Lost

---

"Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what you've got
Till its gone' -
Joni Mitchell

We spent the last 72 hours in Europe. When we landed after a comfortable flight, in which we had 4 seats to ourselves, we reached the luggage claim to find that ONE OF OUR BAGS IS LOST!!! Since it is not the first time we have missing luggage we quickly reported it in the ‘lost and found’ and went on our way feeling sure it will arrive on the next day’s flight.

After 3 days of waiting we understood we will never see our bag again!

So we made an ordered list of what we need to replace from the least important to the absolutely essential. And spent 3 hrs on Sunday exercising our credit card replacing lost items.

A ruffle-bag has endless stuff in it that need replacing (lock, extra shoelace, Laundry bag towels, toilet paper etc, ) Here are the top 10 things on the list of lost items

#10 Toilet essentials - we easily re-bought all lost items in the corner shop 10m from our hotel including Pantene conditioner for hagit, no-tear shampoo for Liya and Gillette razor for Yaron

#9 - ALL if Yaron’s cloths - funny how after long deliberations at home on the optimal number of underwear (5), pants (1 long, 2 short), t-shirts (4) and all the rest of the cloths - we ended up buying everything on the way in a 1hr (and 300USD) shopping bonanza and ended up with much less cloths then what we thought was the minimum back home

#8 Half of liya’s cloths - taking Yaron’s grandmother’s advice we split Liya’s cloths in both our bags so only ½ of her stuff is missing. After a re-count we decided on doing hand-laundry every day and getting along with what we have.

#7 Warm cloths for Yaron - did you ever try to buy winter cloths in the heat of summer? Not much luck in Istanbul besides 1 long t-shirt and warm socks. We cant wait to see what will happen in the cold places on the trip 😉

#6 - Phone charger - how can we travel without being connected 😉 we easily found a replacement in a small street booth.

The second half of the list was much more important:


#5 Camera charger - why go on a trip if you cannot take photos? we ran into a Canon shop on the way an bought one on the first day even before we gave up on the bag arriving.

#4. bed sheet from home - Hagit takes 2 (two!) bed sheets from home to all her travels so that she will be shielded on both sides from the guest-house bed sheets and blankets that she considers to be at the highest level of filth possible. One of them is now lost. Also lost are 2 sheets Liya was to use for the same propose in her bed exposing Liya to the muck as well. Will Hagit break the taboo and convince herself that it is OK to use the local sheets? Will we buy new bed-sheets someplace? It will be an interesting experiment how she will handle this situation….(at the end we got permission from the hotel in Istanbul to take one of their clean sheets)

#3. IPOD car charger and FM transmitter - the gateway to our music in the car for all the rides. Not only will we not have any music from home to listen to in the car, the cable connecting the IPOD to the computer is also lost so we will not be able to charge it or listen to it ever on the trip. More the 8 consecutive days of different music that we gathered for our travel is trapped in its elegant black case until we return home. In an unbelievable stock of luck we found a tiny electronic kiosk run by a friendly Armenian tat had both an IPOD charger and an FM transmitter - we are SAVED!

#2. Laptop car charger - we were planning to turn our laptop to an entertainment and navigation center for use in the car with a 12V car charger for our Dell laptop. We put on it all of Liya’s DVDs so she can look at it during long rides. We downloaded ALL of Google maps turkey data base and ALL of www.turkeytravelplanner.com/ and turkey maps to see it off-line if we get lost. Again, the friendly Armenian supplied us we with a 220V inverter for the car - SAVED AGAIN

#1. baby formula - over ½ of Liya’s daily calories, proteins and vitamins are from the Similac-Top-2 baby formula she drinks 3-4 times a day. We bought 5 cans that could last over 1 month. We lost 3. we bought some replacement but if she does not like the taste of the local kind we will be home very fast.


But the TOP lost item that we morn over more then all the rest …

A travel cot (baby bed) - we ordered this ingenious, lightweight, small packing, sturdy, safe, and easy to build baby bed from the UK weeks ago and spent the last weeks making Liya comfortable in it so wherever we go she will have a bed she will recognize and enjoy. Also, we really do not what her in our bed for the next month. She kicks and turns during the night so we both move very far to each side of the bed. It’s OK in a wide bed like we had in Istanbul but what will we do when we need to connect 2 narrow sinking beds later on? We need not say we could not get this replaced in Istanbul so we guess we will need to find out how it is without one 😞

Some other headlines

* Apparently, the biggest attraction in Istanbul (and probably Turkey) is Liya. No one passes in the street without looking, whistling or touching her. And this is when we are walking. If we stop then everyone around gathers to play, hold, kiss, pinch and touch her cheeks. They do it even when she sleeps or eats.

* We spent our 72 hours in Europe to get a rhythm of traveling with Liya. We find ourselves spending much thought about her next meal and make sure it is organized before she requests it. We also took 2 nap brakes every day which also gave US a reason to rest in the hotel A/C

* We learned to love McDonalds since it is currently the only meat Liya accepts to eat. Our faces glow every time she takes a bit of the greasy industrialized burger. Too bad the ‘happy meal’ in turkey comes with no toy

* We have to remember for next time we do not like large, hot, humid cities. We add Istanbul to the list along side Beijing, Bombay , Rangoon


* Apart from the heat, Istanbul is a very beautiful and interesting historic city. It is well organized, clean with unbelievable monuments to see. The heat took away Yaron’s muse for photographing. We hope to have better photos next time.

---

Photos

aya sophia
impresive bezentine church that in time was converted to a mosque

blue mosque at night
the blue mosque is the most impresive building in Istanbul. one of those monuments you donr stop admiring all day

inside Aya Sophia
inside there are bezetine chirstian murals along side islamic art

one of the rooms at Topkapi Palace
the palace is where for centuries the otteman stultan's lived. it is builtwith many gardens and rooms arround them

inside Aya Sophia
liya and hagit enjoying the view

Inside the Yeni Cami (New Mosque),
the most impresive mosque intirior we saw

Inside the Yeni Cami (New Mosque)
the most impresive we saw

Inside the Yeni Cami (New Mosque),
the most impresive we saw

Aya Sophia
photographed from our hotel rooftop

Comments

[Mine]

Beautiful Turkey places

[Ohados]

young turks
hello young turks, the pix are great as always. dont let the mishap with the bag annoy you, it's part of travelling and you'll only remember it as part of the advanture years from now. hope u will find some hot gear and wont freeze in the kachkar ;) keep having fun and have a safe trip, ohad

[Sunni]

I traveled with my 6 month old on an extended 2 month trip around Australia, Samoa and Fiji. We also brought everything and of course ran out of diapers and formula. But the substitutes were fun to find and experiment with. We learned a lot about being flexible and patient and the warmth and joy our baby allowed us to share with complete strangers. Waitresses offered to watch him while we ate, or while we scuba-ed on the Barrier Reef. And we rarely used the crib we brought with us as there was always a fold up cot in the hotel or B&B. So your adventures will be rich and wonderful with little baby in tow. Relax and Enjoy your freedom now.