Turkey

I realize for some readers this time of year is "turkey time" but that's not what I am referring to in the title.  I mean the country.  The glorious, beautiful country to which I have longed to make a visit for years.  Years.
And I got less than a day.
Am I complaining?  Not exactly.  It was my choice after all.  Sort of.  Didn't I agree to this trip?  Yes I did but I harbored a secret, highly unrealistic fantasy that I could somehow alter the itinerary once we arrived in the country. I more or less forgot that there were 4,000 other people and an entire ocean liner that had to be taken into account. Because we were visiting this port as part of the aforementioned cruise so this was not the typical Ionescu trip wherein we could switch up the plan just because there was another restaurant we wanted to try or just because Leigha desperately, desperately wanted to stay longer.
No folks, that was it.  One day.
The first half was spent visiting the ancient ruins of Ephesus which happily satisfied my cravings for all things antiquated and biblical.  I didn't have to go to Jerusalem with 500,000 other Jews, Muslims and Christians, I just got it right there in tiny, underpopulated Ephesus.
We didn't opt for any organized land excursions.  For one, we aren't that organized and the idea of having to be at a specific place at a specific time sort of runs contrary to my idea of a vacation.  Also, I find that a great deal of the tour guide's lecture content does not interest me.  Not that I am more cerebral than other people, on the contrary, probably I am less cerebral so I find myself thinking "la la la la" while the tour guide provides information on how many tons a certain stone pillar weighs.
This is in no way intended to disparage land excursions.  Point of fact was that I was very impressed with them (albeit from a distance) because I could see how greatly they would benefit the aged or someone without much stamina.  The cruise staff are very accommodating to those folks and make sure they can get the most possible out of the sites without winding up crippled or in intensive care.  There's a lot to be said for that.  When I am aged or if I put on another 60 lbs I will no doubt book the first land excursion that comes my way.
But for now that's not really our approach to traveling.  We don't know how to visit a place unless by the end of the day we've logged a minimum of 10K on foot and at least one member of my family has a blister, leg cramp, or has had to hold their urine for 2 or more hours.
So no organized land excursions.
Instead we got a taxi to drive us the 30 km to Ephesus and along the way the driver found out we are living in Romania.  His fluently broken English switched to fluently broken Romanian and he told us with tremendous enthusiasm how much he loves Brasov and of his plans to spend this coming Christmas there.  Somewhere during the discussion over which city is more picturesque-Brasov or Sinaia-he apparently decided that we were the sort of folks who do things in rather backward fashion (maybe something about leaving the States to move to Romania) and told us that he was going to drop us off at the bottom of the site and pick us up at the top so that we could avoid most of the crowds.
And he was right.
We suffered a few moments of confusion trying to figure out where to go to get tickets (seeing as how we were at the bottom of the tourist site) but we were assisted by the local restroom clerk/saffron seller who held up his yellow-stained hands as proof of the seriousness with which he approaches his profession.  The saffron-picking I mean.  The restroom clerking is apparently a side job and I chose not to think about how his hands are involved with that since we bought saffron from him.
In any case, we had the ancient site of Ephesus almost exclusively to ourselves for the first 3/4 of the morning until we met up with the descending tour groups.  It is shocking how 1,000 people can make an open-air hillside feel so incredibly cramped particularly when they are all trying to take photographs of the same thing you are trying to photograph.
Fortunately we had seen just about all we needed to see at that point and were able to put the camera in the bag and worm our way through the throngs of fanny packs and orthopedic shoes.

The fact that I spent the second half of our day in Turkey shopping comes as much a surprise to myself as anyone. But apparently that's what you do there. (is that really true, Vanessa Jackson?  Surely not)
I wanted to see some mosques but the only religious site that was offered close by the was the tour of the House of the Virgin Mary.  No thank you, after Italy I've had more than my fill of the edifices of Christendom.  I wanted to balance it out by touring religious buildings from another monotheistic faith like Islam.  But the most I got was a drive-by on the way back down the mountain although it was noon so I could hear the call to prayer which was almost as good.  It's a very moving, almost haunting sound and I did my best to block out the Romanian chatter of our secular driver who told us he has little to no interest in religious things.
So much for my mosques.
Then it was onto lunch where we had some wonderful seafood and in particular I had the best, hands down the best (sorry Barcelona) garlic shrimp I've ever had which didn't photograph nearly as well as it tasted.
We also had some perfectly fried calamari, a glass of raki and Turkish coffee.  The coffee wasn't anything new in itself since you can get it easily in Romania.  Still, drinking Turkish coffee in Turkey is not an event one passes up lightly.

Then it was time to shop.  And shop.  And shop.
Mihai bargains with ease because he's not only been to Turkey before but he was raised under communism and that somehow prepares one for this sort of thing.  Either that or being from New York.  But I'm a Californian and we don't behave this way.  We just pay whatever price is listed and wish everyone a nice day and skip out of the store while secretly wishing we were visiting a mosque instead.
I can't deny that we saw some beautiful stuff.  Like rugs and tapestries and towels and other large, heavy things which we did not buy even though the proprietors assured us that they would ship it to our house for free, even if that house was in California and even if we weren't going to go back there until the spring of 2012, it was NO PROBLEM MADAME!  However, we figured Marius and Monica would not appreciate UPS delivering box after box of rugs and other merchandise they would have to stumble over for the next five months.
So instead we bought scarves (lovely but far more ho-hum than a 3-meter-squared silk and wool rug) for the wonderful Teo and other good folk here in Obedin.
And instead of trying kebabs as planned, we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find a very specific hat for Lucian which he had to have and has yet to wear.  Mircea bought one as an afterthought and it has hardly left his head.
Ah, the inconsistencies of children.

And then it was back to the ship.
No blisters, no mosques.
However, Luci almost wet his pants and my shoulder ached from carrying the bags with scarves which has to count for something.
One day I will get to wear my feet raw and bloody on the streets of Istanbul.  Everyone must have a dream, right?

Cruising

Warning: the events detailed in the following posts are not necessarily presented in chronological order.  The writer of this blog is not responsible for any confusion this may cause the reader.

In May of 2010 we sent Pia and Silviu on a cruise of the western Mediterranean.  Unsurprisingly, they loved it.  As soon as possible they wanted to go again, this time with us.
In the meantime Mihai and I were trying to figure out the best method for transporting ourselves to Turkey and in the middle of one driving-versus-flying debate someone suggested an eastern Mediterranean cruise.  Herein seemed to lie the solution to everything.
Except I've never really pictured myself as a cruise sort of person.  Ladies who order rhinestone covered sandals off QVC are cruise people.  College-age Americans who drink themselves into embarrassing stupors at each port and crawl back on board like feckless reprobates are cruise people. None of my footwear sparkles and I disapprove of public inebriation so what business did I have taking a cruise I wondered?
I have friends who have cruised before and they tried to disabuse me of my misconceptions by pointing out that there is far more to it than wearing sequined garments and vomiting in trash cans.  "They've got basketball courts and arcades for the kids." they assured me. "There's a theater on board." and then the clincher:  "There's an all-you-can-eat buffet."
Mihai was sold, the kids were sold, and I was left to battle it out with that relentless affliction of mine: claustrophobia.
Who remembers watching The Love Boat back in the early 80s?  I recall some wizened adult looking over my shoulder at the TV screen and commenting "Cruise cabins aren't like that at all.  They're the size of match boxes and they stick you in the hull." For the past 30 years those words have been stuck in my brain and once Mihai actually paid for the tickets I started losing sleep over them.  I checked to see how much diazepam I have left in my panic-attack stash (turns out it expired two years ago but I still use them-I think the correct term for this is the placebo effect).
I considered going to the doctor to get a prescription for few preloaded syringes of lorazepam, 1.0-2.0 mg each which I could carry around with me and inject as needed like diabetics do with insulin.  Or something like an epi-pen only instead of a bee sting it would be the sight of the sleeping quarters that would send me into shock.
I wondered if worse came to worse if I would be allowed to sleep somewhere on the deck or if I would have to hide myself under a tarp like a stowaway.
On our last night in Rome I was tormented by images of dark, airless holes and kept sticking my head out of the bathroom window to suck in air as if I could somehow store it for the next six days.
Then we got on board and I saw the room.  A window.  Above sea level.  A bathroom almost as big as the one we use upstairs in Obedin.

Did I feel stupid?  Yes.
Having an irrational fear of something is really a drag.

I found out my friends really weren't exaggerating: there is a basketball court and a movie theater as well as miniature golf, pools, jacuzzis and a running track which, had I known I would have brought my running gear so I could have used it.  Its been far too long since I've broken a sweat over anything other than worrying over sleeping in small spaces.

Since I had no running shoes the only thing left to exercise was my brain so I spent most of my free time in the library where I ended up meeting a lot of nice people who were neither binge drinking nor wearing anything that sparkled.  It ended up being my favorite part of the ship (Luci joined me when the card rooms got too full of "old people playing mahjong")

Second favorite place: the dining room.  Mostly for the unexpected pleasure of meeting yet more very nice people who work on board: Indians, Filipinos, Turks and, lo and behold, Romanians which was actually very cool since one of them was our waiter.  What are the odds?  (actually there are a lot of Romanians working on cruises so the odds are not bad at all that we would meet a few but I didn't know that beforehand)

The dining room was awesome except for the fact that it aways made me feel like I was dressed like an unmade bed.  Guess I should have packed with greater care or paid more attention to The Love Boat.

 A few views of the boat.  Population and square footage-wise I think it's bigger than Obedin.

Views from the deck.

Needless to say, I can see why my in-laws were so thrilled the first time around.

Rome

When in Rome: drive on crowded streets, get on crowded buses, eat in crowded restaurants, visit crowded tourist sites.  Then go to your friends' home and relax and enjoy yourself in the peace and quiet that can come only from a private residence.
Yes, we drove on the streets of Rome.  We received many words of warning from well-meaning friends who had witnessed the madness.  But they'd never driven the streets of Craiova or Bucharest and while I have no interest in creating a competition between whose city streets are the most harrowing and where it requires the greatest amount of courage and/or insanity to get behind the wheel, let me just say that there was nothing in Rome that I hadn't seen on a Romanian road already.
Rome has scooters, Romania has wagons and potholes large enough to bury an average sized farm animal. I think that makes them even.
So...Vatican, fountains, restaurants filled with shouting waiters and shouting patrons (it is Italy after all) and all sorts of old and important stuff which we saw on a night tour with Sorin, Ioana and Paul (marathon walking that was) while the kids stayed back home with Sergio and Ioana's parents and they all watched soccer matches and played video games.  A perfect arrangement for us and them the although they missed getting gelato but I won't tell if you won't.

Rome by day and Rome by night is lovely but this is where the magic really happens:

at home with friends.  Can't beat it.