Just finished Day 11 of our two year adventure!

The Jones Family have settled in quite nicely into our mediterranean villa as it is advertised in all the marketing for Alkent2000!  It is really just a nice home in the suburbs of Istanbul in a lovely tree lined neighborhood.  Palm trees, maple trees, and coniferous are plentiful.  I've been told in autumn the maples will change colour.  I'm not sure how brilliant though as I always thought frost was a required component.
During week one we met several new families from places like Belgium, Holland, Germany, US, and New Zealand.  They've been here at least 2 years and are a great wealth of information!
Driving in our neighborhood has been fun - it's just venturing beyond that is a bit of a challenge for me.  My son tells me daily be strong and just drive with force.  He thinks in a couple of weeks I will be beetling along with the rest of those European drivers! But I'm not so sure with the price of gas at $9.22 a gallon (3 times the price in Chicago or 2 1/2 times the price in Toronto!) Unavoidable for Brad (who is accustomed to driving in Mexico City) however is the 27 mile/44 km commute to the office - (mornings easy 35 min.) - (evenings - 1 hour plus!) Unless he gets an emergency call to come home mid day (35 min. drive) and help take our daughter to the dentist for an emergency tooth replacment, again! Good thing for our wonderful, kind Belgium neighbor who guided us to the clinic and helped translate at the reception desk until we met with the English speaking pediatric dentist who was very professional and handled everything with great precision. Istanbul is a very cosmopolitan, modern city! To celebrate Istanbul's title of 2010 European Capital of Culture, there is an exhibition called, "From Byzantium to Istanbul: 8,000 years of a Capital".  We hope to visit this on Saturday as well as take a boat ride along the Bosphorus with old friends from Mexico City who now live in the Emirgan area of Istanbul.

Istanbul, Here We Come!

48 hours and counting until we leave for Istanbul!  We will be there for two years and we've just started this blog to keep track of our adventure! Check in from time to time to see what's happening in Turkey!