A Travel Story

This is a story about traveling to another country. Since some of you have read me long enough to know how I feel about traveling, flying, and other countries, this story just may help you understand my feelings. (I hate traveling and flying even though I've been to other countries and refuse to do either anymore.)

My daughter's husband died about 3 years ago now and you can read the blog post about that here. It was a very sad day for all of us. But her in-laws treated her to a Mediterranean cruise 5 months after their son's death. It was a sweet and gracious thing to do. But it got ugly real fast.

My daughter hadn't ever traveled to any place beyond our continental borders, except for Hawaii several times, and wasn't used to the culture shock. And, truthfully, I don't think those countries were ready for her. Before the trip, she had traveled extensively in the U.S. and her choice for the worst drivers in the U.S. and the worst city in the U.S. are recorded forever in my memory. I won't mention which were her choices here on the internet, but if you ask me through an email I'd be happy to share with you. I just don't want rants from people about a city which just may well be their city.

Anyway, after crawling through the pyramids of Egypt (scary and suffocating—her words), trekking through the filth of some of those countries and experiencing the ports of call in that area of the world, she told me her experience in Turkey, which she now says is the worst country for drivers. Their laws for motor vehicles are taken as just a hint, never enforced really. Traffic jam? They just pull on the sidewalk and drive. Now, that alone should be your first clue but I'll elaborate. Second clue is my daughter is very demanding—very. This is important to the story.

A relative is a travel agent (Terry) and sets up all the trips for the family and always travels with the group. This is also important to this story as I don't think most travel agents would go as far as Terry did in helping daughter. They spent a few days in Turkey off the ship.

When time came to return to the ship and they got to the dock to get back on, her passport was missing. She looked through her purse, pockets, everywhere and they couldn't find it. The border agents put her in detention. Terry, travel agent, was beside herself. She couldn't leave her in Turkey but the Turkish government wasn't about to let her go to the ship without a passport. Finally, she thought it could be somewhere in her luggage that went on back to the ship and was on board at that point. (Luggage goes on before you do.) So Terry went on the ship, waited for  ALL the luggage of all the passengers to get on the ship, rummaged through hundreds of suitcases until she found daughter's luggage and finally found the passport. Now, the relevant part here is that took hours. SEVERAL HOURS! Daughter was in tears because she had absolutely no control if they wanted to keep her there. (I'm sure some of you have seen the movie, Midnight Express.) Plus the cruise ship would sail on time, with or without her. They did give her some things to eat and Terry or her in-laws brought her food. She was scared to death when in that detention. She just wanted to come home to California. She said she'll never leave the U.S. again.
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Another cute pink vignette I like. I think I say “love” and “adore” too much, but it is actually how I feel about these photos.

I saw this pool on this high-rise home and just can’t see myself ever swimming in it, not that I’d ever get the chance, but I’d get dizzy just approaching it.

Do you remember these old 1950s dining chairs? I certainly do and it looks like this one had been given a fresh update. Cute!

Beautiful for French, English or any décor actually.

Sweet.

A teapot from Green Gate.

Bedroom with Green Gate accessories in it.

Green Gate tea tin. You’ve really got to visit their website. I’ll be posting more Green Gate items here for you to see though.

A mews in England somewhere. I think mews are very quaint places to have a shop, office or residence. Mews are a row or street of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables or built to look like former stables.

While I doubt this is really pink, I thought it was clever the way the photo turned out sort of pinkish.

Cute way to do some used eggshells, if one can paint! I can’t. Read about that here if you'd like.

A cute little thermos.

Another divine old lawn chair with a cover for the sun.

Fun place to watch the ocean.

I can’t believe this is available somewhere for sale. Surely the owner spray painted it and painted or decaled the BREAD on it.

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