A group of us from Tucson went down to Nogales today to paint and repair Yunuen’s parent’s old townhouse. It was a lot of work and we intend to do the same each weekend over the course of the next few months to prepare the place for a Miguel and his wife who will be pastoring a new church plant there. Despite the sweltering temperature, we still had a lot of fun.
While in Kusadasi we frequented a number of places we liked a lot – eventually we just made our own meals.
Yun and I have been ın Kusadası, Turkey sınce last Monday. We are stayıng at a very nıce place outsıde of town among the olıve groves on a hıll overlookıng the Aegean Sea. Turkey has been a wonderful place thus far – today we spent the entıre day at sea travelıng to varıous bays ın the area on a nıce boat. We found the swımmıng enjoyable despıte the cold water and Yun was brave enough to jump off the second floor of the boat ınto the sea (after much delıberatıon!). We are all burnt to the core though and wıll feel that paın for the duratıon of our trıp.
Yesterday we vısıted a number of ancıent cıtıes south of Kusadası – such as Prıenne, Mıletos, and Dıdyma. Fascınatıng thıngs to see and a lot of archıtecture from antıquıty. Tomorrow we wıll travel to the cıty of Efes (Ephesus) to explore that for half the day.
Matt and I have had ample opportunıty to smoke cıgars and drınk Ephesıan beer. The day before yesterday we had a spades match at a wonderful hookah bar where we puffed away on the hookah for hours. The Turks are very nıce and the owner of the hookah bar gave us a nıce handmade box as I had commented that I lıked ıt.
Yunuen and I finally arrived in Dublin after an incredibly long trip. It is certainly much warmer since the last time we were here, but thankfully Yunuen insist I bring a light jacket. We are heading downtown now to do some shopping before our departure this evening.
I am nearly finished packing for our departure tomorrow morning. We leave early to fly to Phoenix, then to New York, then on to Dublin. We’ll be in Dublin for most of Sunday and then will depart on a chartered flight late Sunday night for Izmir in Turkey. We arrive in Izmir roughly 2am and then will take a bus to Kusadasi, a small coastal city on the Aegean. My goal is to bring as little as possible. We’re both only take light backpacks.
Items I have thus far:
1 pair of shorts
1 swimsuit
1 pair of sunglasses
3 t-shirts
1 pair of socks
3 pairs of underwear
1 pair of flip flops
my camera (with new monopod I purchased for this trip and some sweet filters)
my laptop
contact solution, deodorant, and toothbrush
1 baseball hat
1 travel journal
50 cigars of various sizes and shades
I think that fills up my bag pretty well! We are very excited to see Dana and Matt and get our spades groove on.
Yunuen and I went to San Carlos last weekend and returned this last Wednesday. We took two vehicles and traveled with Ben and Lis, Jeff and Beth, and Liam. As we couldn’t book a place at Condominiums Pilar, we were able to get a place at Condominiums Delfin which as it turns out is substantially nicer than Pilar.
The drive down was pleasant and mostly uneventful and we arrived before sunset, so we had the opportunity to relax on the beach and play some cards. Jeff introduced us to a new game called Tripoli which happens to be quite fun and accommodates an uneven number of people which Hand and Foot is less inclined to do.
Liam and I were able to do some SCUBA this time which was a lot fun – we rented two tanks each which turned out to be more than we needed really. The visibility was pretty good and the diversity of sea life was abundant. We saw a lot of string rays and plenty of colorful fish.
We had a lot of fun on the beach and the night before our departure we had a nice beach fire. We rented some sea kayaks on Tuesday and Ben and Lis, Yun and I went for an evening kayak ride out to sea and then to an esturary that was really beautiful with a lot of unique looking birds.
We had a great time on this trip!
Everyone is in a hurry to scream “racism” these days!
A customer asked “In what aisle could I find the Polish
sausage?”
The clerk looks at him and says, “Are you Polish?”
The guy (clearly offended) says, “Well, yes I am. But let me ask
you something.”
“If I had asked for Italian sausage would you ask me if I was
Italian?”
“Or if I had asked for German bratwurst, would you ask me if
I was German?”
“Or if I asked for a kosher hot dog would you ask me if I was
Jewish?”
“Or if I had asked for a Taco would you ask if I was
Mexican?”
“Would you? Would you?”
“If I asked for some Irish whiskey, would you ask if I was
Irish?”
“Well, I probably wouldn’t!”
With deep self-righteous indignation, the guy says, “Well
then, why did you ask me if I’m Polish because I asked for Polish
sausage?”
The clerk replies, “Because you’re in Home Depot.”
Scout always looks a lot better after his Saturday bath – here are some photos I took today:
Jeff and Beth had us over last week for another round of Hand and Foot. We really like this game and as was anticipated, Jeff and I once again decimated our opponents (see photographic support below).
We are thinking of renaming our dog to ‘The Destroyer’ as he has manifested the love of chewing and digging. He has dug up four of my gardenias this week and this morning he not only dug up on of my potted plants, he then took the pot to the yard and shredded it. We have read online that this is instinctual behavior – much like the instinctual tendency I have to want to cut off his paws so he can’t dig anymore. I explained to him this morning that if he wasn’t so cute, he would be used as fertilizer for the remaining plants he hasn’t killed!
We pulled off a handful of tomatoes this week. They were extremely tasty! Our apricot tree is doing well and we are going to pull a couple apricots today to sample.
We leave for San Carlos tomorrow with Ben, Lis, Liam, Jeff and Beth. Unfortunately Luke and Maryanne had to cancel this week due to unforeseen circumstances, so we will miss their presence. I intend to bring plenty of cigars and tequila!
