1700 miles: Part 1... Bulgaria, Istanbul, Meteora

Zac came home from Liberia on a Thursday afternoon a few weeks ago, and then turned around and headed back to the airport that same day to pick up... 8 of our 13 visitors! Two of his sisters, Maria and Heidi, their husbands, Eldon and Doug, and 4 of Maria's 6 kids, McKenna, Hunter, Rylee, and Emma, came to see us! Maria left her two littler ones at home, and Heidi left her little Preston... a fact that Bran brought up throughout the trip. He had been so looking forward to playing with him!

The next day, our other 5 guests arrived. Our good friends, Mike and Julie and their 3 kids, Paige, Jonah, and Jack, joined the party. And party we did. Well, okay, not PARTY-party, but we had a terrific time. We redid our road trip of Nov '09, where we went to Istanbul, Turkey, then down to Meteora, Greece with my sister and her family. Then they continued on to Athens and Delphi, but we ditched 'em and went home. This time, though... no ditching. We drove exactly 1700 miles (no joke. Z and I watched the tripomenator turn to 1700 as we drove into our driveway 7-ish days later. At 2am) to Istanbul, Meteora, Athens and Delphi, and it was great.

First, though, we did a little bit of Bulgaria! Here are Hunter and Bran at Rila Monastery.

And here is half of Bran. He's busting his way into the sheep blessing to pet the poor, probably-doomed, creature. The man holding the sheep brought him (her?) in, feet all trussed, and then over comes a priest to bless him...her. Then they tossed the sheep in a small alcove. Nuala and Jack are enthralled with the fountain, not the sheep.

Maria and Nuala making it through St. Ivan Rilski's crack. Alright, it's a CAVE, but you hafta crawl through what is basically just a crack. If you can't, apparently you are a sinner. We all made it through. I don't know why we haven't been translated...

Oh, did you already see this one? It's your lucky day! You get to see it again! Maeve had fun in the leaves on the hike up to/down from the cave. Seriously, it looked like autumn up there on the ground. Kinda strange, since the trees were beginning to bud, but there were tons of leaves still down.

On the way to Istanbul, we stopped in Plovdiv and of COURSE went to the amphitheater. Seriously awesome place. Extra awesome when it's quite deserted and aunties get a huge game of freeze tag going. Extra EXTRA awesome when the rule is you must freeze in a Roman statue pose.

Posin' Paigey :)

Here are the women-folk. And McKenna, who, at almost-16, is in training. Julie, Maria, McKenna, Heidi, and me. The guys did it, too, but we looked better. Okay, okay... in fairness, I just didn't get a good pic of the guys. They looked....good.

Awwwwww.... Bran kept wanting pictures of him and Maeve, or him and Nuala and Maeve. He's a sweetie.

The kids on the amphitheatre steps. Pooped from freeze-tag. Just as was desired, since we still had 4 hours to go till Istanbul...

Oh, now this is just randomly outta order. Actually, it's from the very end of the trip, when we were back at our place, but whatever. It's super cute! Maeve LOVED all the visitors. She was quite clingy to mama, though, after about the 2nd day, but LOVED to play with them while still in contact with me. She had her more go-to moments, but overall decided to be a mama's girl this trip. Look at poor Kenna's knee... she skinned it up in Delphi, the day we drove home, and by that evening it was swollen and hot and infected. Not the souvenir she was going for, a weird Greek bacteria. Luckily Z dug up some antibiotic ointment and the infection was defeated.

Just really, really cute.

Alright, now we're in Istanbul! Have I mentioned how much we LOVE Turkey? Because we do. Maeve loved this cat outside of the Blue Mosque, as you can see.

Ahhhhh, the beautiful Blue Mosque!

Annnnd, here is one of Maeve's 8 million Turkish fans. Those who aren't fans just haven't heard of her yet. Honestly, it was crazy how much people fawned over her! Crazy AWESOME. She got a bunch of free postcards (that we lost), offers of free tours for our group, free BAKLAVA (I'm keepin' her around), free charms... okay, not as much free stuff as I remembered, actually... but still... everywhere we went people were taking pictures of her, wanting to touch her. She perfected her big grin and "hiiiiii!!" while waving, as well as blowing kisses to people. This fellow up above, Jenk, passed us on the street and was thrilled when she accidentally babbled "baba" while looking at him. That means "daddy" there, and he was just smitten with her. Then we ran into him in the Blue Mosque and insisted on pics with her and holding her. Luckily she was okay with that.

But it's like that in Turkey. Part of it's the blonde hair, part of it's just that Turks love kids. What's really neat, is that loads of young, childless guys were interested in her. That's sooo not what happens in the States. Young dudes with no kids usually express NO interest in babies. Though I'm pretty sure Maeve could crack 'em...

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled travelogue... The inside of the Blue Mosque. For some reason I found it much more interesting and lovely this time around. I don't know why. Not being pregnant? So much can be blamed on that, right?

Our girlies in an little alcove.

Bran! He just loved this little fire truck! He asked Z to take his picture by it. He kept pointing things out to Z and telling him where stuff like the axe would be. He was pretty excited :)

Went to the Cistern again. It was super cool, again. Here are Kenna, Bran, and Nuala. It's such a different place. And, they'd added something from the last time we were there...

The opportunity to dress as royals and get your picture taken! Who can pass that up? Well, Maeve could've, for SURE, but it was fun! Bottom row, l-r: McKenna, me with a camouflaged Maeve on my lap, Nuala, Emma, Heidi, Maria. Top, l-r: Hunter, Zachariah, Doug, Eldon, Bran, Rylee.

N, Z, and B, with the Blue Mosque in the background.

We went to the Hagia Sophia again (we really didn't take lots of pictures... well, comparatively... since we had tons from before, so just go look at those posts if you want to see what the Hagia Sophia really looks like ;), too. Here's Bran by a little sign on the upper gallery pointing out some Viking graffiti. What would you expect, right? Darn Vikings.

Ooooh, look! We do have a shot of the Hagia Sophia! Um, yeah, definitely not it's best look. I was really just focusing on these cute boys. And trying to burn my 4-year old's retinas, obviously.

Me and the Blue Mosque. At night. (What, was that obvious?) All the grown-ups minus Zac and Mike, plus McKenna, Hunter, and Paige went to see whirling dervishes. (Also something I've wanted to see since reading that Indy Jones book that inspired my Cappadocia dream, by the way.) It was pretty neat. A lot of...whirling... No, I'm really glad I got to see it, but it just wasn't as exciting as I'd always thought. Hmmmm... but just being in an Indiana Jones book can make anything more exciting, I suppose... I did enjoy the singing, and the music, and watching the elderly lady next to Doug who was an amazing sketcher! And the dervishes were interesing to watch, too. It was a good, kind of relaxing-in-a-mesmerizing-sort-of-way, experience. Anyway, that's only related to the above picture because we were on our way back from watching the dervishes when we took these shots.

Maeve and me and some quite vibrant flowers in Topkapi palace. It would be sooo boring to live in a palace. I'm sure that's generalizing, but hey, haven't you seen Aladdin? Point made.

After a long day...lots of walking... lots of yummy doners and fresh juice... time to move on. Goodbye, Istanbul! You were surely good to us! Except for the one time that Maeve tripped and some old dude scolded me (yeah, I TOTALLY pushed her), but that's behind us now, drowned in the memories of the good.

And, after a night in a lovely hotel by a cold beach in Asprovalta that I'm pretty sure we need to return to in warm weather, we arrrived in Meteora! It's always stunning. It was especially striking when we were there because of the low clouds that seemed to envelop the monasteries. I felt like we had stepped into a movie.

The women-folk again, sporting the lovely skirts provided at each monastery's doors for those of us who arrive UN-skirted. L-R, Julie, Heidi, Mariah, Me/Maeve, McKenna, in front, Nuala, Emma, Paige.

Bran, looking from one monastery to another.

Some of us on the stairs coming down from a monastery.

Nuala and Emma, on Matching Skirt day. They're the only ones who played, unless you count when we ALL matched, courtesy of the monks and their skirts. Not THEIR skirts... the ones they lent out! My goodness...

Auntie Heidi and Uncle Doug with Nuala and Bran. N&B loved getting to spend time with all these guys. They don't get to see 'em often enough!

The Maevesters and me, atop a monastery with another one waaaaay in the back. Do you see it? Along the right side of the pic?

The Muffin Man (I dare you to come up with a tougher name than that! Can't be done.) holding a tortoise Heidi saved.

I just have to throw this super adorable one in because... it's super adorable. Maeve captured hearts here, too. Two young Greek men pretty much followed her around , lauding her cuteness. They called her a "miracle" and a "goddess" and crossed themselves in front of her, mumbling a prayer. Does her head look bigger to you...?

Eldon helping Emma get her skirt on.

Bran and a plaque that says... I have no idea. Do any of y'all know? But it looks neat-o.

Doug, Emma, Nuala, Maria, Bran, Zac, Maeve, and Heidi. Fun bunch.

And soon... the REST of the story...