Old friends

Just a quick note to say that I really enjoyed seeing you today Hesna and Deniz, friends from my childhood and thereafter. It was so nice to talk to you guys! It feels so familiar to sit and talk, although we see each other once a...year or even less.

Here is something we talked about tonight: I have been moving around the world for many years. People ask me if I don't miss my family - a regular question when you meet a foreigner I suppose. I always say 'of course'. But think about it: if I lived in Turkey, but in another city, I probably wouldn't see them more often. Now I see them more intensely. What I really miss is bumping into an old friend on the street, someone who knows me since I was 10 years old. I don't have any common history or culture with my new friends in my new homes.

Hope to meet you again next time we are over for vacation. Take care!!

Vacation goes on....

Just a quick note to say: we still love our vacation....and the baby still doesn't have a name!!!! BROTHEEEER do something!

Last Saturday, we celebrated A's b-day. It was a small gathering at my parents'. My brother and family - including the baby where there, too. The kids had a lot of fun. The same evening, we had the b-day of my brother's best friend. We were invited for the dinner at some club close by. We left the kids to my parents and the kids gave them a hard time, didn't sleep till 12 am. They were already in bed when we left but 'not sleeping' is their hobby - especially when they eat a lot of cake and sweets in the afternoon. After we left, they got up to play. We were home at 4 am and luckily, the house was quiet.

Yesterday, it was 34 degrees C. We decided to go to some place by the sea called Çeşme. We reserved a hotel room for the four of us. We left at the beginning of the afternoon. Unfortunately, when we arrived to Çeşme it was 24 degrees! I expected there to be cooler, but not like this!

We still enjoyed the trip. The next day, we swam in the indoor pool and spent hours at the beach. P and I went to the thermal baths at the hotel - yes the kids accepted to go to the kids club!! We enjoyed an hour of peace - massage and swimming in the warm mineral waters. It was a real treat. On the way back, P almost fell asleep so I had to drive back.

This evening, we got a phone call from the regular private school, they sent us a contract and they were wondering why we still didn't return it. Something to take care of when we return back to USA.

Still hunting schools

This is from the week before we left for Turkey:
We got called by both schools we are looking for the kids. Tuesday before we left, we had an appointment with the regular private school. They said F will meet the teachers and will spend an half hour in the class with the other kids. It sounded very nice and F was very excited. We arrived almost on time. The admission second person met us at the door. She was super friendly as before and she knew all about our first visit. Quite impressive.

She took us to the school psychologist and she started testing F. I mean really testing. She did quite fine if you ask me. I translated basically the questions and she answered them. There were questions like 'which ones are like each other. On the paper there is are four pictures: a house, a plane, a tree and a bird.' The answer is plane and bird because both can fly. She had to show that she can make a necklace with beads. When the lady asked her to do it fast to time her she simply looked up and said 'why?'. She didn't have to do it.

After a while the test ended and we were brought to a class. The kids were just going outside to play. F stayed in the class with the teacher, a nice young lady. She looked around and painted a while. Thereafter, we went outside to the playground. F and A went playing right away. They did their own stuff, there was not a chance to do things with other kids. Three girls were quite interested in F and when she went swinging, they went swinging too. F can swing herself, the other kids cannot. I had the feeling they were younger than F.

I talked to the teacher for a while. The teacher said that her group would be 3-4 year old's. I asked about the curriculum. She explained that they follow some special program based on studying different countries. I had heard about that before. It is supposed to be very good and special.

The class went inside to have fruit and F didn't want to stay anymore. I also understood that they had more visitors that day. We left. In the car, I asked F if she liked this school. She said 'I didn't like it. I only liked one of the girls by the swings, she has a very cute face'. I couldn't get more out of her, but she was quite resolute, she didn't like the school.

Next day, exactly at 2:40 pm, we had the next appointment with the Montessori school. I had called the day before to ask if F may join a class for a very short time. I wanted her to have an experience as by the other school to be able to compare both. The answer was no, it was too soon. I was a little bit disappointed.

We arrived nice on time. This time the setting was a little different. F left with a teacher while I went to the class for 2-3 years with A. school was already out. While A was trying the material they had in the class, I had the chance to talk to the teacher. She has 2 boys, around 12 and 14. One goes to this Montessori school, the other one not. He started the Montessori but it didn't work out for him. She explained me that with the setting of that day, the teachers were observing how A and F are reacting to the Montessori setting.- I thought A was doing fine. She was enthusiastically trying all the special toys. I could now understand why we were there.

20 minutes later, F came back with the other teacher and she was... her eyes were shining, she looked so happy. It was difficult to get the kids leave with me. I asked F şf she liked this school. She had no doubt, she liked it. 'everything was real' she said, 'all the dishes, real carrots and apples...'.

I promised myself to call the school next morning to say how happy F was. The head of the school was just before me. F and A reacted good to the material, they were really polite and nice. The teachers were positive about them. I told how F was happy.

Now, please don't think that we have a school. The headmaster still didn't know if they have a spot for the girls. We will contact her after our vacation, we will meet and discuss again, and afterwards, maybe the girls will have a school. Obviously, it is more difficult to get your kids to a school in the states than get a job; well I suppose, I didn't actually apply for a job here!!

A celebration!!

Today our little A turns two years old, the terrible two´s! According to F, she still looks one year old. We will celebrate her b-day next week-end.

We also celebrate the 15th nameless day of my little niece: congratulations to my brother and my sister-in-law.

Journey to turkey

A hello from Turkey where we are enjoying a vacation, me and the girls. We arrived last Friday and we will be here for a while. P has to work. We left Thursday evening. Of course I had been packing and getting stressed for the trip days before that. still don´t like to fly - especially with the kids. We were on time for check-in which was very nice because online check-in did not work. F was happy to be leaving, she was looking forward to go on this vacation. A didn´t like to be tied up and started screaming. One of the flight attendants brought her some drinks in small cups with a straw, talked to her and magically made her stop. In the mean time, the people sitting right in front of us disappeared - probably went to sit somewhere else far from A! -. The kids did very well. Of course we had the usual 'nice' flight attendants and the ones that 'dislikes' their job, but we didn´t have any problems ourselves - a plus to United.

We arrived to Munich to change planes. P brought us to our flight and we said goodbye to him. He has a meeting in Egypt. He will join us later. the kids didn´t have trouble saying goodbye. We went to board to plane and I realized that my smart packing was not that smart at all. You see, I took one cabin luggage on wheels and of course I have the baby stroller. İf you make the math: two hands two things and two kids...at the first roller stairs I was at he bottom of the stairs while F was midways and A was standing on top looking down and not understanding what was happening. The guy next to him didn´t hear me first because of his Ipod earphones. At last A got three people helping her. She was very happy to see me below.

In the plane, the kids watched a film and I took a break. We arrived to Turkey in no time. Now we are here. My little niece who still doesn´t have a name is so cute and pretty. My nephew is quite jealous but he will be OK. F speaks quite a lot of Turkish and mixes all these small English words in her sentences. It is so cute. They are doing quite fine with jet lag too. I seem to be the only one having trouble adjusting - look t me writing a blog in the middle of the night!!

More news from Turkey will follow as my jet lag will sustain, but before that I will go back to the states and tell couple of things that happened before we left. Well, I will do that next time. Bye for now.

Trapped in the basement

Our basement has a lock. If the door is locked, you can open it from outside but not from inside. The door was locked and I walked in. I usually unlock it before I go downstairs, but I was going for just a second I thought. Of course, when I was downstairs, one second became five minutes, ten minutes and.... I heard the door closing. F walked down to see what I was doing and she just closed the door after her. Uups, we were locked downstairs, with A upstairs.

I knew she couldn't open the door, she just cannot turn the door knob. I thought maybe if she took a chair and got a little closer, she may manage. So I called her to take a chair, she spends every day hours moving chairs around the house, why not now? She went away for a while and came back with a small soft children's chair. Of course the chair sinked in when she stepped on it. She first stood on it and tried to open the door without success, later she sat on it and started to play.

If she brought me my purse, I thought I can get her to take out my cellphone and give it to me from under the door and I can call P and ask him to free us. I could almost hear his annoyed voice but I didn't have much options. So I called to A. 'Bring mommies purse A, it is in the kitchen'. While F was enthusiastically repeating/shouting my words to A, I head the little footsteps going upstairs. Unfortunately, the kitchen is not there. She came back with some toys, she handed us a pen. I even think that she had a toy phone in her hand or she was 'calling' with some other toy. She did understand we needed a phone. We kept on calling her to get my purse. She kept on saying 'oh yes', left to upstairs and came back with some stuff. Finally she lay down in front of the door. I could see her eyes getting smaller. Oh no! She was getting ready to take a nap!

All this time, F was trying to help me and she was calm. She just wanted to get out to be on time for her lesson, she had a language lesson in about an hour. A almost sleeping outside, the time for the lesson approaching, I had to use the last resort, the one I tried to avoid: I had to climb through the window. There are to windows to the basement. One next to the raccoon nest, not exactly where I want to walk around in my socks. The other...well I knew that there was a dead mouse outside. iiiyak. dead mouse - raccoon, raccoon - dead mouse. Dead mouse won.

I had to take a small children's chair outside to climb up the almost 2 meters high window. The front door was open so I could walk in without a problem. A looked at me as it was very normal to see me there. I freed F and we left for the lesson.

One last thing: when P was in the states alone, he locked himself in the basement and had to climb up through the window. It was minus something Celsius and there was snow outside. Needles to mention, he was barefoot!!

New social life?

Beautiful weather this week-end. We enjoy being outside. We met more neighbours and we saw more kids playing outside. They say it will get colder though.

Saturday (yesterday), the neighbours came for dinner with their four kids. I was a bit nervous cooking for them for our first guests at our new house.

We spent hours standing in the kitchen drinking wine, eating and talking. They have very nice kids, I was impressed. A got a lot of attention. F was a little shy, she didn't know what to do. She was so excited they were coming, at the end it was too much for her. We had a lovely evening. I guess they liked it too.

Today we went for an early dinner to a colleague of P. They have two kids, one girl and a boy. This time F enjoyed it a lot. The kids played together and we had a very nice dinner, real Italian pasta. It is a very nice family, unfortunately, they are moving to another state soon.

Busy week-end for the kids. Finally real time together.

Auntie!

Great news yesterday. No April fool days joke, I am an auntie - for the second time! My brother got a little baby girl. There is some kind of a joke aspect to it: one day later, they still don't have a name for her. It is so exciting. Next week, we will go to visit them. So I will get to see my niece before she is walking around and I hope to be there right after the big visitors flow is gone. Good planning. The labor was planned, there would be a c section. I expected to get a message from my brother just before I went to sleep. I couldn't sleep anyway. Around 12:30 am, I got this empty text message from my brother. I called him right away. Of course in all the excitement, he send everyone an empty message.

Although the birth of the little baby is too big to have time to think about other things, we were busy with some other stuff. Life goes on.

First of all, we had our fourth raccoon. Nick was away for one week - spring break. Monday after the break I called him again and Tuesday morning there was the raccoon. Today, Wednesday, the trap is empty. I called Nick quite early in all the excitement. Maybe we are done with them. That would be such a relief. We have to wait couple more days and if we are sure that there are no visitors under the deck, we will secure the holes.

Second one is F's room furniture. We have been waiting of it for weeks. We ordered her 'princess room' as she wanted. Weeks passed by and we didn't receive it. Each time I called the lady we placed the order, said she just that morning was on the line with the other company -wholesaler or something like that. The furniture would arrive soon. Yesterday I got a call from the company she was working with to hear that the producers of the furniture was filed a bankruptcy. So after weeks, we have to start over again. Believe me, I was not amused!

One more thing about the furniture: I really had enough of assembling furniture. Yesterday we made the new TV stand and I hope that we are done for a while.

Third is F's school. It is so difficult to make a decision about the schools. She misses the public school year because she turns 5 after September 1. So she has to go to a private school. Keeping her home is not an option for us. We don't want her to miss a year of school. (she already missed one semester). We like one school but that one is very expensive and it F might have to go only in the afternoons. The other option is a Montessori school but it is very small, cannot offer extras as sports or music and has no playground outside. F is having some adjustment problems, I want to finalize the decision about the school so that I can arrange a summer school for her.

As last, I have been getting some mails from my ex-colleagues and long lost friends. It makes me feel great to hear from you. Reminds me that there is a whole life outside raccoons, furniture, schools and boxes.