cake of flaky filo dough with spinach inside and the most delicious dessert, like baklava but different. they keep insisting we eat more and more food...finally we are completely stuffed beyond belief. umran and her father drive us to the top of a nearby cliff where there are the ruins of an old castle. there is also a small mosque. inside is a small well and a silver cup. umran fills the cup for me and tells me to drink it in three sips. she says it is special water and if i drink it as she says, my wishes will come true. finally. they drive us back to çankiri university. we say goodbye to our new friends and board the bus for the long ride back to ankara. tomorrow we will pack our things and embark on a 4 hour bus ride to cappadocia.

uh oh...

2006-06-07T17:36:00.000-07:00

we meet in the hotel lobby for a discussion at the beginning of our second day in ankara. it's obvious that things have occurred overnight...and they've not been good things. hakan is absent as are kiki (one of our instructors) and ashley. our other instructor, phil, and our guide, tony, seem annoyed. we learn that ashley is back in the hospital and is to be sent home. there are things about our trip to the hospital yesterday that i have not mentioned to anyone, like the fact that when hakan and i took ashley to the hospital yesterday, she was clearly drunk and very obnoxious. i believe this has become clear to the instructors in whatever incident occurred overnight. i hope the situation can be resolved without ruining the trip for everyone else.

we are taken to visit the american embassy here in ankara, where we listen to a talk on how american foreign policy is defended in this country. turkey is a nation very affected by the happenings in the world in recent years, as they share borders with countries such as iraq and iran. turkey is in a unique position, both geographically and culturally. being both a secular country and one whose population is overwhelmingly muslim, turkey is able to share friendly relationships with both western countries like the u.s. and with middle eastern nations. i believe this makes turkey a very strategic ally for our government...it is potentially a very useful bridge between us and the countries that so concern us in this post 911 era.

next we visit the ankara museum of ancient artifacts. we see the progression of early human artists, artisans, war and religion from (supposedly) 23,000 b.c to the hitite era to the times of the greek and roman empires. turkey is a nation so rich in the history of human kind. many of the artifacts we view in the museum were found in archaeological sites on this very hill here in ankara.

i finally hear the call to prayer here in ankara. it is quite different from the what we've heard in istanbul. in instanbul, the call was more "arabic" sounding while here it sounds more like a hymn. interesting that this would be different in different cities.

we spend some time in a division of ankara university where students of all ages are learning to speak english. we sit in on some of their classes and they practice asking us questions about our lives in the u.s. we ask the same of them and find that young people in the two countries are quite similar. the girl i speak with says she likes to read books and chat with her friends on the internet.

next it's back to the hotel. hakan has offered to take us swimming in the university pool but marita and i choose to explore some of the city instead. we walk for a bit then enter a little cafe that is downstairs from the street. at first, we are told they are closed, but then the owner invites us in for coffee. there are several men downstairs playing poker. we are the only women inthe place. we drink our coffee and as we get up to leave, the owner brings out sandwiches for us and more coffee. i think he likes marita and doesn't want us to leave. we ask how much the bill is and he indicates (he does not speak english and we haven't brought our turkish-english dictionary) that there is no charge. we eat our sandwiches of tomato wedges, feta cheese and cilantro. again, we get up to leave but he arrives at our table with more drinks and urges us to sit down. we're getting the feeling we might not be allowed to leave. more people begin to arrive and music begins to play. now this guy tells us that the 2 drinks he has brought out (which we did not ask for) will be 50 turkish lira (that's about 35 american dollars!!). we indicate that he must be out of his mind! he finally agrees that the drinks are on him. we finally make our exit after convincing him (via sign language) that we feel underdressed for his establishment and want to change clothes and come back. we say goodbye in the customary way (a kiss on each cheek) but he tries to steal a kiss on the mouth from marita!! finally we get away...of course we have no intention of returning. but we've gotten a free dinner and free coffee...and another interesting contrast between ankara and istanbul. the men here have similar intentions and employ similar tactics but they're not nearly as savvy or persistent as the ones in istanbul.

first day in ankara

2006-06-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

today we arrived in ankara. our hotel here, the segmen hotel, is a palace compared to the one in istanbul. there are down comforters and velvet coverlets on our beds and the bathroom is marble from floor to ceiling. we have a stocked fridge in our room (very expensive stuff of course) and the internet connection is much more dependable. so needless to say, the clothesline strung across our room seems a little out of place here. for 30 lira, the hotel staff will do your wash for you...but as long as its free to wash in the tub, i'll stick with that, thank you. ;) a curious thing about the hotels in turkey is that they're very energy conscious. the electric in the room doesn't work unless the room key is stuck in a little slot by the door and even the hall lights turn on and off by motion sensor. it was the same in istanbul.

ankara seems to be a much more westernized city, and also a newer city, than instanbul. the streets are wide and the buildings look very new. i don't notice any cats, dogs or street children wandering around outside. also curiously absent is the daily calls to prayer that we became so accustomed to hearing in istanbul. ankara is also much less of a tourist city and as such, there seem to be much fewer people who speak english and fewer signs in english. it is much more important to know a bit of the language or to have an interpreter handy.

we visit the attaturk mausoleum. it is set on a hilltop that overlooks the city. we are lucky enough to catch the changing of the guard. mustafa kemal attaturk is considered the father of modern turkey. he singlehandedly led the turkish army to victory over the greek army in world war I. he created the republic of turkey as it is today, installing a secular government with separation of church and state and westernization of the country by such actions as changing the turkish alphabet from arabic letters to latin. the turks consider him as more of a messiah than a founder, and indeed there would not be a turkey on the map if it were not for attaturk.

next, we return to the hotel and change clothes. we have an important meeting with the rector of ankara university. then the group is scheduled to visit a 400 year old village and castle in ankara. but the day takes a different turn for me. i get to see the inside of a turkish hospital. ashley, one of our classmates is feeling ill and believes that she has a kidney infection. the rector of ankara university makes a special phone call to the city hospital to make sure she is taken care of. hakan, our host and interpreter for this leg of the trip, and i leave the meeting with the rector and take her to the hospital. the cab drivers in this city...well actually all the drivers in this city (and in istanbul for that matter) are completely insane!! they whip around corners and down the streets and highways at top speed within inches of eachother (yes, folks at home, they drive just like me!!), yet i've not seen a single accident. anyway, we get ashley to the hospital where she receives a painkiller and a presciption for an antibiotic. if she still feels badly in the morning, she will return to the hospital for some tests.

next, hakan and i decide to go for coffee while we wait for the rest of the group to return. we discuss some very interesting subjects, like working women in america and in turkey. apparently, in turkey there are no daycare centers so if a woman works, her extended family watches the children. we also discuss the divorce rate in america versus in turkey. hakan is under the impression that women in america do not want to get married or have children. i tell him that they do want those things, but they also want careers and other things like that...in other words, i guess we want it all... ;)

turkish toilets (a picture is worth a thousand words)

2006-06-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

lost in istanbul

2006-06-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

ok, not really really lost....

we visited some of the students at istanbul university today. we listen to a presentation on turkish culture and urbanization, have a discussion with the turkish students, then we have lunch with them in the university cafeteria. next, we visit the grand bazaar, which is like the most gigantic farmers market you could ever imagine (only with much nicer stuff). there are literally thousands and thousands of shops. i find the most beautiful picture of a whirling dervish...it reminds me of the dervish i saw last night...then some other souvenirs and stuff.

there is an observation i've made about turkish men. plain and simple, if you are american and anything remotely close to blond, they are looking for a date. i've made purchases at 3 stores in the bazaar and have been propositioned by 2 out of the 3 salesman. i'm getting really sick of it and finally i've had enough. i decide to leave and go back to the hotel, but i've lost the group and the bazaar is so huge that i can't find my way out.. so i wander for a bit and finally make my way to the street. but i've no idea which way is which. i look for the minarets of one of the mosques to get my bearing but the buildings around me are so tall and the streets so narrow that i can't see any familiar skyline. i don't have my watch on but i figure it must be early afternoon. knowing i am somewhere north of the hotel, i put the sun on my right and wander until i start seeing familiar things. finally, i see the tram tracks. there is only one tram route in the old city of istanbul, so i follow the tracks back to familiar territory.

the street vendors used to annoy me...they can be extremely persistent...but i've found that the trick is to simply ignore them. don't make eye contact, don't answer them, nothing. if you speak to them, even to say no, they will not stop badgering you. if you look away from them and don't speak, they leave you alone. there is no 'trying to be polite' here.

i feel very confident and at home in istanbul now. i've been visiting here only 4 days but it feels like i've lived here for years...

it's about 4 pm as i write this. i'm meeting the group back at the hotel at 7 tonight. we then take a bus to the train station where we will catch an overnight train to ankara. i'm sure there will be many more interesting things to discover there, but i think a part of me will stay here in istanbul...

whirling dervish

2006-06-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

tonight we went out to eat at a very traditional open air turkish restaurant. they serve us "pancakes", which are basically tortilla wraps, and you can order different sauces to go with them. some are very spicy, some are not. i order the most unusual thing on the menu, the first thing i see that i can't pronounce, just because. it turns out to be absolutely delicious. then some very exotic music starts playing. i turned to look and there is a whirling dervish performing on the stage. it was one of the most moving things i ever saw. he was wearing a long white robe and spinning around and around. but his upper body and hands were held in a pose and his face wore a very tender almost sad expression. though he was spinning very fast, his upper body never changed position and his face never changed expression. i couldn't take my eyes off it. it was really very beautiful. i took pictures but with my film camera (the battery on the digital was on the charger of course), so i can't post pictures right now - and even if i could, it would never do it justice. it was simply amazing, almost to the point where i felt it was "disrespectful" to take pictures.

religion in turkey

2006-06-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

today we visited the blue mosque. we had to cover our hair with a scarf and take off our shoes inside. it's breathtakingly beautiful inside. then we visit the st. sophia mosque across the square. this used to be a church during the byzantine empire but was converted to a mosque after istanbul was taken by the ottomans. there were many absolutely stunning mosaics on the walls and ceilings of the church that were plastered over by the ottomans and replaced with islamic symbols and words from the koran. they are slowly being excavated and the ones i saw were stunning. some of the pieces in the mosaics are real gold and the intricate artwork is amazing (pictures above).

we have lunch at another "point and eat restaurant". we're talking to serdar, one of the turkish students. someone asks if there are any turkeys in turkey. a silly question maybe, but it led to an interesting story. apparently, centuries ago, the turks traded the birds to european traders. when europeans saw the same birds in the americas, they called them turkeys because they reminded them of the turks.

after lunch, me and some of the girls along with a couple of the turkish students who are serving as our hosts walk down to the area where the spice bazaar is. the bazaar is closed so we sit and have coffee. it's turkish coffee, more like american espresso. one of the students says he can read our coffee fortunes, which are read by the marks the "coffee sludge" leaves on our coffee cups after we're done drinking...

tonight we're having a discussion about islam and christianity. tomorrow, we visit the grand bazaar then check out of our hotel in istanbul. we're taking an overnight train to the next city. i'm not sure if i'll have internet access there but i'll post when i can. istanbul has been so much fun. i feel like i've always been here...

turkish royalty and history

2006-06-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

today we tour the topaki palace in istanbul and the museum of natural history. the palace is beautiful but the museum is absolutely amazing!! we saw so many ancient artifacts...famous statues, amazing artwork, the trojan horse, the gates of the tower of babel...absolutely amazing stuff. i took lots of pictures and will be posting them soon.

on our way out of the museum, we notice a man sitting on the side of the street with 2 trained rabbits sitting on a barrel. he has a slotted board with little pieces of paper folded up and stuck in the slots. for 1 lira, he holds the board in front of the rabbits and one of the chooses a piece of paper with his mouth. inside is a fortune...

we have a late lunch at what tony calls a "point and eat" restaurant...you walk along a cafeteria line, point to what you want and then you eat it. i choose eggplant with tomatoes and mushrooms. i try the traditional warm salted yogurt drink that everyone drinks here but find it completely undrinkable... ;p

we take a break and i take a nap...i was out late last night and i'm exhausted!!

later, we take a ferry across the bosphorus into eastern istanbul...and into asia. the people are different over here. the women are very westernized. we eat as hosta piknic, the turkish version of mcdonald's. instead of burgers and fries, they serve a sort of chopped steak (much like steak-ums) wrapped in your choice of bread or a tortilla-like wrap.

on the ferry ride home, tony, me and a couple of the other students engage in a very interesting discussion about islam, christianity, buddhism and religion in general.

girls night out in istanbul

2006-06-02T06:42:00.000-07:00

finally we get back to the hotel after touring the factories and the university. a few of the girls decide to go out and get a bite to eat. i'm not hungry after that amazing lunch we had, but i decide to go with them anyway and see some of the city. we eat at a restaurant and as we are leaving, the matre d' tells us we have free tea coming with our meal. we refuse politely (we're in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the group), but he gets very upset...one thing we've learned about turkish men is that they're very insistent. they want you to do what they want you to do. it's not, "would you like some tea" it's "you have tea now" with them.

anyway, we go to a cafe and meet a few of the locals. this crazy matre d' shows up and starts acting very strangely...he's angry because we didn't have tea. he sits down with us but is acting really agitated. in the end, he basically cussed us out and left...

while we are there, these little girls, maybe 5 or 6 years old, approach us selling tissues. they have big sad eyes, so we buy some. no sooner than we pay for them and five more little girls come out of the woodwork, all selling tissues...later, there is a little boy selling roses. he's maybe 10 and is out very late at night in the city by himself.

we saw a lot of the turkish night life. they listen to the turkish music that we've previously seen on tv. either there's one particular song that is very very popular, or all the music sounds the same...i'm not sure which it is. then they begin to play some american music....criss cross, madonna, just to name a few. we're surprised to find the decor in the cafe is all american indian paraphernalia. there are people drinking rake, a traditional turkish drink. there are other people smoking apple tobacco in nargiles (large water pipes). people mostly are dressed in western clothing...jeans and t shirts. couples are salsa dancing. it's all a very interesting mix of similar and different.

it's getting late and we begin to walk home. the streets are pretty empty. then we see a police car stop. at first i thought we might be in trouble or something, but they are friendly. they offer us a ride back to our hotel. but first they insist on having tea with us. they don't speak any english and we speak a marginal amount of turkish, so we communicate with them using our turkish-american dictionary. finally they bring us back to the hotel...they even turn on the sirens for us...

learning about turkish industry & education

2006-06-02T06:33:00.000-07:00

i get up early around 4 a.m. I haven't slept well because i was nervous that i would oversleep. So i get up and get myself dressed and then play with my laptop for a bit. I find that i can access the internet very early in the morning but as it gets later, i lose my connection again.

The hotel serves a “continental” breakfast of cucumber slices, tomato wedges, feta cheese, black olives and watermelon. We walk to the corner store to buy some bottled water. We see two shoeshine boys, maybe 7 or 8 years old working on the corner. It's friday and they are not in school.

Next, we hop on a bus and go to tour a turkish pipe factory. Turkey is trying to move toward industry and away from agriculture in the hopes of gaining entry into the european union. This is because industrial products sell for more money than agricultural products and also because industrial workers earn higher wages. We learn about what it is like to be an employee of a turkish factory...what kind of benefits they receive, etc. I also have my first run-in with the much fabled turkish toilet..... (pics to be uploaded as soon as i can ;))

the general manager of the factory treats us to a fabulous lunch. we are served many courses which consist of a sort of pita bread that you stuff with goat cheese, then some little sausage looking things (tho i'm sure it's not sausage because of the no pork sentiments here) with some thin buttery mashed potatoes, then some beef with rice, then some other sort of beef with stewed tomatoes, then little turkish pizzas, then the best ice cream i've ever had, then (as if that all weren't enough, some turkish doughnuts that are absolutely dripping with honey. i am so incredibly stuffed, but i just had to eat it all. it was all so different and so delicious...

next we tour istanbul university. we see the library there. the walls are lined with shelves but they are mostly empty. i'd estimate there are 400 books in the whole room and that's probably an overestimate. there are no computers. we've brought books from the us to give to them and some of us talk and decide that from now on, we're going to donate our used textbooks to the turkish universities and try to recruit other students to do the same...

first impressions

2006-06-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

our hotel, the hotel inter, is so "that 70's show"! the carpet is dark orange and the walls in the lobby are covered with dark paneling. the lobby, the elevator and the room are all very small. it is a nice hotel by turkish standards, however. our room is on the 4th floor. marita and i have one single bed and one double bed, a small tv, a bed table, an armior and a small bathroom, which i'm happy to say has an american toilet, a sink and a shower. there's an air conditioning unit on the wall, but we can't figure out how to turn it on. no matter, though, we have a whole wall of windows that open and there's the most refreshing breeze outside. we're no more than 7 or 8 blocks from the boshporus river, which divides the city in half and also separates europe from asia.

the first thing i do is try to connect my laptop to the internet...i'm able to hook into to the hotel's wifi connection, but the signal is not strong enough to access any web pages.

we check out the view from the window. we're apparently in the clothing district of the city so there is a lot of interesting activity to be seen in the street below. we turn on the tv and watch some turkish music videos. the videography and music stars appear very similar to what you'd see on mtv in america, but the music is very different and very exotic sounding.

our group meets in the lobby at about 6 pm to take a walking tour of the city. following are some observations i made on that first walk. the streets are very narrow and winding. they are mostly cobblestone and the side walks are very uneven. you really have to watch where you're going all the time. there are many little shops and street vendors who call out to us in english as we walk by.

we reach the main street in istanbul. there are stone walled cemeteries everywhere right along the main street. there are trolley tracks that run down the street and trams ride along right in with the cars, buses, motorcycles and taxis. most of the cars here are small economy cars. the sidewalks are full of people and turkish music is drifting out of the shops and cafes.

we stop into a little cafe and we have dinner of rice and chicken stuffed with vegetables. i notice an internet cafe next door and run over when i'm done eating to send an email home.

we continue our walking tour. there are two famous mosques at the end of main street - the blue mosque and the st. sophia mosque. we hear the call to prayer and some people make their way into the mosques to pray. there is a huge obelisk from egypt in front of the blue mosque. tony, our guide, tells us that this very square is where the chariot races were held long ago, like the ones in the movie ben hur.

finally, we make our way back to the hotel. we stop into a shop on the way and i buy some bottled water and some canned "nescafe xpresso" drinks for the morning. the streets are dark now but still bustling with people. there are cats and dogs everywhere, wandering around, looking in the trash or sleeping on the sidewalks.

mother of all jet lag!

2006-06-01T20:30:00.000-07:00

remember that brilliant idea i had of staying up all night so's i'd sleep on the plane? really, REALLY stupid!! i hardly slept a wink. first of all, i'm like a kid at christmastime on an airplane. i love to fly. i love the takeoffs. i love the landings. i love to look out the window. so at first, i was too excited to sleep. after it got dark outside, i watched part of a movie, tried to get comfortable, had a glass of wine and finally drifted off (appropriately enough) to the sounds of REM. but that didn't last long. i really could've slept if the seat wasn't so darn hard. but soon, i woke up because my butt was hurting and i just couldn't get comfortable again after that.

but soon, it was light outside again and before i knew it, we were descending into the airport at amsterdam. holland is really beautiful from the sky...lots of red roofs and farms. but i'm exhausted...it's supposed to be 2:30 a.m. but it isn't...it's 8:30 a.m. and time to start another day...

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The flight to istanbul is a lot different from the one to amsterdam. first of all, the plane is a lot smaller. but more noticeable is the fact that very few of the other passengers speak english. even the capitan is difficult to understand. he makes the announcements in several languages but his accent is very thick. there are a lot of dutch people on the plane with us and also a lot of muslims. it's interesting to watch the children especially. the muslim children are extremely well-behaved. they sit still, stay close to their mothers and are quiet. the dutch children are pretty much given the run of the airplane. not to say that they are misbehaving - all the children were very good - but it's just interesting to see the difference in boundaries.

i have my first real "ethnocentric" moment as the plane pulls away from the gate. the thought flashes through my mind that i hope these non-english speaking people know how to fly this thing! the instant the thought pops into my mind, i realize how absurd it is but i have thought it anyway.

after takeoff, we are served breakfast (my second one today) of a soft mild cheese, the thickest, creamiest yogurt i've ever tasted with the freshest tasting blueberries at the bottom (much different from the yogurt they have at home) and a strange but delicious drink of mango juice with huge chunks of fruit in it.

this flight is shorter than the last, about 4 or 5 hours, and soon we are descending into istanbul. my first impression of the city from the air is that all the buildings look the same. they all look to be of a white stucco with terra cotta roofs. inside the airport is different too. there are people in muslim robes and head scarfs everywhere. people think nothing of butting in front of us in line. we get our visas and exchange our american dollars for turkish lira. the hotel has sent a bus to pick us up and there are several students from the university of istanbul there to greet us. they are very hospitable and insist on carrying our bags and backpacks for us. it's hot at the airport but there is a cool breeze blowing and there's no humidity at all. we pretty much stick out like sore thumbs and people are staring at us. our hosts speak little english and we speak very little turkish, but we try anyway to have a conversation on the bus. people drive very close together here...we are riding along the highway seemingly within inches of the other cars both on the freeway and on the narrow, winding city streets...but we make it safely to the hotel.

ready to go

2006-05-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

they gave us a very nice send off at the dtcc stanton campus. tony, one of our guides, cooked us lunch of grilled sausages, hot dogs, burgers and pork ka-bobs. i am told this will be our last exposure to pork for the next 3 weeks. being a muslim country, turkey is wary of the "other" white meat. we left for the airport around noon and arrived promptly at 3 p.m. check-in was a nightmare of confusion. we had to wait for the students from northampton community college and we kept getting yelled at for taking up too much space in front of the check in counter. then we got in line...then they diverted us to a different line...then a lady asked to see my passport and promptly disappeared with it! being new to international travel, all this was a little nerve-wracking, but after all, we got through check-in and for the first time in my life, i didn't even set off the metal detector! so now i'm sitting at the gate waiting to board. i'm exhausted...i'm probably going to be asleep before the plane even takes off...

it's turkey day

2006-05-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

the long awaited day has finally arrived. the really hard part (kissing the kids goodbye) is over and done. i guess i'd be excited if i weren't on the verge of total exhaustion. i haven't slept much in the past couple days. monday night i just had a lot of getting ready type stuff to do. last night, i stayed up on purpose though. my flight leaves new york at 6 p.m. tonight but when i arrive in turkey 7 hours later, it will be ~1 p.m. tomorrow afternoon (that's so weird!). so i need to be good and sleepy so i'll crash - um - i mean *sleep* (!) on the plane... ;) i intended to stay up all night last night but ended up taking a ~3 hour nap even after downing many red bulls.

well, i'm all packed and ready to go. i have this sneaking feeling i'm forgetting something but i think its just 'cause i'm leaving my purse behind. i feel naked without my purse. but i had to buy this travel money belt thing (it's NOT a fanny pack!!!) to carry my passport and stuff, and figured i might as well just completely forego the purse and just use that. one less thing to carry/lose/worry about.

so time to load up the car and then i'm outta here!

gule gule (goodbye ;))

afternoon at the beach

2006-05-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

today is memorial day and, true to tradition, we made the obligatory pilgrimage to the beach. we like to go to cape henlopen by the fishing pier 'cause the water is very shallow there and there aren't any big waves. so i can pretty much let the kids run around and not worry about anyone getting knocked down by a wave or dragged out by the undertow. there are also a lot of sea creatures swimming around...mostly minnows, clams, horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs and the occasional baby shark...for the kids to catch/watch, etc. the big bonus though is that not a lot of people go there, so even on memorial day, it isn't ever crowded at all.

cape henlopen is apparently a big clamming spot. there are always crowds of chinese people who gather there in the picnic gazebo by the fishing pier. mostly the men and some of the women go clamming while the grandparents and mothers stay on the beach to watch the children and picnic in the picnic area. it's pretty neat i think. the first time i saw them there, i thought it was a big family reunion, but i've been going to that beach for several years now and they're always there. it's just part of what makes that beach unique.

there's also a large pier, which is apparently a popular fishing area (tho i'm not sure i'd want to eat anything i caught at the mouth of the delaware river...especially downstream from the nuclear plant and all the factories!!). there is a fishing store that sells hooks and tackle (not sure about bait), a bath house and a feet washing station (both of which distinctly specify "absolutely no fish cleaning"). on the beach, there are usually a lot of women and kids hanging out while their husbands/dads are on the pier fishing.

not too long after we got there, some kids found a shark's head that had been severed from its body, probably by one of the fisherman. i swear, you'd have thought there was a murder on the beach, 'cause soon there was a big crowd of kids gathered around the severed head. my daughter was screaming "mommy, there's a shark head and it's BLEEDING!!!" then some other little boy was yelling that they HAD to hurry up and find the body (maybe in time for some life-saving head reattachment surgery??). soon, a posse was organized and the kids were scouring the beach for dead animal parts and lining them up in the sand near the shark's head. it was a scavenger hunt in the most literal sense. a couple of the bossier kids declared themselves the leaders and divided the group of kids into teams so they could search more effectively. It was all pretty funny...i was waiting for them to form a union or something...

but all too soon it was time to leave. there was still grass to cut at home and laundry and packing and cleaning to do. so the kids were lured from the beach by my usual promise to stop for ice cream at the dairy queen on our way home. we had fun, relaxed, cooled off and no one got sunburned. it just wouldn't be memorial day without a trip to the beach.

our trip to the zoo

2006-05-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

i promised the kids i'd take them to the national zoo in washington dc before i left for turkey, so today me, the kids and my mom went. it's really an awesome zoo, as anyone who has been there can tell you. you'd have to have the stamina of an olympic athlete to actually see everything in one day. we tried really hard though. by the time we left, the kids were exhausted and begging to be carried. but we had fun and we saw a lot...as you can see by the pics above, all the animals were front & center and showing off for us.

but in spite of all the exotic animals and cool things to see in the zoo, the kids' favorite part of the day was the pizza playground. it's this huge, covered pizza-shaped mat, maybe 30 feet in diameter. the bottom of the mat looks like cheese and the "crust" is a big bump/barrier that keeps the kids inside. it's meant for little kids, but all 3 of mine loved it. there is a huge black olive that they can play on/in and a big tomato to climb on and a big wedge of cheese to slide down. then there are big pepperonis and mushrooms that they can build things with. my son got inside the big black olive and some other kids were trying to trap him in there by blocking the openings at each end with big pepperonis. it was a good chance for the kids to play and us adults to rest our aching feet...

but on a serious side, i'm supposed to be keeping a journal of "sociological observations" right now...so i can compare and contrast what i observe in turkey with what i am used to here in the u.s. that's kind of hard to do 'cause, well, we tend to take the familiar for granted i guess. so i tried to observe things from that perspective while at the zoo and while driving through the city.

there really is a mix of people to be seen in washington dc. i guess that's what characterized the city for me. of course it is a big tourist destination, but it also seems that the city itself is home to people with a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. driving through the city, i noticed all the different ethnic restaurants...chinese, thai, ethiopian (i had to make a joke about that one, but i'll spare you here) and also the variety of people walking around... white, black, oriental, the obviously well-to-do driving their mercedes and bmw's, the athletic looking girl who wove her bicycle in and out of traffic; the obviously poor young woman i noticed standing outside a liquor stoor, holding a baby and looking on while her other two young children ran about nearby at the edge of the busy street. then there was the gradual but noticeable shift from run-down row homes, some unlived in with boarded up windows and others that were lived in but with bars on the windows and doors, to the lively-colored middle class homes of red, purple, blue and every other color of the rainbow that sat on more tidy looking streets, to the stately brick single homes of the well-to-do. as in a lot of big cities i've been to, the poorer section was more proximal to the freeway where we entered the city and the well-to-do area sat closer to the park-like area where the zoo is located, with the middle class kind of sandwiched in between.

i am a horrible, horrible mother

2006-05-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

on weekdays, my kids and i get up very, very early in the morning. i get up around 3:30 a.m. and wake the kids up around 5. they're very, very sleepy. barely functional to be more precise. my oldest does wake up and dress herself but i have to help the other 2 get dressed. when i wake my son up in the morning, i pull his feet and legs out of bed first. i slide on his socks and pants, then pull him the rest of the way out into a sitting position on the floor and slide his shirt on. this morning, i was snapping his pants and i noticed that they seemed a little tight.

so he ate a big dinner last night...no biggie, right?

i think nothing more of it. we have breakfast and i drive them to my mom's house, where they are given a ride to school. i pick them up later in the afternoon after work. i am in my son's classroom signing him out and talking to his teacher when i notice that something is definitely amiss. i can't put my finger on it at first but in a moment the enormity of the situation dawns on me.

my only son is standing before me wearing a very stylin' pair of flare-leg hip-hugger GIRL'S jeans...

which he has been wearing all day long at school...

which i am personally responsible for putting him in!

how awful is that???

what the....!?

2006-05-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

for the past day or so, my stomach has been tied in knots thinking about my upcoming trip. i've just had this feeling...that i've overlooked some important detail...or something. haven't quite been able to put my finger on it. call it women's intuition...

so then i get an email from robin this morning with a link to a news story...the freaking ataturk airport in instabul is engulfed in flames!! that's the airport we're supposed to fly into next week! is this an omen? a precursor of things to come!? apparently there was an electrical short in the cargo area at one of the terminals (did somebody forget to plug in their voltage converter thingy?)...which probably then ignited some poor tourist's suitcase full of toilet paper...

well this is bound to make things "interesting"...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060524/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_airport_fire

update: today i am informed by shelby that the fire at the istanbul airport will in no way affect our trip. apparently, all of the damage was contained to the cargo area of the airport, which is located about a mile from the passenger terminal. incoming flights were temporarily affected but everything is now back to normal and fortunately, there was no loss of life in the incident. the fire itself was apparently accidental and is not officially being considered an act of terror or sabotage, although a kurdish group has claimed responsibility.

whew...so that's all (mostly) a big relief!!

my to-do list

2006-05-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

wow, hard to believe that exactly two weeks from tomorrow, i'll be on a plane headed for instanbul. i've done a lot of preparation already but there is so much left to do. i've bought a few of those european voltage converter thingies, a rope clothesline and clothespins (i've been informed that this will be the extent of the available laundry facilities while i'm there - that and the bathroom sink), a money belt, a laptop, my passport....what else? i know there are a half million things i will need and i can never remember them all at the same time.

i've been approved since february to take the 13 days off from work that i'll need . however, i recently came to the realization that i will not have enough vacation time accrued by the time i'll be leaving. so just to make sure they don't fire me while i'm gone, i asked - and was approved - for an educational leave of absence to cover the remainder.

i've been warned that the majority of the trip will be BYOTP (bring your own toilet paper), so i've stocked up on...er...bathroom supplies. i've informed my bank and credit card companies of my travel plans and they've reassured me that "they're not 100% sure but they think my cards will probably work" in turkey (they want me to let them know how it went when i get back so they will know what to tell other clients...which is ever so comforting).

my mom will be watching my 3 kids and my neighbor has agreed to feed my dog and cat while i'll be gone. i'll need to contact someone to cut my grass. I've been advised to make extra copies of my passport, buy a padlock for my suitcase and contact my physician to obtain a prescription for an antibiotic, "just in case"...

i've acquired a turkish language course that i've barely had time to wrap my head around. so far i know how to say:

merhaba! benim adim tanya. beyaz sarap istiyorum. otel nerede?
(not accounting for proper turkish spelling, thats: hello! my name is tanya. i would like some white wine. where is the hotel?)

yes: evet; no: hayir; please: lutfen.

oh, and i can count to four: bir, iki, uc, dort...

still not an extensive vocabulary by any standard.

...and i've some required reading to do, a sociology pre-test to take, a technical writing course i'll need to begin before leaving and bills i'll need to prepay...and...and...the list goes on and on...

sleeping angel

2006-05-13T18:42:00.000-07:00

ok so an important part of my preparation for my trip to turkey is becoming acquainted with my fancy new digital camera. so i took this shot of my daughter and played around with some effects. she looks angelic, does she not?

i've got butterflies...

2006-05-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

...i hear from Shelby today. she emails me to let me know what time we're meeting at the dtcc terry campus on the 31st. from there, i'll catch a ride up to the stanton campus & then we'll be whisked off to JFK, then amsterdam...then istanbul! i've flown only once before in my life - to california - and that was 5 years ago now. this time will be all the way across the atlantic and to the very eastern edge of europe... it's all starting to sink in now & there are butterflies in my stomach!

me & my gang...

2006-05-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

i'm sure gonna miss them while i'm away...

turkey orientation

2006-05-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

Friday May 5, 2006~ today i have my orientation meeting for my upcoming trip to the republic of turkey. i arrive at the dtcc stanton campus and find the orientation room filled with the anxious and excited faces of my 17 co-expeditionists. most appear younger than me, a few my age or older. one girl, who would later become my roomie for the trip, has brought her two adorable kids along. there are the most delicious white chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies spread out for the taking at the back of the room and a variety of books, pictures and postcards on a table at the front. my advisor, shelby, introduces me to the college president, dr. george, and we chat for a minute. next, dr. george and several others speak to the group regarding details of the trip; what to pack, what not to pack, what to expect, anecdotes from prior trips, how much this trip is going to change our lives. i listen with rapt attention as the speakers describe this wonderful country caught between old and new, west and east, history and technology. soon, the powerpoint and slide presentation begins and i find myself almost at the verge of tears - the kind that well up when you're watching a great movie...only this one is about to become very real to me...

we are asked to spend a few minutes getting to know one of the other students in the room and i speak to a guy named tom who is sitting next to me. tom is a student at northampton community college who is majoring in cultural studies. i can see how closely the turkey trip relates to his field of study. ..

we take an intermission, i grab a few more of those cookies. we choose roomies and i am paired with marita, who is a student at the georgetown campus of del tech. she has her kids with her and her son has the same name as my son. she works with a turkish family and speaks a bit of the language. hopefully she can help me with my accent & pronunciation! she says that her name, marita, means "girlfriend" in turkish. she seems very down to earth and fun and i like her immediately.

time for a photo op and a description of the course syllabus and we are off, not scheduled to meet again until May 31 when we begin our long journey. i have a list a mile long of things i need to do before then. i'm overwhelmed and filled with anticipation. my smile is a mile wide. it's going to be the adventure of my lifetime for sure. i truly hope it changes my admittedly narrow view of the world...for the better. i can't wait!!