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Anne has created a list on the Quick Facts page detailing how we’ve spent our different nights on the road. I got a kick out of reviewing the many different ways we’ve found rest throughout the trip and realized we’ve become flexible enough to handle almost any situation. Upon our departure last August, we were a normal, spoiled American family. Each kid was accustomed to his/her own bed and in the case of the big boys their own room. During our first two weeks I had an enlightening and humbling conversation with a man I met in church in New Zealand. He was thrilled by what we were doing and explained that he had tried to give his kids as much travel experience as possible on a limited budget. “We would pile all the kids (somewhere between four and six) into a van and drive somewhere in New Zealand for a week or two.” On these trips they couldn’t afford hotels but were all “happy to sleep in the van.” For the Andrus family that was unimaginable. At that time if you put us in a van, you would need to replace “happy” with “infuriated” and “sleep” with “all night leg wrestle.” However it was only a month later that we would be sleeping in a minivan outside the Australia Zoo.

We’re still not what I would call roughing it, but we’ve gotten much better at settling down and sharing a bed, a train, or an inflatable mattress. When our travel agent in India “forgot” to get us a hotel in Mumbai, our only option was to put the whole family in one double bed in a $130 hotel room. So we did. On the days when we were moving quickly through South Africa and striking camp early in the morning, all six of us slept in a 4-person tent. Many places we stay there are only three single beds or one double and one single bed. No problem. In no time three of us will be snoring and the other three will be enjoying their comparatively silent sleep. Of course this often means an extended check-in process at hotels or pensions as we try to convince them we can fit in one room (often a budgetary necessity). “It really isn’t that bad,” we explain. Most of the time we get our way, but as we’ve inched towards western countries, they sometimes get us with things like “fire-codes” and “hotel rules.”

Regardless of how small our rooms or tents have been we try to keep things in perspective. There are plenty of people around the world who sleep in far smaller spaces in far less comfort. When we arrived in India, we were shocked by how the children slept. Together 35 kids and four teachers shared six to eight woven plastic mats on a tile floor. They happily slept on the first floor while the six of us shared four single beds upstairs…at least during our first few nights we shared the four beds. Though it was winter, the temperature was still in the 90’s during the day and still stifling at night. The first night we had air conditioning, but the water running down the wall from the aircon unit didn’t bode well. By the second afternoon, it had given up the ghost and we were left to endure the night time heat the Indian way, with a ceiling fan. The kids and teachers on the first floor had a functional air conditioner, but they chose not to use it, claiming it gave the children breathing problems and really wasn’t necessary. Sticky, sweaty heat and tile floors are not the the ingredients for a good night’s sleep, but the kids and teachers had no complaints. After our third night of sleeping in pools of sweat, limbs sprawled and tongues extended as if we were dogs in a sauna, the kids moved to a thin blanket on the hard tile floor in order to be directly under the fan. If our kids are good judges, then beds and sheets don’t enhance one’s sleep as much as circulating air does.

When talking about our sleep, my size leads me to ramble about space. Anne would argue that space is not the big determining factor for how well we sleep at night. For her cleanliness, or at least a semblance of cleanliness, is paramount. She loved camping for this reason. She always knew our stuff–tent, mattress, sleeping bag–was clean. For nights of questionable hygiene, we have sleep sacks. These little silk or polyester sleeping bag liners have been lifesavers for us. Anne is small enough she turns hers into a chrysalis and emerges each morning unblemished by dodgy sheets and pillows. The kids have also been known to take their sacks out in situations where they would like to hide. They crawl inside and before you know it they are in a state of bliss. These sacks are what get us through situations like “the diarrhea motel” in Thailand, the “roach train” in Vietnam, and the many nights we slept with the lights on in an attempt to keep the bugs that come out in the dark from crawling into Anne’s mouth.

Whether it is a lack of space, bugs, or putrid smells, our family’s ability to sleep in diverse locations has changed radically on this trip. This was never an intention of ours, but it is an interesting and useful life skill that should serve us well and prepare us for many future adventures. I think I hear Antarctica calling.

Technorati Tags: india, sleepingbags, Round-the-world, RTW, sleep, Sleepsacks, tent

As some of you may know from my mom’s recent post, my Grandma and Grandpa recently arrived in Turkey for an eleven day visit. They are both teachers from Utah. One teaches multimedia production, the other is a retired athletic director. They are great fun to be around, and although Grandpa Lou sometimes gets tripped up in his words, they are always fun to converse with. In the past McKane and I have had some funny trips with good ol’ Grandma and Grandpa. A few years ago we took a cross country road trip from Utah to Kentucky. We had many fun experiences including visiting a cemetery and having competitions to find the oldest grave, playing the alphabet game in the car, watching in amusement as Grandpa stopped the car abruptly and jumped out hopping up and down grabbing his legs because of a cramp, and visiting the interactive Mark Twain museum in Hannibal, Missouri (which isn’t so interactive unless you count sitting on a fake river raft and watching a 60’s Huckleberry Finn movie interactive). We were all excited to temporarily become ‘Eight in the World’ and waited at the airport in Izmir with great anticipation.

When they finally arrived, we immediately had some new memories added to our repertoire. As my mom often says, “The world isn’t Tom-sized!” because our dad bumps and scrapes his head everywhere and has a hard time fitting in most cars, trains, boats, planes, and busses comfortably. He is 6′2″, a giant size in much of Asia, but our grandpa is even taller–6′ 6″. Upon his arrival, he immediately commenced with the head banging. First came the car trunk, clunk. Second up was the top of the small opening of the door to the car, thump. It’s true that the world really isn’t built for the large. We joked around and caught up for the next few hours. When we got to the hotel all of the Six were excited due to the fact that the grandparents had brought some goods from home. We tore into the suitcase like ravenous wolves and retrieved the loot. For Asher there were some much needed new clothes, for Kieran new shoes (his Indian ones were falling apart and he lost his American ones in New Zealand seven months ago). For Mac there was a jar of Skippy peanut butter which he has since devoured. For me there were some old clothes from home and a hat. For everyone there were some Skullcandy headphones. Everyone got some earbuds. McKane and I got some beastly sick, over the ear, DJ headphones and the parents got some noise canceling ones. We gorged ourselves on the delicious See’s peanut brittle they had brought us and watched our Oprah episode they had brought for us on DVD. Then somehow in the mix of things a recent Oprah episode about poop came up. Grandma told us Oprah devoted an entire hour to discussing the usually delicate issues of scatological functions. We couldn’t believe it, but now one of the most common phrases we quote is, “You should pass gas fourteen times a day and create a no embarrassment farting zone.” We then played some Italian card games we’ve picked up along the road with Grandpa. The first few days of our experience with Grandma and Grandpa went something like that with the exception of seeing some of the world’s biggest and best preserved classical ruins at Ephesus.

But soon it was time for us to leave the comfort of our hotel in Selcuk and head out to see some of the other things Turkey has to offer. First we headed to the house of Mary only to find it costs a whopping $10 a person. $80 seemed steep, especially since there’s speculation as to whether it was really her house, so we decided to cut that out of the itinerary. Instead we went to another museum with a rude attendant, took pictures with giant sculptures, ate some kebabs that tasted like sweat, and got the bright idea to go to Greece for a day. We booked our ferry tickets and headed for Kusadasi, the city where the ferry would take off. Here we played some more cards which is always a surefire way to get Grandpa to slip into his old guy, farm boy phrases such as “Goodnight nurse” and “What in the Sam Hill?”. When all the card playing was done we went to sleep. The next day we headed out to Greece. Here we found everything to be better than Turkey. The food was delicious, the museums were much better, and the statues much bigger. The giant kouros was over 15 feet in height. We slowly made our way around Samos and spent most of our time eating and soaking up the Greek sun. We sat on benches in an open area and watched in horror as Kieran and Asher mauled a pigeon with their shoes. We told them to stop but they continued to set up more elaborate traps for the pigeons. They even went to the point of filling a box with chips and waiting behind it. When the pigeons would come, they would clamp the box down on them. Eventually it was time to go and we peeled Kieran, Asher and Mac from the pigeons. We hopped aboard the ferry and headed back into Turkey. The next day we would be driving towards Troy and Galipoli.

That night we played a few more games of Scopa, and then went to bed. The next day was long. We drove for hours, and unlucky Grandpa was sitting in the back with us kids. Eventually he broke and yelled “I gotta get out of here!” due to the fact that Mac was kicking him, Asher was on his lap, and Kieran was screaming that he was hungry. We stopped at Ikea of all places, ate some Swedish meatballs, and let the little kids vent some of their energy at the ball pool. Grandma searched for some souvenirs and me and Grandpa got some ice cream. We hung around for a while and then were off to Troy. Grandpa opted out of sitting in the back seat and was replaced by Grandma, who has a much easier time in the back since she is much smaller than he is. We drove into the night until we arrived at a nice looking little American place in Assos. We decided that we would splurge because Grandma and Grandpa were here and so we stayed there. You can read my mom’s post for a full recount of the nightmare that followed. Here we continued our streak of playing cards and Grandpa finally won a game. By the time we were finished it was one in the morning. Our grandparents aren’t like most: they stay up till one, two, three or four regularly. Our grandma has some supernatural ability to go without sleep for days and not feel any effects. So when they came we were sucked into their cycle. Nearly every night we were up till at least one or two and on the last night in Istanbul until four or five.

After seeing Troy and Gallipoli (see my mom’s post), we moved on to Istanbul where we would be spending the bulk of our time with Grandma and Grandpa. We checked in at the lovely Zeugma Hotel and decided to lull around the hotel for a little while. We played some more cards (the next few days would be dominated with card playing) and my dad checked out some of the pictures he had taken with my Grandma. We saw all the amazing sites, the Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the Sultan’s Palace; you name it, we saw it. But it was in the Grand Bazaar where we had our funniest experiences with the grandparents. Our grandpa is a very tall man and is constantly stretching out his legs. He had gotten in trouble before for putting his feet on things in Turkey (the bottoms of feet are considered unclean there) at museums and such but none compared to what he experienced at the Grand Bazaar. Here he leaned up and put his foot on a small table which was displaying fake designer handbags. The owner of the shop, a short, fat man, came running out yelling “What is this? What is this?” as he put his leg up in the air and pretended to rest it on some imaginary table. My Grandpa took his foot down and said, “I was resting it. I’m tired!” The man shouted back, “This shop is my pleasure! You want me to put my foot on your head! You are a very rude man!” (the entire time his voice was getting louder and louder, and the expression on my grandpa’s face getting angrier and angrier) My grandpa threw up his hands and said, “I’m sorry!” We all burst into laughter as he came walking over muttering something under his breath. What none of us could understand is why this small fat man could even think of coming out and yelling at a 6′ 6″ NFL alumni who looks terrifying when angry. Believe me my grandpa is the last person you want to be angry at you. Some other shopkeepers came by saying, “Don’t mind him. His wife divorced him. He is aggression problem!” We told grandpa this and he responded, “I don’t care.” We all laughed heartily again. I talked to him a little later about it and he told me “When that guy told me, ‘You want me to put my foot on your head?’ I wanted to say, ‘If you can get it up there, go ahead, buddy!” Another classic Lou Andrus quote for the road.

Grandpa also bonded with a few Istanbulers. There was a little restaurant not too far from where we were staying. Here there was a young man, a big one, who tried to to get us to eat at his restaurant every time we walked by. We always ignored him thinking that his restaurant was just another crummy, overpriced tourist restaurant. When the grandparents arrived, we decided to give into his pleas and eat at his restaurant. We were surprised to find it was delicious, some of the best food we had had in Turkey. Grandpa became good friends with the staff and they nicknamed him ‘Dada’, Turkish for grandpa.

When it was time for grandma and grandpa to go, everyone hung their heads. Kieran wanted to hide in their suitcase and Asher tried to get in their cab to the airport. Their time with us was like experiencing a little bit of home, or at least getting a little closer to what home is like. It was a much needed break from the perils of traveling. We will all have loads of new stories to tell and the experience of going out of country with them was worth the trip. How many grandparents would meet their kids in Turkey? Who would have ever thought we would be meeting ours there? Not us. But we were glad for it and were missing them five minutes after they had gone. Well, goodbye you old timers! See you this Christmas.

Technorati Tags: Ephesus, Family travel, grandparents, Greece, Kusadasi, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Samos, Selcuk

While in Istanbul, there are many entertaining things to do. Shopping with your Grandma is just one of them. But where to shop with your Grandma? There are many places all throughout the area of Sultanahmet, including the Grand Bazaar, the Arasta Bazaar (right by the Blue Mosque), and many stores on the street. Although it is hard to find cheap places, you just gotta keep searching,
a place three stores down from an expensive place can be half the price. My Grandma and I encountered this in the Arasta Bazaar. There were some items that she liked, so she had me bargain for them. (She doesn’t really like to bargain. It’s also hard because she dosen’t know the exchange rates.) I got them down from half the original price, but I still didn’t feel like it was a good price.

After the goods were purchased, we went 3 doors down to a shop that had the same things. We asked for a price and they were one third of the original price of the first store! This made my Grandma sad. She went back to the first store and said, “Shame on you! Right down the street they’re a third of your original price!” not in a mean voice, but I still felt a little embarrassed. Then the shop owner said, “I don’t want you to be mad, I want my customers to be happy. The man down the street is not a good man. He wants to be mean and put me out of business. I say one price and he makes a lower one.” I thought, “So why does that matter?” He gave my Grandma a bracelet but she was still pretty disappointed.

If you’re looking for big shops with lots of items, then you should go to the Arasta Bazaar, but if not, go to the Grand Bazaar. It’s my favorite. There are hundreds if not thousands of little stores with lots of different things, while the Arasta Bazaar only has around 20 shops. Right before we went to the Grand Bazaar, we went to the Hagia Sophia, so the non-shoppers were forced to go to the Bazaar with us. Grandma, Kieran, Dad, and I are the shoppers; the rest are not. While we were trying to find what to do with the non-shoppers, Grandpa got a cramp so he had to rest his leg. He found a nice wooden box to rest his leg on. After he was done resting the shopkeeper came out and said, “What is this?” putting his foot on the box. “This shop is my pleasure. What if I put my foot on your head? My pleasure!” Since my grandpa is 6′6″, the thought of the small man getting his foot up there was real funny.
A few minutes after this happened, the shopkeeper across the path explained to us that the man was going through a divorce and that he’s not getting many sales, and not to worry about our Grandpa. When we decided there was no where for the non-shoppers to stay, we let them go back to the hotel, including Kieran. Dad told all the shoppers to get in a picture and all the non-shoppers to get in a picture. Kieran was tired and wanted to go back, but he wanted us to know that he was a shopper, so the last words he said before he left were, “I’m a shopper. I just don’t want to shop. Because you know what I want, an onyx elephant”

So the shoppers and non-shoppers went their own ways. The shoppers went deeper into the Grand Bazaar, while the non-shoppers left the building. As we trekked deeper into the bazaar, there was one set of items that really caught my eye, knives. If you’ve never been to my house before, then you probably don’t know what I have in my room. Well, I’m going to tell you. I’ve got a samurai sword from Japan and a knife from Spain. I want to have a collection of knives and swords from all my trips, but all the cool ones in the bazaar were over 200 dollars!!! It’s because they were made out of silver, but I didn’t care about the silver. I cared about the design on the silver. I didn’t care if the knives were steel. I wanted steel. But we couldn’t find any good ones.

My Grandma also had her eye on mutiple things, but because they are presents for family at home, I don’t think I should type what they are. But when she found the ‘items’ she had me and Dad try to get a good price. One store didn’t have a good price, so she left the small room. The exit was very narrow, and on the way out, she knocked over a little bowl. She just walked away. I wondered why she didn’t turn around and help the shop owner. So I went up to her and whispered, “Grandma, you just knocked that bowl off with your bag” She had no idea what she had done. She ran to the storekeeper and helped him pick it up. She also said that she would pay for it, but the shopkeeper told us that he doesn’t work that way. Out of guilt Grandma decided to buy some of the small bowls like the ones that she knocked over.

Then we went in search of the cheap part of the bazaar where someone told us we could get sweatsuits for 5 dollars. So we went to the place that he told us to go, outside the grand bazaar, left, and follow the path. We didn’t know that he meant sweatsuits, ugly clothes, and ‘ritual’ outfits. So we left there and went back into the Grand Bazaar. We found some fun presents, so look out Luke and Harry. We also got presents for all the other cousins. When we were inside the bazaar, I found a very nice knife. I got it down to half the price, so Grandma called it my birthday present and payed for half. Dad payed for some, and I payed the rest. So now it is sitting somewhere (hopefully safe) in my Grandma’s house. But we couldn’t find Kieran’s onyx elephant. We found one that we thought was onyx. The man said it was, but it was glass. The man said “What? It’s real fake onyx. You want to buy?” We left him and his fake elephants but the stores were all closing so we had to leave the bazaar.

It looked like we wouldn’t be able to get Kieran’s elephant, so we took the tram back to the stop closest to our hotel. It was really close to the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. On the way back we ran into a pretty big window, and in the window was an onyx elephant. We ran inside to get it. It was half the price of the bazaar, but it was a no bargaining store. We thought it was a good price and figured that we wouldn’t find another one, so we bought it. It was the last sale of the night. We were tired so we set off for home where all the non-shoppers were waiting for the shoppers to return.

Technorati Tags: Bargaining, Family travel, Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Shopping, Sultanahmet, Turkey

We have been in Turkey during a time of rising tensions which has provided a great opportunity to discuss politics with the kids. Below is a short political diversion from our travel blog based on these discussions.

In three weeks in Turkey we were able to get only a cursory view into the lives of the people of this great and unstable land. The country amazed us with its western-ness. In Istanbul and the western coast, it is easy to forget you are outside Europe and not in Italy or Greece. But the minarets with their frequent calls to prayer, the women with their headscarves, and the constant barrage of salespeople eager to barter remind you this is not the West. If it sounds a little confusing, it is, not only for tourists but also for the Turkish people and apparently the government as well. Turkey is a Muslim nation but officially a secular state comprising Turks, Kurds, and some smaller minorities. (The Greeks and Armenians were pushed out or traded long ago.) Different groups latch onto different aspects of the society in shows of patriotism, ethnic pride, or religious devotion. It is a country on the edge and the ubiquitous military presence reminds you things are always bubbling under the surface.

During our last two days in Turkey I was able to get off the tourist track and see a little more of the everyday existence. I didn’t plan to spend time wandering around suburban Istanbul, but Anne and the kids needed more pages in their passports, a job that falls into my realm of responsibility. After searching the neighborhood where the guidebooks said it was supposed to be for over an hour, I finally discovered the consulate had recently moved to a new location almost an hour outside the city. In order to get back and forth between the tourist center of Sultanahmet and the new building, I could either pay 50 lira ($35) each way to take a taxi or 5 lira ($3.50) to take a combination of public transport–the tram to the funicular to the metro to the bus. On our budget, the latter won out. During my two trips and the hours I spent wandering the non-touristed neighborhood outside the consulate while waiting for the passports to be processed, I tried to pay attention to the different groups I passed. Devout Muslim women in Turkey wear a headscarf which covers all their hair. Others wear headscarves with hair showing as a fashion statement rather than an act of contrition or acceptance of the words in the Koran. Based on an informal count of headscarves, the number of devout Muslims was much higher than I expected. As the center of secular Turkey, I assumed most Istanbul women would be wearing jeans and sporting modern hairstyles, but this was not the case. A good 1/3 to 1/2 of the women appeared to be wearing religious scarves.

These women are just one sign of an increasingly Islamic Turkey. About 30% of the vote currently goes to religious candidates. If this group gets much bigger, it could become a majority, and the Turkey we know could change dramatically. Of course this group claims it wouldn’t change from the secular path the country is on, but most of their opponents disagree. As an outsider I do not know all the ramifications of Turkey heading in an Islamist direction, but the secularists are afraid of the changes it would bring. This is a hard area for Americans to understand. We separated religion from government early in our founding. We retained our Christian heritage, however, and it would be hard to argue that America is not a Christian country. Our particular battleground for determining just how Christian is our courts. We accept the rule of the courts, which occasionally remove what most would consider good Christian practices or icons from our society, but we also fight to protect the right of minorities to worship in their own way, free of oppression from the majority. The result is that we have created a free society where people practice religion as they see fit, for the most part harmoniously.
Turkey walks a much thinner line. There is little peace between the secularists and the Islamists. The secularists are the majority and have long oppressed the Islamists. Turkey has a founding father– think of Jefferson, Adams, and Washington all rolled up into one. They commonly refer to him as Ataturk, or Father of the Turks, a name granted him by the government during his lifetime. When he established modern Turkey in the 1920’s, he essentially banned fundamental Islam. Women today are still forbidden from wearing headscarves if they work for the government or attend government schools. In addition, the current government has outlawed political parties considered too extreme. Despite the difficulties and hurdles to being a strong Muslim, more Turks are choosing to follow an increasingly religious lifestyle. For many of them this is difficult since they almost have to choose between their country and their faith. This is not a choice people should be forced to make–not Christians in the Sudan, Buddhists in China, or Muslims in Turkey.

At least this is the way I felt before the trip. I was raised in a religion that teaches us to respect secular laws, even when those laws are flawed. I grew up in a country where we are taught to respect each other regardless of our differences and that we all have personal freedoms we protect for each other. (I recognize we are not always consistent, but that is the hope and the hope is worth repeating.) I now realize that not all countries and religions think this way, including some segments of Islam. I had hoped it was only the fringes that were incompatible with the modern world. I wouldn’t want people to think all Americans are gun toting maniacs shooting up schools and malls, even though a tiny fraction of us are. Likewise I don’t expect all Islamists to board planes and fly them into buildings, even though a tiny fraction of them have. The difference is all Americans think shooting up schools and malls is deplorable, but a small and not insignificant portion of Muslims do not think terrorism is deplorable; some even think it is laudable.

I don’t have the knowledge or the time to understand why some Muslims feel this way, but I do know their belief is not unique: India has Hindu groups just as uncompromising and intolerant and even some of America’s fundamentalist Christians fail to follow Christ’s example of tolerance and forgiveness for all. I do know that if a religion is not going to tolerate others’ beliefs and puts faith above law, there will always be problems. As far as I can gather this is why even though Turkey is a Muslim country, it is so afraid of becoming an Islamic state. Sharing borders with Iran, Iraq, and Syria and in close proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the examples of what happens in a radicalized Islamic state are abundant and frightening. Even as passing travelers, we can sense the difference between the secular Islamic states like Turkey and Indonesia and the officially Islamist ones such as Egypt. The former are rapidly becoming important players on the world stage, building strong economies, improving the lives of their citizens and giving them all the modern day marvels to which we have grown accustomed over the last 50 years. This progress makes most of the people in these countries happy, and they regularly demonstrate and will perhaps even fight to keep their states secular. In contrast, those who are unhappy have been working hard, especially with the poor, to move their countries to a more radical position. If the Islamists get their way, Turkey could be in trouble. The track records of its neighbors stand as bleak reminders of the years or decades the country will fall behind and the freedom that will be lost if secularism fails. Iran is certainly the extreme, but its religious government now dictates hairstyles and enforces them through police action. This week over 1,000,000 of Turkey’s 65,000,000 people took to the streets to protest the presidential candidacy of a religious politician. Their actions show they understand the consequences of a move toward theocracy and also that there are no simple answers to their situation. We will watch from afar as this still young country fights to preserve democracy and pray it can figure out how to give freedom to some without losing freedom for all.

Technorati Tags: Ataturk, Ataturk’s Reforms, Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Secularism, Turkey, Turkish Protests

To set off an adventure like ours, you have to be willing to take some heat. Many of your friends and family will question your sanity and some will doubt your ability to follow through on your plans. We never allowed the skeptics to stand in our way and got used to the “you must be crazy” looks whenever we discussed the trip outside the safety of our own home. One of the first questions critics continue to ask is “But what about school?” Well, what about school? At home, school is a building where the kids spend their days learning facts and skills that will help them enter adulthood. On the road, school is a round the clock, everchanging experience, a 7-day-a-week field trip that teaches them more about the world and themselves than they could ever learn at home. We make sure that in the down times they are completing their core subject work, the big boys through BYU online courses and the little ones with us, but the rest of the time the world is their learning laboratory. By experiencing it first hand, they are gaining an appreciation for peoples, politics, cultures, and history most adults never do. They are also learning that the world is not something to be feared but rather to be embraced. They now know that just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it can’t be done and just because something seems foreign or uncomfortable doesn’t mean you can’t learn to love it (or at least tolerate it).

For those who still might argue their education is deficient, I offer three days in the life of the Andrus kids. After leaving Ephesus, one of the world’s largest Roman ruins, they took in another series of ancient sites surrounding the city of Bergama, known long ago as Pergamum. The Greco-Roman complex perched on the hilltop reminded us that great advances in art and scholarship occurred thousands of years before we were born and more than a millennium before Shakespeare, Newton, and DaVinci. At the base of the hill they walked the perimeter of the Red Basilica, once a temple to the Egyptian god Serapis, and widely believed to be the building John deemed “the seat of Satan” in the Bible’s Book of Revelations. He also singled it out as one of the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse, a heavy distinction borne out by its current creepy vibe. A few more kilometers down the road, they saw the Asklepion, the world’s first psychiatric hospital and onetime home to Galen, a pioneering surgeon of the second century whose techniques were thousands of years before his time.

Their classical civilizations lesson for the day was complete, but this particular site presented a lesson in modern history as well. Situated in the cusp of a narrow, shallow canyon, it is flanked by a full-on military base. Signs warn visitors that taking pictures is forbidden and serve as a not so subtle reminder that Turkey sits smack dab in the middle of one of the most politically and militarily volatile regions in the world. When McKane was back home in school, one of his teachers swore Guam was in the Caribbean. He’ll never make such a mistake. He knows Iraq and Armenia are across the border to the east and Bulgaria is to the north. He knows the military is currently threatening to flex its muscles against the government if the possible president takes a religious stance in this country that has been stolidly secular since Ataturk proclaimed it so in the 1920’s.
Pergamum was just a stop on the way to an even more significant destination for the Andrus kids: the ruins of the legendary city of Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, the place where men believe Helen gazed across the Aegean longing for her Greek home, or if you believe the Brad Pitt/Orlando Bloom version, fearing her return to her husband King Menelaus. For centuries scholars doubted the existence of Troy and shrugged off the Trojan War as lore. But in the late nineteenth century, Heinrich Schliemann, a fervent amateur historian and archaeologist, believed he had figured out the location based on Homer’s descriptions. He started digging in northwestern Turkey and when his site proved barren moved to another archaeologists’ site not far away. What he unearthed and partially destroyed over the next 20 years were the ruins of not one but 9 different cities, each a different iteration of Troy covering a different period of history. Some scholars now claim that the 400 year gap between Troy VII and Troy VIII points to a decimation of the population such as caused by natural disaster or war…specifically THE Trojan War.

Whatever you believe about the site, The Iliad remains of the world’s greatest epic poems, if not the greatest. Both Dax and McKane read it in 6th grade (3 years ago for Dax and this year for Mac) and could create vivid depictions of the once great city-state in their minds as we ambled the jumbled ruins. This was difficult since there was little left and like Ephesus, the shoreline has moved many miles to the west after millenia of silt deposit. Oddly enough, the highlight for many visitors, including the busloads of Korean and Japanese tourists we encountered, is the replica Trojan horse built in the 1970s. We joined in for some photographic fun before heading off for our next destination, a site that even though only an hour and a half away from these ancient ruins would catapult our history lesson into the twentieth century.
We spent the night at a fabulous new boutique hotel, the Abydos, in Cannakale and then took the ferry across the Dardanelles to the famed battlefields of Gallipoli. I thought Dax, our resident military historian who has a penchant for World War I, would be the most absorbed by the site, but it was the older members of our group who found it more compelling. Like all good students, we started our field trip at the information center, where we giggled at the silly plaques that explained the history through a poppy flower mascot.

From there we drove Captain Starex (our rented Hyundai van) out to one of the most visited sites, the ANZAC landing point. We had read that the peninsula was worth visiting strictly for its natural beauty and this spot quickly confirmed that. Bright red plastic stadium seats blocked the view but we forgave their intrusion on the landscape given that a few days later there would be a sunrise service commemorating the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC troops). ANZAC Day is a national holiday in both distant countries, and each year thousands of Kiwis and Aussies make the pilgrimage to Turkey to honor their forefathers’ wartime sacrifice.

The battles that raged on the peninsula for eight months were horrific for both sides, and the Allies and Turks collectively lost over 200,000 thousand men on the beautiful, rolling hills. No matter where we drove, we found cemeteries and memorials marking the locations where men had fallen, poignant reminders of the cost of war. Probably because of our Western origins, the simple crosses and stone walls resonated more with us than the bright yellow stucco Turkish constructions. Though we naturally gravitated toward the Allied memorials, we visited the Turkish ones as well.

We wondered how modern day Turks feel about the continuous stream of foreigners whose forefathers shed so much Turkish blood but quickly found our answer in the words of Ataturk, who first gained fame as a commander on the fields of Gallipoli.

Those heroes that shed their blood
and lost their lives;
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
and the Mehemets to us where they lie side by side
here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers,
who sent their sons from far away countries,
wipe away your tears;
your sons are now lying in our bosom
and are at peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have
become our sons as well.

What a moving lesson in healing and forgiveness for our kids, one that will hopefully influence them in the way they approach the world as adults. I don’t know how they could have learned it more effectively in school.

Technorati Tags: Asklepion, Cannakale, Family travel, Gallipoli, Pergamum, Red Basilica, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Troy, Turkey

If ever I were in charge of a large civilization and wanted to expand my territory, Turkey would be at the top of my list of potential conquests. It is uniquely located, the gateway to Asia or Europe depending on which way you are heading; the landscapes are scenic enough to keep you interested as you march through, and the fresh produce is delectable. Of course, I would not be the first person to lead my army across the Anatolian plains. Since the dawn of recorded history, this region has been traversed, conquered, and lost. if the inhabitants don’t like their current occupier, they need only wait a couple hundred years and a new one will pass through. All these conquerors and civilizations make leading one’s family across Turkey much more interesting, as it truly is the crossroads of history.

I have long looked forward to visiting Turkey. Two of its wonders have been at the top of my list of places to visit for years. The first is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. This building has sparked my imagination since I took an art history class during my first semester of college. In a booming Ivy league baritone, our ancient professor, perhaps the world’s preeminent scholar on architecture, gushed effusively about this building. He spent an entire lecture enlightening us on the wonders of this marvelous sacred space and the profound influence it would have on the great cathedrals to be constructed 700-1000 years later. The second is Ephesus. This well-preserved Roman city was once a hotbed of activity for the early Christian church. Both Paul and John spent significant time here and the inhabitants of this city were the recipients of a letter from Paul later to become the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. Little did I know that these sites would be only the beginning of the history we would brush up against in our short time in Turkey.

Initially we had hoped to be in Ephesus for Easter, but we delayed our visit so we could have Grandma and Grandpa with us. This was a wise decision, since it turned out to be a highlight for all of us. The grandparents barely had time to recover from their 4 flights and 36 hours of traveling before we had them exploring Ephesus. We couldn’t have picked a better day. Spring has just sprung in coastal Turkey. The flowers are blooming and the heat we had heard others complain about is still a good month or two away. We took this lovely weather as a reason to slowly peruse the ruins. The three younger kids led the way as they climbed and jumped from what Asher called “launchers.”

We explored whole sections of the ruins that were not well traversed. The grass growing on the paths was our first sign that possibly we had stepped out of bounds. The chains and the “Do Not Enter” sign we approached from the wrong side confirmed our suspicions of trespassing. But much like a skier at the bottom of an out of area bowl, we shrugged and considered ourselves double lucky, once to have experienced it and second not to have been caught. After foraying out of bounds, we sat down in front of the library facade and had a nice lunch of feta, figs, dried apricots, walnuts and olives.

We sat for a long time and talked about the history of the site and enjoyed watching the various nationalities of tourists who passed through. After about an hour we got moving again and made it about 100 yards down the path to the large auditorium. Again we sat and watched as different groups found their own ways to enjoy the ruins. Some passed through quickly, herded through their by their tour guides, and bobbed their heads trying to quickly absorb all the theater had to offer. Others ran the stairs and celebrated with Rocky-like triumph as they reached the top. The most interesting however was the Turkish dignitary. Moments before a small group of “important” people entered the auditorium, a group of muscular men wearing dark suits and earpieces ran onto the stage and assumed watchful positions at the different exits.The important men stood around for a few moments and then made moves to the exit. The secret service men sprang into action and ran to better advance positions. All the while we sat and chatted, speculating as to the identity of those being guarded.

As we walked out of the ruins, we talked about how different life was 2000 years ago and how much things have changed. We stared down the street that headed to the old harbor. The water was gone. The silting process has now moved the ocean a good mile off into the distance, but the colonnade was still there with its rock path and large pillars on either side. Blocking our way was a big “Gilmiriz” (Turkish for Do Not Enter) sign. Another trespassing adventure crossed our minds, but with more Roman, Greek, Trojan, and even an Australian site to come, we didn’t press our luck and instead headed down the prescribed exit path.With all the Turkish police and secret service people running around, it was definitely a good idea to march along with the throngs of Korean and Japanese tourists.

Technorati Tags: Ephesus, Family travel, Roman ruins, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Turkey

We’ve been a little sneaky lately. We like to delay our posts by at least a week for a few reasons: 1) it helps us avoid potential stalkers and 2) we need a little time to process our experiences before writing about them. Given this usual delay, you might not know that Tom’s parents joined us just about a week ago in Izmir, Turkey. Aaaaaahhhhhh, grandparents. What could be better than adding two fun, vibrant people who love our kids to our traveling posse? Perhaps adding four or even six…but unfortunately my parents weren’t available this week.

To understand what their presence means to us, I should introduce you to my in-laws. Lou, Tom’s dad, is a giant among men, both literally and figuratively. A 6′6″ former pro football player, he cuts an intimidating figure on the outside but couldn’t be kinder or gentler on the inside. He would walk to the ends of earth and back for his family and in his retirement years has proven an invaluable member of our extended parenting team. Twice he has flown to Atlanta to take care of the kids: once while I took a research trip for a book I was writing and another while Tom and I took a work-related cruise. I don’t know too many 60+ year old men who could singlehandedly change diapers, cook meals, clean house, and manage homework for four kids for seven days without a) being institutionalized or b) burning down the house, but Lou came through with flying colors. He even tackled a long list of handyman projects I had accumulated that neither Tom nor I could ever seem to complete.

Tom’s mom, Lorelie, is a force of nature unlike any other. At a petite 5′2″ (the perfect height we share), she is the perfect complement to her towering husband. A soon to be retired high school multimedia/commercial art/video production teacher, she packs enough energy, creativity, and enthusiasm into her small frame to fuel the entire family. People often ask why I take the kids to Utah for six weeks every summer. My answer: Camp Grandma. In Lorelie’s company, every day is a new adventure, a new experience, a new endeavor in family bonding. Tom and I had to check out of our normal lives and take the kids thousands of miles around the globe to replicate what Lorelie is able to accomplish daily at home. Whether it’s shooting a family movie, hiking a nearby mountain, painting miniature metal warriors, planting a flowerbed, or assembling an obstacle course in the backyard, she is selfless with her time and tireless in her efforts to make things both fun and meaningful for those around her. In fact, as I write this from a cozy corner of my Istanbul hotel room, she is 10 feet away playing a fierce game of “Don’t Eat Pete” with Kieran and Asher.

Getting the grandparents here wasn’t easy. We loaded them up with requests for luxury items from home–things like No More Tangles spray, Eastern Europe guidebooks, Skippy peanut butter, boxer shorts, and skull caps for the South American winter–which kept them busy for weeks. When they finally took a pause in their shopping duties, they realized that one of them might not even be coming. Though both had applied for their passports well in advance of their departure date and even paid the expedite fee to speed the process, the State Department had somehow managed to bungle Lou’s application. After a dozen calls and as many different versions of what had happened to it, he correctly concluded the Passport Agency had lost it. So on the day before his flight to Turkey, he flew from Salt Lake City to Denver to submit a new application and receive his passport in person. He got back to Utah by midnight which afforded him just enough time to go home, finish packing his bag, and return to the airport at 6:00 am.

Despite the chaos and 29 hours of flights and layovers, Lou and Lorelie arrived in Izmir with smiles on their faces, supplies in their suitcases, and energy to spare for their long lost grandkids. From the moment we herded them into our rented van, our already fulfilling trip has become even richer, even funnier, even happier. None of us can keep up with Lorelie, who consistently functions on four hours of sleep, but as long as we’re all awake, we’re laughing, learning, and building memories. A favorite game has become, “Let’s get Grandpa to talk like an old guy.” The strategy is to subtly provoke Grandpa to slip into generational idiom speak. Unpleasantly surprising him can lead to a “What in the Sam Hill?” while bugging him can bring on a particularly emphatic, “Good night nurse.” Beating him at a hand of Briscola is certain to elicit a rousing “Son of a Gun.”

Grandma is always good for a game of Uno, Go Fish, or charades, and will stay up until 3:00 am reminiscing or telling stories about our family history. McKane has been amazed to learn that his great great great grandmother dated Jesse James, his great grandpa was an avid coin and stamp collector, and he (McKane) liked to flirt with women on the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade when he was a toddler.

Asher and Kieran have perhaps benefited the most as both grandparents are an easy mark for buying popsicles and tchotchkes and prove willing to carry tired little people through ancient ruins and city streets alike.Tom and I made it clear from the beginning that everyone would have to toughen up and self propel for the duration of the trip, but one look at Asher’s face after scoring a ride from a grandparent reveals that no one filled the older generation in on this rule.

The past week has been one of the best of our lives and certainly one we will never forget. Enlarging our family circle (and pyramid) for a short time has reinforced our primary purpose in leaving it all behind for a year: strengthening our family. And while we would love to become “Eight in the World” rather than “Six,” Spring Break is coming to an end and Lorelie’s students are eagerly awaiting her return.

Technorati Tags: Bonding, Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Travel, Turkey

Irony is a cruel teacher. I composed the last post about Esbelli Evi from a basement room in the Eris Pansiyon in Assos on the Aegean Coast. Little did I know as I gushed about the wonderful setting and impeccable service in Cappadocia that an hour later I would be arguing with the proprietors of my current hotel and having a distinctly different experience. Before I begin to rant, I should emphasize that much of the blame for the argument rests with me. I apparently misunderstood the owners on the night we arrived, a mistake that cost us $150 in the end (a huge amount on our tight 11-month budget). What was so discouraging about the experience was that we, the customers, were made to feel as if we had somehow inconvenienced the proprietors and bore sole responsibility for the misunderstanding. The difference in attitude from Cappadocia where we were appreciated as the raison d’etre for the establishment and afforded every courtesy could not be starker.

So here’s the story. After spending four nights in fabulous, inexpensive hotels with Tom’s parents (more details on those days to come later), we faced a long travel day and did not know where we would be ending up. We played it by ear and at 9:30 pm pulled up to the Eris Pansiyon, the first hotel we encountered in the small seaside village of Assos. I had read in the Lonely Planet that the rooms were “fairly ordinary” but that the owners were American, and I thought it would be nice to learn their story. Lou (Tom’s dad) and I went in to check things out. The small stone buildings looked cozy and the owners, a retired couple from Long Island, seemed personable. They quoted us a rate much higher than our standard, but I was willing to live with it in exchange for a quaint, intimate experience. They showed us two small basement rooms–one that slept 4 people and another that slept 3 (Asher doesn’t need her own bed). Here’s where the misunderstanding comes in. They explained the rates for the rooms, which were steep given their condition, but they promised a good breakfast and a pleasant setting. I assumed that the rates were inclusive for 7 people, the number of people the rooms were designed to accommodate. They went on to explain that normally they charge 20 Euro for an extra person, a price that “barely covers the cost of breakfast,” but that Kieran and Asher would be free. I figured this meant we’d just pay the price of the rooms and consider ourselves lucky to not have to pay the extra person fee for our eighth person. What they really meant was we would have to pay 20 Euro ($27 going on $40) each for Dax and McKane, but I wouldn’t discover that until the next morning.

I should have sensed that things might get difficult when the husband asked that we please all have our eggs the same way so as to make things easier for his wife, who also served as the cook. Or when the wife explained that the heaters would not warm the frigid rooms until after we had left the following day. Or that when we opened the bathroom doors, we were assaulted by a strong sewer smell. The breakfast thing turned out all right, as the wife proved willing to make more than one style of egg and was a proficient chef. The cold thing was tough since the extra blankets they brought were so musty they sent three of us into sneezing fits. The sewer thing wasn’t unbearable, but none of us showered out of fear of acquiring the stink on our person. (Lorelie, Tom’s mom, burned a Harvest scented Yankee candle all night which she had brought from the States for just such a scenario.)

To be fair, the rooms were clean, but the beds were the worst we’ve had thus far in Turkey; they made a plastic crinkle noise when we rolled over and we could feel the springs in our backs. We’re not spoiled and are more than willing to suffer to save a buck…or a Euro…or a lira. What we’re not willing to do is pay a premium for lackluster accommodations that leave you with a kink in your spine.

The next morning, after a poor sleep, we found some compensation in the hearty, tasty breakfast the wife prepared for 7 of us. According to their “barely cover the cost” calculations, it cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 to prepare, so perhaps this shouldn’t have been a surprise. When we went to check out, the husband produced a handwritten receipt and quoted his