Quit Dreaming and Go Somewhere

While walking to the internet cafe here in Aswan, there was a chicken flopping around on the ground because a lady apparently had just cut it’s throat. And there was a puddle of blood. Nice.

It is surreal to be here. There is such a huge difference between the locals and tourists – all the local women wear the headscarf and most wear the long robes, and I’d say most of the men wear long robes too. It’s almost like there’s no point in trying to fit in. The pasty white tourists stick out like so many sore thumbs.

I love when the touts don’t know what language to speak to Jim. He’s started speaking Spanish to them and it throws some of them off.

So the travel here was pretty uneventful, which is good. We first flew to Amman, Jordan and had a 3 hour layover. I delighted in using the free wi-fi at the airport Starbucks on Jim’s PSP.

Our hotel in Aswan is the Keylany Hotel. The web reviews raved about it, but it is very basic with a tiny bathroom. It’s ok though. How can you complain for $15 per night? The guys at the front desk are nice.

There are Nubians in this area, and I’m not even sure what that means yet, but you see and hear the word a lot.

We walked through the souk (bazaar) and it was pretty standard. Every local man we passed asked us to either look in his shop, ride a felucca (boat) or take a tour. But they seem to, for the most part, have a good sense of humor about it. It is annoying, but most of them will take NO for an answer.

We’ve also seen people riding donkeys in the street or using them to pull carts. There are also lots of guys with extremely thin horses pulling carriages for tourists to ride. Isn’t it crazy that just a few hours ago I was in New York and now I am on the other side of the world? It’s bizarre.

We booked a tour that leaves tomorrow at 4am for Abu Simbel. We will get back around 3pm. It’s going to be a long, full day.

My first impression of the Egyptians is a good one, and I am so happy for that. They remind me of the Turks, who have a playfulness and twinkle in their eye. Our cab driver to our hotel pointed out all the landmarks to us, the guys at our hotels were nice, and even the touts are sometimes funny. I am glad it has been this way so far.

So, in a nutshell, we haven’t seen anything yet. That will be tomorrow.

Like always.. it doesn’t seem like it’s actually happening. It doesn’t seem real that in 72 hours, I’ll be in Egypt. Holy crap.

We went to CVS today to get some of the last minute toiletries… hand sanitizer, face wash, travel packs of tissues, ear plugs, blister band-aids, etc. I began packing last night. My list of things to pack is SO long.

I am nervous about this trip. When we went to Spain, we tried to see too much. I overcompensated last year and in Turkey, I planned too little. Now, after all the things I have read, I am concerned we are going to spend a lot of our time on the fly trying to figure things out and plan our transportation as we go, and it’s not going to be easy. First of all, it’s Ramadan, and secondly, this is Africa, this is the Middle East…things don’t run as smoothly and on-time and efficiently as we are used to. I just hope it goes ok because I feel like it will be my fault if it doesn’t.

I get nervous about things going wrong, then I think, “Wait a minute, Jim will be there too. He can figure it out.” It’s like I think I have to solve every problem myself and I forget he is there and can take care of everything if need be. So we’ll be fine.

We were walking outside today and it was probably 82 degrees or so, and we were warm. Jim said jokingly, “You think it will be this hot in Egypt?” I said, “If we’re lucky, it may be this COLD at night!” I’m secretly hoping that Egypt won’t be as conservative as everyone says, since we’ll be in touristy areas.

Aswan’s weather for Tuesday: high of 95, low of 79.

I think Jim and I have spent more time shopping online for travel clothes and gear than we have reading about Egypt! I especially need some lightweight clothing that isn’t revealing or sleeveless. I must have spent hours looking at linen clothes and travel skirts and the like. We ended up ordering stuff from FOUR different places!

Royal Jordanian/American Airlines cancelled our flight and we had to move the trip up a day. This really sucks because we had already booked a hotel and onward flight. Now we will have to spend a day in Cairo that we weren’t expecting.

It just seems like there is so much to plan – where to stay, for how long, how to get from place to place, and I need to research these details for Cairo, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Luxor, Dahab and maybe Petra. Sometimes it seems overwhelming and I figure I’ll just wing it and figure it out when I get there. As I get older I can see why some people just want to take tours and turn their brains off.

Jim has been harassing me to sign up for some tours. I would rather sign up for the tours once we get there through our hotels and whatnot. So we’ll see. I’m the planner, so I think I’ll end up winning this battle.

I’ve also been looking into a way I can type my blog entries without having to bring a laptop or go to an internet cafe. My friend lent us a fold-up travel keyboard and now I’m seeing if it works with Jim’s PSP or his other electronic gadgets.

That’s all for now!

We booked our flights to Egypt last week. It was quite an ordeal – Jim and I spent hours and hours researching what was not only the cheapest, but what had the shortest flight time and layovers. A lot of the flights that connect in Europe had very long layovers, making the entire trip like 20 hours! Then we were very close to actually spending a few days during a layover in Rome. It became so complicated we finally said, forget Rome, forget a layover, we are doing Egypt so let’s focus on that!

We found a good fare through Royal Jordanian airlines – about $900 (which, for our dates, was a decent fare). We called American Airlines — their partner– to ask some questions since Jordanian was closed for the day. American quoted is $737 for the flight! I thought it had to be a mistake but it wasn’t. So that flight was straight up $250 cheaper than ANY other flights we could find. The downside is that we arrive in Cairo very late. And when we leave, we fly to Amman then have an OVERNIGHT layover before we fly from Amman to NYC. We inquired and it turns out Royal Jordanian provides a free room at the airport hotel for people like us on that flight.

I haven’t heard from things about Royal Jordanian, but they can’t be that bad… although they don’t have any entertainment systems on their planes whatsoever. So that will be boring…

We also needed to book our first night in Cairo at the airport hotel. It hurt to pay $100 for a room that we will only spend 5 hours in – and that’s if none of our flights are delayed. Jim had the insane idea of bringing a cheap air mattress and sleeping on it at the airport. After I notified him that the airport was not air conditioned, he finally gave in to getting the hotel.

Very, very early the next morning – our first morning in Egypt – we have a short flight to Aswan. Jim also wanted to go to see Abu Simbel immediately, another 3.5 hour bus ride. I told him he was crazy and needed to chill – we are going to be exhausted after a long travel day and not having had a full nights sleep…and to go straight to a big attraction in 100 degree weather is just crazy. A big argument ensued, him calling me a wimp and me saying this is our vacation and we have plenty of time; no reason to kill ourselves. And, in addition, logistically it would be tough. So we will spent the first day in Aswan and go to Abu Simbel the next day.

Here is our intended travel itinerary in yellow.

We fly into Cairo and immediately fly down to Aswan.
From Aswan we’ll visit Abu Simbel.
Then travel up to Luxor.
From Luxor, train or fly to Cairo to see the sights.
Then, fly to Sharm al-Sheik and take a taxi to Dahab for all our water fun.\
If there is extra time, we will visit Mount Sinai or Petra in Jordan (marked as a P).

So I think we’ve finally decided on our next big trip, and it is indeed a biggy. They get farther away and crazier every year. I think next year we’ll go somewhere easy like Italy or something. I haven’t even been to Italy or France!

First, Jim was pushing for Tibet and/or Nepal. I agree it would be awesome, but I don’t know enough about either area to really have that burning travel desire to go. The airfare would be crazy expensive, and they are just so far away that it would take over a day just to get there and back, making our trip shorter.

I was pushing for Egypt. Ever since we went to Turkey and I realized just HOW CLOSE Egypt was, I have been dying to go. I was obsessed with ancient Egypt when I was a kid. Seriously, I was a ginormous Egypt nerd. I can tell you crazy stories. I think when I was little I once said my dream was to see the pyramids someday, but I never thought it would actually happen. Now I know, of course, the world is so small it can totally happen, and it will. No sweat!

SO, God willing, we are going to EGYPT!!!!

This is my “pipe dream” trip: Fly into Luxor, take the overnight train to Cairo, fly and bus to Dahab in Sinai for snorkeling/divinig, then travel to Petra in Jordan, then Jerusalem in Israel, and fly home from Jerusalem.

We hope to do this over Thanksgiving time, which would give me another 2 days off. I figure, counting weekends and holidays, if I left Nov 7 and returned Nov 24th, I can get a grand total of 17 days of travel!!!!!

Jim and I took a quick trip to Mexico from March 1-5. We stayed in Playa del Carmen, which is about an hour south of Cancun.

It was a nice relaxing trip. The water was clear and warm. We did some snorkeling and I went into the water right off of the boat – that is a big deal for me since, as you know, I can’t swim and I’m scared of the water. We saw a nice array of fish and even two little brown rays. There wasn’t any colorful coral. I’d say it was better than snorkeling off Key Largo but not even close to Thailand.

We went to Xel-Ha, an “ecological water theme park”. It was great. You could swim with dolphins, lie in a hammock, jump off a cliff into water, lie in a tube and drift in the water, and snorkel in the huge natural lagoon, caves, or creeks. Even though it was called a “theme park” it was very nicely done — would be like heaven for kids who like water activities.

We took a day trip to Chichen Itza as well. It was a looong 3.5 hour bus ride, and it was sooo hot, but def worth it to see it.

Here is a panorama at Chichen Itza:

On the way to Chichen Itza, our bus stopped at a cenote, which is a type of freshwater-filled limestone sinkhole. It was beautiful. Lots of people there climbed up and jumped into the crystal clear water (as you can see in the picture.) When you were standing level with the water, you would look up out of the hole into the sky, with lots of vines and stuff hanging all over the walls. Whenever we were traveling via bus, we saw signs everywhere for cenotes.
This picture is a panorama shot (a few pics put together) of the cenote.

The food was very good, of course we ate all in the touristy area of Playa del Carmen. It was tasty and fresh. I’d say the prices were like half of here in NY.

What surprised me the most about the trip was that there was so much to do and see. We wanted to also see the ruins in Tulum and Coba but we didn’t have time. I could definitely see us going back again.

The next day we awoke and finished packing and watched the show “Three and a half men” in Turkish. At one point, a character said the word “ass face” and Jim promptly went out to the lobby and repeated it (in Turkish) to Mehmet. I was embarrassed and thankfully Mehmet didn’t really get what he was saying anyway. Jim is such a nerd!!

We finished packing, said goodbye to Mehmet and went to the airport. We purposely left really early to have some time to shop Duty Free.

We had a horrible schedule – Istanbul to Frankfurt to Washington DC to NYC!! When we checked into Lufthansa we asked if there was any way to get a better routing. The women behind the counter worked on it a long time and we started to get excited that maybe it would actually work. Then they broke the news – Jim was checked in, but my itinerary had been cancelled. Uhhh – scuse me????

For some reason, they had me scheduled on an earlier flight that day, and when I didn’t show up, they cancelled the whole thing. I had no idea what they were talking about. To make things worse, they said the flight to Frankfurt was full so they could only put me on a waiting list.

They sent me over to the Lufthansa ticket counter who couldn’t help me since I was flying on an United award ticket. They gave me the phone number to United in Germany (since there were no United offices in Istanbul.) It took me several tries to get the number right and finally I talked to someone who looked up my itinerary and said everything was FINE and that it was NOT cancelled.

What?!?!

So I went back to Lufthansa and told them what United said, and they were basically like, “Oh, ok.” So I got on the flight and they checked me in. HUH?????? I still don’t understand what the hell happened but it ended up being ok, thank goodness.

Because of the debacle we had NO extra time to go to Duty Free and we weren’t able to buy a thing.

But things got better.

As we were about to board the plane, we handed our tickets to the lady at the gate and she put a sticker on mine and said “You’ve been upgraded.” I literally was like, “WHAT??!!” and had to focus not to jump around and scream. I have never been upgraded before and it was a dream to be upgraded someday. I never ever thought it would happen an an award ticket either! I said to Jim, “see ya sucker!” but then she upgraded him too. Being in business/first class whatever (I don’t know) was nice, but the only thing that seemed any different was the food. It was good. But I tend to like airline food anyway (something about it being in little compartments.)

As we were about to land in Frankfurt, I had Kraftwerk songs like Autobahn stuck in my head. Isn’t that weird?

We had to go through a crazy amount of thorough security checks in Frankfurt. After that, things were pretty uneventful. We got home late and went to bed and our 2006 Trip was officially over.

I want to do Egypt next year – no – I NEED to do it. We were just too close. Right now were are thinking of doing a week in Egypt and combining it with a little trip somewhere else. But we’ve got a lot of time to figure it out.

I asked Jim if he thinks we’ll ever take an extended trip like we did in 2004. He paused but said, “yeah.” And I agreed.

That night Jim and I planned to actually finally “go out” in Beyoğlu , which we’d tried to do twice before but once it was a Sunday and everything was closed, and the other time, Jim was sick.

We went back to the Apricot for the third and final time. After we arrived, I went to the front desk to check in and there was a man bringing in lots of potted flowers and putting them all over the reception area. We struck up a conversation about poinsettias. I thought this guy was a delivery person at first but it turned out that it was Hakan, the owner of the hotel who had returned from his vacation! It was immediately clear that Hakan was like Mehmet – friendly, helpful, and spirited with those twinkly eyes. Apparently he had spent the last few weeks leading a group of Irish ladies biking through Gallipoli. He seemed like a very interesting character and I only wish I could have talked to him longer.

Jim and I settled in and immediately set out for the Grand Bazaar in the pouring rain and cold – it was either now or never for shopping. We had literally bought NOTHING the entire trip. (Well, I bought a pair of shoes and some small souvenirs in Amsterdam, but that’s it. Nothing in Turkey.) As my mom or sister could tell you, I am horrible at buying gifts during my travels. I always have such high hopes to buy awesome gifts for my friends and family and I always end up with absolutely nothing. I just suck at it. So I was determined.

We arrived at the bazaar and Jim’s biggest goal was to buy fez hats for everyone and a nargile, a hookah pipe like the ones we smoked in Göreme with the yummy apple flavor smoke. I convinced him to do the bargaining in Spanish as an experiment to see if the seller would treat him any differently. Soon, Jim was off and running, bargaining, joking with the guy, starting to walk away, and coming back. I just stood there silently, except for when I told him I liked the azure one better than the verde one. Finally we walked away with our new pipe, which is really stinking big. By the way, the guy treated him the same as if he had done it in English. And it still tickles me that the shopowners are so good at so many languages. But like Jim says, it’s their job, they have to learn other languages in order to sell.

We wandered some more and I just didn’t see anything I liked. A lot of it was the cheap typical souvenirs you find in every country. The jewelry was either really ornate and fancy (like diamond studded rings) or very cheap looking. I didn’t want any rugs, any belly dancing outfits, glass lamps, inlaid boxes, pillowcases, tea sets, or boxed Turkish delight. So I gave up. On one hand, I really think living in New York affects me because I know I can find a lot of the same stuff there. In fact, some of the things looked like they were from Pier One, you know what I mean? I was bummed and resigned to the fact that I would once again get NOTHING. I also had a goal to go to a supermarket because 1) I loooove looking through foreign supermarkets and 2) it is a good place to get cheap souvenirs like tea, hazelnuts, olive oil, candies and stuff like that that you don’t want to buy at a tourist shop. But as we were in Sultanahmet, there were no real supermarkets around. So I struck out again. Bummer! My only final hope was to hit Duty Free in the airport where I could at LEAST get some Ritter Sports. They have like 20 stinkin’ varieties!!!

After shopping we came back and ate at a place called Turquoise near our hotel. Jim finally got Iskender kebab and it was decent. I got some sausage thing with rice and it was also decent. We had not found one food in Turkey that knocked our socks off. Turns out Jim’s saying still holds true for every country we have ever visited, (except maybe Singapore)… he claims that all the food we have in New York City is better than anywhere in the world – even NYC Turkish food is better than real Turkish food, he claims. I hate to repeat it because it sounds so pompous but it is true so far. We also agree, however, that it might just be that the food here is more to American tastes. There is a restaurant called Turkish Meze just down the street from us at home and the food is awesome. I think the best meals we had in Turkey were the breakfasts at The Apricot — the cheese and olives and bread were really good. And Jim raved about the tomatoes all over Turkey, extolling their blood red color and deliciousness.

After that we returned to the hotel to pack for tomorrow and get ready to go out. I showered and Jim took a nap. I went out to the lobby to buy a bottle of water and there was a group of people hanging out there, all staring at me as I walked in – weird. Then I realized they had set up a camera and were taking a picture of themselves and I happened to be right by the camera. Ha ha. Hakan was there and told me to join them as they had a group there from Estonia and were about to have some champagne. I stayed but then felt a little awkward so I started to leave but he pulled me back and gave me a glass. Some Belgian ladies joined us as well as a French couple. Everyone talked for a while and it was nice. These are the types of things I really enjoy – hanging out with people from all over the world, just chatting and whatnot. After a while I went and fetched Jim and it seemed we weren’t going out tonight after all! We drank some wine and then they brought out another bottle of liquor. At one point, the whole group went quiet, and someone joked that its usually louder when they have a bunch of Americans there. We also talked about movies and what is popular in Turkey. Mehmet was trying to remember the name of a movie he really liked, and he couldn’t remember it, but he said it was so good and it was about a war…. finally he remembered, “Pearl Harbor!” and we laughed because that movie was crap. Someone brought up Midnight Express and he said that movie was “shit” and completely untrue. I’ve never seen it, but now I want to….

I tried to talk a little to the French guy there who didn’t speak any English, and someone asked me if I spoke French. I said, “I know a few words. Come on, I’m American, of course I only speak English. Duh.” Everyone laughed a little too much at that….

After a while, some of the people left and Hakan announced that he was going out to get some soup, a fatty soup made from sheep’s head, leg, or guts (tripe) that is traditionally eaten after drinking and did we want to come along? I jumped up, Of course, let me get my shoes!! How exciting! I am glad we didn’t go out partying after all. This is what it’s all about — hanging out with locals. As we were walking out the door, Mehmet told us to get the lentil soup instead, and it sounded like he thought the whole thing was gross.

We got into Hakan’s car with two Turkish guys who didn’t speak any English and drove to the simple little restaurant which happened to be in the red light district. (Hakan: “We are in the red light district!” me: “No we aren’t! Really?” [looks outside and sees red lights] “Oh, wow. I didn’t know there WAS a red light district.” Hakan: “We will leave you here! Ha ha!”)

It turned out they were out of the leg soup, and only had tripe and head soup left. Jim said, what the hell, let’s get the head soup. The soup smelled garlicky and the meat was like very dark, dark chicken meat. I dipped bread in the broth and ate that while everyone else finished their bowls, including Jim, who eats anything. I felt bad that I wasn’t touching it, but I was stuffed from dinner AND thinking about the fact it was from sheep head kinda got to me. Hakan gave me a hard time and reached over, grabbed my spoon, dipped it in the soup and put it in my mouth, and I shoved in some bread. I swear it took me 5 minutes to finish chewing and I tried hard not to make a “yucky” face.

Right then, a guy came out of the kitchen with a huge platter of piled up steaming sheep heads. Surprisingly, it sounds grosser than it was. They were skulls with a bit of meat left on, and they really didn’t look that horrible. I think it’s because they kinda didn’t even look like what they were. Hakan asked me to get out my camera, and I was like, Oh man I forgot it!!! He pulled out his cell phone with a camera and I went over and posed next to the platter ‘o’ heads. I’m sure the other Turkish guys in there were thoroughly annoyed at the stupid tourist. The restaurant guy held the jaw of one of the heads open while the steam from the heads wafted into my face. Hakan took the pics and promised to email them to me later (he never did). What a great way to end our trip………a pretty memorable experience.

We came back to the hotel and went to sleep, to leave tomorrow AM.

We are in Amsterdam!

We finally found a decent flight to Amsterdam, we we are here for 3 days then we fly back to Istanbul, then back home.

Yes, it is totally backasswards to fly all the way here and then BACK to Istanbul, but since I used FF miles to buy my flights, I can’t change them at all!!

I actually slept for almost the ENTIRE 3 hr 45min flight!! I was amazed and so glad. When we arrived we found a guidebook and got a phone card and booked a room at a hostel, then we took the tram to the main train station and walked to the hostel. It is funny that I can write that in just 2-3 sentences when really, those actions took us a long time!!

The weather was yucky here too; light rain and wind. We found our hostel and the room is a letdown. We are paying the same amount as we did for a decent place in Istanbul, except here we have a shared bathroom and shower and the room is SOOOO tiny. At least it is clean. Europe is so expensive!!

Some pics of the canals

Jim hanging out in “The Night Watch” sculpture

The first thing we did was visit Anne Frank’s house. It’s pretty much just an empty house. The weirdest part is just actually being there and what struck me was that they needed to be very quiet, because if they made noise, it basically meant death. Can you imagine having to act a certain way, because if you didn’t, you’d be killed? One wrong step meant doom. Although the house was pretty empty, the museum was top-notch. One of the most distrubing pieces, IMO, was some type-written sheets of paper from the Nazis listing all the captured members of her family. After you left the main part of the house, there was a really cool interactive area called Free2choose. There were levels of seating with buttons at each seat you could press to vote on different issues concerning freedom of speech, right to privacy, and stuff like that.

The display would show various videos snippets of different issues then you got to vote. For example, in France, girls aren’t allowed to wear headscarves to school. Is that fair? Or, should rap music be allowed to say threatening things about gay people? Or, should neo-nazi groups be allowed to congregate outside of synagogues?? What about burning flags? We stayed for a long time and it was really interesting.

Next we went to the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum. We ate lunch then went to the Heineken Experience, which wasn’t a brewery tour but was really nicely done nonetheless. I would recommend it.

The feeling I get from Amsterdam is like a typical western european city. It is clean and the canals make it unique and picturesque. There are tons of people on bikes and lots of trams and it would be very easy to get hit by a biker, tram or car. You have to be careful. Amsterdam seems pretty diverse, and it was very noticeable after being in Istanbul. In Amsterdam you could find tons of different restaurants… Italian, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, Indian, Turkish, Paraguayan, Japanese, etc. In Istanbul, you pretty much have one choice: Turkish food. I only wish the weather had been nicer so it would have been easier to enjoy. But all in all, I found Amsterdam to be lovely and fun.

Back to the recap. . . .

One night we ventured out to look at the red light district. It was different than I thought – the women in some cases are only a few feet away from you, only separated by glass. You can look right into their eyes, or they can look into yours. I didn’t like that; it made it too real. Once in a while you would see a guy open the glass door and go in. You hear about the “red light district” in Amsterdam so much that it almost sounds like clean, cute tourist attraction, and it is easy to forget what it really is… but not when you are standing right there looking at it. I have seen prostitution in Thailand and it’s interesting to compare it with Amsterdam. Apparently the workers in Amsterdam get checked all the time for diseases and have healthcare and all sorts of stuff. Obviously that’s not the case in Thailand. Anyway……..we walked through there a little and I didn’t really want to see any more. I didn’t feel right gawking at the meat hanging in the cages… I mean, the women in their little enclosures.

We spent 3 nights total in Amsterdam and our last night we took the train to Rotterdam and stayed at our friends Dan and Louise’s apartment. Jim first met Dan in Buenos Aires years ago, then we met up with him in Brisbane in 2004 and now in Holland. He and his girlfriend Louise hope to come to NYC soon, and that would mean Jim’s hung out with Dan on FOUR continents, without even really trying. That’s pretty cool.

Early the next morning, Dan drove us to the train station and we took the hour train back to the airport where we flew BACK to Istanbul for the last night of our vacation.

Today we had nothing planned. The weather, for the first time, was horrible — rainy and gloomy all day long. Hopes were still high that we’d find a flight to Cairo for 3 days. We went to more travel agencies and found nothing. I was really, really bummed. I feel like I am always able to find solutions to problems but I can’t find any solution for what to do with our extra days. I am kicking myself for skipping Pamukkale.

When it became clear we would not be leaving Istanbul today, we checked out of the Side Hostel and called up our old pal Mehmet and booked a room there at the Apricot that night. On the phone, Jim tried to make it sound like we’d just gotten back into town so Mehmet wouldn’t know we “cheated on him” and stayed somewhere else. When we arrived at the hotel with our bags, Jim accidentally let it slip that we saw the outdoor concert last night and Mehmet was like, “Oh, you were in Istanbul last night??” And we lamely lied that we stayed in Beyoglu. I don’t like lying to Mehmet!!

I mentioned that Jim had a cold and Mehmet immediately asked us if we wanted some special tea. Jim said Yes but I said No thanks, but Mehmet said I HAD to drink it so I didn’t get sick too. He disappeared for a few minutes then came back with a tray with cups of nice mint-lemon tea and sugar cubes. Then he asked Jim if he wanted some lentil soup, and disappeared again and returned with a tray with 2 bowls of soup and a basket of bread. Do you see why we love this guy?! (Again, we aren’t the only ones.) Jim mumbled to Mehmet, who was across the room, “Thanks mom.” “You’re welcome, son” he replied. Ha! He told us that his boss is on vacation and that’s why he’s been working nonstop. Apparently he worked a 72 hour shift last week without a break, just occasionally catching a few minutes nap on the couch. Wow. He also complained about Turkish women and said maybe he’ll marry a Greek girl instead. According to him, all Turkish girls think they are god’s gift even when they are not. But I digress.

Afterwards, we took a cab to the Kariye Museum and got totally ripped off on the fare. We got to the museum, which consists of mosaics inside a small church. I didn’t realize it would be so small and we were done in like 10 minutes.

The plan was then to eat at Asitane, which is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in Istabul… but we weren’t hungry. Well, it was pouring rain so we didn’t feel like walking around so we went and ate anyway. We got an interesting almond soup with a few pomegranite seeds in it. A round pasty with olives and other stuff inside, the usual stuffed grape leaves but with cherries inside, and the main dish of carrot stew with meatballs, lamb, and cinnamon in like a tortilla shell. It was good!

We caught a cab back to Sultanahmet; it was still raining miserably. We spent a long time at the internet cafe still trying to find what we’ll do the next 3 days. Finally we stumbled upon a decent airfare to Amsterdam and remembered our friend Dan lives in Rotterdam, only an hour from Amsterdam. (We hung out with Dan in Brisbane a few years ago.) We bought the tickets and we leave VERY early tomorrow!

I couldn’t believe we were actually going. I have never had a burning desire to go to Amsterdam. Jim was there before a couple years ago.

We chilled for a while and then went to the roof to play some Rummy and get tea for Jim, but it was all closed down. We came down the stairs and mentioned to Mehmet that we were gonna play cards and he asked if we play Texas Hold Em. So we spent the next hour playing poker with him and some guy from California. We betted with toothpicks. It was fun. This is what I miss, some interaction with other people!! Mehmet kept folding his hands and I was like, “but they are only toothpicks!” and then I would catch him chewing on them. He lost all his toothpicks early and went back to the desk to answer emails.

After that we finished packing and went to bed early because our flight it at 5:25 tomorrow AM!!!!