Bugs and butterfly-babies

The various bugs that swept through the Georgetown student group during the 9-day Orientation have taken our family down domino-style since our arrival in Alanya.  Bryan, Booker, me.  Seamus is the last man standing, for now.  The good news is that Booker and I got the mellower version of Bryan’s flu-like virus.  We are able to go about our day, slowly and with brains full of fuzz.

I admit that there are a couple unpacked bags lying in corners and I have not done a good job cleaning the grime from our floors, but I can say that a nice daily routine is starting to take shape.  Here’s what a good week day might look like: 

I wake up before Bryan and take a run along the beach promenade before the scorching sun streams out from behind the 6-story pastel apartment buildings and hotels that line the seafront.  Back for breakfast at the apartment with the family, which so far had included a 35-cent (!) oven-fresh baguette from the little bodega downstairs and bit of nutella. 

At 8:30am, Bryan, Betsi and Alan catch their ride to teach for the day up at Georgetown’s Ottoman-era villa up on the rocky promontory (which I can’t wait to explore and photograph).  Meanwhile, the boys and I walk a block to the beach with only a kanga, flip-flops and water bottle.  They body surf while I watch them from farther out in the ocean, bobbing gently in the waves with the other bobbing heads who can be heard speaking German, Turkish, Russian and various Scandinavian languages.  The Mediterranean, by the way, is apparently saltier than your typical sea, and your body is really buoyant.  Laying on my back (when Bry is there to watch the kids) with eyes closed is the closest I’ll ever come to zero gravity. 

We arrive back to the apartment by 10am, where I spend 3-4 hours juggling the 3^rd and 6^th grade studies for the boys, hoping I can keep up with the hard-driving curriculum of North Chevy Chase.  While they read, I manage to squeeze in some work for HIP every day.  Wednesday and Friday will be my big work days. (Bry often has those days off).  Back to the beach at 4:30pm for an hour more of body surfing and wave bobbing.  We all have enormous appetites with all this beach-going, so I spend a lot of time firing up our propane cook-top.  The best home-cooking discovery so far is Turkish red lentil soup, which is easy, healthy and the boys actually love it.  Another great discovery is that children are willing to wash dishes when in a Turkish apartment with no dishwasher.  No doubt this is context-specific behavior, but I can’t help but entertain fantasies about a new kitchen routine back home. 

I’ll close out this post now, and since I haven't take the camera out on the streets of Alanya yet, I leave you with this picture of the 3-D wall art that hangs on our bedroom wall here in our Alanya apartment: