Steph Goes to Asia

Hi all,
So, today I went to Asia, but it was only a minor (ha ha) part of my day. Today marked the beginning of the 3 day celebration of the end of Ramadan, called Bayram (pronounced Bye-rum) - which is what you'd think people would do after a month of fasting. Alas, since there's a tenet against drinking alcohol, that would not be the case. Ok. Enough Puns.

HD's Family Visits
So, when I went to bed last night, HM hadn't told me anything about what to expect today. I was upstairs and showered by 9:45, catching HM in the kitchen. "Oh!" she said, "I forgot to tell you that today we will go to HD's great aunt's house for a Turkish breakfast because of Bayram...I'm glad you're ready - we leave in 10 minutes!". Ok. I can go with that. We swing by HM's Mother's house (she doesn't drive) and drive into the city - without my camera. After about 45 minutes we enter the great aunt (and uncle's) apartment. It's very much what I now imagine the classic view of a Turkish apparent to be like. It had the beautiful carpets (guess who will be lugging one home..?), family pictures galore, heavy and ornate wood furniture, and crystal chandeliers (albeit now electrified). I was, for the first time so far, given the full-blown Turkish welcome: the double kiss. I discovered I have a lot less problems kissing old people (and trust me, I got plenty of practice today!) than I did in Germany whenever I met young guys from Spain!

Breakfast was a very nice treat, the full-blown traditional breakfast, plus delicious baklava and Boerek (a new favorite...). Nevermind the plentiful cups of tea. As custom, I was offered food continuously, but managed to balance the line between politeness and being stuffed. K was rather impatient, as his mother had thought to bring along UNO. A great idea, as kids have no love of 3 hour long visitation sessions. However, the people behind Bayram were geniuses and even thought of a way to bribe -erm-reward the kids for visiting: it's traditional to slip money to them near the end of the visit. It was very interesting to find out that the great aunt was like a second mother and that the great uncle was a colonel in the Turkish army (a lifer) who had his decorations in a large cabinet and he also apparently spent a year stationed in the US in CA. He was very sweet, and gave me a grand tour. But all good times must come to an end. So, several hours and kisses later (with many hands of UNO), we continued with what was decided on as an impromptu trip to visit HD's mother. She, however, is dead. So I got to see my first Turkish cemetery. It was gorgeous. The graves are actually more like marble boxes that double as flowerbeds, with the name plaques behind them. There were degrees to the opulence, but all were white marble and cultivated in some way. It was also a very popular destination today, and parking was scarce.

HM's Family Visit
So, unbeknownst to me, at some point a discussion happened that decided that all the family visiting should take place today. So we set off to see HM's great aunt. She apparently is a fascinating woman - never married and independent - although it was a much shorter visit. I discovered that it's definitely a tradition to have a well-stocked chocolate candy dish (much to K's delight), and of course there's always a beverage offered. Afterwards we went to the family's old neighborhood (a lot of families buy whole apartment buildings -smaller ones- and my family still rents theirs out) restaurant for a traditional Turkish meal. It was very good, with exceptional service (I wore the poor waiter out refilling my water glass, I'm afraid).

After lunch we struck off to HM's Grandmother's house. She lives on the Asian side of the Bosphorous, so I got to visit a whole new continent! It wasn't very exciting. However, the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge - think near copy of Golden Gate Bridge - which spans the Bosphorous, charged no fee today because of Bayram. So naturally it was a mess. The news ran a special showing all the drivers that tried to insist on trying to pay anyways, which was amusing.

However, we finally arrived at the Great Grandmother's apartment. She is a tiny thing (HD calls her a dwarf in an affectionate (?) manner) who also brought out the tea and baklava. (Quick point to ponder...if I manage to eat my body weight in both yogurt and baklava will they balance out? I'm thinking no...unfortunately!). The visit took about 2 hours, and I spent a good chunk of time playing UNO. Luckily we headed back after that (at around 7:30pm) and the traffic caused the normally non-rush hour 40 minute-long trip to take 1.5 hours. So, a very long day ending with K crashing in the car.

Tomorrow we will stay home (or that's the plan, anyway) and I'm looking forward to that!
Hope all is well,
Steph

I Survived Saturday

Hi all,
My title sounds a little dramatic, but in all fairness I did spend most of my day running around with K. We played what felt like a million rounds of UNO (although I managed to briefly teach him Slap Jack...) and whenever it wasn't raining outside, HM and I shooed K outside. G had basketball training/a game today and apparently he was named player of the game. Other than running around outside a lot and playing cards (with a new real of no TV - K gets too distracted and games last FOREVER...), my day was pretty normal:

Food
I know, I know...but as my father will gleefully recount to anyone who'd like to hear, he once asked me what my favorite class was in school - and I responded "LUNCH!". Not that school lunches necessarily rocked my world (although I would still eat off of partitioned trays if I could...), but I was able to never have to hear "Inside Voice Steph!" or otherwise be shushed. Anyhow, I digress.
Today I had my first "typical" Mediterranean/Turkish breakfast: bread with olives (green and black), cheese, cut up tomatoes and "jam" (which was more like apricots in a thick syrup). Plus the ever-present black tea of course, which is mixed half with water. Apparently on the Asian side of Istanbul they're more likely to drink green tea instead, which really doesn't surprise me!
For dinner I had a soup made out of lentils (plus pureed vegetables) that was a rather bright yellow/orange color...with fresh lemon juice. This somehow worked for me. HM is very proud and bragged to the neighbors that I eat everything. Works for me.

Corrections/Knowledge Update
As much as this will thrill my father...remember the fireworks yesterday? Definitely weren't fireworks. Apparently it was gunfire from a slightly distant village (though not the nearest one). HM said they were shotguns, and I'm pretty sure people don't normally hunt in the dark here...

Anyhow, remember when I said I walked by the front of a very busy courthouse? I found out the back story today. Apparently about 198 days ago the son of a very prominent business family murdered his girlfriend. It's a very morbid case, including a decapitation when he tried to fit her into a cello case. He then managed to be on the lam for about 197 days. He then turned up at the police station 2-3 days ago with his lawyers. Apparently he's 17 and wants to be tried as a juvenile, and he's getting much closer to 18. Although there's been rumors that his parents messed with his documents, falsifying his age. This raises few questions for me. 1. If you've been missing for that long, why bother to show up? 2. Why would he bother to show up if his documents had been falsified - surely if he's actually 18 he'd rather leave the country for good, and 3. Even if he's 18 now, if he was younger at the time...wouldn't he still be tried as a juvenile? Unless he was actually 18+ at the time, in which case my question goes back to 2.

Anyhow, that's really all I have for right now. My host parents are visiting outside with several neighbors and the kids are playing video games or watching TV. Which is great, as I'm quite exhausted!
Hope all is well,
Steph

Set for the Long Weekend

Hi all,
Today was very restful (though I had trouble sleeping in, with the cleaning lady around I feel bad). I spent most of the day in my room doing some reading, writing some postcards and being lazy. I wanted to stay out of the way for the cleaning lady. Quite unlike the Putzfrau in Regensburg, this one seems very friendly and nice, but has absolutely no English. Yet she still likes to talk at me, with an inquiring look in her eyes - like she just thinks that if she uses small enough words and speaks slowly I will understand. I wish!
Let the Games Begin
When the boys came back from school the older, G went up to his room. K plunked himself in front of the tv. I asked if he wanted to play a game, but he said no - eyes still glued to the cartoons. I decided to try anyways, and got out UNO. K's eyes flickered my way, and despite his earlier hesitance he was soon playing with me. I had to only slightly modify the rules (he always goes first, reversals act like a skip with only 2 people) because he already knows all his English colors and numbers up to 22 (which we can thank his brother G for being such a big fan of Deal or No Deal for). I was thrilled with my success - and his mom was happy too when she came home. 2 hours and approximately 23 games later (we were playing to 10, he won 10-9 but lost count once or twice and wouldn't believe my numbers...lol) I was a little UNOed out. However, we then got his brother to play as well. I think he would've played for a few more hours...but my stamina just wasn't up to it, so I was happy when it was dinner and then bedtime (we ate around 7:30 pm).

Fighting Like Cats and Dogs?
Minosh and Tekila are quite the pair. Tekila likes to come over with her ball, and did so when I was lying on the couch. She's very obedient, but only when you speak Turkish to her. Sensing that there was some attention to be had, Minosh decided to join the party. So, soon I was scratching both animal's ears. However, Tekila got jealous and came over and started mouthing Minosh. Tekila had a bad antibiotic mix-up when she was a pup, and so her teeth are very badly eroded already at the age of 3. When she turned around, Minosh retaliated by jumping off of the couch...onto Tekila's back! They then took turns tusseling, with Tekila staying lying down, and rolling onto her stomach to entice Minosh to attack. I was a bit concerned that things would elevate, but G came by and reassured me that they play all the time (along with sleeping together often) and I noticed that Tekila was smart enough to keep her eyes closed and only mouth at Minosh. Quite the pair, those two.

Weathering the Weekend?
HM was pretty upset to find out the weather forecast for this weekend includes rain on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. She said she felt like she was living in England! G has basketball training on Saturday and Sunday and we will visit HD's great aunt as part of the Ramadan ending celebration. Fireworks just went off a few minutes ago, so I believe it is officially finished. This will probably mean lots of other unannounced (but welcome) visitors, and so quite a lot of tea will be drunk. I enjoy the tea (with a good helping of sugar) but have rediscovered my poor tolerance of caffeine. Any past 5 o'clock and I'll be up at least until 1. However, I would rather be awake than rude, and everyone takes hospitality so seriously, so I'll probably end up just sucking it up.
One Last Thing - Searching for a Good Read?
HM was amazing and found a book that she thought I might be interested in: "Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey" Edited by Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Goeken. I'm just under half way through with it and I have to say it's utterly fascinating. It was published in 2005, and some of the events take place as early as the 1960's, but it's mostly pretty contemporary. Just something to think about.

Hope all is well,
Steph

Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern

Hi all,

Well, it's been a long day today, so I'm going to try to keep things brief (though this tends to somehow morph out of hand, so we'll see). I got up this morning at 7 to find out that HM had ended up in the hospital last night (food poisoning?) and only discovered this as I was walking out the door with the boys and U. The drive was a challenge to stay awake and U did not seem happy to have to take me into the historic downtown. This involved two subway routes, a funicular (which only sounds dirty), and a street tram ride. About 30 minutes from a 45 minute drive from home/20 from the boys' school. Unlike yesterday, U wasn't too interested in trying to communicate. I'd told HM he didn't have to hover and go to things just because I did, he could dump me off and do his own thing. So we tried to synchronize my "new" cell phone (set from when G visited the US - right hour, wrong minutes though...) and so he just pointed out a time 4 hours in the future and dropped me at Hagia Sophia.

Hagia Sophia -Ayasofya - Church of Holy Wisdom
I actually read about HS before I visited it (pretty much a first...). It stood for almost 1000 years as a Christian church, built by Emperor Justinian, who was pretty darn pleased with himself. The dome is high enough to allow the Statue of Liberty to fit under (with some feet to spare!), and this was obviously an even bigger deal back in the day, when it would've dominated the landscape. However, Justinian turned out to be a cocky little dude, when the dome was damaged in an earthquake less that 2 years later. So, up went a new, smaller dome that had extra support and glass windows inserted to act as an early warning system. Ie: "Oh, my goodness...broken glass...probably should leave now...thump". Now, I'm going to use the guidebook to cheat a bit for dates. In 1204 it was sacked and leveled by the Crusaders (nice going, assholes) which had the effect of permanently dividing the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

In 1453, Mehmet II (look him up, I'm busy) plundered/robbed/conquered etc, slapped his head to the floor and declared the temple subject to Allah. So, all the beautiful paintings were covered (that whole graven image thing wasn't flying) and some nice tiles were smacked up. I took pictures, and you can hopefully see them...maybe. They did some renovation, added a Mihrab (indicating Mecca's direction) . Finally, Ataturk (mucho importanto for modern day Turks, basically accredited with leading them into the modern world) declared the church/mosque to be a museum. They've undertaken to rennovate it, so parts are partially obscured. Oh, and they let cats wander around in it.

I can recommend you take a good hour to poke around and study the restored/uncovered frescoes and mosaics (although most are just pictures of them in the upper gallery, which is beyond weird). I have some video of this, but blogger won't load them even though they're the right type and size. Sigh. Maybe try to web album.

For the rest of the 2.5 hours I had a snack (which turned out to be lunch), and people watched/poked around the outside. Then I met up with U and we went to the Basilica Cisterns.
It's probably not worth the 10TL to go to, but it was neat to see.

Basilica Cisterns
The Cisterns is a waterwork project that the Romans made. It is an underground cavern that collected water. There were 336 columns (mostly Ionic, but some Doric as well), and as you can see from the pictures, it was only dimly lit. There were fishes (and money) that live in the water though, and some of them were HUGE. The main highlight, however, was seeing the Medusa heads (pictures shown). Scientists aren't 100% sure WHY they were put there (although the general consensus is that it was to ward off bad omens - as apparently her gaze is deadly to them as well) but do agree that they were put upsidedown and at an angle on purpose.

One the way back to the car we passed a courthouse teeming with newscasters and with a strong show of police/military. I have no idea what the they were waiting for (a trial outcome or beginning) but it looked pretty serious. We got the boys on time, and I spent a lot of time outside with K. I've decided to stay home tomorrow to relax before the 4 day weekend holiday. Since Ramadan is ending, everyone gets Monday and Tuesday off as well. Going to be intense, but hopefully a lot of fun!
Hope all is well,
Steph