I'm on my way

As many of you know from following me on Facebook, I have left Juneau on my next adventure.  But, from the posts on Facebook, I also know that many of you don't know what I am doing this  year. 

First, I'm taking about 10 days to visit the southern part of Ireland and England, basically as a vacation.  I'm now sitting in t he London airport awaiting my flight to Cork where I will be met by Deborah, one of the volunteers I met in Peru. I may also see a couple from the US that live in Ireland, that I met in Hungary!  (Travel, internet and Facebook sure make the world smaller!) 

And then I will be off to the main part of my trip.  I will be taking a two week Rick Steves tour in Turkey, starting in Istanbul and ending in Kasadasi, a bit south of Izmir.  You can take a look at this tour itinerary at:  http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours11/product.cfm/rurl/code/TUR11/231 

After the tour, I will be living with families, assisting them with their English in exchange for room and board.  I found this opportunity through GeoVisions.org and am so looking forward to it.  This program requires me to spend 15-20 hours a week with the families, speaking or teaching English, Monday through Friday, with weekends off. 

I will have two families, two weeks at each, in Izmir.  The first family is actually an extended family:  My host "father" is a 85 year old retired teacher who speaks German and English and would like the opportunity to practice speaking English and learn more about our culture while sharing his culture.  He has three grown children and grown grandchildren and great grandchildren and I will be interacting with all of them.  The second family is a couple in their 40's with an 8 year old son.  They are Serbian and have as store-front bakery.  The don't speak English, except the boy has had some English in school.  They are looking forward to sharing cooking with me, which I think will be a fun time.

Then, I will head back to Istanbul for 4 weeks with one family.  I'll tell you more about them later!

Right now I am sitting in the London Heathrow airport, kicking myself over this bag situation, and trying to keep myself from nodding off and having my head hit the table.  Between the crying baby, kids running up and down the aisle and the grouchy lady next to me (who yelled at her husband in German as she was getting of the plane and stomped off without him), I didn't get much sleep on the flight...but I guess that is to be expected.

I'm sitting in a little cafe with floor to ceiling windows positioned right over the entrance to the security check point.  It's quite a show watching everyone saying goodbye.  This airport is truly multi-cultural.

Think I better go for a walk before I fall asleep.