Sometimes leftovers aren't too bad

     Usually when I travel, I bring my little Moleskine travel notebook with me to jot daily observations and such in.  This time, because I had planned on writing in this blog, I didn't bring it.  And I forgot it. So, there was that too.
     Anyhow, there needs to be both with me, I realize.  Because I tried to scribble stuff down on my scrap paper I carried around with me, but I know I've forgotten stuff that didn't make it onto paper, or into the blog.  Very aggravating.

What follows are the few random things I encountered on the trip, to the best of my recollection.

• I had a layover in JFK on my way to Istanbul, and I opted out of eating at Chili's because that very restaurant is where my buddy Jay had a cockroach in his hamburger.  Really. So I just bought something packaged instead.
• The scooters delivering Burger King were pretty sweet.  Maybe we should do something like that in the States.  Maybe it is already being done in places (I haven't seen it).  And speaking of Burger King, from they way Uğur talked, it seemed more popular than McDonald's over there.  But I didn't bother to research that.
• Our gas prices are rising.  They are probably around $3.70 or $3.80 per gallon on average, nationwide.  Maybe more like $4.40 or so in the larger cities.  We shouldn't complain though.  Gas in Istanbul was $3.86 per Liter.  Want me to do the math for you?  That is a whopping $14.67 per gallon ( I hope I did the math right).  So, stop complaining.
• I had an Australian sharing my room (a 4 bed).  We were in opposite bunks.  Well, this Indian couple came in and didn't like that they were 6 feet apart in 2 different bunks, so the Indian dude just jumped into James' bed (the Australian) while James was out, and the girl took the bunk above him. They then took off for a bit. I just laid in my bunk watching all of this.  A little later, James is back and napping, and wakes up to see the Indian girl staring at him.  She asks if he would move over to my bunk (Indian dude had already been lounging in James' bed anyhow), so he was nice and moved.  I wish I could have made this sound as weird as it was to witness in person.

Zoolander. Was he at Topkapi Palace? © Paramount Pictures.

• There were two Turkish guys (visitors) at Topkapi Palace who were taking "staged" photos of each other.  If I had to guess, they imagined themselves as male models and were striking poses.  Really.  It was a combination of Madonna's "Vogue" video and the Zoolander movie.

• I am having a hard time sleeping past about 5:30am, which was the first ezan (call to prayer) of the day (it changes, but this one is like an hour before dawn).  No matter what, you hear it. And it takes a little while to play through. About enough to fully wake you up if you were still sleeping.
• Do you remember Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce night at the hostel?  Remember my skepticism?  It was well-founded.  There was definitely some sauce on the pasta--barely enough to give it any red color at all.  But apparently this was to be remedied by the condiments brought out to go with the spaghetti.  Ketchup and mayonnaise.....yup.  Ketchup and mayonnaise.  Again, I had already gone out for my donner kebab. So I passed on it.
• If Hylke, Dirk, Catheleine, and Marlies are any indication of what the Dutch are all like, than the Netherlands is in great hands for years and years to come.  Really.  I wish everyone I know could meet the four of them.  And Jochem-- that's Dirk and Catheleine's dog. 
• I need to get Marlies' scarf back to her.  I suspect there was instigation involved, as her scarf turned up in my backpack the morning after we all had dinner at Lotgenoten.  I am pointing fingers at Dirk and Catheliene here.  But, I'll come up with some souvenier to send back along with it.  I need to do better than a keychain, though.  Preferably something impressive. Marlies is pretty awesome.
• Don't lose track of time at the bar in Union Station, because you can miss your train and have to take the next one that leaves 3.5 hours later.  Yeah.  I did that.

Well, everyone.  There you have it.  My short week abroad.  My first attempt to blog.  Hopefully it didn't sound like boring writing about somewhere you weren't.  If it did, I really don't care.  I had fun doing it.

Chasing Daylight

     There is nothing like flying West on an early-morning flight.  Especially a long haul flight.  Your day just goes on, and on, and on.  But even better, so does the daylight.  I think I am around 17 hours of sun so far.  Not too bad for the first week of March.
     The down side to this is that there isn't a whole lot you can do with this extra sun.  You're 38,000 feet in the air moving at almost 600 mph with around 400 other passengers.  You can catch up on movies, reading, writing.  But not getting a tan or working in the garden.

     It's funny.  Coming into Chicago feels almost equally as foreign as it did going into Istanbul or Amsterdam.  O'hare is not very "foreign friendly" compared to many international airports I've been in.  I can see the poor tourists getting lost easily and then getting conned into taking a $60 cab ride into the city, rather than a $2.25 subway fair on the 'L'.

     English was not the first language of the first two Passport Control people and the Customs guy I encountered at O'hare.  In fact, they spoke better English in Amsterdam than these 3 did.  But that's the diversity of our country at work.

Tomorrow, after I wake up and have free time, I'm going over my notes and will be posting the last of my hastily written observations from the week.  Like $14.70 gallon of gas in Istanbul (that's the cheap octane).

The Flying Pig

     I made it through the flight up to Amsterdam.  As I didn't really spend any time in Ataturk Airport (Istanbul) on the way in, I sort of saw everything on my way out yesterday.  Not impressed.  We raise our prices in airports for food a little bit.  They raise their fast food prices about 3x.  And what was really weird was that they had a Popeye's Louisian Kitchen serving up good ol' Popeye's chicken and red beans and rice.  Of all the US restaurant chains that could possibly be chosen, I really don't know how Popeye's ended up there.  With something like a $13 combo meal.

     Marlies, Hylke, Dirk, and Catheleine all took the train in 2 hours to have dinner and drinks with me.  We went out to a little neighborhood restaurant and had quite a time.  They barely caught the last train back home.  I wish they were all coming back to the States with me.

     I caught my own train into Amsterdam Central and headed to the Pig.  Thirteen years ago I was in this very place.  Nothing had changed.  At about 12am I walked into the lobby where there was basically a rave going on, 20 people smoking and 30 people drinking.

    In my bed, there was some stoned Italian who didn't change rooms, so the guy at the desk flipped on the lights and yelled at him (waking up the 3 sleeping Germans who also yelled at the Italian).  He changed up my sheets, I tossed my bag and jacket, and went down to hit the bar until about 3am.

     My train back to Schiphol came early, and by early it was still like 10:04am.  But too early from the night of Strongbow and Guiness from earlier.  So now, I sit here waiting to board my 747.  Time to go.

Uğur and the Disney Cruise Line

     Uğur (you remember?  our bartender.) is ready for a change and told us how he had an interview coming up with Royal Caribbean.  The problem is that they want him to have a third language.  Sadly, he has tried for years to learn German, but it is still pretty bad.
     Royal Caribbean practically said their interview person can't speak German, so he plans on just making stuff up that sounds German.  He admitted he does not have high expectations.

     A few days ago I asked him why he didn't look into Disney Cruise Line, which only requires strong English skills.  Well, I guess he liked this thought, because yesterday he went to the local recruiting office and they are having him come back in this week.

     And that's when he offered me a free beer or two last night.  To critique his CV (resume) and make sure the Enlish was looking good on it.  I warned him I may make lots of changes, but he was excited and didn't care.
     Just a few word-choice changes and pointing out to him that he had left out the fact that he attended university for 2 years for travel and tourism.  So, he quickly added that (sort of a big deal).

     I hope he gets some good news out of this.  He is showing me his corrected CV this morning and going in Wednesday or Thursday.  Uğur said he would keep me posted.  This would be one more I could add to my list of people I helped get a good job for, without being able to get my own.  Ugh.

     Well, I'll be out of the hostel late this morning.  Going to be sad to be going, but at least I will have a nice time tonight in Amsterdam.  My new Dutch friends are coming to see me for sure, so I will be rushing through the airport and throwing my bags in storage to get to them quickly.

     I'm certain I will have a bit more to write about after tonight's visit to the Flying Pig.

My friend, you look Turkish.

     Now, I wasn't really bothered by locals peddling their wares at the Spice Market, but I do want to mention a tactic that was used routinely.  Not just there, but all over any tourist area of Istanbul I visited.

     That "you" look Turkish.  Yes. Me.  You.  The blonde German girl and her friends.  The three Japanese girls.  It goes like this:

"Hello my friend.  Where are you from?"
     I try to make a non-commital grunt at this point. Preferably barely moving my lips, but just enough to appear I gave an answer.
"Ah. America (or whatever country fits for you. They just guess anyhow)."
"But you know, you look Turkish."
     At this point, you are still walking and cruising past them, but they try to fall in step.  For me, I'm thinking they are just foolish sales people.
    Clearly they can see my hairy wrists and knuckles.  And neck hair.  And if that was all they were comparing it from, then sure.  I'm hairy like Turk men.  I see the confusion.  So are a bunch of you.

But if there are blue-eyed, brown-haired Turks, I haven't seen them anywhere.

     The good news is that "Not wanted" or "No chance" really takes care of it.  Even better if you utter it to them in Turkish.  Istemez! or something like that.

     The smells in the Spice Market were amazing.  A combination of spices, dried fruits, Turkish delight.  If I could package it, I would.  If I see it packaged however, I will probably avoid it.

     Tonight is spaghetti with tomato sauce night here at the hostel.  You'd think... must be spaghetti with tomato sauce.  I'd say you would be jumping to conclusions, and really should wait to see what is on the plate.  Their spaghetti with tomato sauce will probably be udon noodles with whole steamed tomatoes sitting on it, or something equally as confusing.

     In the meantime, before the great spaghetti adventure, I'm going out for a kebab.  Always a safe choice.  I'll leave you with a picture of stray cats.

Stray cats.  They are all this pretty, actually.  No ratty/ matted fur. Just a bunch of clean, well-fed strays. Everywhere.

Dice. Sunrise. Nutella.

     Movies and popcorn at the hostel never materialized.  Uğur (our "bartender") totally forgot, and I told him his selection of a current movie was probably Short Circuit on VHS-Pal or something along those lines, so no big loss.

     Instead, the dozen of us kept him busy getting beer while we all threw dice for some low-stakes TL.  As the winning was spread out, no one really lost anything and we were able to play for quite a while for no more than the cost of a beer.  We had about 8 new arrivals and they were all happy to join in.  Still a fun bunch here at the hostel.  But after hitting about 2am and having lost my 7 TL, I called it quits.

     Since this turned into an early night, I wanted to get up and see if I could take a photo or two of the sunrise over the Sea of Marmara from our rooftop.  Without setting my alarm (even though I wanted to take a picture, I didn't want to take it that badly), and managed to wakeup right at 6:30am with no problems.

     Breakfast started at 7:30, so for 45 minutes I just sat upstairs in the bar on the computer, knowing delicious Nutella awaited me at that point.  Nutella advertising may have you thinking it is only good on breads for breakfast.  I posit that Nutella would be good on pretty much anything. But someone else can try and let me know.

And now, it's 10am.  Time to get ready to head out for the day.  I think the Spice Market is on the agenda.  And maybe a trip across the Bosphorous.

Trusting Hylke

     Noon on Sunday saw the departure of my new Dutch friends.  As I didn't have my camera out the previous night, I am counting on Hylke to deliver our group picture to me via email.  This is a pretty safe bet, as he is a big camera nut, and was the one who gathered us together for picture in the first place.

     This is when they sprung the good news on me that they would come into Amsterdam to meet me Tuesday night, so it wasn't too bad a goodbye for now.

    Upon their departure, I headed up to Topkapi Palace.  This was Istanbul's palace of the Sultans of the Ottoman empire from the 15th-19th century.  I'm not going into all of the history of the place, but it was pretty spectacular.

     They have the palace's treasury setup with the gifts/ spoils of war that the Sultans had aquired through the years, and one of these is an 86-carat cut diamond (the Kaşikçi diamond), housed in a setting of 49 other brilliant diamonds.  I cannot express how big this thing is.  It is the size of a small apple.  And not a crab apple.  A regular apple.
     The other treasury pieces (four rooms full of these) were weapons, housewares, and other gems that were encrusted in more rubys, emeralds, and diamonds than you could imagine.  It was quite a sight to walk through.

     More impressive were some of the religious artifacts on display.  Items from Joseph, Abraham, Moses, and a bunch from Muhammad.  These received far more protection and security than the jewelry did.

     Last part I'll tell you about is the Harem.  This was a very large part of the palace, just do to its nature.  Filled with apartments for women who resided there, apartments for the young princes, libraries, baths.  All built around courtyards and hallways created to keep a heirarichal flow present.

Overall, a really good place to visit.  I forgot to mention it has a great view of the Bosphorus as well.

I think I'm going to send Hylke a reminder later today about the photo. Just to be safe.

Dutch, shisha, and 14 TL beers

    Well, now I did it.  I am 24 hours behind in the publishing of these.  So, you may see a few today.  I had a couple saved as drafts based on my happenings.  This is one such post.

      When you travel and stay in hostels, there's a very good chance you will meet some fun people to spend time with.  At the very least, you will meet some interesting people.  Australians are usually tops on my list for great people to spend time with when traveling.  Their sense of humor, willingness to drink pretty much anytime, and go anywhere to do anything really helps.  Oddly enough, our full hostel is void of any Australians so far.  That did not prove to be an issue, because there are four Dutch here who have been a lot of fun.  We were five unique personalities, and they meshed really well.  The down side is that we only had a couple nights together (they had to take off Sunday afternoon).  This didn't prove a problem, as we got along so well, that they are going to make the 2 hour trip into Amsterdam from their college town to have dinner and go out with me on my Tuesday night layover.  

     Saturday night, the Dutch and I went out for drinks (some of the other's staying here came too).  I think I commented a few days ago on the affordability of things here.  If I didn't, well, things are very affordable here.  Except beer.  The cheap beer is 7 TL (about $4.20) for a 16.9oz bottle.  And that is fine for a city this size (around 14 million people).  None of us apparently asked about comprable pricing out at the bars.  So, sticker shock hit when the cheapest palatable beer was 14 TL, and mixed drinks were 25 TL.  But, we made the best of it.  I mean, come on.  We had already taken 30 minutes just to get up to Taksim to go.  And there was finally some decent music, too.  The clubs were pretty good but our group decided we wanted quieter and cheaper as the night moved on.  So we moved onto the shisha bar.  Shisha is less a novelty like it is here in the states (your college hookah bars), and more of a natural order of the culture out here.

     It took 15 minutes to convince the server to make up tea for a couple of the people (he had turned his "hot water" machine off).  It took another 15 minutes for the group to settle on the flavor of tobacco we wanted.  Jasmine, it was.

A pretty good night.  But it had to be.  I had Dutch friends with me.

Practicalities

     Odds are, when you travel, you are going to be forced to use a local toilet at some point.  Until you reach this point, I would bet you have taken for granted the luxury you find yourself in with using our toilets in the US.

     We have running water (except for a few instances).  You get to use a toilet seat (provided you aren't in a gas station bathroom where it has been stolen, or something).  We don't use a grab bar to hold onto while we squat over a hole in the ground.  We have toilet paper (unless someone was inconsiderate before you).  You typically have privacy (if you aren't in a bar or pub where the door is missing for some reason).  We even have a pretty standard system for flushing.  Typically just a push on a button or lever.

Yup.  We've got it pretty good.

     For all of the things we do have, a lot of countries don't (or are lacking in some departments).  Fortunately, Istanbul has delivered a very good experience.  The only weird thing is the size of the toilet.  I really don't know who these are built for.  The seat is barely larger than a 12" diameter.  And they then tuck some of them in the smallest spaces.  Like 12 square feet.  With a door that opens in.  I'm just glad I'm not that big a guy, because some of the guys I've hung out with complained about it quite a bit.

The so-called "Grand" Bazaar

     I went out to the Grand Bazaar today.  Every time I am in a foreign city with a market I try to go, and Istanbul was no exception.  And every time I am in a foreign city with a market, I am frequently faced with unexceptional goods.  Again, Istanbul was no exception.

     The Grand Bazaar has somewhere around 4000 shops under it's cover (it also has 2 mosques and 2 hamams (Turkish baths) inside).  These 4000 shops all sell the same 5 things.  Really.

• Purses
• Jewelry
• Scarves and pillows
• Tea sets
• Clothes

     So, what is that?  Like 800 of each type of shop. Needless to say, I could have been happier with the selection.  Perhaps if I had shown up here with nothing other than the shirt on my back, it would have been a good place to go.

     I'm not saying it wasn't impressive.  It was a pretty amazing structure, and the sights and sounds of the salespeople and customers made it a very inviting place to shop (if you needed any of that) and people watch.  For once, I was not really approached by any of the vendors I passed (a very rare thing, I've noticed.  They love to talk to you.) while walking through there.

     I suspect this was due to my hair looking like a rat's nest and how bloodshot my eyes were from partying last night until 7am this morning.  I looked pretty scary, and apparently, not one to be trifled with today.

   My takeaway from this-- The Grand Bazaar is not the greatest place to shop for presents for people.  And, I should limit the number of nights I stay up drinking until the sun comes up so I don't scare people while I stumble down the streets.

Coming up next..... The Turkish toilet. Pros and cons.

The Morning

It is 7:20am. Lost track of time at the bar here in the hostel. Great Canadians, great Dutch, great Aussies, great beer. Next thing you know, they are setting up the breakfast I will certainly sleep through. But I better get a little sleep. I am not a young guy anymore. As the Canadians kept pointing out to me. Until they passed out and could not keep up with the rest of us.

Dogs and Cats

     Got out to some great places today.  The Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and the Basilica Cistern.  Fantasic structures, some approaching 2000 years old.  Stood upon the 0-mile marker on the road from Constantinople (Istanbul) to Rome.  The people here are incredibly friendly, so that should make for some nice interactions the rest of the trip.

     You might think in the middle of winter, tourist season would be down.  It's not.  The crowds are light, but they are still there.  I hear in the busy season that the lines wrap around some of these buildings I've visited.

     Along with the visitors, there are dogs and cats.  Not just one or two, here or there.  There are strays everywhere.  They seem to be pets of the city.  They are fed by whoever happens by them, they seek out affection from everyone they pass, they have free reign.

Sultan Ahmet Mosque (The Blue Mosque)

Turkish is such a great language

I haven't mentioned this yet, but I really think Turkish is incredibly pleasing to the ear. I find it quite exotic and love to hear the locals speak. I feel a lot of it is phonetic, however the unique characters and sounds appear in so many words. That, coupled with the speed of their language, is providing me with a challenge.

I feel like I'm speaking at a 33rpm record pace (or slower) when I try to pronounce the words, and need to pick it up to at least a 45rpm. Meanwhile, the native Turkish speakers are at like 45rpm+. But at least I am working to close the gap. And, they have appreciated my meager attempts so far.

I needed a bite for dinner, so went local immediately. Made my way to a kebab place. Food is pretty cheap here. I think dinner was like $4.20. The guys joked with me about being from Chicago (the easiest place for me to say I'm from). They wanted to know if I was a gangster like Al Capone, or a tough guy (then they discussed back and forth in Turkish and told me they meant "wise guy"). Bottom line, I'll probably visit them almost daily because my flat bread was fantastic.

Now, if only these snow flurries will stop.

It isn't bad music. But the playlist needs updating.

     I really struggled sleeping on the flight over.  Probably due to the timing of it all.  I went +8 hours which isn't a big deal in and of itself, however the majority of the 8 hours fell over my normal awake time anyhow.  I tried to sleep while reading. I tried to sleep while watching movies.  I tried to sleep while listening to music.  I tried to sleep not doing anything. This was the worst because I could almost hear the seconds ticking away in my head as I sat there attempting to not engage in anything.

Two hours is all I slept.

     The flight was great, though.  Really enjoyed breakfast, which was some sort of cheese and spices stuffed pretzel bread.  Or something.  I don't really know, and I didn't ask.  Got in a little late, but that was due to leaving JFK late because of the rain and winds.

     So, I had printed up directions to my hostel (Bahaus Hostel).  For some reason, a lot of people familiar with the movie Hostel (executive produced by Quentin Tarantino) seem to think my experiences could end up like that.

Courtesy Lion's Gate films, 2006. All rights reserved.

      It has never ended up like that.  Hostels are great places to stay.  Cheap, entertaining, located in great areas of the places you want to visit.  And rarely contain psychopathic murderers, to the best of my experience.







 

     Where was I?  Oh, yeah. I had printed up my directions and a map.  Everything I needed to get off and on 2 different metro/ trams, through the stations, and my short walk past Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) to Bahaus Hostel.  I check this thing out repeatedly as I'm going along.  Get through the first metro stop and switch to my tram.  Everything is going great. I keep checking out my notes.  Still going great.  The stops are flying by to where I get off: Sultanahmet station.

     So, what do I do?  Get off five stops early at Aksaray.  I don't know if I was sleep walking or what, but then I start heading down the street, as if I had gotten off where I was supposed to.  I probably went the better part of 1/2 a mile down the road before I decided I was not where I was supposed to be.  So, now what?

     'Scuse me while I whip this out.  And I pulled out my notes again and tried to read with my puffy, sleep-deprived eyes. After staring at it for just under five minutes, I realized what I had done.  Which made me feel a whole lot better about the fact that nothing seemed to match up with my directions.  Getting lost and taking a wrong turn aren't the same thing, fortunately.

     I made my way back to the station and finally made it to my stop.  My extra jeton (subway token) it took to board again only cost me $1.14 (about 1/2 the price of Chicago CTA), so it wasn't too expensive a lesson for me to learn.

   And after a nap, I am having a beer in the bar here at the hostel. All they had was Tuborg, but it's not Turkish (it's Danish). So, I will have to wait until later for some local beer.  And our "bartender" (I think it is just a title, as he is just the guy who twists the cap off my beer) is in control of the music.

Which is fine, but sort of outdated and inconsistent in it's ability to create any particular atmosphere.