Merhaba from Aksaz, Turkey!
When last I left off, I believe I was pulling away from Majorca and suffering from a bit of a sunburn from my day at the beach. This week finds me not only at sea (for a few days at the beginning of the week anyway) but nice and golden brown now that the lobster effects from my sunburn are gone!
As I mentioned, we pulled out of Majorca (or rather, got underway from our anchorage in the harbor) on Friday morning. We spent a day getting back into the routine and cleaning up the ship a bit after five days of liberty. I was once again standing watch in Combat, which is a good experience in preparation for my next job, and a nice refresher to quals I received a while ago! While at sea, we continued Operation Active Endeavor, which tasks us with monitoring shipping traffic and studying the movements of merchant vessels suspected of terrorism, smuggling, piracy, etc. It can get pretty exciting at times! Saturday we got back into our normal routine of drills, watch rotation, and planning the events we have coming up. This included a departmental reorganization for Weapons department. In our department, two of the divisions were a combination of Fire Controlmen (FC's) and Gunnersmates (GM's). I had the Tomahawk FC's and Vertical Launching System (VLS, or "Square Barrel") GM's in my section, while another division officer had Mk 86 guys (a combination of FC's and "Round Barrel" GM's in hers). We merged the two divisions (sort of) so now I have all the FC's and she has all the GM's. It was a little confusing at first, but hopefully it will allow for better cross-rate training and more well-rounded Sailors if they get to work with all the equipment in their specialty rating instead of just one system.
Sunday, in addition to being my grandfather's birthday (Happy Birthday Papaw!), was a psuedo Holiday Routine for us. We got to sleep in an extra 2 hours (unless you were lucky enough to have the first watch, like me) before beginning the morning routine of meetings, inspections, and cleaning. Then we had a ship-wide field day to clean the ship and wash off all the salt water (and yes, the Captain hosed me down with a firehose but I got him back....with a garden hose - guess that's all I rate as a LTJG!) and some briefs on what is going on the rest of deployment. In the afternoon, we had a Replenishment at Sea (RAS) to refill our fuel tanks and get some more toilet paper on board (just the necessities!). No mail this time, but I am hoping we pick some up in our next port visit. We'll see!
Wednesday, we arrived in Aksaz, Turkey. The view on the bridge was beautiful, and we were all chomping at the bit to go exploring. Wednesday afternoon, I went out for a traditional Turkish Bath. When I went to Tunisia (northern Africa) with my family several years ago, I got half of a Turkish Bath, because I was a bit shy, but this time around I went for the whole experience! What a treat!! We started off in a HOT sauna for about 10 minutes. I had not started peeling from last week's sunburn because I'd been really good about keeping lotion on it, but once we were in that heat, my skin was instantly exfoliated and there was no turning back! I was like a snake shedding it's skin. Anyway, after the steam room, we went into a room with a huge marble slab and sat in there for a while. This room was also hot, but not as much as the sauna. The third step was to have your skin further exfoliated with a loofah that a big hairy man rubbed you down with; after rinsing off, the same man gave you a special soap bath (very ticklish because of the cloth they use!), and then another rinse. Then they wrap you from head to toe in big warm towels and you go sit for a while. After relaxing, you get an olive oil massage and then you're done! The difference between this treatment and so many other spa treatments, is that traditional Turkish Bath Houses (Hamams) were community baths with 20 or more people in the same room (much like those in the Asian countries). They used to be segregated male-female, and still can be if you wish, but since you're wearing a bathing suit the entire time it's not against the law anymore for men and women to share a Hamam. That said, when we went, since there were several of our enlisted Sailors with us, we asked to be separated because we didn't think it appropriate for them to see us running around in bathing suits. Wednesday evening, after returning from the Hamam, we took quick showers and changed clothes and ventured out for a Turkish Nights experience. We sat at big tables in an amphitheater and watched traditional Turkish folk dancing and belly dancing while dining on Turkish food and wine. Quite the entertainment for the evening, especially the fire eater at the very end...but I prefered the Beduin dinner experience I had in Dubai during my Gulf Deployment in 2005!
Thursday (Happy Birthday Patrick!! Hopefully we can celebrate in Rota!) was my last day in Turkey, so I ventured out to the market places with our Command Chaplain! I managed to talk a guy down from 730 EURO to $220 (yep....220 AMERICAN DOLLARS) for a leather jacket! If that isn't good bartering, I don't know what is! And that only took me about 10 minutes...imagine what I could have done if I'd had more time!!! But seriously, the leather jacket is great and what I've been looking for for a while, so I don't feel so bad! No one could believe I got that kind of deal from him, but I suppose it's all the practice I got bartering in Korea when we used to go to Osan on shopping sprees! Anyway, because of that deal, CHAPS asked me to teach him how to barter, so I helped him get a beautiful necklace and bracelet set for his wife for a STEAL!! He's pretty happy and I'm glad I could help. I told him never to pay more than half of the price the vendors are asking. If you walk out of the store because they don't like your offer, they will always come running after you hoping to make a sale. I spent the day in the market place in downtown Marmaris (about 30 minutes from where our ship is berthed) bartering with the locals for honey, Turkish coffee, a special apple tea that is so yummy, and a few more goodies that I hadn't planned on buying but couldn't live without! Looks like I'll have a few more boxes to mail home! But the locals started calling me the "Shrewd Woman" because I wouldn't pay nearly what they were asking of me! Oh well!
I also had a wonderful Turkish dinner at an outdoor restaurant that had it's own grape arbor above out heads. There was a waterfall in the back, and plenty of grapes hanging overhead, just waiting to be picked! When I walked in, I told the waiter that I wanted to try a traditional Turkish meal, but I didn't want a kebab because I'd already had one for lunch (just so you know, a kebab in Turkey is shaved meet - lamb or chicken - and lettuce, tomato, onion, and sauce wrapped up in pita bread...a shish kebab is the one on a stick!). Anyway, he brought out a plate of about 8 different salads (hummus, taziki sauce (mint and cucumber), and several more) with a HUGE pita to taste. I could have made a meal out of just that. However, after the "sampler platter" he brought out the "Garden Special" which was shaved lamb and cheese wrapped in a pita and cut into about eight two inch pieces. In the middle of the plate was some sort of sauce that tasted like hummus with the taziki sauce and some more lamb shavings. The whole thing was covered in fresh parsley. Oh so yummy! I couldn't finish the whole thing, but it was the best dinner I've had in port in a LONG time!!
I also received some good news this week! I received my flight information for my trip back home! Once confirmed, I will be returning to Norfolk the evening of 15 SEP and I can't wait! They are still awaiting a change in my orders that authorizes me to travel then, but booking the flight was the most difficult step in that process, so I am breathing a sigh of relief that it came through! Turns out I'll only miss the first three games in Notre Dame's season! :-) Friday morning we pulled out, ready to go to the next port. It's getting closer and closer to homecoming for me and I can't wait! I am counting down by port visits and right now, it looks like I have three more full visits, and on the fourth stop, I'll be flying home. What a great feeling! Thirty months on one ship is long enough and I'm ready for something new!!
Anyway, next week I'll have a new place to tell you about, so until then...
Gule gule! Goodbye!
Kate
