Bayram Vacation, Part 5: Ephesus

(Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, & Part 4.)

Another exceptionally cool thing about the resort we were staying at is that it was only 10 minutes away from the site of ancient Ephesus by public transportation. It was so amazing to see this historic, beautiful, biblical site! We were very happy that Elias gets to say he got to go there, even if he probably won't remember it.

Justin and Elias in front of the Great Amphitheater

Elias and me inside the Great Amphitheater (See Acts 19 for one thing that happened there!)

We went fairly early in the morning (for Turkey, at least), but we were surprised how many people were already there. This is obviously a destination for tour groups, and it's easy to see why. This place was cool.

The Temple of Hadrian

Elias and me in front of the Library of Celsus.

Looking down on the commercial market

Elias and Justin in front of the fountain outside the Amphitheater

An unexpected thing about Ephesus was that it was absolutely full of stray cats! (Most places in Turkey have too many stray dogs for there to be many cats about.) Elias, of course, adores cats, so this was definitely his favorite part.

Elias trying to climb onto a ledge to visit a kitty inside the Library of Celsus.

At one point, I put my backpack down to get some water out, and I was immediately accosted by a meowing cat who tried to get in my backpack! This seemed like strange behavior until we later saw this man who was carrying around a bag of food and feeding the cats. When I put my bag down, the cat must've thought I was him!

  

Justin had been to Ephesus in 2009 but was glad to take his family this time. We didn't get to hit Selçuk to see the Church of John, House of Mary, or the Ephesus museum, so perhaps another time.

Bayram Vacation, Part 4: Waterpark & Beach

(Read Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3.)

The Aqua Fantasy resort had an unbelievable waterpark! It is one of the biggest in Europe and also the biggest and safest in Turkey. (Even so, there were still a few slides we would never see in the States!) However, as mentioned previously, the water was too cold for us to enjoy it much. We only spent about an hour there.

Justin & Elias standing in front of some of the big slides as soon as we entered. I've never seen a water slide like that yellow one before! People would drop down on a raft and then just slide back and forth until they came to a stop!

Elias overlooking the kids' section of the waterpark, which included that cool pirate ship!

Justin rode a few of the big slides, some of which had features you'd likely never see in the U.S. One was a snake-like tunnel that you rode in a raft, easy except it was pitch black. Elias and I enjoyed watching him go down this racer one from the bridge!

There was also a beautiful private beach that was part of the resort, but the waters of the Mediterranean were also a bit chilly. We did, however, have quite a bit of fun enjoying the various parts of the beach!

Elias loves playing in sand, and we had brought his bucket & shovel for that very purpose. The sand here was interesting - it was very fine and powdery, and it had glitter in it (apparently caused by mica)! So when we went to wash off, we were muddy & glittery! We had fun building sand castles and looking for shells, though!

The resort had this long pier we could walk out on. This was taken at sunset, which is why it's kind of dark.

Elias chillin' on a deck chair out on the pier.

The resort also had paddleboats we were able to take out in the sea. The water was only a little higher than my knees, so I just jumped out to take a picture of the boys in the boat.

It was so beautiful and so fun!

Click to read Part 5.

Bayram Vacation, Part 3: Pools

(Read Part 1 & Part 2)

As we said in our first post, this amazing resort had 10 different pools, but the water was too cold to spend much time in them. (The air temperature was mid-70's, which was very comfortable, but it made the water quite chilly.)

This was a little pool that had several kid-sized water slides, but Elias and Mommy both just preferred chillin' on the edge to doing the slides.

In one of the big pools "swimming!"

The one we spent a LOT of time in, though, was the indoor pool! Not only was it heated, but it had a majorly fun kids' section and a large water slide! There were three different sections: a 1-foot kiddie section, a 3-foot section where the water slide dumped out, and a deep section with lanes for swimming laps. This video shows the whole place well, and you can take a listen to Elias' response to all the fun:

Elias was also VERY proud that he could stand up in the middle section - he liked being able to jump in it!

He was even prouder, though, that he actually did the slide once! He wasn't mentally prepared for going under at the end of the slide, so he wouldn't do it again, but you should hear him talk about how he was a big boy who did the slide and then went UNDER the water at the end! :)

Click to read more: Part 4, Part 5

Bayram Vacation, Part 2: FOOD!

(Read Part 1.)

As I said in the previous post, the food at Aqua Fantasy was all-you-can-eat-and-drink. The buffets were incredible! Besides traditional Turkish food, they also offered more Western-style food than I had ever seen in Turkey before: things like fried chicken fingers, cheesy garlic bread, Italian pastas, rich desserts, and they even served sweet potatoes one day! This is the buffet room:

The four islands in the center were for Turkish salads, fresh veggies, soups/breads, and hot dishes. Then along the left side was a series of cooks making fresh items (like omelets for breakfast), and along the right side was a ridiculous dessert buffet.

They really worked hard to make the displays both beautiful and tasty!

I took this picture on Friday, the day they celebrated Kurban Bayram (the Sacrifice Holiday), and they had this whole roasted lamb there on the counter, and the guy was serving lamb meat there. I said it looked like "roast beast!"

Justin was exceptionally happy to be able to find foods he loved that I would never cook at home. I took this picture of him with the plate below on Friday, the day they served the Bayram lamb.

On his plate are rice pilaf, roast lamb, fried crab meat, sardines, and fried chicken livers. Hey, he was happy!

Then as if all the savory dishes weren't enough, we discovered a guy making fried ice cream for dessert!!

So in addition to the ridiculous buffets for three meals a day, there were also snack bars near all of the pools that were open in the afternoons. Every day for Elias' afternoon snack, we went to the one right outside our room and he got waffles with honey!

That is one happy, sticky boy. :)

This snack bar also served the best pizza I've ever had in Turkey, so I always enjoyed a slice of that for afternoon snack! So thankful for being provided this complimentary week of great food!!

Click to read more: Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

A Tale of Two Holidays

(Justin) The neat thing about Turkey is the co-existence of religious reverence and secular democracy. We experienced it firsthand this week: 

A local supermarket advertises options for your sacrifice holiday.

The Muslim world was geared up for Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, where Muslims celebrate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Ishmael. (FYI-- Abraham's birthplace is located in modern southern Turkey.) Schools, banks, and other institutions were closed last week from Wednesday to Sunday (plus Monday, see below). To celebrate, families typically gather together from all over for a large meal. There is often a live animal slaughtered for the meal and also for ritual sacrifice. For example, there is a large place on the western outskirts of Ankara (and other parts of town) where cattle and sheep are sold for slaughter and you can either take the cow up to the hillside to be sacrificed or pay for someone to do it for you. Other people will simply buy meat for the meals from their local butcher. Families distribute some of the meat to the less-fortunate, and there are charities that collect money for the poor if you aren't distributing anything yourself. Children may get candy and other sweets. Here's a good post by an ex-pat woman who has often taken part in the holiday rituals. Those who don't have family obligations seem to travel to the beach or elsewhere for a nice vacation, which is what we did.

Because Muslim holidays revolve around the lunar calendar, the holiday moves around and this year buttresses October 29th, Turkey's Cumhuriyet Bayramı or "Republic Day," which commemorates Atatürk's declaration in 1923 that Turkey was officially a republic. This is one of the biggest secular holidays in Turkey and an important day for Kemalists, those who want to preserve the legacy of Atatürk and his principles to guide the country. There are typically ceremonies honoring Atatürk at all the schools (even though they are closed, students and faculty attend a ceremony in the morning), a ceremony at his grave with air force flyovers, and banks and such are closed.

Banners of Atatürk like this one and Turkish flags will be flown all over town on Monday.

However, this year there was some clash of political ideologies. The current ruling government is not the party of Atatürk and is more religious conservative. They have made some changes to how Turkish national holidays are celebrated. This has led to some restrictions on marches and other demonstrations were planned for Monday. Ankara's mayor sent out a notice for schools to remain closed on October 29th and not to celebrate Republic Day until October 30th (as part of their normal school day). However, the school I work at is very Kemalist and held Monday's ceremonies as planned (after all, everyone had already made their travel plans around being back at school for the 29th).

In any case, it was interesting to experience two of the biggest holidays in Turkey together over the course of six days.

Bayram Vacation, Part 1: Aqua Fantasy

Justin mentioned in a previous post that although his job is difficult, it also has some amazing perks. Last week we received the ultimate of all perks - the school sent their faculty and families on a 5-day vacation to the Western coast of Turkey (a place called Kuşadası, near the large city of Izmir) over the holiday! All we had to do was purchase our airfare, and EVERYTHING else was covered for us. What a blessing!

Like father like son on the flight from Ankara to Izmir (both reading the in-flight magazine). It was just a 1-hour flight, then there was a 1-hour bus ride to get to the resort. Not bad at all!

We weren't sure exactly what to expect, but it turns out that this place was called Aqua Fantasy, and that is an apt name for it. This place really was beyond our wildest dreams! It's an all-inclusive resort where you wear a wristband that enables you access to everything the resort offers: hotel room, all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet for all three meals and snacks, 10 pools (indoor, outdoor, kiddie, etc.) with water slides, one of the largest waterparks in Europe, a beach (on the Mediterranean Sea), live entertainment, and much more. This resort is obviously geared toward foreigners - all the signage was in English, and almost all of the staff there spoke English as well.

There will be a long series of blog posts showing our vacation, so I thought I'd start with the accommodations.

Our hotel. (Image borrowed from here.) We actually never swam in this pool because the water was COLD and there were plenty of other options.

The place was just massive. It was a fair hike to get from one end to the other, and you can see in the photo above that there was a handy bridge across the center of the pool that took us from our building into the dining hall.

Justin & Elias on the bridge

We were given a Family Room, which means there was an extra bed for Elias, and his part of the room had rolling screens that could close and give privacy between the two sections. That was great!

View from the hall door. You can see the brown sliding doors in the middle.

Elias' section of the room also had a little couch that could've folded out to make another bed to accommodate more people. He just enjoyed playing on it. And there was a little table and cabinet that were perfect for his toys!

You can't see it in the photo, but the bathroom had a full tub, which is actually kind of rare in Turkey. A lot of places (our apartment included) only have showers. So this was a huge treat for Elias to get full baths!

They even had a complimentary fruit plate waiting for us! That's the kind of place this was!

Click to read more: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Kid Project: Cheese Fondue

(Joni) I thought that since some of our blogging audience is people who live in Turkey (or other international places), I would post things like recipes and fun kid projects - things that might be helpful for other expat mamas like me! So I'll include not only what we did, but also the Turkish names of things in order to help other mamas that might be trying to reproduce the activity here. Even if you don't live in Turkey, though, it might still be an idea for you!

My 4-year-old son doesn't like crafts, so it's sometimes a challenge to find fun projects to do with him. However, one thing he and I share is a love for cooking! So I try to do things in the kitchen that he can help with, and we have fun together. One kids' magazine we subscribe to and love is Highlights High Five (Huge thanks to my in-laws for receiving it and mailing it to us over here!), and each month they have a kid-friendly recipe. Elias and I have made a few of these (see one here), which are always fun and tasty too!

This Cheese Fondue recipe is actually from the September 2011 issue. Elias has been asking for months if we could make it, but we can't buy apple cider here, so I didn't think we could. However, the inspiration struck me that I bet we could make something from apple juice that would work, so I searched for a recipe. I took my inspiration from this recipe (by an expat in Germany!), but ended up pretty much making it up. I only needed 3/4 c. of cider, so I ended up just using 1 cup of apple juice and 1/2 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice (which I had brought from the US). I didn't want the cider to be grainy from the spices, so I emptied out a tea bag, put the spice in, and then folded and sealed it with a staple.

That ended up working VERY well to let the flavor of the spice into the cider without the spice chunks. (A coffee filter would work as well, but we use a French press for coffee and therefore don't have coffee filters on hand.) I simmered it with the lid on for only about 10 minutes, but it still evaporated quite a bit. I ended up adding more juice to have enough to make the fondue with. It was tasty, though!

So now that we have our "cider," here is the recipe. My comments are in italics:

Ingredients

• bread (I used 4 slices whole wheat bread. We also used some little cracker sticks - kepekli çıtır çubuk - for dipping too, which ended up being Elias' favorite part.)
• vegetables (I used 1 large cucumber, 2 small green peppers, and about 1/4 small head of cauliflower.)
• fruit (I used 2 large apples)
• apple cider
• grated cheese (This would be stellar with mild cheddar cheese, but we can't get that here. I used 1 c./2 slices Turkish Cheddar and 2 c. kaşar. The melted texture was a little weird, but it tasted great. If any of you Turkish folks try this recipe and find a cheese that works well, let me know!)
• cornstarch (mısır nişastası)

Directions
Before you begin: Adult: Make some toast.
1. Cut the toast, vegetables, and fruit into long, thin pieces. (We had brought with us Elias' Pampered Chef My Safe Cutter, and this was the first time he used it! He helped me slice the toast, cucumbers, and cauliflower with his own cutter!)
2. Pour 3/4 c. apple cider into a pot.

Elias mixing the cheese and cornstarch. You can see our beautiful plates of chopped items ready for dipping!

3. Mix together 3 c. of grated cheese and 1 tbsp. cornstarch. Adult: Bring the cider to a boil. Add the cheese mixture and stir over medium-low heat until the cheese melts. Pour the mixture into a small slow-cooker or fondue pot.(We don't have a slow cooker or fondue pot, so I just poured it into individual bowls and that worked fine. It ended up being the perfect amount for the 3 of us to have for lunch.)

Dip in!