Behind

Looks like I am a little behind in blogging, but oh well. Quick rundown, last weekend I went to "The Virgin Mary's House". That is the place where Mary supposedly passed away. I took pictures, but I don't have the energy to post them right now. I got a working phone at the apartment on Wednesday and applied for DSL that afternoon. It will be a few days supposedly until I can get my internet working. And tomorrow I am going to Ephesus with a group of people from church. Hopefully I will remember to put the batteries in the charger so I can take pictures. BTW if you want to see the pictures from Mary's House, send me an email and I'll send you the link to them in Snapfish. I'll load the pictures I take at Ephesus there also.

Make a Nice Day!!

City Tour

I went on the Izmir city tour today. There were supposed to be 6 people or so on the tour. Me and one other guy showed up. So we basically had our own private tour of the city. It was a real quick one. It only lasted from about 9 till 1. We got to go inside the oldest Mosque in Izmir. I was allowed to take pictures too. I only managed to take a few before the battery died in my camera. When I get them transferred to my laptop I will post them. The tour guy took us to his favorite kebab house in the bazaar area. It was really good. And the bazaar has anything you could ever want, you just have to find it!! We also rode across the bay on the ferry. Some guy served us chai (tea) when we were on it. It was a very nice tour.


Make a nice day!

Our Wedding Vows

Internet

It sucks not having internet at home. I finally found the correct office I needed to go to in order to request telephone service at my apartment. I walked through some neighborhoods that I definitely wouldn't feel safe walking through at night!! So the connection date for my telephone is 26 Dec. After I have a working phone line I can apply for DSL. @#$!@##@ I doubt I will have internet at the house before New Years. Cable internet isn't available in my building, so I'm not getting cable. I can get AFN, but that is just one channel, and I will have to buy a multi-system tv. I probably won't have tv at all. So I guess for the next few weeks I will be spending a lot of time at the club since they have free wireless.
I have been walking everywhere that I can get to without riding the bus. There are places where I have to ride the bus to get to cause it isn't feasible to try to walk there. I had my first issue with the buses yesterday. I was told that if you ride the bus somewhere you can get back on the bus going back to where you came from by just going to the bus stop across the street. I tried that yesterday. NOPE!! Turns out the bus stop I needed was the next block down, but I didn't learn that until an hour and a half later. When I finally got back to this side of town, the Christmas Party had started here at the club so I couldn't get on the internet last night. So I walked back to the apartment. The apartment is very nice, but it is empty. Sure there is some furniture there, but that is it. When I am there I am in my bedroom most of the time. I guess I will get settled in more in the near future.

I hope you all make a nice day, and tell your pookie that you love them!!

Picture Time

Well I finally got some pictures downloaded to my computer. I am going to try to upload them so everyone can see. They are unedited, and unrotated, so you will have to do it yourself if you care to.





These are pictures from the base chapel. It is very beautiful. The pictures don't really do it justice.









These are pictures of my apartment. You can see the green room and other stuff. My laptop battery is about to die and I need to start walking to the apartment before it gets dark and the temperature drops even more.

Make a nice day!!!

Weekend

This is my second weekend here in Turkey. I need to go wash clothes. I went to the Chapel last night for the Christmas Tree lighting. There seems to be a good group of people there albeit small. I have no idea how old the building is, but it seems pretty old. It is very beautiful though. I have a few things that I need to do today. It was supposed to be warm and sunny. It isn't. It is cold and overcast. I guess I should head out to do that stuff.

Make a nice day!

Apartment

I have been apartment shopping the last few days. Not much fun trying to find a place to live in a foreign city where you don't speak the language. I finally found one and had the Housing office set up an appointment to sign the lease with the owner. When she got ahold of him, he informed her that he had decided to sell it instead of rent it out. GREAT!! He had another apartment in the same building, on the same floor. Same layout and everything just on the front side of the building. Oh and the bedrooms are painted in some BRIGHT colors. Pink, Fluorescent Lime Green, and Violet. It just so happens that the master bedroom is pink. I asked if he would be willing to paint the master bedroom some sort of white or cream color. He agreed. So tomorrow morning at 9 I get to sign the lease with the landlord. The FMO can't deliver the furniture stuff until the afternoon of the 10th so I am stuck in this hotel until the 11th. I need to get a KentKard for the bus system here. Either that or find someone in that building who works where I do and see if I can't bum a ride from them on a somewhat permanent basis. At least until the weather gets a little warmer and I feel comfortable riding my bicycle that far.

And another thing, why do they eat dinner so dang late around here? It is pouring outside right now and I am starving, but the hotel restaurant doesn't even open until 7! OK enough whining.

Make a nice day!!

Izmir

I have been here for 5 days this will be my 6th. I feel like everything is dirty here, the streets, the smells. Then I go inside somewhere and it is almost spotless. I guess just like everywhere else I will get used to it. I am going apartment hunting again today. In fact I need to hurry and type this so I can head over to where they pick us up at. I have no idea what area I want to check out, so I am just kinda going along for the ride. I went down to the restaurant this morning for breakfast. It is definitely different. They had honeycomb out on the buffet. If you wanted honey with your breakfast, you literally cut some honeycomb and put it on your plate. I also had some dates, and olives, peeled tomatoes (yes peeled), cucumbers, couple different sliced meats that I have no idea what they were (I didn't ask), pears, peaches, and numerous other things I didn't try. I did have a cup of coffee that I needed really badly. I think it had more caffeine than I am used to since I can't stop bouncing around now. Time for me to brush my teeth and head out into this strange land and see if I can find somewhere that I will be living in the next week.

Make a nice day!