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.