Rumeli Hisari

The kids had a week off of school for fall break, so we drove over to Istanbul. We have some friends that we met in our ward in Falls Church that live there, and we stayed with them. The first day we went to Rumeli Hisari. It is a fortress that was built at the narrowest part of the Bosphorus in 1452. The whole thing was completed in just over 4 months. The craziest part is that we were able to climb up onto the ramparts. They don't have guardrails anywhere! We had amazing views of the Bosphorus and Asia. You can read more about it here. After we finished up there, we walked along the sea wall to go to get hamburgers at a Turkish burger place. They were SO good!!! Along the way we saw a cemetery outside the fortress walls, and beautiful waterfront mansions on the Asian side.  It rained off and on in the afternoon, but it was a beautiful, FUN day!!!

The entrance.



Door at the gate we entered.



The open gate.



The outside of the tower.

The inside of the tower.



Stairs in the tower leading to floors that no longer exist.
(We couldn't go up there.)



Stairs in the tower headed down.
(We couldn't go there, either.)



Aubree on the rampart.



View across the inside.  We climbed all over!



The Bosphorus and Asia are behind us.



We showed the stairs who was boss!

 

Me and Aubree up on a wall.



Chis in the amphitheater.



This tunnel led to a big area under the amphitheater.



The cavern-y area under the amphitheater.

Mike and Nick up on a wall.



Now we're on the wall, and they are not.

Some of the stairs we climbed.



More stairs.



This is one of the treads on the stairs shown above.
(I thought it was pretty cool.)



Chris headed down these stairs.  It was a little scary at times, because some of the stairs were as tall as his knees, and most the time there was a drop of a couple stories on one side.



There were cannon everywhere!



More cannon!



A smaller gate, maybe for just people?

A much bigger gate is off to the right.



The bigger gate at the top of the fortress.



I'm thinking they used this as defense.  It was above the bigger gate.
(The stairs with the cool step led up to this.)



I liked this design on the outside of the tower.

Cemetery with Rumeli Hisari in the background.

Jellyfish in the Bosphorus!



Waterfront property on the Asian side!

Our Halloween(s)

This year we had 2 Halloweens!  The kids had this last week off from school, so the CLO (Community Liaison Office) decided to have the kid parties with trick-or-treating on the 22nd.  The boys got dressed up and we went to an Embassy house out here where we ate yummy food and the kids played fun games.  As soon as it was dark enough, we went trick-or-treating to the other 7 Embassy houses in our neighborhood.  Aubree stayed home and was able to hand out candy to the groups.  After we got home from that, I took Aubree and all the other teenage kids that live out here to the teen party at the Spivak's house.  They watched "Young Frankenstein" and ate food and had fun.  I didn't get a picture of Aubree as static cling, and the pictures she took of herself are reflections from the mirror with flash.  So, you only get shots of the boys.

Today after school, we went trick-or-treating at the Embassy.  The children of all the employees (including the local hires) dressed up and collected candy from the various offices.  The RSO (Regional Security Office) Office - yes, I know it's redundant, but saying RS Office sounds even sillier - all dressed up.  The ladies that Mike works with LOVE Halloween, and they brought him a costume.  AND HE WORE IT!!!  I have never been able to get Mike to dress up for Halloween, EVER!  He was a creepy jester, and he scared all the little kids, even though he just sat there.  Aubree and her friends also dressed up as models and made the rounds, but I didn't get a picture of that, either.  I'll have to have her dress up another day just so I can get a shot of it.  She was really cute!  We are totally set with candy for the next few months!



Chris was a Cub Scout.  What can I say - our costumes
didn't come and we had to make do with what we had.



Nick was a Mad Scientist.  He had a great evil laugh!!!

 

The creepy Jester.  Even Nick was scared
 of him until he realized it was Dad.

Thessaloniki

Our suite was 2 floors.  The kids slept downstairs on the pull-out couch and the chaise.  Upstairs was a king bed and the full bathroom.



View from our balcony.



Super Aubree!!!



Mr. Chris



Nick Bob



Brothers!!!



Nick took this of Mike.



Nick was a little scared at first.

  

Playing in the Aegean Sea.  For how cold it was outside, the water was very pleasant.





Looking for seashells.





Our hotel.



Sunset was AMAZING!!!



Chris didn't want to be in the picture...



Evolution of Consumables

The post of Skopje, Macedonia is a consumables post.  I don't know how it's figured out, but we are given an allotment of 2500 pounds of consumable goods to ship with us.  We bought and bought and bought stuff from Costco (hurray for coupons!), Target, Giant, and Shoppers.  Everything from canned corn to enchilada sauce to paper cups and laundry detergent.  It's not that most of this stuff isn't available here - it's that what is available is not the same quality.  We discovered after moving here that certain items were silly to bring (did I really think I couldn't get spaghetti noodles here?), while others are impossible to find (so glad I bought green chilies), and some things I forgot completely (no black beans?) and will have to include in our next shipment.  Our children laughingly refer to the basement as Target.  I love Skopje, and am very happy that the canned vegetables I brought will only have to be used during the winter months when fresh will be hard to find.

Can you believe we got all this stuff from our car in the garage to our second floor apartment?  It was a parade of Costco purchases in the lobby.



We decided we needed the consumable separate from the HHE (household effects) to make it easier for the movers. 



More organized consumables.  It was fun living with this all around us for a couple weeks!  I'm just glad we didn't get reported to the Fire Marshal!



Getting packed up!



All the TP and paper towels were wrapped in brown paper.



Looking good!!!  See you in Skopje!



 After almost 2 months away from us, we received our shipment, and the fun REALLY began!



Put together the shelves from Costco in the pantry.  Waiting for the food!



The food that got unloaded in the dining room, waiting to be sorted.



More food in the basement - most ended up back upstairs.



The pantry is packed!



Organized in the laundry room!



The storage room, a.k.a. Target!