Week Six: Goodbye Istanbul, Hello Athens!

Our last few days in Istanbul were pretty uneventful. We mostly did school and work and prepared for our departure. On our last day, we went to the Legoland Discovery Center. The Krolls invited us to celebrate their son Steel's birthday.

This flag is on the Guinness World Records as the largest LEGO flag in the world. It is 24’ x 3’3” and has approximately 350,000 2x4 bricks! It was created last year to commemorate The Republic of Turkey's 100 year old birthday.

I think Jeff and Sterling Kroll may have had the most fun 😂

Ollie helped Steel pick out a Minecraft set as a gift from us.

Lego art of Ataturk - creepy but cool!

We all went to lunch after. Norah was drawing on the back of a paper placemat and one of our servers noticed and complimented her. Soon he was sharing his artwork too! He was such a happy humble guy.

We're thankful for the Krolls! They still have a lot more world to see but we hope someday we can have a reunion with them back in the States.

We traveled back on the metro one more time and took in the view from our Shishane stop

And finally got some Turkish ice cream. It is called dondurma here and is a little different from western style icecream. It is sweet, creamy, stretchy, and chewy at the same time. The stretchy texture is thanks to a starchy root of wild orchids called salep.

Salep is a special type of powdered orchid bulb.

In addition to salep, the traditional dondurma recipe is based on goat’s milk and sugar.

In some parts of the country, Turkish dondurma is also made with an aromatic resin called gum mastic. This gum mastic is harvested from gum trees grown on the Aegean coast of Turkey and Greece.

You can see the long handled spatula he uses to keep the icecream stretchy. I posted a video of his tricks on Facebook and Istagram but I can't upload it here. He was fast and tricky!

It was a great show. If you want to get an idea of what they do and how the ice cream is made, you can watch it here.

Laurel was relieved to finally get her ice cream.

And it was delicious!

Just a few last pictures walking home in the craziness of the city. The next day, we finished packing and headed to the airport.

Waiting in line, I snuck a pic of some of the many heads that we have seen here. Men with scabs all over their heads in distinct patterns like this all over the city. It freaked us out at first, and I finally googled it and learned that  Istanbul is the hair transplant capital of the world. And what costs $20,000 in the US can be done for around $2,000 in Istanbul.

Norah was so happy she finally found a stuffed cat in the airport to remember Istanbul by. She looked everywhere while we were there but never found the perfect one. Her plan is to take it with her and add a pin from each country to the collar. It's perfectly mangy and fluffy, just like her favorite cats in Istanbul. 😁

Another short plane ride - just over an hour and here we are in Greece! We got in just as the sun was setting and were so excited about the view from our AirBnb...

 The Acropolis!

We ran to the market to get groceries and waited for the kids to let us in. Here's the front door to our apartment building.

One of the first signs we saw was in the kitchen. Hallejuiah for clean drinking water from the tap! We feel like we hit the jackpot!

The next day we headed to the Metro to go to church which was more complicated than we expected.

We finally decided to take a taxi. Our driver (the guy with the gray hair)was so great! He had lived in New York City for four years, so we had a lot to talk about.

I Stand All Amazed in the Greek hymnal. I think it's so pretty!

The missionaries were so great! We loved talking to each of them. This elder was practicing interpreting for the testimony meeting. He got to Greece around the same time we arrived in Istanbul, so he is fresh and so excited to be in Greece serving the people here.

We also met the Christensen's from Spanish Fork, Utah, who know our brother-in-law Ethan's family very well. Sister Christensen even taught Ethan when he was a preschooler. Small world!

We are enjoying the warm 65-degree highs here and the citrus everywhere! It feels like Mesa, Arizona, winters where I grew up and the fresh air!

The outside of our apartment. There is a long balcony that we can sit out and enjoy while we do work and school. A nice change!

The steps inside our apartment - we have noticed it's marble everywhere!

Our tiny elevator

Kids waiting for the key to get in (we took the stairs)!

We've felt a bit of a culture shock as we have left the conservative Muslim-majority country of Turkey and come to a secular, westernized Athens. Everyone speaks really good English here, and American popular music is blasting in every shop and restaurant (this happened in some shops in Istanbul, too, just not as much). The first night, we joked that we felt like we were in NYC as we sat and waited for our pizza, reading an all-English menu. But we have a lot of ancient things to see this week, and we look forward to all we will learn about this people and culture. Also, the food, so far, is amazing!

Until next week!