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

Perspective

Hi All,
Ooh, so raise your hand if you're a math expert (remember, the price is per liter)...then pass out visualizing the price of gas here. Yay. I'm 100% ok with not driving here, as several near-death experiences (though no one else in the car flinched) plus gas prices = dear God. Anyhow, I finally got out of the house today!

White on Rice
That's how close HM has stuck U. (The driver, I know I used F. but that's completely wrong, ignore it...) on me. It's nice to have my own little Turkish buffer (since my pronunciation skills are pathetically useless, despite the fact they have a lot of the same vowels as German), but I felt sorry for the poor guy today. HM took me into her office (after successfully shipping off the kids to school -K declared that it wasn't fair and if G didn't go to school today he wouldn't either...lol) where I got the goldfish treatment. Everyone got a turn to peek in and show off their English. It was funny, as one ended up asking me why I was going to take Turkish classes. I found this amusing as I would like to have SOME kind of idea of what's happening to me, and at this point any percentage over 0 would be grand. Back to the rice...we took the Metro (subway) to Taksim street. I then bored the guy to death as I meandered the whole length with him.

Taksim
At some point, U turned to me and gesticulated that we could go in any of the shops (this was essentially a shopping street with some big name designers and some littler ones as well). I explained that I was more interesting in just looking around. He figured that out when we stopped at the Basilica on the street (Random...) St. Anthony. Unfortunately, most of the church was roped off and they didn't allow pictures. But, I'll give you a hint: it looked like a church. Although the picture of the pope above the door was a new twist for me inside. I got a picture of the outside though. Across from it was a beautifully arched wall/window/door structure. (Clear enough..?)

I did end up stopping to get postcards. I feel like it's cheating to get ones of places I haven't seen yet, so I got some depicting some old Turkish art. I also got a good city map in English and eventually some stamps. When we turned around a few minutes later, U. decided to pick up an English/Turkish dictionary. As we'd maybe spoken about 10 words in the hour we'd spent so far together. We sat down for a cold drink (and yes Mom, I was wearing sunscreen : p ) and we managed to discuss family a little (very important). I will be lucky to see a Turkish wedding when I'm here, U. is getting married sometime next summer. He and his fiance make a very cute couple. Then again, his identical twin brother would probably look pretty good with her too, but my Turkish wasn't up to that quip. He has a good sense of humor and was trying very hard to communicate. (Which is fortunate, for the first hour I was dreading sitting down because I thought it would be the only thing possibly more awkward then walking around!) However, just as I was thinking that I wasn't sure I'd have anything interesting for this blog post, a university student protest set up camp just down the street. I asked U. about it, but he just said they were University students, implying that this was just what they do. Maybe it is?

Afterschool Adventure
We survived the rest of the afternoon until we went to pick up the kids. THAT was interesting. We picked up K on time, but G was 10...15..20...30 minutes later, and there was no G. I tried to keep K busy, and U. decided to go search for G. Now, they go to a private school, so the security is awesome and he couldn't have left the premise. I was still very glad that it would (well, couldn't since I didn't have a cell yet - got it tonight) NOT be my job to call HM if we couldn't find him. So U went to go look for G. Of course, as soon as U left, G found us. I implored him to stay put with us, but he insisted of running to look for U. Now, I assume everyone knows how brothers work? If the older does it, by golly, it'll take a cold day to get the younger to not! Luckily, he just wanted to go to the playground, and so U and G were able to find us shortly. As we were about home, I think U got a slightly panicked phonecall from HM, who'd come home early to make dinner since the new live-in housekeeper/cook doesn't start until Monday.

HM was great though, wanting to know how the day went. The only thing I could complain about was that U wouldn't let me buy my own food/drink. It's a nice gesture (and typical I think), but one I can do without. Lunch was an interesting Doener: it had the typical shaved meat and bread, but came topped with tomatoes and frenchfries...in the sandwich. Tasty though. HM now knows that I like to try new things, but even I vetoed her lunch suggestion of a traditional dish. I'm afraid my culinary openess doesn't currently extend to grilled sheep intestine. Oh, and I found out that the aqueduct was built in the 16th century (this one, anyways) and is called the Uzun aqueduct. Fun fact of the day. Anyhow, it's off to Hagia Sophia tomorrow and some more historic places.

Hoping all is well,
Steph