Advertisement
Worth every calorie
Creamy rice pudding, with extra full-fat creaminess. Today our daughter was nearly kidnapped. By a high powered Turkish dignitary. Never let your guard down. (So as to manage expectations, let me add the disclaimer that this blogger tends to exaggerate a tad).
It all started at Topkapi Palace. Think harems and gardens and all things Arabian-nightsish and you probably have a good idea of what Topkapi might have once been. Today though, you will need to add a whole lot of imagination to garnish what is now one giant museum. Its worth a visit, but just don't go getting your hopes up too high.
The palace grounds consist of a series of courtyards, each bordered with rooms containing lots and lots of museum pieces. Lots of jewels, lots of swords. Most interesting was lots of clothes belonging to really really fat sultans. You know the king in Disney's Alladin - Jasmine's father - yeah - think of guys with that body shape but even wider.
The rooms do get a little bit repetitive, but every so often they throw in something really cool. Like a room containing lots of religious relics, including the footprint of the Prophet Muhammad, a chunk of his beard, the rod
Topkapi grounds
Nice... but still nothing fascinating. of Moses (the one he threw down and turned into a snake), some stuff from King David. If you know your Bible, you see lots of cool biblical (supposed) relics. Don't know if they are real, but its still loads of fun seeing them.
Anyway, on to the kidnapping. Our daughter, as was the custom in Istanbul, was being mobbed all day by eager locals. So much so that we had started letting our guard down and just standing aside what exasperation as the crowds mulled around. That's when a rather portly and tall guy walked up and picked her up. This guy was a bit of a giant and he was accompanied by two camera men and an entourage of attendants. He was cooing and laughing and spinning her around. I was just about to stop him since I don't particularly enjoy strangers picking up my 1 year old without asking, when he suddenly turned around and ran behind an ornate door.
The camera men followed quickly as did the attendants. We started running and yelling at which point one of the attendants grabbed my hand and told me - "you should be honored". "Honored?", I asked,
Crowds of friendly kids
They were everywhere in Topkapi. And they loved staring at us foreigners. as yanked open the door. What lay behind was what could be described as state rooms - places where you would entertain really important people. "That gentleman is the most respected historian in Turkey, and the head of Topkapi palace. He is visited by presidents and kings."
So of course, that makes it totally okay for him to grab random kids. Anyway, we found them in the next room, cooing and laughing. They started talking to us telling us what a cute daughther we had. At that point, Sesame started getting a little cranky (fair enough - weirdo dudes had just snatched her away from her parents), so one of the attendants quickly grabbed a box of very expensive looking chocolate and popped one in her mouth. That immediately won her over, and she started gobbling those chocolates down. Meanwhile her parents looked on longingly - those chocolates looked good.
This all happened so fast, and thus it was only now that we realized that we had probably broken every law of careful, street-smart parents. Don't let strangers snatch you kids, don't let strangers feed your kids sweets, and most importantly, don't just stand around looking confused when
Baklava, baklava, everywhere I look
Its everywhere - how is a sweet-tooth meant to resist. Ah... I was soo weak minded. any of the the above happens. Yet, what the heck do you do when 'near-royality' invites you into their state rooms. And more importantly, when they have really nice looking chocolate.
And then, just as fast as it all happened, it was all over. One minute, we were making small talk, and then suddenly big portly guy lost interest, handed the baby back to us, and started talking to some other guys in the room. And so we were left there standing about looking like fools, and still hoping that somebody would offer us one of those nice looking chocolates.
So quietly we excused ourselves, chastising ourselves for being such careless parents, and even more so for not having the guts to just reach out and grab one of those chocolates.
The rest of Topkapi palace just seemed incredibly boring after that little escapade. So we decided to drown our woes of realizing what careless parents we were in a big plate of grilled meats. Self-chastisement was soon replaced by the mind numbing nirvana of good Turkish food.
The afternoon was spent cruising the steets for baklava and turkish tea cups. My wife convinced me that
Freebies for the kids
Shopkeepers love giving out samples to the kids. Mummy was not happy at the amount of sugar consumed in one day. the cheap turkish tea cups the souvenir shops were selling were incredibly unique and that we would definitely have a use for them back home. I still stand by the fact that they sell the same thing at the dollar shops back home.
Oh yes - a quick word on Turkish tea - its really sweet and very yummy. And free in some restaurants. So gobble that stuff up.
Late afternoon and our time in Istanbul was up. We packed our bags and headed to the airport, bidding the good city of Istanbul a fond fairwell. Our time in Turkey had been much too short - this place has a lot to see, and clearly
even more to experience. Suffice to say, we will be back.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.651s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 27; qc: 93; dbt: 0.2935s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb