Bodrum Bodrum

We arrived in Bodrum after a 24 hour cruise ride which was pleasant. It was a bit hard to keep the kids occupied for hours because I really did not want them in the greenish mucky pool and Burak was working, so we ended up playing Uno for hours and walking around the boat. Oh and the guy who runs the Playstation 2 booth must have enough money for a new house - the three of us played PES and some race game for hours.

I will post pictures soon, but as always we love the place where we're staying. It's right on the beach, the boys can go in and out of the sea and just walk back home, play hide and seek with friends at night and just hang out by themselves (and dare I say, leave me be for a while). They're very happy here. Tunca is somehow swimming without his floaties, and he is very proud of himself while Arda found his friends from last year and keeps building castles and dams and towers and all sorts of architectural wonders which he turns over to babies and younger kids on the beach to ruin and watches and laughs... He truly makes the most of the beach here - he goes by himself around 9:30am and save for a few hours I make him stay home because hey, it's like 200 degrees outside during the noon hours, he stays there and swims until about 7pm. 

Pictures to come soon (I did bring the cable to the camera, I know I did).

After

Well, I wanted to do a "before and after" thing for the couch, but the "before" shot got mysteriously deleted from the camera. I found this photo from last year, you can see the burgundy coach on the far right:
And here's the after:
Yes, I love Guitar Hero 3.

Camp Pictures

Here are some pictures from the CD that the camp sent us...
The buses arrive - Arda was on bus no. 2.

The coaches greet the kids...

... with "high fives"

and confetti...So the kids have basketball practice 4x daily.
But they take breaks
It seems cold.
Stretching...
You see the kid with the orange shirt in the back? Looks like he's sleeping? Yeah, that's Arda.
Shooting hoops.
Again...
They get to choose a 5th activity, and apparently, that was soccer for most of them..
"Disco" party. Arda looks really out of it. Emre looks sad. That's their room coach, Ufuk. "He's really cool." says Arda.
But they do get to watch a movie once a week, after lunch.
Itinerary for the 26 km hike. Starts far left by the tack tagged "Beyzbol Sahasi" (baseball field) and goes all the way to the right where it says "Zirve" (peak). The CD had zillions of pictures on it, and by far, the organization of the hike was what impressed me the most. They photographed the preparation of the sandwiches, the "orientation" where they apparently went over every step of the way, where they would stop, where they would eat, what they were going to see, what they needed to wear, and to bring along.

Yep, they went all the way up there, and that's not even the peak!
He looks happy!
The field day, where they had blindfolded yoghurt eating contests and other stuff that I can't figure out.
Award ceremony - I think Arda got "best sportsmanship" and "best dribble."

And here are the pictures that I took:
The buses arrive...
And here he is... My baby.

Adventures

We leave for Bodrum on Thursday. We'll be taking the Sea Line boat, and the cruise will take 24 hours. It was always a hassle bringing the car to Bodrum, so it will hopefully be a practical and cheap considering the gas prices and finding a driver, arranging for his return to İstanbul etc. Anyways, more details on that to follow soon.

Here's a wonderful addition to the stuff I have to face every day, I got stuck in a bathroom stall this past Sunday. I think it tops my "most embarrassing moment" to date - that was when I got stuck inside a size 4 skirt in a clothing store two years ago and had to ask to manager to help me get out. I wear a size 8. Don't ask.

So I go to use the bathroom in a farm where my cool friend Pelin was having a birthday party for her daughter Mercan, Tunca's classmate. The minute I closed the door, the handle broke and I was stuck. Everyone was busy with presents and food and kites and all I could do was just sit on the stall and laugh at myself.

What would you do if you were stuck in a bathroom stall?

Climb on top of the wall, and jump to the next stall, right?

After cleaning the partition of the cobwebs and dust the best I could (what? I was wearing a new outfit) I climbed up, and being the chicken s*it that I am, was now, successfully, stuck on the wall, nearly 8 feet high, afraid to jump down. And there were spiders. And dust. I could totally feel all my allergies going crazy, and just as my hands started breaking out in hives, I saw the guy who was barbecuing right in front of the bathroom.

- Umm, hi, can you help me? I got stuck?
- Yeah, that door handle is broken. (You tell me that now? NOW? I know it's broken. You should have said something when I asked you where the bathroom is you a*swipe).

And with a quick step into the womens bathroom, he opens the door to the stall.

- Well, can you please call my husband? I can't get down. (I've climbed and I can't get down. Yes.)

Burak comes, along with Tunca, who has to pee right then and there, and before any attempts to bring me down, he attends to our wonderful son, who is screaming with laughter at my situation saying "look at mom, look at mom, perched up there like a bird" over and over.

Anyways, Burak brings me a chair, and holds me until I slowly lower myself down. I am so lame and unfit and a coward. With the "stuck in a skirt" situation, I know that I won't even have to see that store manager or the two saleswomen who tried to take the stupid skirt off of me, and they will not know my name and maybe they are laughing at me during their holiday parties , but hey, they're strangers.. With my wonderful family, the "perched on a wall like a bird" comment is likely to continue until I do something even more stupider.

Magic Words

My friend, Ahu, seems to be having a tough day.

I sure wish ViaLetter had ultra mega super fast express service so she could decorate her snazzy new apartment like this:
And then use ViaLetter to send whomever pissed her off a nice little package that contains the letters, K, R, E, and J. Figure it out.

He's BACK!

Arda has come back home - he looks a bit thinner, tanner, quieter. The past few days we spent basically glued to each other. I started bawling my eyes out when I saw him on the bus. Two weeks. Only two weeks, and he has grown, physically and emotionally. He seems a bit more tolerant, has more confidence. Camp really did wonders for him. He seems a bit tired - probably because of the 26 km walk (not 16, as mentioned in my other post) and the grueling basketball practice 4x daily, and maybe because he is having a hard time adjusting to the heat and smog here (Uludag has a high altitude and the weather is clear as a, well, mountain top, I guess). Pictures to follow soon.

Friends will be Friends

It's time for all our friends living abroad to make their way to Turkey right about now. Mid-July - August is when we get to see people from our past, people who were our "best man" in our wedding, people who bought their first houses and invited us to see it first, people who still live "over there" - some enjoying their dreams, some yearning to come back.

So Thursday, we went to a surprise birthday party in NuTeras. Asyak is a gorgeous friend we met a few years ago - and her husband Sarp managed to get 20+ people together to surprise her. We went to Mikla by mistake at first - no it was Sarp's fault - he told us to meet at Mikla!!! My dad babysat for Tunca, we had a great time, apparently so did they.

Here's Asyak in all her beauty:
We spent Friday evening going to AltınKek for cake & lemonade for Tunca, then walked over to the beach to watch fireworks, very common during weddings in Turkey.

Saturday evening we were in Köşebaşı with my cool friends Pelin and Tolga and their daughters Mercan and Şiraz - Mercan goes to school with Tunca - Pelin & I went to the same middle school for about 4 years.

Sunday we were in Village Park with Cem & Pınar & Duru, then drove around Beykoz looking for houses. At night we went to Feriye for dinner with Burak's sister - I think that restaurant has the best view I have ever seen in the Bosphorus.

We actually spent the whole weekend eating. And with friends. It doesn't get any better than this.

edit: we got an email from another friend, Cüneyt, Sunday evening saying that they're all here in İstanbul as well, so we met them in Reina for drinks and dinner. Cüneyt was Burak's "witness"/best man in our wedding, Gökhan and Selen are one our oldest friends, Seyhan (sans her husband Burak) and Süreyya and Karen were there for a wonderful blue cruise back in 1997... We all see each other (maybe) twice a year, and life goes on, yet things to talk about never cease and our friendship seems to survive the thousands of miles between us all. Süreyya and Karen's son, Morgan, the "firstborn" to the whole group, was there as well and has truly grown up to be a gorgeous, kind, smart and polite young man - so mature for his age.