Istanbul

The first time I heard a call to prayer was from the mosque close to our school in India.  Then, I thought, "What was that?" Now, I expect to hear it, every afternoon, just after noon.

This vacation to Turkey is my first time in a Muslim country.  Here the call to prayer, if I hadn't had my first Indian introduction, would have been terrifying.  I say that, not because I've bought into the Teabagger fear of Muslims, but because it's really noisy...all at once, from all directions, the city is just suddenly filled with sound.  Surround sound.  There are mosques everywhere!

Normally, I try not to get political on this blog, but speaking of teabaggers...

Last night, we finally got tired of walking and took a taxi.  Now, I say finally because I'm guessing, without exaggerating, that we'd already walked about ten miles.  Istanbul is SO BIG.  So, anyway, we're in the taxi and the driver asks, "Where are you from?"

And I reply, "USA,"  then add, "Barack Obama," because I always like the reaction I get from that.

BACKTRACK just a minute here: The first time I ever lived abroad was when Bush was in the White House, and I got no end of grief about that, everywhere I went.  I almost made a t-shirt that said, "I didn't vote for Bush."

Back to the present.  The taxi cab driver perks right up, "Barack Obama!  Barack Obama!  Barack Hussein Obama!  I love him!!!!!!!!!"

And in case there are any teabaggers reading this: 1. We all know that Obama is a faithful Christian, but 2. the effect of Obama's race, name and background bring an amazingly positive amount of goodwill toward the US from every country.  And that makes my life a lot easier.

So....Barack Hussein Obama.  I love him too.

My other observations of Istanbul are this:

Street food: roasted chestnuts, roasted corn, popcorn, tea, and a toasted sesame bagel that is sosososo good.  I've had about 20.

Tunnels: they have lots of tunnels here to avoid crossing the street, and though I appreciate that, I think that tunnels are a place, in general, where you see lots of people you don't want to see.

Prices: are really high.

Organized tours: look sucky.  If you ever want to have a great time, travel with us.  Our days go a little something like this: breakfast, nap, walk, walk, walk, small amount of sight-seeing, wander around, coffee, lunch, beer/wine, take in one more sight, walk, walk, walk, cards, more beer/wine, dinner, dessert! and bed.

surprise!

We're in Istanbul!  I know normally I spend the days leading up to a vacation telling you all about our big plans, but the lead-up to this vacation was a little screwy, so I just didn't want to get into it.  Anyway, we're here!  And it's great.  The bad surprise for us was that blogger has been blocked  by the Turkish government.  I can type using an IP blocker, but I can't seem to get pictures uploaded.  I'll work on it.

In the meantime, I can tell you what we've been doing: walking, walking, walking and eating.  Doner kebab, baklava, Efes beer, fish sandwiches, great bread, cheese, yogurt....it's been delicious.  Istanbul is an amazing city, so charming, full of character, culture, and to both our delights, very attractive people, friendly too.

So far we've visited the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sophia.  Last night we walked to the other side of town, over a bridge and then ate under the bridge watching the fishermen tug on their lines.  Right now we're sitting on our hotel's rooftop terrace with great views of the sea, several mosques and a kid's soccer game.

I think to solve the blogger block, I'll start up a flicker account, but in the meantime, stay tuned.  This is the last of our great adventures before moving home, and I have a feeling it's going to be a good one! 

the street where we live

Cocks, Farts, Ass
If you're offended by this, think about poor me.  I have to see this stuff every day!

and all the rest...

Can you find the hidden lady in the picture above?  She was taking a nap. 

I am Panther? Hear me roar?

Whoa. What a week. It’s been a little emotional (husband and parents will attest). I’ve put them through a lot, so to be fair, I’ll take you on this journey as well:

All the way back in November, I announced my intentions to apply to UNI’s school psychology program. Then, I said I was 99.9% sure it would happen. Since then my confidence has dropped, little by little, until I found myself sobbing on the ride to school Tuesday morning, wailing between shuddering breaths, “What if this is the start of my downhill slide? What if I never accomplish anything ever again?”

Yeesh. Apparently, I don’t handle uncertainty very well. But I wasn’t being completely dramatic; I had some legitimate cause for concern.

Early February, I interviewed with the head of the program. Among other things she told me that only ten people get accepted each fall (YIKES!) and that decisions would be made and calls (or in my case, an email) would go out Friday, March 5 or Monday, March 7.

Friday night I stayed up late waiting for the email, which never came. But I felt all right because Blues Brothers was on TV and I figured, maybe she’ll email later. Probably tomorrow I’ll wake up to good news. No problem. And then when Aretha made her cameo I sang and danced (badly) along, all alone in the living room. I was feeling good.

Saturday morning I awoke to an empty inbox, and decided I needed some healthy distraction. After running two miles, and swimming one mile, I was still feeling good, and just tired enough not to worry.

I didn’t expect to hear anything Sunday, but Monday, I thought. That’s my day.

Monday was not my day. Instead it was a day of increasing anxiety, which I should mention wasn’t helped by the 12 hour time difference. I thought, though, that I’d for sure hear by Monday night. Brad stayed up with me until 11:30 (noon, Iowa time) but eventually headed to bed. By then I’d already called my mom, who ran home to check the mail for me, then said, with great motherly wisdom, “Maybe she got her dates wrong. Maybe she plans on telling people later this week.” But you know how it is when you’ve worked yourself up into a state, and you’re past the point of all optimism and into complete doom and gloom and you just won’t hear the cheerful voice of reason on the other end of the phone? Well, that’s where I was. My dark place.

At that point, healthy distractions were out and I spent the whole night refreshing my inbox, checking the internet connection, willing an email to come. And again, nothing came.

Despite almost total lack of sleep, I decided to go to school Tuesday morning. I knew, if nothing else, that the kids would cheer me up. And they did. They were so, so sweet.

Tuesday afternoon Brad and I had a moment of comic relief, provided by ourselves.
Brad: If it doesn’t work out it’s OK. I can pursue my acting career.
Me: Yeah. People have always told me I should be a model; I think I’ll do that.
HA! We’re sosososo funny. Maybe we should be standup comics.

But by Tuesday night I was defeated and so went to bed early. Only to be awakened shortly after by Brad, shouting, “EMAIL!”

And you know what it said?

Congratulations! And some other stuff. But I only needed that first line.

Immediately, I felt a little silly. All that worry! All that stress! But things got sillier once Brad and I got into the bottle of champagne that had been chilling in the fridge since Thursday. The bottle of champagne that I brought from Iowa for the specific purpose of opening on the event of my acceptance into grad school. The confidence was there all along, just briefly lost in a haze of self-doubt and uncertainty. Yuck to both of those things! Get out of here!

So, I’m back and feeling great. Yesterday I was not feeling so great, but that was mostly due to the champagne.

Now we’re getting all geared up for our big move to Iowa. A few minutes into our champagne celebration I told Brad that we were celebrating two years of endless homework and life of poverty, but whatever. Four years away from family and friends has been long enough. Iowa is gonna be GREAT!

See you soon!

Tirupathi Fail

On my way to school Monday morning, I saw a smashed rat by the side of the road.  If you were someone who could read omens, you would have known what that meant:

Defeat. 

But I got through Monday, no problem.  Same for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.  Friday, I knew would be a challenge, but I felt up for it.  Brad and I had planned an adventure to India’s (and the world’s ) most visited holy site: Tirupathi.

Sounds like ti-roo-pa-tee

Lonely Planet explains that it gets between 40,000 and 100,000 visitors a day.  But we’ve been trying to get out and see India before we leave forever, and we thought, yeah, this will be good, f-ing crazy, but good.  So we bought our tickets and packed our bags.  It took some mental preparation, "It's going to be loud. It's going to be hot.  It's going to be insanely crowded."  But by Friday afternoon we were rearing to go.

The plan was to take the train 3 hours north, stay the night, hike up to the temple Saturday morning, take great pics for all my great blog readers, then head home early Sunday on the 6 am train.

BUT…well, read on. 

We hauled it out of school at the earliest possible moment Friday afternoon.  We knew we were cutting it close with only an hour to get to the Madras Central Train Station, but since the trip usually takes 40 minutes, we figured, all right, we got this. 

Two hours later, we were still 10 kilometers from the train station and the car was just barely inching forward.

Turns out downtown traffic came to a halt yesterday due to visiting politicians, who from what I can tell, shut down roads wherever they go.  How is that any way to win votes?  If I could vote, I would find out who that politician was and vote for everyone but him. 

So, there we were, trip stopped before it had even started, feeling stressed about traffic and asking each other, just what the hell do we do now.

Brad says, “Where do you want to go?”

I say, “The airport.”

Our driver was willing to take the four hour trip, but after two hours of already being in the car, we’d had it. 

It took us almost as long to get home, so three and a half hours later we were there, having accomplished nothing but driving around in a big, slow circle.

As for great pics for my great blog readers, I’ll just give you the view from the backseat.  I’m sorry in so many ways, that that’s all I have to offer.

We're going to try again March 18.  Anyone care to join us?  

moooo

Where's that mooing coming from?

front lawn

Oh, hello.