wired

this might not come as a big surprise, but connecting a wireless router to a computer with internet provided by the united states senate is a little bit tricky. especially for someone who can barely tell the difference between a wireless router and an answering machine. (that someone would be me. also, do people even still use answering machines?)

all of this to say, i still have loads more to tell you (with pictures!) about turkey (remember that?) and my recent drive across the country (remember that?) but i am afraid it's going to have to wait until i get connected to the web of the world wide on my own computer.

in the meantime, though, i can tell you that i got a little teary when i was driving to church today and the washington monument rose out of the skyline right in front of me. to be perfectly honest, i am not really one for outright patriotism, but that was pretty awesome.

i can also tell you that uncle bob makes delicious pork chops for saturday dinner.

i can tell you that carrying all my earthly possessions up four flights of stairs is totally exhausting and i would have given up were it not for sallee and her brute strength.

i can tell you that i have already made some new friends and one of them, magellan, mounts right on my windshield and tells me how to get around this crazy place. (we're not on the grid anymore, toto.) i think he and i are going to be pretty close.

life, elevated

i drove to denver yesterday and cried all the way from cheyenne to my parents' driveway.

because, after a whirlwind week of packing and seeing friends and finishing work and selling furniture and having parties and filling my car to the absolute brim, there on the empty road it finally sank in: i don't live in utah anymore.

(though i have yet to inform the united states postal service of that fact. i better get on that.)

that's right. the chapter of my wonderful life in utah, filled with some of the best people and best times i have known, has come to a close. can you blame me for shedding a tear? (the answer is no, no you cannot.)

when i first moved to salt lake, i told myself i would stay as long as i wanted to, and not worry constantly about when it was time to go, but just trust that when the time came, i would know it. that i could feel it. 

and so i stayed for longer than i ever thought i would, and had a happier life than i ever thought i could. and then the time came. and i knew it. and i felt it.

and it's still hard.

hard because i will miss letting myself in elliott's back door, and holly and evan stopping by with baby kyle and FOE with the girls.

hard because i will miss riding my bike to work, and up memory grove, and out to saltair and around liberty park.

hard because i will miss a ward where everyone knows me well enough that i can use "battlestar galactica" references and no one thinks i am weird (right?) and i will miss a workplace where we can laugh all day long together about quotes from "the office."

hard because i will miss crawling into bed with briana and brushing my teeth with ck and going to the d.i. with sallee. 

hard because i will miss lunch with my grandma, the hot tub with uncle john, visits with kathryn and keri and family gathering.

hard because i have no idea what lies ahead, but i love everything that lies behind. 

i believe in mourning. but i also believe in doing hard things. and i believe that my life in d.c. will hold just as many unexpected and happy surprises as my life in utah did. i have plenty to look forward to.

por ejemplo.

cheaper international flights! H&M! a bus to new york and a train to boston! new relatives close by! free museums! cherry blossoms! possible obama sightings! the metro! new/old friends! an excuse to buy new work clothes!

not to mention an exciting new job that will take me in exciting new directions, teach me exciting new skills and get me into the pentagon. 

not to mention knowing that, even though it is hard, my life is moving bravely forward.

not to mention that all my favorite people are going to come and visit me.

so really, it will be like i never left.

topkapi is tops

a while back i was trying to think of ways that we could make a bunch of money without having to have jobs, and i concluded that we should become jewel thiefs. one good heist and we would be set for life. especially, i now know, if the heist involved topkapi palace.

we are talking emeralds the size of my face, people. gold-leaf, pearl encrusted thrones. (michael jackson tried to buy one. tried and failed.) the sixth largest diamond in the world. topkapi palace is a jewel thief's dream.

topkapi palace is also a dream if you're into fake religious artifacts, such as the bone from john the baptist's forearm and a piece of mohammed's beard, both of which claim to be there and both of which, i am certain, are not.

and, finally, if you're just into wandering through gorgeous grounds (tulips everywhere!) and scoping out old gazebos with delicate tile work, topkapi palace might be the place for you, too.

buy my love

have i mentioned that i am moving?

in less than a week?

and that this involves packing up my entire life? like, all of it?

oh, you've heard this before?

very well.

have you also heard that i am selling a bunch of furniture?

do you want some?

i can only imagine there is one of you out there who needs a coffee table and matching end tables...








{these are totally my favorite, btw, and you will love them, too}

... or some bookshelves...









... or maybe some drawers and a matching bench...?








i also have a desk and a rug and some dining rooms chairs.

interested?

let me know.

{shamless post? also, yes.}

one mosque, two mosque, new mosque, blue mosque

it can be sort of easy to forget that turkey is a muslim country.



until, of course, the blaring call to prayer wakes you up at 4:30 in the morning.



or until you remember that half the women around you have their heads covered.



or until you visit some of the most stunningly beautiful mosques you have ever seen in all your live long days.



it starts with the ayasofya (or hagia sophia, depending on where you're from. i like the first one better because the spelling doesn't remind me of the word hag. but, to each his own.)



ransacked by crusaders, the outside is not much to look at (IMHO. again, to each his own), but the inside is just breathtaking, a wonderful hodge-podge of muslim artifacts, including massive disks of calligraphy bearing the name of Allah, and christian influences, like intricate tile mosaics of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, the doctrinal cross-over owing to the fact that the ayasofya has served as both a mosque and a christian house of worship in its long and eventful life. now it is technically a museum, but don't tell it that.

{my tour book pointed out that this is one of the most impressive religious mosaics in the world. never mind that the bottom two-thirds is missing.}









across the way, you'll find the blue mosque.

the blue mosque is sort of the opposite of the ayasofya. the blue tile and soaring minarets make for a gorgeous exterior, but dana pointed out that the inside is sort of like a convention center. since the mosque is still in use, we decided to forgive this. in fact, we arrived right at prayer time and had to wait outside while the prayer finished up before we could go in.













the minarets on the outside actually caused a big scandal back in the day because there are six of them, the same number of minarets at the big mosque in mecca. no mosque had ever rivaled mecca like that, and no one knew quite what to do. the final solution was to add a seventh minaret in mecca. now you know.

or, if you are looking for something a little more modern, you can head over to the new mosque, which is, of course, not really new at all, but we are speaking in relative terms here.

i can totally pass, right?

lagging

i was on the phone with my mom today while i drove home from the airport.

she asked if i was totally exhausted and spacey.

i said no, actually i feel pretty good.

i said that just as i got out of the car and realized my gas door was open and i had forgotten to put my gas cap back on before i left the gas station.

then i drove back to the gas station to find it.

then i remembered i had put the gas cap on my roof.

luckily, it was still there.

my brain, however, had yet to be relocated.

turkish delight, country roads

i am still working on the picture thing, kids. sorry. exept that i am actually not working on it, exactly. i decided not to worry about it, i just haven't told you until now. that is a project to be tackled as soon as i get home, which will be the day after tomorrow. depending, of course, on when you are reading this and what time zone you are in and so on and so forth.

in the meantime, let me tell you that, should you decide to rent a car and drive it through the back roads and spacious highways of turkey, there are a few things you should know.

like, you shouldn't worry about speeding because there don't seem to be any traffic-related police officers anywhere.

also, you can't worry about how fast you are going because you have no idea how to convert kilometers to miles.

driving in turkey will not be nearly as scary or hard as you thought it might be, so no worries there either. finding a good radio station, on the other hand, might be impossible.

for some as-yet-undetermined reason, trucks go down mountains in turkey at exactly zero miles (or kilometers) per hour. luckily, it's totally OK to pass three or four trucks in a row. like all at the same time. really. just try it.

and, if you happen to pull into petroturk and the attendant filling your tank notices that you have a nasty cold and are blowing your noise on toilet paper you stole from a different gas station bathroom, he will give you a nice, big box of tissues.

which makes the fact that he also just gave himself a three lira tip seem just fine.