Turkey, Croatia, Greece

SUBTITLES: "The Coolest 13th Birthday Ever" and "Who Knew Dobrovnik,Croatia, was so Cool?"


Dear Family and Friends:

Two lingering thoughts about Venice....1) the sight of the vendors/delivery people rolling their carts up and then down the stairs of each pedestrian bridge....2) the calendars featuring 12 "hot" gondeliers and 12 "hot" priests!

We must confess that the cruise which followed Venice was a welcome change for us, in terms of knowing where each night's lodging and food was coming from....still had major language barriers, since Costa is an Italian cruise line and at least 50% of the announcements were only in Italian (we could only hope that none were telling us to grab life jackets and meet at Muster Station A!). But the 21 hours of unlimited food and twicea-day housekeeping service made up for it! 3,600 passengers and 1,100 crew...

Our room, although small, was larger than we expected. Ken and I had a double bed in the middle of the room, and the kids each had beds which folded out from the wall so that they were over us. We regularly had pillows fall from one of their beds on to our bed....their beds folded up on the wall during the day. The ship is only one year old, so pretty nice. The kids were absolutely thrilled to explore the ship - it was like nothing they have ever seen before. Sam participated a few times in the teen club activities, but probably because they STARTED at 10:30 p.m.! Lauren's age group had activities all day, until 11:30 p.m. and she stayed up most nights that late, often dancing in the disco (since it didn't open for adults until 1:00 a.m.)! The leaders couldn't always remember her name, so they called her "English," as in "Hey, English, come here!" Thankfully, Lauren found it funny.

First day, we docked in Bari, Italy, on the east coast. We walked into town and pretty much mirrored the trip taken by those who had paid $60 each for a guided tour. Terrible heat and humidity. Second day, we docked in Katakoln, Greece, a tiny town where we mostly hung out at the nearby beach. Third day (Sam's birthday), was in Izmir, Turkey. We tried walking on our own, but discovered the distances were too great, so hailed a taxi and had him take us to several sites. One was a ruin on a hill which overlooked the town. Kids were everywhere selling bottled water and looking for money. They shadow you, of course, asking, "France? America?" and then say a few words in your native tongue. We have found this in all places we visited since. The captain sent Sam a birthday card, we opened the cards I had saved from home (yes, Joe and Mom, that includes yours!), and had a cake at dinner. Waiters sang "Happy Birthday." Unlimited icecream in the afternoon...All in all, a pretty great way to turn 13!

The next day was Istanbul, made interesting because the US Embassy shooting had just happened the day before. So, we decided an organized tour was best and enjoyed visits to the Hippodrome (cool was the obelisk - saw its birthplace when we were in Egypt!), Blue Mosque (incredibly beautiful) built in early 1600s, and a large cathedral, the 4th largest in the world, first built in 360 A.D. (then re-built two other times after destroyed). Turkey is the only country in the world that lies on 2 continents - 3% is in Europe and 97% is in Asia. Istanbul has 15 million people. Gas was $10/gallon (we have not seen less than $8/gallon anywhere on our trip - US has it good). Tulips originated in Turkey, which introduced them to Hollard in the 16th century. The indoor bazaar has 3,000 booths, where tenants pay $10,000 to $20,000/month rent and stalls sell for $1 million. It was absolutely insane. Every vendor was in our face - "America? Welcome to Alaska!," "Good price!" "Would you please come into my store?" Incredible poverty and all shops are tiny (size of a US bedroom).

Funny: on the cruise, I noted that the daily sabbath service is held in the cards room and the written notice appears immediately above the cocktail of the day...also, on the two formal nights, I guarantee you that we were the only people wearing quick-dry clothes and Keen rubber-toed sport sandals! We have no nice clothes, so relied on Lauren to walk in front, wearing her sarong as an elegant dress (with the Keen sandals)...Lauren and Kate were probably 2 of only 10 women on the ship wearing one-piece bathing suits. Seems that anyone can wear a 2-piece, no matter what! There were lots of TMI bathing suits, on both men and women.

Just so you know, we did get some education on the ship - Lauren and Kate attended a napkin-folding class, taught in Italian, French, Spanish, and English! We are available for private parties.

Dubrovnik, Croatia, was the biggest surprise and delight. The old city, on the water front, is surrounded by a huge wall and you can walk the wall, which we did. Inside of the wall, the buildings are beautiful and the view spectacular. It was definitely a favorite. Again, terrible heat and humidity, but nothing an icecream can't take care of....

Every country we visit, Sam gets a Coke bottle and candy wrapper, Lauren gets earrings, and Kate gets a patch and, sometimes, a bracelet. Also, we get currency for the kids' collections, so the hunt is always on once we arrive somewhere!

Rome next and then we are dying to tell everyone about our incredible time in Egypt and the fantastic time we are having this week at the orphanage in Tanzania. Both have been the richest cultural experiences on our trip.

K4

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