DDR

We have been busy, so busy (to quote Thomas the Tank Engine). Here are some of Micah's latest dance grooves. It's nearly midnight Wednesday night - the latest we've been up (on purpose) since we've gotten here. We hosted some lovely new friends for dinner and attempted to pick out the Turkish words we knew from their animated conversation. We are exhausted, but excited to learn more so that we can more actively participate in conversation. Tomorrow is our last tutor lesson before we start official classes next Monday. We are supposed to have our average day memorized in present and past tense. Good thing we have a long bus commute to work on it!

emerging from the sick bed

Well...the whole family had a case of the runs this week and the blog author is the last to come out of it. The joys of adjusting to a new country...in more ways than one.

We decided to celebrate a potentially healed family and a beautiful day with a trip to the palace that the Father of Modern Turkey once lived in. $14 for everyone except students...who pay $.80. Are we ever glad we signed up for our university language classes this week!

We weren't allowed to take photos inside, so here's a glimpse into what it was like from a 15 month old's point of view...

"Wow! That light thing they call a shand-y-leer in the ceiling is sooooooooooo big. This room is great. I can run up and down the red carpets and nobody gets in my way....plenty of space for everyone!"

10 minutes later...

"This room looks a lot like that last room. Who could sit on this furniture? I like looking at all these pretty colors though."

3 minutes later...

"Why are we still here?? How do we get out of here? Where is my snack? Where is my crib? Why don't mommy and daddy take me home?"

And that was the end of our nice family trip to the palace. Rick stayed for part 2 of the tour and Micah & Steph fled home for a mutual nap.

Tulip Time?

What day is it?

Indeed, the tulips are already blooming here! It is way too cold for Micah to put on a little Dutch-boy outfit, but we can still take our annual tulip photos.

We did get our furniture this week! Hooray! We immediately hosted a cultural orientation for some short term folk and ourselves with our friend who has been here 9 years. An excellent opportunity to break in the new couches, dining room table, and a couple recipes from my 'how to survive with metric and foreign products cookbook'. Awesome.

How can you not love this face? Micah is cracking us up daily. It is so fun.

We also received our first package today! It took 10 days to get here and arrived right to our door. Micah now has magnets to hide under the fridge. Hopefully I can keep enough hidden to still be able to spell things when he gets to that phase of development. For now, we'll be excited about Q, Z, and W...letters we don't use often in age 2 vocab.

Okay...I had to take this photo because it made me laugh...daBears daBulls DaCubs dahill. There are Chicagoans even here! (The park we went to is on a hill.)

First haircut!

To the tune of Thomas the Tank Engine, a kazoo, and a tube of orajel to suck on, Micah had his first ever haircut. We all survived without blood and he looks like a cute little man now.

Dinner-in and hitting the wall

We have discovered that our city has this amazing internet service where you can order from hundreds of restaurants in your area and have them deliver dinner to you with minimal charge - even McDonalds and other fast food joints participate. So, we ordered some local cuisine from the kebap shop up the hill and then waited to eat at the luxury of our own coffee table.

(Aside - our dining table, chairs, and couches are supposed to arrive Wednesday! A small mix-up of who was waiting for whom on the last payment delayed the arrival. Ah well...soon enough!)

Wow - today we had language lesson #2 and our heads are exploding. Supposedly, once we learn these 4 grammar rules from today, the next things will be easy easy easy. If only we can get these 4 grammar rules stuck in our heads - relating to plurals and questions. Think of us!

tummy aches

Friday, March 12, 2010

Tahin Helvasi (Gut bomb): Our latest treat is a pseudo-chocolate bar that the English speaking manager from Migros told us we had to buy. The ingredients are: sesame paste (like used for hummus), sugar, cocoa, and flavors/preservatives. Half of the package has 54% of your fat for the day. It's like eating 8 spoonfuls of peanut butter in a row. Really scrumptious until you stop and feel it hit the bottom of your stomach - gut bomb. Self-control is a necessity.

I found Turkish Aldi today! Bim is a small store with everything on palates and cheaper prices than Migros. We shall be able to eat meat every week!

Seeing how the other half lives...

The architecture and buildings here are so fascinating. Along the landscape you'll see every different color of building...different heights...different sizes. Even in our neighborhood, we have one story houses that are crumbling next to 8 story apartment buildings that are brand new. There is always construction going on, and unlike Cameroon, buildings are finished and moved into! It seems weird to see new building projects in such an ancient city. But we are thankful, because the new projects include more extensive subway and rail systems that help get people across the city without worry of traffic (just a place to stand). On the way home from the Asian side yesterday we saw huge houses along the hillsides of the coast with pools, large glass windows, and verandas...Imagine living with a firsthand view of the strait. We are rich to some and poor to others no matter where we live.

First language lesson

Hooray! We had our first official language lesson today. There is a lovely woman who lives on the other side of the water who has agreed to teach us 6 hours each week (2 hours Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday). Rick and I both had eager learner disease as our motivation to figure out what's going on around us is sky high! And, this woman must have lots of experience teaching...she had 6 candy dishes on the table, many choices of tea, coffee, cappucino, etc, and lots of cute little signs that said "Turkish is easy!" (or fun...I haven't learned the word yet).

To get to her apartment, we walked 10 minutes down the hill, took a 15 minute bus ride, a 25 minute ferry ride with sea gulls and jelly fish all around, and a 15 minute taxi ride....plus we wandered around for 10 minutes looking for the bus that we should have taken instead of the taxi. Transit cost for both of us: 13 TLA ($8) without taxi? 6 TLA ($4)

On the way home, we walked 20 minutes, took a 15 minute metrobus (fast bus that doesn't have to wait in traffic) across the huge bridge, wandered around for 15 minutes looking for our bus stop, took a bus for 10 minutes, walked down the hill 10 minutes to our apartment. (pausing to taste test some new bakery delights (borek, a yummy egg noodle lasagne with cheese but no tomato sauce, and Rick indulged in a donut-type sweet that was doused in honey...way too sweet for me!) Transit cost: 4.50 TLA ($3)

So, we need to refine both methods of transit to see which is fastest, cheapest, and least stressful. Either way, I think it will always be about an hour. Lots of time to bond as a couple and practice our new lessons.

shadow puppets

Micah gets up every morning before the sun...even before the call to prayer. This is ridiculously early (5:30), but it does offer the awesome benefit of being able to see the sun rise over our hill. It is a beautiful way to start the day...better than Folgers. This morning had brilliant hues of pink in the sky. I love it! The picture doesn't do it justice.


Later in the morning, we got to take advantage of the bright sun for some shadow entertainment.


It was super cold today. - 9C (I'll let you techno-cool folk figure out how much that is in F). We need to find our wooly clothes to keep warm walking about!

We found a neat English bookstore yesterday and immediately purchased some language learning CDs and a great cookbook designed for foreigners here. (conversions, recipes from home with local ingredients, and some jokes to help lighten the stress of cross-cultural living). I'm ecstatic to try and bake some cookies and enchiladas with my new-found vocabulary.

We also found a wonderful woman to take care of Micah. She'll start tomorrow and Rick and I will see how we do with some regimented study time. We tried to get into a language class, but they were all full for this month. So we'll try some language helpers and see again in a month!

montage

Last week we went to our favorite store, "home depot", and bought some office furniture including a desk for me (since I keep 'taking over' Rick's). You have to pay extra for delivery. You have to pay extra extra for montage...which means putting it together. So we got delivery, but skipped the montage. This may have been a fatal mistake. There are some 18 pieces of wood, 40+ screws, and miscellaneous extras that somehow become a desk. And...did we mention a drill is required? Wow. In Cameroon we would have said, "we are trying". It feels a bit like staying up all night on Christmas putting that first bike together...or what we would assume that would be like. Please note that the instructions are not in English and the parts are not labeled in real life. :)

Micah enjoyed helping put Dad's office chair together...or not together...earlier in the day.

time is starting to fly by...

Wow...time is starting to go by faster and our surroundings are starting to seem more familiar. I don't know if I'm not noticing new things or if I'm accustomed to everything. Must be the first choice. Anyway, there seems to be a momentary lull in experiences to write about. I'll see what I can come up with on the fly.

Rick took a ferry Thursday to Asia and back and was disgusted by all the trash floating by the ports, until closer inspection when he realized that most of the 'plastic bags' were actually jellyfish!! Yikes! I don't know which of those options I like better!

We found a sweet English book shop today on the Asia side, recommended by a friend. We bought a book called "Teaching Yourself Turkish". It promises to be a great help!

Oops...phone call. More later.

latest success...

Well, there is a custom here that if you receive a gift of food that you should always return the plates with food you've made. So...2 weeks after receiving a welcome to the building gift, I baked my first apple pie in life (it took that long to find a rolling pin, cinnamon, brown sugar, etc.)! It turned out awesome. Micah loved it and we were sad to give any away....although glad to finally give our neighbors their plates back and return their hospitality.


In other news, Micah refused to eat breakfast this morning without the company of sleep dog and sleep sheep. This is why sleep dog smells like old milk. Ugh.


Also, I was amazed to look out my window today and see a man in a dress coat and pants doing electric work on one of the electric poles. A new business casual?


Lesson learned today: Always carry an umbrella in winter even if it is beautiful when you leave the house.

A thank you goes out to the wonderful woman who held my stroller while I tried to juggle Micah, my purse, and my bus fare today. Another shout out to the wonderful man who knew English and pointed me in the right direction so I did not roam for hours looking for the mall.