Getting Settled

Other than the crazy sleep patterns, settling into Turkey has been quite easy. Istanbul, especially, is a modern city. We don’t have Mongoose here yet, so we walk everywhere (as you saw from the last post). After some of the hills my legs still burn and my lungs are getting a work out. The only problem I see about that is I hate to be sweaty while wearing my suit. Arghh…

The neighborhood we walk through seems to be getting to know us better. They actually respond and say hello when we walk by now. Before they would just stare. I think four years ago I may have found that disconcerting, however, the Philippines changed me. I now realize that staring is a perfectly good option. If they are staring at me, I stare at them. I mean, we all really want to get a good look at each other anyway, right? So why not just stare? Otherwise we waist valuable time looking and then turning away in mock shame! So I stare too! (I do say hello just to make it a bit less awkward though).

Lucky is now sleeping through the night again HALLELUJAH! He also had his first hair cut. We had to give him a toy to chew on so he would sit still long enough for me to clip some hair.Everywhere we go people want to hold and hug him. It is interesting to see which people he allows to do it. The people at work love him and complete strangers will come up and take him out of our arms to play with him! HAHA. Thankfully we were warned that would happen before we came.

I am not sure about this...Are you sure you know what you are doing, Dad?

Over the last few days we have been exploring. We have found fresh strawberries, watermelon and garden peas are in season! YAY! We have tried several small restaurants and have found foods we really like. I am glad that I speak Turkish because unlike in Manila NOBODY speaks English here.We made it to church. It was a small congregation but they were so happy that we were there. It will be fun to see how we end up helping. On our first week there we were asked to pray and we are speaking in Sacrament next week too! Talk about bombard the new people...haha

We even have taken a few walks along the harbor and the miles of shore along the Bosphorus. It is so fun to see the small little European styled villages with small mom-and-pop specialty stores and cafes that are full of friends spending their evening.

I of course like walking along the water. Lady Hiva started to laugh when I said that and knew it was because I like taking photos of water, boats and people. Istanbul offers plenty of both! Hehe. Although Lady and I were both surprised to find the water around the one marina was FULL of thousands of jelly fish. They were everywhere in all sizes. NOT a body of water I want to fall into!

All in all, we really like Istanbul! Hopefully, we will get to see some tourist spots this weekend! So stay tuned.

We Brought the Rain With Us…

After a long rainy week in Washington, DC we were so happy to come to Istanbul and see the nice sunny spring weather…sadly, after one sunny day we have had another week of rain! HAHA. It followed us.

The locals tell us that it is a good thing because they had a mild winter so the rain is needed. I put my suit jacket in my bag and roll up my pant legs and off I go to work each day. Actually, the really steep hills in Istanbul are giving Lady Hiva and I some great leg and lung workouts. Going down isn’t too bad, but coming back up is!

We have put Tau’aho’s stroller to some good use lately. It is our cart for food and transporting packages and other items. The hills are so steep that sometimes we have to literally both push the cart to get up the hill! Our new sense of success is counting how many times less we have to stop on the way up and down the hill.

Today we were walking back in the rain and the locals (most likely knowing EVERYONE that walks on their street) stare at us and our homeless look. Just us out in the rain and our cart of food and items! Haha…

We promise when the rain settles a bit we will get out and get you some better photos of the area. For now we are getting used to the time difference and unpacking all our stuff. (WE HAVE SO MUCH STUFF!!! And we still have two more shipments coming!) Maybe we need to revisit President Hinckley’s challenge to simplify!

We Arrived in Istanbul!

We have just recently made our long anticipated move to Istanbul, Turkey! We are so glad we are here. It was in 2012 we heard about this assignment. Actually, to be precise we were in the office with Lady’s family trying to choose a burial plot for Moana. Going to Turkey was more than a pleasant suprie amid all the drama of a family death.

The flights went well. Lucky was so good! We are proud of him. The first flight he wanted to see everyone and everybody so he didn’t sleep until towards the end. However, that meant we too were not sitting—we saw that as a sacrifice worth taking because he wasn’t screaming either!

We were in London for five hours waiting for our flight to Istanbul. Heathrow is HUGE!!! There are so many people coming and going. We had to go through security again….sigh. They pulled us over and made us unpack Lady Hiva’s entire book bag  one piece at a time and he kept asking me if there was something sharp in the bag. I continually re-assured them we didn’t. However, a few minutes later they found Lady Hiva’s “long lost” pocketknife! Ay-yay-AYE! We had to wait there while a supervisor was called and the police were coming. Oh boy. Luckily, they let us leave without causing too much damage.

Flying into Istanbul we could not help but be shocked at the sheer size of the city! There are houses and building EVERYWHERE. On our short drive home we saw several people who come and just sit on the side of the road  and talk. Lady asked why it was such a weird place to do it, but then I realized that away from the median green space near the road there wasn’t just a portion of grass.

Our home is beautiful and we have spent the last few days cleaning it and getting settled. (at least until our next portion of luggage and shipment come. There are beautiful hilltop views of the area.

Shopping has been fun. We have some amazing sponsors that made a delicious meal for us and took us to the nearby store. Most things we use in the States can be found in some form of a Turkish equivalent. We were so happy to see they even carried tortillas! In Manila we had to make our own. So now I will just have to learn how to make salsa instead. (I tried tonight for the first time and it wasn’t so bad for not having all of the ingredients…well, I guess we should ask Lady Hiva if it was bad or not. HAHA)

Sleeping has been an experience. Tau'aho wants to sleep all day and be awake all night. Usually we get him to sleep just about the call to pray from all of the mosques and the singing over the loud speakers wake him up! hehe...hopefully he will get used to it. 

So here is to another two years of adventure. Who knows what to expect!