My Kids Torment Me!

So ever since my very rude encounter with a deer, (read about it here), I have had a slight deer phobia. It mainly manifests itself when we are driving at night on the dark roads around our house. Or more specifically when Chizz is driving and I am in the passenger seat. I always caution him to drive more slowly, so he can stop in plenty of time should any deer magically appear in front of our car. It has caused some tension in our family. Mainly because as Kiki & Chizz have both pointed out, my car was stopped when the deer hit it. You can't go any slower than stopped. True, true.

But I think it goes a little far when Kiki chases me through Pottery Barn or World Market or Target with deer ornaments. You don't see me chasing her with too small Uggs or used up Starbucks cards. I guess that is just because I am more mature and I can deal a bit with my phobias.

I think, however, she crossed the line the other night at dinner. In fact it was Christmas Eve. We were sitting down to enjoy a festive holiday meal. The family was waiting at the dining room table and I was busy getting some last minute items for the table. This is what awaited me at my place when I sat down:



It is one of my reindeer candlesticks with a little warning. Just rude, I tell you. Rude.

Sing-a-long

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

I love this video. Apparently it is causing quite a stir in the conservative community who apparently find its portrayal of the religious backers of Prop. 8 "offensive" and "rife with inaccuracies". Hmmmm. Apparently what goes around, does come around.

Who Says?

. . . .there is no fall color in California? This is a picture of one of the Japanese maples in our backyard. And it is probably a day or two after its prime. Usually the fall color in our backyard, the Japanese maples, the liquid ambers and the Chinese pistaches, times perfectly with Thanksgiving. We have dinner in our living room with all the windows and it is a bit like having dinner in the forest. But this year the trees are a bit off. It is December and we still have a few trees that a few days from being their most beautiful.

Okay, Fall done - now to Christmas!!!

Take That, Wendy!

Okay, car in shop. Preliminary estimate in. I am not worried, it was just a deer - not a moose. How bad can it be? Oh bad. $6500 bad. The insurance company estimate and the body shop estimate were off by a few hundred dollars, but abra-cadabra! That difference is going poof! And Wendy & Chizz are only responsible for the deductible. As I have said many, many, many times before (but for many, many, many other reasons) - "Thank God for insurance!" Because of the holiday, my baby will not be home for Thanksgiving. In the meantime I have to make due with the rental "car". I use the word cautiously because it is pretty awful. When was the last time you saw roll up windows in a car? I didn't even know you could get roll up windows still!! I am thankful I wasn't in this car when the deer hit me. I am fairly certain this car would have disintegrated.

For those of you keeping score, Wendy - 1, Deer 1.

Take That, Bambi!!

I hit a deer. Well not me exactly, my car. And to be precise, the deer hit me. I was picking Kiki up from school at about 6 p.m. and we were driving on a road very close to our home, when 2 small female deer ran in front of me. I wasn't going that fast so I was able to stop in time and didn't hit them. I was stopped for about 2 seconds when a third deer, a buck, came crashing out of the bushes and ran right into my stopped car. He bounced off my headlight and ran off in the same direction he came from. No one was hurt, except my car. Apparently a deer crashing against the headlight is not good for it. Who knew?

So I spent yesterday driving back and forth from my dealer to the auto body shop. At first, I thought the damage was relatively minor and the dealer that I bought the car at (only a few short months ago!) told me that they thought they could do it. But once I got there I was told there was too much body work that needed to be done. Like I haven't heard that before! Oh well, so my car is now at a body shop waiting to be worked on. The insurance adjuster has to go by and hopefully they will agree with the body shop as to the extent and cost of the damage. But I am fearful, you know how stubborn insurance adjusters can be! At least I know how stubborn they can be.

Karma may be a bitch in this case. I will let you know.

So Close

I have quite a bit to report on (Halloween, the breakup of the commune, the great college touring road trip) but not today. I am in a bit of a hurry because we are leaving on the aforementioned road trip in about 3 hours and as usual, I am running behind.

But I wanted to drop a quick line about the recent elections. It is interesting to me that in one election we show how far we have come as a nation, where we are able to judge other people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin (hmmmm where have we heard that before?) but in the same election, we show how far we have yet to go. I was hoping that Prop 8 in California (and other similar ballot items in other states) would be defeated but I was disappointed. It saddens me that in this day and age, after all we have been through as a nation and the crises we are in the midst of currently, we still have the energy to discriminate so blatantly. I was hopeful that I would see this end in my life time but I am beginning to lose faith in my fellow human beings. I am not quite sure they are smart enough, kind enough, Christian enough to do the right thing.

In Europe and many other countries, the government has gotten out of the "marriage" business. Every person , regardless of skin color, religious affiliation, social status, sexual orientation, goes to the local government agency and "registers" their union or their partnership. After a few words by the local government official (like a justice of the peace) in charge in the jurisdiction, the couple is considered legally "hitched". If after this exercise, the couple wishes a religious ceremony of some kind they go to their church, synagogue or temple, and have another ceremony. It would be up to the religious group to decide if the couple met whatever criteria the group has set up in order to sanctify or bless the relationship. The end.

I don't understand why we don't do something like this in the United States. We profess to be a country in which government and church are separate but that is not the case, in reality. Our government needs to get out of this issue. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of marriage. Been married for almost 25 years. My marriage is not threatened by 2 loving, committed, consenting adults who want to legalize their union. I have known gay couples who have been together for 30 or more years. They only want the same legal rights and benefits that I have. Straight people have had the institution for thousands of years, and we haven't done that well with it. What is the current statistic of marriages that end in divorce, 40% or so? We need gay people to help our numbers a bit. Marriage isn't threatened by gay people, we straight people are threatening it. As long as we continue to let stupid straight people get married as a "joke" (i.e. Britney Spears), get married and divorced within 4 months (Renee Zelleweger), have 107 day marriages (Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage), or a 9 day marriage (Cher & Greg Allman), apply for a marriage license while still married to your first wife (John McCain), I don't think we have any place to keep gay people from the tradition. In fact, given the mess we have made of the institution, I am surprised any self-respecting gay person would want to be affiliated with it.

I am convinced it will happen someday. And I hope when future generations look back on us, they aren't too embarrassed by our ignorance. I don't know though, I sure am.

Life in the Commune, Part III

One of the best things about living with a 3 year old is all of the fun things they do and getting them to repeat them over and over again. A sign of the season, Zabba has discovered candy in a BIG way. We have a little dish on the entry way table with candy corn in it and she found out she loves candy corn. She has a ritual now where she takes one candy corn in the morning before she goes to school (because 2 would be wrong) and puts in her hand and holds it almost the entire way to preschool. Then when the car goes up a particular hill, she pops the candy corn in her mouth. Every single day.

So she was discussing her love of candy with her mom the other day, and her mom, Auntie K., felt the need to counter balance the candy talk and start talking about "healthy" things to eat, like vegetables. So she said, "You know Zabba, I like vegetables. Peas are a vegetable, I like peas". Then she asked "What kind of vegetables do you like?" Zabba thought for a moment and said "Corn, Corn is a "wedgetable" - I like corn". Wedgetable!!!! Isn't that great? So Auntie K. just kept trying to get her to say it over and over again. "What else, what else do you like?" Zabba: "I like broccoli, broccoli is a wedgetable." What else? "Zucchini, Zuchini is a wedgetable, I like Zucchini."

You could play for hours.

Life in the Commune, Part II

Several days a week, Chizz and Uncle D commute into together. It is about a 4 minute car ride to the train station and it takes about 40 minutes by train to get into the city. We often joke that they must seem like an old married couple, commuting in together, sharing the paper, sometimes wearing almost the exact same outfit (khakis - check, button down blue shirt - check, ipod - check!), wishing the other one have a good day when they part and the occasional "See you at home". We live in a suburb of San Francisco where couples of all makeups are seen and accepted. The joke is at home that their fellow commuters on their route probably think they are a gay couple.

Well someone apparently does. Chizz and Uncle D got a piece of mail addressed to them together, one singular piece. It was a political ad that we are all seeing in our mailboxes this past few weeks, addressed to C. Whineberg and Uncle D. It would have only been better if it were a "No on 8" card!

Sadly, their marriage and the commune will be breaking up soon. Uncle D. and Auntie K. found a cute little house, not far from us that they will be moving into soon. Now I just have to talk them into leaving Zabba with us. Strangely enough, Auntie K. has moments where she says it can be arranged.




P.S. NO on 8.

Life in the Commune

While we were in London, Auntie K, Uncle D and their adorable almost 3 year old little girl, Zabba, moved into our house. It was a great deal for us, because someone we knew was keeping an eye on our stuff and we could come back summers to our own home and kind of step back into our routine each summer with very little effort. Truthfully, it made our experience in London so easy (not having to worry about our house back home) and we are indebted to them for helping us make it work.

Now that we are back, we are all living in the house together while they search for a new place to live. People ask us all the time "how is that working?", expecting I think to get some kind of dirt or a litany of complaints. Frankly, it has been pretty easy. We have been affectionately referring to our situation as "the Commune". It is fun in a way. There is always someone to hang out with, someone to watch the game with, someone to talk with. There are extra hands to load or empty the dishwasher, pick up the mail, grab the newspaper, make the morning coffee, take out the trash. I think it is helpful for Auntie K & Uncle D to have 4 built in sitters. I think the highlight of Chizz's night is when he comes in the door, Zabba runs to him, screaming his name and asking if he would like to play "baskieball". Which of course, he always does.

In fact having Zabba around is one of the highlights (not that K & D aren't cute in their own special way, it is not the same). She is always full of fun little comments. Like the time I was joking around with her about not walking on my white couches with her shoes on and a full juice cup. I asked her to jump off and like most kids her age, she asked why. Under my breath (I thought) I replied, "because I am going to kill you if you get something on them". But she just repeated "Cause you gonna kill me??" which she repeated quite often that day. "You gonna kill me?". Yikes. It reminds you that you have to be careful of what you say around little ones, they don't really get it. And who knows what she would repeat at preschool. "My auntie says she is going to kill me."

So the other night Snake and Zabba had a little confrontation. Sometimes she likes to exert her will and Snake likes to egg her on. So they were having a little stare down, finally Snake says to her "I am going to beat you in this battle of wills, Zabba". She thinks about it for a minute and says "I am going to beat you with this bottle of wine, Snake". Oh, Zabba. . . . Like we all haven't thought that about Snake!!

Not So Sweet Anymore??

Kiki turned 17 last week and we had a little party here last weekend. Actually, it was a joint birthday party with one of her friends whose birthday was 2 days after hers. Her mom & I figured out that we were in the same hospital at the same time. Kiki was born by C-section so I was able to stay - I think 3 but even still probably 2 nights. Kiki's friend was born after her mom had spent quite a few hours in delivery, so their paths crossed somewhere on October 4th and 5th. Pretty cool, shows what a small world it is.



So we had about twenty 17 & 18 years old over, and we had to think of a way to amuse them that was safe, legal and wouldn't end us up in jail. I specifically warned Kiki & friends, no intoxicating substances of any kind and spoke of dire consequences should I find any. It was a pretty idle threat, these are pretty good kids and while I am not naive enough to say that I don't think any of them have had any experience in this area, I don't think they have gotten to the stage where they believe that they can't have fun without something of an intoxicating nature or in others words - 45. We just had to think of something to keep 'em busy. So we devised a scavenger hunt, by car. We had a list of some 40 things that they either had to bring back with or take photos of. The limit was 12 photos and the items had various point values assigned to them, which the kids didn't know in advance. There were no bonus points for finishing or coming back first and we had a flexible return time. We didn't want young teenage drivers rushing to try and get back for some kind of time limit. The other rules? They couldn't buy anything, they couldn't go to their homes or anyone's homes, they had to obey all driving laws, they couldn't steal or take any item without permission. They did a good job. We didn't have an expectation that they would get all of the items but they came back with quite a few. Some of the items they had to get? A McCain Sign (tougher than you think in this Obama neighborhood), California state quarter, a house for sale flyer, picture of the team with a waiter, a pumpkin, and the list goes on. It was a good way to start the evening, a good icebreaker and the kids had a good time seeing some of the creative ways the other teams obtained items and they all had stories to tell. We are a bit fearful that their classmate that works at the local grocery store might be in trouble at work since all 4 of the teams went there and apparently he was quite helpful to all of the teams. Not sure how much work he got done that night though!

Afterwards Mexican food, pin the tail on the donkey (hard to believe but the kids enjoyed it), cake, ice cream, pinatas and hot tubbing and swimming. The boys left at midnight and the girls spent the night. As far as parties go, it was pretty easy. My only job was the aforementioned liquor watch, staying out of the way when the food was served (people could get hurt!) and being invisible in a visible kind of way.

Next year, Kiki will celebrate her birthday at college. I am fairly certain I won't be invited to that party so it was nice to share this one with her. And yes, she is still pretty sweet!!

Retraction # 1 (Surprised there has only been one??)

I want to take the opportunity to correct something I said in my earlier post about our visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to visit their most recent great white shark baby. I had mentioned that we had tried a few times before to go and see sharks that had been on exhibit at the aquarium. But each time we have made plans to go, they release the shark back into the wild or it dies.

I was wrong about the dying part. I received a very nice comment from Mr. Humberto Kam, the Onlines Communications Manager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He points out that none of the sharks that they had on view had died while they were at the Aquarium. In fact the Monterey Bay Aquarium released the sharks back into the wild for their own benefit and apparently very successfully. To be truthful, I knew some of them had been released but I thought I had heard that one that was pretty sick hadn't made it but I apparently was wrong, very wrong.

So I stand corrected. Now those of you that know me well, know I don't admit I am wrong very often. Mostly because it rarely happens and on the slight chance I might be, I don't like to establish a precedent. But because I admire the Monterey Bay Aquarium so much, I decided I should print a retraction. I decided against just correcting the post because I am not really sure what happens in cyber-space once something gets out there. I thought I better put something out there to counterbalance my misinformation. Sort of a Ying-Yang thing, now the universe is balanced.

Not On Our Watch!!

Several times over the past 5 or 6 years, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has come into possession of a great white shark. At some point they put the shark on display and you can see it up close and personal. Monterey is about a 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive from our place. At least two times in the past, we have planned trips down to the Aquarium to take a gander at a shark when they either release the shark or it dies, like the day before we are supposed to show up.

That sad tale is why when we heard a few weeks ago that they had another great white, we decided to high tail it down to Monterey right away. We actually took a nice
drive down to Monterey. It was beautiful, reminding us that no matter where we travel some of the most beautiful scenery in the world is right in our backyard. When we arrived at the aquarium, we went straight to the shark tank. Well, in all fairness it wasn't exclusively a shark tank, there were other fish inside but lets
face it, it is sort of like being hamburger when there is kobe beef floating around in there. Sort of. Anyway, the shark had only been there 4 days when we saw her. That's right, female. She is only about 4 months old. And to be blunt, she is kind of small. "Great" is a title I think she will have to grow into. Right now, I think it would be a little more accurate to call her "adequate" white shark or "average" white shark. But she does have a presence in the tank, when she swims by you can see that certain fish seem to avoid her or scurry out of the way. We talked a bit with the naturalist on duty and asked how long they thought she would be there. She indicated that the shark would be there until she exhibited an "inappropriate behaviour". Such as? Eating one of her tank mates. Yep, that would be inappropriate alright.

After staring at the shark for what seem like an hour, we wandered through other parts of the Aquarium. For anyone who hasn't been, this is a superb aquarium. There are lots of tactile exhibits which are great for both the kids and parents. This exhibit lets you "pet" a ray. The only problem? The rays pretty much stayed on the opposite side of the tank where the "petters" couldn't reach. Pretty smart, huh? These guys were just a little too eager to pet the rays.






I love looking at the jelly fish. Against this blue background, they were pretty cool.


So let the record reflect that the Whinebergs finally got to see one of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Great White Sharks!!! It was pretty cool.


P.S.

About a week after we visited, they released the great white. Apparently she hadn't been eating, food or tankmates. So they tagged her and let her go. Whew!!

Still Cruisin' After 50 Years

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this summer. In a culture where the breakup of a 2, 5 or 10 year celebrity marriage is mourned as "long standing", a 50 year marriage is almost unbelievable. It takes resolve. I think it comes from being of a generation where successful marriages were expected, there were no other options. I don't think that is the case now.

In celebration of their anniversary, they gave all us kids presents. A concept I am hoping might catch on. So from now on, everyone should send me a gift on their birthday, anniversary or any other special occasion. Make it so. Anyway for their anniversary, Mom & Dad took all 5 daughters, their spouses, partners, and families on a week long Alaskan cruise. One big happy party of 18.


Some of us had cruised before but most were cruise newbies, Chizz included. He was concerned that he wouldn't find enough to do, he is not really the bingo type. But we only had 3 days where we were at sea the entire day, the other days were spent at ports of call. Our ship went from Vancouver to Icy Strait Point AK, then to Skagway and finally Juneau. We ended back at Vancouver. Months prior to the cruise were spent planning different excursions for the days we were in port.

Each family planned their own excursions. Our first excursion was whale watching in Icy Strait Point. Simply put, AMAZING!!! The boat was a small 6 passenger ship, it was our family plus Uncle D. The boating company won't guarantee you will see any humpback whales but our Captain was pretty confident and sure enough within about 10 minutes of setting off, we were seeing our first whales. And they were close!! The sound the whales make is so loud, it is like a groaning or creaking. We took quite a bit of video. I have some better shots of the whales but I can't figure out how to get a still photo from the video and my experts are already in bed for the evening. They have school tomorrow. So you will just have to trust me. Our captain was pretty good at spotting the whale spouting from quite a distance. Often he would see something far away and off we would go and then find ourselves within feet of a few whales. After a while, we could see the spouts for ourselves. In this photo you can see the spout. See what looks like steam rising from the water? That is the whale spouting from the hole on top of his head. We watched a sea lion play with one of the whales for quite some time. Actually I think the sea lion was tormenting the whale, sort of playing tag. It was fascinating. Since the boats are only licensed to take 6 people at a time, our group split up, going on different boats and different times. All the groups saw whales and one even saw some bears on the shore from their boat. So definitely successful outings. This is not a cheap excursion but everyone that went on the whale watching trips thought them well worth the expense.

The next excursion day was Skagway. Our family split up, Snake and Chizz went with Auntie M. and her family on the Skagway Triple Adventure, hike an hour, bike an hour and then raft an hour. They all had a great time and they got to see a bear from the shore. Snake actually spotted it and pointed it out to the group. He was pretty excited about that. Kiki, Auntie K and I went on our own triple adventure, a Ghosts & Good Times Girls tour of the town of Skagway, (and its famous brothel), shopping and lunch. We didn't spend an hour at each but we it was pretty fun and it wasn't all that exhausting. We can recommend the tour, our guide was dressed as a lady of the evening might have been during the gold rush (1896) in Skagway. She gave us a very insights into Alaska (which have become all the more interesting in light of certain other events more political lately). Alaska really is the last frontier. Skagway has about 800 full time residents during the year. During the height of the summer season, the town has about double the residents when the seasonal workers come to town to help serve the over 750,000 tourist they get per year. Our guide pointed out that there are not roads leading out of most towns in Alaska, they would be covered by snow and ice most of the year. People get into town three ways according to our tour guide, by plane, by boat or by birth canal. We met up with Uncle D., Chizz and Snake later on and had lunch at the Skagway Brewing Company. Uncle D. and Chizz have designated this summer as "Brewery Discovery Summer" and already have about 4 breweries under their belt.

Our last excursion day was Juneau. Our family did the helicopter ride to Juneau Ice Field and rode the Dog Sled. Really amazing. It was very, very, very expensive but truthfully the trip of a lifetime and I am really glad we did it. Kiki & Snake are definitely old enough to remember this and I think they will. I think Chizz thought the most fun
part was the helicopter. Those dog sleds dogs were amazing. One thing that surprised me was how small the dogs were, they were skinny. All of those movies where
you see dog sleds, the dogs are all furry and seem pretty good sized but in reality they are thin. One of the trainers explained to me that these dogs are like marathon runners plus. They often run 100 miles per day. When was the last time you saw a portly marathon runner? They just don't make them that way. The dogs were all pretty friendly and we were allowed to pet them and they seemed to be very
affectionate. I found listening to the "mushers" the most interesting part. These people live up on the glacier seven months of the year in tents. I asked him if they got cold and he told me "there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes". As my kids would say "true that". All of these guys had participated in the Iditarod. I asked lots of questions, where do you sleep? (They provide tents but most of the participants like to sleep on their sleds in sleeping bags, with their dogs.) I was surprised to learn that it wasn't all about taking the fastest dogs to the race. You need all kinds of personalities, some leaders, some followers. It is definitely a team thing and not all of the dogs have the temperament to be in the front of the pack. And some dogs have bad days, days where they don't listen to the trainer very much. Our sled had to stop at one point to switch the dogs around because one of the ones in the lead was not listening, going right when he was supposed to go left. According to the musher, the dogs are like people and will have bad days and good days. Sometimes even during races you have to switch it up until
you get the right makeup for the team. It was fascinating. Then we get to go on a short run with the dogs. Everyone gets a turn at driving if they want. We all wanted to, of course. This picture is of Chizz driving in back. He was on a different sled from Kiki, Snake & I. Snake & Chizz rate this excursion as one of their favorites, and so do I.

On non-excursion days there was plenty to keep us busy. Some of us tried ballroom dancing lessons (not Chizz & I), some played bingo, some like to sit with a fancy drink in hand and watch the scenery go by. The scenery included several hours at the Hubbard Glacier. It was spectacular. The blue in this photo is not touched up. The ice absorbs the rays of red and yellow light leaving the blue. I was surprised at how blue it was and took way too many pcitures. Beside the scenery there were other distractions. The casino was a big hit for a few in the group. We managed to get 2 teams together for the 3 day trivia challenge. And our 2 teams, Deck Three Maniacs and Spawn of Art, dominated taking home the 1st and 3rd place medals respectively. Pretty nice!! Of course the main event for the cruise was the 50th anniversary and there were a few surprises along the way. One of the sisters wrote a little poem, recited by the
children. We also had t-shirts made up that we surprised the folks with at breakfast one morning. When they came to the table, they found us all wearing identical shirts - the front had a little emblem over the top left that said "Papa & Grandma's 50th anniversary cruise", the back was a copy of one of their wedding photos. They were very surprised, although it took Papa awhile to get it. Somehow he didn't notice we were all wearing the exact same shirt!!

Not surprisingly I think, I reflected quite a bit on marriage on this cruise. I thought about my parents' marriage and what it takes to get to 50 years. I mentioned before the "no failure" option that I think a lot of long standing marriages have. I look at my siblings' marriages and relationships. Some of them are newer than others, we have newlyweds, but most of us are in long standing first (and only) marriages or relationships. That doesn't happen by accident. Our parents modeled a good marriage to us, showing us by example how to live with a partner. I am sure they would tell you not every time was easy, they lost a home to a large fire, my dad was in Viet Nam, they traveled far away from friends and family as the result of their military career. But I think it never occurred to them that it would be easier to live apart or it would be better not to be married. Of course you have to lay the groundwork for a successful marriage by really knowing the person you are going to marry and perhaps, making sure you really know yourself. What is important to you, what do you want out of life, will your partner have those things now and in 20 years. Too often people get married for the wedding not the marriage. Once the party is over, they don't have much in common. It is harder to build on that. So in addition to their 50 years together as an achievement, I think my parents can look at their children's successful relationships and marriages as "their" achievements too. They showed us what "it" looks like. Thanks Mom & Dad.

In An Instant...

Seven years ago, our lives (mine, Kiki's and Snake's) almost changed drastically. I am so grateful it didn't. Every anniversary we are urged, implored, to remember. Don't worry, we can't forget.

Now Its Istanbul, not Constantinople

The second half of our "Goodbye Tour"(actually it is the middle part but that is another story for another blog entry)was Turkey. After going to Egypt back in April, I really was interested in exploring some different types of culture. Turkey does a lot of advertising in London and it looks soooooooo beautiful in the billboards. Chizz had a very interesting business trip there previously, so we decided to put it on the list.

We stayed in Istanbul, which used to be known as Constantinople until 1930. Turkey, as we came to find out later from one of our tour guides, has a long history of being invaded by just about everybody. Istanbul has been the capital of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire, The Ottoman Empire. Now it only has to survive the invasion of the Whinebergs!


Snake has studied quite a bit about Turkey and it was a bit like having your own personal tour guide in Istanbul. He was most anxious to see the Hagia Sophia, a very renown mosque in
Istanbul. Strangely, this building didn't start out as a mosque, it started out as a church when it was built between 532 and 537 AD, 1500 years ago. It is funny that we think of this area as historically and staunchly Muslim but in reality a good part of its foundation is Christianity. And the Hagia Sophia was the third church built on the site. (How come records are so good from back then that they can tell you how many buildings were on a particular site but the Social Security Administration can't find records of my earnings in 1984, a mere 25 years ago? - sorry, I digress.) So when Istanbul was conquered by the Turks in 1432, the Sultan ordered it be turned into a mosque. For about 500 years it was the center of the Muslim faith but it has not been an active mosque since 1934. There have been several restorations over the years, the inside is just beautiful with mosaics and artwork. I have to apologize for the quality of photos inside, (yes, you ARE allowed
to take photos inside). On our walk up to the Hagia Sophia, I dropped my very expensive camera with my much more expensive (at least for me) zoom lens on it. After the GREAT FALL, (which we referred to it in our house, or at least I do), the lens wouldn't come off the camera - it was kind of jammed on. Which is sort of a bummer because it means I had the prospect of taking only close up photos, or to put it in real perspective - I was only going to get photos of Chizz's nose hair in front of all the great historic places. I already have so many of those!! But never fear, I worked on it, cried over it, whine about it and finally I was able to work the zoom lens off. (See, never under estimate the power of whining!) But it was after the Hagia Sophia so these photos are all I really have.

Right smack dab across the street is the Blue Mosque. I love it when the points of interest in a city are so darn close to each other, it is very convenient. Nice of the leaders in history to arrange it that way. The Blue Mosque is simply the most beautiful mosque
I have ever been in. It is named for the blue tiles inside the mosque. As with all mosques there are some rules before you can enter. Women cannot enter with bare legs and bare shoulders. It is hit or miss sometimes as to whether men will have the same
restriction. We noticed very often Kiki and I were offered coverings if we were wearing shorts or tank tops but Chizz and Snake were not. They were allowed to go into most mosques wearing shorts. Since I heard that the Blue Mosque was particularly strict, I asked at our hotel what was the appropriate attire. Although I could tell our hotel's manager wanted to be accommodating to us (we found the Turkish people to be extremely friendly and warm) he struggled with telling us the right thing to do without seeming to somehow tell us something we didn't want to hear. Of course, we were making no value judgment, we wanted to see the inside of the mosque and were willing to abide by the rules. We wore jeans. (As an aside, we saw plenty of men in shorts but truthfully - they shouldn't have been. It annoys me when tourists do not respect the local customs and practices.) Muslims are called to pray 5 times per day. If you are near a local mosque you go int, if not it is perfectly acceptable for a Muslim to stop, point himself in the direction of Mecca and pray where he is. The floors of a mosque are usually covered in carpet and no one, worshipers or visitors, wears shoes inside. We were given small plastic bags in which to carry our shoes. It is enormous inside and you are free to wander about but you must be mindful of the worshipers, who are there at all times of the day not just when
called. They have a good section of it roped off from visitors for people to pray.
Actually, not people - the men. See that area with red carpet? That is where the men pray. See this little dark area sectioned off here? This is for the women. Need proof? Here's the sign. Different culture.


Living in Europe for a few years gives you a new appreciation for football (soccer to us Americans). Europeans live, breath and kill for soccer here. It consumes them many months of the year. It is hard not getting caught up in it all. While we were traveling, the Euro Cup 2008 was ongoing. Chizz and Snake managed to keep up on how the teams were doing and all the scores. It involve some coordination that ran from choosing a lunch place that had a television or peeking into seedy bars that might be showing the games. So when Turkey managed to hang in there until we got there, we were excited to catch a game locally. We thought we would be able to find it playing in just about every bar or restaurant and it might be fun to watch it with some locals but we really had no idea how huge this was. Although the cab driver gave us some advice, "If Turkey loses, it will be no big deal. People will be disappointed but the crowds will behave themselves. If Turkey wins, RUN don't walk back to your hotel. It could be extremely dangerous". Wow!! As luck would have it one of the main streets in
Istanbul was right outside of our hotel. All of the stores and shops were flying Turkey colors and flags. The first order of business was to find Turkiye shirts for Chizz & Snake. Check. Done. Now, lets find a place to watch the game. There were lots of restaurants and bars to choose from. Every bar, restaurant and shop had at least one if not 2 or 3 big screen tvs with the game. Mostly outside. The trick was finding one with an open table an hour before the game. We finally did and I think watching this soccer match was one of the highlights. To say these fans are fervent is an understatement. There was constant singing and chanting. The whole street was crowded with people cheering on the team. When Turkey scored a goal, pandemonium broke out. Fireworks went off in the streets, people tossed bottle rockets from the roof garden bars and restaurants. For the rest of the night, the street was filled with a red smokey haze. It was an amazing experience to watch the games with the locals, you got caught up in the enthusiasm. Unfortunately Turkey lost, and true to the word of the cab driver, the crowd dispersed rather quietly and there was no negative uproar. Most of the fans we spoke with were pleased that Turkey had made it so far, considering quite a few of their best players were out with injury. The believe there is much hope for Turkey in future competitions. You got a real "wait till next time" feel.

We decided to take give our feet a little break one morning and take a cruise down
the Bosphorous River. Like Greece, you can pay a company to do a specific tour or you can ride one of the public ferries. We decided to ride the ferry and we had a great time. You
need to get there a little early in order to snag seat by the rail or by the window inside. We decided to ride outside and just enjoyed the views passing us by. It is a great way to seen the city from a different perspective. We stopped at a city along the way and had some lunch and fed the fish from our table. Unfortunately Snake got the one bad meal we had on our trip at this place, some shrimp that had obviously gone bad. We fed it to the fish. They didn't seem to mind.

We took a day trip to Ephesus from Istanbul which involved getting up at "much earlier than any teenager in his/her right mind wants to get up" a.m. to take a one hour flight. We had a private tour guide, which was very nice. It made it easier to concentrate on just what we wanted to see and kind of gloss over anything that we didn't want to focus on. Ephesus is a very important city both historically and religiously. They believe it was first founded in the 10th century BC -- so about 3000 years ago. It is actually a very good example of how all of the different invaders contributed to Turkey's history. Legend has it first founded by the Greeks, who built the great temple of Artemis nearby. The Temple is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (racking up two on the Whineberg tally). You always read that the pyramids at Giza are the only remaining ancient wonder. I guess 1 1/3 columns does not count as remaining. We had a visit to the ruins of the temple and it is easy to see how massive this temple must have been. There is a biblical story of how St. Paul (yes, THAT St. Paul) took the local merchants of Ephesus to task for selling statues of Artemis in the temple. Apparently he objected to the objectification and commerce being done on temple grounds. I wonder how he would feel about the picture I have taken here? Locals selling replicas of what the temple used to look like, little statues, t-shirts etc. right on top of old ruins, pieces of the columns that are lying about the grounds. Some things never change!!

We later walked through the ruins of the ancient city and it is a pretty amazing site. So far most of the ruins we have seen in various places (other than Pompeii) have been fairly small and you have to use your imagination quite a bit to visualize what it was like in its heyday. Although there are good portions missing, you can still get an idea of the sheer size of the city. Ephesus used to be a harbor city and you can see definitely tell where the water used to be by the vegetation left there. After the harbor disappeared, the town slowly died with most people moving on to bigger cities. There were so many buildings and artifacts to see that I took hundreds, yes, hundreds of photos. Each of which I will show you and comment on now. No, not really but I think it will be easier if I comment on each picture separately. Get a drink and relax, this may take awhile!





This is the Library of Celsus, built in approximately 135 AD. It is an impressive building, restored several times over the years. It is an example of Roman architecture of the time.





This local theatre could hold 25,000 spectators in its day. Originally it was used for plays and other performances but there is also evidence that it was used for gladiator battles in the most deadly way. They recently unearthed a gladiator burial ground nearby. Our tour guide told us that the theatre is still used in modern times and shared with us a story about going to a Sting concert there several years ago. I can only imagine how cool that was. If you look very, very, very, closely at some of the spectators in this shot you may recognize a few. Good Luck!!

There are some remnants of some of the modern amenities that the Romans brought with them. These are exactly what they look like, public restrooms. Most likely for men only and probably only high ranking men got the privilege of "using" these facilities with 20 or so of his closest friends. And before you die of curiosity, yes I got a picture of Snake and Chizz on the thrones and no, Kiki wouldn't do it!


This is the Temple of Hadrian. Emperor Hadrian visited Ephesus from Athens in 128 AD and this temple was erected in his honor in 138 AD. He is known as on of the "Five Good Emperors" although he reportedly cheated on his wife with both women and men, and tried to poison her at some point. I guess it all hinges on what your definition of "good" is.




The Agora or marketplace, very often the hub of the town. Trade was done here by the merchants or the important citizens (men) of the day might gather to hear important news from the rulers.



This is interesting. You ever wonder how they built all those columns? For the most part, the columns were not one piece of marble or stone, that would have been too heavy to move. So they built them in sections. Two pieces like this one would be place together. See those square holes in the middle? What is hard to see is a little trench kind of impression in the stones. The two stones would be placed together, lined up so that both pieces' square holes were aligned. Then they would take melted metal and pour it in through the trench. When the metal cooled it joined the two pieces of stone together. They would add additional sections as needed. Fascinating, huh?





On your way out of the ruin site, there are quite a few vendors selling tourist junk, scarves, statues, mementos. Hard to resist these watches right? C'mon they are genuine!!




After seeing the ancient city there were a couple of other sites we wanted to see.
First was the Basilica of St. John. St. John was one of the 12 apostles and was very tight with Jesus. He was often referred to as the "disciple Jesus loved" although it was John himself who said that in his gospels, so consider the source. While Jesus was dying on the cross, he saw his mother Mary and John and said to her basically "Woman, here is your son" and to John "Son, behold thy mother". This was Jesus' way of saying "Hey, take care of my mom". So John did. He kind of retired to Ephesus to write his gospels and allegedly took Mary with him. I say allegedly because there is certainly evidence to support John was there when he died but not really much of Mary, although there is a house there. So we wanted to see both places. The basilica was built in the 6th century AD over what is believed to be St. John's tomb by the emperor Justinian, apparently not one of the Five Good Emperors; he was just satisfactory. It was massive with 6 domed structures and if it were still standing today it would be the 7th largest cathedral in the world. Of course, over the years it has fallen victim to invading armies, misuse and decay. It was also used as a mosque in the 1300s. So after the basilica we head over to Mary's house. Now here is where I have a bit of a problem with Mary being in Ephesus. The road leading up to Mary's house is extremely mountainous. I tried to imagine her traveling here, in advanced years, after her son dies, after traipsing all over the place with John (because it is documented that John moved around quite a bit before settling in Ephesus) and making it up these mountains, either by foot or donkey as suggested by Snake. It was a difficult trip by car, I can't even begin to imagine how she did it with the method of transportation available in those days. We get up to the house and it looks fairly modern and we learn that it is. The structure that was originally on this spot dates back to the 6th century, several hundred years after Mary would have died. But the foundation apparently has been dated for the appropriate time. Other than the things I previously mentioned, there is another reason I am skeptical as to whether this is Mary's house or not. This wasn't found after years of studying transcripts or writings from the era or reading of the gospel and interpreting the various phrases. This house was found as the result of a dream. A nun in Germany in the 1800s was an invalid, confined to her bed and never traveled away from home. One day she wakes up with the stigmata (marks or sores on the body in the places where Jesus had crucifixion marks) and tells of some visions she has about Mary and St. John traveling together from Jerusalem to Ephesus together. She described a house, a bedroom and a curved or rounded wall and apparently a location where it would be found. Several years later, 2 priests decided to try and find the house described by the nun and apparently happened upon its ruins. Viola! I am just a bit skeptical of that whole story. The Catholic church takes no official position as to whether this is Mary's house, but they have declared it an appropriate pilgrimage spot. And, three popes have visited there and said Mass. You can walk through the house where there is a small alter and a few pictures. There are nuns hanging around, making sure you don't take pictures and treat the place appropriately. There is a natural spring there and supposedly there are miracles attributed to drinking the water. Christians and Muslims alike make pilgrimages here. Muslims revere Mary as the mother of Jesus, whom they consider the second greatest prophet. After drinking the spring water, you can make a request for some intercession or favor by Mary by putting it in writing and placing it in the wall. The kids and I both drank the water and made the request. Even though I am not sure whether this is Mary's house, it doesn't hurt to ask, huh?




As far as I was concerned a trip to Istanbul would not be complete without a trip to the Grand Bazaar probably because as far as I am concerned, a trip isn't complete without some shopping!! I am not so sure Chizz would agree. It is an experience for sure. It is one of the world's largest covered market place, with over 6000 shops. On average, the Bazaar can have over 250,000 to 400,000 visitors A DAY!!!! Yikes, that is one huge mall. As you are walking through the mall, people try to sell you stuff - pretty aggressively. Kiki & Snake were a little freaked out by the persistance of some of the sellers. We told them it was all a game, don't be upset or offended, these guys are just doing their job. Say no thank you and move on. It is hard when you are a teenager. We had some fun, bought a few items to bring home and enjoyed the atmosphere.


I apologize for the epic nature of this blog entry. There is so much I didn't even mention, our trip to the Spice Bazzar, the rug factory, Topkapi Palace (beautiful and the harem really, really interesting) Chizz and Snake trying their hand at making pottery. But I felt this blog would have to get a zip code of its own if I kept on going. This has to be the longest entry yet. I think it comes from blogging about a trip that was a while back now. I kind of relived it while I was writing it and it was like visiting Turkey again. I would go back again, and again. We only scratched the surface and there is so much more to see. Maybe one day. Now on to the next adventure. . . . . .

Seems Like a Long Time, It Seems Like a Very Long Time

Oh Froggers, it has been a very long time since I have last written and so much has been going on. Mainly the packing and unpacking of luggage. In a little over a month we have visited 6 different countries on 3 continents. We have been on planes, trains, buses, automobiles and a few boats!! I am so far behind that I think I am going to lap myself soon! So before I lose to myself, let's get this party started. . . .

When we found out that we would be leaving London and moving back stateside, we thought we would end our adventure with a big trip. Usually our trips are for a few days. We can do just about any major city in about 3 days tops - we have gotten to be very efficient sight seers! But I knew there were a few places I wanted to see that would take more than a few days and I didn't want to rush it. So we decided to go off to Greece and Turkey. It was the trip of a life time and we had a marvelous time. Starting with Greece.


Although we tend to think of Europe as one big old continent, easy to get from one place to another . . . it was a bit harder getting to Greece then most of the other places we have visited. Partly because we were coordinating Chizz's travel from the US and our travel from London. But eventually I got it all done, and we were in Athens. But. . . . our debit cards wouldn't work in the machines. I had anticipated we might have a problem in Turkey and had downloaded a list of all the Citibank locations where we would be, but nothing I had read had prepared me for an issue in Athens. After several calls to Citibank, wherein they professed not to know why our cards weren't working, we eventually were able to get money out of a few machines. We just kept going back to those. And we didn't seem to have a problem using the cards in points of service transactions, like stores or restaurants, just in getting cold, hard cash. So that is my travel tip of the day, when using your ATM card overseas, make sure you know where a local branch of your bank is in the city you are visiting. It is helpful because ideally both branches of the bank will work to solve your problem and at the least can give you a cash advance until you get home.


Athens was as beautiful as the post cards you see. There are so many things to see and we hit the highlights. If I blogged about every place, this blog would be much longer but I think I will just touch up just some of the sights. But trust me, if you can think of it in Athens, we probably did it - even if I don't talk about it here!!



I think our very first stop was the Acropolis. Actually there are many acropolises (acropoli?) all over Greece. "Acropolis" basically means the city center of the local area, usually in the high spot of the city, raised up on a rock or hill. It was the symbolic spot where the government buildings and sacred temples met up. Over the years this one became so popular and well known that it just kind of morphed into THE Acropolis, like it was the only one. It certainly lives up to its billing. I can't imagine any of the other Acropoli or "es" could possibly be any more mouth open, jaw dropping, awe striking spectacular. You have seen all the pictures, and when you consider how darn old this stuff is, it makes it even more amazing. I have seen buildings in the US built 40 years ago that haven't withheld the sands of time that this stuff has that is over 2000 years old. Simply Amazing. We took a guided tour through the Acropolis which I think was useful, you can learn a few tidbits here and there.

The grounds of the Acropolis are fascinating, you wander through just looking at the ruins, the amphitheater, and before you know it you have climbed up to the top and are at the foot of the
Parthenon, which I am guessing is the most famous site in Athens. After the tour you can wander around for as along as you like. The Parthenon was built as a temple to the goddess Athena. It is undergoing a refurbishment program right now as are quite a few of the other buildings on the site, so you will see some scaffolding. But it is quite easy to ignore and imagine it as it would have been thousands of years ago. In this view of the Parthenon, you can see where the Elgin Marbles were. The Elgin Marbles are a series of sculptures or reliefs that taken, borrowed or stolen (depending on who you ask) by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin in the early 1800s. Lord Elgin says he had permission and produced an English translation of a document that seemed to verify his story, but the original document appears to have been mislaid. Convenient. In 1816 when the British Parliament debated the subject of the legality and morality of the removal of the marbles, they found (not so surprisingly) that the removal was legal and they allowed the British Museum to buy them and subsequently display them. We saw them when we were in London and they are pretty amazing. Especially now that I can put them in some kind of spacial perspective, seeing where they were before they were "ripped" off the walls. (Quote courtesy of our tour guide). Greece has been trying to get them back for some time but so far has been rebuffed by the English Government and the British Museum. Not a surprise.

We also spent some time at the Roman Forum, which was a little smaller than I thought. To me the word forum just makes something sound HUGE but it was actually pretty intimate. Actually the original agora, or marketplace, was much larger but over the years the remains have dwindled down. This is the original gate to the Forum area. There is an inscription that indicates the gate was built by Caesar and Augustus but it is so faded, that the only time you can read it easily is at noon when the sun is shining directly on the marble. We were there a bit past noon, and we could make out the inscription but it is not really visible on the photo. One of the things I noticed all over Athens is there are "ruins" just about everywhere. You can be walking around the corner of a fairly large street, and you will run into the remains of a column, which may be the
only thing remaining from an ancient temple or other building. There are just so many of the darn things, that you start to become a little numb to them. At first, you are excited but after a while you just walk by. I still managed to take a few photos of things just hanging around in Athens.

We took a boat ride outside of Athens, to a few of the little islands nearby. Instead of taking a "tour", we rode the waterbus which basically had three stops at each island, where we stayed for an hour or two at each place. It basically gave us enough time to walk through the town, get a feel for it and perhaps stop for a beer or ice cream and watch the town happenings. We went to Hydra, Aegina and Poros. All three were beautiful little villages.

Hydra is probably the most famous of the three as there has been some very upscale development there over the past few years and quite a few wealthy people have vacation homes here. Other than a few service vehicles there are no cars or motorized vehicles. If you book a hotel on the island and have luggage to transport, a porter with a donkey will appear to carry your luggage to your room. Most things, including people, are transported by donkey. It is pretty cool to walk through down and see all the donkeys around. The solo donkey photo is a photo of the donkey "parked" at the grocery store. It cracks me up!!



I thought Aegina was one of the most beautiful ports we stopped in. It is known for its pistachios and every shop in town carried all kinds of pistachios, salted, flavored, plain. We sampled quite a few different varieties. We bought a HUGE bag and afterwards I was concerned that we might not be able to take them into Turkey. Customs officials can be a little choosy about what kind of food you can bring into the country. Snake assured me that he would singlehandedly eat every single nut in Immigration if they weren't allowed. Thankfully it didn't come to that. Here are some photos of Aegina.







One of Chizz's favorite things we did was a visit to the Temple of Poseidon. It is not in Athens and there is no easy way to get there. You can go on a bus tour with a tour company, which normally is not our thing. You can also hire a taxi for several hundred dollars. I did some research and found out we could take a public bus, which conveniently stopped right
across the street from our hotel. The upside - bus stop close to our hotel, the cost was just a few dollars per person. Another positive, is riding public transport. We really like to use public transportation in a new city, there is no quicker way to feel like a local than when you master the city's public transport system. The downside? It is about a 2 hour bus ride, with a many stops along the way. After dithering about it, we decided to do it and it was a great experience. You can learn a lot about a country and its people riding a public bus for 2 hours. And I have to say it is one of the highlights of our trip to Athens. I think because the remains of the temple are so impressive. It is one of the few that has quite a few of the columns remaining so it is very easy to imagine what it was like years and years ago. This temple ,built in 444 BC, is actually the second temple on the site. It is located on Cape Sounion right at the top of a bluff overlooking the sea. This temple has been visited by many people over the years. One of the most interesting things is the graffiti. Now, those of you that are regular visitors to my blog, know that I usually rail against graffiti or people that can't seem to control themselves when it comes to touching artifacts.
They can't just look with "their eyes" as I have told my kids a zillion times. Buuuuttttt . . . . in this case the graffiti is pretty darn interesting. It started in the 1800s. Some say it was started by the famous English poet, Lord Byron. His graffiti was etched in a column in 1810 and can still be seen, although it is difficult and doesn't show up readily in photos. However, I was able to take photos of quite a bit of the graffiti. I guess graffiti has to be old in order for me to "appreciate" it. There may be hope for me appreciating some of the "art" left on freeway overpasses. Perhaps time will tell. As we left that evening, after spending 2 hours there admiring the temple up close and from the cafe down the hill, I captured this sunset from the bus window. I think it is a perfect ending for my Greece entry as it was a perfect ending to our visit to this temple. Next, Turkey!!