Thanksgiving in Turkey

This was the first time any of the Hassan kids had been on an airplane. “It was awesome!” said Braden. “You could get peanuts for free, you could listen to music, you could watch videos on your own little mini screen right in front of you!” As soon as we arrived in Rome we went to rent a car. The lady at Hertz stopped us with a look before we could get to her desk. “We don’t have anything big enough for you,” she said. We went to every rental agency before we found one with a 7 seat van. It was tiny by American standards, barely fitting the six of us and our six small suitcases and backpacks—one of many times we were glad we packed light—but we still had to do three point turns to get down each level of the parking garage.

The first city we visited was Civita Castellano. We walked through the city on old cobblestone streets, had a picnic in the park. It was the first of many feasts of baguettes and pesto, Italian yoghurt, whatever fresh fruit we can find, and prosciutto.

“Florence is beautiful!” says MarKaye. We looked at a ton of statues, and Braden says “Every single statue we saw was naked, practically.” Well, we knew the trip would be educational. Stopping for a breather on a terrace outside the Uffizi museum, MarKaye and Kate held an impromptu photo session. A little silly, yes, and we felt like such tourists, but they were some of the best photos of the trip.

In Florence the kids tried their first gelato. Yeah, they’re hooked. There were far too many choices, so everyone got two different flavors and we tasted everyone else’s. Our favorites were lemon and mint. Mmmmmm.

We drove right into Venice. And right back out. There is really no place to park, so we drove to the next town and took the train in. We had fun getting lost in the winding streets. There were no crowds, and the flooding hadn’t hit yet. It was a beautiful day. We sat down in what we thought was a remote spot to eat our daily baguettes and pesto, only to discover that it was a major route for gondolas. “Hi, don’t mind us.” We got to know the pigeons at St. Mark’s square. Never mind that Wendi was humming “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” Kate named one Sammie. It was her favorite with a brown speckle over its right eye that pretends to limp in order to get food from tourists. MarKaye and Kate bought earrings with Venetian masks on them.

From Venice to the Cinque Terre, where we walked the seaside trails connecting the five cities together. It was good exercise and we managed to find some pizza and focaccia bread at one of the few places still open so late in the season.

Dennis took the kids on a whirlwind tour of the fountains and monuments of Rome while we waited for our train…in the rain with the umbrellas safely tucked away at the train station. Oops. But we made our train to Civitavecchia and made our way to the boat. MarKaye and Wendi got seasick and couldn’t finish dinner. We bought some motion sickness medicine and went to bed early.

Everything we had heard about food on cruises was true. After three days of foraging in cities where eating was the last thing on the agenda, having plentiful food available all day long and five course meals in the evening was heavenly. Braden got very fond of shrimp cocktail and asked for fries with every meal…the best was fries with lobster tail...and he covered the fries with Tabasco sauce, which our waiter started to bring him without being asked. Kate always tried the bravest things, usually choosing something different from anyone else: vichyssoise, cold fruit soups, you name it. Our favorite desserts were the Bananas Foster (though not as good as Carolyn Brooks’), caramelized apple tarts, and green apple sorbet. Everyone but DeLane ate escargot. It tasted like an overcooked lump of pasta. Wendi had hoped that after eating snails, Braden would expand his palate to try onions and tomatoes. No such luck.

This is Petros the Pelican, mascot of Mykonos, Greece. There were two pelicans basking in all the attention, buthe attacked Dennis while we were trying to get a picture. Braden got to pet him, but nobody else was brave enough. There are interesting windmills on Mykonos. We hiked all over the city and Dennis took hundreds of research photographs, which will come in handy if he ever gets to design “Mama Mia!”

European dogs liked us. In Rhodes one escorted us from the center of old city to the boat. He might have tried to go with us but when the ship staff asked us if he was our dog, we said “No,” and he said “Stay, dog.” It’s a good thing because we don’t think he would have gotten along well with our cat Paris. There was a big castle with a dry moat and we walked along the bottom of it. There were amazing lizards sunning on the outside wall of the moat. They were well camouflaged. Braden was the first one to see them, and once we saw one, we saw tons of them. Some looked like regular old desert lizards, but there were some big ones that looked like little dragons. We walked through new city and looked at the beautiful new houses and followed signs to the ancient ruins of an acropolis, a stadium and a circus (for chariot racing). Then we followed the crest of a steep ridge, with spectacular views of the ocean, down to the beach and chose our favorite rocks and seashells. Most of the rocks were worn smooth and round.

To get to civilization in Santorini you have to climb 488 steps, rent a donkey or wait in line for a gondola. We decided against the donkeys because they looked a little stubborn, and sure enough, we passed a few people flailing their legs against the sides of obstinate beasts. Great workout, but we had to watch our footing. We took a bus to Oia, a small town on the northern end of this crescent shaped island that is the remains of a blasted out volcano. Braden found a donkey marionette that entertained us all while we waited for the bus back to Fira, where we started.

Traffic in Istanbul was so bad that we decided it was easier to talk the 2 kilometers to and from the dock than to take the 20 minute shuttle that ended up taking well over an hour. We visited the grand bazaar and the spice market and the meat market (which grossed Kate out big time) and bought the girls a dress. We visited the blue mosque, but had barely gotten through the line when the bells for prayer rang and we had to leave. Braden had watched a documentary on the ship about the basilica under the Haggia Sophia and when we went down to see it he told us all about it. We toured the palace and the harem and the Haggia Sophia—in its heyday the largest church in Christendom and an amazing building.

We got a cab driver to take us from the Kusadasi to Ephesus, which used to be on the sea, but centuries of sediment have locked this ruin firmly inland. Our favorite building was…drumroll…the library; a magnificent multistory façade that would have looked out over the ocean. Ephesus, of course, is where the Ephesians of the New Testament lived and a possible site for the writing of the Gospel of John. Tradition also has it that Mary, the mother of Jesus, lived in Ephesus and it is a popular pilgrimage site. Our cab driver had a deal going with a Turkish carpet manufacturer along the way and dropped us off for a polished sales pitch (they give him drinking money) and we saw silk harvested from silkworm larvae, spun and dyed and tied into elaborate rugs while we sipped apple tea (really just hot apple juice).

One of Braden’s favorite things about the trip was that when we were in Kusadasi, Turkey, we saw the emblems of the Turkish flag in the sky. There was a crescent moon and a bright satellite or star or planet right to the left, inside the crescent, so it was backwards from the real Turkish flag, but it was very impressive. We’ve never seen anything like it. And crowds of people stopped to stare at it. On our way back to the boat one of the policeman said “Did you take a picture of the star and crescent today?” We nodded, he smiled and said “Give me five bucks.”

Athens was a whirlwind. We darted from the Acropolis to the Archeological Museum, visiting several ruins tucked away in the midst of this thriving city. They are restoring the Parthenon with hand carved marble. We watched a few workers, one of whom was not wearing safety glasses, while chips of marble were flying in every direction.

We visited Pompeii in a driving rain, sharing a couple audio guides and the four remaining umbrellas. Pompeii seemed diminished after Ephesus and Athens, but because it was preserved under layers of ash, it gives a better idea of what everyday life must have been like, even if it is eerie to be walking through acres of what is essentially a graveyard. The kids took turns listening to the audioguide descriptions of the places we walked and then told us the highlights. We returned to Naples where we had Braden’s new favorite pizza…hot dog and French fry pizza. Naples is the birthplace of pizza (and the mob) so it was unnerving to see a local tradition so Americanized, but all the kids loved it. Wendi wouldn’t try it (snails yes, hot dog and French fry pizza no). We stopped into a beautiful church in the middle of a wedding, and stayed to watch for a while.

We were sure the good weather was gone after Athens. We saw the coliseum in the rain. Tour guides called out their offers in English until one of them noticed that Dennis was giving the kids all the background, and she said “Or you can just pay your dad five bucks.” Oooo. Good idea. We ate our picnic lunch of…you guessed it…baguettes and pesto, in the rain outside the coliseum, eerily reminiscent of our last camping meal in Jackson Hole, when we ate our baked beans in the middle of a downpour. By now the kids knew a lot of the myths that were the subjects of the paintings and frescoes. We saw the Vatican Museums and ended the day at St. Peter’s basilica, in time to see the most enormous Christmas tree lifted into place with cranes.

The weather cleared up so that our last full day in Rome was beautiful and perfect for visiting the Forum and walking around. We went to the Borghese Museum to admire the incredible Caravaggio paintings and Bernini statues. Then we wandered the city, stopping at an open Christmas marketplace full of street performers and a man dressed as Santa bumming a cigarette off a couple near us. Thousands of birds took to the skies and made beautiful patterns in the air as they wheeled and dived closer and then further away. Later we saw people scaring them away from the trees with large bullhorns that emitted the cries of predator birds.

We ate our last gelato, sad to leave Italy, but really looking forward to getting home!