Turkey, part 1

Wednesday, August 1, 2007
10:48 am

hello from Bodrum, Turkey! (quick side note to begin with--i´m on a turkish keyboard, and a few keys are switched around...namely the y and z, and i can´t seem to find the colon or semicolon, and the ´and - are switched around. so forgive me if instead of a ´you get a ä)alright, now onto my update! the traveling part of getting here was fairly gruesome...we flew from seattle to amsterdam, which is about a 9 hour flight, then had a 13 hour layover there, where we spent a few hours sleeping in a hotel in the airport, then had dinner and flew on to istanbul. we arrived there at about 2 am and didn´t get to bed until 330 or 4. granted, we weren´t quite on that time zone yet, but we´re getting there, and sleeping in amsterdam certainly helped with the jet lag. the next day (yesterday) we woke up and went back to the airport to take the short flight to Bodrum, which is on the Mediterranean.The family is very wealthy and because of that it´s a very spoiled trip. when we got picked up at the airport, Surreya (the father) was waiting for us right outside the door of the plane, and we took the stairs down to the tarmac, loaded into a plush van and were delivered to the VIP entrance where we gave Surreya´s helper our passports and baggage tickets, then just waited for all of that to get taken care of. we didn´t have to go through customs or anything. haha and then, on the trip to Bodrum, we went into the CIP lounge....we were critically important people! lol. Surreya´s family is all here in bodrum and we´re at a resort that´s kinda all self-contained. there is a watersports dock where you can sign up for waterskiing, tubing, wakeboarding, and all sorts of other stuff. in an hour or so Karen (the mother) and i are going to do water aerobics while Surreya takes Erin (the 10 year old little girl with cerebral palsy) swimming.Erin is truly a joy, most of the time. she has a great sense of humor and is usually very well tempered. when she gets tired it´s a bit more challenging, and i get tired pretty easily trying to be joyful and patient.Morgan is Erin´s 11 year old brother, and oh man, what a kid! he loves his sister more than i thought was ever possible for a kid to do, and he´s probably the sweetest little boy i´ve ever gotten to hang out with. he´s so helpful and well mannered and kind and funny and has a beautiful little smile.i´ll try to get some pictures up soon and i´ll update again when i get a chance.i´d love to get emails, just saying hi or of encouragement or prayers...i´m loving my trip and what an amazing opportunity this is, but i´m a little bit homesick, since i´m living with a family i barely know (they´re really great but it´s still a little hard)love hugs and blessings!Aly