#jornieadventures – Weeks 2-4

We’ll go on this adventure, I said. I’ll post updates every week, I said. (Sorry guys, I lied.)

Soo we’ve been in Istanbul, Turkey for four weeks now. FOUR WEEKS! How did that happen? And I have been taking photos (as you can see on our Instagram, tagged #jornieadventures) and videos, but updates = not so much. Again, my bad. We posted Week 1 and then time got away from us.

Here’s a brief rundown of what has happened, and then I’ll link our youtube update as soon as that’s live.

• Our family tries to adjust to sleeping in separate rooms again (we’ve been in one room since Nov 2014). It doesn’t work and we’re miserable. We all end up sleeping in the living room of our flat.
• We try ground coffee in the Aeropress we meticulously packed and selected accessories for. It is disgusting. We revert to instant packets (cause they’re actually quite amazing here). Though the titanium mug is still invaluable.
• We venture into town, which happens to be right on the waterfront with glorious views of the European side, ferries, and cruise ships, on several occasions. It’s way more than we bargained for (good and bad), and the bus ride is 2 hours give or take a little each way. 4+ hours of public transport and 5 cranky kids = not always awesome. But the locals are the kindest and most helpful we’ve met and make it all bearable.
• We’ve now lost count of how many times another local has patted the 3-month-old’s back to help calm him on the bus, or taken the 4- and 6-year-olds’ hands to keep them upright when the bus lurched, or fed the almost-2-year-old and 3-year-old pretzels or crackers they brought for their own toddler. The hospitality of this culture is amazing.
• We all get the squirts. Sorry, I know, TMI. But travel. Thankfully, our bodies all finally got adjusted, and we’re doing fine now.
• I got a (really bad) infection and thought I might need to go to the ER. Or whatever the equivalent is here. Thankfully, after some research and good counsel, hubby took a taxi to a nighttime pharmacy nearby and ended up getting the full course of meds I needed for the equivalent of about $1.33 USD. Yep, one dollar and thirty-three cents. I’m doing fine again now, too.
• The 3-month-old starts rolling around the floor, then pushing himself around with his toes in a walker. #stopit
• We all go to Europe! (Did you know Istanbul spans two continents?) It took less than 20 minutes on the ferry, and we were back by dinner. We also rode a really cool trolley up the side of a mountain (Tunel), and saw the Galata Tower up close. You can see all these things in our video, too.

I’m just going to grab a few favorites from our insta-feed here… Since I’m pulling from three weeks cause I’m a terrible person and didn’t update till now, that’s a bit too many to embed below. So… if you want more… you’ll just have to follow us.

I’ll try to be better about these update things, but no guarantees. Lol (chase me down, ok?) ;)