Apparently...

The world is falling to bits around me. I left the US of A on a bright afternoon not so long ago, just after a couple of days of rioting in London Towne. Since then, there has been an earthquake in DC, two in Northern California and now a Tornado is spinning out of control toward North Carolina and Manhattan!

Good grief, people. I leave for a few weeks and it all goes to the dogs. I wonder what I'll come home to?

Disasters on my front:

-I was blessed with a bout of "The Sultan's Revenge" a few days ago in Turkey. I was never a huge fan of Turkish food. Now moreso. So happy to be in Greece! It's amazing what wonders a twenty minute ferry ride can do for the culinary situation.

-I MAY have lost my beloved iPhone today. Stay tuned.

Fave Photo Friday

I've taken a zillion photos already and have just barely begun to import/edit them... a task that I probably won't finish until long after I'm home. But for now, here are a few of my finished faves from Istanbul:

It's a small world, after all

You never know who you'll meet while traveling. That's the fun of it. Today was a cornicopia of great people.

I began the morning with a trip to the grand bazaar. It certainly was grand. I got good and lost in it and walked round in circles until I found my way out again without spending a single Turkish Lira. Can you believe it? (I hate shopping and loathe haggling)

From the baazar to the suburb emanonou (the ferry port), where I boarded a boat and sailed away on the Bosphorous all the way to the black sea. At the mouth of the black sea, the ladies I'd been sitting next to, two turkish women, sisters around the age of 50, enjoying a day out together, motioned for me to get off the boat and go and see the castle on the top of the hill. So I did. Only the Yoros Kalesi was closed for "archaeological excavation." right. It looked as though it had been closed for years and that wasn't going to change anytime soon. But no one bothered to tell us that as the tourists slagged up a huge hill, walking through a complex of restaurants and shops, which housed the "short way to castle." right.



It was all good fun though, with great views, and I met a great couple from San Diego, both teachers living in Abu Dhabi, teaching there. They came over to istanbul on holiday. Apparently in Abu dhabi the salaries for teachers are the same as in the US, only they pay no taxes and their housing is paid for, so they come out ahead. Not bad!

On the way down the hill from the castle I found a great old graveyard. It was really interesting - a few of the graves had both headstones and footstones. And the oldest grave markers were all engraved in Turkish or Arabic, but the newer headstones were done in English.

When I started back for the ferry port, I heard a loud voice behind me speaking American english, talking about BYU. Wha?

I turned and asked "Are you guys LDS?"

They were. We all walked back to the port together, talking about travels. It was a young married couple and their 16 month old and one set of their parents. The young couple Had just graduated law school (both had) and were taking two months to travel Europe before starting jobs in NYC. Pretty cool.

Now I'm waiting at the port for the return ferry. An open-air restaurant behind me is playing a cd of knocked-off pop songs done over in Turkish. It was all pretty mellow until Gangsta's Paradise came on. It's just not the same in Turkish.







View of the Black Sea

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Topsy Turvy

Where to begin?

Istanbul is not at all what I'd expected. Which is funny, because I really didn't have any concrete expectations. But this city doesn't even conform to any loose expectations I may or may not have had.

Having traveled to Jordan and Egypt last year, I thought Istanbul would be similar, maybe? Similar in the beautiful, but rigid and strict Muslim approach to life. But it's not. The people in general are seriously laid back, friendly and helpful. The culture is very traditional, but also very accepting/tolerant/liberal. If you want to ease yourself into "middle eastern" travel, Turkey is a great place to start, then work your way further East.

Right now is Ramadan, which is a Muslim event that lasts a month. A holy month, if you will. This city is packed. To the gills. I hadn't expected that! Good thing I made my booking so far out.

Ramadan seems to have turned everyone's life around here topsy turvy.  In a normal kind of once-a-year way if you're Muslim.

During Ramadan, Muslim observers eat a morning meal around 5am. Then they fast until sunset/evening call to prayer (8pm) and then they stuff their faces. So apparently this has morphed into a hibernative daytime regime for those observing the holy month. Most of the people here for Ramadan are not out and about during the day. They stay inside. Then, around sunset, the parks fill up, the spaces in front of the mosques are all taken by families who have brought blankets and sit on the ground and wait for the evening prayer. Then they eat. Then they are awake. ALL NIGHT. Which is why when I arrived late last night (1am) the streets were nearly impossible to navigate a car around in (and I had a local driver).

Amazing.

 Both photos taken around 7:30am. Everyone is still in bed!

Stopover

London.

After a sleepless night in JFK I boarded my second flight of the journey bound for London. Though the entire journey will take nearly three days, in the middle of it, I feel much less jetlagged than normal after arriving in London. I blame it entirely on this:


Lovely, down-covered piece of heaven adjacent to the airport. The heathrow Hilton. I booked a screaming deal with them a few months back that included breakfast. It was the best decision ever, or nearly just. The desk attendants gave me a very late check out time of 3pm, and I didn't waste any of that time! I curled up in the perfect bed at 11:30pm and thanks to the down pillows, sound proof walls (the hotel is just off the airport. Never heard a single plane) and leather-lined blackout curtains I didn't come back to life until 11am. I did a double-take when I saw the clock! Heavenly sleep!

I did miss breakfast though.

So I grabbed a quick almond croissant (being so late they were out of chocolate) and then went to the gym for a great workout.

People should bathe after goin to the gym. Just saying, because the man on the treadmill next to me smelled as if he'd skipped his monthly bath last month. Yuck!

The English have astonishing baths. Bathtubs. I don't know what's wrong with Americans that they can't design a decent bath, but there it is. I want to transplant the bath from my hilton room back home. It's deep and long enough to stretch out and read a good book in. I loved it so much I took two baths (yes, one after the gym).

3pm came much to quickly and I zipped back to LHR terminal five, which is a universe of sensory overload! Aside from the simple shift of being outside of the US (driving on the wrong side of the road. Doors and toilets, spoons and the like all shaped slightly differently) terminal five is a corporate marketing dream come true. It's a bit diZzying really. Everywhere you look are stores and loud music, flat screen TVs advertising the latest perfumes and clothing.... I really wanted a pair of sound proof earphones to drown out the noise!
It's not like american airports at all. More like a hyped up shopping mall.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

No sleep till Brooklyn

I've begun my epic journey! Only to be waylaid in Pittsburgh by bad weather over NYC. Luckily it only took 2 hours to refuel and hop over to New York, where the weather had cleared. Also luckily, I knew I would have quite a long layover before continuing to London.

So although we were in the terminal at 2am, I was in no hurry to go anywhere. I walked around and stretched, then, feeling exhaustion set in, I spread out an airline blanket (that somehow conveniently found it's way into my bag) on the ground in the empty JFK terminal 8, set up my travel pillow, donned my socks, pulled on my eye mask and plugged in my earplugs. Then I proceeded to freeze and be ridiculously uncomfortable on the hard ground. Throw in some leg spasms and I was soon up and, once again, walking the concourse.

Just for fun I left and rode the courtesy bus around the airport, which killed a good half hour. Now here it is, 530, and I've still got at least an hour and a half before my next flight boards.

Things to report:

-I am too old to sleep on airport floors.

-terminal 7 at JFK is gross, and badly organized.

-the new terminal 2 at SFO is reallllly nice.

-there is a pinkberry frozen yogurt in SFO terminal 2.

-I used to think all the hype about pinkberry was stupid, having never tried it.

-I tried it. Now I get it. Pinkberry is legit. For real.

Am I in London yet?




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Looking at the world from a park bench

Saturday I packed a sandwich in my camelback and set off into the hills in the heat of the day. Eventually I found a bench in the shade of a gnarled old oak tree and sat and ate my turkey and Brie on ciabatta. The I lay on the bench awhile, observing the leaves on the tree, it's knotted branches and the blue sky above, while the sunlight played games with the tree above me. I looked out between the park bench slats and was quiet. And the world around me came to life. The groundhogs came out of their holes, the woodpeckers knocked on trees, and in the distance I could even hear the cry of a peacock. (?!)

The world is a lovely place full of surprises.







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People Just Liked it Better That Way...

I sat lazily outside in the backyard of some of my favorite friends last Sunday, chatting and enjoying the afternoon.

 My childhood friends. All growed up.

At one point in the afternoon, a girl several years younger than our circle of friends sat next to me and joined the light conversation. Unbeknownst to her, she really had no chance at breaking into the group, but was blissfully unaware (in that happy, teenage naive way) that she had intruded. It wasn't that she wasn't welcome to sit with us; more that we all would have rather been left to sit and reminisce without the burden of having to explain ourselves and our past antics to such a newcomer/temporary fixture. So I made polite conversation with her while the rest of the friends were a little more silent than they would have been were it just "the group."

The conversation went somewhat abridgedly like this:

Her:Where do you work/what do you do/oh really/that sounds cool/

Me: you're a recent finance grad/no I don't know of any job openings at my company/yes I travel a lot/yes I'm going on a trip quite soon/Istanbul/

Then from my left came a sly statement: "Not Constantinople."

I laughed. The girl to my right, remember she is several years younger, said "Huh?"

"Istanbul used to be called Constantinople in the time of the Romans." I explained.

"Oh!" Came the over exuberant and jovial reply from my right, while from my left we heard "Now it's Istanbul."

"Not Constantinople." I returned, snickering silently at the inside joke.

Again from the left: "Why they changed it, I can't say."

To the right: ... (A look of questioning; beginning to understand she was clearly missing something)

Me: "People just liked it better that way." I shrugged and laughed with my co-conspirator on the left.

Ah the days of high school and They Might Be Giants...

But seriously, something is wrong if someone only five years younger than me has never heard that song.

Testing

This is a test. This is only a test. This is a test of my iPhone blogging system. (I'm trying new things... Mobile blogging for while I'm on the road... Kinda cool huh?)

Reward for suffering through my experiment:
Photo of cute Nephew, who is at the happiest place on earth this weekend.

Doesn't that photo just scream ad campaign????





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

6

Today is the last remaining Friday between me and Istanbul.

This trip is been soooooooooooo ridiculously long in the making that I feel I've grown roots and a shell. I've become a garden turtle, all huddled into my little life so deeply that I've forgotten how it feels to move about unencumbered by such bothersome things as a job or bills or a bedtime.

Photo From: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=photo+%2B+stuck+turtle&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1178&bih=1003&tbm=isch&tbnid=RROfDVIMxwtOGM:&imgrefurl=http://www.wildherps.com/species/K.baurii.html&docid=RXqjFQ48aqeD9M&w=600&h=400&ei=y7FCToaeDMaAsgLc993GCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=482&page=8&tbnh=154&tbnw=204&start=163&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:163&tx=91&ty=86

Last night, as I wrote out my rent check for September and set up automatic bill pay for my normal bills - student loan, credit card (I put everything on a mileage credit card! Free flights!), internet... I reflected on the necessity of it all, on the necessity of taking care of those things now so when I returned to my "normal" life I wouldn't be overwhelmed by unpaid bills and looming creditors, because I'm a responsible person. Even when I travel. And I thought to myself:

OHMYGOSHICANNOTWAITTOGETOUTOFHEREANDNOTDOTHIS!!!!!!!

In 6 days I leave for Istanbul. And right now it's such an intangible, impossibility, being the rooted garden turtle that I am, that I cannot even fathom it. I can't picture the place in my mind's eye like I normally do, or daydream of things to do and see and smell and touch and taste... I only know that there will be those things.

That is enough for now, I suppose.

But I can't wait to awaken, to crawl out of my shell into the vast world around me, stretch deeply, yawn and greet the traveler within that has been so long dormant.

Or in the very least, metamorphosis into a sea turtle.

Photo from: http://www.uimages.org/turtle-full-front-adult/

Welcome back, self.
In six days.

Liberation

Just before I turned 17 my parents decided to up and move our family from Northern California to Northern Idaho.

Yah. It was pretty major.

It meant we would go from being Californians to Idahoans. And nothing against Idaho, or Idahoans, I am many things, but I am NOT an Idahoan.

It also meant that I would spend my Senior year of High School in Idaho instead of with the people I'd grown up with in Cali.

I was not a happy camper (as you can imagine).

But some good things happened as a result of the move, I will grudgingly admit.

The good things began with one, small event that I thought very little of at the time, but now that I reflect on it, it was slightly important.

When my family went up to Idaho look for houses, I point blank refused to go with them. (I think I hoped my protest would somehow stop the insanity and we could stay in California.) So my Mom bought plane tickets for the rest of the family to fly up and I planned to stay home.

Eventually I came around (figured out there was no way out of the move) and decided I would be better off having a say in where we lived in the frozen North. So Mom bought me a plane ticket, only the flight the family was on was sold out, so I was booked onto a separate flight. And what's more, my flight departed from SFO (San Francisco) and my family was flying out of OAK (Oakland -- about twenty minutes from SFO).

I had flown tons of times before and even with my younger sibs as unaccompanied minors (you know, where kids are checked in with the airline and given an escort), but I had never flown solo.

But with all of the stress of the move, I don't think I even realized that I was about to venture into the unknown. I knew how to check in, clear security, find my gate, board... I was already a seasoned veteran of flying by the age of 16, so when my parents pulled the car up to the drop-off zone outside of the SFO terminal, I said a brisk goodbye (still being ticked off at the move and all), jumped out of the car and met up with my parents three hours later at GEG (Spokane airport). No biggie.

When I got there my Mom was CLEARLY relieved. Apparently after I got out of the car and they drove away she freaked out (and this was pre-cell phone, well, at least pre-days-when-cell-phones-are-as-common-as-tic tacs and every kid in the country has one).

As Mom tells it:

"We were driving away and I realized that I'd just dropped my SIXTEEN year old daughter off on the curb in San Francisco!!!!"

And I thought: "Meh. No biggie."

And it really wasn't.

But it was. It was an affirmation that I was a competent, independent human being. & It was a taste of the freedom that would come... eventually.

What was your first solo travel experience like?

Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvnunag/2971390494/

Dry

I love water.

But not everyone, or everything loves water. For instance, my Laptop does not love water. My new laptop. The one I got in December that is ultra sleek, ultra compact and travel-perfect.

{I didn't tell you about this before, even though it was pretty major. I may have been terribly embarrassed and frustrated with myself.}

Only three months after purchasing said perfection-in-a-laptop I happened to have removed the silicon keyboard cover from it's keyboard, the one designed to protect it's larger, bulkier predecessor from water and liquid spills. You see it fit over the keyboard just fine. But it was too thick and prevented the ultra-thin new laptop from closing properly. So I removed it, knowing that I needed to replace it; being paranoid about such things as I had a friend in college who ruined her brand-new MacBook Pro by spilling a beverage on it... Oh the sick irony!

So... yah... Story short: Hand knocked over glass of water. Water spills on corner of keyboard. Poof. Black screen. Computer dead. Done. Three days, $800 later (Which is just over half the original cost of the laptop, BTW) I have a repaired MacBookAir back from Apple. I turn it on and... Chime! The hard drive has been replaced and I get a WELCOME! (to your brand new mac) screen, telling me that none of my data, applications, etc had been recovered. (Which really could have been worse... I had all the apps backed up and most of the data.)

NOW I have the proper keyboard cover that allows the laptop to close. NOW I have a soft case to protect the tiny laptop from abuse.

And NOW, as of tonight, I have a DryBag large, thin enough and flexible enough to house the laptop (and a few extra items if needed) for travel out and about on a boat. In the ocean. Which is as wet as wet gets. Which my laptop will not be, thankyouverymuch.

What kind of electronics protection do you travel with?

Mountains of Tissue

Heaps of Kleenex, piles of blankets, nyquil, sudafed and some other prescription decongenstant...

This week has been chalk-full of fun. (!)

Summer colds suck.

What was your worst "sick" experience? You know, the time you got sick when _____ was happening and you missed it and it ruined (!) your life? Tell me all about it!


*Sniff*Cough*

Rodents

I have a problem.

I like to garden. It's in my roots.

You know this.

You know this despite the fact that I never posted any photos from this year's garden: ie, the "before/newly planted/thriving" photos that I've done for the past couple of years.

Well I planted a garden this year despite ignoring the photos. (i did take the photos, mind you.)

This year I added a whole extra terrace to my garden. It has been my master plan all along to spread out the garden year by year. Well. I did it. And then I planned it all wrong and didn't buy enough plants for my expanded space. I should have bought double the amount of tomato plants. Maybe triple. Then I could have canned them all later, like a real farm girl. (uh, i might not have canned them...i might have just given them away... jury's out.) Well, that was the start of the mayhem. Too much space, not enough plants. Whatever. I wasn't really bothered by it. So along I went, feeding, watering, weeding my garden. March, April, May, several setbacks with deer eating all the tallish stalks off the tomato plants... June... more deer problems...

Despite the pesky deer, in June, I ought to have started getting some Tomatoes. And Squash. And Zucchini. (since i planted those too.)

Except the weather decided not to cooperate and gave us an extended winter with bouts of sunshine thrown in to tease us. July... I finally spied one ripe little tomato and several ripening ones! Yippee! A few days later I went to pick the tomatoes that surely should have been ready for a-pickin'... BUT THEY WERE GONE. Not only were the ripe ones gone, but also any quasi-ripe ones, and several just-plain-green ones.

My blood ran cold in my veins as I glowered at the barren spots on my carefully tended garden. BLARGH! Then I saw the discarded fruits strewn across my yard with only nibbles taken out of them...

The bastard Racoons were back! I'd been hearing them in my fig tree for weeks, but hadn't thought they'd go for the tomatoes, after all they'd mostly left them alone last summer. I was wrong.

Those little Rat Finks have cleaned me out this summer. Every time a tomato begins to grow to decent size, they get snatched! I've tried the repellant sprays. (In fact, tonight I got a new one that's like pepper spray for rodents. I sprayed it all around the plants and hopefully it keeps them away!!!)

The point of this story is this:

1. I don't have any bloody tomatoes this summer despite my best efforts.

2. I hate Racoons. HATE. Loathe. They are disgusting vermin. They're smart and will get even with you if you try to scare them away. Trust me. I now understand why Farmers shoot them. If I had a shotgun, I would shoot them dead and dump their bodies in a dumpster. (Too bad it's illegal in CA to shoot them... freaking hippies!)

3. UGH!

Otherly

I sometimes dream of my other lives...

Not in an existential way, or a reincarnation way, but in a these are lives I'm preparing now to have later kind of way...

You know:


-The life in which I am a quasi-farmer in Virginia, living on my family's land, planting my own garden that is bigger than your backyard. And canning the fruits (and vegetables) of those labors. Smelling the sweet grass and feeling the delicious summer humidity press down on my skin. Building my own little house and watching babies grow and run around the huge yard (perhaps my own, perhaps other people's... ?) and discover the big, beautiful world around them daily.

-The life in which I live on the beach (or in a cottage by the beach) in Florida. Daily I walk barefoot most places, because most places I want to be involve sandy expanses. Tall, perspiring glasses of ice water and iced fizzy lemonade greet me, and I search for shells along the the ocean's border with my loved ones. Again, somewhere there are babies and chillun' involved, again, perhaps mine, perhaps not... ? We all bask in the sun and saltwater and relish this glowing life of slow-paced-ness. Dolphins frolic in the water before us, stingrays, sharks and birds dot the beautiful blue, azure and white horizon.

-The life in which I live in Rome. Not far from Piazza Navona, in proximity to the Pantheon, my favorite building in Rome. My apartment lies down an ancient, winding street, in one of the buildings crept up it's edges. Italian Mamas shout at their babies and lovers embrace, a heated discussion explodes to the right and the hum of the crowds of tourists to the left as I lean out my window and look to out to the street below. Flowers line planters and creeping vines rim the building's stones. In front of me, my laundry flaps in the open air, suspended above a street just narrow enough for a Vespa scooter, drying and simultaneously getting dirty again with city grime; but it is Roman grime, so I don't mind. My neighbors call out to me in greeting and Angelo, down the way a bit whistles his usual flirty greeting, then winks at me and I think to myself (again) Che Peccato! What a shame! What a shame he isn't LDS, that one! ;)

In the afternoons I peruse the markets for fresh produce and the perfect olio d'oliva, olive oil and call for 3 inches of a fresh panini sandwich, sliced off a hot stone at my request. I wander the streets in search of a new, old discovery, a relic of a building or a landmark of a statue that had been in the same spot all along, yet I'd only just seen it. In the evenings I sit with my Italian friends in the piazza private to a friend's building and eat the most delicious pasta d'amatriciana on the planet, freshly prepared by us. The mornings are a mixture of writing and bathrobes and narcolepsy and an ancient apartment with a leaky faucet and a large old bathtub. Great wooden beams line the lofted ceiling and cornices, edgings and other detail work line the walls and talk jovially to me about previous occupants who have loved this place.


--

These are the lives I think of and reflect on, the ones I am working for. Because I'm a gypsy and a dreamer.

Yet, here I am, in California, happy as a clam with my hiking and my Sister and my Nephew...  Make sure life is good, whichever one you decide to live!