I have been meaning to write about the best in-store marketing campaign I have seen in a long time. I spotted this in a the window of a pharmacy near the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, over the summer. I just couldn't get over it. Hopefully you can make out the writing on the boxes. I mean, it's brilliant, and in Turkey of all places! I guess it's just women who are supposed to be modest here...

Better late than never?

OK, so I know I never finished posting about the summer, but I have honestly been really busy, and I'm going to update right now...

After my parents left, Chris' friend Scott came to visit and I took off to sunny and HOT Barcelona to visit Temple, who I absolutely love, and who was living in Barcelona during the summer. We had the best time - highlights included just about the best 'first night' one can imagine in a new city (especially coming from a city where one's favorite foods are very difficult to come by): Oysters and Cava at one restaurant, followed by a visit to a restaurant called CHEESE ME (!!!) and yes, it was as good as it sounds, and was made even better with it's accompaniment of delicious Spanish wine. Everyone should go to Barcelona, athough maybe not in the middle of July, where it was 35 degrees Celsius, I think above 90 Farenheit, at midnight! It has everything - amazing food and drink, a great party atmosphere, incredibly chill bars on the beach, where you can sit at the bar, or spill over onto the sand and it's all fine...It is also one of the most architecturally amazing cities I have visited. I hadn't seen any of Antionio Gaudi's work before visiting Barcelona, but it is just incredible. His famous church, Sagrada Familia was incredible, but remains a work in progress after he was hit by a tram and killed in the 1920's. He was also the architect of the most fantastical park I have ever seen, Park Guell. The story is that it was originally built as part of a high-end housing development, which never came to be. The result is this park, which you really have to see to believe.
We also rented a funny little car and got out of the city for a couple of days, visiting the Teatro Museo Dali, which was insane, and definitely required more than the few hours we spent. The coolest thing in this fun house/museum was "Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln" which really really does change from one image to another, as you walk away from the paintin, or as happened in my case, when you look at it through the screen on your camera.

Temple and I were so well taken care of in Barcelona, by her fantastic friend Sam, her two fun kids and of course Alvaro who, while officially charged with watching the kids, ended up taking care of us as well!

It was such a great trip and I can't wait to go back to Barcelona!

The way I see it, I'm practically Turkish...

Last week, although I was wary, partially because of our prior week's disastrous visit to get Chris' car papers renewed (2 hours in the car, surrounded by diesel fumes, to go about 3 kilometers, only to be turned away at the car office because Chris was missing a signed paper he didn't need last year for the original car papers) and partially due to Chris' uncertainty ("you can get one with just an address and your passport??"), I made my way to the Uskudar Tax Office to get myself a Turkish tax ID number... Walking into the 1960's style (and smelly, as most confined public places usually are here) government building and waiting on the "line" (read: amorphous group of people standing in the general vicinity of a desk), I thought my trip would be about as successful as Chris' car re-registration, but after about 45 minutes of waiting in the cloud of body oder, and some helpful translations from a gentleman in line who spoke a few words of English ("name of your father" and "what hotel?" - side note, you can get a tax number if you're just visiting and staying at the Hilton??) I walked out of there the proud owner of a Turkish Tax ID, oh-so-officially handwritten on a little teeny business card.

The next day, I opened my very own Turkish bank account (with the help of a co-worker, who explained that yes, I actually did need to sign each page of the 36 page "small print" document).

So, really, I'm almost Turkish now, right?

Back to Work!

I have been busy getting started at my new job, which is why I haven't updated this site in a while. You know, busy playing with pre-schoolers computer games, researching ideas for great crafts and science activities for aforementioned pre-schoolers, before they arrive next week. Quite a difference from my last job!

In my research, I came across this great site: www.jacksonpollock.org - Check it out, but I'll warn you, you might become addicted!

I'll try to update some posts soon!

Oh, all of my photos from the summer are now here, feel free to look, and I'll update as soon as I can!

One of the best things about my family's visit is the fact that everyone found a little love...


Maryn was eyed by more Turkish men than defensless countries during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. She got her first marriage proposal from none other than Marco, our carpet seller in Selcuk.


He gave her a lovely bracelet to remember him by,










And even took her on a Magic Carpet Ride!
















I know this suitor seems a little old, and well, stiff. But I can assure you he had a GREAT personality!





After we finished our coastal travels and returned to Istanbul, Maryn (well, her father, if we're being technical about it) was offered many camels for her hand in marriage, by a few different men, including an apprentice of Huseyin's (see below) and a textile merchant about whom we haven't entirely made up our minds, but by far the most eligible bachelor was one Roger Stubbs, father of Peter, teller of great tales, and offerer of many, many camels!

Roger, Maryn or no Maryn, let's hang out again soon! 

Mom, still quite a looker at the ripe young age of 45, had many many gentleman callers of her own. Including, this guy:














This guy:














And our favorite, Amigo:

Not one to be outdone, dad found some "friends" of his own..
























This is the famous Huseyin, seller of many carpets to my parents, boss of one of Maryn's many suitors and all around good guy...







In the end, though, none of these suitors was fine enough for my father's taste, so he took his fake Louis bag, strolled away...




















... and said:
 

Here are a couple of pictures from our day on the boat.

This is us relaxing in one of the coves we stopped in for some swimming...





Maryn, Chris and I with our fearless Captain

Genuine Fakes! I'm still not sure exactly what it means...














Maryn shopping for some Genuine Fakes!

 

Bodrum

After we left Jesse's group and, the next day, Chris' parents, Chris and I took the next two days to get from Antalya, where we left the group, to go to Bodrum to meet my family. After a couple of days traveling on a bus, and excited to see my family, I was more than thrilled to find that the hotel I had booked us in, the Munahan, was as fabulous as it looked on their website. This is a photo of it from their roofdeck:
Unfortunately, one of the rooms we had reserved was double booked, so the put my parents in a suite at no extra cost...It was a rough day :)

The pool at the hotel was amazing, rather than being concrete, it looked as though it was a pond, with rocks as the edges. As we lay on the chaise lounges next to the pool, the people who worked at the hotel made sure we had constantly filled places of ice cold fruit (see, the fruit thing never ends!) and bottles of water. The Turkish breakfast is always a variation on the same theme: Bread, cheese, honey, butter, olives, tomatoes, and either coffee or tea. You wouldn't think it could vary too much, but at the Munahan, it was superb. The bread toasted just right, enough variety with the cheese, and the added touch of walnuts, which were great drizzled with honey.

Not to rave toooo much about the hotel, but the owners also were able to set us up with everything we needed, including a fish dinner literally ON the water. In the photo of us at the dinner table, our table and chairs are in the sand. The name of the restaurant was Balkci.com.tr, which I thought was odd, but the food was fantastic, and as the Munahan owner (a friend of the restaurant owner) called and requested, they treated us like royalty. The hotel owner also booked us on a sailing trip around Bodrum for the next day. Bodrum is a huge party town and there are tons of 'party boats' that will take you out, but you are like one of a pile of ants loaded onto these boats. Knowing my parents wouldn't be too fond of that, we were able to get onto this little (pretty run down looking) boat with our Captain (Osman, i think) which was also a music composer and gave us all cassette tapes of his music to take home. At the end of the trip, when I asked my parents and Maryn about their favorite experience, they all mentioned this day on the boat. Maryn was also a big fan of Bodrum because it seems as though the town specialty is knockoff bags and watches. She bought a Gucci fake the first night we were there, and a few more after that! I have a great picture of how they advertise these "genuine fakes" but I'll have to put it in the next post.

This sunset was seen from the roofdeck at the Munahan.











Below: The same evening...The same roofdeck.

This was our blue cruise boat. Where you can see everyone sitting on the back (the stern?) is where we would eat our meals, play cards, etc. At the bow, underneath the blue awning is where we slept. There were some individual cabins, but it ended up being so much nicer on deck that nearly everyone stayed up there. It was covered in the mattresses that you use on a chaise lounge, and they were all strapped down to the boat so they wouldn't fly away. The boat was nearly perfect. The only negative was that, although it looks like a sailboat, there were no sails and we motored to every place we visited. OH...the other negative was that, if you were in the bathroom (head) of one of these cabins, and the cabin door was open, you would get locked in the head. This happened to me. Twice. It was scary and just a little embarrassing...I'm on a boat with a bunch of people I barely know, and my boyfriend's parents. And I'm sticking, first my arm, and then managed to find a way to sneak my head out just the right way (yes, fearing it would get stuck), from the tiny window in the bathroom, trying desparately to get someone's attention to get me out. Ahhh, boats.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of photographs on the boat, because there were so many people with cameras. The few photos I have are here. There is also this Shutterfly page on which all of the people on our trip posted their photos. The photos here aren't just of the blue cruise, because everyone was here for longer than that, but if you go toward the end of anyone's album, you'll see pictures from the amazing trip! 

It's about 10:20 am here and I'm sitting here with a (nearly) full cup of coffee, ready to start updating about the last 2 months...

After showing Chris' parents around Istanbul, we joined up with our friend Jesse's family and friends to form a group of about 20 people and we went off to Cappadocia and then to the Mediterranean Coast for a Turkish Blue Cruise (note: the link isn't for the company we used, but I can't remember their name)

We left Istanbul and flew into Kayseri, which is known for their rug production, and drove straight through to Urgup, to our cave hotel in the heart of Cappadocia. We stayed at the Gamirasu Cave Hotel, which ended up being one of the best hotel experiences I have had. There is something about the hospitality of the Turks that is unrivaled in any country I have visited. Our group of 20 Americans arrived at the hotel at about midnight. We didn't plan enough in advance to have dinner before we arrived and were all starving once we set down our bags. We asked the manager, a really nice young woman who was about to start her first year teaching English in the area, where we could get a bite to eat. Being pretty much in the middle of nowhere, our only option was to walk to the small market into town and buy some bags of chips and sodas. As she thought about it some more she said, 'Well, I can ask the shopkeeper to bring a basket of some items here and you can just pay for what you'd like'. We thought that would be a great idea, but she decided it just wasn't good enough. "Actually," she said, "I won't be able to sleep knowing you're all here hungry." So, although she was just waiting for us to arrive, to head home for the evening, she opened up the darkened dining room, set 20 places and, though she wasn't a waitress or a chef, heated up some amazing soup from the kitchen and served us all soup and bread. And with a smile on her face the whole time. It was amazing! I don't have any gread pictures of the hotel interior, but the rooms are all dug into the rock, like the caves that litter the whole area of the country. The website pictures are better than anything I have.

Cappadocia is one of those places that you just have to see to believe, it literally looks like you're on another planet. Here is one of my favorite pictures:



















The rest of the pictures are here...

When we finished exploring caves in Cappadocia, we hopped on a minibus for a fabulous overnight drive to the coast to get onto our Blue Cruise. There were some issues with our boat being ready, but mid-afternoon the next day, we were aboard our boat filled with Turkish food, beer, wine and a crew to prepare it all for us! The next few days would be filled with lounging, eating drinking, reading, snorkeling and taking in the Mediterranean coastline.

I'm off to rifle through the packages that Chris just brought in from the school mailbox (Thank you mom and dad, Tanya and Tom and Rebecca!!) and will write more in a bit!

We're Baaaack...

After a long, and incredible but tiring summer, we've arrived home in Istanbul last night. I am going to work on putting up some pics etc of our trips before I start work. In 5 days. And on my birthday! :( But Chris and I have hit somewhere over 10 countries this summer, between the two of us, and there's a lot to write about so it may take a little while. In the meanwhile, check out our friend Scott's blog of his trip through Turkey with Chris, while I try to figure out how he did that map thing!

Buyukada

After we had a great few days exploring Istanbul with Chris' parents, we decided to go off the beaten path (sort of...) and hit one of the Princes' Islands. They are a group of islands right off of Istanbul and the city ferries make a few trips to the islands each day. Despite our reading the ferry schedule wrong and missing the first one we wanted (seemed to be a theme of the trip, unfortunately...More on that later) we ended up driving a ways to another Iskele (Turkish word for ferry launch) to get over to the largest island, Buyukada (Buyuk in Turkish is Big and Ada is Island)

The islands are unique in that no cars are allowed. Of course being that we're in Turkey, the land where rules don't apply, this meant "No cars are allowed. Except for some. Sometimes. So don't expect to not worry about getting run over." Regardless, it was gorgeous. Comparisons were made to Charlston and to Bermuda. Huge, old, waterview mansions with amazing, fragrant flowers were seen at every step of our walk. We decided, despite the close to triple digit temps, to walk to the Monastery of St. George, which was up a long and steep hill. Chris thought it was fun, but his parents and I were a little skeptical. Here are the Emerson's at about 1/2 way up...

At the top, we started talking to a group of kids who had also climbed the hill. It turned out that they (with the exception of a friend visiting from Columbia, i think) were all Turkish and were former students at Chris' school. They had all just graduated from college, most in the states and one in Ankara. It was really interesting to chat with them all. This is the whole group of us at the monastery.

After chatting for awhile, we realized we were going to miss our ferry off the island, so we took a horse and carriage ride back to the Iskele. Unfortunately Chris had an awful allergic reaction and was sneezing and tearing up the whole time! But we did make it back just in time for the ferry home...

Another stop on our sightseeing tour was the Dolmabahce Palace, which I found to be the least interesting of all of the different sights we hit. The funniest/worst part was that they made you wear these elf shoe shaped shower caps on your feet while walking through the house. They were hot and made your feet really sweat AND i'm pretty sure they were recycled :(

We did so much sightseeing that it's tough to remember everything we saw but this was definitely a highlight - we had snacks and drinks at the Ciragan Palace, which is this super fancy hotel (literally a can of Coke was around $10...) and it's here that we saw one of these "only in Turkey" moments - At the pool at the Ciragan, which is crawling with women in bikinis, we saw this poor woman, fully covered in all black (on an incredibly hot day, I have to mention!) running around after her children... 

Our first set of visitors were the Emersons. We started out in Istanbul with the full Istanbul tour with them and here's a picture at our Monday market... 

Wow, I have been so terrible at updating this! My (very good, i think...) excuse is that I've been away for the majority of the past month or so. I have been trying to think of the best way to update everything and I think I'll try to start from the beginning. Hopefully I won't leave too much out, but it's already starting to blend together. I just got back from Spain last night and today I kept saying things like "Gracias" and "Si" to the poor man who was trying to sell me hummus!

Tour Guides...

This weekend began the beginning of our visitor extravaganza, and we leave in a few days for two weeks in Cappodocia, the Mediterranean and the Aegean, so I'll probably not have computer access very often.

We've had a great time so far showing Chris' parents around on their first trip to Istanbul. We've seen some sights, relaxed and shopped, but the highlight came last night when, after a chance stop into a rug shop, we peered into the proprieter's garden around the corner from the shop. As tends to happen in Turkey, he invited us to join him and his friends for a barbeque dinner. The other guests ended up being a famous Turkish movie star, a Turk who's lived in NY for the past 20 years and just returned for a visit that night, and several beautiful women who worked in Government. It very much seemed like the 'cultured elite' of Istanbul, and they treated us to lively conversation, amazing food, lots of drinks in this gorgeous garden with a view of the minarets of the Blue Mosque, and even paid for our taxi home!

It was an unplanned, magical evening!

Fruit, fruit everywhere....

Today I realized the one thing I dislike about the city: People are forever offering you fruit. And it's rude not to take it. Now I realize that this would be a positive for most people. Even I find the fruit allllllmost tempting here, it's so colorful and fresh, but not tempting enough. Since I've arrived, I've been given the following from vendors or just so-called nice people:

5 cherries
2 apricots
2 dried apricots
1 unidentified fruit off of a tree in the yard of a church
I'm sure there are more that I've tried to block out

As a point of comparison, so far I have been given the following non-fruit items:

0 pastries
0 cheeses
0 simits (like giant bagels)
0 isla cakes (yummy chocolate cakes)