There's a wonder of the world on my doorstep (well, not too far anyway).

 This is my entry for The Weekend Assignment #335 : History.

We don't all live near the site of a battlefield or other world-famous event, but any place has its own history: political, cultural, even natural history. How aware are you of the past of the town, city or state where you live now? Share with us a story of local history.

Turkey is full of history, of course. It's where you go if you want to visit Athens or Rome. But it's old, terribly old. And, to me, at least, it makes the artefacts of other centuries pale dreadfully. I cannot walk past an ottoman palace without worrying it's going to faint on me. And what's modern is mostly drab. Here, anyway.

The tribal wives of here.

The most excellent blogger Very Bored, who's doing her thing over in Catalunya, tagged me for a meme. You have to produce a list of rules for living the life of the 'tribal wives' of wherever you are. I think it started as a tv show or something. So she did something hilarious about life in rural Catalonia. But contrary to her possible expectations, I'm not going to talk about the rules of life for the tribal wives of Turkey because there's is a lot more fun to be poked at us ex-pats. We have our own habits, our own idiosyncrasies. And any one coming to stay from somewhere else, some place where they actually belonged, would have stuff to get used to. So here are the rules. Welcome to our tribe.

Seeing the archelogical sights of the Turkish Aegean with kids. Part 2

This is the second part of my post on how to travel with kids in the agean. For the first part, dealing with transport and entrance fees, go here.

Water

The sites are all hot. Ruins don't exactly provide much shade... So make sure you're taking plenty of water. And I mean plenty: go for one litre per person per site. Even for the smallies. Also, you might want to bring snacks for the children just to keep them going.

Efes is particularly hard going for a child. It is less 'wild' than Priene, for instance, so there's less climbing allowed, it is a steep climb in the heat to visit the theatres, and the site itself is long and uphill. You might want to consider taking a horse drawn carriage at the entrance. It will take you round the back, pausing at the cave of the seven sleepers (an attractive ruin of a church with some fun legend attach to it). You then get on the site from the top, which makes it a lot less painful to see the whole site. The price of the ride is not negligible, but, believe me, it's worth it.

 So very hot...

Seeing the archeological sites of the Turkish Aegean with kids. Part 1

Whether you are living in Turkey or just visiting, chances are, you'll be wanting to visit the historical sites of the Agean. And if you've got kids, you shouldn't let that put you off. Over the last ten years we have taken our children (now 11 and 8) many times, and we have seen an increasing number of young families on the sites. Before you set off, though, you might want a few pointers about practicalities.

Making waves

This is my entry for Tara's Gallery over at Sticky Fingers. The theme this week is nature, and since I'll be on the beach when this goes up, I thought I'd give you a few pics from the Turkish seaside.

The beach we go to is shaded by Palm trees.

We're back!

Before I left for our trip to the south of Turkey, I asked God to give me a sign. Then two things happened.

I'll never know what these things were because as the woman sitting next to me started to type the first bullet point the steward came and asked her to switch her blackberry off.

No, madam, it has to be switched off completely during landing. Please switch it off completely now. Please. Yes, Madam, like that.

The Ex-Pat Manifesto (or Patriotism is Over-rated).

This week's charter brings you the ex-pat life. Both Marianne and I have experienced it. She lived in Cuba (yes, Cuba!) for nine months, and I've spent more time out of France (12 years in Britain and 10 years in Turkey) than in France. So we thought we'd have something to say!

Turns out I have almost too much to say in fact. I'm not sure I can remember what it's like not to be an ex-pat, I wasn't yet eighteen when I moved out. So instead of wasting good tv-watching time rummaging through 22 years of life, I decided to pick on what someone else had said and offer you a little rant. So here goes.

[Please do the sums. Not yet 18 plus 22 = not yet 40. I'm not 40 yet. Do your sums.]

We want to have a house there.

This is our non-official Gallery entry.

Ooh ooh, can I do one? I asked Sister 3 this afternoon.

Going through all the entries at this week's gallery made me want to share the places I love here in Turkey, so I asked my sister if she'd mind very much if I were to post some pics of Cappadokia. Except she hasn't replied yet (new email address issues - that'd also be why she hasn't replied to her comments yet either!) and also, looking through my holiday snaps, I decided that what I really wanted to share, was photos of the Aegean, where we spend time in the summer. What with the sun coming out and all, it will soon be time to go there! (Sorry for those of you out there who're stuck in inclement lands...)

So here we go.

The first two were taken in Selcuk, at the St John Basilica. This would have been a huge place, with several buildings, bigger than Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, built by Constantine in memory of John who supposedly brought Mary back to Efes after her son's crucifixion.  A lot of Turkish sites are littered with huge clay pots like the one my daughter is trying to climb into. They definitely perk up
the ruins.