Traveling: The beach trip

Last week I went to the beach with my roommate. She loves sunbathing, the beach, the pool, whatever. What she wanted to do most to celebrate her birthday was go to the beach. It's a bit of a trek by train and mini-bus to get to the nice beach, so we decided to get a room at one of the many reasonable hotels and stay overnight to make the most of it. Originally we were going to get a really cheap room, but then our friend got a great deal for us at a nice hotel for a reasonable price. It was worth it!

I think they had 4 rooms (out of 50 or so) booked in the entire hotel when we were there. They gave us a free upgrade to a suite with a huge balcony overlooking the sea, pool, and garden. Bonus points for great landscaping! We ended up spending most of our time at the pool. We brought pool rafts and lounged on the water, or just laid in the comfy lounge chairs with cushions. We read and listened to our iPods. It was great. I thought I was going to get bored, but after I got by that pool I realized I really did need to relax. It felt like I was in Florida again. There was only one other couple by the pool the entire time, and they were German! We had dinner at the hotel, in a garden, and we even got them to bring a birthday cake with dinner.

Two thumbs up for the Turkish beach hotel! We definitely need to go back in the fall.

Traveling: The child care trip

Sorry that I haven't posted in what looks like OVER a month. I've done a lot of traveling and haven't had much time to catch up with "real life" much less write about it! But my fellow-blogging friends have been harassing me about it, so I guess it's time to be a more reliable blogger. I have plenty to write about now, so hopefully I write at least 3 or 4 posts in the next few weeks.

I'm gonna go out of chronological order and start with where I went last weekend, while it's fresh. My roommate and I went to Antioch. In the city where followers of Jesus were first called Christians, about 100 women gathered to fellowship and learn more about worship. My roommate and I had the privilege of watching a few children. There were about 10-15 children, and 5 of us adults looking after them, not a bad ratio. The challenge was that these were all Turkish children. Now, people ask me sometimes if I like children. On some level, I think I do, but I haven't had any sort of great amount of interaction with them since I was in high school, so mostly children just confuse me. I have no idea what to expect of them, and it makes it more confusing when what women expect of their own children seems to vary widely from family to family. I like things that are black and white. Child care is not. So I was left mostly clueless when I arrived Friday and looked at the group of 10-15 Turkish children I was to be partially responsible for.

Overall, the weekend was about as tiring as I expected, but a lot more fun. I played soccer, stenciled Noah's ark, helped look for candy, and kissed boo-boos. I handed legos to 2-year-olds and listened to 8-year-olds read, or pretend to read. (One of the girls was holding a book about a scuba diver and "read" to me, "And Jesus said, everyone stop smoking and drink water.") I watched the Land Before Time in Turkish and spun the wheel for Twister. Of course there were also times when I had to set boundaries and tell kids to share, but every mother knows that.

And as a bonus, I got to see a bit of the fascinating modern-day Antioch, and even was given a balloon at our favorite chicken-wrap restaurant (because we went there each of the 3 days we were there!)

What I've learned in a year overseas

(In no particular order)
1. How to bake an apple pie from scratch
2. How to live without a car
3. Belly-dancing
4. How to say "I don't understand" 50 times in one day
5. How to be rude to strange men
6. How to jaywalk on a 4-lane road during rush hour
7. How to have a friendship in another language
8. The care and feeding of cats
9. How to find a business without a phone book
10. How to use a laundry line
11. How to not assume the worst when it looks like people are talking about you
12. How to stand out (and be okay with it)
13. Sterilization procedures for micro-propagation
14. How to teach English as a Foreign Language
15. How to invite myself over to a friend's house or show up uninvited
16. That I don't need as much as I think I do
17. How to record and edit sound
18. More than I thought I ever needed to know about Jackson, MS
19. How to save money wisely
20. How to make a really good cafe mocha without an espresso maker

The original shish kebap

Last weekend I got to go on a picnic, Turkish-style. We loaded up in cars and drove to a big picnic ground by the lake. After 15 minutes of driving around and looking for the perfect spot, complete with a view and water spicket, we finally settled down. We used the concrete picnic tables for prep, and spread out blankets for our eating area. I was ecstatic to escape the concrete jungle enough to listen to frogs and count turtles. The men set up small charcoal grills while we assembled the kebaps. Now, at home I grew up with "Uncle Howie's shish kebap," a family recipe that involved marinating the beef chunks in some combination of oil, vinegar, garlic, and other spices. However, I now get to experience kebap in one of the countries where it originated. So they covered all the meat in a combination of thyme, mint, and I think cayenne pepper. And then I got the joy of learning how to "properly" put the meat on the skewers (I did it once, and they said I did it wrong, so I had to take it all off and start over. mmm....raw meat....). Our meat and chicken were accompanied by pita bread, arugula salad, shepherd's salad (tomato, cucumber, and onion), pasta salad, and muffins (courtesy of the foreigners). And don't worry, they did bring the tea pot so we could drink tea after our meal. After all, no Turkish meal is complete without tea. The rest of the entertainment was just relaxing, but our neighbors on the picnic ground amused themselves with dancing and okey (a game like rummikub). We did get live music, though, at one point from two men passing through hoping to earn some money. Enjoy the video!