Mutlu Yeni Yıl! - Happy New Year!

Yesterday was mostly a lost day, figuratively and literally.  Got a late start then got lost trying to find a post office, which was in fact a little kiosk.  However, in my wanderings, I was approached and assisted by a young man whose persistence (and "friendliness") was surpassed only by his colleague and boss.  Though I was thoroughly appreciative of his assistance in locating the kiosk, he was thoroughly not going to let me slip away without the hope of a sale, and I relented and followed him to his store.  There, with the promise of apple tea (my first offer of tea in this hospitable place), I was pawned off to his superior who gave me  mostly unsolicited information on Turkish rugs.  Mind you, my budget can barely accommodate a rug that is barely larger than a bath mat, yet he turned a deaf ear to my protestations.  After what seemed like half an hour, I finally wrested myself from his deathly salesman grip, thanked him for the tea and left.  Phew.

This was followed by a visit to the famous Topkapi Museum, inspiration for the heist movie Topkapi and home of some famous sparklies.  It was cold, it was crowded, and I was anxious to see these famous sparklies and then hightail it out of there.  I had no plan, no map, no audio guide (all of which would have helped) and found them of course, at the very end.  Didn't dawdle, as the viewing was a couple of people deep, but it was pretty neat to see them in person.  Photos are not permitted, attached are from the web.

On my way out, as I stooped down to take pix of an adorable kitten (there are lots of docile strays roaming this part of the city), it pounced on my lap then waltzed up to my shoulder while the streaming crowd smiled at the crazy man with the cat on his shoulder.  I tried to capture the moment with a pic, but was unsuccessful.

I took a long nap and decided to stay in (skip dinner even, gasp!) and work on the final parts of one grad school application that had been giving me difficulty.  Well, as 10 p.m. rolled around, and my stomach grumbled, I knew I would not get any work done.  So I ventured forth and found the #1 rated restaurant on Tripadvisor, which just happened to be where I met "Potato Man" the night before.  The food was only okay, but the atmosphere and hospitality was warm.  I had a glass of raki to get those brain juices flowing (and a cup of coffee) and it seems to have worked as I was up until 5 a.m. working away.  And with some sleep, breakfast, more coffee and additional work, I can now say that that application is DONE!  Yay.  Now, I party.

Also, a shout out to Amelia today and Angela tomorrow!  Happy Birthday Ladies!  And to everyone, I wish you a New Year filled with joy, laughter, peace and meatballs!

If You Say "Meatball", I Say "I'm There"!

I spent the muted daylight hours of yesterday in search of history, and when nightfall came, I went in search of meatballs.  The math Ph.D. student I had befriended at the airport had suggested a Turkish meatball (köfte) place across from the Blue Mosque – except he didn’t know the name and there were two a few doors down from one another.  One was the original, the other the defector/upstart, but he did remember the better place had marble tabletops.  I explained to him The Original Ray’s Pizza analogy, but it was probably wise I didn’t delve into the John’s/Patsy’s/Grimaldi’s convoluted, almost Shakespearean histories.

So making my way out of the tourist ghetto, I am bound to encounter local men whose form of introduction is shouting out guesses as to where I am from: Singapore (I get that a lot), Korea, Malaysia, Japan (they all know “konichiwa”). They are all met with a shake of my head except one fellow who astutely shouts “American”.   So he successfully gets me to chat, as everyone is trying to engage you in conversation here, and introduces me to his obviously local pal whom he jokingly refers to as “The Potato Man” from Idaho.  Okay… Unusual, until the friend whips out his wallet to reveal an Idaho photo i.d.   Said friend has spent the better part of the year working at resorts and hotels in Coeur d’Alene, ID, Spokane, WA and Bozeman, MT.  Oh, and that most luxurious of eastern seaboard oases, Secaucus, NJ.

“Potato Man” then spots a pair of young American women turning our way down the cobblestoned street, just enough time for me to make my gracious exit, I mean, there are meatballs calling out to me. 

The köfte place is easy enough to find, the marble tabletops were a good hint, but it is also packed unlike the other place.  It does a brisk and efficient service, bringing to mind institutions that cater to hungry locals and tourists alike – say Peter Luger’s or Grimaldi’s save for the interminable line.  They seat me at a four-top where there is already a single, Asian male diner.  Hmmm, I think – they’re putting me in another ghetto I see.  Oh well, just get me some meatballs man!

“Meatballs” might be a misnomer, they’re more like flattened sausage links.  Tasty, I devour mine with hot sauce, bread, a salad, yogurt.  Not spectacular, but will do for now…

Oh!  And a special Happy Birthday to Cate!

Istanbul - Day 1

Well, I hit up two of the major attractions this afternoon which are just a stone's throw from my hotel - The Basilica Cistern and the Aya Sofya. It is cold and drafty and wet today, so no better place to escape than to an ancient underground water reservoir (which served the royal court) where it was colder, draftier and wetter than outside.  But all joking aside, this place was amazing.  The size and scope of the Aya Sofya, which alternately has been the greatest church in Christendom then a mosque, and now a museum - is impressive.  The artistry and craftsmanship alone is staggering.  If you start thinking about the historical and religious significance, it's pretty neat and makes Grand Central Station pale in comparison.  My camera ran out of juice, and it was getting might cold, so I hope you enjoy these few pictures.

The Odyssey

I do not know if Ulysses’ decades-long journey touched upon the shores of what is now modern day Turkey, but I feel like I have traveled very far and very long to find myself here.  I had a romanticized notion of what my first entry would be… Thanks to the blizzard of Holiday 2010 (the area airports did meet blizzard criteria even if Central Park did not), this is not it.

I arrived at JFK at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, 12/26/10 as snow was falling, wind blowing.  The original flight time of 4:45 was pushed back to 6:30.  We boarded around 7, only to sit on the plane for 2 hours before we were told to de-plane.  One of my seatmates was a nice, older gentleman who was a retired diplomat, having served stints in NYC, D.C., India and elsewhere.  Nice fellow.  We were informed that JFK would be closed until at least 1 p.m. the following day, meaning everything was shut down, e.g. our baggage that was loaded on the plane was staying there.  Great.

All hotel airports were booked, the wind was whipping the snows around outside and it was a pretty surreal sight.  There were other stranded flights to places like Frankfurt, Casablanca, etc.  And everyone tried to settle in for a long evening.  The seats had armrests between them, which made trying to sleep quite uncomfortable.  Others laid out blankets on the floor and cozied up.  A combination of lack of sleep and a serious stuffy head cold made me completely groggy and unable to manage much more than eating and sleeping in positions of upright, reclined, and various pretzel shapes. 

Come morning, after everyone had gotten some sleep, a cast of character starts taking shape in my little corner of the airport.  There is the aforementioned diplomat.  A very nice woman who had counseled me the night before not to sleep on the floor as it was cold and drafty.  And a young man who was a Ph.d student in math at Brown, headed home for the winter break.  He told me of a relatively new village near the town of Selcuk (which is my next destination) that is called the “Math Village” and there is an institute there.  I asked him if it would make me better at math if I visited, he said “if you take some classes.”  Boy, there ain’t enough classes…  There was also a young Asian’ish looking man, who was returning home to Kazakhstan after an internship at SUNY Buffalo.  So his trek entailed Buffalo to JFK, to Frankfurt, to Kazakhstan.  That’s a schlep.  Along with an odd, but nice fella from the SSR of Georgia, we all sort of watched each others bags, conversed, and basically shared in the experience that is being stranded at the airport. 

Our 1 p.m. boarding time became 4 p.m., which became 6 p.m.  We finally did board sometime after 9 p.m. and sat on the runway for 6 hours!  The diplomat had upgraded and told me to enjoy the extra space, which I did, until… They shuffled seats and I wound up with someone in that seat anyway.  So I was stuck in the middle (very cramped even by international standards).  After hour 2, they gave us a snack.  After hour 4, the young man on the other side of me had a pretty significant meltdown.  We’re not talking Steven Slater exactly, but the young man laid into an ineffectual flight attendant, saying he “was going crazy… could only watch so many movies… his ass was numb… that the only reason they boarded us was to shut us up… that they were treating us like children… that they hadn’t even started de-icing the wings and the captain’s very few and far between announcements with their very lame estimations of time were lies!”  I can’t blame the guy, I almost lost it too, and he basically said what everyone else was thinking.  They hadn’t even finished plowing around us so the de-icing machines could get to us.  We finally took off 2 hours after that… without the captain making any sort of announcement or anything.  Yes, the circumstances were extreme, but how or why do you NOT do that? 

Re: the lengthy  delay, here is a snippet from my sister back in NYC:

When you last texted on Mon night around 9:30 pm that you were boarding, we figured you probably got out around midnight. This morning on the Today show, I saw cell phone footage taken by one of their producers of the inside of your plane whilst you were on the tarmac for 6 hours. Unfortunately, he did not capture your seatmate's tantrum. He did say the booze ran out quickly. Did you have anything to do with that?

The answer to the booze question is no.  Sadly.  Would’ve made the cold that much worse. 

So, in that time, I got to see a few movies.  Here are my reviews:

INCEPTION: I love big, ambitious ideas as much as, if not more, than the next guy.  Especially dealing with dreams and the subconscious stuff, but this was sort of a big, blustery bore.  It was like The Matrix meets Ocean’s Eleven or something, but without much humor or substance.  I could go on, but won’t.   Also, I still don’t understand the appeal of Leonardo DiCaprio.  Go figure. 

FANTASTIC MR. FOX: was fantastic! Thanks to an effusive review by my friend Liz, I thought I’d give this one a try.  So original, funny and charming.  I highly recommend it.  And oddly enough, there was a barn with a big 27B on it, which happened to be my seat number.  And one of the characters’ name was BUNCE (which my niece Sofia will recognize as the acronym, Best Uncle Niece Combo Ever!). 

CLASH OF THE TITANS: Okay, you think,  Will’s got questionable taste.  True enough.  Innocuous, not terribly interesting.  Needed something to break up the rather dreary color palette.  Also had Pete Postlewaithe, who was also in INCEPTION. 

Review of airline food: GOOD!  Lots of dairy. 

So, after sitting on the plane for 15 hours, we arrive in Istanbul.  It’s cool, drizzly and I get gypped by your usual airport transport scenario.  I won’t go into too much detail, but the airport concierge gave me the options of a door-to-door service for 50 Euro or regular taxi for about 45… I didn’t even have the address of phone number for the hotel.  So unprepared.  I couldn’t help but feel like I was being taken advantage of, swindled, etc.  But I brought it upon myself to a degree.  I took a few yogic breaths, and exhaled quite animatedly to express my dismay.  Having experienced the fury of many a weary traveler, no doubt, my yogic search for a peaceful place was no match for her patience and persistence that wore me down.  You’ll be happy to hear I wound up with something less than 50 Euro, but still not a bargain. 

So your intrepid traveled made it to his hotel finally, after said door-to-door service meant the driver making two personal stops and not knowing where he was going. 

The room is tiny, but clean.  The bathroom is small, but clean.  The long, hot shower and breakfast on the roof was soooo nice.  Made me feel human again.