Settle in, kids, it's a long one

It's been a week since we left Istanbul and while it has been nice to get back home and into the normal routine, I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish we'd had another month or three to spend there.

We've been fortunate enough to travel around quite a bit since we've moved here, and out of all the places we've been I can say without a doubt that Istanbul was my favorite.

The city itself is beautiful. In some ways it's very European, yet there's something about it that's so very Middle Eastern/Asian. It's fascinating. It really is where east meets west, and I don't think there's another city like it in the world.

My favorite part about the city itself was the architecture. Istanbul is similar to Paris and other European cities (I'm guessing) in that there isn't much use for big, towering skyscrapers. The city has some true high-rises, but they're kind of stuck together off in a corner somewhere. Many of Istanbul's skyscrapers seemed to be grouped in a valley, and those that weren't just looked weird and out of place.

Instead of towering hunks of glass and steel, the majority of the city's buildings were probably between 6 and 8 stories high. Istanbul is quite hilly, so that added a level of interest to the skyline. The city is also home to what appeared to be hundreds if not thousands of mosques, most of which seemed to be designed with simple domes and at least two lofty minarets. This was the most beautiful part of the city's skyline-everywhere you looked, there were slender, graceful towers reaching above everything else.

I don't feel like we saw or did nearly enough while we were there, yet every single day was busy. The Grand Bazaar, the world's largest covered market, was great. Our last night in Istanbul we saw a dinner show. One of our students is part Turkish, and when I asked him what we should see in Istanbul he said to go to the Grand Bazaar and (of course, being a 17-year-old-boy) he recommended seeing belly dancers. Travis heartily agreed. The guidebooks we had said there were two places to see belly dancers-expensive dinner shows or seedy youth hostels. We chose the dinner show.

When we arrived we were placed at a table with other Americans. An American flag and a Turkish flag were placed on our table, and it was at this point we noticed all the other tables had Turkish flags along with various other flags-we recognized South Korea, Israel, Sweden and Norway (my people!). The food was mediocre (for Turkish food, so it was still pretty good) and the belly dancing was cool. The traditional Turkish dances and whirling dervish were also entertaining. Then came Captain Smarm-the "main attraction" of the show who basically turned out to be the Turkish equivalent of Wayne Newton, only even more cheesy. If you can imagine.

This guy was impressive, though, because he was able to sing and speak a little bit in several languages. He went around the room, greeting each table in their native language and singing a song from their homeland. It was at this point when we learned that across the room sat a table of Iraqi businessmen, and that across the room in the other direction sat six or seven tables of Iranian families. Too late for me to pretend I was Canadian, I guess, or paste a John Kerry bumper sticker on my forehead.

Perhaps it was because there were only a few of us, but the crowd reaction to the tableful of Americans was only lukewarm. Similarly, no one at the Iraqi table looked terribly amused when Mr. Smarm started singing "Hava Nagila" to the Israelis, who immediately stood and started dancing around the room. It was...interesting. It was pretty funny when Mr. Smarm started into some Iranian pop song. Suddenly the performance floor was full of hip-shaking ladies, and we were witness to an impromptu Iranian dance party. Fun stuff-and those ladies knew how to shake it! One of them ended up winning the audience amateur belly dancing competition.

I'm sad to say no one represented the United States of America in this contest. Mr. Smarm tried to get a lady from each country to dance, and at this point all of the Americans had left except for Travis and I and this father and his young teenage daughter. She was too young to participate and I, for once in my life, was far too shy. There was no way-had we been with a group of friends, I would have considered. As it was, I had no support group except for Travis, and a roomful of people whose reaction to the Americans had already been rather chilly. I failed to represent. Oh well.

The dinner show was probably overpriced for its food and entertainment value, but we did see (and get our photo taken with) belly dancers, so I suppose it was worth it.

We did SO much shopping while we were there-we left Jakarta with two suitcases and returned with four. Thank goodness Emirates Airlines isn't too tough on luggage weight limits. We returned home with two gorgeous Anatolian hand-knotted rugs, which our cat promptly writhed around on gleefully, making us realize we'd also have to be purchasing a small hand-held vacuum.

We also bought a pretty bad-ass nargile, or hookah pipe. It's about 2 1/2 feet tall and is completely handmade, so it's a piece of art as well as...well, a giant water pipe. We bought a Turkish leather footstool cover, which we've had stuffed, and which Travis insisted we buy because it was amusing to buy an ottoman where there were once Ottomans. We have the obligatory Turkish tea set and some tasty apple tea to brew (we drank our weight in apple tea that week-and that's a LOT of tea!) as well as a few kilos of Turkish Delight, most of which we passed off on our students.

In Dubai we bought a little brass camel and an oil lamp. When we got home and were unpacking, our maid asked if there was a genie in the lamp-unfortunately there isn't, but not for lack of trying, because I tested several lamps in the airport and there were no genies to be found. We did make one particularly fine purchase at the Dubai Duty Free shops, though.

We have a war of sorts going on with Kale and Katie-every time we go somewhere, we bring each other the tackiest gifts we can find. Past gifts range from the amusing (Taj Mahal snowglobes and Teletubby windchimes) to the outright obscene (if you really want to know, e-mail me...I'm not posting it here, my grandma reads this). At one duty free shop in the Dubai airport, a person could choose from a variety of cookie jar-sized ceramic figures. The most popular were an Arab man in white robe and headdress (either white or red and white checkered), wearing Elvis sunglasses, and a woman in a black burqa. We choose the man for Kale and Katie. Had it not been sold in a store actually in the Middle East, it probably would have been terribly offensive. As it was, sold there in Dubai, it was just entertaining.

Our first week back at school was fine-moderation stuff was sent off by courier on Friday, so it is good and gone. Hooray! Our new headmaster for next year was visiting this week from the States. So far, I like him a lot and I'm looking forward to working with him. He reminds me a little of Dr. Bork. He's quite tall and thin, and seems quiet, wise and kind. Good qualities to have in a headmaster. (The wise and kind qualities, I mean-I imagine one does not need to be tall, thin or quiet to be a good headmaster.)

We also found out this week that Travis will be the head of our English department next year. Hooray! He'll do a really good job, I know. That was really good news to hear our first week back after a stressful third quarter.

We're enjoying a three-day weekend right now. Monday is Mohammed's birthday, so we get the day off. Even better, we also get Friday off because it's Good Friday. Can't complain about living in a country where the holidays of four major world religions (Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu) are recognized! Tuesday we're having our school's Easter celebration, which I'm told will also include a teacher-decorating contest. Oh boy. If we end up with photos that aren't too embarrassing, we'll post a few.

I also have two new turtles in my classroom. Over the break I'd sent Cosmo (poor Wanda died back in October) home with Shari, a 10th grade girl. She put him in her family's fish pond with several other turtles, and when she went to look for him to bring him back, she wasn't able to locate him. There are two possibilites: one, Cosmo wandered off and met an untimely death or two, he's in the pond among his new friends, happy and thriving. I'll give you one guess as to which possibility I choose to believe...I'm sure Cosmo is much happier in the big pond. Right?

Anyway, poor Shari, one of the sweetest people I've ever met, was so worried that I'd be upset with her (I wasn't) that she and her father came to school Wednesday with two new little turtles for me. After a few days of deliberating, my 8th grade homeroom students decided on names for our new pets: Dolce and Gabbana. The little green guys narrowly escaped being named 50 Cent and Marshall Mathers, and this is only after I made the rule that we weren't naming them after boy students my homeroom girls think are cute. So now our turtles are tres chic, the only couture reptiles I know. Oh la la.