Life's Full of Ups and Downs

This week started out with lots of "ups."

MONDAY: We went to Emirgan park with JoAnne. Who knew there were parks like this in this crowded, crazy city?! It was amazing. A dozen different play areas, a huge pond with bridges and water fountains, and hundreds of picnic tables in endless groves of trees. In April, the park is full of tulip sculptures and the park is insanely crowded on weekends, but on Monday, the place was all ours.

TUESDAY: JoAnne took me to the Tuesday Bazaar in Levent. We left our little girls with JoAnne's housekeeper (I WILL be getting me one of those) and had a great time. It was a crowded street full of people selling EVERYTHING - clothes, jewelry, housewares, fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, olives,...It was incredible. I loaded up on fresh fruits (LOTS of cherries), vegetables, pistachios (Amelia's new fave snack), olives, and a much-needed rubber spatula. Knowing my numbers and a few Turkish words, I was able to get what I wanted and pay what was owed. After shopping up an appetite, we ate a Turkish specialty - Guzleme. A freshly-made flatbread filled with a seasoned potatoes, pickled spinach and fresh feta cheese then grilled on a huge round griddle. It was FABULOUS! I will be going back to the Tuesday market if only for the guzleme.

WEDNESDAY: To quote a scene in "Waiting for Guffman" - our day was "boring, boring, boring, boring." It was raining outside and I was super exhausted and couldn't muster up doing much of anything. But since we all need to get out during the day, we did our default outing to Joker (the toy store), french fries at Burger King, and a stop at the Macrocenter for Pringles and Fanta.

THURSDAY: Once again, JoAnne rescued us from a day of boredom and took us to Rumeli Hisari (Rumeli Fortress), a defense castle built in the 1450's. It was amazing. It was a hot, humid day, so we didn't get to explore too much - as our 3-year-olds were getting too tired climbing stairs and I was getting too tired carrying Chase up all those stairs. I'm sure we'll go back when Matt can help tote children and keep them from falling of the ledges. A highlight was seeing the pirate ships sailing along the Bosphorus in preparation for an upcoming festival.
FRIDAY: With no set plans, I decided to venture down a nearby street to McDonalds to let Amelia play on the HUGE outdoor play area. (Although McDonalds goes against all my beliefs in nutrition, my daughter LOVES french fries and needs to run and climb daily, and sadly McDonalds satisfies these needs). So, with Chase on my back and Amelia in the stroller, we set out to navigate the busy streets of Istanbul. We made it there easily and in record time - I'm learning my way!! :) But as soon as we got to The Golden Arches, Amelia sees a huge Ronald McDonald statue, freaks out and asks to go home. I talk her into staying for a happy meal and dining al fresco as far away from Ronald as possible. It works and the kids happily eat their french fries, sharing some with the birds, then we sneak past the statue to venture to Mohini to play. Of course, we stop to get a mini ice cream cone on our way out. (Amelia wanted a lollipop this time, but the guy tried to charge me 2TL ($1.50) for a dum-dum sucker so I made Amelia get ice cream instead since it was a much more reasonable 1TL).

We walk home at high noon in very hot, humid weather and arrive home drenched in sweat, but happy to have had a fun morning out.


SATURDAY: What is not to love about Saturdays?! Just the word "Saturday" makes me happy. Mostly because it means my husband is home. And I must admit that the main reason I'm happy he's home is because I don't have to take care of the kids by myself. (Sorry hun). We had planned to go to IKEA to pick out furniture for our new apartment, but since it hadn't been finalized yet, we decided to save that trip for another time (more on our apartment later...). So we went to Carrefour - the French version of Wal-Mart - to pick up a few things and just check it out. The highlight was finding guzleme bread so I could make my own guzleme (which I did on Sunday and filled with roasted zucchini, spinach, garlic and cheese - yum!). Afterward, we found a play structure to let the kids run around for a bit, then ate at a nearby cafe on the waterfront, and took a nice long walk along the Bosphorus to watch the fisherman and feed the birds. I hope every Saturday can be this wonderful...
SUNDAY: Matt and I gave talks in church on Sunday. We knew this would happen very soon as there are only 30 members - they are happy when they can hear someone new speak for a change. Our church building is a far cry from what we're used to in America. It is a teeny apartment on the 7th floor of a run-down old building along a crowded narrow street. The branch president, Murat Cakir, is pushing for a larger building and official recognition of the church in Istanbul. The branch is growing rapidly with several new families moving in this summer. Very exciting. There are 2 little girls close to Amelia's age - Allison and Josie - but Chase is the youngest and the only nursery-aged child. There are a handful of Turkish members, but most are Americans living in Istanbul or visiting from BYU as study-abroad.

After church was a Linger-longer, with wonderful food (JoAnne brought a 7-layer Jell-O with cool-whip to make it feel like a real Mormon gathering) and a chance to talk with people in the branch - especially our good friends, the Reynolds, who live in the countryside so we don't see them very often. Amelia ecstatically wrestled with some boys and came away with a few bumps and bruises and Chase walked around eating the kids' abandoned food. We thought it a fabulous way to conclude our great "UP" week and weekend.

And then came our "DOWN" moment...

We get a phone call from our relocation agent telling us that the apartment we had secured with signed contracts and all, was no longer for rent. The landlord's son had been living there, but they decided to rent it out. The contract had been drafted and signed and we were just waiting for Nike to get the payment to the landlord so we could get the keys. Well, the landlord's wife found out they were renting it and freaked, saying she wanted to keep the apartment in the family. So needless to say, we are frustrated. We lost the first 2 apartments to diplomats and now this one which was the last available 4-bedroom apartment at Istinye Park. We are bummed, depressed, sad,...and homeless in 2 weeks if we don't find a place. This is the only place we want to live and we can't believe it's not happening! Now we have to find a new area to live in or get a 3-bedroom at Istinye. We don't want either. We know we will be fine wherever we live, it just wont be as convenient or comfortable. HUGE bummer. So our next several afternoons this week will be spent looking at more housing complexes. Yuk.

We got this news as we were driving home from church and being distracted, we ended up taking a wrong turn and got on a free-way leading over the Bosphorus bridge into Asia. It was actually quite beautiful and I'd always wanted to go over that bridge...

Well, now I'm off to get see if Seba Dream is our new apartment complex.