Weekend games

Saturday morning, I woke up as usual and headed to the gym, then, post-13k run, took a shower and crashed again. This is my normal weekend when I’m in town and not working. Unlike most mornings, I got jolted out of a semi-conscious state by the annoying beep of a smoke detector.

And thus began a solid half hour of The Beep Game.

You’ve played this. You hear that dang beep but can’t figure out where it’s coming from.  It doesn’t repeat itself quickly, so you can’t just hear it, start walking because you’re sure it’s not in the room you were in at the time, and hear it again. It becomes an audio cat-and-mouse game, and it’ll drive you nuts.

My apartment isn’t all that big, but it’s got three bedrooms with a smoke detector in each. There are two hallways, a long one and a short one. The long one, at the front door, connects the front door to the living room and the short one basically fits a radiator and my L.L. Bean rug. (Plug for L.L. Bean: it is an awesome rug, kind of Navajo-y, but I don’t see it on the website now.) The little hallway serves as the intersection of the three bedrooms. There’s a carbon monoxide detector there and a smoke detector in the long hallway, plus there’s a fifth smoke detector in the living room.

That’s a lot of potential beeps, and it’s not like this is the first time they’ve driven me nuts. However, I can’t ever remember which I’ve changed because it takes more than one or two tries to figure it out.  Saturday was no different. It went off once, signaling that I really should get going, and all I could tell was that it wasn’t loud enough to be the one in my bedroom. This meant that, although annoying, it wasn’t enough to actually drag me out of bed at that time. I had a long week and wanted to sleep late, plus I figured I deserved it after 13k.

Anyway, when I heard it again – with what seemed like a long but indeterminate amount of time in between – I figured I should get up and join The Game.

Eliminating the one in my bedroom still left four smoke detectors, and I really thought it couldn’t be the one in the long hallway or in the desk/closet room, since I really think I’ve changed those before. (The desk/closet room is, obviously, the one with the Drexel desk. I moved the Drexel bookcases in there and, since Turks don’t do closets, I bought a shower curtain rod and rigged it between the wall and the bookcases, providing a home to all my pants and suits.

I moved a chair into the little hallway and waited. It seemed the next beep came faster than it had before, but all I could then determine was that it didn’t sound like a bedroom one at all. I thought it came from the long hall, so I moved the chair and took it out, then went to make pancakes.

Pancakes are the weekend treat. I’m finally whittling down the huge stock of flour that I brought for some inexplicable reason. Today in particular, I used a ton because I made a triple batch of cookies for our guards.

As I was making the pancakes, though, I heard the beep again, so I changed the one in the living room, pulling the old battery out and sticking in the one from the long hallway. This was no easy feat because, as I learned, my living room ceilings are really high and my shoulder is not doing those “lift and twist a little” movements much at all. I tend to compensate by lifting my arm with the other arm, but for this, unlike, say, the little light above me on a flight, required two hands.

A few minutes after I completed the feat, the beep went off again – twice, like 45 seconds between. This made no sense because I swear when I sat in the chair in the little hallway, right outside all three bedroom doors, the beep came in front of me. And now they were coming irregularly! Since I knew I’d changed the one in the desk/closet room at one time, I started in the spare bedroom. Nothing doing, so I tried the one in my bedroom, even though I was absolutely positive the beeps hadn’t come from there.

The beeping continued, and at this point, the game was getting really old, since I’d changed the battery in every single smoke detector I had. By that point, I was tired of The Game but it doesn’t end until the beeping stops, and it hadn’t stopped. I started re-trying them and knew it wasn’t the long hallway one, when, as I was closing the little smoke detector face after changing the battery for the second time, the sound went off from behind me.

At that point, I wondered if random coincidence had drained two batteries at once, so I basically started taking the batteries out of multiple smoke detectors at once – and then, as I was in the hallway, I heard the beep next to me.

Not the smoke detector at all, but the carbon monoxide detector, which is on the wall outside my room. However, there is no way that’s what I heard earlier, since I had been sitting right next to it when I heard the beep in front of me, not to my right, left or behind me.

The good news on that one was that I have rechargeable AA batteries so I could recharge those quickly, but right now, I have two 9-volts out of the five smoke detectors. I think one of them is probably still good, but at this point I don’t care. I’m just so happy to have silence! I had been headed to work that morning but decided to linger, just so I could enjoy the silence.

I don't do windows, but this guy does

Like many offices, ours has a bunch of windows and of course the outside ones have to be cleaned every once in a while. I think ideally, we aim for quarterly, but realistically it’s a bit less. And that’s kind of a relief, because it’s a big ordeal.

How many people does it take to wash windows? Well, I don’t know the total because I was just with one of the two teams. We had one on the ground to do the windows that were accessible by ladders, but I was working with a team of two responsible for the ones that required dangling from a rope over the ledge. One of those guys was the spotter, of sorts, and one guy was the window washer.

Not the guy, but close enough.

In addition, one of my guys was somewhat supervising (he came and went between the two teams) and our regular window washer was also there. He’s one of the guys who does the inside windows regularly and I guess he was there for quality control or something.

And then there was me, so that brought the total of the ropes team to four. I was there because of the location of some of the windows, and I was there from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., so it was a long day standing on the roof watching a guy wash windows.

The actual window washing didn’t take long. I timed one of the latter windows at 27 seconds, but I was there for seven and a half hours.

But that’s not to imply the guys were dilly-dallying. It was a fascinating to watch the window washer in action.

He was like Spiderman, but a Spiderman serious about safety. The guy, who was maybe in his late 20s, had a harness with all these climbing hooks coming off it, each with a specific purpose. He was deliberate about how he hooked up all his wires, hooks and clampy things, taking his time and being very meticulous before lowing himself down the wall.

In all, it probably took an average of 10 minutes to do each window, with less than one minute being the actual sponge-and-squeegee part. He had this awfully long rope, which he doubled up. Watching him roll it up at the end of the day was entertainment in itself  because it reeled  it in, made sure there were no twists in it and looped it around his shoulders for storage, then twisted it into a knot for easy carrying.

He scouted the roof for the little safety hooks, the ones designed exactly for the purpose of allowing people to hang off the walls. I saw this earlier in the summer, too, when the guys power-washed the roof. But Spidey was in a class all his own. Watching him tie knots was mesmerizing, and trying to figure out what all the implements were hanging from his body was a game in itself.

He has a couple of things that looked like compasses in giant Vice-grippy-ish sort  of things, and another thing that I could tell you were supposed hold in your hand, kind of like a squirt gun, but it didn’t have what would have been a muzzle, just so weird tube sort of thing. Turned out, these were pulleys he’d clamp to the rope to help him climb up and down. I don’t mountain climb and really don’t rappel down cliffs, but it seemed like the kind of stuff you’d use for that.

Except that’s fun. (Or at least is to a certain breed of thrill seeker.) This was work, and I cannot fathom how someone would wake up and say to himself, “You know, I want to be a window washer when I grow up. And not just any window washer, a high-rise one.”

Our building isn’t that high, but it’s far up enough and solid enough on the bottom to make it hurt if something went wrong. This guy was no dummy. He was absolutely methodical in his prep work, starting from a long survey of how to rig up his ropes. It wasn’t just a “hook it there and slide down” thing; he used multiple anchors at various parts of the roof. I’m sure it involved math in the same way that playing pool does – tie this here to leverage that, then run this other thing through here.

I don’t know how long it took him to perfect his method, or how he learned. He had an assistant with him who was a bit older so I wondered if he’d apprenticed to a degree, but I couldn’t ask. First of all, the window washer spoke absolutely no English and I can only say good morning, good evening and thank you and count to five in Turkish. Second, the assistant didn’t speak. It took me awhile to catch on to this; I thought the grunting was just to get the window washer’s attention; the anguage of a longtime partnership. But eventually, I realized the older man couldn’t speak, like an Avox in “The Hunger Games.” He communicated by grunting or making a noise with his throat and was pretty good with sign-ish language. When he made some motions in my direction, I had no trouble figuring out that he’d asked if I lived in Istanbul.

Anyway, watching them work together was engrossing. I’d brought along my Florida State beach chair to chillax in, but I never bothered with it. I was utterly fascinated with watching Spidey ease himself over the wall, load up with the bucket, sponge and squeegee and then slowly, a bit at a time, lower himself to the window. Then, if the window was big, he’d keep himself from swinging back and forth by smacking a giant suction cup on the window and holding it while he went to town in the window.

Less than a minute later, he’d do some rearranging of his clamped items – yes, while he just hung there – and the little Vice-grippy pulley would emerge and he’d attach them to the rope. Pulling out what looked kind of like a big nylon dog leash, he stuck one foot in it and then, as he slowly moved the pulleys up the rope, the rope would raise the leash and his foot, mimicking him climbing steps. Once he got to the top but before he pulled himself over, he’d deliberately hand over the sponge/squeegee bucket to the other guy and the do some fancy clamping and unclamping, plus removed this handy nylon sheath that he wrapped around the ropes where they touched the building, which kept them from fraying.

The whole production really was interesting to watch. The guy, young as he was, was a complete pro. Even at the end, he took a couple items the assistant had tucked in there back out so that he could refold them in a certain way.

I really like working with the facilities crew on the weekends, but usually I want to jump in and do some of the work. I like that kind of stuff, though I’ll leave the window washing to Spidey. I really was jealous when they power washed, and when they tore down the wall they pretty much had to hold me back. I like to try to guess how they’re going to go about the work, like which tools they’ll use to do the job.

We had a big part on some kind of air conditioning thing replaced not that long ago, and the unit was on the roof. The part was huge, like lifted-by-crane huge. It was interesting to watch the crew guide the new part in, because it was going a couple floors up on the roof – which has lots of electrical-type stuff on it – and being hoisted by a crane whose driver could not see the roof. There were a couple guys hands-on on the roof, another calling the shots and another relaying the shots over the radio to the crane driver. It went in without a hitch.

Today, I couldn’t even pretend to help, although I think Spidey was amused at my presence. Through one or two other people, I asked a couple questions about the equipment because it baffled me. (I thought the suction cups were kneepads.) But I really couldn’t help, so I took a knee and weeded the roof. And although that must sound a little weird, the roof has these concrete (I guess) square blocks and, either on purpose or not, weeds sometimes spring up between them. Once the team was out of the area where I had to keep a constant eye on them, I sat down and did some weeding.

I miss this kind of stuff, and it makes me want to buy a house.

Publix, Radio Margaritaville, Eskimo Joe’s, playing tourist, dumb Americans: it’s my normal

Cockfighting Cupids

Hopefully this is the last time I grouse about this, but how stupid can traveling Americans be? I’m manning the duty phone again and it’s just amazing what people do.

First, visas are tricky to come by these days, and, if you travel internationally, you should always know how to obtain a visa in the country you’re visiting. So many people do not, and it seems that most of those people have called me this weekend. They are also under some delusion that I can beam them in the country. Nope. Go back from where you came.

They also seem to think I wield power with Turkish Airlines, such as the woman who missed her connection because, while her originating flight was on time, she didn’t realize she had to walk to the connecting gate. She was all pissed and expected me to talk to the airline out of having her pay a change fee. She said she didn’t have it and would “have to spend two months in the airport.”

Then there’s the people who put their 70+ grandmothers on an international flight alone and then get upset when I don’t swoop down in my black helicopter when they miss their connecting flights. The grandmothers always, always, are “elderly,” either “sick” or “crippled,” and never speak English, yet the relatives are fine to put them on international flights all by themselves.

"From Russia With Love" and "Inferno" filmed here.

Two scam calls, though neither caller would acknowledge they were being scammed. One lady who was concerned if her kids’ father could take them internationally without her. I had a terrible connection on that one and was basically yelling the same thing over and over in hopes that she got it. I was concerned because I wasn’t sure IF she wanted him to be able to take them. She did, so I kept trying to repeat “I think so, but call the airline.” Seriously, why would I know that? And how hard would it be to write a note just in case?

My favorite so far (I have the thing til Tuesday) was the American in Greece who called me with a beef with a Turkish company. He was stunned when I told him it was none of the U.S. government’s business.

Solve your own problems, people. That guy called me on Thanksgiving morning as I was headed out to play tourist. We’re still on “movement restrictions,” but I got permission to visit two places on Thursday morning: the cisterns and the Archeological Museum. I really wanted to see those two, and my annual museum pass expired the Friday after T-giving so I was really glad I got the OK to go.

Obligatory Medusa photo

I sped through the cisterns because, well, first of all, it’s pretty much all the same thing, but also because I had no cell service and couldn’t risk not being available for the duty phone.

But it was such a pretty place, and very peaceful when you’re there at 10 a.m. I’d been to a cistern once before, in Morocco, but it wasn’t nearly as nice.

Here’s a bit from Lonely Planet on it:

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/turkey/istanbul/attractions/basilica-cistern/a/poi-sig/402088/360887

“This subterranean structure was commissioned by Emperor Justinian and built in 532. The largest surviving Byzantine cistern in İstanbul, it was constructed using 336 columns, many of which were salvaged from ruined temples and feature fine carved capitals.  …

It was originally known as the Basilica Cistern because it lay underneath the Stoa Basilica, one of the great squares on the first hill. Designed to service the Great Palace and surrounding buildings, it was able to store up to 80,000 cubic meters of water delivered via 20km of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea, but was closed when the Byzantine emperors relocated from the Great Palace. Forgotten by the city authorities some time before the Conquest, it wasn't rediscovered until 1545…”

Two of the 336 columns are built on Medusa heads, one of them upside down. I feel like that’s the photo op everyone goes after.

Look! It's the Brady Bunch

I ran over to the Archaeology Museum after that, and again I practically had the place to myself – for a while. I was winding down in the “Istanbul Through the Ages” exhibit and the noise level increased exponentially. I think the entire Istanbul system entered the museum at the same time, so I got out of there pretty quickly after that.

But I loved perusing the exhibits. They had an entire display of sarcophaguses, like four rooms’ worth. Those just amaze me. I took three photos of one huge one, getting closer and closer with each shot. The detail is amazing, and how, first of all, and how long it must have taken to get those things right.

I’m really glad I got to go. I fear that in eight years, when I tell someone I lived in Istanbul for two years, they’re going to think I was an idiot for not being able to visit all this city has, but right now a lot of it’s off limits.

So that was one thing to be thankful on Thanksgiving. Another was being invited to a friend of a friend’s place. My colleague from work has friends from church who got together and asked me to join them.

There were a handful of Americans in the mix, plus one Mexican who had gone to school at Oklahoma State. The hostess was from Oklahoma and I totally blew their minds when I told them I’d gone to Eskimo Joe’s. Had a weird conversation with the bartender that had something to do with Dominik Hasek.

A taste of home

As I tend to do at parties, I helped out in the kitchen. I’m much better at coping with groups, even small ones, when I have a task. So, channeling Karen, I jumped in and helped with the food. Never done a sugar glaze before, but it worked.

I can make myself at home in a kitchen, but when Oklahoma pulled out the gravy packet from Publix, I knew I was home. Oh, man, I was so happy to see that. I miss Publix.

It’s little connections like that that do you a world of good on Thanksgiving. Kind of like a win over the Gators, you know?

But Monday was the best. The hurricane relief concert was past my bedtime or before my wake-up time; I’d had a busy weekend and just couldn’t spare those hours as waking ones, but I did write myself a note to turn on Radio Margaritaville as soon as I woke up. I managed to catch the last two songs live (and subsequently had “Hey Good Lookin’” going through my head all day) and then got a text from Leila from the show.

Happy she could go, but I was so jealous. Yes for Jimmy Buffett, Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney and somewhat for resident Seminole Jake Owen (seriously, he didn’t wear an FSU shirt? Shame!) but Scotty Emerick was there, too. Bucket list item! Had a hunch but it wasn’t exactly like I could take that black helicopter from Istanbul to the civic center. It’s only for dumb Americans.

Having a ball. Or not.

Two busy weekends back-to-back here! Over Veterans’ Day weekend, I spent two days on a sightseeing tour and then ran 15k. Today is the afterglow from our “Marine Ball;” I’ve just finished baking and icing cookies for a party tonight as well as a dessert for Tuesday’s Thanksgiving lunch.

The 15k about killed me. I’d met my buddy at 7 a.m. to transport to the 9 a.m. race, which was darn early considering I’d gotten home at 10:30 the night before from my two-day road trip. I’d also not really eaten a decent meal the evening before so the race was really rough. I finished the 14k strong three weeks ago, but it took me 11 minutes longer to run one just one kilometer longer. That’s really not good, but I’m still trying to psyche myself up for a half in April.

The run was about the same route as last year’s 10k, except we jagged left at Eminonou instead of right and then added on another five kilometers. It was chillier than I expected, but I had brought a very lightweight jacket so I wore that the first 5k before warming up and taking it off (which is hard to do while running with a painful shoulder). Then, with about 3k remaining, we hit the shoreline again and it got really windy, so I had to re-juggle and put it back on. However, even though I struggled, I forced myself to run the last few bits so at least I told myself I finished strong.

And I hurt for a couple days alter, too. That’s the first time, really. My Achilles heel on one side wanted a divorce, and on the other both the knee and the hip weren’t really happy with me. Still, I feel like I’m cheating myself if I at least don’t try the half.

The two days before, I signed on to one of those tour companies and hit up both Troy and Gallipoli. Oh, man, I just love Turkey so much. There is so much history here, and Troy is exhibit A. There have been nine layers excavated, dating back to 3000 BC. The area is pretty big, but so far, only 10 percent has been excavated. It’s pretty impressive.

 

There’s a replica Trojan horse, even though that’s really just a story. Maybe it’s true, but probably just something that Homer, et. al., have popularized. But it’s really cool, and I love to take pictures of archaeological stuff like that, even if photos don’t do it justice.

Saturday was Veterans’ Day (happy birthday, Dorothy!), but the rest of the world knows it as Remembrance Day, and when I made my “I wanna go to Troy and Gallipoli” plans, I totally didn’t put together the importance of Remembrance Day in Gallipoli.

There were multiple Ozzies and Kiwis on my little tour bus, and one of the Kiwis had made it a retirement bucket item to see Anzac. He had retired the Friday prior, and it was that important to him to see the place.

We had a Remembrance Day service and the tour guide gave us each a rose to put on one of the graves. Most of the headstones had the same words inscribed but a few had personalized. I found the marker (and these were people who were “believed to be” buried in the areas) of one 18-year-old Australian who had “He gave his life for his friend” and it got to me. He got my rose.

Other than the Mel Gibson movie, I really didn’t know much about it, including what “Anzac” meant (Australian and New Zealand forces in WWI), and it really was enlightening. And that’s on both sizes s- the Anzac and the Turk.

The campaign itself was pretty awful – nine months for Anzac troops to try to move about 2k straight up a cliff from a beach.  The tour took us to the beach and wound around to see what’s left of the trenches (lots of erosion) and up to the high point they were trying to take.

 

On the Turk side, it was what put Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on the map. He went on to found modern-day Turkey and is highly regarded, to put it lightly. His image is everywhere, including in practically every one of my local colleagues’ cubicles. I didn’t know that he was from that region of Turkey and had, so to speak, gotten his start at Gallipoli.

So busy weekend last weekend and so far this week’s been the same. Our Marine (It’s A Birthday Celebration, Not A) Ball was last night and I am just so glad it’s done. Most everyone had a good time, which is good, but as a person who doesn’t drink, cannot dance and really hates to dress up, it’s kind of my trifecta of hell. The only thing that made it bearable for me was that there was an amazing birthday cake involved.

But, since I was basically the person who finagled it to bring down the ticket cost from $60 to $30 and get an open bar, plus I organized the transport shuttles coming and going and pointed our Marines to an incredible baker for that amazing birthday cake, I felt I had to go.

I had two pieces of cake.

I’d wanted to leave at 10 p.m., right after the birthday cake part and before the dancing but our motor pool guy begged me to stay and help him get everyone home safely, so instead of being in bed at 10:30, I arrived home after 1 a.m.

Today, I’ve been trying to knock a few things out before going to another little get-together. It’s feast of famine for me. We have a luncheon on Tuesday and not many people have signed up to bring stuff so I’m trying to make a dessert (cookies) and three side dishes (veggies/rice, stuffing, okra) but I decided that the side dishes will have to wait until Monday night because they’ll get nasty.

Tomorrow starts another rough week at work, but it’s rough in the “there’s a lot to do” vein. I got a cortisone shot in my shoulder this week and have a follow up tomorrow. It’s helped, which confirm there’s something wrong with my shoulder, but there’s still other pain so I have to figure out what to do on that.

My only really downer this weekend has been that I am too busy to have scheduled a massage. I could really use one.

There’s something wrong with my shoulder and I am thrilled

Something like 8-9 months ago, my thrift-store leather Timberland jacket fell off the back of the chair at my desk. When I went to pick it up, some terribly mean invisible gremlin took my left arm, ripped it out of the socket, twisted it, and then jammed it back into the socket.  Or at least that’s what it felt like.

That was December, January, February or something like that. After a couple of months of agonizing pain when I reached for something or twisted it a certain way, I went to an orthopedist. That was April, but until now, all signs indicated there was nothing wrong.

Since April, I’ve had a total of three MRIs (two shoulder, one neck), X-rays, anti-inflammatories, steroids, physical therapy and some kind of really, really, really painful shot that was supposed to block pain but didn’t. All that took place between two doctors and one physical therapist at a hospital that took an hour for me to get to, which added all kinds of stress. And in all those appointments, I was probably with the actual doctors maybe a total of 20 minutes. That counts a five-minute stretch with the original doctor as he waited to see if the shot would kick in. (It didn’t.)

The original doctor diagnosed me from across the room. In two appointments, I spent maybe five minutes with him before he passed me off to the other doctor, a frozen shoulder specialist, who prescribed physical therapy and was initially convinced it was frozen shoulder. To be fair, I had many of the symptoms, but after unsuccessful and incredibly painful PT she changed her mind and announced it was probably my neck and not the shoulder at all. I was like, um, OK, but you have the neck MRI I did four months ago, right? They never bothered reviewing them.

As it turns out, I have some kind of thing in my spine where the disk is mashing against the spinal cord, but Doctor 2 still wanted to rule out any shoulder injury with the shot. It hurt, but didn’t work, and this convinced Doctor 2 it was my neck and not my shoulder at all.

At this point, though, it was about August and I was just exhausted and frustrated trying to commute to the place, and I also really didn’t understand why kind of doctor they were trying to send me to next. I tried to make an appointment to understand and that didn’t pan out, but fortunately, the medical staff at work helped me figure out it was a pain management doctor who wanted to do a shot in my neck.

However, at that point, I was just done in trying to deal with the commute and really not overly happy with the doctors, who always seemed like they were just trying to get me out the door. The medical staff made me another appointment at a different place, and, after two postponements, I finally saw the doctor today.

And there’s something wrong with me! I’m so relieved.

The pain is just incredible, I figured there had to be something wrong, but all the MRIs came back with nothing special. I’m no wimp, though, and the pain, which is getting worse, just takes my breath away.

Massages have helpd, and during the last one, the masseuse found a spot that definitely trigged wet-your-pants kind of pain. She said it was a tendon and it was “crooked.” She tried to “pull it out” and holy God, that was the worst. Massage therapists are absolute sadists.

But as it turns out, she was pretty dead-on, at least partly. By that I mean the new doctor (No. 3) took a brief look at the MRI, left the room and came back five minutes later with not only one issue but about five.

The tendon, indeed, is pinched between a couple of bones, so the masseuse was right on that. I have tendonitis as well, plus arthritis and some kind of other “you’re getting old” kind of thing. Can’t do much about that, but I have the bone-on-bone that I had in the other shoulder, too.

As if all that wrong with my shoulder isn’t enough, I also have what they call here a “hernia,” which is where the spine disks are stabbing the nerve. I really did suspect that, too, because once in awhile I will bump my arm, but not move the shoulder, and a jolt of pain goes all the way up my arm.

I feel vindicated that something really is wrong. Dr. 3 read the readout on the MRIs, which said all was right with the world, kept saying, “This is not right. There is something wrong with your shoulder.”

The problem is, though, that I don’t know which of the owies is really making me go owie. My spinal disks are attacking my nerve, yes, but that might not be the source of the pain. It could just be the tendon. The course of action is to start with a cortisone shot and see if that quells the pain. If not, it could be the neck thing.

Honestly, right now, I don’t care. I’m just so thrilled that someone validated the pain I’ve been in for more than a pregnancy’s worth of time. My plan is to try the cortisone next week.  And get another massage.

Not since “The Golden Girls” has there been this much talk about cheesecake

The stakes are up. I ran, and completed, my first 14k, and I did it in a time that was respectable to me. Plus, I finished on a good note – easily, I could have kept going. That’s fortunate, because in a couple of weeks I am on the hook for a 15k.

The race this time around was in the south of Turkey in a little city called Dalyan. It’s where baby turtles hatch and head to the Mediterranean Sea, so the race is called “The Turtle Race,” but in Turkish – Carretta.

It’s not carretta season, so we didn’t see any of them, but I did see the in-the-mountain tombs, which date back to the second century B.C. I swear, I will never get over that kind of thing. I’m utterly amazed at Turkey’s history and am so blessed to have the opportunity to drift by it on a boat, a stroll or a run. It’s everywhere here.

The city itself wasn’t much; basically it was the equivalent of a beach town or a little ski village – lots of cafes, restaurants and souvenir places. Perfect for strolling around, and we did a lot of that.

The run, the turtles, the beach, the in-the-mountain tombs, all that history, though, was second to the most important discovery of the trip: the cheesecake.

Backing up, I went with a colleague from work, M, and three of her longtime friends and travel buddies. M had d been traveling with her oldest friend in the group for about 20 years, and they’d met on a ski trip or something. The second came in a bit later, a friend from M’s church, and first ran with M and then they expanded that to traveling. The third came along a little later but basically they’d all been together for a long time and had a lot of fun together. They go on several annual trips, like some ski thing in February.

While I have zero plans to hone in on that, I had so much fun. I roomed with M and the oldest friend, F and the other two, who were a little younger, had another room. One of those two – T – oh my God, she was funny. While they all spoke at least some English, the longtime friends conversed more easily in Turkish, of course, so a lot of the time I was trying to follow conversations when I only caught a word now and then.

The one word I picked up on? Cheesecake.

T, especially, would talk really, really fast, and the tone was always upbeat. Without knowing the whole topic, I could tell that she was amazingly funny, but it was really hysterical to hear what sounded to me like, “Blah blah blah blah blah cheesecake blah blah cheesecake blah blah blah blah blah cheesecake.”

Wherever we were, the topic came back to cheesecake. And so did we – three or four times (depending on if you count the visits to the café or the pieces of cheesecake itself.)

One of the cafes, a little coffee and dessert place, served homemade cheesecake. My traveling quartet had made the same trip last year and discovered this place, but when they visited there were only two pieces remaining and they had to split them.

This trip, T called ahead and made sure they had five pieces for us, and, no kidding, we opted for that over dinner. The next day, after breakfast at the hotel, it was the first stop. I have to say, it was also darn good cheesecake, made by the owner himself.

While we were eating the cheesecake and drinking cappuccino (or, in my case, hot chocolate), I asked if they’d ever heard of “The Golden Girls.” Both M and F are about my age, so I knew they were in the target demographic when the show came out, but I had no idea if its popularity made it to Turkey.

It had. Not only had the two older ones heard of it, but the younger ones also knew of Dorothy, Ma, Rose and Blanche and remembered them sitting around the dining room table (the one that sat four, but for whatever reason [of course the camera] they never had a chair at one side of it and the fourth person always sat at a stool or the island or something.

The Golden Girls’ go-to food was cheesecake, and so was ours. We had a good laugh over it.

Honestly, with all we ate, both there and everywhere else, I’m surprised I was able to run. Plus, the race was on a Saturday afternoon, which seemed really weird since all the 10ks I’ve done so far have been in the morning. We did not eat cheesecake the morning of the race (I had fusilli broccoli) but as soon as we showered after, we made a beeline for the place.

Not a bad post-game routine, I have to say. It really was a fabulous.

Running Away

Yeah, it’s been awhile. It’s either feast or famine on the weekends.

Today, I took a group to the Hakart copper and brass place. This falls to me because the sort of “social coordinator” position is frozen right now and I’m on the board of the closest thing there is to a substitute and because, well, everything falls to me.

The trip is easy enough, and I hadn’t been before, so I didn’t mind. We took a van and a small group and everyone came away with stuff. I bought a little bell and a two-egg frying pan, plus a fat candle in a little copper tub.

We finished a bit ahead of schedule so we asked our driver to find a place to eat. He kept asking what kind of food we wanted and it was like, whatever is fine. I mean, we’re in Turkey. It’s going to be fantastic! So we went into a kebab place and oh, the chicken kebab I had was wonderful, but all the other stuff they brought out before was fantastic, too.

We’d all had about the same thing, and we decided to split the bill evenly and cover our driver’s cut. The waitstaff handed it to me and I DREAD doing math on the spot, but it was the absolutely easiest group bill ever. (Which is the only reason it’s notable enough to mention some eight hours later. Bear with me.)

Tab: 446TL. People dividing tab: 10. Appropriate tip: 10 percent-ish. People dividing tab: all bearing cash because the copper place didn’t take credit cards. I asked for 50 each and, within less than 48 seconds, had 10 crisp 50TL bills. Not one person gave me two 20s and a 10, and neither of the two couples handed me a 100. So easy it was comical.

Success! Tomorrow is a rug-shopping party (like I need one) and the remote possibility of a towel run. I finally bought some Turkish towels and have decided I want all the Turkish towels ever created, especially the ones from Jennifer’s Haman. They are awesome. I bought two small towels for the gym and to dry hair and then thought, geez, these things are too nice to take to the gym. Then, due to some bad laundry timing, I had to use one in the gym and now I’m never using anything else. The thing is fabulous. I want to get the same towels in slightly larger sizes now. And a robe. And whatever else they have. The stuff is just so awesome.

Last weekend, I took a road trip to Kars, which is close to the Armenian border, to see the ruins of the city of Ani. Here’s an Atlantic article on the city, with much better photos than I took: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/01/the-ancient-ghost-city-of-ani/100668/.

I took the cheap way to the ruins, which was the city bus. A guy sat down next to me, and we chatted a bit. He was traveling with two female friends. He worked with one (he had a Ph.D in ceramic and taught at a university, and she taught at a college, which, I think, means middle school in Turkey). The college teacher and the other woman were old friends. Anyway, once at the ruins, they invited me to wander with them, so the four of us took off in the other direction as the rest of the people on the bus (about 25 total), so we were alone in our excursions.

The place is utterly fabulous. Each time I walked into one of the structures, all I could think was how amazing it was. The frescoes were just phenomenal, and very creepy because in the defecation of them, people had scratched out the eyes of the saints and such and some of them were just so ghost-like.

Back in Kars, I went up to the fortress on the hill and also the museum. Since I’m currently not allowed to visit museums in Istanbul, it was really awesome to visit, and to use the museum card I bought last year. You pay a flat rate and get free admission to all museums for a year. I bought it on Thanksgiving, having no clue that in a couple of months they’d be off limits. So now, even if I don’t get to another by November, I at least made it worth my while. (And man, it was worth it.)

In all my running around lately, I haven’t had time to note my actual running around, which was the Puma Ignite 10k a couple of weeks ago. It was the Sunday after a rainy, rainy week, and the forecast was pretty bleak for the day. It wasn’t awful, but it did rain and was a bit cold at the end.

I went with a group of eight colleagues, most of whom were on one of the guard teams and were therefore really in shape. I knew going in I’d be the slowest one in our group but I was fine with that and so were they. The course was 10k, and it was one of those that was 5k one way and then just turn around and come back, and as I was in sight of the 3k mark, the first guy was on his way back. It was like, please enjoy some coffee and tea, because I will be awhile.

The race atmosphere itself was really amazing.  There were more people than I thought there’d be for a rainy, little-known race, and the sponsors were out strong. Fiat and Phillips were both there and had these freebie wrist sweat band things that were awesome, especially considering what I usually do is a fairly redneck method of triple-looping a bandana around my wrist. There were several flavored water drinks (fizzy and flat) and both coffee and tea places. Oh, and a running/health team place had stickers that said “Slow and Sexy” and “Fast as F*ck” (with an “*”).

I am not “fast as” anything whatsoever, and was not optimistic about my time. I have not exactly been crushing it in my daily runs on the treadmill; I just don’t get into it at all. Every day I hope that this is the day I start to love running, but so far, no dice. I stopped trying to go fast and am trying to just pace myself.

This time, I ran almost the first 3k, then did the run/walk thing. After about a three-minute span of feeling sick (this came after a pint of water), I realized that I was fairly comfortable, if bored. I swear, running, no matter what I listen to, is just boring. I tried to put together a decent playlist that would motivate me, but it’s just so boring. I kept chanting, “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me” and fully hoped running counted as strengthening. I’m slow and always will be, but I was hoping for around 1:15 or so.  My best time, if you can call it that for how slow I am, was 1:09:something.

Finally, I saw the end and whatever song that was on, clearly not motivating enough, ended and I figured I’d get something really upbeat on and push me to the end. And it was … “Amazing Grace.” Alan Jackson. At first, I thought, no way, this is just too slow and then I figured why not? Just be thankful, run steady, and finish the race. And I did, not out of breath or anything.

There was no clock or anything that I saw, so I did the circle thing around the sponsor booths, collecting chocolate milk, water, the fizzy fruit thing and (of course) tea. Only then did I remember to check the time, and it was around 10:15. It had started at 9, so I thought I might have cracked the 1:15 time but didn’t think I had bested 1:10. The 1:09 thing came when I was “training” (I use these terms loosely) at a much faster pace. I’ve slacked off and just try to keep steady.

Anyway, when they posted the official times, I was 1:08:55! Yay, best ever! Amazing Grace, amazing finish.

What things cost

Today’s my last day of R&R. I left Male Sunday night on the redeye and landed at 5 a.m., so I took today off for laundry and sleep. It’s back to work tomorrow.

Beware of monkeys

Had a really good time and I’m glad I structured it like I did, with Sri Lanka (Colombo, Kandy) first and Maafushi, Maldives last. It was kind of a quick decision based on the Istanbul-Colombo flight stopped in Male and the overnight was a nonstop back. I figured I’d get all the travel over with and chill on the beach for the rest of it and that worked out well.

I spent four days in Sri Lanka and then four in the Maldives. Not a long and extended R&R but I don’t think I could have handled one anyway. By the last day, I had island fever and was ready to get back to my own bed.

One thing I need to get used to is longer vacations. I’m really a short weekend recharger and the long stuff doesn’t sit well with me. This isn’t good news for down the road; the next gig gets me three three-week vacations and nothing else, so I need to get used to it. I’ve no idea how to do it, though.

Kandy was, by far, the Sri Lankan highlight, but that was completely because I screwed up the in-country transport and didn’t spend any time at all in Colombo.

This is why

Well, not true. I did spend time there, but not how I wanted to. I wound up in transport from around 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. the first day. And discovered there is just no consistency in pricing as far as transportation goes.

My biggest snafu was the airport to hotel on the way in. I figured I’d be in the hotel room by 5 p.m. or so. Well, I messed up.

The Colombo airport is about 35k outside Colombo, and the cheapest way to get to town is the 187 bus from the airport, which costs about a buck. That was a no-brainer and extremely easy. I made my way to the train station, and there’s where the price discrepancies come in.

People who look like me get the tourist rate. All the information I found said to take a metered taxi, and I tried, but the few I found marked “metered taxi” had drivers who flat-out refused to use it. Instead, I got quotes from 200 to 300 RP for a 5k ride. Considering the bus was 30 RP for 35k, it seemed unreasonable.

Elephant orphanage

Honestly, I don’t mind paying high prices. What bothers me is getting ripped off, so I asked the information guy at the train station how to get to my hotel. He said it was very easy and was a 10 RP train ride. I guess they use the trains like subways. I let him talk me out of just walking to the hotel, which would have been about an hour’s walk.

But here’s where I really screwed up: I asked for too much information. The guy was extremely helpful – really, everyone was helpful except the tuk-tuk drivers – and I asked him about train tickets the next day, too. As a result, I had too many numbers going through my head and, once on the train, I forgot how many stops he said before I got off.

And of course, I missed it. I realized I’d gone too far and was just going to get off at the next stop and walk back.  But it took FOREVER to get to the next stop. I figured it was probably 9-10k past where I needed to get off, and at this point, it was around 6 p.m. and daylight had faded.

So all of that for 10 RP, but then I had to get back. I found an honest tuk-tuk driver (the metered kind) and it was a legit 700 RP ride.

So you have the 10 RP train ticket compared to the 700 RP tuk-tuk ride. A 2-hour train ride the next day was 130 RP, which was, eventually, followed by an hour-long bus ride for 30 RP connected to the train site by a 400 RP tuk-tuk ride (5k) in between. The train ride back, in first class (accidental).

It makes no sense whatsoever. I understand that trains and buses can mass transport people and that cabs costs more but that’s really outrageous. And I’m sure it’s because tourists take taxis and locals go with the mass transport. Grr.

Frustrations with public transport aside, I had a great time. I spent two nights in Kandy on a hotel high up a hill. Gosh, I thought I’d walk forever trying to find that place. I liked it; the operators were nice and I’ve never stayed in a hotel with a sign warning me to lock windows to keep monkeys out.

I did the elephant orphanage and this amazing botanical garden. (A 500 RP tuk-tuk ride or a 20 RP bus ride – guess which I did?) The botanical garden was founded in 1761, and as a result there were many old and well-established trees, like a road lined with palm trees. It was about 150 acres and I wandered around it for three hours.

And I saw the monkeys there! They weren’t breaking into my hotel room; they were going through the trash cans all over the park. I gotta say, I’m a little scared of monkeys. They had packs of them, too, and I was wary of looking them in the eye. Fortunately, they tended to avoid people, so that made me feel better!

I took some pictures of them, but my phone is on its last legs and it shut off, so I didn’t get too many pictures of them or the gardens. That was sad because there were so many gorgeous flowers and unusual trees and the like. Oh, and a tree of bats. I also saw my first dead bat, completely by accident. That was nasty.

But overall, the garden was my favorite in Sri Lanka, even though the elephants were cool. I was just blown away by the garden. I mean, they had cinnamon trees. I’d never seen a cinnamon tree before.

In the Maldives, diving was my highlight. I’m still a novice but went down three times while there, plus snorkeled. Manta rays are big in the Maldives, as are sea turtles and I saw both. But that was after the snorkeling trip, which also doubled as a dolphin cruise. We were headed out to the snorkeling site and found ourselves in a pod of dolphins, so the captain pretty much took us in circles so we could see them better. I don’t have a good camera and did my best but it was just so cool to watch.

My chosen Maldive was Maafushi island, which is a ferry ride (public, 30 RP; private 375 RP) away from Male and the capital. Many islands and destination were a seaplane away, which, although I love seaplanes, I opted against for time purposes.

Walking around the island, at a slow stroll, didn’t take more than 15 minutes. The hotel guys met me at the ferry with a cart for my “luggage.” I had a backpack and tossed it on and then we walked no more than 30 yards to the hotel. I had to laugh at that.

I probably walked the length of the island three times a day, just looking at the sea in different light and at different angles. It was gorgeous, as was the beach. The sad, for the most part, was made up of tiny coral fragments and I’d sit and just sift through it to see what shapes I could find.

In a couple of cases, I found tiny, tiny complete conch shells, and, in others, found similarly sized hermit crabs.

And I decided that hermit crabs are admirable. I sat on a plot of coral for awhile and just watched the little guys. They’d get tossed up on the shore and I’d watch them compose themselves and start motoring again. Once in awhile, one would take a huge tumble down a dune (well, a bit of sand, but to a hermit crab smaller than my pinkie nail, it was a heckuva dune) and then get going again. 

Those little guys gave me a good visual of “roll with the punches.”

What constitutes an emergency

Last week, plus Labor Day, was a holiday, and I got to be the person on call as duty officer. This meant that I was on the hook to deal with any American citizens in Istanbul who were experiencing self-defined emergencies.

Wow, that constitutes an emergency for some! The most non-emergency call I got was a very nice woman, a naturalized citizen, whose mother or grandmother (I forget), was in the hospital for a non-life-threatening thing and was going to travel to the U.S. She was cleared to fly, but the airline required the family to purchase five seats for her so that she could lie down. Well, the family had reserved four seats but the airline lost the reservation.

The relative calls up and tells me, and then there’s a silence on the phone because I’m waiting on the emergency. Finally I realize none is forthcoming, and I ask, “So what did you think I could do for you?”

This is now my go-to question, because I’m honestly baffled at why people call me. Like seriously, what can I do? Your speakers are in customs, you missed your flight, whatever, and your thought is, “I better call the consulate!” It’d just odd.

Anyway, after several tries at explanation, I managed to get the concerned family member to understand that, while it was a sad thing the airline lost the reservation, there was nothing I could do, but stressed that, in all she had told me, at no point did she say the airline had told her there weren’t seats on the plane. Sure, you don’t have a reservation that they can find, but what you’re looking for is seats, right? She finally understood.

Others don’t get it. A person who had allegedly broken a Turkish law demanded that I tell her her rights as an American. I was like, well, in Turkey, you have none. You’re subject to Turkish law, like anyone else. I advised an attorney and offered a stock list of names and she lectured me on her opinion of Turkish lawyers, which was not positive.

My first one, though, was the most time-consuming. This guy who had been traveling in a city across the country realized that the bulk of his money had gone missing sometime during the day, and, with almost all of his remaining cash, he thought the smart move was to buy a bus ticket to Istanbul, a 12-hour ride away, so that Uncle Sam would send him forward on his journey. He even expected taxpayers to pay for the cab he’d taken to get to the consulate.

I’ve no idea how he came to the conclusion this was the thing to do; the smart thought would have been to stay put and call friends and family from where he was. He certainly didn’t think to verify that we’d be able to help. Which, BTW, we couldn’t, as we were closed and would not reopen for six more days.

He originally called at 10 a.m. or so, and on and off through the course of the day, I called his relatives on his behalf. His aunt refused to help him and hinted that this had happened before. She called his mom, and she called me. (He didn’t have her number.) She also didn’t want to assist, and when I told her there was nothing I could do, she called around and called me back, saying there was no one in the family who could/would help. I asked if she had any of his friends’ numbers (not only did he not have a credit card on him, he didn’t have a phone, either) and she assured me he had no friends, and basically implied he was my problem to work through. If I didn’t get him on his way, she said she’d call her congressman and he would contact the State Department. I told her I was the State Department, and we were closed.

Finally, around 4 p.m., I met him at the consulate – he’d been there six hours at that point – handed him the phone and told him to figure it out. And what do you know, he did. His mom came through for him and agreed to wire money, but of course, it was a holiday and no banks were open. The security guard who was there said the airport banks would be open and a light bulb went off in my head.

Airport! I could get him to the airport, and then he could get money and be on his way!  (Now that his mom agreed.) So I used my own bus pass (we were closed; we couldn’t process a loan) and 5 TL, and gave him explicit instructions on how to maneuver how to get to the airport. He thanked me and I never heard from him again, so hopefully he made it … somewhere.

But the crème of the crop was a scam victim. We get these a lot; the MO is a person develops a relationship with a patsy, then purports to be in some kind of situation that demands money. I’ve heard of cases where people have been bilked out of thousands upon thousands of dollars.

This caller swore to me it was a real relationship and assured me she’d met him in person, even though she later acknowledged she hadn’t seen him in almost a year and every time I pressed her for the last time she SPOKE to him, she started replying with, "we were texting ..."

The story was, Fiancé was in the hospital, and the doctor was demanding payment before treatment. Fiance had been in Istanbul since November, working as a consultant.

For those keeping track at home, that’s four red flags right there, and it only got better. I kept trying to explain to the caller that this was the total MO of scams but she kept insisting he was real, etc. I asked what hospital and she didn’t know. I said OK, you say the doctor is emailing you, what is the email address? Something@dr.com. Oh, yeah, that’s legit. Did the stick on that red flag poke your eye out yet? And on top of that, “DR” also texted her a photo of the guy in a bed, saying he had malaria and couldn’t speak. Scammers, who are all allegedly American citizens, NEVER opt to call the consulate themselves. Oh, and malaria is not common in Turkey.

I still think it’s a scam, because it’s just one to a T, but you want to check it out – after all, we do not want any American citizens really stranded, sick or whatever, with no recourse. So I tell her to get the name of the hospital and get me his passport number and I could try to check to see if he’s a patient there.

So then it got really fun. Fortunately for me, she didn’t just email me his passport number, she sent a scan of it. I replied immediately that, although I wasn’t an expert, I believed it to be fake – just look at the expiration date. (I was trying to be nice.) She replied – and at this point it’s all email – why, she’d never had a passport, weren’t they good for five years? I said well, no, they’re good for 10, but my point was, the abbreviation for January was “Jan,” not “Jen.” Freaking big letters, and she never looked.

Without being an expert, I saw about four other errors, too, and this was based on a jpeg the size of a postage stamp.

I emailed her that and saw she’d sent me a “boarding pass” and almost choked. I replied to her and asked if she’d put him on the flight herself, because she’d told me he left from Houston, but the Americans flight noted on the “boarding pass” went from Tucson to Chicago to London. I added that if he really wanted to fly from Houston, he’d fly from Hobby, not “West Houston Airport,” like the BP said. That, Google says, is a privately-owned airport and does not fly nonstop to Istanbul, but even if Fiance flew to Istanbul from the international Houston airport, it would connect through London on British Air, not American Airlines.

The lady sent me a short email in reply: “I hope you find and prosecute him.” I did not bother to explain that I am not a law enforcement official.

Splitting on a road trip

Hit the road last weekend to the land of "Game of Thrones" and, unbeknownst to me, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."

VW UP! with four operating tires

For the non-movie buffs, that’d be Croatia, which was on my bucket list not for movies but just because. It’s a really amazing little country, and I wanted to drive. I flew into Zagreb, the capital to the north, and out of Dubrovnik, which is almost as far south as you can go before you hit Montenegro.

There are just so many places you can go to from Istanbul, and Croatia, with its rugged shorelines and rocky beaches, was on my list. Hitting the road, it reminded me of Ireland somewhat – all the cliffs and rocks.

My little car was similar, too. In Ireland, I had some purple little car that looked like a gumdrop. This time around, I got a VW UP! (not an editorial; it had an exclamation point), and it was also a gumdrop-like bright red. And, fortunately, had the steering wheel on the more-familiar left side of the car.

I’d told people all I wanted to do was drive some, and it was true. Pretty much, anything else was gravy. I knew there’d be gorgeous sites but didn’t really have much of a plan in Zagreb, Split (my first evening) or Dubrovnik, although I knew Dubrovnik had an old town or something.

And as it turned out, the gravy had a few lumps. My first place to stay didn’t have wifi, which was inconvenient but not the end of the world. To solve that, I wound up treating myself to a McFlurry at a McDonalds so that I could filch their internet. And my work-issued phone is on its last legs, so the phone died here and there anyway, so wife couldn’t save me.

The bigger gravy lump came the morning I was leaving Split. I decided on a morning swim and drove the gumdrop down the steep hill to the Adriatic Sea, parked and wandered to the rocky beach.

It was way colder than I expected, so I waded in as much as I could stand, collected a few rocks in lieu of shells and then headed back to the apartment/hotel. (In all, I saw a total of one chain hotel, and that was south of Dubrovnik on my way to the airport the last day. It’s mostly little hotels and homestay-like things. I stayed in Split in an apartment building up on a hill.)

When I went to throw my little backpack in the gumdrop, I realized I had a flat tire! AARGH! I tried to enlist the landlord guy to help me, but he was busy with someone else, so I figured what the heck and checked to see what kind of spare I had. Fortunately, I guess since the car’s small enough to only have donut tires to begin with, it had a full-size tire. I struggled with the darn lug nuts but again, by the grace of God, some litterbug had left a drained carton of oil and I managed to pour the dregs into the lid and then, dipping a flower into the lid, I spread it on the lugs and loosened the nuts. Macgyvered my way out of it. And, true to my luck with men, some random guy showed up too late to help with the actual repair but in time to tighten the lug nuts again.

No further problems with the tire, and debated on whether to fix it or not. In the end, I found a place and for maybe $7 got it plugged by the car wash guy, for whom it took maybe 138 seconds to do it. Impressive. Not exactly a souvenir I was looking for, but I DID want all that driving entailed, and I got it.

The hotel – a real one, though not a chain and not a big one – had advertised wifi and free parking, which was why I chose it, but both of those were hard to come by. My phone, coming and going off life support, couldn’t time holding a connection to when the wifi worked, but what was a bigger hurdle was the free parking.

I found the hotel just fine, but there was no parking lot, just about 16 spots across the street – street parking, not hotel parking. And, this being August in a destination with throngs of tourists, not a vacant spot. Drove up and down three or four times before double-parking in front of two little scooters with “for rent” signs on them. That didn’t make that business owner happy, but I assured him I’d be right back after checking in.

When I asked the hotel manager about parking, though, he paled and asked me if I had a car. Resisting any sarcastic replies based on an incoming migraine, I said yes and I was illegally parked downstairs. He came out with me, and, as sheer luck would have it, a spot opened up and he held it for me. The car didn’t go anywhere after that, and I totally hoofed it for three days.

The guy really was nice, too, so despite the hiccups I liked the hotel stay. It was right close to the beach, which faced west and had an amazing sunset. Either the water wasn’t as cold as it was in Split or I just sucked it up and went in – it was fantastic, and now I’ve dipped in the Adriatic Sea!

But the Old Town was the thing to do, and, without a car, I decided to walk. They had little directional on the ground, and the first one said 26 minutes. The second said 23, and then the third said 29! I have no idea what was up with that, and I am a fast walker but it took 40 minutes to get there. Still, it was a great walk with wonderful sea views.

Entering the old town was when I realized Star Wars was filmed there. Not that I recognized it, but because there were stores and signs that said “Star Wars was here.” And “Game of Thrones.” Holy cow, that was everywhere. Upon return, I discovered Wendy is a fan so I blew a shot to get her something super cool, but I had no idea at the time.

It was Sunday morning and I happened to be wandering at one of the churches right when mass was about to begin, so I stayed for the service, which was nice to do. It was in English, fortunately, and talked about Peter being the rock on which the church was founded, and I wondered, since Croatia is so rocky, if that was the regular Sunday service.

If I ever have a house with a nautical-themed room, Croatia is the place to furnish it. They had so much stuff! I loved it, but just didn’t see getting anything then and there. My favorite thing was these rocks that had two little stained glass triangles on top of them, forming a little sailboat. I’d seen them in Split and didn’t get one, and then they were double the price in Dubrovnik.

Croatia also has a ton of limestone – I passed several quarries on the way to the airport – and they had a lot of limestone crafty things. Coral is big, too, but that didn’t tempt me. In Split, I’d seen some crosses made out of the limestone and wanted one of those, but held off. Bad decision, as they were more than double the price there, but I really wanted one so I got it.

My little cross collection is getting pretty darn big. I don’t even know when I figured out it was a collection.  One became two, which became three and is now up to …. 21. (I just counted.) At some point, I need to get a wall or something. Right now, they’re just lying in the little Drexel hutch. I love them.

Since Istanbul is still on “movement restrictions” and I can’t go to museums, malls or movies, I tend to do this on vacation. In Dublin, I saw “Dunkirk,” and, continuing the tradition, I went to “Atomic Blonde” in Dubrovnik. I didn’t even have to seek it out. The movie theater was a 5-minute walk from the hotel.

Looking back, I really do see movies a lot when I travel. My Foreign Service “get to know you” fact is that I saw all four “Hunger Games” movies in different countries: Indonesia, the U.S., China and Hong Kong. I’ve also seen movies in Canada, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Croatia, Taiwan, Australia, Turkey, and maybe Malaysia or somewhere else. At this point, I don’t remember.

And, if things continue as they are, I’ll have to add somewhere else for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” It comes out Dec. 15, and, as if I needed another excuse to see it, now I’ve been to the galaxy far, far away.