I knew that it would feel this way. I knew that as soon as we returned from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it would feel like it had been just a dream. As our flight touched down in rainy and verdant New England, we marveled that 28 hours earlier we had left our hotel in Riyadh, just after a desert sand storm flew through the city. Over the next week I will be posting about our trip, so check back in to find out all about our visit to the kingdom.
At one point in history Nantucket prospered as it dominated the whaling industry. When whaling declined the island was left to a hundred year slumber while the outside world progressed, and so it was unintentionally preserved to currently house one of the highest concentrations of pre-Civil War structures, and the oldest operating windmill in the United States.
Spring has been teasing us the past few weeks around here. It always lifts my mood to step into the slightly crisp simultaneously sunny morning air. It also reminds me to begin making plans for summer, that yawning gap of luxurious time when my four kids are out of school. Summer is a season I look to with equal parts dread and excitement. Part of the problem is that I am not a planner in general, I’m much more of a wing it kind of girl. With four kids our Summers need some 
foresight. One of our favorite summer vacation destinations is the island of Nantucket. If you are planning a trip to Nantucket this summer, and want to bring a car, you need to make your ferry reservations to get it over there soon. There are flights to the island, but we like to bring our dog, and explore, so we usually drive. There are many options for lodging from hotels in town, luxury resorts or homes for rent. In the past when we have rented non-pet friendly homes we had boarded our dog at the Nantucket MSPCA, which unfortunately closed December of 2011. It was located just across from the gorgeous Tupancy Links dog park, and close to dog friendly beaches where he could swim so it worked out beautifully. The Cottages have dog friendly accommodations if you are lucky enough to get a reservation, and they are in a great spot near town.
For us vacation begins when we step on the ferry. Aside from just relaxing and soaking in all the natural beauty, there is so much to do once you arrive. below are some of our favorite Nantucket activities ( in random order).
1. Jetties Beach restaurant is situated at the edge of the sand leading down to the beach. Live music, delicious food and a laid back atmosphere. Wash it all down with fruitful sangria, and take your cup over to beach chairs in the sand when you are done with your meal. The children can play at the adjacent playground or frolic in the sand while the rest of you soak in the fabulous setting.
2. ‘Sconsett is an idyllic village by the sea with cottages covered in flowering vines. Spend the day at the beach, 
visit the Sankaty Head Lighthouse, and have an excellent dinner at the BYOB ‘Sconsett Café. Don’t panic there is a wine shop next door!
3. On your way to the beautiful beaches in Madaket, on the far west end of the island, you must stop at the dock on
the left near second bridge, and spend some time catching the snapping turtles with your kids. You will need to bring string and some chicken legs from the supermarket. Watch your kids dangle a chicken leg over the dock and pull up a big chicken eating turtle! It is extraordinary!
4. When you head back into town stop and have lunch at Something Natural, delicious sandwiches are eaten outside at picnic benches in a park like setting. Tucked away at 50 Cliff Rd. You can bring your dog and tie him to your table in the shade while you eat.
5. The Whaling Museum gives a great overview of the fascinating history of the island, and if you are an early riser take a walking tour around town that further details its rich historic past.
6. When we went with extended family the highlight for us all was chartering the sailboat Endeavor for an evening cruise. It was a spectacular setting, and a great way to explore the island.
7. Rent bikes and explore the highly touted extensive bike paths that wind around the island.
8. Stroll and shop in downtown Nantucket. Expect to find many things you love, but possibly not be able to afford them all.
9. It doesn’t look like much but if you go to the tip of Tom Nevers where there was an old Naval base, you can find the mound that holds the door to the underground bunker where then President Kennedy would have been shuttled if there had been a nuclear attack. I wonder what it’s like down there now?!
10. Have drinks or dinner at Galley Beach restaurant. You are right on the beach by the waters edge, feet in the sand. Spectacular. This is an idyllic spot.
11. Try the tasting menu at Toppers. It is expensive, but every single bite is exquisite.
12. Have a lobster dinner of course! You can buy your own at the supermarket and steam them yourself, or leave it to the experts!
One of my ideas when I started this blog was that I wanted to create an international community. I envisioned a community of moms, humanitarians, travelers, and thinkers who could help each other to understand our world, and each other better through our variety of experiences. When I had set out to become a documentary filmmaker long ago, before becoming a mother myself, my desire had been to share images between cultures through film. In travel I was always amazed to be able to communicate with people with whom I did not have a common spoken language. In some instances we did not even share cultural references, yet were able to convey stories and information through gestures in a way I am unable to fully 
articulate. I love hearing other peoples stories, everyone has a story, and my hope is to hear other people’s stories through this blog. I was so excited when I came across the flag counter widget, and that it would show me where my visitors were coming from. Viewing the countries around the world from which people have visited my site makes 
me feel like I am traveling in a sense. If you scroll down the right side of my home page you can see too. How many flags do you recognize?
HELLO Bangladesh! HELLO China! HELLO, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Russia, and India! WELCOME Germany, United Kingdom, and Canada! I hope to see you all again soon, invite your friends! I would love to see our global community grow, and hear from you! You’ve gotten to know a bit about me on my blog….now tell me about you, I’m so curious! What do you do in your country? If you are a mom like me, what is motherhood like where you are raising your kids? What were you doing before you had kids? I would truly love to know!
The Flag Counter Widget is easy to install, just go to the site, grab the code, and see who from around the world is visiting YOU!
In the midst of exploring the magnificent architecture, 
history and culture of Istanbul,Turkey it was hard not to notice the tiny blue evil eye icons glinting at me throughout the city. It was on that first visit to Istanbul in 1997 that I learned the significance of the evil eye in the region. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica “Belief in the evil eye is ancient and ubiquitous: it occurred in ancient Greece and Rome; is found in Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions and in folk cultures and preliterate societies; and has persisted throughout the world into modern times.” The symbol of the blue eye is meant to ward off the “evil eye” look given intentionally or unintentionally of ill will, usually due to dislike or envy. The charm serves as protection by deflecting bad luck back at the offender or absorbing it. Word is that if your talisman cracks or breaks you know it worked to protect you. Speculation is that long ago due to the rarity of blue eyes in that area of the world, the color came under suspicion as powerful in some way.
Photo by Elizabeth Atalay
By the time we returned home from that first visit we had acquired numerous evil eye souvenirs from our trip, items I looked at as beloved travel memorabilia and cultural artifacts. Two years later we went back to Istanbul with our infant daughter. Before we left for Turkey my husband’s sister gave us a tiny safety-pin with a plastic blue evil eye dangling from it. It was meant to be pinned to our baby’s clothes for safe travel. At night I would remove the tiny pin and place it on the dresser, but put it back on her each morning as we got dressed. The earthquake hit on our third night there, it registered as a 7.6 on the Richter Scale and when it was over our room was a jumble of toppled furniture and broken belongings. No one in our apartment had been injured, so we considered ourselves extremely fortunate.
As we straightened up the mess in the room, atop the dresser sat the tiny plastic pin exactly in the spot I had set it the evening before. Nothing had fallen on it, in fact it had not moved at all, but it was cracked down the middle in a sharp jagged line. I gasped when I saw it, in my mind the superstition had been proven true. My baby had been protected by it. Sometimes a moment can alter your perception of something, consciously or not, when that internal shift takes place, the seed of that idea is planted. Rationally I remained skeptical, but spiritually I became a believer in the evil eye in that moment.
My father-in-law and husband tell the following story: For scientists, science and superstition are mutually inconsistent. A neighbor visiting Niels Bohr in his country home found the great Danish physicist (recipient of the 1922 Nobel Prize) nailing a horseshoe above the front door of his house. The friend laughed, “Professor Bohr, I cannot believe you believe the old superstition of horseshoes warding off bad luck!”
Bohr quipped, while continuing to fix the horseshoe in place, “I don’t, but this is just in case”
To this day I wear evil eye jewelry whenever I think of it, we have evil eye house wares throughout our home, and my car keys dangle from an evil eye key chain. Do I believe in the evil eye? I suppose I do, and I display it everywhere….just in case.
My key chain
Photo by Elizabeth Atalay
It was around 3:00am in Istanbul when the earth shook beneath us. My 6-month old baby slept in her pack-n-play at the foot of our bed, and my husband and I woke to a thunderous roar. My first thought was of terrorists’ bombs going off. When we had told friends we were going to Turkey to introduce our baby to the Turkish side of my husband’s family, everyone mentioned the terrorists. Growing up on the East Coast of America, I knew nothing of bathtubs and doorjambs, and the deafening cacophony associated with an earthquake. Instinctively I grabbed our baby and clutched her to my chest – a pose I held as I watched the chandelier above our bed swing wildly. My body folded around hers as she slept on. Furniture tumbled, as I swear I felt undulating waves of movement beneath me in such a way that a bed or a floor of an apartment building just DO NOT move. When the roar was continuous,20 seconds, 30 seconds, I knew it could not be bombs hitting the building next door . The 40 seconds felt like an hour. MY BABY, MY BABY! Was the plea that circled through my mind. In the days following, and thinking back still, I can not get over the feeling of terror that washed through me, but that is not it.
Photo by Elizabeth Atalay
It is the knowledge that countless other mothers had sat clutching their children that night the same was as me, only to have their buildings crumble on top of them. The official death count is listed as 18,000, but Turkish authorities estimated it closer to 35,000 people who died that night in Turkey. Most of whom lived less than an hour outside of Istanbul in and around the city of Izmit, the epicenter of the earthquake. Corrupt builders there had not followed building codes, and had put too much sand in the cement, so when that night stuck buildings literally crumbled. The earthquake registered 7.6 on the Richter scale. With the hundreds of continual aftershocks that shook Istanbul a couple of Turkish scientists announced that everyone should sleep outside. In 1999 the city of Istanbul had a population of over 9 million people, and they formed a carpet of humanity filling parks and lining highways to sleep outside that following night. My father-in-law and my husband are both scientists and thought the suggestion was ridiculous. I am not a scientist, and as the mother of a six month old baby, demanded that if the rest of Istanbul was sleeping outside, so would we. My father-in-law called a close family friend, Ali, who had a yard, and asked if we could camp out there for the night.
Photo by Elizabeth Atalay
Ali, gracious as always, immediately agreed. So it was that we caravanned to Ali’s house with my husband’s aunt and uncle, his grandfather, his grandfather’s two body guards, their household staff of three, my father-in-Law, my husband, our infant and myself. Our entourage sprawled around Ali’s yard, and once we were settled, he left for Izmit with his grown son to try to help dig people out. It was a surreal trip, and a lesson in humility. To feel the earth move like that under me was a reminder of how tiny we each are in the scheme of things. How great and powerful the nature of the earth truly is over us all.
Have any of you experienced an earthquake? Did you know what was happening?
Photo by Elizabeth Atalay
Photo by Elizabeth Atalay
