We’ve been home for 9 days and in some ways it feels as if we never left from our last visit. Time is funny. I’m having to relearn being in the US. I want to say gunaydin (good morning in Turkish) when I pass people on my daily walk. My sister had to remind me that you can buy caffeine free diet cola. Things cost more and there are too many choices on grocery store shelves. I’m trying to clean up our small apartment; Randal is taking care of business; we bought a car which was cheaper than renting; and we have doctor and dentist appointments galore! There are libraries!!!! We are making plans to see family and friends. And baseball is in real time! I watched the Sox beat Texas on TV. And last night we went to the ball park to watch the Salem Red Sox (a Red Sox farm team) play. It was a twilight double header that started at 5:30 to finish a rained out game from earlier in the summer, and then the regular evening game. The Sox won 7 to 4 the first game and lost 5 to 6 the second game. There were some spectacular plays and terrible errors but unfortunately there’s no instant replay at this field so you either paid attention or you missed out. During the second game my niece’s husband, using his cell phone app kept us informed how the “real” Red Sox were doing and that was not so good. But it was a nice night for a game and hot dogs at the ball park are always great.
Between the car and the entrance I managed to drop but find one of our tickets.
My niece Jess’ family had some “rain out” tickets, but were unable to use them, so Randal and I did. It was even hat night so we each got a free Salem Sox hat but the hats have an S on the front rather than a B so I wasn’t too impressed. Turned out Jess’ husband Brian and step-son David did make it to the game so we passed the hats on to them since they wouldn’t let us pay for their tickets.
We met my sister Harriet and brother-in-law Jim and his sister Beth and her friend Gary. (Har is in pink and sunglasses and Jim has the white “Senior Slugger” hat.) Gary is wearing light shorts and Beth is in dark everything.
Not so many people at the first game which was too bad since the Salem Sox won. We took the opportunity to eat “nutritious” ball park food for dinner while we watched the game.
You can see the mountains that surround the Roanoke Valley.
Salem is located geographically within Roanoke County but they are politically separate. The stadium is in Salem City so the team is the Salem Red Sox rather than the Roanoke Red Sox. I think Roanoke Red Sox sounds better and there would have been an R on the hat that I could have turned into a B…..maybe.
The lights came on and the color guard came out for the second game.
I once read a joke in Readers Digest that asked what the last two words of the American National Anthem were. The answer: Play Ball!
We sat behind third base and were protected from foul balls by the net that is making a black line on the left side of the photo. I’m not a night person, but there’s just something about a night ball game…the air even feels different.
There was an update about Hurricane Irene and you can just make out the weather man on the large screen.
If they can show that I wonder why they can’t show instant replays?
Randal and Ruth are leaving the building.
We stayed through about a third of the second game and then called it a night.
It was nice and fun and free is always good. But even if we’d had to pay the tickets are only $5 which is cheaper than lots of the museums in Turkey and India. And you get to sit for hours, sing, yell, eat bad food, drink beer….Can’t do that in a museum. I’m really only kidding as I loved the places we visited in Turkey and most of them in India. And the 5 TL for our visit to the Kantara Castle in Cyprus was a bargain,
So that’s how we are. Our flights home were pleasant and on time though one piece of luggage arrived in Roanoke the following day but that was no problem. We’d left Cyprus on the morning of the 16th so had the afternoon and evening in Istanbul before flying out on the 17th. We love Istanbul and some day will return to spend weeks. My sister and nephew met us at the airport and we spent the first several days at her house which was full since my nephew Andrew was visiting from Philadelphia.
When we get past the obligatory appointments and such we’ll visit friends here in Roanoke and then in late September will head down south to Hilton Head to visit our Chinese friend Singkey who has been working there for the summer to improve her command of English, southern style. Then we’ll head up north maybe as far as Ontario to visit two of Randal’s Odyssey bike tour friends. We have to wait for my passport to come back before we leave and I have a dentist appointment on September 12th to start the process for a crown, yuck. But for the first time in forever I had no cavities. Must be all that cheese I’m eating. Wonder what it did to my cholesterol. I’ll find that out on Monday.
As for our friends on the coasts of anywhere Irene is going; take care and hopefully it will all be better than expected.
From Roanoke, Virginia
Ru
DoraMac