Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Back Home

Finally I have some time to update the blog! We returned home last Wednesday and were welcomed by beautiful summer weather (which is now gone). The trip was good and Inara performed admirably, sleeping on almost all transfers. Here comes a ton of pictures of our little adventure:

Ready to roll!
The mosque closest to the hotel. We all grew quite fond of the call to prayer. I especially liked hearing it in the evening while the sun was setting. Despite not sharing the Muslim beliefs, there was something calming about it.

First encounter with the ocean. Not so great.
 
Tea is very important in Turkey. People seem to be drinking it non-stop out of these little beautiful glass cups.







At the beach.

Warming up to the ocean.








Inara at the "street of columns" (not sure why it's sideways, driving me nuts because she's posing so perfectly). Her column/chair is about 3000 years old and Roman.



Street of columns.




Spices at the bazaar.

Mostly knock-off brand name clothes though.

Inara loves pointing. She tends to keep atleast one "pointer" ready at all times and when she really likes something, she points with both fingers. There were a lot of things to point at at the bazaar.




What's left of Temple of Apollo. It sits right by the water and is incredibly beautiful even now, thousands of years later.
Exhausted little girl.
Visiting a larger mosque holding up to 4,000 people and an exact replica of the one in Instanbul that holds 20,000 (!).




Visiting a village in the mountains.


Village school.

Inara was absolutely loved up by these girls.


We had tea at this house.




The very friendly owner of the house.



The staff at the hotel loved Inara and she was particularly fond of this waiter. The Turks adore children and no matter where Inara went she could be sure to have her little cheeks pinched six ways from Sunday and her face smothered by kisses. She generally returned the favor by waiving and pretending to be shy. The last day she had stopped waiving and I suspect her fingers were wore out.

Fun at the pool.


A very common sight outside our room. Inara heading either for the playground or the stairs.


A statue used to stand here, so Andrew took it upon himself to replace it.

Having some traditional Turkish food.

This dish is cooked in a clay pot...

...and shattered at your table. Delicious!

Enjoying some sand.


Next time I'm planning on posting some videos of Inara in the water and Inara walking. Although she's been able to walk short distances for months, she really kicked it into high gear while we were gone. She's stopped crawling completely and is almost running! On that note, I can add that we went to visit her possible future daycare (if we stay on the island) today and I can't believe that she's getting so big. I have to admit to shedding several tears just thinking about spending a full day without her. Hopefully it'll feel a bit better when she starts three months from now.


Sunday, May 20, 2012

Return Trip

So this will be a picture free blog post. When we get back Wednesday afternoon we'll be super tired so probably no real post until the next day. It's been an overall good trip, however Maria and I are ready to go home. Today was badish for me because I lost my drivers license among other things. Inara probably isn't ready to go because it's way more exciting and interesting than home. She is going to be very, very bored. Anyhow our return trip starts Tuesday at 10 pm. We land bright and early in the am in Stockholm where we will wait for our boat some 6 hours later. Three and a half hours later and we will be home. Probably tired and cranky. Wish us luck as we will probably need it.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Turkey! REDUX


Okay we're here in Turkey. Trip here was fine, Inara performed admirably. Maria performed about as expected. We started at 4 am and got to Turkey 22 hours later. An hour and a half of that was spent on a plan just sitting. N that time we drank most of our water. Turns out that this plane charges for water. Soooo we had to buy waters, which ticked Maria off something fierce. She's still mad in fact. First day here everyone but Inara was tired, she had slept most of the trip. We still attempted to get to the beach that day. It was a desperate fight, one Maria almost didnt make. The whining was getting so bad I was beginning to be embarrassed, but eventually Maria saw the ocean and calmed a bit. Inara was happy the whole way. Until her feet ht the water. Then it was her turn to be unhappy. I'm writing the on an iPod so it'll have to be short, but heres pictures! Inara the day before the trip: Here Inara on the first of three busses we had to take. She was less enthused by bus number 3: Here A cow and a mosque near our hotel: Here A roman amphitheater: Here A sweaty half swede and a fussy full swede: Here At the ocean, finally: Here If none of these pictures showed up in sorry but I give up. Blogger and Apple seemed to have teamed up to thwart my attempts. Jerks. Okay fixed it by adding links. Pain in my butt that no one is going to read.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Surprise!

My mom is turning 65 on Tuesday and also officially retiring this month, both events I feel are worth celebrating. So, I arranged a surprise birthday/retirement party for her today. By snooping around in her phone I was able to invite several of her friends along with a few relatives. It turned out really well with my mom being very surprised and seemingly very happy. The guests also seemed quite pleased by the whole idea, not sure surprise parties are quite as common here in Sweden, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Getting ready to party
Party Party
I made a cake!
Birthday Girl!

A bit disheveled. Note the one shoe.


This will probably be the last post until we come back from our trip to Turkey. Excluding a trip to Israel I took with my uncle and his family when I was 14, this will be the only time I've been on a charter trip.  I've always booked my own transportation and lodging and have some mixed feelings about feeding into the charter industry. However, traveling with Inara I'm sure it's going to be the best option and I really don't want to complain about getting to spend two weeks on the Mediterranean coast. This is where we're going:


Also, after working diligently, Andrew has finished his thesis one month early so we are able to fully relax (except we don't have jobs, but hey, I'm sure that will be fixed by us just relaxing on the beach)!