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.