Spring is in the air---for everyone!----Woche 12

This is a tree in our yard.

We had a busier week than some in the past.  Dan was about run off his feet at work.  He left for work early and came home late just about every night this week.  It almost seemed as if he were on another business trip.  He clocked a lot of hours, so the company definitely got their moneys worth.  He drove to the Czech Republic to help with the launch of a new product.  Things seem to be going well for him and the company.

The kids had a fun run at school this week.  It turned out to be beautiful weather and they had a good time.  Dane was the first to finish 20 laps.  Dyllan and Deagan had a smaller track and they clocked about 22 laps.  They had fun booths set up, where the kids could get their faces painted.  Dane opted not to get his done.  He was too concentrated on his laps.  Dyllan and Deagan thought it was fun though.

Dan and I set a goal to get back to our dancing.  We are planning on getting a group together to brush up on some of our skills.  We really need practice to get ready for Ball Season.  We've already done one night of Waltz with one other couple.  I think that we can get several to come next time.  We want to have a big group, as that makes it more fun.  The kids had fun watching a movie at the church while we danced.  Danyon enjoyed army crawling all over the floor.  He likes to be picked up and loves to waltz--especially the turns.



Even the cows wear bustenhalter's here

The weather is nice enough to go for walks.  We took the kids down to an ice cream shop just a few blocks from our house.  It was so nice outside, sitting on the patio.  We loved it!  Dan and I also got to go for a jog on Saturday morning.  We followed some trails through some of the vineyards and along a stream.  It was a very pretty jog.  We saw a black squirrel in the trees.  The squirrels here are slightly smaller than Indianian squirrels and they have big tufts of hair coming out of their ears.  They look kind of funny.



The kids got caught in a spider web, but we were able to free them before the spider had lunch.

We took the kids to the Schonbrunn Tiergarten (the zoo).  It is on the grounds of the Schonbrunn Palace, and it is the oldest zoo in the world.  We bought year passes so that we could go back often.  The zoo grounds are very nice and pretty.  We only got to see about a third of it.  We did see an albino peacock, and the normal colored one.  The bat cave was a highlight, as the bats are flying all around you (and even grazing your head) while you are there in the dark.  We had to go through it twice because it was so cool.  Danyon didn't really get into the zoo animals.  He had a front row seat to watching the otters play and he kept turning around to see all the people behind him, watching the otters.  We luckily were able to locate the Kasekriner shop and of course, the ice cream shop.  The most exciting exhibit was the bears.  There were two black bears that were fighting up on their hind legs.  They were yelling at each other and really having it out.  Well, then we learned that this was not bear-fighting, it was really bear foreplay.  The bears started to mate.  After a few seconds, Dyllan asked, "What is that bear doing to the other bear?"  We quickly explained that the momma bear was trying to get pregnant.  Dyllan wondered why it was taking so long.  Dane's idea was that, "Maybe they're trying to make twins or triplets."  After violating their privacy, we told the kids that we needed to go.  Dyllan and Deagan wanted to be sure to come back, "tomorrow, so that we can see the babies."  We told them we had to come back after she hibernated.  It seems that everyone is feeling the effects of Spring.

Der Fruhling ist da!-Woche 11

Well, I think we are about assimilated into the Viennese culture.  We walked by a Volvo station wagon on the way home from school and Dane said, "Look at the limo!!"  He is finally getting used to the smaller cars, smaller roads, smaller everything--and even a Volvo looks long enough to be a limo.  Speaking of cars, we got Dan's new company car this week.  It is pretty nice.  It even has built-in booster seats for the kids.  We've never had a sun roof before and now we're enjoying it (even if it is still a little cool outside).

Spring has really sprung this week as the leaves, tulips, daffodils, and all kinds of things are starting to pop out all over town.   We especially liked the new bread that popped up in the kitchen this week.  The kids have decided to affectionately call it, "Booty Bread".  Plumbers everywhere are flocking to buy it up.  We are thinking of starting an export business targeting US plumbers unions.  Aside from the occasionally questionable bread, it really is a beautiful city.  The side-walk cafes are filling up, the number of tour buses all over town seemed to have quadrupled this week (the kids were 15 minutes late coming home from school because traffic was so bad on the first nice day).  River cruises on the Danube have started.  Ice cream and gelatto shops are now open.  People are coming out of their hibernation. 

Dan spent his week in Turkey, for the third time in a month.  He really enjoys the Turkish people and his meetings were okay.  He has some work to do there, though, as he had to stay an extra day (he assures me it wasn't for the Turkish bath). 

Because he stayed an extra day, that left me to take care of his youth activity at the church for the week. The youth were making tissue paper flowers for Mother's Day.  I had to buy the supplies and drop them off at someone's house along with the directions.  It sounded easy enough.  I had to go all the way across town.  When I got to my stop, I got off the subway and had to get onto the trolley from there.  I could not find the trolley stop.  I looked everywhere for it.  I finally decided to walk the rest of the way.  There was construction going on, and I had to meander through several streets.  Danyon and I probably walked about 2 miles--okay, I walked, Danyon rode.  We finally got there!!  On the way home, I asked how to get to the trolley stop.  It turns out that the trolley stops can also be underground like the subway.  I did not realize this, as they are all above ground over by where we live.  So, with that problem fixed, getting home was much faster!

I went with a friend this week to a Mexican Specialty store.  I found refried beans, salsa, home-made chips and tortillas, guacamole, pancake mix, AND . . . Vanilla!!!!!  I paid a lot for it, but it is nice to know that I have some in my drawer.  I'm glad that my friend, Krista, took me there.  On the way home, Krista helped me with my bags, as I had a stroller and diaper bag with me as well.  We were walking through a very busy subway station, when all of a sudden, I heard a huge smash of glass on the floor.  Krista's bag had torn through (the bag was wet from the rain) and all of her groceries went smashing down on the ground.  There are no offices or people that work in the subway station so we didn't know what to do with all the broken glass.  An older lady came up to us, and told us to use the newspapers to scoop it up and then throw them away.  I was very excited because she was speaking German and I actually understood what she said!  We got the mess cleaned up and then we were back on our way.  I felt bad that Krista lost all of her groceries, so the next day I had Dan drive over to the store again and we bought a few of the items that she had purchased and we took them over to her house.

We took the kids to Demel on Saturday.  They have glass walls so you can see them working in the kitchen.  It was fun to watch them.  One baker was decorating some chocolates, and one was peeling rhubarb, while another was stacking cakes and making sure they were perfectly round and the same size.  We stopped for a little snack.  The kids all wanted ice cream, but we also tried their chocolate torte and a black forest something (you know, chocolate and cherries and whipping cream).  My favorite was a lemon tart.  It tasted like a really good lemon meringue pie with an almost shortbread type crust.  Danyon is finally learning that when we sit down to eat, we are getting different food than he gets.  He is starting to enjoy our food more than his own--at least when we are eating treats.  He loved the ice cream, whipping cream, cake, and lemon tart.  He was yelling for more.  We enjoyed our little stop there and Dan and I will be back.  I don't know if the kids appreciate it as much as they should for how much it costs.

Demel is located right downtown in "the ring".  The ring is the old city wall.  The wall is not there any more, but several of the sight-seeing places are located within the ring.  It was our first time going into the ring, at least on purpose--there was that one time with the GPS that we entered the ring on accident).  People are allowed to go there, and taxis and tourist buses.  Normal cars are not allowed to go.  There are even some streets made only for pedestrians.  It is fun to go out walking and looking at all the things there are to see.  We went by the Sisi museum, the Hofburg palace, and the Spanish Riding school.  While we were out, we noticed a couple who were walking the streets.  The husband looked very Polynesian.  As in true Hedquist style, Dan walked up to them and started the small talk.  It turns out they live in Riverside, California, and he is from American Samoa.  It was fun to chat with them for a few minutes.  We exchanged emails and Dan invited them over for dinner.  They decided that they had too many other fun sight-seeing things on their list, but wanted to stay in touch via email. 

We had a regional church conference this weekend.  We wanted to attend the Saturday evening adult session but have been unable to get a babysitter for anything yet.  We have had a couple of suggestions, but they have all fallen through.  So, realizing that Dane is 11 and pretty responsible, we decided to leave him at home with Dyllan and Deagan.  It was our first time letting Dane babysit.  We took Danyon with us, as we figured this would be too much for Dane to handle.  We went to the conference and it was great!  They talked a lot about families and how it is the parents' responsibility to teach their children all about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Afterwards, we went out to dessert with two other couples from our congregation.  It was our first time going out without kids since we moved here (although we still had Danyon).  It was so much fun getting out together and the other couples were so much fun, too.  We laughed so hard that we cried.  It was very refreshing, as Austrians tend to be more serious, somber and stick to themselves, in general.  And, when we returned home, we found the house in-tact, and children in bed.  Actually, Dane was asleep in the entry waiting for us.  We didn't have a house key with us.  We knocked on the door to wake him.  Then we banged on the door.  Then we rang the doorbell about 600 times.  Then we called my phone that was sitting on the desk in the entry way--over and over.  Then we called the house phone, over and over.  All of this intermixed with more door banging and doorbell ringing.  Then we went out to the street and rang the other buzzer (to let someone in the gate), over and over.  Dane did not budge through any of this.  Neither did Dyllan or Deagan.  No one came to the door.  After about 25 minutes of trying everything we could think of to wake people up,  Dan opened the garage back up and told me to start preparing to sleep in the car over night.  Just as I slumped into the trunk of the car,  good ol' Marco came to the rescue.  He had been in the entry way this whole time as well and was getting tired of all the racket.  So, as a last resort for him, Marco pounced on Dane's head with all four feet.  This roused Dane enough that when Dan kept ringing the door bell, Dane was able to get up and open the door.  Finally!  Dan never thought he would say it, but, he was grateful to Marco that night and even said we should give him an extra treat.  I learned never to leave the house without a key, and in case of any emergency, I'm gonna have to be the one to get everyone out of the house.  They would sleep through ANYTHING.

Getting Back to Normal-Woche 10

We have been fighting to get things back into gear.  We are all still wishing we were still on vacation.  This week things have been fairly normal.  The kids went back to school.  I stayed home with Danyon, and Dan was in town.  I spent a lot of time on the computer trying to plan and book our summer vacation.  There are so many choices, but we narrowed it down.  Not too much excitment for a blog.

Dan and I started exercising again this week.  It has been 6-8 months since we have had a regular exercise schedule, thus we will not be posting our "before" pictures on this blog.  We are finally feeling the need to get things back in shape.  It hurt though.  I do believe I saw Dan in tears after our second day.  His abs hurt him so much, that he had to grab his pant legs and pull with his arms to get up out of the couch.  Dan can assure you, I wasn't doing much better.  I had my share of complaining and moaning about having to go up the stairs.  We are experimenting with a different regimen this time around, as Dan's knees are not good.  We've decided to do weights every other day (Body For Life style) and Insanity on the other days.  Our first week, other than being very sore, we did pretty good.  We only missed one workout of six.---And on Sunday, I was asked if I had lost weight!!  My response was, "Not yet, but I'm working on it!"  Now, if only I could get those chocolate bars to quit jumping into my shopping cart . . .

Dan joined a softball team that is made up of a bunch of people in the ward.  The games are late in the evenings to make sure everyone is home from work (the work day here starts later and goes longer than is usual in the U.S.  Dan's co-workers don't roll into work until about 9:00 or later.  But, they stay late as well.)  So, since it's late, I don't get to go and cheer.  Apparently, on their team, there isn't much to cheer for.  They lost the game by 30 runs.



Enjoying the 1st ferris wheel

Danyon's first taste of cotton candy

Since we have had a couple of days of beautiful weather, we decided to take the kids to the Prater.  It is a park/amusement park/museum, etc.  They have a really old, really high ferris wheel.  It is "the thing to do" at Prater.  So we found the ferris wheel, and we got on.  When we were in the air, we realized that there was another ferris wheel in the park--one that looked older.  So, we were on the wrong ferris wheel.  But the kids had a great time.  Dane has decided that he does not like roller coasters (maybe he's not related to me) and he's afraid of heights.  But, since the first roller coaster was such fun torture, we decided to go on the other one, too.  I told Dane not to worry, the other one was closed in, so the fact that it was older, much, much, older, and quite possibly rickety, didn't matter.  So, the real ferris wheel, has little train car type boxes that a whole group of people can go into.  Then you have an amazing view of the city.  Dane was uneasy as the entire group moved to one side to look at the view, and the "box" tilted to that side.  By the end of the circle though, he was joking about everyone going to one side and jumping, just to see what it would do.  You can rent one of the "boxes" for an elegant dinner.  I don't know how many times you would go around the circle for the dinner, but Dane and I figured maybe once per course.  We learned that you can rent a box for tea as well.  But considering the price we paid to just ride it, I think we will opt to not do either of those.



The special dining car

Before the fateful fall

We live over by the mountains on the right side

After the rides, we went for a walk in the park.  The kids played on a playground.  The equipment they have in the parks is fun.  I don't think that they could have most of the equipment on the playgrounds in the U.S.  It would considered too much of a liability.  Of all the activities we have done here, we have not signed a single waiver.  Even for the skiing lessons, camel rides, and trips with tour guides, there was no paperwork to do.  Speaking of liabilities though, Deagan did have a little mishap.  We told him it was time to leave the park.  Instead of listening, he decided he would climb to the top again.  He did, and was in a hurry to get down, because the rest of us were leaving.  He ended up slipping and falling, from about a 1/3 of the way down.  The ropes caught his feet about 1/2 way down and flipped him over to land on the ropes on his back, and he fell again and landed on his side on the bottom rung of ropes.  We're lucky he didn't go from the top to the bottom.  It would have been much worse than just a few bruises.  He got the wind knocked out of him, and hopefully he learned a little lesson on obedience.

Off to Turkei!!!-Woche 9

We flew into Turkey late in the evening.  The moon was high in the sky.  The planes all fly past Antalya, out over the Mediterranean, turn around, and fly back to land coming from the south.  We couldn’t see much of the lay of the land because it was dark, but the moon reflecting on the water was beautiful!  We landed safely and then headed to customs.  We needed to buy visitor’s visas in customs.  It was interesting because Dan had to pay 45€ to get his (coming on a Canadian passport) and the rest of us only had to pay 15€ (on the American passport)—something to consider when planning your trips abroad.  We arrived at the Barut Lara Resort at about 9:30pm.  We headed to our room.  We had a nice 2 bedroom flat, with a terrace out to the pool.  Dan headed to the restaurant to see if he could muster up some grub for us.  They did give us a sandwich and water on the plane, but we still felt like eating something.  We called it a night and decided to explore in the morning.  All inclusives are wonderful things!  I love how you can eat all day long, as much as you want, and never have to cook a meal or clean a dish!

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Saturday was a beautiful day.  We played at the ocean (although the water was freezing and there was a cool breeze).  We played in the pool (which was colder than the ocean).  We enjoyed our “Miss Lara” drinks by the pool.  The drinks were kid friendly, but the stirrers were not necessarily.  They had several inflatable bounce houses set up for the kids.  There was a rock climbing tower, two obstacle courses, and a mechanical bull.  The kids had a great time.  

 Of course, we ate, and we ate, and we ate!!  They have really good caramel and pistachio ice cream, available after breakfast.  The olives were good.  The salad bar had lots of fresh herbs on it.  Huge sprigs of dill, basil, and mint leaves.  They eat a lot of cucumber and tomato and red onion mixed with fresh herbs and balsamic vinegar.  There are several green houses in the area that all grow tomatoes and strawberries were in season in the area as well.  At every meal they had 10-12 different kinds of rolls and breads, a huge assortment of cheeses (the goat cheeses here are very strong), appetizer salads, fresh squeezed orange, apple, and cherry juices.  Occasionally, they had fresh peach juice.  For dessert, they specialized in Baklava with pistachios or walnuts.  Our favorite was with Nutella.  They also had puddings, mousses, tortes, and custards.  We tried a lot of foods that we haven’t had before.  We had grape molasses, honey comb, rose jam, quince jam and squash dessert.  The kids all tried a traditional Turkish dish made of raw ground beef mixed with spices, eaten with lettuce leaves.  (No one got sick).  They have a yogurt drink (Ayran) that is sour—kind of like buttermilk.  We ate Kevar (sliced beef that was cooked on a vertical rotisserie with a tomato based sauce poured over thick English muffin type bread that they called pita).  The kids loved the meatballs which were really more like 2” beef patties.  Deagan enjoyed the raw salmon sushi they had on Asian night—although he didn’t know he was eating raw fish, or even fish at all.  The fresh pears and strawberries were wonderful!  I was surprised though, that we only found humus one night.  There were no falafels and you could only find pita bread at the specialty Turkish restaurant.   

That night, we bought a used movie from the resort store because we weren’t sure that the nightly show would be kid friendly.   We enjoyed relaxing and exploring the resort.  They have a cat house, which acts as a shelter for wild cats.  You can go in and pet the cats they are nursing back to health.  They have several cats running around the resort.  We figure they keep the mice down.  There was plenty to do at the resort with tennis, squash courts, billiards, ping pong, swimming at any of the several pools, but mostly we spent time at the beach.  Danyon learned to nap in his carrier by the pool, or by the beach, or just about anywhere.  We tried putting him in the ocean, thinking he would like it, but he hated it and cried the whole time.

Sunday morning, we woke up to an Easter bunny surprise.  The Easter bunny left bags of chocolate for each of the kids.  Dan and I got some chocolate too, just not as much as the kids.  Since there is not a church anywhere to be found (except a mosque), we stayed at the resort, for a low-key day.  The resort had a kids program going on all day that had fun Easter activities for the kids.  They got to make bunny ears, have an egg hunt, do an egg piñata and several balloon and egg games.  Each of the kids club workers were fluent in 4 languages:  Turkish, German, English, and Russian.  They gave all the directions in each language and could switch languages mid sentence.   That was pretty impressive.

 Every night they had a mini-disco, where the kids could dance to action songs like the hokey pokey.  However, they were all in different languages.  Mostly they were German, with a couple Spanish and French.  The younger kids loved it (Dane was feeling like he was too old for something like that.)  The evening show was a parrot show.  These parrots could do things like play basketball and do math.  They could even do flips into lounge chairs to show us how we should be relaxing at the pool.  I didn’t ever see anyone do a flip into their lounge chair, though, the kids wanted me to try.

Monday was another beautiful day, but a little on the cool side.  We went to the beach.  After lunch, we went to the indoor pool to warm up.  The entertainment that night after the mini disco was a magician.  He was better than I was expecting.  The kids thought he was really cool.  He did some pretty big tricks for such a small stage.  He was very entertaining.

  





Kids trying to be the model for the carving



Tuesday we decided to venture off the resort so that we could see Turkey—or at least a little of it.  It was cheaper for us to hire a tour guide and van privately than to pay for each of us individually for a big group tour.  So, off we went with

Aykut.  We went to some old ruins (about 2000 years old.)  We got to race in an arena.  There were still stands and some of the structure left.  A lot of it has been destroyed due to time and earthquakes.  In the arena, there would have been chariot races, animal fights (animal vs. animal and animal vs. people), and gladiator fights.  It is pretty cool to see so much of it still intact, even though it has been so many years.  Our tour guide was wonderful.  In Turkey all tour guides must be certified with the state, so before he took his certification tests he had received a degree in Archeology and had participated in several excavations of ancient sites in Turkey. He knew all about the sites and the events that took place there right down to the specific years in many cases.  He gave us some insight into how the people would have lived at the time.  They would have had snack shops and general shops all around the arena (in every third arch).

The Roman Baths.  Everything you see here would have been covered with marble.



Main street

Artemis engraved on the column

This is the school.  Pieces of marble are still left on some of the walls.

Mosaic floor

Two different colors of marble.

We then went to the ruins of Perge.  It was a whole town.  They have uncovered the ruins of the city market, the city walls, the Roman baths, the school, and the main street.  You could see all the plumbing that they used (clay pipes) to warm the three different temperature pools.  There would have been columns and fountains, steam rooms—all covered completely in marble.  It would have been absolutely beautiful.  Even all the arenas were covered in marble.  The guide was knowledgeable in the Christian history as well as the Muslim history of the people.  He said that the apostle Paul would have most likely come and preached in this town and would have warned them against their Pagan Gods, as this city was build for Artemis.  You can still see some ruts in the road from the wear and tear of the chariots.  They have discovered a mosaic floor that goes through the entire city.  However, to protect the floor, they have brought in sand and dirt to cover the floor.  The kids dug down and found the floor.  They were able to see the mosaic tiles.  The guide had us cover it back up when we left.  We were able to climb around and on all the structures.  They don’t have any rules against it.  What a great place for the kids to experience ancient Roman history, being able to literally gets their hands and knees dirty.  They would not have been this lucky almost anywhere else in the world.

Next we went to Aspendos.  It is the best preserved Roman Theater in the world.  They still host shows in the summer where they use the original seats for the audience.  It was cool to go sit on the marble seats and pretend to watch a show.  We got to go on the stage and pretend that we were the actors (although all the actors would have been male.)  It’s pretty incredible.  After that, we went on a camel ride.  With camels, it is the getting up and down that is rough.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to travel all across the desert on one though.  It would be a pretty rough ride, but better than walking.  The guide took us to a village where we ate at a local’s house.  They made really thin pancake type things stuffed with spinach, cheese, or meat.  We had fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and a salad made with tomatoes, cucumber, and olives that the family cured themselves.

The guide took us to a National Park.  There were a couple of beautiful waterfalls.  We got to feed the ducks and fish.  We saw turtles and a crab, too.  The area was very green and beautiful.  We got to walk on some of the trails.  It was a great day!  When I picture Turkey, I didn’t picture beautiful waterfalls and lush greenery in pine trees.

 

The next day, we continued with our guide.  He took us to another waterfall.  It is on the edge of the city.  The water comes from the Taurus Mountains and runs all the way to the cliffs of Antalya and falls to the sea.  Antalya is the only city in the Turkish Riviera that was built on cliffs.  Next, we went to a Turkish Bazaar (pronounced as Pazaar).  We got to shop with the locals.  We were some of the only non-locals there.  We got some great deals on some clothes for the kids.  We also bought some local dry figs, apricots, and walnuts.  We also tried something that was green and fuzzy.  It is in the apricot family.  It was more bitter than an apricot and they eat it with salt.  I highly recommend eating the dried figs, torn in half, with a walnut piece put inside.  It is so good!  We were also able to buy a Turkish rolling pin to make the thin stuffed pancakes.  I just don’t have the wood fire and pan to cook them!

We continued on to the old city Kaleiçi.  It has old city wall ruins and Hadrian’s Gate right in the middle of town.   We saw the old harbor that has boats, all hand-made out of wood.  There are no fiberglass boats in the harbor.  In the summer, you can take a boat cruise to the waterfall at the cliff.  We ate lunch at a local restaurant and tried the local cuisine of Donar (beef cooked over a wood fire, spiced and served with pita, yogurt, and salad).

We met up with our driver again, and we went to a second National park with more waterfalls.  They were cool.  There were caves behind them that you could go into a see the falls from behind.  It was a beautiful walk.  We enjoyed the time there.  It rained that day and was quite a bit cooler, so after returning home, we just went to the indoor pool.  We had reservations that evening for the Turkish Restaurant.  We got all dressed up and we headed to the restaurant for dinner.  It was a five course meal, that was very good.  The kids tried all the appetizers, cold and warm.  They are known for their buttered lentil soup.  I got some and we all tried it.  Dane and l liked it the best.  The others didn’t really care for it.  Dane and I had chicken skewers over pita.  Dan had the lamb cooked in a clay pot.  Deagan had the meatballs in casserole and Dyllan had steak.  It was an enjoyable evening.  We all loved each other’s company and the kids were quite patient during the two hour dinner.  Upon leaving, we were offered a piece of Turkish Delight.  They had Turkish Delight one night at the buffet and you can buy boxes of it everywhere, but it was not served very often.  Turkish people are big tea drinkers.  They often have a cup in hand all the time.  They drink chai tea.  They also have several fruit teas, and apple was the kids’ favorite.  They drink it quite strong, and it is the same as drinking a cup of hot cider.  You could buy the powder to make the fruit teas in any of the spice markets, but we never had time to stop at the one that was labeled in English.  We didn’t want to buy the wrong thing.  Now that we know that you can buy it, we may be able to find it at the Brunnenmarkt.

Thursday was our last full day.  We tried to squeeze every possible moment out of it.  We spent the morning at the beach.  It was sunny, but again, the breeze was quite cool.  The waves were also very big and it was hard to keep Deagan on his feet.  After lunch, we swam at the indoor pool again, to warm up.  That afternoon, Dan and I had a special treat.  We signed up for the Turkish bath.  We left the kids in the room with a movie to watch while Danyon slept. 

 Dan and I started our treatment with the Thalasso pool, which is a warm pool of sea water (good for health) and jets to relax your muscles.  After soaking in that for 15 minutes, we went to the sauna.  The sauna was made entirely of marble (just like the old Roman Baths) and floor, walls, seats, etc. were all heated.  We sat in there for about 10 minutes.  They had sinks with metal basins that you could pour water over you in the sauna.  After that, Dan and I were taken to another marble room with a wide marble bench.  Again, the whole room was heated through the marble.  We laid down on the marble bench and two guys poured warm water all over us.  Then they put exfoiliating mits on their hands and scrubbed our entire bodies (this is called peeling).  Our entire bodies were tingling afterwards.  Then we got rinsed again.  Next then had cotton flour-sack type tubes that they dipped in soapy water.  They filled the tubes with air and made tons of bubbles.  They put bubbles all over us.  We were engulfed in probably 10-12 inches of bubbles everywhere.  Then they took soft cotton mits and rubbed all the soap everywhere (this is called foaming).  They finished with washing your hair and the best head massage I’ve ever had.  Then they rinsed us off with warm water.  Dan and I sat and relaxed and dried off, then we went to get a full body oil massage.  It was so relaxing.  Dan is hooked on it.  He can’t wait to get back to Istanbul and go to another Turkish Bath.  I also highly recommend it, if you ever get the chance.  I think the Romans were on to something there.  Reluctantly, we left the tranquility and went back to the room to meet up with the kids.  Dyllan and Deagan enjoyed their last night of disco and afterwards, we watched a Cuban-Circ show.  However, it didn’t seem very Cuban at all.  They had dancing ladies mixed with acrobatics.  The dancing ladies were VERY scantily clad and were doing more of a Samba dance.  It seemed very Brazilian to us.

Friday morning, we had just enough time to pack our bags and head to one last breakfast.  The day was a beautiful sunny day and was the clearest yet.  We were sad to be leaving.  We were definitely not ready to go back to reality.  Dyllan and I took one more stroll on the beach and then we were off to the airport.  We had a safe flight back home.  We stopped at the grocery store before getting home, as we had no groceries, and Dan needed to leave on another flight to Poland for work that evening.  He is struggling to stay awake at his meetings, and would rather be back in Turkey, but is doing okay.  As for us, we are spending a relaxing weekend playing games.  We will watch General Conference this weekend, but the Saturday morning session doesn’t start until 6:00pm for us.  Then Saturday afternoon starts at 10:00pm.  It is the same for Sunday.  I don’t know how many sessions we’ll be able to stay awake for, so we may have to catch them later.  Dan will miss most of them as well.  They broadcast some of the sessions at the church, but only a couple.  Since we don’t have a car, we’re going to try to get them from the internet.  In the meantime, I’ll be planning our next vacation!