Where in the World...Part 1

Well - the question might really be where haven't we been... in the past 11 days we have traveled to 6 cities in 4 different countries. We have had a wonderful Christmas vacation in Europe - definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. We started out this vacation with the first half planned - a week in a chateau in the Austrian Alps. Craig and Jared had a great time skiing while Katie and I shopped and kept house. Despite the temperatures that never went above freezing - we were warm and cozy in our chalet. From Austria we decided to go to Italy, we could not be that close and forego such a romantic destination. Our original plan was to go to Milan, the closest big city, for at least one night. One the road however, spontaneity got the better of us and we switched routes at the last minute and ended up in Venice!

While we all knew it was a city built on the water, we were a bit surprised that you could not even take your car into the city.. you had to go in by boat. Well, we had no reservations and did not even know where to begin looking for a hotel. So after speaking with the lady in the tourist office at the parking garage we decided to just head in to the city and find a place for the night. The only problem was - our luggage - we had too much! We were not really prepared for our spontaneous change of plans and therefore had not bothered to simplify our packing.. so there were were on the 10th floor of a parking garage in Venice with all of our clothes strewn about as we tried to consolidate our things into one bag per couple. Things were touch and go for a few minutes as the wives were not too excited about consolidating on such short notice in the below freezing temps.. not to mention in the middle of a parking garage. But after a little work we were on our way. We hopped on the water bus and headed for St. Marco's square. We found a great little hotel right off the square and hit the town for some much anticipated Italian cuisine. We were not dissapointed!

The next day we wandered through all the little alleys, markets and shops. We did museums, churches and palaces. We stopped for pictures and pizza and of course... gelato - Italian Ice Cream. Even though it was freezing outside, this proved to be one of our favorite treats. Venice was amazing - although a little on the pricey side - every restaurant charged us for the use of the silverware, needless to say this was not something we had anticipated in the vacation budget! We had a great time and are so glad we made the last minute detour (although it was painful for Jayme to break away from the pre-prepared maps and plans).. as this is a spot we may never get to see again.

So where did we go next - you'll have to wait until we can post it to find out.

Cold, Christian, Christmas Vacation

For the holidays this year we decided that we would like to go somewhere cold and somewhere that celebrated Christmas as a Christian holiday. So we came to where it all began. Sunday we flew to Munich, Germany and drove down to a beautiful ski resort in Kitzbühel, Austria. We realized quickly that we had taken car of the cold part as the temperature hovers between 15 and 28*F, with snow everywhere. We also took care of the Christian and Christmas aspect as well as there are churches everywhere along with Christmas decorations and shopping markets in every little town. Craig and I plan to hit the slopes everyday while Jayme and Katie check out the markets and the shops. After losing our friends Craig and Katie to the island life, it has been nice to spend some time with them before we head back to the states. It is also a good time to get in some R&R as we will hit the ground running once we get home. When we leave Austria on Saturday, we hope to make stops in Italy and Switzerland before returning back to Germany to do some sightseeing. And then it’s back to Adana, where we will have 2 days to finish packing and saying our goodbyes before making the flight back over the water to the homeland.

Turkey, We Will Miss You

We have certainly enjoyed our last 12 months in Turkey and will be sad to leave, but we recently realized that God was leading us in a new direction. And just as it was hard to leave home and come here, it is just as hard to leave here and come home. But we realize it is our responsibility to be obedient, no matter how hard it may be or whether He is calling us to leave home or return to it. We know that this earth is only our temporary home anyway.
We have had several weeks to reflect on our time in Turkey and have compliled a list of things we will miss, along with a few that we won't.

We will miss

• Adana Kebap
• Food (mainly Jared) and yes Adana Kebap is food, but it deserves it on classification
• Warmth of the People
• The Van Man (Our friend Remze who sells the freshest fruit and veggies out of his van)
• Full Service Gas Stations
• Our Wonderful Turkish Friends
• Intermission during movies
• Free food from neighbors at anytime day or night
• Çay with every meal
• Helpfulness of the people
• Our A-team
• Special attention at hospitals and doctors office
• Bargaining

We won't miss

• The drummer during Ramadan making his 3am rounds
• Adana drivers
• The bullhorn (Turkey's favorite advertising method)
• The blazing summer heat
• The ATM (i.e. full-service banking)
• Hanging our clothes out to dry
• No central heat/AC
• The call to prayer

Turkey, you've been good to us over the past year and we will certainly remember all the incredible things we got to see and experience within your great walls. Thank you for taking care of us and providing a wonderful home away from home. Türkiye'yi özleyeceğim!

Not Meant To Be

You know sometimes when you are in the middle of something and you get the feeling that, "it's just not meant to be." Well, I had that feeling several times this afternoon, but as always, I pressed on to see if it was true. It was.

Last night we asked our neighbors if they wanted to go to a movie with us tonight. They had relatives in town and couldn't go until next week. We opted to go anyway and it was a bad decision. The main reason we wanted to go today is because our cellphone company has a 2-for-1 program at the theater on M & Th's. You must text message the company to get a special code that is required by the cinema. On the way, we texted several times but never received our code. We knew we were going to be pushed for time, and possibly miss the best part; the Previews. So we rushed to the counter and asked the lady to help us. After several more failed attempts to get the code, she told us the tricky (and new) fact that we had to have over 100 prepaid minutes on our phone; we only had 88. So, we ran to find a Turkcell store and up our minutes. Granted, it may have been easier, faster and cheaper if we had just bought 2 tickets and not worried about the "deal", but we were determined. After reloading the phone, we raced back, bought the tickets, stopped to buy a Coke and M&M's; only to find out they cost more than the movie ticket itself. No go on the M&M's. Finally, sitting in our seats, we caught the last preview before the movie started. We made it five minutes into the movie, when everything went dark. And the inside of a movie theater is very dark. Turns out the power in the entire mall went out and after waiting in the pitch-black for 15 minutes, they informed us they would not be restarting the movie. Remarkably, we got a rain check and will try again another day. On our way home we realized that we might have been waiting for hours as power to half the city was out.

Turkey in Turkey

Holidays in a foreign country aren't quite the same, but we always do our best to make it feel like home. Thanksgiving, even though it is strictly an American holiday, was no different. Jayme, Jessica and Melissa (and Chris and John) went all out to prepare a feast the pilgrims and Squanto would have been proud of. With this being our first turkey we were a little apprehensive as we put the 14lb, $40 bird in the oven. However, three hours later, he was crispy and brown on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. After dinner we feasted on the usual pies and football. All and all it was a great day.

In keeping with tradition, Friday was a wonderful day of leftovers and more football. Fortunately, through a Thanksgiving miracle, we were able to see MSU create a miracle of their own and beat Ole Miss in the final seconds. Even though we weren't with our families at home, we enjoyed spending time with our Turkey family.

Christmas Came Early!

Well, it seems only fitting that Christmas has come early in the land where St. Nick was actually born. It is a little known fact that Father Christmas or St. Nicholaus was actually born in Turkey! Christmas has indeed come early here as you can see in the picture below. I know, I know it is not even Thanksgiving yet.. but hear me out. First, Jared's mom kindly played Santa this year and carried all of our gifts across the water. Second, it is always more fun to decorate with more people here to help. Third, we are leaving December 16th for our European Christmas vacation and in order to have the tree up at least a full month (which I believe is a requirement) the tree had to go up by the 16th of November. So up it went and we are so happy! Also, in Turkey Christmas is vastly misunderstood, even the commercial aspects are only celebrated at New Years. People even put up trees for New Years. So in order to help dispel that misunderstanding, we will take all of our Christmas decorations down before New Years. Jared and I will be celebrating our Christmas day on the 15th of December before we head out, but apparently that is not even early enough for some... Jared made us open one gift before his mom even left. I had to point out that it was only November 13th.. but that did not stop us! Thank you Mama Yates for bringing all the goodies and helping us put up the tree etc!

Fall Open House

With mom being here Jayme decided to take advantage of another cook in the kitchen and host a Fall open house for our American friends in Turkey. They worked hard all day Friday cooking delights such as ginger snaps, pumpkin dip, pumpkin cookies, quiche, vegetable and fruit trays and pesto pinwheels. Jared was only allowed to make the drinks and he whipped up some incredibly delicious teas and ready-made pink lemonade. The weather was a perfect 65* and so we were able to open all the windows and doors and make use of the balcony, which was needed to accomodate more than 30 friends in attendance. The party was a smashing success and everyone had loads of fun. We even had a crew from Istanbul come down and take part in the festivities.

Starting to Show

Well Jayme is finally starting to show a little and she is excited because she can begin wearing some of her maternity clothes that have been sent this way with the last few groups. We went to the doctor Thursday for her 4 month checkup. Everything looked good and we were thrilled to find out that the baby is...going to be tall! Not that we had any doubts about that, but its legs measured in the top percentile for its age so we are expecting a big one. Jared almost cracked under the pressure of his mom being there and told the doctor we could find out the sex. She thankfully couldn't tell and didn't really look too hard as she knew we really didn't want to know. One thing we do know is that it is an active baby already. It was waving its arms and kicking its legs all around while looking at us the whole time. It even sucked its thumb and put its hands over its ears because it didn't like the high frequency the ultrasound puts out. All in all it was a good visit and we are glad momma and baby are healthy.

Rugs, Caves and Brits

Underground City

We just returned from spending 3 days in one of the most interesting and unique places in the world - "Turkey". We couldn't have mom come all the way from home and not take her to see the incredible chimney-like rock formations that cover Cappadocia. On our way we stopped at an underground city where we got a guided tour of where and how people lived thousands of years ago when escaping enemies. From there we checked into our cave hotel and quickly embarked on finding the perfect rug. Over the next 3 days we looked at over 200 rugs from Afganistan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey before finding the right ones for the right price. We also spent time in a pottery shop where Jayme and I attempted to make our own pottery from scratch. We were unsuccessful and had to resort to buying someone else's creations. As our money became slim we decided to check out some of the free landscape Cappadocia had to offer. Neither rain, nor snow deterred us from our exploration through the caves where previous inhabitants lived and worshipped. It was amazing to see the beautiful frescoes that were still in great shape from the Byzantine Empire. One of the highlights of each day was the breakfast at the hotel where we were joined by a lovely British couple, Dez and Dot. They provided a great start to our days with their funny British words and accents, which became even funnier as Mom and Jayme, unknowlingly, began to talk like them as the meal wore on. Over all it was a wonderful trip and we were able to do and see everything we had hoped and more.

The Yates w/ Dez & Dot

Mama Has Arrived!

Well today is finally the day and Momma Yates has finally made it to Turkey. We didn't think today would ever come and here it is and here she is. She is such a trooper; due to her travel partner, Corinne needing to stay home and take care of her husband and his busted foot, she came all by herself and had no trouble. (We miss you Corinne, Get well John!) Mom didn't waste any time in getting unpacked and throwing us our first baby shower with the items she had recently purchased. She also brought goodies and surprises such as cake mixes, muffin mixes, pepperoni and my favorite, Beth's chocolate peanut butter balls. We have a lot of stuff planned for the next two weeks and we aren't wasting any time. We are headed to the vegetable and fruit bazaar right now and giving her the Adana tour tomorrow. We also look forward to making a few trips out of town along with introducing her to all our friends, Turks and Americans. We are so thankful that she is here and we appreciate all of you that send encouraging words and hugs with her.

Encouragement from Home!

Last week we had a visit from 7 friendly faces from, Pinelake, our home church. We had been looking forward to their visit for sometime and it definitely lived up to all of our expectations! The group arrived a little weary and worn from their trek across the water and time zones, but otherwise ready to get involved and see what our life looks like. We had a jam packed schedule for them as they came along side us and did some of our normal every day activities with us. We introduced them to as many friends as we could and we ran them ragged each and every day and then had wonderful times of fellowship each night. We can say that while we were tired when they left we were filled up with encouragement! Jared took the crew on one long day of seeing the sights along the coast, including the infamous Heaven and Hell (a cavern with over 350 steps down into it), a crusader castle, as well as Tarsus.

The group was also able to see Turkey show some of its 'Turk Kası" or Turkish Muscle as they put out their most patriotic/nationalistic foot on Sunday night. The night exploded with horns honking, flags waving, people in the streets, lots of chanting, lights flickering and general merriment that goes along with a rally. These 'parades' if you will, continued each night while the group was here (as you can see on the posts below). While at first a little intimidating, the group did great adjusting to our new schedule as we all learned to be flexible when some of our plans changed.

One of the highlights of the trip was when we took the group to our English class on Tuesday evening. The students loved having all of those English speakers to chat along with and they all hit it off right away. The night was filled with lots of laughter, a few minor miscommunications and several email addresses being exchanged.

Pizza! Pizza!

It's finally here! We dreamed. We waited. We asked. We waited some more. And finally it has officially opened it's doors to all the drooling foreigners that have been craving American pizza in Adana. Yes Little Caesars made it's debut Saturday and since then all 25+ Americans living in this part of town have eaten there at least once, some even twice. We were anxiously awaiting to see if the pizza really tasted as good as we had hoped it would be and we were pleasantly surprised when we bit into that first bite of pepperoni and mozzarella deliciousness. That's right...real pepperoni. And they even have crazy bread with pizza sauce. It is, as Jayme would say, "A dream come truesday." We know getting excited about a pizza place moving into your neighborhood isn't big news back home, but in a city where McD's and Burger King are the only reminders of home, a good pizza restaurant just down the street is enough to create some nice nostalgia for your taste buds.

Patriotism?

These past few weeks have been filled with interesting displays of patriotism throughout the day and night. It's been "exciting" to watch as these spontaneous parades and rallies pop up anywhere at any time. All of this excitement originated as Turkey's Parliament finally decided to do something about the Iraqi-Kurdish rebels. They are located in Northern Iraq and come across the border and cause problems for Turks and even Kurds in Turkey. Turkey has yet to make a full incursion into Iraq, as they are waiting to see what the U.S. does about the problem first. It should provide plenty of interesting conversations and certainly more parades over the coming weeks, especially tomorrow as it is Turkey's Independence Day. We continue to feel completely safe and know that plenty of people are monitoring the situation. One of which will soon be my mom. She is coming on Friday and we know if anything gets out of hand while she is here, she will do her best to straighten it out. Here are two examples of the festivities.

Heartbeats and Haircuts

So today we went to visit our new doctor, she is wonderful. She works at the hospital where we will be delivering, here in Adana. She is very friendly and speaks good English. They love to do ultrasounds here so the first thing we do at our prenatal appointments is look at the baby! I love that part! We were shocked to see how much our little baby has grown in the past four weeks and how clear the pictures were, already a very photogenic baby, although Jared thinks it looks a bit like an alien! We saw its hands and legs and its heart beating away. Normally, here they don't let you hear the heartbeat until 20 weeks but I asked if we could hear it today. She said we could try, and sure enough we heard it's little heart beating so fast! It was wonderful, she had never heard one so early and was really excited as well! Jared and I both loved hearing our little one's heartbeat, it was both exciting and reassuring! We told her just in time that we do not want to know the sex of the baby as she was about to start looking! All in all, everything looks good and the baby is healthy! We are praising the Lord for such a healthy pregnancy thus far! I will go back in another month. We have also attached a picture of me, as you can see I am not really showing yet. Which is great, since I am awaiting my first big shipment of maternity clothes from the states. Also, I got my haircut today. We found a guy who used to work in the states that will cut our hair, he is really good and speaks great English. It was a very funny experience going to the salon here. There are lots of helpers at the salon. After the guy cut my hair, literally three people dried it. One held the brush, one held the hair dryer and the other was just on hand.. in case! It was fun and only cost about $30 for such great treatment.

Rain, Rain...

...please come our way. I had to wait until after it rained to publish this so as to not jinx it, but we are so thankful that we finally got some decent rain today. It's literally been 6 months since we got any serious rain. I think it's sprinkled 2 or 3 times from May thru September, but nothing more than teasers. From all accounts, we are entering into the rainy season and we are very excited. It's funny how you miss things like a regular dose of rain. It's also interesting living somewhere that experiences wet and dry seasons. Over the past 80 years, Adana has averaged less than 5 inches of rain from June-Oct, that's a long time to do without water. Some parts of the country felt it worse this summer and had to implement water rationing. It wasn't quite as severe here as we regularly saw the city fire trucks used for watering plants and medians. Since all the buildings are 100% concrete there is hardly any need for fire trucks, so at least this way they don't completely waste their trucks or manpower. Below you can see Jayme (in her monochromatic outfit) enjoying the rain from our balcony.

9 Blogs to Someone You Know

Thanks to the world wide web and blogs, the world is getting smaller everyday, thus making it easier to find friends, no matter where they are. In our spare time this morning, we realized that many of our family and friends have blogs and most of those blogs have links that take you to their families' and friends' blogs. We then discovered that you can start from any blog in the world and eventually find your way to someone you know. In fact we think it can be done in less than 10 blogs. This morning we started in Dallas, TX and made our way through blogs in College Station, TX; Louisville, KY; Hong Kong; and Thailand, before making our way to friends in India. We traveled around the world meeting people we will never see and looking at pictures of people we don't know, but it was pretty cool when we finally got to familiar faces. I know you are probably thinking that we must have been really bored, but you've either thought about it or will try it soon. We are so sure that this will become the hottest game of the year that we are going to add a few more links to our blog to make it a little easier for all those blogologist that come through our page. We are also sure that blogging is a phase that will be obsolete by 2010, so get in while you can before it's gone.

Touring Turkey

We just returned from traveling through the Turkish countryside as we visited interesting and historic places such as Çatalhöyük, the oldest known settlement currently under exploration in the world. It is 9500 years old so that would make its inhabitants date back to 7500 years before Christ. From there we went to Iconium, modern day Konya. It is a quiant little city of one million plus and a place that some of our teammates are moving to in about a year. It is well known for the Mevlanna museam, which houses the founder of Sufi Islam, which is famous for the whirling dervishes. These people would dance-spin themselves around in a circle until they spun themselves into a trance. All this was a way of trying to achieve a closer connection with God.

The next stop on our trip was one of the most interesting places I have ever seen. It is Cappadocia and it is famous for it's chimney style rock formations. Out of these tall rock structures, people carved out caves for houses and churches. Many of these caves are still evident and available to the public, just depending on how brave you are, as some are upwards of 50 feet high. We even had the opportunity to spend the night in a cave hotel. Our last stop was to an underground city where early believers would hide out when persecution was approaching. It had 12 floors underground with all kinds of tunnels and secret passageways. People could camp out there for up to 6 months before coming back above ground. Here are a few of the pics, but most of it you will have to see for yourself or talk to Dr. and Mrs. Dobbs as they were troopers and didn't want to miss anything.

Then and Now

Thanks to moms that save all things from their children's childhood, we have pictures below that remind us some people don't change much in 20 years. Notice the expression, hair, eyes, and most importantly, the fashion agility. Maybe the next 20 years will be as kind, but something tells me that the previous post will have a lot to do with that.

Meet Baby Yates!

We had our first real doctors visit today and it went well. We were able to see the baby and its heart beat. He/She looks very healthy and was moving all around, waving its arms and legs at us. We are tracking right on schedule and the baby is measuring 2.4 cm!

Flying Ninjas

No, it's not the title of the new Jackie Chan movie. It's better than that. Before Greece we spent a week in the mountains for our annual get together with other team members. It was great to escape the heat and get together with friends for lots of fun in the mountain sun. We even got to see rain, something we haven't seen in over 4 months. Since the hotel is a ski resort in the winter there are obviously ski lifts that take people up the mountain. Even though it was summer, they opened the lifts for us to go to the top on one of non-rainy days. However, by the time we got to the top we were surrounded by a cloud and so we weren't able to see anything below us. This was a big let down and we thought a waste of time and money, but God had something better in store. As we got back on the ski lift to head down the mountain we saw something ahead that caught our attention. Something all black ,coming our way. Was it the mafia? Or the militia? Coming to trap us while we were stuck on the mountain top. Thankfully not. It's was just a Middle Eastern man with his two children, followed by his 5 wives, all covered head-to-toe in their black ninja outfits. It's a sight we never thought we'd see, a ninja on a ski lift. I guess I've officially seen it all.
*author's note: Ninja is not a derogatory term. It's the only word used to describe all-covered-in-black women. Even the newspapers use it, and we know you can always trust the newspaper:)

Greece

Other than the lackluster experience with the train to and from Greece, our time there was wonderful. Our friends Mike and Beckie were great hosts and they took us all around their little city in the country as well as to historic places like Thessaloniki, Philippi and Berea. We got to see incredible artifacts from Paul's day and even dipped our feet into the same river where he baptized Lydia. One of our favorite parts was of course eating the great food, as well as meeting Mike and Beckie's friends and neighbors. The Greek language provided somewhat of a barrier as our knowledge is limited to fraternity and sorority letters; which made us ever more thankful for the little Turkish we've learned over the last 8 months. The last day, Beckie took us to the grocery store where we were able to stock up on items that are unavailable here. Essentials like Heinz ketchap, French's mustard, Helmann's mayonnaise, cheddar chesse and even ham. Hopefully these goodies will last us for a couple of months.

Midnight Train to Greece

This past week the Curtis's and us took an overnight train from Istanbul to Thessaloniki, Greece. We thought the idea of riding in a sleeper car for 12 hours sounded like a fun and the most effecient way to get there. At least one of those was correct. It really was an experience we will never forget and one that we will likely only experience once. First of all, the 12 hour ride turned into 15, with no way to contact the people picking us up to let them know we would be late. Second, we knew the train stopped at the border at 12am for customs, but we didn't know it also stopped every 30 minutes thereafter. This provided for a somewhat restless night of sleep and defeated the purpose of riding in the sleeper car. Thirdly, the rooms (which included two single beds big enough for a 5 year old) were extremely close quarters and provided plenty of opportunity to inhale each other's body odor which continued to rise due to the faintness of A/C.
For our return trip, we were on a different train. And thankfully it exceeded 30 miles an hour and managed to get us to Istanbul in time to make our return flight. It even came with a club car! However, the air didn't work at all on this train, causing us to keep the windows open and take in the sweet smell of diesel fuel all night. All and all we made it to Greece and back, but we decided we may be too old for a backpacking trip across Europe.

Happy Birthday to Me!

For the past few days we have been celebrating my 27th birthday! It has been a blast with lots of good food, good friends and good presents. It started off with the team giving me a delicious spice cake at our monthly get together and ended with a special lasagna dinner last night; with one blowout party in between. Monday we went over to Curtis and Annie's and they had a Chipotle themed, burrito dinner. It was wonderful and was topped off with an professionally made chocolate cake, special thanks to designers Katie and Jessica. Then I opened loads of presents from here and from home. Thanks to all for making needed contributions to my wardrobe and cd/dvd collections. Last night we had a wonderful lasagna and crunchy romaine dinner with the Craig and Katie, followed up by cheesecake and our weekly game of Rummy. It's been a wonderful birthday so far, especially since my birthday isn't until tomorrow. However, I don't anticipate the nightly birthday celebrations will continue.