We Have a House Now

On Tuesday of this week we were told that our house was ready. If you would like to see where we live go to google.com and click on "maps." Drag the map over to Turkey and find Adana which is in southern, central, Turkey. It's almost on the coast about 90 miles from the Syrian border. Put your cursor on Adana and zoom in. A lot of people use the zoom bar on the left of the map. A shortcut is to just use the wheel on your mouse. Each time you role one click on the wheel, you are zooming in or out one level. Don't turn the wheel to fast though or you will confuse google map. When you get close enough so that you can see the streets of Adana, you will see "Incirlik" off to the east of Adana. On the upper right corner of the map click on "hybrid" so that you can see the sattellite and street view at the same time. We are in the housing area on the southern tip of the base. We live on the cul-de-sac just north of the huge grass circle. I can't see it right now as I type because this computer does not allow multiple frames.

Although we have the house we are still waiting for many things. When we moved in the toilet didn't work, the washer didn't work, we had no phone, and we had no electricity in one bedroom until today. We now have a toilet, washer, and electricty, but still no phone. We bought one phone but all the directions were in Turkish and the display was in Turkish. So we took that back but the only other phone they had plugs into American 110 electrical outlets and there are only Turkish 220 outlets in the room with the only phone jack. So currently there is no phone to purchase unless we want the Turkish one. Hopefully we will get a cell or landline (or as my father Jim Kuhn's calls it - "a walk around phone"). We have temporary loan furniture, aka "stick furniture", until our stuff arrives in October.

Karen is keeping busy reading, doing aerobics, coordinating the house repairs, and getting the house ready. We have been to the mosque in Adana and have some pictures. Tomorrow we might get to go back into Adana with one of my coworkers to see the mall and some of the nicer areas. Probably no pictures until November or December. Once we get the computer we have to buy a Turkish modem and then get DSL access.

Oh, a quick note about the Turkish hospitality. We seem to like The Moonlight Cafe best out of the few restaurants outside the gate - althought they are all very good. We forgot to bring cash last night. I went upstairs and asked one of the boys if it was cash only. He didn't speak English well, so he went to get who we think is the owner and he said it was cash only. I explained to him that we forgot to bring cash but we would be back over the weekend. He said, "No, no - please sit. You pay next time you come." This time we sat on the third level which is essentially the roof. We had fun watching the local cats move in on the chickens behind the The Moonlight. They would just to start to get close enough to worry when these water bottles would come flying out of The Moonlight and another building. The cats would take off running only to repeat everything again in 20 minutes.

We are headed to dinner, Baskin Robbins (no Golden spoon unfortunately), and to see the movie Evan Almighty right now. A nice 5 mile walk so we are staying in shape! See you soon.