Blogs from Bodrum, Aegean, Turkey, Middle East - page 10

Geo: 37.0391, 27.4302Today is wildlife day. Wildlife here is made up of feral dogs and swallows, as far as I can tell. In Istanbul it was cats, but here the dogs roam free. As I may have written before, there was a mamma dog who had puppies next to our porch the day before we arrived. The house manager told me that she had them "taken away." I didn't know what that meant and didn't really want to know. Today we found out that it meant "taken to a location that was not very far away because their mamma has been feeding them regularly and had carried them back to the porch of their birth." In other words, there are two chubby, blind little puppies in our flower bed. I have considered mentioning this to the ... read more

Geo: 37.0391, 27.4302Lucy came in last night, but her luggage did not. We spent today alternately trying to get through to Alitalia to try and track her luggage down and get it here and visiting different places to buy "necessities." It was pretty relaxed and we made it to the beach for several hours. Tomorrow we will probably go out to the airport to get the bag and may hop over to Milas to check that out.Alex: We went to the beach today. We jumped off and had fun and swam to the docks and had fun with our noodles. They were repairing the ladder on one of the docks today. I rinsed in clean water then I played again in the salt water. I pushed Kate in. We got Turkish "Moon Pies" at the beach. ... read more

Geo: 37.0391, 27.4302It seems like I have a connection for about an hour or two every other day or so. On the other days I'm going to have to take a field trip downtown. Hopefully we can combine shopping and internet into one trip. Since we don't have a whole lot else that we have to do, that shouldn't be too bad. Here's what I wrote at home:It's Saturday morning. We dropped Mike off at the airport last night. He flew back to Istanbul where he was going to spend the night at the same hotel that we were using before. He should be up and about soon and heading out to buy a few trinkets to share with the kids' friends back home. There were a few tears at the airport and the kids maneuvered ... read more

Geo: 37.0391, 27.4302While the dateline on these entries says Bodrum, all our entries (for the most part) going forward are from Gundogan. We visited Bodrum briefly yesterday and it was really a madhouse. The don't call it the Monte Carlo of the Aegean for nothing! That place was hoppin' with discos and upscale restaurants. All the prices on the boards went from lira to Euros and Pounds. We also heard a lot more English.Josh: Today we hung out at the villa in the morning. We found Special K at the Kipa and we ate that for breakfast. We walked out to a beach that we didn't usually go to. We had more fun there than at the other beach. I liked it better because it had two rafts, it was great for snorkeling, there was a ... read more

Geo: 36.9575, 27.131This is information from our host. It's about a holy day that is celebrated today:Kandil It is necessary to add that Turks have a personal way of following Islam. A great number of Muslim Turks will enjoy a nice alcoholic beverage, smoke cigarettes and make the most of the "good things in life", though taking care not to do these during religious occasions such as Ramazan (Ramadan) or the Kandil. This is, of course, an unofficial declaration on your researchers part.Ramazan is the holy month when for thirty days a good Muslim lets nothing pass his/her lips during daylight hours; no eating, drinking, smoking or even licking a postage stamp. Some restaurants and nightclubs are closed during the month of Ramazan. Mosque festivals are called Kandil, which means Candle. It is so called because ... read more