We’re here! We arrived Monday night after a longer than expected trip compliments of a snow storm delay in Istanbul that had our
plane grounded on the tarmac for 5 hours.
There’s nothing quite like boarding a plane for a short one hour flight,
only to sit there…not moving…for 5 hours… with a cranky toddler. But, despite our delay, we arrived safely, as
did the pets. The pets were of great
concern for us the entire time and added quite a bit of anxiety to our trip. We had never traveled with them before, so we
weren’t quite sure how they would behave in transit. And considering they
almost didn’t come with us thanks to some silly new rules about forms, and some
extremely unhelpful people at a
nameless office in Virginia, we were just grateful the ordeal was finally over
and they were actually with us.**
B-cat decided to go on
a hunger strike for the first two days here, but thankfully he is back to his
old food-demanding self. And M-dog has
been barking a little too much and pretty much driving the neighbors crazy, but
she will soon adjust and chill out. We
hope.
E was okay during the
flights, although he barely slept and he started to lose it during that 5 hour
wait on the tarmac. But we were all
pretty much done and losing it at that point, so I give the kid a pass. Plus, he finally passed out just before the
plane took off, so at least there’s that.
We got to our apartment at midnight, gave him a quick bath, and put him
to bed where he proceeded to sleep until 2:30 the next afternoon. For those folks counting at home, that’s less
than 5 hours sleep in a 24-hour period, followed by 14 straight hours of
uninterrupted snoozing. I love that kid.
He has continued to sleep like a champ since then too. Let’s just hope it sticks.
I wasn’t quite sure
what to expect when we arrived in Turkey, so barring any preexisting notions
about…anything, really, I am quite happy with what we have experienced so far.
First off, our
neighbors are fantastic. There are two
FS families living upstairs in our building, and they both have young kids,
which is great for E. One couple has
been our sponsor for the past few weeks, and did a great deal to help prepare
our apartment, stock our fridge before our arrival, and even met us at the
airport (in the middle of the night) to transport us to our new home. They had us over for a delicious lasagna
dinner on our second night, and the generosity continued into the next day when
they helped me get around town to run some errands. I have also spent a couple afternoons with our other neighbor, casually chatting and sipping tea while our children played together. There's nothing quite like getting to know a foreign city from a new friend over a hot cup of tea. S and I are really excited
to live with (and for him, to work with) such amazing people.
The locals are also
extremely nice and very helpful, and as a whole, as far as I can tell, they are
genuinely kind. Yesterday I met with the
proprietor of a local daycare to see about getting E admitted into her
program. Her daycare came highly
recommended from others who served at this post, so I went in with high
expectations and was not disappointed. Although
a language barrier exists, I have no doubt that this will be a caring and
educational environment for E. And he
will likely learn to speak Turkish better than his mom and dad.
Our apartment here is
beautiful and huge. It is quite honestly
the biggest and nicest place I have ever lived in, and the views are
spectacular. Since we
are the first FS family to live here, there were a few kinks that needed to be
worked out, like, re-grounding the electricity for our stove. It kept shorting out every time we turned it
on, and would shut off the power to the entire apartment. And we had a minor
hot water issue that was cleared up in a matter of minutes. But otherwise, now
that those issues are cleared up, we can’t complain one bit.
S has been working
since we arrived, and he has been very, very busy. He loves what he is doing and he was excited
to finally get his hands dirty. The last
5 months of training in D.C. left him aching to get to work, and now that it’s
finally here, it’s no joke. He’s loving
every minute of it so far.
For now, we are all
happy, excited and looking forward to a little family time this weekend so we
can continue to explore the city together and familiarize ourselves with our
neighborhood. Pictures of the apartment
are coming as soon as we get our stuff!
**Basically,
our vet included both B-cat and M-dog’s final vet exam information on the same
form. Thinking all was good, we
personally drove this information to the only [nameless] office in all of VA,
DC and MD (a good 2 hours from where we lived in Arlington) to get the final
stamp of approval. Upon arrival, we were
told “two species, two forms” and were thus told they could not be
approved. This was 4 days before we were
scheduled to leave, and 3 days before we were scheduled to have our car picked
up for shipment to Turkey. Bottom line,
we naively took [nameless] office’s advice that they would have our vet
“overnight” new documents to them, and in return nameless would “overnight” the
approved forms to us in Arlington. But by Friday, the day our car was to be
picked up, those forms were still sitting unopened and unstamped in the [nameless]
office. So, we were forced to rent a car
and drive the 4 hours round trip to Richmond for the final stamps of
approval. We got it done, but oh boy, it
was frustrating. So, anyone shipping a
dog and cat, or cat and rabbit, or bird and dog, or whatever combo of differing
species you prefer, their vet exams MUST be on two separate forms, or they will
not be traveling with you. Or you will
be jumping through hoops at the last minute like we were. Oh, and all this cannot be done more than 15
days prior to your departure for post. That
combined with all the unusable/non-working holidays that occurred during our 15
days (Christmas and New Year’s) left us scrambling. Not fun, but it’s done. Thank goodness.
Congratulations on arriving in one piece! Can't wait to see photos of your apartment :) And I'm jealous you have American neighbors. On Friday night the dude upstairs passed out drunk and let his kids leave the bath tub running for hours (thereby causing a horrific leak in our bathroom ceiling at midnight). Hey, at least we don't have to pay for this stuff, right? :D
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