Pragurkreece: In Which We See Sights In Istanbul That Are Not A Market

Leah and I had bought long dresses from the first dress shop we saw on our first day, because Istanbul makes you feel uncomfortable if your knees are showing. But mine needed hemming and hers had a rip so the proprietor said to bring them back the next day and he'd fix them, but when we brought them back the next day he said he'd take them home that night and fix them and that we could pick them up the next day. So it was the morning of our third day in Istanbul before we finally acquired what we consistantly and inappropriately referred to as our burqas.

(Unrelated PS: Turkey is full of feral cats and they are sleek and clean-looking and I wanted to snuggle them.)  We also had scarves that we flung about our heads and shoulders for entrance into various mosques and mausoleums.

And guys?  The mosques are worth the price of a long dress.  I think they appeal to the princess in me because they're all spires and shit.

The Hagia Sophia is my man-made visual highlight of the trip.  Imperial Door!

Enormous windows!

Whatever...you know, whatever these things are!

The hole where you put your thumb in and then twist it and then wish something!

(We wished on all the things you can wish on, everywhere.  Mostly we wished for a million dollars, a cold beer, and for it to stop being so damned hot.  Wishing is generally 1 for 3.)

These places are so old, you guys.  The Hagia is from the BYZANTINE EMPIRE!  I don't know how old things are where you're from, but in Vancouver we do not build enormous elaborate buildings COMPLETELY OUT OF STONE so that they last through various dynastic take-overs.

On to more mosques.  The Blue Mosque is aptly named. 

Stunning, no?  And kind of blueish?  It is less impressive on the inside, but only because the Hagia BLOWS the MIND.  It is still totally worth the price of admission, though.  Topkapi Palace, on the other hand, is entirely not worth said price of admission (or we did it wrong?  We had no map and kept feeling like we were missing out on something exciting).  It was mostly long lines and the hot press of bodies and jewel-encrusted daggers, which all start to look pretty samey after a while.

So. Many. People.  It was almost worth it for the photo police, who kept a sharp eye out for anyone trying to snap a pic of the sultan's formal caftan, and then politely but vigorously shuffling them from the room.

Definitely worth it, and Really Unexpectedly Awesome, was the Basilica Cistern.  We'd passed a sign for it one day and half-heartedly tried to find it, but finding things in 40-degree weather is an exercise in quitting trying to find that thing.  The evening of our third night we sort of had nothing to do, so we set out to find it again with really no idea what we were looking for or what a cistern is.  Behold, y'all.

It is where they store water in case of seige, AND it is visually stunning.  AND, because it was evening, we pretty much had the thing to ourselves.  So we romped in it.  Nothing says a broken tailbone like romping on damp marble in flip-flops, guys.  I consider that bullet narrowly dodged.

Pragurkreece: The Part Where Istanbul Gets Two Posts Because There's SO MUCH OF IT.

Jet lag is way less noticable when you have to get up and go to Istanbul.

T is for Turkey.

Mike and I bought inflatable neck pillows at the airport, and they came with a complementary lost-and-found service.  This is not a useful service to have.  The wee plane from Prague to Budapest felt like a roller-coaster, stomach-wise, but there were free sample shots of Johnny Walker Black in the Budapest airport (obviously) and booze is great for indigestion.

Our Istanbul hostel was supposed to send a shuttle to the airport to pick us up, but many things in Turkey Do Not Exist As Advertised, so we wrangled public transit most of the way there.  A few stops before the stop we were supposed to get off at, the stop-announcey thing said a bunch of things in Turkish and then everyone got off, so we got off.  One does not remain on public transit in an unfamiliar country when the locals are scattering.

We found our hostel eventually, and even though it advertised AC our third-floor room had only a single, sad fan.  This single, sad fan was plugged into the only single, sad outlet, but it was 40+ degrees out so we could never turn the fan off while we were in the room.  If we wanted to charge something gadgety like a camera, it had to be done while we were out of the room.  Touristing.  With our cameras.

The advertised AC was in the common room, which was in the basement of a separate building.  We maaaaaaay have spent our first evening in Istanbul down in that common room, sampling Turkish beers and watching Turkish sports highlights.

Istanbul is hot busy and awesome and smells like bbq and looks like this: 

There will be a whole separate post later on trip eatings, but suffice it to say that even though my travel doctor told me not to eat the street meats, OH DID WE EVER EAT THE STREET MEATS!  We spent the second day poking around the Grand Bazaar, where street meats abound.

You'd expect from that picture that the Grand Bazaar would be thronging with people, no?  But it is way more shopping-mall than I expected.

Also, it is less hilariously cheap than the street stalls.  We knew that Istanbul was going to be our least expensive stop, shopping-wise, so even though everything we bought we were going to have to haul on our backs for two weeks, we got plenty of practice looking disgusted at a stated price and walking away.  Canada should permit bartering.

A mysterious distance away from the Grand Bazaar is the Spice Market, which looks like a lot of this:

And this:

And the perfumator let Leah and I pretend like we worked there.

We had dinner at Doy Doy which, guys, if you ever find yourself accidentally in Istanbul, eat there.  We started our meal on the 4th floor terrace like a bunch of suckers, but quickly scampered up to the fifth floor once we realized there were STILL MORE STAIRS!  You can see a lot of things from a fifth floor terrace.

Meta-photo!!  Seriously, the whole city was almost overstimulating.  I wanted to have way more eyes.  We couldn't stop looking at things, and could barely go back to our hostel because there's the Hagia Sophia in the dusk!

Tune back in tomorrow, where we see the Sopia in the daytime.

Pragurkreece: The Jet-Lag Recovery Edition

Double disclaimer: this blogragge will be sort of hilter-jilter and I'll try to keep it to one post per city but some things deserve a post all their own (I'm looking at you, Turkish bath).  And then also, our camera began to death-rattle the day we got to Prague and died in over-exposurey glory in Ephesus, so many of the following photos are Mike and Leah's.  Thanks, guys.

Ok so.  Late in July I went camping and Joel wrote the USMLE and then we both went camping which I will tell you about some day because we borrowed a dog and it was awesome, and then we threw some things in a suitcase and went to Prague.  Via Heathrow.  Where I thought we had a 2-hour layover but where we actually only had about 45 minutes and Heathrow?  Is really big.  We took a metro to make our connection and we weren't even leaving the terminal.

We left Vancouver at 8 pm and got to Prague at 6 pm the next day, because Prague is both far away and in the future.  Also, it is full of dogs.  And not full of random feral dogs like Thailand is full of dogs, but full of people's dogs.  People bring their dogs into the restaurant and the waiter brings it a dish of water and it sits under the table and this is amazing.

H'anyvays.  Mike and Leah picked us up from the airport and showed us their place of employment and made us dinner and plied us with beers and basically tried to keep us awake until a reasonable hour to counter the jet lag.  I slept a full nine hours, but when I woke up at 9 am it was midnight on my body clock and I felt like I should hunker down for another night's sleep.

Instead we went adventuring.  On the one hand, Prague is exactly how it looked in my mind, which is to say old, and cobbled, and almost fakey-looking because it is so pretty.

On the other hand, it is full of random shit.  Like these penguins.

Or the John Lennon wall.

Or, and this was my favorite because we had just walked over Charles Bridge (which is heavily be-statued with saints and shit) or something else historicky and then Leah is like, Brace yourself coming around this corner, and then we come around the corner and Hey!  Enormous iron babies.

The hell, right?  David Černý, you have a crazy brain.

Visiting a city with people who know the city is lovely, because you get to see all the things.  Prague is full of things, and we have a great many pictures like this:

And this:

And while you are seeing all the things, you make a List of Things you want to do when you have more than one day in Prague.  Like flaming absinthe shots.  And then, after you have seen all the things, you still have time to go shopping for a Turkey-propriate maxi dress and come up empty-handed (because even though it's late-July, it's fall for all retail intents and purposes) and pause to take in the unexpected Folklore Festival with its various Folk and their impromptu dancing and then go for dinner and roll into bed at a reasonable hour because you are going to Turkey the next day.

Pragurkreece: The adventure begins!

Guys!  I went to Prague!  And from there, to Turkey!  And from there, to Greece!

There will be some exceedingly photo-heavy posts in the days ahead, but I'm suddenly very sleepy and also I have to go to the beach.  I leave you with a tantalizer.

Way better than with fish.

Tonight I am going to a Japanese-movie-and-sushi night, so I made candy sushi to bring along.

Adorablemente, no?  Some california rolls?

Some nigiri?

You like a bite?

If you have need of a thing, that thing exists in the Universe for you

This post references my boobers several times.  Fair warning.

I have two halter-style dresses that I love being in and that pack incredibly small and so I want to take them traveling with me, but I don't have a good halter-style bra, PLUS I don't really want to be bringing more bras with me.  So I've been hunting all over for a bathing suit top that will match these brown bottoms I have AND double as a suitable bra, thereby killing two traveling stones.

I have two brown-themed bathing suit tops, but one has insanely thick straps and is all Hey you!  She's wearing a bathing suit under here!  It is fantastic for swimming laps because the thick straps keep my girls in order, but lousy as a bra-double.  My other brown-themed top only has the one layer, and I like to have something a little thicker in the nippular region if I'm going anywhere except my patio.

I combed The Garage and Urban Planet and Dynamite because did I mention I only want to spend, like, $15?  I am stricken with poverty, y'all.  But mid-summer in real life = early fall in clothing stores, so all's that's left on the bathing suit racks is the dregs.  I'm totally fine with dregs as long as they are brown-themed and have skinny straps, but alas.

After two hours of mall-trawling and accidentally buying a coat (I am hopeless in the face of Urban Planet's cheap, adorable coats.  Even in the middle of July) I remembered I'd forgotten to eat lunch and was immediately hungry and cranky.  I had an hour yet til my coffee date but headed there early to grab something in the way of a brownie.

On the way there I passed Flavor, which is where I'd bought one of the dresses in question and which I was pretty sure carried bathing suits.  This post clearly needs a photo at this point.

Cute dress, right?  Flavor is full of cute dresses.  Also, the bra-kini is a thing that exists, and Flavor has them, and they had the last brown one in my size for $15.  It's a bikini top that is also a bra.  It is exactly the thing that I needed.

Just checking in before I check out

Many exciting things happened today vis a vis children and bikes (like how Kate and I were spelling each other off doing laps with The Child For Whom I Am Primarily Responsible because it is sweaty work running next to a biking child but then they brought out The Child's bike from home which is EXCITING FOR HER but terrifying for those of us who have gotten used to having a don't-tip bar to grab when she's tipping, so Kate and I flanked her and we ran in a flying V, which was excellent for safety purposes but terrible for spelling-off purposes and I sweated much) but I spent the afternoon at the beach and then I had book club (not my shouty book club or my really exclusive med-wives book club but the other one) and now I am a sleepy puppy.

I am totally reading The Graduate and it is salacious and great.

It was a good day.

The Child For Whom I Am Predominately Responsible got up on a two-wheeler today (and stayed up) and I almost cried and her mom almost cried and The Child almost cried and the camp director did not almost cry because he is Very Serious but he smiled and we high-fived everyone within arm's reach and then went outside and I ran alongside her and her two wheels until we were both profusely sweated.

In which I learn a new trick.

I have driven across town and back THRICE now so I'm getting happily comfortable with the route and have avoided hitting several cyclists which has done wonders for my confidence so that I can finally drive with the radio on and not feel like I'm going to die and WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT CAR SINGING!?!?!  Singing with the radio when you are the only one in the car is the best of best things.

The purpose of this post is mostly to complain about how sore my calves are.

They are sore.

So, I'm working at Lose the Training Wheels this week, which is a daycamp to teach kids with special needs how to ride a two-wheeler bike, which is IRONIC because I am crap at riding two-wheeler bikes, but the only skills required for the helping of these kids is that I run alongside them on their modified bikes with my hand hoving by the do-not-tip handle, and shout encouragement at them.

Ok so there's three rounds of kids in a morning, and the first round I am a floater, which means I sit on the sidelines with other floaters and laugh because there's this one kid who is fast and he is giving his runner a run for his money, and there's this other kid who is literally distracted by the air.  So he's looking every which way and almost tips every second second and his runner has her hand on the do-not-tip handle more or less all the time.

And then the second round I get a little girl who is little and seven and really very small and also fast.  She is....I don't even know why she's at this camp.  We'll have her on two wheels by Wednesday.  ANYways, she's fast and intent on passing everyone and really good at not shouting SEE YA LATER at them after I tell her that probably hurts their feelings and also very agile and an excellent passer.  Also, fast.  So I chase her with my legs for 75 minutes and then I go have some juice and she goes home.

And the third round I'm technically a floater again but this is the 'challenge' round, full of the kids who bolt and the kids who have seizures and one girl can't keep her eyes on the prize (where 'the prize' is 'the area in front of her') so I run backwards in front of her, calling her name and asking her how many fingers I'm holding up and doing anything I can to get her in the habit of looking frontwards.

Backwards is harder than forwards, and we have come full-circle to my calves and why they ache.

Bing me.

We've been living here for a year and a half and our yard is not enormous but somehow I never noticed that WE! HAVE! a CHERRY! TREE!

And not even a shitty, non-producing cherry tree like the one at my parents' house that would squeeze out four cherries per year and we would fight over them even though they were bitter as hale.  This cherry tree has, you know, cherries.

And they are delicious.

AND, since the basement troll is awol (Have I mentioned that?  That he's scarpered and we're stuck watering the lawn until either he comes back or it becomes clear he's not coming back soon and our landlords hire someone else to water the lawn?) I don't feel bad about harvesting them ALL for my own personal snacking purposes.

Fruit scoot riot, here I come.

Victoria is The Wild.

Joel goes out to bbq some burgers and there's a DEER on our lawn, and the deer sees Joel and is all, I'mma get outta here!  And I see the deer and am all, I'mma get a blurry picture of that deer getting outta here!

So the deer gets outta here, but then he must have cycled back because I go out later to chat with Joel about the burgers (they have a wedge of herbed butter in the middle.  Gross, and also, awesome) and the deer lunges out from behind us and goes jaunting across the driveway.

And then waits for traffic to lull before crossing the street.

In which driving has its drawbacks

I am the most independent thing that ever went to the doctor.  Yesterday I drove myself to the GP, which takes a third of the time that bussing-and-then-walking-or-waiting-for-the-irregular-and-infrequent-6C-bus, and then today I drove myself to the optholomologologist to see what was wrong with my wretched, blood-shot eyes (answer: Who knows!?  Sure not him!  Take some eye-drop samples.) but to do his eyeball-looking he had to dilate my pupils, leaving me with enormous, moon-baby eyes.

Guys, moon-baby eyes SHUT when they are in the sun.  You CANNOT DRIVE with your moon-baby eyes shut.  You have to walk around the mall in sunglasses, keeping clear of large windows (which, it's a mall.  It is made of large windows) for HOURS.  Also, you cannot buy anything because they also numbed your corneas (so they could POKE THEM [!!!]) and you're having trouble getting your eyes to work in partners so you can see what you're not buying.  Also, you cannot read.

I didn't have my camera handy (alas) so I can't share the moon-baby eyes with you, only the coming-down-from-the-moon-baby eyes (i.e. once I could drive).  They are still having trouble playing nicely together..

Old friend, new again.

My baby laptop!  It is returned to my hands, with its brain washed and its bits re-installed.  Getting a new laptop, or an old one re-jiggered, is like going on a first date.  Google becomes very solicitious.  Do you want me to remember this password?  How about this one?  Should I stop asking?  Will you have the chicken or the fish?

A diary of treats

After three weeks of meat and meat-based products in Terrace, I wanted to eat nothing but rubbish and produce.  So for the ride home Tina packed us some snacks, and I stopped by Liquidation World for a selection of off-batch treats.  Like Cheecha Krackles.

The were not...I have eaten worse things.  8:00 am - Leave Terrace.  9:00 am - bust open Cheecha Krackles.

10:30 - Reese Peanut Butter Crunch bar, which is not exactly off-batch but which is a Thing I Have Not Eaten and Which Is Cheap At the LW.

11:30 - feeling pleasantly rubbishy in the stomach, decide to break out some of Tina's snacks.  Tina has a habit of packing off-batch vegetables, and these cucumbers look the worse for wear.

eat an apple instead, regret choice of jean shpants.  It is hot on my side of the car.

1:30 - flagging a bit, have just passed through Prince George.  Break out some Master Cafe to perk up the early afternoon.

2:30 - change into shorts (finally).  Feeling the need for sustainance, pull out cheese-and-pepperoni combo.  Is that cheese moldy?

Nay!  It is jalapenized.  Potentially delicious, definitely tastes like Liquidation World.

4:00 - still so far from home.  Pull out some of Tina's muffins for the stretch.  They taste like Health.

6:00 - sad-looking giant Twix bar.  It is hella hot in the car.  Sorry, little Twix.

7:30 - egads this is a long drive.  Also, straight-up bar of nougat?  Delicious.

9:00 - pull into Chilliwack, have enormous salad with perfectly reasonable amount of meat.

10:00 - leave Chilliwack for Burnaby.

10:30 - get stuck in traffic.  Have been in car for 13 1/2 hours, feel pranked by the Universe.

11:45 - roll into Burnaby and straight into bed.