We're Tourists At Last

This weekend, my old (young) friend Jen Gerow visited us in İstanbul from London. Since she was only here for a few nights, we were forced to finally do all those things that we'd been putting off for later. Also, we got to play the games at the flat (other than Turkish Monopoly), most of which are for 3 or more players! We played a fun one called AdVersity! You'd all like it!

We finally saw the Whirling Dervishes, which made Will and Jen dizzy, but was so amazing. Sufis worship the Saint of Love. I really felt like they were vessels through which love was being spread to us all, and not humans at all. Other than the zzhurts and beep-beeps of digital cameras (doesn't anybody know that those sounds can be turned OFF?) the ceremony was very peaceful. A choir sings and people play intruments, but the whirling is totally silent. We have lots of great pictures, and a video to show you!

We also went inside the Sultan Ahmet Camii (the Blue Mosque) and Ayasophia (Haghia Sophia)(the church built in 500 BC that was later coverted into a Mosque then finally into a museum). These buildings are awesome and wonderful and peaceful and beautiful and everything you would expect and more. Buildings just don't know where it's at nowadays. Architects are great and everything, but God can really inspire people to go all out! I could have stayed in the Blue Mosque all day, though not confined to the tiny back area where Muslim women sit while their husbands and sons pray. Unfortunately, the Ayasophia is being repaired so there was 28 stories of scaffolding up to the top of the dome right in the middle of the main room. I know İstanbul is on a fault line and everything, but we payed 15 YTL! Don't they care about tourists at all?? Oh yeah. No.

Now that Jen has gone back home to London, we can go back to doing just one thing a day, and reading books. The weekend was so much fun, and it was so nice to have someone else to talk to (no offense to Will). I think we will take Chloe's advice and go over to the Asian side soon. We can't believe that we are only half-done our trip, but I'm not looking forward to counting down our days here. I'm already sad that I'll have to leave, but it's still so far away, so I'm happy!

Rain Rain Go Away

I'd like to make a formal apology for calling Mr Yerp ''not my friend'' in a way in my last blog. It turns out he is my friend, as well as being a weird man who liked the look of my picture! But a dez man, nonetheless.

Rain soaks İstanbul, but doesn't make it any cleaner. I don't think it has stopped raining for three days. People fix roofs everywhere, yet still hang their laundry off their porches to dry.

We are all prepared for Jen's arrival tomorrow (because I thought she was coming today), and have many plans for the weekend. We're not sure what we'll do today now, though. Probably drink kahve and eat dürüms.

Rain and Snow in Istanbul

That's right my friends and Mr.Yerp.

Two nights ago it snowed. Kids ran out of their apartments in 1 inch of slushy snow to throw slushballs at each other and play football. Many kids in our neighbourhood, especially the girls, don't go to school, but the appearance of boys running around outside instead of being tucked up in their beds at 10:30 on a school night made me believe that snow is as least as uncommon here as in Victoria. As in Victoria, the snow quickly turned to rain, and we woke up to a sunny day!

We went over to the Egyptian Spice Market the other day, and it just wasn't what I imagined. Instead of huge sacks of colourful spices, many of which I'd only seen in postcards, there were small bags of colourful spices, most of which I recognized, or had signs in English explaining what they were. Behind these bags were the usual tacky-tourist stuff (that you are all getting as souveneirs) like evil-eye keychains and ugly hookahs. The power went out, as often happens here, and although places still stay open with no power, we left to get lost in the many identical streets around the market, until I suddenly realized that we were about to walk into the Grande Bazaar, so we went and got lost there instead.

Yesterday we went to see the new Harry Potter movie, which was playing in English with Turkish subtitles, as many western movies do here. This movie was exciting, but also a bit disappointing to me, but I won't go into it in case you haven't seen it, and also because it would make me look like a dork in front of Mr Yerp (who I am very glad to find out is NOT just a creepy random man who liked the looks of my picture). Movies have assigned seating, but since ours was a matinee (though being foreigners, we were charged the regular rate), we could sit wherever. In the middle of all movies is an intermission (smoke-break, as EVERYONE here smokes EVERYWHERE - I was just happy that they weren't smoking in the theatre, like I thought they would be).

Today it rained and was cold, so we stayed home for the second day since we got here. Wait. We did go out.

Today we went to the Internet Café. My friend from Victoria (from Marigold) who we stayed with in London comes in a couple of days, so we have LOTS of plans for the weekend!

Will keep you posted!

Not so bad after all

Wow. I guess I did sound very down in my last post, and all the encouragment was very sweet from everybody, but it´s really not that bad! We have our on days (when we stay inside and do laundry) and our off days (when we go outside and try to figure out the buses), but yes, we are having a blast and an adventure and it´s getting easier every day (although the hills and stairs are still brutal, but I´ve now seen locals huffing and puffing up them and so I don´t feel SO ridiculous).

We asked our friend Sean about the buses and he told us of a much easier way to cross the Golden Horn - a tramlike thing that leaves right from the bottom of our street. So we went to the Bazaar, and wondered around the touristy Sultanahmet area. It is very different over there: Bigger streets, newer buildings (although it is the ´old city´) (except the mosques of course, which are from 700Ad or something), bigger shops that are not just holes in the wall (booths if you will), and less cars!

The Bazaar is cool - people accosting you from both sides saying ´Can I help you spend your money?´ and ´Yes it is very beautıful-you want to buy?´and claiming things are hand made personally, when 50 other stalls are selling the exact same bowl /hookah /tea set/ rug/ bracelet/ pipe/ Turkish Delight (Emily - it is soft and not so chewy and covered in icing sugar, and flavoured pastachio, mint, rose water, lemon, almond mmmm... Oh! and they have Halva floss - like cotton candy, but with halva!). We wandered around and kept ending up outside or where we started, but realized once we got home that we´d been walking in circles and didn´t see half the Bazaar! Oh well, something to do with the 40 days we have left!

Am missing everyone (and hope you are ok Hezi - that sounds brutal!) and love all the comments and emails! Hope you are all having fun too!

Nothing new, nothing old.

Hmmm, not sure what to write, as we have been doing much of the same.

I have realized more and more that just because I know some words, that doesn´t mean that I know what people say BACK to me. Except some numbers. Today was a dissapointing day that made me want to go back to London, or at least France where I believe I could at least read some signs or something! When someone sells you a bus ticket, then tells you what bus to go on, you´d expect that tıcket to get you on that bus. Not in İstanbul! The books all say that bus travel is the easiest and best way to get around İstanbul, but we couldn´t figure it out in the few hours that we stood around looking at maps, in tourguide books, or at signs, fingering (in both senses) the bus tickets in our pockets. It´s harder than anything to be somewhere where you just really have no idea even how to order a cup of coffee (which, if you order with milk, is a scoop of Nescafé on top of steamed milk), as a lot of you know from your own travels. WHY DIDN´T YOU TELL ME?? It´s just all part of the adventure!? We´re trying again tomorrow, and may stoop to paying an annoying guy to help us get to Suhltenmeht, like real tourists.

So that today isn´t a total write off, we bought some Turkish Delight to finally try. It´ll give me something to write about in my journal, anyways.

By the way - to Ariel and Jeremy - don´t get your hopes up for a Turkey on Christmas because we have no oven - only a microwave or a camp-stove. Being in Turkey will have to be enough turkey for Christmas!

Until next time!

Everyday life in Istanbul

We are finally getting settled here in Istanbul!

Our day consists of waking up, showering in the middle of the bathroom, eating pastries filled wıth who-knows-what (bean spread?Almond Spread? Mince Meat kınd of stuff), lots of reading, walking around, comıng home to eat left-over take-out of who-knows-what or pasta wıth who-knows-what vegetables, more reading and looking out the wimdow at the never boring lives of stray cats and dogs, and to bed by 10, only to be woken up at 6.30 the next morning by the ´Call to Prayer´ sung (beautıfully or abysmally, depending on what part of the apartment you are in, and what mosque you hear it coming from) through a loudspeaker.

Everyone shouts and honks a lot here, and lurks in doorways of tıny shops, so it is a little sketchy at first, but when you realize that the men lurking about are actually just visiting their friends who own the shop, and the honks are merely to warn other drivers who may be coming around a sharp corner that you too are coming around that corner, nothing seems too scary. I even recognized a word that someone in a shop said to me yesterday!! Merhaba is Hello, but most people say something else. The older generation was taught French in school, so many people understand ´merçi´ (ıf they went to school).

I wish that everyone I knew was here because it´s just so cool and indescrıbable. Also, Will´s company is usually nose-first in a book! Next week we are going exploring across the Golden Horn!! More news later! Peace.

Istanbul - Day One

Wow. Now I know what culture shock feels like. Everythıng here ıs very different, but beautıful and old and fascınatıng but hard to type. I have an easier time than Will because İ look at the keyboard all the tıme anyways. We are meetıng lots of Chrıstınas friends, but I worry for our health after she goes home! Later!

Day the last in London

Well, our time in London comes to an end tomorrow morning. We saw all the sights (Buckingham Palace, London Eye, St Paul's, Westminster Abbey, the Underground, British Museum, Piccadilly and Trafalger Squares, Dali exibit and Big Ben), ate all the food (Fish n'Chips, tea, but actually no Cornish Pasties), and saw all the celebrities (Madonna, the Harry Potter crew), plus I met a friend at the London Aquarium (He's yellow and eelish). I had such a blast, and am just getting used to being here and now it's time to move on! I can't imagine what Istanbul will be like - it's hard enough figuring out London, and the signs are all in English here (although some still don't make sense to me). Thanks so much to JenG, Isadora, and Carla for being such sweeties! Away we go to the great unknown!

Day One - London

So, after a long flight with the inevitable crying, kicking baby right behind us, we are finally in London! The airplane food was really good, with all the free booze you could drink - I am never again flying anything but British Airways. And thanks to JenG's detailed instructions that I copied off the internet kiosk into my journal, we arrived at her house with little drama (unless you call Jen running down the street screaming our names for three blocks drama). Tomorrow we are doing the City bus tour, then having a potluck dinner with Carla and some of Jen's friends. Tonight, we sleep.

Day One - Airport/planes

Wednesday - There is a Canucks game on that we now wish we had incorporated into our trip; London could have waited just one more day. We did watch some of the first period in the bar while we waited for our plane out of Vancouver, but the game was late due to a power outage (we only had a flicker of the lights out at the airport). While every television set in the Vancouver Airport is tuned into the game, the one at our departure gate is playing soundless Jeopardy - you know all the questions, but, frustratingly, none of the answers.
It didn't take long to realize the one thing I had forgotten back home; before we'd taken off in Victoria, I saw that I had left the directions for how to get to Jen & Isadora's place in London (if Linda's reading this-don't worry, that's all we forgot). A quick trip to the internet kiosk in the VanAirport and we were back on track (although we were sensored from our own blogs so could not document our feelings at the time).

Today is the day. Waiting around all day for the time to leave reminds me of being a kid waiting for my birthday party to start. Sit and watch the clock, although we all know time passes slower that way, or stare out the window all morning hoping against hope that someone will be hours early. I wish I had saved some of my packing for REALLY last minute to make the time go by. Wait wait wait. Blogs are what happen when we are waiting for exciting things to happen to write about in our blogs.

When it is finally time to leave, I will miss you all and think of you often, and have fun for you all! Stay tuned for updates on the adventure!