The Aegean Awaits...Just Over My Balcony

“They’ll kill you. It’s not safe!”

“Who’ll kill us, Mom?”

“ISIS…”

As it turned out, ISIS didn’t kill us when we moved to the Aegean Sea coast of Turkey. In fact, the only thing that killed us was the kindness of the Turkish people we met.

But it is hard to break stereotypes, especially with so much negative media going on. I tried to tell my Mom and Dad, to alleviate their concerns. But of course, they never listen. No matter how many places I’d been to and always returned safely from, still, they worried.

So I figured maybe I could just show them. After all, a picture is worth more than an argument with your parents.

“Check Instagram; I’m posting a photo from our hotel balcony.”

“Hold on, let me turn down the TV. I can’t hear you…”

“Look on Instagram!” I repeated.

“I don’t do that stuff,” she said. “I don’t like to give out my personal information.”

“Nobody is going to steal your identity — okay, you know what? I’m sending you the photo, just a sec…”

And so it came to pass that I messaged my Mother this picture, taken from the balcony of our room at the luxurious Charisma Hotel in Kusadasi, Turkey.

View from the Charisma Hotel

“Did you get it?”

“Oh my God!” she said.

“Good, you got it. See? Doesn’t that look nice? You see any ISIS running around?”

“I don’t see anybody.”

“Well, yeah. Things are pretty dead now. But when this place picks up, it’ll be packed with tourists.”

“Terrorists?”

“No, tourists!”

“I’d go there. If it weren’t for the terrorists...”

“MOM! There aren’t any — okay, look, what do I have to do to convince you? Yes, there’s a conflict in Syria, but we’re not in Syria, we’re literally on the other side of the country from the Syrian border.”

“When are you coming back?”

“We moved here,” I reminded her. “We’re going to stay awhile so the kids can learn about their mom’s culture and stuff.”

Back when I was in the Air Force I’d been stationed in Turkey. As with so many military personnel who live overseas, I ended up getting married. And though we ultimately moved back to the US, as soon as I retired my wife wanted to return to her country (though technically by that point she was a US citizen).

I agreed to the move, telling her my only requirement was to live as close to the water as possible, so I could swim and get some sun. That was no problem; Turkey has countless miles of breathtaking coastline, running from the Black Sea and the Marmara to the “Turkish Riviera” shoreline along the Aegean and the Mediterranean. We came to the Aegean, to a tourist town a few miles south of Efes (formerly known as Ephesus, the ancient Greek city and home to one of the seven churches from the Book of Revelations).

“Here we have everything we need. Grocery stores, shopping centers. We’re fine. There’s a fancy marina just down the street. Downtown there’s even a port for cruise ships coming in. It's next to a 500-year-old ancient island castle. People pop in from all over the world. There are resorts and water parks all over this area. Turkey is the eighth most popular tourist destination in the world, and this region is part of that.”

“You think the kids will like it?”

“Everyone likes it! Hell, you’d like it.”

“I’m too old for water parks.”

“Excuses, excuses. You guys visited me when I lived in England. And Hawaii. So, now you see what this place looks like. You said it’s nice.”

“That’s just one pic. It looks lovely, though.”

“The whole town is nice. This is just the photo of my view where I'm standing right now. I’ll send you lots more, don’t worry. It’ll be easier if you can use Instagram, though.”

“I don't trust it. Your Dad says they’ll hack into my phone.”

“Who? ISIS?”

“No, the government...”