July 14, 2012
Getting to know the Turks
It’s Saturday night and I’m back in my usual blogging spot,
the couch of the apartment we are staying in, kids snoozing in the bedroom like
good little babies, hubby out partying it up with the groom & other
guys. Maybe it’s time for a little
explanation into our Turkey trip. A
friend of a good friend of Tony’s, Deutron, who has become a good friend
himself, was marrying a very nice Turkish girl named Evin. We were invited to their wedding. How could we pass up sharing our friend’s
important day…esp. when it’s in one of the countries on my bucket list? Oh yeah, Tony was also one of the groomsmen
so we really couldn’t pass it up.
Here are the story players:
Deutron & Evin – Groom & Bride, live in Watsonville, CA
Rebecca & Nate – Friends, live in Berkeley, CA
Segar & Avni – Friends, live in Baltimore, MD
Ray & Dawn – 2nd parents to Deutron, live in
Milpitas, CA
Alison, Novi, Fiduce –
Friends of Deutron, living all over US
Posi (Positron), Nibobby (Neutron), Elec (Electron) –
siblings of Deutron (their father was a scientist ;)
Various other family from Turkey
& Ethiopia
So it’s been a fun, crazy, interesting & HOT few
days. The good & the bad aspects of
my not writing at the end of each day are that I can’t possibly remember
everything or have the enthusiasm to write about every little thing that
happened but then some fun or at least randomly interesting details are
forgotten, lost or untold. Not as much
to read but not as much to read J In my pre-parenthood travel days I would write at
the end of each day, late late into the night/morning but alas sleep is much
more precious to me now!
Our little apartment is quite sweet, modern but retaining
the feel that we are in a different country.
We are on the top floor and have to climb 6 flights of narrow stone
steps to reach it. We have a little
kitchenette that we thought we’d use but aren’t really. The little fridge is key for milk for Teagan
and beer for us adults. Probably the
best feature is the air conditioner which is absolutely essential here, at
least for this San Francisco
girl. Same goes for my babies who have
been melting and miserable when we go out, often just turning into a puddle of
sweaty, sleeping baby in the stroller.
What do they care about the mosques and bazaars? Poor angels.
Tony & I have questioned our parenting decision to put them through
this several times. After being out for
the day, cranky, testy, sleeping, not eating, we come back to the apt and the
cool air revives them like a magic. I’ll
take Teagan into the little box shower with me to rinse off the sweat and sun
block and further revive. Soon enough though
we are heading back out into the heat, which subsides a little after the sun
sets but not much, to see more sights, get some food, meet the group for some
wedding events etc.
The Spice is Nice
Thursday we made our way to the tram station, a 15 minute
walk along the main Taksim shopping street with all the big clothes, shoes,
jewelry, etc. shops including Gap, Swatch, United Colors of Benetton to name a
few I recognized. Then down a long,
steep narrow road where smaller, local boutiques are located as well as some
little eateries, many with the big vertical meat things they shave off of for
wraps etc., house ware shops, bakery, fresh squeezed orange juice carts,
mini-markets displaying some very nice produce out front, a little barber shop,
etc. Plus lots of cats lounging, begging
for food, etc. The trams are nice (clean
& air conditioned!) and come frequently.
It costs 2 TL (Turkish Lire) to ride which is about $1.50’ish. They ride above ground which gives us a good
view of the areas in between our stops. We
decided to hit up the Spice Bazaar after getting a mid-morning snack of the
most amazingly & ridiculously yummy (read: most definitely terribly
fattening) buttery philo thing filled with a white cheese. The trouble with it was that it was neither
too rich nor too salty so I could easily see myself gaffling enough to surely clog my arteries in
one sitting. Think of a moist croissant
in the shape a raisin Danish but as big around as your face and about 1 1/2”
thick. A guy wearing plastic gloves (to
protect from being burned but also because his hands would be so slippery from
the buttery goodness) slices it up with a half circle knife with a handle as
the other part of the circle. I know
there’s a name for this kitchen utensil but I don’t know it. Et voila.
Not sure what kind of cheese was inside, it looked like cottage cheese
but wasn’t, and it was sparse, just enough for flavor. I think you can get one of these with meat
inside too. I should figure out what the
name of it is, I see them everywhere here.
Moaning in delight as we devoured the snack, we made our way through the
narrow, curving streets, making us feel like we were in some spider web, up
this way, down that way, cars & delivery trucks carefully but swiftly
making their way with barely enough clearance, often stopping or backing up to
let another maneuver through or make a turn.
There were lots of shops here too, lots of textiles with more bolts of
colorful fabric than I think I’ve ever seen in one place; piles of scarves
(since so many of the women here need to cover their heads if not their entire
bodies save their eyes), etc. We asked
several times for directions to the Spice Bazaar since we didn’t yet have a map
but no one really spoke English…nor seemed to know where the bazaar even
was! We began to feel like we were in a
candid camera video where each person tells us different directions and we seem
to be going in circles. After maybe 15
frustrating minutes of that we finally found the bazaar which was a covered “T”
shaped market lined with stalls containing mostly spices, teas, Turkish
delight, coffee/tea cups/supplies (it’s very unique & specialized here) and
some other souvenir stuff thrown in for good measure. Aside from the colorful mounds of powders and
crazy piles of squares & bars of Turkish Delight, there is another common
item for sale in the bazaars and Everywhere, the nazar boncuk or famous ‘evil
eye.’ It’s a pretty dark blue circle
with a small white circle inside then a light blue circle inside that and
finally a small black circle – it looks like an eye. It’s quasi creepy but also kinda abstract art
looking. It comes from an age-old
superstition, clearly persistent today apparently throughout the country,
whereby some people are thought to carry within them a malevolent force that
can be transmitted to others via their eyes.
The eye charms (nazar boncuk) are used to reflect the evil look back to
the originator. You find them as charms,
beads and emblazoned on all kinds of artifacts.
I bought one that will hang on the wall and has a large silver butterfly
in the design. Tyler laid his eyes on a little drum with a
Turkish design on the base and so soon he was happily drumming away in the
stroller as we headed out J
Fish Boats
On our way to meet the group we passed the New (only 400
years old –hah!) Mosque or Yeni Cami. We
took a brief look around the forecourt with all the columns and painted dome
ceilings on the perimeter of the square, took some pictures and moved on
without going inside. It was cool but
nothing to spend much time on. Perhaps
if we’d gone inside I’d have more to say about it. It was midday and the sun was in full force
and Tyler was hungry so we got him a donner kabap (that rotisserie meat thing
in a pita with lettuce & tomato and a yogurt drink called Ayran which all
the Turks drink to go along with) and then we sat in the shade of the Balik
Ekmek (fish bread) cafes where I bought a canned ice tea to ear our seat. Basically there’s these ornate boats floating
right along the dock and on them is this giant grill where they’re cooking up
fillets of fish (not exactly sure what kind or if they are caught right there
or what) which they slap on a roll and pass across to a “waiter” on the dock
and into the hands of the orderer. I’m
not so much eating fish these days and even if I was it didn’t look too
appetizing to me but it wasn’t stinky and lots of people seemed to be enjoying
it. Tony went off to find a beer but
ended up getting lost so I was sitting there with Tyler & Teagan for
upwards of an hour, feeling the pressure of taking up a valuable table under
the shade for patrons actually buying the café’s specialty while fending off
children trying to sell us gum & other junk candy. After Tyler
told me for the 3rd time he had to go peepee, instead of telling him
again “ok, daddy will be back soon and then we can go” I just packed us up and
hoped Tony would wait for us there when he came back and didn’t find us. I headed us toward the big “WC” sign in an
underground walkway and there we ran into Tony!
Row, row, row your boat…
We met up with some of the group and did some negotiating
with one of the many roaming boat tour salesmen (who incidentally had spent
some time doting over Teagan while we were sitting at the fish bread café) and
were soon cruising the Bosphorous strait which runs from the Sea of Marmara to
the Black Sea.
Istanbul
is on both sides but one is on the Asian continent and the other the
European. Our ride was around 2 hours,
we sat up top covered but open and the wind felt great despite the blazing
heat. On our left, on the European
shore, we passed several grandiose palaces, described in our tour book from a
French writer’s travelogue as ‘a line of palaces white as snow, placed at the
edge of the sea on marble docks’ and this description is as accurate as it is
evocative. I felt like I was in France or even Italy! The boat was playing some crazy, loud Turkish
club beats which had us all up & dancing off & on through the ride…we
actually did hear Katy Perry’s California Girls too which really had us girls
up dancing & feeling proud! Then,
the highlight of the ride, we’d heard rumors dolphins swim in the strait but
that just seemed silly. Well, silly or
not, it’s true and after we turned around at the Golden Gate’s silver colored little sister and as we were
passing by the Kiz Kulesi or Maiden Tower (a small island with a pseudo lighthouse
and ritzy restaurant inside – more on that later) there they suddenly
were. I might have screamed out,
pointing, and everyone on the boat jumped up to check the 2 beauties out. How is it that dolphins in the wild just seem
so magical? I remember seeing them in New Zealand
once, on a ferry ride at the bottom of the south island and I was just as awe
struck and taken by them then as now. So
graceful and somehow ethereal, as if they were a mythical creature like the
unicorn. Just as I was recovering from
the excitement we saw another little cluster of them, including what seemed
like (in my fantasy mood) a baby! I got
a few pictures but of course nothing captures seeing it in person.
Once off the boat, still feeling the swaying motion beneath
me, we walked across the Galata bridge from the top of which there are many,
many fishing lines in the water as well
as a an endless line of fish restaurants below.
We headed to Galata Tower which unfortunately was up a very steep hill (vs.
the very long sets of stairs we avoided because of our stroller) which Novi was so kind (or stupid) to offer to push said
stroller up. There was a lift inside the
tower so we all went up but once I saw the narrow viewing deck that surrounded
the top of the tower I opted to stay inside the café on the next floor
down. There were still windows all
around inside the café so I could see the amazing 360 view of the city, with
all the minarets dotting the skyline.
Feast
In lieu of a rehearsal dinner, the bride’s parents hosted a
dinner for all the guests who travelled from outside of Turkey for the wedding which basically consisted
of a bunch of us from the US
and a few from Ethiopia. After going back to the apt for a rinse off
& clothes change we took a cab to this area of side by side by side
restaurants with tons of outdoor seating (again reminiscent of France or Italy)
and a small cobblestone walkway between where street vendors roamed with
armloads of stuff you don’t need…unless you count the cigar guy who managed to
sell a nice Cuban to Tony J There was a 1st,
2nd and 3rd course as seems to be the norm here and it
was all DELISH! When we sat down there
were all these small plates of – lucky for me – vegetarian starters including
fava beans, a stewed greens mixture, a yummy green salad and a few others I
can’t even remember now! There was a
little plate of sardines which I avoided though ;) My vegetarian main meal was to die for, a
cast iron skillet full of eggplant, mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes, peas, favas
and herbs. Tony got some whole fish
which kinda grossed me out. The alcohol
was flowing; esp. the Turkish drink Raki (pronounced rah-coo) which is like
Ouzo flavor-wise (anise) but like Absinthe in that you add water and the
appearance turns from vodka-like to a cloudy white. There were “musicians” coming around to play
for the patrons of the various restaurants and they put on quite a show,
getting guests up one by one to dance with the main guy, doing silly, crazy,
flirty moves. I think everyone got
pulled up there but me since I was holding Teagan in my lap most of the time,
so I got videos of everyone else. It was
a lot of fun. The night flew by and
before we knew it, as happens most of the time in Turkey we’ve found, it was
LAAAATE & it was obvious most of the childless/unmarried people were going
to be going out after the dinner so we got a cab and called it a night. Probably for the best.
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