Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Tekirdag and back

Went to Tekirdag today; because Cam had a meeting.  The kids and I wandered around the "downtown" area. (It's actually on top of the hill.) Then we headed to the mall for lunch and more shopping. While we wandered around downtown I couldn't resist a picture of this place:
Sometimes translating from Turkish to English is easy!

Then on the way home traffic was stopped briefly just outside Kesan so they could relocate the highway sign.  I had to take a bunch of pictures just in case something extraordinary happened.



See the guy in orange.  Not sure what his job is, but I like that he's just hanging out watching with the rest of us.




Storks

Stork on it's nest near the border with Greece in April.
A few days ago they were making endless circles near Gelibolu. 


Monday, May 26, 2014

Going Home: Family, Friends and Food

Going home each year is a very important event on our calendar.  It gives us a chance to see face to face all those people who we have only connected with on FB, email, Skype and on the telephone.  Staying in touch is problematic, because out of sight is out of mind from our end and for friends and family in Canada.  So it's wonderful to have the opportunity to go home and reconnect.

With going home in mind, the dinner table conversation lately has been about the food we're longing to eat.  We get all the food groups here.  The produce in particular is second to none. We all have our Turkish favourites too.

 However, we are all looking forward to food from home.  Ham and bacon are on the list of course.  After 2.5 years, we've discovered some in country sources of bacon and Cam has a work colleague who brings us ham sausage from Ukraine.  The kids are all looking forward to pizza.  There's a pizza place in Gelibolu and we ate frozen pizza from the grocery store today, but it doesn't look or taste like home.  It has corn on it for one thing! Cam would like a steak I think.  Steak is available here, but you have to be on good terms with the butcher or he'll pound it flat while you're distracted. Sam would really like Mini Wheats once we get home.  He still eats cereal most days.  There are usually only three choices at our local grocery store: flakes with strawberries, plain flakes or round brown "chocolate" flavoured balls.  Last week I found some bags of Cherrios at a different grocery store.  They don't taste like home but they're a change.  I'm looking forward to a bag of Cheezies ... 

It'll be good to go home to touch base with family and friends, but I know it won't be long until the kids and I will be craving one of our Turkish favourites . . . pide anyone?

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Another Earthquake

So, we had just got back from grocery shopping this morning and nicely sat down for lunch when the house started to shake. It was seriously like being on some weird ride at the amusement park. But basically we all got out of the house and it stopped and Mom walked over to wave at the neighbors who were also outside and kind of freaked out. Turns out it was a 5.7 magnitude earthquake down near the end of the peninsula in the ocean somewhere. The worst of our earthquake "damage" was that one of Mom's Jane Austen books fell off the shelf in her room. And since this is Mom's third earthquake and third times the charm, we shouldn't be having any more earthquakes as long as we're hanging out with her.