Istanbul

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September 28th 2009

Published: September 28th 2009

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Doglover

Woman weaving

We've been back in Istanbul for a few days now. Happily relying on our feet as our primary mode of transportation. It feels good to walk around. I'm going to post several local scenes that are self explanatory and add some of our impressions.

Before I forget I want to mention cats. You know how I love dogs? Well the Turkish have a thing for cats. They're everywhere we've been. Not with tags and one home but like Hillary said about it taking a village to raise children, here it takes a village to take care of the cats. While we were in Selchuk we saw the restaurant waiters scraping food off of discarded dinner plates for the cats to eat. In Istanbul most neighborhoods have at least one "cat lady" who takes it upon herself to feed the cats. The cats by the way look nice and sleek with beautiful coats probably due to their diet of olive oil and fish.

During one of our many strolls about Sultanamet in Istanbul we found a Turkish Heritage Center. A very nice man ushered us in and educated us about carpets and kilims and there was NO SALES PITCH!!! Why

Graffiti

couldn't we have found him first. I do think we did great with our new carpet. He warned us about a Turkish man with either a young Canadian (sometimes American) that hang outside the Blue Mosque. (Have any idea where I'm going with this?!) Seems he prays on Naive tourists (like us). We felt certain that we had met him during our first visit to Istanbul and happy that we didn't fall for his game.

Sunday afternoon we met up with our friend Karen who showed us around with her Turkish friend, Semit, a musician. We took a tram to the Orient Express Depot and rode the rickety train to her neighborhood. Karen has a great apartment, a 5th floor walk up. Can you imagine climbing down her wonderful spiral staircase only to remember that you forgot something? It's no wonder she is in such good shape. Also think about grocery shopping for a family of three and yes, carrying it up the narrow, spiral staircase. Her view and big windows make it all worthwhile. Great apartment but poor Joel nearly became flat Stanley when the huge living room radiator pulled away from the wall and fell on him.

Water Pipe Display

For Doug

He was shaken but okay.

We wandered around residential neighborhoods and had coffee and tea at a sidewalk cafe on the nearby waterfront. Our visit ended with an invitation to Santa Fe. I hope she comes. Karen completed her PhD on the author, Louise Erdrich, in Albuquerque. Small world. Even smaller, she grew up in North Carolina. It was fun for all of us to get to know each other.

Bread. We love bread. I've started baking bread again as some of you might know. Therefore, it was important for us to sample the local fare. My hands down favorite is the Simit. A non-salty, sesame coated chewy pretzel-shape bread. There is a french wanna be that was pretty flavorless - a white bread with a facade of crust. Not crunchy and not satisfying. We liked the "puffy" bread baked in giant ovens. They are rolled very flat and puff out in the hot brick ovens. Then there was the flat, chewy bread served with kebabs.

Let's just say we loved the food here. It must be healthy as our blood sugars have been perfect. Richard tried and liked the mild local beer, Efes while I stuck