New Job & Upcoming Trip!

Nate and I had been praying that I would find something that I love to do while we're in Basel, but we didn't know what that would be... well, last week a job opportunity pretty much fell into my lap! As I was playing tennis with some friends, one of them mentioned that the International School of Basel (ISB) might be looking for an English-speaking tennis teacher for the Fall, so I said sign me up. He sent an email to the coordinator at the school and the next week, I was hired! I will be teaching Kindergarten through 8th grade in after school clinics, moms during the mornings, and possibly coaching the high school team. I am so excited I can hardly wait!

To give you an idea of how big the school is, there are over 1,000 students in just the elementary school!

Some more exciting news... I leave tomorrow for MONACO to see my wonderful extended family. I've been wanting to visit my cousin who lives there ever since we moved to Europe! Since she has other family visiting her right now, whom I haven't seen in a long while, I thought this would be a perfect time to see her and the others. I'm only going for a few days so check back next week for my blog on the trip!

In case you don't know what Monaco looks like, here is a picture. It is very beautiful... although, it might not look quite like this since it is right after winter and the weather forecast says it is going to be cloudy and rainy, but I'm hoping the sun will come out!

Home Sweet Decorated Home

If you're a regular reader of this blog (if you're not, I don't know why you're not...), your last memory of our apartment was this...

[puppy sold separately]

But now, we're just about settled. It's only taken us 6 months. So sit back, relax and enjoy the tour. When you enter, this is what you see...

Turn to your left (no, your other left) and you will enter the living room...
Believe it or not, Nate picked out those rugs :)Jake has become more sophisticated since living in Europe. Instead of jumping on you or barking at you, he now plays the perfect host!

Now, step into my office... this is where the blogging magic happens (ha..ha)

The orchid... my favorite flower.

Still the perfect host...

Nate's garden...

Now turn around...

Our fun Ikea lights in the corner to your right...

If you're thinking that we've been rude because we didn't ask to take your coat, it's because the apartment only has ONE closet. In other words, we don't have any room for it.

Come into the bedroom...

My favorite lamp ever, which Nate picked out. Who knew Nate had such good taste!

The detailing on our comforter...
Our perfect host wants to take a nap, but he doesn't know where to lie down because the bed is made!

The full picture of the bedroom...

Side Note: Nate helped me write this blog, which explains all the corny comments!
Coming soon... the rest of the apartment!

Istanbul, Tukey: Where Europe and Asia Meet (The Sights)

Istanbul, originally named Constantinople, is rich in history. Over the past 2000 years, it has been the imperial capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires (all during different time periods). While sightseeing, I saw buildings and monuments that dated back to 300 A.D. If you think that was a long time ago, then read on... in the past year, while constructing an underground metro to connect Europe and Asia, they found a whole settlement below the Bosphorus Strait that dates back to 6500 B.C.! It is tough to even comprehend how long ago that was.

This picture captures quite a bit of Istanbul... from the mosque to the Bosphorus. I'm standing in Europe, but looking across the way to Asia... pretty unbelievable!

Below is the Rumeli Fortress, a military fortress that was built in 1452 in only FOUR months. This fortress was part of the planned Turkish siege of Constantinople. Mehmet the Conqueror warned his workers that they would pay with their lives if construction was not completed in time. It was built fast, but still standing today!

The fortress is now used as an outdoor museum and an open-air theater for concerts during festivals.

To climb to the top, we had to go up these steep stairs with NO guard rails. It was quite an adventure, but there were some really scary drop offs! (Don't worry mom, I was careful) :)
Made it to the top! What a view!

Group picture :)

This is the golden horn (an inlet from the Bosphorus). The original settlers lived here and it becomes busier everyday (especially with cars/buses) as evidenced by the smog in the distance. It's not exactly the Swiss mountain air that I'm used to!

On our last day, we took a ferry from Europe to Asia. Can you tell that I'm fascinated that this city sits on TWO continents? This was one of my favorite things we did... there's something relaxing about being on the water... and drinking Turkish tea.

Looking at the city from a distance...

When I told people that I was going to Istanbul, they said you have to go to the Grand Bazaar! So we made it a point to go. It case you don't know what the Grand Bazaar is, it is the largest and oldest covered market in the world with more than 58 streets, approx. 6,000 shops, and between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors a day! It's considered to be the first "mall." Aren't we glad for those in America!?

The Bazaar had mostly jewelry, decorative plates/bowls, scarves, and lots of little trinkets, but you could probably find just about anything! This store had a lot of variety... including lots of spices...

This was a gift from the Egyptians...

In 390 AD!Heading toward the Blue Mosque... The national mosque of Turkey and Istanbul's biggest tourist attraction

A close up of the Blue Mosque... I honestly thought it was going to be blue. I have to say I was a little disappointed.

The inside was enormous!

I later found out that the "blue" mosque was named after the blue tiles on the inside. The detailing was quite beautiful.
The Hagia Sophia. First a church, then a mosque, and now a museum. In the day of the church, there was a big cross at the top of the dome and there were no minarets.

This is a drawing of part of the original church over 1500 years ago, but it was unfortunately burnt down during a riot. The emperor at the time wanted to rebuild a much larger and majestic church than ever before (the one that is there today). There were more than 10,000 workers during construction!

This inside was incredible...

The view from the second floor...

There were several beautiful mosaics like this one. The Muslims covered the mosaics with plaster, but the plaster started to fall off as well as some mosaic tiles, but all of the faces are in tact. In this mosaic: Mary, Jesus, and John the Baptist
In addition to putting plaster on the walls, the Muslims also painted over crosses and other Christian symbols, but now the crosses are starting to show through.

There were still some sights in Istanbul that I didn't have a chance to see, so I hope to go back one day and see them with Nate!

Where Europe and Asia Meet: Istanbul, Turkey (The Culture)

One of my good friends from my home church (Bay Leaf) recently moved to Istanbul to work there for two years, so a group from Bay Leaf decided to go visit her. Since Istanbul is about a two-hour plane ride from Basel, I thought it would be nice to join them. I was sad that Nate couldn't come along, but he was happy that I could spend some time with my friends. What a great husband!

I went a day earlier than the group from the States to spend some time with Julie. Julie and I can really relate to one another because we both moved to Europe around the same time, so needless to say, we had a lot to talk about! In our discussion about the big move and culture shock, we determined that Turkey and Switzerland are complete opposites! Switzerland is extremely orderly, timely, clean, and organized, while Turkey is chaotic, time seems to just be a suggestion, it's a little on the dirty side, and disorganized. But the Turkish think that it is organized chaos. The Turkish people that I got to know were very warm, friendly, and hospitable. In just one week, I grew to love them and their culture. The only thing I didn't like about the city was the traffic. It took forever to go anywhere!

On my first full day, I was able to go to house church with Julie. It was a wonderful experience. Here is a picture of us in the neighborhood.

Later that day, the group finally arrived from Raleigh! They missed their connecting flight in Frankfurt, which caused them to arrive in Istanbul about 6 hours later than scheduled... as if jet lag wasn't already bad enough! This picture was taken on our first morning together at Julie's workplace, where she teaches English.

Two of our evenings were spent teaching English here. This was a real highlight because I enjoyed learning more about the Turkish people as we helped them practice their conversational English. Here are the American guys helping the Turks with their English. Unfortunately, I only captured the faces of the Americans!

Their Homes/Neighborhoods
Some days, we walked through non-touristy parts of the city and I was amazed at all the apartment buildings... and satellite dishes. Click on the picture and see if you can count them all!

Most houses hang their clothes to dry. I think Americans forget that most people in the world don't have dryers.

It is so hilly in Istanbul, that some roofs meet the roads above them!

School's out! This was quite crazy because we were walking against the school traffic and most people looked at us like we were lost. Some kids looked at me like they had never before seen a blonde!

If you're wondering what all those things are dangling above the street, they are advertisements for the on-going election... aren't you glad we don't do that for American elections? I think they get enough coverage from the news!
This next picture is funny... some kids decided to catch a ride on the back of this truck instead of walking!

Their Religion (Turkey is 99% Muslim)
Istanbul actually means City of Islam.
This is the Ayup Mosque. This is considered to be the 3rd holiest place on earth, after Mecca and Jerusalem.
The men here are washing themselves before entering the mosque.
Entering the mosque to the call to prayer. The call to prayer goes off 5 times a day, with the first one sounding around 5am! I had to sleep with earplugs in when I spent the night at Julie's.Inside the courtyard. The tiles on the wall are beautiful.
We went inside the mosque and I had to cover my head and take off my shoes. They consider shoes to be the dirtiest things, which is ironic because it is not our dirty shoes that separate us from God, but our "dirty" hearts and there is only one way for them to be made clean... And that is through Christ Jesus.
It was very warm inside with one big, soft carpet stretched across the floor. Here are some men praying. The women are not allowed to pray with them... they have a separate area in the back.
Their Food & Entertainment

My first night, Julie & her roommate ordered dinner (in Turkish), so I had no idea what I was getting, but we did a little family style of salad, pizza, and beef with red sauce... it was delicious and also really cheap!

We went to a lot of different restaurants, but this one was especially different. The restaurant had games at each table. You could either play backgammon or rummikub. Most people just drank tea or coffee as they played games... I think we need a place like this in the States!
This was my favorite appetizer. They are flatbreads with either cheese and potatoes, cheese and spinach, or cheese and meat... I need to learn how to make this!

This was another really good "appetizer." I had never seen anything like it... it's called balloon bread. It was fresh out of the oven...

Julie showed us how to eat it... you have to stick a fork in it and then break off pieces with your hands. The steam that came out almost burned me!

This was the only meal I really didn't like... it's their version of a loaded baked potato. Where's the bacon and cheddar cheese??

I obviously didn't like it... I pretty much scraped off the toppings and just ate the potato.

To make up for the bad baked potato, we had dessert waffles from a little waffle stand. They were not like American waffles... these were really soft and I think, tasted better. You could choose from a lot of different toppings... yummy!

Chad, our fearless leader, is showing me what he got on his... which I think was a little bit of everything!

After our yummy waffles, we strolled around down by the water... It was a beautiful night. It was a little cold, but still beautiful. The new faces in this picture are friends of Julie's who also live in Istanbul temporarily... we all had a really good time together!

We stayed by the water and watched the bridge light up. This picture is a little blurry, but it was a pretty sight. (It looks a lot better if you click to enlarge it) The lights changed colors every few minutes!

Coming soon... more sights of Istanbul!