Day 11 in Turkey

What did we do today?  We wrote the post below for Day 10.  LOL.  It was an all-day event.  LOL Please read it.  Feel free to leave comments we love to read them.

Day 10 in Turkey - Adventures in Istanbul

Wow!  10 days already, we can’t believe it.  It is unbelievable.  What a day we had! 

It seems that a lot of people are busy, so we will wait to divulge the answers to the “mystery photo’s” until later.

Hasan, one of Seyhan’s employees is a pretty funny guy.  He is tall, and likes to instigate trouble through sarcasm and joking around.  But when Seyhan asks him to do something, he transforms into a guy who follows orders meticulously.  He works 95 hours a week.  He is unique because he speaks I believe 4 languages.  The most valuable combination of languages he speaks is:  Arabic, English and Turkish.  Hasan is not from Turkey; We think he is from Saudi Arabia.  He said there are lots of people who speak Arabic and English because they learn English in school.  However, it is very difficult to find someone who speaks Turkish, English and Arabic.  He spends all of his time translating for patients and hospital staff.  He is single and used to live in Taksim - Istanbul.  He is the one who helped us to understand the public transportation system. 

You would think it would be easy to figure out the public transportation system here, but unfortunately it is not.  By this point, we have used all of the public transportation systems, except the buses. We found websites which described the various metro systems, trains, ferries and trams and they were helpful.  However, the one for the bus system STINKS.   Today, our adventures consisted of combining the metro(subway) with the bus.   Every time we have tried to ask Seyhan for help with understanding the buses she always says, “No, let me arrange something” – which is very nice of her.  However, it forces us to rely on her help with transportation and does not allow us to figure it out on our own.  She is always going beyond what she is technically required to provide for transportation.  What I mean is she could be accountable to management for some of the wonderful transportation arrangements she has made for us, that technically she shouldn’t have.  So we try never to abuse it.  Today, when we ran into her and we told her we were about to embark on a journey into the city using the public buses. She said, I won’t let you do that, at least let me arrange for your transportation there and then I will explain what you should take to get back.  One of her drivers took us to the big mall that we went to the other day and then one the way home we would use the subway and bus.  The mall is actually six floors tall instead of the four or five I initially thought.  The mall is located in an area called Sisili (north-west of Taksim). 

While at the mall, we spent time window shopping and just observing people around us in the mall.  In one of the stores we found some mannequins in a clothing store looked like this. Notice anything strange?  Not sure the reason behind it but maybe you might know more than us. 

FYI – Paul came with us from the hospital.  His wife had to stay at the hotel to finish working on a publication project.  He decided to come with us at the last minute.  You may see him in pictures or hear his voice on the videos we recorded.

We had lunch at the mall.  We opted for American food.  Burger King was good.  Out of all the choices available, it looked the best.  The KFC was another option to consider, but the chicken was very small portions, though I’m sure it would have been good.  OK, I have to admit it, we also had something else American.  To be honest though, I hadn’t had one of these for a long time, even back in the states.  We couldn’t resist buying a donut from Krispy Kreme.  Yes, they have Krispy Kreme.  LOL

After we left the mall, and we decided to walk to Taksim Square instead of taking the metro.  From what the driver indicated, we initially thought it would be a short walk to Taksim.  Guess their short walks in Turkey, are much different from ours. LOL It took us a little over an hour to get to Taksim from the mall.  We didn’t mind the distance.  It gave us a chance to see more of Istanbul. On the road to Taksim there were  lots of banks, perfume shops, various stores, cell phone stores, etc.  We also noticed a few of the shops were still closed because technically though Ramazan was ending, people were still traveling and not everything is open.  Monday, everything will be back up and running (as normal). 

 When we first arrived at the Taksim square, we went to Starbuks because it was the only public bathroom we knew of.  It can be hard to finding bathrooms here.   We had considered going to the hotel, adjacent to Starbucks to use the restroom in the lobby, but we discovered we would have to go through security to walk inside. Hence, why we opted for Starbucks.  Apparently, we weren’t the only ones with that idea right as we got finished a big bus of tourists stopped there as well to use the facilities.  Speaking of facilities…it is very common, when you find a public bathroom that it consists only of a hole in the ground with facet near and a bucket.  LOL.  This makes it very difficult for the girls as you can imagine.  As for the Starbucks, it had your normal toilets but it still took us by surprise.  From the outside it looked like what we would have here in the states where they have the unisex bathroom and only one person can go in at a time.  Nope, when you open the door it’s about the same size as one of those unisex bathrooms, but there are two stalls and a sink.  You are probably so…what’s so different out that.  Well…one stall is for the women and one stall for the men!  So both men and women are in there using the bathroom at the same time!  Then when you come out you have to share the sink with some strange man or woman.  LOL

Another advantage of Starbucks, is the free wi-fi.   We having been using our phones on airplane mode and just connecting to wi-fi to use our maps, GPS and contact people using Skype, etc.  So after we went to the restroom all three of us checked our email etc.

After Starbuckes we walked in Taskim Square, and enjoyed the breeze and the hustle and bustle of people.  The weather is always a little cooler here, so this was another reason why we wanted to come back. ( At the hotel, it is warmer and not as breezy.  You would think with our hotel being close to the water there would a nice cool breeze.) 

After Starbucks, we walked to the park (we showed pictures last time) to rest our feet.  Our feet were pretty sore.  We took a break, sat under some shade and just talked about all kinds of thing.  No concert today.  We watched the kids play in the park, and enjoyed the cool breeze.  After our feet were rested, we walked down Istiklal street.  

Istiklal street is a very long street.  It is a street that is ventured by, what it seems all of Istanbul.  The street is populated completely by people walking either north-east or south-west.  With the dense placement of bodies, you might think they would try to be efficient and align themselves either on the left side or right side.  Nope, not the case.  People seem to walk in any way they please.  There is no rhythm or reason as to how they walk down the street, so you have to pay attention.  There are train tracks in the middle of the street. Sometimes a trolley car will come down the street – having to beep incessantly for people to move, which they eventually do but not until the last second. 

There are also a few stray cars that try to drive down this people packed street.  Very poor decision on their part.  The drivers of the cars honk their horns – and of course no one moves out of the way. LOL Eventually, people will move but it’s a very slow process.  Cars inch through the crowd at about 0.00001 mph. This street is meant only for pedestrians, so I don’t know why the Turkish people still try to drive down it, but then there seems to be no enforcement of driving laws here in Turkey, so I guess why the hell not.  LOL. 

The buildings on each side were tall.  There were shops and stores of all kinds.  There were also banks,  vendors for ice cream, and all kinds of stores.  One vendor had these small spiderman figures (wall walkers) and he would throw them up on the wall, and the toys would gradually “walk” their way down the wall (kind of like a slinky – spiderman-style) – it was cool.    

Here is a few pictures from a cute shop we had to check out when we saw the cute ladybugs:

Right in the middle of all these shops was a Roman Catholic Church. 

While walking, we saw a boy street dancing while his sister or friends beat on a drum.  We took a video of it.  It was kind of interesting the way he danced.  A crowd surrounded him and clapped and cheered to encourage him to continue.

Picture above / video below

(let us know if you see something below to watch the video).  We can not see anything, but there are weird restrictions (online) in Turkey.  

FYI - we are restricted from using youtube and other possible solutions for uploading videos which might be another reason why this is not working.  I will be using my server for this instead.


So in order to get the video, please right click on the link below and save the video on your computer (or you could take a chance and click on it).  Then you can run it. Double click it to run it.  If the video is sideways, then you will need to use Real Player (which is free) to show the video.  If you need "RealPlayer" - google it and download it for free.  I would give you the link, but it would be a Turkish link.


http://www.jdceworld.com/streetdancer.mov

We also took a little video so you can see a little bit of what we experienced when walking down this street.

Here's the video for walking down the street.  Similar to above, right click it to save.  Then run it.


http://www.jdceworld.com/thestreet.mov

We walked back up the street at dinner time.  We chose to buy “Doner” – the meat in a burrito.  This time it was better.  When we asked for spicy, it actually was spicier than last time.  We like those.  They were enjoyable to eat. 

We left Taksim (or attempted to) at 6pm on the metro system.  We were going to use the instructions we received from Hasan to use the public transportation.  I reverse-engineered his instructions because he only provided them from the hotel.  I figured, if we follow them in the reverse order that we would arrive back at the hotel/hospital.  So the instructions in reverse order consists of the following:   taking the metro from Taksim to “4. Levent” and then taking a bus from “4. Levent” to the hospital.  Pretty easy instructions, or so we thought. 

We walked down some stairs in Taksim square to the entrance of the metro.  We followed signs to “4. Levent”.  We joked along the way, that we really just paid to walk our way to “4. Levent” underground because we kept walking and walking.  Our trip consisted of flat escalators (like in airports) and various turns for 5 – 10 minutes.  We then arrived at the entry point onto the underground metro.  When one pulled up in front of us – or to the left – we quickly ran to where the door was (with everyone else).  Only a few seats are available.  Most of the time you hold on to rails above you and there are monkey bar loops you can hold if you are short (which most of them are).  Standing room only, we held on as there were various stops.  We waited for our turn “4. Levent”, then proceeded off of the metro.

We looked for the exit this time.  It was a little bit difficult because there were two choices, (though I’m sure both exited to the streets).  We took the “Levent” exit, took the escalators up to the street. 

We looked for “500T” bus, as we were instructed this is the bus we need to arrive in Gebze (where our hospital is).  One happened to pull up right away.  We considered ourselves lucky to be able to get the bus so quickly.  We jumped on.  We paid the cheap fare of 1.50 TL (Turkish lira each).  It was standing room only, we grabbed the near monkey bar loop or the top rail bar to keep us from falling during acceleration or stops.  We tried to confirm we were going the correct way by looking at landmarks we knew and/or street signs.  We saw a few that looked familiar.  We justified we were going the right direction by noticing them.  It appeared we were going in the direction of the signs, as we expected the bus was going to residential stops that were parallel to the freeway/interstate highway.  We knew this also was a slightly different route than we had known before.  Our routes before were south from here and more direct.  So it was more difficult to confirm from landmarks and signs we were going the correct direction.  We were told also from Hasan that the bus route would take 45 minutes.  So we knew also that if we were on the bus longer than 45 minutes we had gone too far.  Of course, we had a map in our pocket to confirm the cities as well. 

After 25 minutes and several stops, we figured by now we should surely be able to recognize the landmarks.  The route, though different as it was, should have joined the normal route we have taken in the past.  So if that were the case, then we should be recognizing the sites around us.  This makes us decide to take out our map to try and confirm that we were on the right track.  We begin to think to maybe, we aren’t going the right way because we could not find the names on the map but we didn’t get too concerned about this, because not even the area where our hospital is at, is located on this map.  LOL. 

We arrive at a stop after 45 minutes.  We notice everyone is exiting the bus, but we know this isn’t our stop because we don’t recognize a single thing and the hospital is definitely not located here so the three of us decide to stay in our seats on the bus. We figure we will just ride it back around, or maybe not! The driver and the money collector at the front of the bus start saying things to us which of course sounds like gibberish and waving their hands horizontally.  We do think we understand one word out of all the jibberish which is “finish”.  OMG!!! They were kicking us off the bus!!!  Oh, crap!  In desperation, we exit the bus and it takes off leaving us in fumes to stand on the side of the interstate with a whole gaggle of Turkish people, none of whom speak English.  Oh, boy, now what!

So here we are 3 obviously lost Americans, standing in the middle of an interstate no less, trying to figure out how the heck we are going to get back to the hospital.  We know we can’t take a cab back, because it would be over 200 lira. So Paul starts going around trying to talk to the people with his (about 10 words) he knows in Turkish. Needless to say, it wasn’t successful.  He tried speaking English with them, and that too, was a bust.

So, we try asking a few people about either Gebze or the name of the hospital.  Most of them did not understand anything.  I find a business card for the hospital in my pocket.  We show this to a couple people.  We receive varying instructions on how to help.  Some said to go on the train, some said to go over on the buses in the middle of the street, some said to go over to buses in the north side of the street.  There were buses in 3 different areas of the street.  There was the bus stop where we were.  There was another set of bus stops in the middle of the street on the other side of some stairs.  A third set of bus stops were on the north side of the road a distance to the right.  Then there was a train stop to the north adjacent to the street. 

 We decide to take the a pedestrian bridge that crossed over to the other side of the interstate and start asking people over on that side to see if they could help us better.   We try talking to a few people on this side with no luck.  We even talk to a police officer but we really can’t understand hardly anything he is saying, but act like we do as not to be rude.  Paul says he has a calling card, and we see a pay phone.  We all decide it is best to call Hasaan.  Paul walks up to the first phone. Types in the phone card number and then Hasan’s.  It works, it’s ringing!  Hasan answers the phone, Paul say’s, “Hey, there!  We must have taken the wrong bus!”  Then the phone starts making this terrible noise.  So we have to hang the phone up and wait for the other phone to become available.  We call him back.  He confirmed what we thought- our bus got on the wrong direction.  He confirmed that the instructions we had given him were correct – that we should get back on the “500T” bus and go the correct direction.  We had taken the “500T” bus to the last stop in the wrong direction.  He confirmed if we took the “500T” bus in the correct direction, we need not make any transitions to any form of transportation and it would take us all the way to the hospital (the bus stop anyway). 

We found the “500T” bus right away.  Thank goodness we didn’t have to wait long.  We took a guess at the bus stop.  We chose the northern most set of bus stops.  There were the three choices.  So good choice,  we jumped out in front of the bus so that he couldn’t leave.  Because he had picked up some passengers.  He let us on and we paid our fare. 

The guy who took our fare actually spoke a little English.  From our experience so far, it seems that 5% of the people know a little English.  By that we mean they know a couple words in English.  No grammar or sentence composition skills, but at this point we appreciate even understanding words.   We can always use our hands to point, and fingers to represent the numbers we do not remember the names of LOL – or to confirm our pronunciation of the words we do know.  So, the guy asked where we were going.  We said “Gebze”.  He asked for more fare, he said that is too far.  LOL.  It was still cheap fare.  We were just glad he confirmed the area to which we were traveling. That definitely was a good sign.

We now knew the bus ride home would definitely be longer than  45 minutes seeing how we rode the bus 45 minutes in the wrong directions the first time so now it will be a total of 1 ½ hours to get home.  When we get on the bus it’s packed and stuffy! It’s standing room only. We grab the railing and brace ourselves for the long journey home. Although keeping a good sense of humor during all of this, Staci and I are starting to get tired and worn out with this whole bus ordeal, but Paul, he is LOVING this.  We can tell this whole bus debacle is his favorite part the trip. As we ride, he tells us about how he use to ride the buses all over Columbia when he and his family were there as missionaries. He talked about how riding the bus was a great way to really get to mingle with the people.  After standing for quite some time, some people got off.  Staci and I were able to grab a seat.  Whew! Finally, we can sit and relax for a bit. Nope!  The seat we get is right over the back wheel, so there is this big hump at our feet. The two of us have to sit with our knees practically up into our chests.  At least it was some relief.  With every stop, more and more people would hop on the bus, while very few would get off.  Staci would always say, Come on now. Are y’all sure this isn’t your stop?”  LOL  Oh, and for some reason the Turkish people do not like having the windows open on the bus.  Paul would open them up and then would go and close them!  LOL  So you can imagine, as more and more people pile on this bus, the body heat and body odor intensifies. Phew!

Along the way, we were definitely Americans.  People gave strange glares and/or appearances.  They probably said a few things under their breath (or whispers) – they did not need to whisper we don’t know their language anyways. We can imagine what they are saying, probably something like…“Stupid americans”, “do they not know this is not a tourist spot”, “they probably don’t know where they are going”.  They were half right.  We were stupid enough to take the bus the wrong direction.  Little did they know that we are in the middle of no-where  to  do IVF at a hospital.  There were also some children on the bus who stared a lot and giggled at us.  They were cute.  We saw people of all different kinds, women who were in full muslim-gear (head and neck covered), and women who were just wearing normal clothes. 

The weather was wonderful.  The temperature was like 70 with a cool breeze, but unfortunately we didn’t feel it much since they kept closing the darn windows on us. Grrrr….  There was one window that did stay open, but only because this cute in love couple was standing in front of it.   They would put their faces out it and it would blow the woman’s hair horizontally backwards. Paul said there was a 2^nd window open at the front, but it wouldn’t stay open for long before someone would close it.  We still can’t decide whether they closed the windows because they thought it was cold, or they just didn’t like the blowing of the air. We would also get a breeze when the door behind us would open at stops. We have a picture of the dense population of people standing on the bus.  

These pictures were actually taken before everyone crammed onto the bus.  So imagine this with 3 times as many people on it, and you will get the picture.

before everyone crammed on the bus

before everyone crammed on the bus

There isn’t much personal space on the bus or anywhere in public. 

While on the journey home, we asked a couple of people on the bus if they knew where the stop for the hospital was.  We had no clue what our stop was called. The only way we were going to know when our stop was by looking at landmarks and street signs.  Most did not understand us.  Finally, one gentleman said he knew where it was and thought it was the last stop.  Another lady said she thought it was the last stop as well. She said she was going to be exiting where we were and then taking another bus and that we should do the same. Thank goodness this older man spoke up, and said, “No, it’s not the last stop. It’s the second to last stop, and you don’t need to take another bus.”  So with the help of the locals we finally arrived at our stop for the hospital.  We still don’t know the name of the stop!  LOL

We exited the bus, and then climbed up the stairs to cross the interstate.  We located our hospital Andolu Medical Center down the road in the distance.  From the bus stop, it was about a 20 minute walk.  As we walked that last jaunt we were laughing at ourselves about the whole days adventure. And for the first time, our bed actually felt good last night.

Day 9 in Turkey

Hi there everyone!

So the latest update on our progress:  The eggs are doing well and growing at a good rate.  He thinks we should have 15-20 mature follicles on the day of egg retrieval which will probably be next Friday or Saturday, so either the 17^th or 18th. My ovaries are starting to feel kind of full, but nothing too uncomfortable. My stomach is a little tender and bruised at the injection sites. I alternate between each side each day.   I start a new injectable medication tomorrow morning called Cetritide.  This medication will prevent me from ovulating. This is a good thing, because we want the eggs to stay in my ovaries until it’s time for all of them to be retrieved.  So I will be taking two injections now, the egg stimulating medicine, Gonal-f in the evening at 9pm, and then the ovulation suppression medicine in the morning at 8 am.  Since the egg retrieval will not happen until the 17^th or 18^th we are having to extend our stay by a few days. This is actually a good thing, because now Dr. Arici will be doing our embryo transfer, and not the other doctor that we met that is in his practice. Each month, he goes back to Yale for a week, and this coming week he is scheduled to go to Yale. He flies out tomorrow and will be back on the 20th. So this week we will be seeing his partner, a female doctor who will do our egg retrieval and then right after he returns he will do our embryo transfer.  So instead of flying out on the 21^st we will be flying out on the 27^th.    Suzanne, who is the person that we went through to do this trip, has already changed our flights.  So we are set to leave at 5:55 am on the 27^th and will be back that same day at 1:40 our time.

Because of the Ramadan holiday and everything pretty much still being closed, we had to stay on site again today.  Glen and I sat outside and read this afternoon.  We were also able to take a taxi to a McDonalds that was close.  It was good to have some American food.  The little hamburgers taste just like they do in the states, but the French fries and ketchup are nowhere as good!!

Today we found out how to work the bus system by another person, Hassan, who works in the Foreign Patients Department with Seyhan.  So tomorrow morning we are going to take the bus into town, and then the metro (subway) to Taxim Square to spend the day walking around and so forth. Even if things are still closed, there is plenty to see.  Taking public transportation will be so much cheaper than taking a taxi into to town.  We are at least 20 miles outside of the city, so you can imagine how much that would cost.  Seyhan is usually really good about lining us up rides using the hospital shuttles, but she will be out all of next week on vacation.  She said her colleagues in the Foreign Patients Department would be able to line us up rides, but we just wanted to be on the safe side and know how to work the public transportation system just in case.


We're going to play a game called "Guess what this is":  


Post a comment on what you think this item is.   We will reveal the answer in the next edition:

Thank you all.


Glen and Staci

Day 8 of Turkey – Food in Turkey

Hi everyone!

Not much to report today because we stayed onsite all day due to the end of Ramadan. Today was the Muslims big celebration and ending of the fast.  This day is kind of like our Christmas in the fact that everything shuts down, and families all get together and eat and spend time together and show thanks for their blessings. The big holiday was today, but they will continue celebrating through the weekend.  Since everything was closed today, we spent the day chatting with the other couples, and just kind of relaxing.  There is really NOTHING to do here and we are literally out in the middle of no where.  No swimming pool, no games, no parks, etc.  It’s a good thing we had been made aware to bring our own entertainment.  We brought movies from our collection that we can watch on our laptop, games we can play on our iphones, and books/magazines to read.  Staci is reading Water for Elephants and Glen is reading A Time to Kill.

Since we didn’t go anywhere today, we thought we would discuss the food since we have had a couple of questions.

The food is interesting and definitely not like anything we typically eat.  In all the guide books, we are told that Turkey generally has very healthy food.  We have not been limited to just meat on a stick, though it is available almost everywhere.  The meat that you see on a big skewer is not served on a stick.  From the skewer the meat is sliced on a plate or wrapped up in a burrito style tortilla.   The beef is pretty good. It’s salty and has a unique taste.  We have read that sometimes it is a combo of lamb and beef.  They will alternate putting pieces of each on a big skewer and then they roast it.  It tastes a little different than beef does in the states.    We have only eaten this two times.  We generally eat only in either the restaurant at the hotel or at the cafeteria at the hospital.  There aren’t really any other options since we are in a remote area.  Only when we actually travel to Istanbul can we eat out at places where this is available and try new dishes.

Doner (meat on skewer) - chicken (left) and beef (right)

In our experience it seems that they put yogurt on many of the dishes.  Tonight in the cafeteria, they put yogurt on top of the main course, a rolled up grape leaf stuff with rice and meat. Yogurt is served with breakfast and several meals we have had in the hotel in Antalya had yogurt on them, as well as last night when we went out – yogurt was poured over the meat or under it like gravy.   Even a lot of their ice cream is based in yogurt.  Glen doesn’t like yogurt period, and I could do without it as a gravy.  Only for breakfast, please!

Breakfast is a very unique experience as well.  They have a lot of rolls, and different types of bread.  They have a type of bread very similar to a bagel available for breakfast as well.  It’s called a simit. It looks like a soft pretzel that has been made into a circle and is covered in sesame seeds. And I mean covered!  LOL  Also on the breakfast bar, are different types of soft cheeses, green and kalmata olives, and thinly sliced bologna. They have sausage, but it’s little Vienna sausages that they heat up with bar-b-q sauce.  We tried them the first day and that was enough!  They only serve eggs  in 2 forms – either a soft boiled egg, or runny scrambled eggs. Yuck!  Other choices for breakfast include yogurt (surprise, surprise) fruit, honey comb (as in the real stuff that is still on the comb that you have to cut off—bees have been extracted, LOL) jams of all sorts (cherry, strawberry, raspberry, apricot), nuts, and raw oats.  Glen sticks to the bread for breakfast since he doesn’t like any of the other stuff, and I have simit and yogurt that I doctor with a spoonful of their wonderful fruit jam and walnuts.  We have discovered that we really like Turkish tea, Chai, which is typically served with every meal when we go out to eat.  Unfortunately, it’s only served with breakfast here at the hotel.  We enjoy ending breakfast with a little cup of it with two cubes of sugar.  Yum!  Haven’t tried the Turkish coffee, I hear it’s like sludge!

Simit

Dessert consists of either  a lot of dry / unsweetened cookies or Baklava type of sweets.  Most of the desserts here are some form of Baklava.  There are different types.  Some are like typical Baklava, and others have a choice of nuts that are used.   They come either in rolls or squares.  There is also a shreaded wheat type of Baklava with a choice of nuts mixed in.   Regardless of the type, they are all smothered with tons of honey/syrup (and I mean a lot).  The choices of nuts are almond, pistaccio, hazelnut and walnuts.  I like a lot of sweets and chocolate (Glen speaking), however, this was even too sweet for me.  I prefer the Baklava I have had a various places in California and Texas.

In fact, at dinner last night when we went out, dessert was a big flat circle like an air hockey chip.  We called it a shredded-wheat hockey puck smothered in sweet honey/syrup of some kind. There was actually embedded a “white” cheese which we haven’t figured out what it is.  It might be provolone or mozzarella, but they call it “white cheese”.  It was hidden in the middle of the shredded-wheat, then on top guess what was there?  You guessed it – a blob of white yogurt (whipped and sweetened this time).  These people are yogurt fanatics.  Interesting combination, oh yes, and there was a pile of tiny grains of pistaccio right next to the yogurt blob.


We got some pictures from one of the other couples here from yesterday.  We are providing them for you to see.  They were taken on the cruise from yesterday:

Bosphorus bridge - changes colors at night every couple minutes (blue, yellow, etc.)

Top 3 of 5 stories of the mall we visited yesterday

We are anxious to visit with Dr. Arici tomorrow to get an update on our status and progress. We will provide feedback after we hear the results.

Thank you so much.

Glen and Staci

Day 7 of Turkey--The Bosphorus Boat trip

Merhaba which is hello in Turkish!!


Today we saw the doctor.  Our eggs are growing well so he is going to keep me on the same dosage of 300 IU.   They measure the eggs in millimeters (mm).  When the eggs get to be around 18 mm they will retrieve them.  He went really fast as he measured so I wasn't able to keep count real well but I think we have around 13-16 eggs.


On the right ovary our totals were:
2  8 mm eggs
4-5  7 mm eggs
2-4 6 mm eggs


On the left we had:
3  8 mm eggs
4  7 mm eggs
2-4   6 mm eggs


On Friday I think I will know a better total of our eggs.   We will definitely have plenty of eggs and they are growing well.  So that's all great news!  Our egg retrieval will not be until at least the 16th.  


Seyhan, generously spent the afternoon and evening with us.  When I say "us", I am speaking of Staci and I, and the other two couples we mentioned in other blogs who are here for IVF.  She is a very sweet muslim, works all around the clock.  She is always on call, attending to all the logistics for the hospital.  She privately told us of her own personal physical challenges involving surgery with having one of her lungs removed, and coughing up blood.  She was in an ER in the UK, which meant waiting for 4 hours before being attended to (while she was coughing up blood)  and the doctor said, “you’re not dead” when he finally saw her.  They could not after several months identify the problem.  She finally arrived at this John Hopkins affiliated hospital and they diagnosed it in 2-3 days.  However, her ribs were broken, and they healed and broke in cycles multiple times during this time.  It is difficult to fully understand, but I think she is still facing some of these issues today.  This hospital is a hospital where all the worse cases come.  So there are a lot of tragic cases.  Seyhan is involved with a lot of them, because she handles travel arrangements and logistics of all kinds.  She personally gets involved and tries desperately to help families cope and resolve issues.  She is a very generous person and tries to help in many ways.  She has gained the respect of all her peers and everyone she works with.  When we have been with her, we have met some of the fine doctors and surgeons.  She mentioned, on a few occasions – “this is the best heart surgeon in the world”, and we met a chiropractor today. 

Seyhan also invited her cousin to be with us today.  So we spent the most of the day with them.  Seyhan, initiated our journey on a shuttle from the hospital and we were dropped off at a ferry.  The ferry was similar to the one before, but a little smaller.  It was better because we could feel the cool breeze as we crossed the Bosphorous.  It was a slower pace across the Bosphorous which is what we wanted, because it was intended to be a Bosphorous cruise.  It really pretty much covered the same area as the last SeaBus we mentioned yesterday.  However, it was slower, we could feel the open air and could see and enjoy the atmosphere.  There are two bridges over the Bosphorous - so this cruise we were on was south of the lower bridge - of course which I do not remember the name (as it was in Turkish).  At the conclusion of the cruise, we arrived on the European/west side of Istanbul (like last time).  

We walked down one of the streets (I don’t actually know the name) and enjoyed some of Seyhan’s favorite area of Istanbul.  We passed by several universities on the way.  On one of the universities, they had two huge posters/banners with names of graduates on each.  On the left banner it showed a list of all the graduates from college.  On the right banner it showed a list of all the graduates from high school.  So she said that there was some peer pressure, where friends would ask each other, “Is your name listed?”  LOL.  Kind of interesting.

We arrived at a mosque, named after the town, Ortakoy.  So it was named Ortakoy mosque.  Pictures are provided below (inside and out).  We took some pictures of it.  Right in front of it, there is a huge basketball.  They are into basketball here, but they admit they can never compare to the US.  Not sure why the basketball is there, but it is.  Has nothing to do with the mosque. 

This season is Ramazan (pronounced Raw-ma-dawn), which is ending tonight.  All the muslims fast which means no food or water until 7:30 at night (from sun-up to sun-down) - not a single thing can pass their lips - not drinks, not medicine, not gum, not cigarettes.  This period is for a month when they practice this.  They have different prayer calls during the day, if I remember correctly, 5 a day.  They must face Mecca and actually there is a strange sound of men singing throughout the city at different intervals at the time of prayer.  The singing, we were told is actually in Arabic and the meaning of it is essentially we believe that God is the highest and almighty.  So tomorrow, is when it is over and they have the first opportunity to eat breakfast.  And really, they are supposed to eat breakfast with their mothers.  They must kiss their mothers hands and grandparents hands to show respect and honor.  The men must go to the mosques to pray.   They must also go to “nursing homes” or wherever old people are, (complete strangers) to spend time with them.  The taxis, buses and public transportation are all free for 3 days because this is the time when all families get together to spend this time together so there is no excuse.  It is kind of like our Christmas.  

We went inside the mosque.  We took off our shoes prior to entering the mosque, and placed them in a locker.  We then walked inside.  The women were provided wraps or scarfs to wrap around their heads/necks before they entered.  The architecture was ornate, the lighting was very nice.  It was right next to the Bosphorous, so it was nice to see the water from inside.  The pictures will show the ceiling, and the chandelliers.  We watched as men were praying.  We stayed in the back and took a few pictures. 

I will describe this as Seyhan spoke to us.  (Please no comments about this as it can be a controversial topic and that is not my intent).  She wished that people did not lump her beliefs as a muslim with the Arabs.  Many people assume that they are all the same.  She mentioned her long wishes were to go to Mecca and to earn enough money to pay for her mother to go to Mecca.  It is their belief that they must go there at least once in their lifetime.  But she said, I hate Arabs and since Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, she said she didn’t want to waste her money, because she knows the money would go to them. 

She then proceeded to describe that she loves the mosque because it is peaceful.  She said that she is responsible to know all her neighbors.  When people go to visit each other, it is kind of like the islanders.  They are provided food and you must eat all the food placed in front of you, which usually consists of several courses of food.  You cannot simply provide an excuse such as “I’m full”.  That will not be tolerated.  You must eat, and eat and eat.  Another part of this, is she said she must be very familiar with her neighbors.  If they do not have sufficient food and such, she must share hers.  She is in effect required to share her food, or invite her neighbors over for meals so that they have enough to eat.  If she fails to do this it is rude.    She also mentioned her experience reading from the Koran.  The words she used to express reading from the Koran were almost the same words and vocabulary used when (I myself in the past, and others I know have expressed while reading the Bible or scriptures).  She was sincere, and described the experience a Christian might say when they feel the Spirit while reading scriptures. 

After leaving the mosque, we went on a different ferry.  This time, the ferry covered the northern part of the Bosphorous (up until the next bridge – which was near the top of Istanbul).  It was beautiful, and we enjoyed the cool breeze.  We loved that it had cooled off a little.  It was nice and relaxing.

We then finished the day going to a large mall.  I think it was 4 of 5 stories tall and very long and wide.  It was the largest mall I have ever seen (anywhere).  It even had what looked to be a Home Depot (different name), and a wal mart (type of supermarket – not Walmart) with lots of groceries and so forth.  It was pretty cool.   We ate dinner at one of the places in the mall. 

There are always new things to learn.  I hope that the things we have written are interesting and not boring.  There is a lot of interesting things we see and learn each day.  Of course, we can’t mention all of them.

Thank you for everything.

Glen and Staci

On ferry crossing Bosphorous

The following pictures are of the lower bridge across the Bosphorous:

These are a couple pictures - it was a cool silhouette of the city underneath the bridge:

These are pictures of Ortokoy / Istanbul - near the mosque:

These pictures are of a basketball right in front of a mosque:

Vida on left - IVF patient,    Right - Seyhan (Hospital responsible for logistics)

All the IVF girls:    Susan, Vida, Seyhan and Staci

These are the pictures of the mosque we went inside - Ortokoy Mosque:

Bottom right - Vida's husband Ebenezer

Day 6 of Turkey--The Grand Bazaar

Hi everyone!

No egg update today.  I only see the doctor every other day for right now.  I will see him every day once it gets closer to egg retrieval.  When we had our first appointment, Dr Arici put our egg retrieval at probably the 13th, but since the eggs didn't grow very much last time it might be a day or two later. I'll keep you posted once I see the doctor in the morning.  Ok, so I'm beat so I'm turning this over to Glen to do the story telling for the day!!

For today’s outing, we might have been tempted to take a taxi from the hotel (their word for taxi is taksi - sounds the same), however it would probably be at least $100 (american) one-way.  So we opted for public transportation which was much more affordable.  That was a challenge in and of its self.  We paid ticket dispensers without knowing the language which was confusing.  After figuring out how to use the ticket dispenser with the right form of money and pushing the right buttons, we received tickets.  The tickets were in the form of plastic chips which looked like poker chips. We had to place these chips into a turn stile so we could enter the tram/metro station and get on our tram.  In the end, we now are familiar with how to get around town.  The biggest challenge now is getting to the point where we can use public transporation  from our hotel, since our hotel is so far away.  Seyhan has been very helpful in providing a shuttle for us to get from the hotel to the point where we can use public transportation.  We really have appreciated that because it has saved us a lot of money.

Today we went to the Grand Bazaar with the other couple. It was an amazing experience.  Seyhan, our international patient coordinator, arranged for a shuttle to take us to the sea bus port.  Istanbul is split by a river called the Bosphorus.  They call the two different sides of Istanbul the Europe and Asia side.  We are on the Asia side.  So we had to take a sea bus, which is like a big boat/ferry, to get to the European side.  Then we had to catch a tram to the Grand Bazaar.  

The Tram was really cool.  We drove through the "old" town (on the European side).  On the Tram, there were several stops and along the way, there was a lot of cool things we could see.  We saw a few mosques, and interesting looking buildings, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, and then a bunch of their shops and banks, etc.  It was very fun and interesting to see.  Then in some parts, the tram was so close to the shops and buildings we could reach out and touch people standing there in line for the shops - and/or we could almost reach out and touch the walls also.  It was close, almost like an alley way in a few of the areas through the city.  It even went over one of the bridges over the Golden Horn (waterway).    

The Grand Bazaar is HUGE!!!  The building is many city BLOCKS wide and has tons of corridors.  It's like a maze in there!  It has at least a thousand merchants selling stuff.  Canton pales in comparison to the Grand Bazaar.  It's basically the same stuff like pottery, carpets, scarves, lamps, etc.  But it's still awesome!!  We had a good time looking around and we even bought a few things.  You definitely have to haggle to get a good price, but it was fun.  Most of the merchants were very nice and accepted  NO the very first time, except we saw one merchant chasing a blonde tourist because she didn’t buy something from him.  He was following her quite a while.  I have yet to know where (if ever), he stopped following her.  LOL. 

Oh yes, there was one experience, we must not omit.  Just shortly after we entered the Grand Bazaar, a merchant was standing in the middle of the aisle-way posing as a shopper.  He proceeded to guess where we were from, asking us in English – “Are you from Texas”. With a completely baffled look on our faces we answered, Yes, we are!   We later thought, it must have just been a lucky guess because nothing on us said Texas and I wasn't wearing my cowboy boots. LOL We figure that when he sees an American he probably guesses them to be from one of three states, California, Texas, New York. These are the most populated and the odds are high that someone would be from one of these states.   He got lucky when he guessed right for us.  After his introduction, he then tried to get us to go visit his shop which was way off the beaten path.  There were four of us, so I knew he was potentially trying to scam us in some way, so I proceeded with caution – however the other 2 in our group were kind of leading the way so Staci and I followed.  So it took a while to get to his stall, but along the way we saw many other merchants and what they had to offer so it was not a wasted journey.  He was a pretty funny guy, very humorous.  Of course, he said “you must buy something” – at least one thing from me.  Then he said, after you buy something from me, I will then show you the best place to eat “in the Grand Bazaar”.  He claimed to say that even George Bush and Michael Jackson had been in the Grand Bazaar to shop and he had seen it for himself.  LOL.  It was entertaining.  He actually asked us “would you like to see some tiles?”   Tiles, we later found out was his ceramic shop of bowls, and coasters and stuff like that, all allegedly hand-painted.  There was lots of competition for him in the Grand Bazaar, so of course if didn't take us long to figure out, why he wanted to steal customers right away before they saw the competition since he was way off in the boon docks of the Bazaar.  We didn’t buy anything from him, and we didn’t eat where he wanted us to eat.  LOL.  He was very persistent.  Said we should have bought something because of his comedy.  LOL.  He made fun of us because we were “window shoppers”.   Hey at that point, we had just gotten there and we had already told him we were "just looking."  Later in our shopping, we actually ran into that same guy a few more times!!  Which is crazy because this place is HUGE!!!  Each time we saw him coming, we would duck behind some carpets to avoid him seeing us.  LOL. One time we accidentally ducked into a store selling the exact same "tiles" as him.  We were like, Oh, crap!  What if he see's us in this other persons place and thinks we are buying from him instead!!!!  But thankfully we avoided him after that point and there were no further incidents. He just provided us with some real entertainment.

After the Grand Bazaar, we got on the tram to go back to the place where we arrived (in the morning from the ferry) - in the town Kabatas.  From the tram stop, we would need to go another mile or so to a hotel called The Marma, where Seyhan had gratefully arranged for someone to pick us up at 9pm.  So we took the tram back up to Kabatash, then we got on a metro/subway to take us north west (a mile), to complete the last jaunt to be in the place of pickup at 9pm.  Then we spent the evening in Taxim.  Some of the pictures will show some of the sights while we were there.  While we waited to be picked up, we looked at a few shops and had dinner.  There was also a nice park that we saw and there was an outdoor concert which we heard while we walked around.  

In Taxim, we also bought dinner there.  They have meat on a stick (or Kabob) - which they call Doner.  There is a picture of that.  They seemed to have a choice of chicken or beef.  The meat is stacked up on the metal skewers.  They have a choice of how the food is packaged.  For lunch we had it just sliced up on a plate with rice, etc.  At dinner, we opted for the burrito-style where they wrap it up with vegetables and a tortilla.  They oiled up the tortilla after they wrapped it all up and place it near a flame, long enough to char the tortilla.  Oh yea, we asked for the "spicy" version - which was supposed to have chiles with the vegetables.  It was very tasty, but definitely not spicy.  I don't think they really have spicy food here.  I prefer the burrito-style packaging of the meat - it tasted better than the other.  

Because we liked this experience so much, we will probably go back to the Grand Bazaar and Taxim again.  When we go back we will take a new couple we met. The new couple got here around the same time we did but they haven't had a chance to see any of the sights yet. Their names are Ebenezer and Vida, and he informed immediately that he was no Scrooge!  LOL They live in New York, but are originally from Ghana. They seem like a really nice couple and we look forward to getting to know them better. Tomorrow, all the couples are going on a boat ride together along with Seyhan down the Bosphorus River.  This should be SO awesome and we should get some really good pictures!!

I bet y'all are wanting some pictures of the Grand Bazaar.  So here ya go!!!

On the ferry, we passed the "Prince Islands" - they are 3 small islands.  This a picture of one:

On the ferry, these are some pictures of the European side of Istanbul. You will notice there are some mosques:

Bridge Over the Bosphorous River:

A random mosque right after getting off the seabus at Kabatash:

Then these are a collection of pictures taken at the Grand Bazaar.  They all show different merchants and the products they were selling.   The architecture of the building was interesting to, so pictures may only show that as well:

(above - lights / lanterns)

(above - this is a funny one).  Does anyone know what this merchant is pointing at?  if you can't figure it out - scroll down for the answer

Then we have some pictures in Taxim (in the evening)

(above - these were some soaps in the shape of fruit, etc.)

(park in Taxim - near the shops and concert)

(above - this was interesting - in front of concert.  Concert stage not shown.  The vendor was selling popcorn and cotton candy.  Not sure what the purpose of this architecture is for.)

(above - this is how they sell their meat - "Doner" in shops on the side of the road.  This is what we ate for lunch and dinner today)  There are several of these adjacent to each other.  There were 4 of these shops literally next to each other and then Burger King on the end (in Taxim).   Near the Grand Bazaar they had 2 or 3 next to each other as well.

Right before 9, immediately before we were being picked up - we went on a scavenger hunt to find Turkish ice cream, which is stringy like taffy.  The other couple said they knew where to look, so we started walking down a street.  This is a picture.  There were lots of people:

Their ice cream was interesting.  It was good, but interesting.  We had 3 flavors - chocolate, vanilla, and lemon.  They were pretty good.   Remind us to post about the ice cream experience it's getting really late and we have spent over two hours on this blog. LOL  It takes a long time to up load all the photos one at a time to the blog!

Oh, and the answer to what he is pointing at.  Staci was taking most of these pictures with her iphone today. In most places it was ok to take pictures, but I guess at this place it was not. Because when she brought the camera down she noticed that he was pointing at a picture of a camera with a big red X over it!  So  she accidently took a picture of a guy telling her not to take a picture!  LMAO

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Glen & Staci