Turkey

Today marks our seventh month at post, although I'm not sure I should really count it as seven months in Moldova because I sort of spent a month of that out of the country; first in the US and most recently in Turkey. I was just telling Michael Ball the other day while I drove him to work how before we got here, I kept imagining how different life would be in Moldova for us. How the boulevards and plazas, the people & society seemed so foreign at that time, but now, I don't even give a second glance when I drive past them. I guess part of feeling "at home" involves being able to ignore your surroundings.

Every year Turkish Airlines decides to come out with a crazy deal on fares to all sorts of interesting places from Chisinau, including Istanbul. So, back in January we decided to book a few flights and plan a spring getaway with some friends.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't particularly excited about going. I don't know if I had just been watching too many documentaries about poor Moldovan women who had been trafficked there or if the recent bombing of our Embassy in the capital was tainting my opinions. After all, it was a sober reminder that we are not as openly embraced in many parts of the world as we are here in Moldova.

I was aware that the Ottomans ruled a shockingly large portion of this part of the world back in the day, but I must admit that I didn't know much else about Turkey. I knew a few factoids here and there...like the fact that in the Romanian language the majority of the words {yes, plural & very telling} they have for "bribe" have Turkish roots. Therefore, I began researching the place and created a Pinterest Board {naturally} with some ideas. Our friends also did some research and planning {most of it I might add} and the result was delightful.

We absolutely loved Turkey. It helped that it was significantly warmer than Moldova, but in general it was just lovely. The people were warm & hospitable, they love children {which is a plus when traveling with three of them}, the food was great, the terrain plush & mountainous, and they have more ruins & historical sites than they know what to do with. We spent a few days along the coast and visited a Crusader Fortress, then spent a day road-tripping from ruin to ruin including Pammukale, where there are thermal pools famous for being the same ones Cleopatra swam in, a few days near Ephesus in a little town in the mountains called "Pleasantness" and the remainder of our time in Istanbul, visiting the Spice Market, the Hagia Sophia & Blue Mosque, and on Easter Sunday took a boat ride on the Bosphorus River.

Traveling with kids also brought back many memories of my own childhood, where my parents took me when I was that age and how I viewed the world at that time. I have vague recollections of them taking me to the ruins of Teotihuacan right outside Mexico City and to museums with Diego Rivera's famous murals whenever we had visitors. I also remember the many road trips we went on as a family, within the US and back and forth between the US & Mexico.

Personally, I welcome anything that prompts me to stop for a moment and reflect on my life, on the wonderful people who have surrounded me and on the many rich experiences I have been blessed to have had, however little they were probably appreciated at the time. This trip was just that, and I am grateful for the opportunity. I might even have to go back there before we leave Moldova if Turkish Airlines has a crazy sale again!

Oh, and I took a ridiculous amount of pictures, which I have {graciously} curated down to a handful for this blog entry.

Crusader Fortress

Windmills along the Coast

Painted Bird in a Terraced House | Textile Market | Library

Library in Ephesus

Thermal Pool | Pammukale

In the little town of "pleasantness".  Couldn't agree more...

There is a story that the village was settled by freed Greek slaves who named the village Cirkince (meaning "Ugly" in Turkish) to deter others from following them. The village's name was changed to Sirince (meaning "Pleasant") in 1926 by the governor of Izmir Province. 

Temple to Artemis

View from our Hotel Window on Easter Sunday | Istanbul

Hagia Sophia

Boat ride on the Bosphorus

Some thoughts on Traveling…

My capacity for self-deception becomes evident to me every single time I travel.

First, I have this delusion that I’m some sort of “experienced” traveler, that I “pack light” or only take “the necessities” when I hit the road. But when it turns out you’re THAT lady at the airport, with a long line of impatient travelers behind you, madly scrambling about and shifting the contents of your suitcases all over the place to not go over the limit {who knew the giant tub of guacamole you bought at Costco would weigh so much and also be considered a liquid or gel by the TSA?} it really causes you to reflect on the nature of your packing skills, or lack there-of. I might add it is also thoroughly embarrassing when you can’t even lift your carry-on suitcase {sans-guacamole} up to the overhead compartment because the rock-like contents {cheese, books, assorted jars, unreasonable amounts of electronics, bark collars, what else of course?} prevent you from doing so. This, in turn, reinforces the fact that you are a weakling and also raises a few suspicious eyebrows as to what could possibly weigh so much when the strong man you have managed to recruit also experiences a certain level of difficulty lifting your ridiculous suitcase.

My friend Val “shattered my glass” about this a few years ago when she told me, in passing, that she always thought of me as the type of girl who “always carried around a bunch of bags.” Much to my chagrin, she was right. Even on short road trips where most people would probably bring 1 bag, two at most, I somehow manage to have to make multiple trips to the car with all my junk; there’s the “snack” bag and then a cooler "bag" for drinks or snacks that need refrigeration, my dog’s bag, my own bag, a camera bag, my purse, a hostess gift if we're going to someone's house…I could go on…you can see I am an absurd human being and fit the description perfectly of "a girl who carries around a bunch of bags."

Another imaginary characteristic I like to pretend I possess, is that I think {somehow} I will manage to use all of those hours on planes and connecting airports in some kind of a productive manner. Reading the plethora of books I managed to stuff into my luggage, writing letters, listening to sermons or podcasts, maybe even writing “blog” entries or ideas…I even consider sleep productive under the circumstances, but before I know it, I’ve generally spent the entire time watching a few kids movies, usually some sort of drama, a Bollywood film & a handful of documentaries or tv shows. For the record, “Wreck it Ralph” was my favorite of the kid’s movies I watched this time around, “English Vinglish” was actually pretty good as far as Bollywood films go, and “Siberia Teaches” was a very interesting documentary about urban snowboarding in Siberia {side note: while trying to find a link to this documentary I stumbled upon this amazing music video of Ethnic Siberian Music}.

I suppose one could argue that watching movies isn’t entirely non-productive. It keeps me up-to-date with some significant cultural elements of American Society {and Indian Society for that matter} and prevents me from being swallowed up by boredom, I guess.

For some reason I am also always thinking that I’ll get unprecedented amounts of reading done while I am traveling. I have never been on a trip where I actually wish I had another book and didn’t. And yet, I generally pack at least 2, sometimes 3. I try to rationalize this by claiming that the genre of the book will have some sort of effect on my desire to read; sometimes a girl just wants to read a novel, or sometimes a book about economics…you never know which Steph will show up on the plane. But I never finish more than one. Most of the time, I don’t even finish any.

When I studied abroad in Cuba, I was going to go on a little side-backpacking-trip through the southern mountainous region, including scaling their tallest peak, Pico Turquino. I had a small backpack, which needed to have supplies that would last me about a week. Some of that time was going to be spent on trains, buses and otherwise promising places to read a book {nevermind that I have a tendency to get a bit queasy}, so what did I pack? Super high-tech and light-weight camping equipment? Nope. A hard-cover copy of the Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky. Have you seen that book?!? It’s HUGE! Did I even have a headlamp for reading in the wilderness where we were camping you ask? The answer is no. Did I read any of it? Not that I can remember. Did the Cubans think I was an idiot? Probably.

Catching a ride for the first 1000 meters...

Group shot with the bust of Jose Marti at the peak...

***I am happy to report that I finished one book on this last trip: “Ethnic America” by Thomas Sowell {I love that guy!} which I would highly recommend. He is brilliant and insightful and I only wish he hadn’t written the book in the 80’s because I feel like he kinda left me hanging…but nonetheless it was super interesting.

With the amount of traveling I have signed myself up for, I better start making some changes…or else you may hear about this in some unfortunate later blog post. 

On Traveling...

"Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things -- air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky -- all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it. "

                                                                 - Cesare Pavese

Official Countdown: T minus 6 days!