Dorothee Golz, Concept of Life 2004

At the Lentos contemporary art museum in Linz, I saw this piece by Dorothee Golz. And I really fell for it.

all i want for (american) thanksgiving

This goes out to everyone I love. Especially you. Yeah, you.

All I want for (American) Thanksgiving.

I don't want a lot for Thanksgiving
There's just one thing I need
I don't care about the turkey
Underneath the gravy
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Thanksgiving is...
You

I don't want a lot for Thanksgiving
There's just one thing I need
I don't care about the cranberry sauce
Underneath the turkey
I don't need to sit my ass
There upon the dinner table
Football games won't make me happy
With tight-pant players on Thanksgiving day
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Thanksgiving is you
You baby

I won't ask for much this Thanksgiving
I don't even wish for pie
I'm just gonna keep on waiting
Underneath the bus shelter
I won't make a list of allergies and send it
To the kitchen for the cook
I won't even stay awake to
Hear those post dinner Gastro Intestinal noises
'Cause I just want you here tonight
Holding on to me so tight
What more can I do
Baby all I want for Thanksgiving is you
Ooh baby
All the sales are on
So cheaply everywhere
And the sound of children's
Whining fills the air
And everyone is shopping
I hear those cash registers ringing
Father Thanksgiving won't you bring me the one I really need
Won't you please bring my baby to me...

Oh I don't want a lot for Thanksgiving
This is all I'm asking for
I just want to see my baby
Standing right outside my door
Oh I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
Baby all I want for Thanksgiving is...
You

the meet-pack-in district?

www.pinkelephantclub.com on 17.11.07 (i can't remember if i've been doing day/mo/yr or mo/day/yr - oh well. i've never been sharp on the details.)

above is the (virtual) site of my first (physical) experience at a big ol' meatpacking district box club. V.K., who has been in town for about 3 months now, and i finally made a plan to hang out. we had been thinking about going dancing. with her height & hotness & my dexterity & lack of shame, we make a pretty stellar combination. V.K. had heard of pink elephant, so we made a plan to go. we met around 10 pm. which was clearly way too early to go to a club, apparently. after the fact, apparently. so we went into a nearby restaurant, had an appetizer & drink while we waited / warmed up. oh yes, it was super cold. i had thrown caution to the closet & worn a slinky dress. i made the mistake of wearing that dress without an under camisole on another ladies night excursion and spent the entire night staring at my own cleave, wondering if i was pulling a tara reid, boob-hang out sesh. anyways. no need to worry this time. the rustle of air created by someone walking across the room (a la butterfly effect) would not turn my outfit into a malfunctioning wardrobe or scandale (shucks.) we wait in line for a long time, but it probably wasn't a long time. it felt like an eternity since my toes had long ago conceded defeat to the elements and had fallen into a hibernation or coma or had moved into survival mode. there were three lovely young ladies behind us, all from minnesota. one was living in ny and had just moved to ny about 3 weeks earlier, and the other two were friends visiting for the weekend. everyone in line was about as clueless as V.K. and i about the club (the music, the cover, whether they would ever let anyone in, ...). but we stuck it out, and finally moved up to the front of the line. we entered the club as a group of 5. V.K. later pointed out that one of the minnesotans was extremely tanned for such a northern clime. maybe she was part cherokee or something. i doubt it. anyway, we get inside. the decor of this place is really something else. as you walk in, there's someone standing there (doorman / bouncer) who checks ID and takes a picture of it or something. he actually took a picture of my passport. what kind of fool takes her passport to a club. in a small handbag that she dangles from her wrist. precariously. good question. apparently, i do. so i haven't actually gotten a NY state id card which would not be expired, as my alberta driver's license is (even though i haven't expired since i'm about as alive as i can be, the door person gets nervous and i didn't want there to be any reason to punt our asses back to the street.) of course the picture on my passport makes me look like the leader of al qaeda's lesbian sleepy cell. but all clear. we actually enter the threshold of mega-club. all along the wall are lush green plants / faux plants (unsure). pretty lush and exotique looking. inside is tiered (a little bit) with two dj stations are the far end and two possible dance floors (one slightly larger than the other.) it's not a big club by any stretch. that would make it exclusive in club-speak. not just any plebe from the street can get in. only plebes from the street who waited in line, endured the cold, patiently waited past the doorman's posturing about VIPs, VVIPs and guest lists actually did get in. V.K. and i were just so impressed with ourselves for getting dressed up & leaving our homes & showing up & waiting in line. her friends who were going to join us ended up bailing so it was a party of 2, smoking. smoking hot that is. but i digress. anyway, there were small tables, low to the ground placed around sectional-couch type seating. those were the "tables". you could only sit at a table if you wanted table service. table service (according to some people departing the wait at the door) was minimum of $2000. could that be true? i have no way to confirm but it's as true as anything else i can tell you. so it's pretty much law. anyway, V.K. and i (not being the ballers we aspire to be) pretty much figured we'd stand / dance anyways, and decided to keep our $2000, thankyouverymuch. we went to the bar, ordered two wines and went to scope out the scene. by the time we got in (sometime after 11:30), it was still pretty empty, but it became ridiculously packed very soon after. as hordes of kids with gucci & fendi etc& came in and went straight to the tables. some of these "kids" looked like they had just finished their SATs and came out to party afterwards. hey kids, the bowling alley is down the street. but whatever. i'm an old crone with delusions of youthful frolic. as we were standing looking around, V.K. and i were approached by a man in his mid-40s. he was the proprietor of some choice table real estate in the club. he struck up a conversation with us and in due course we found out that he had brought his wife to pink elephant after the stevie wonder concert (which opened with tony bennett & prince) at madison square garden for her birthday. he was wearing a concert t-shirt and genuinely seemed friendly, nice & not perverted. plus, he invited us to partake in the flow of champagne, patrone and whatever else they had going on at their table. so we did get to sit down. in the course of our conversation with J and his italian wife V, we learned that he used to work for citigroup in some sort of making-lots-of-money i-banker capacity, that he retired young and now spends half his year in italy and the other half in westchester. V, his wife, was beautiful & in such fantastic shape. J made us guess her age. i guessed 35 because i figured she hadn't been his child bride so she must be somewhere around his age, but i took off significant years of age (she was turning 43). V.K. guessed 25. so V (the wife) fell in love with V.K., while i kept J occupied by pretending i understood what he was talking about and speaking to him in french which really seemed to please him (his mother is french-canadian from quebec city but he doesn't know french.) apparently, hearing us butcher french was titillating. we went out on the dance floor with J, V.K. and i. it was fun. i coined a name for his dance style -- unoriginally, "the J" -- it basically consists of stationary feet and a sort of weaving, bobbing & swaying of the upper body only, with no movement about the torso except the shake of a head once in a while. i amused him with my witty put-downs and general wryness which moved him to the point of telling me that he'd scoop me up if he were on the dating market. to which i said, "ohhhh, cave man style. that's hottttt." ahhhh. the evening turned out to be lots of fun, despite the waiting in line, $20 cover each, packed dance floor & $28 tab sans tip (for the two drinks we bought ourselves -- 2 glasses of red wine that the bartender couldn't even identify by general classification.) the other highlights were that the giant disco ball in the middle of the dance floor moved up & down, which was kind of freaky at first. and they also sprinkled us with some sort of foamy stuff. for birthdays or maybe just celebratory champagne table service, the wait staff would bring the bottles with a bunch of sparklers stuck to them. kind of a big production. with confetti and cheering.

and that was the time when i went to the meet-pack(ed)-in district to a club. though J.H. tells me that the location (27th & 10 Ave.) isn't meatpacking district, but whatever. close enough and it's harder to make a fun pun on chelsea.

adios.

viva cafe

the picture below is of viva cafe - the place that G.S. and i went to play tavla, drink tea & smoke nargile in istanbul.

(another example of) me being a jerk

11.11.07:

the y. today. post-work-out changing in the change room. there is a mom with 2 kids -- an older girl, and a younger boy. they were at the y last time i was there too. these kids are the most ill-behaved & loud children i have ever encountered in a confined public space. the mother does nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to parent her monsters & instead starts yelling as loud as they are, if not louder. this is the second time i actually got a head-ache while in the change room as a direct result of loud children running around & screaming.

so, in a possibly-jerk-ish move, i put a suggestion in the suggestion box. i suggested that the y remind / tell parents with children in the change room to make sure their children aren't misbehaving and for their children to use "indoor voices" while in the gym. also the change rooms aren't monkey houses. geez louise.

anyway. who knows if anything will come of it. but i felt better after making my suggestion. yippy skippy.

so the kids' behaviour is not the really annoying thing - the really annoying thing is how this mom appears to absolve herself of responsibility for watching / correcting her children's behaviour. i'm not a child hating monster, but c'mon, if you bring your kids to a public place, at least TRY to make sure they aren't annoying wretches.

enough said.

another post, at long last

9.23.07:

lest you think i forgot this humble piece of narcissism that exists in cyberspace to bring gratification to me and my adoring public of 0.5, i return with the completion of travels that occurred in september. yes, it is november now. i turned 32 in the interim. i have traveled a bit for work in the interim. and i will soon be traveling again. in the exterim. i have also discovered scrabulous on facebook which strikes a deathblow to productivity & blogging.

i will have to be brief here because memory is failing me.

the day started off right with breakfast with A.K. on the drive. excellent. then i had made shopping/hanging out plans with S.L. so i moseyed over to her place, taking a ride on the no. 99 "bee" line. ah memories. i saw S.L.'s new place. very nice, though she was packing to move into another place close by. it was definitely a cut above the slum-haunts of new york, let me say. but i digress. and my woes about nyc apartments are fairly well-heard. so no more on that subject for now.

S.L. and i kicked around on main, shopping, stopping, not-stopping and more shopping. we wandered back and had coffee at her local cafe, which was super delicious (can't remember the name of it) but it's a check plus plus on my list of caffeinating holes. vancouver never disappoints in the caffeination context. that's a huge plus plus for moving back. or visiting lots.

i had plans to meet up for dinner with J.C. (a good friend / former roommate from UBC/thunderbird days). we hadn't seen one another in ages. J.C. is engaged to A.L. another friend from undergrad, who i haven't seen or spoken to since 1997 basically. anyway, we met on the drive at a cool mediterranean food place and chatted for hours & hours about life, this, that, A.L., NY, marriage-ness, foibles of life & career. J.C. is a lawyer too. J.C. and A.L. are coming to brooklyn soon for A.L.'s rotation at a hospital here. can't wait. it's SO cool to reconnect with someone who was in your life every day, and who you watched the X-Files with religiously.

I flirted like a crazy cat lady with our waiter. who was 23 and easy on the eyes. he had to run out to a grocery store for some fruit the kitchen had run out of, and he came by to let us know he wasn't deserting us. i asked him, with my patented twinkle in my eye, if he could get me some gum while he was out. i gave him some money for it. and much to my suprise, he did it! wow! that was chutzpah / weirdness on my part. and good humour on his. but really, he was extra cute. lived in israel. omg. another reason to move back to vancouver.

i had plans to meet J. (whose last name initial i fail to remember now). J used to live in victoria, but i met him in montreal through N.F. & P.T. crazy, crazy montreal party at the loft, i believe. anyway. we planned to meet up. he'd since moved back to vancouver & i hadn't seen him since his montreal days. so, we went out for a beer at a place (again) on the drive. we had a really fun chat mostly about relationships, which i then proceeded to make weird by quasi-flirting in a really aggressive/obvious way. clearly still high off my waiter experience, i think i freaked J out like 1000 times over. shameful. shameful.

i got back to A.K.'s and we had a quiet rest of our evening, chatting up storms. i slept like a baby on that couch. oh, i miss that couch.

a return trip is in order.

9.24.07:

today i was flying back to NYC. earlyish. i grabbed some breakfast on commercial drive & then made my way to the airport. realizing just before my flight that i'd left my blackberry & phone charger at A.K.'s. ah well. who needs access to modes of communication. A.K. did send them back to me and they are happily resting on my window sill, no doubt happy to continue fulfilling their destiny.

alright. that was a whirlwind of memory-lapses. but i have completed my diarization of vancouver for S.B.'s and YJK's wedding! hallelujah. if anyone is actually reading this, thank you.

SB's & YJK's wedding!

9/22/07:

wow. i started crying BEFORE the ceremony, during the ceremony, after the ceremony & at the reception. ok, granted i am a crier (who can forget the AADAC commercial that aired in alberta, with the "he's not heavy, he's my brother" song and the montage of childhood memories. i mist up even thinking of that commercial today. & my heart softens when i think of the cotton commercial ("the touch, the feel ... cotton : the fabric of our lives.") brilliant advertising if you ask me, but i digress.). okay, so i cry. but i was not the only one. everyone was crying. especially the groom. but oh, how breathtaking it all was. YJK cleans up real nice. he looked so handsome & so full of love for SB. i've seen that love before, but it's one thing to see it when you're sitting on the couch watching "the host" and another thing to see it shining in his eyes as she walks down the aisle. SB's mom was also absolutely stunning. and her father & her grandmother (the cutest grandmother in the world, actually the cutest person in the world) both looked like they were going to burst with pride. and for good reason.

when SB came down the aisle, i gasped. she always looks fantastic. always. without a doubt. even when i slept over at her apartment near "god-i'm-dead" gordon head, she'd wake up looking gorgeous. but at her wedding, she looked like magic. breathtaking magic. and nothing i say will do it justice.

the ceremony was sweet. YJK's voice quivered when he said his vows. SB kept pulling her strapless gown up to avoid immodest flashing.

in short, it was perfect.

boy were we starved. by we, i mean A.K. and M.T. we booted it over to fourth for some food. a place that served mimosas/brunch. very necessary.

sitting on a patio, on a beautiful vancouver afternoon, with friends, soaking in kits. it's all good.

the rest of the day (pre-reception) was spent shopping along fourth ave., leisurely strolling, checking out gravity pope (i bought a pair of fun, yet practical & comfy shoes for work), and other shoppes. time slipped away and before we knew it, it was time to gussy up for the reception.

so, i had brought only one wedding outfit. a black dress. maybe i should have brought something to wear to ceremony and something else to wear to the reception. but i didn't. i also forgot my contact lenses. oh well. so, i dressed down my dress for the ceremony by putting a v-neck sweater over it and wearing toned down jewelry. i dressed it up by taking off the sweater, adding a shawl & putting on some bling. i have learned a lot from tim gunn because that look took me from day to night and could possibly have taken me back to day again if i weren't such a geriatric.

the reception was awesome. there was a traditional tea ceremony (done to welcome the bride to the groom's family). very reminiscent of ceremonies around indian weddings. it was very cool to see SB and YJK in traditional korean clothes. all in all, much wine was partaked in, delicious foodstuffs consumed, dancing shoes worn down. oh yeah, the dance floor really got electric when YJK got down to boogie. he's the best dancer i've seen in a long time. seriously. his energy is infectious. i danced with S.D. and her man. i'll always remember when, on a prior visit to vancouver, a bunch of us (including SB and YJK) went to granville st. for dinner and then to a fancy lounge for drinks (and dancing) afterwards. YJK was on fire that night. the look of feigned horror on SB's face when he'd tempt her to dance with him will still make me smile even when i'm 100 years old.

oh, before i forget ... as part of the korean ceremony, YJK picked up SB and carried her around in a circle in front of all the guests. i'm guessing (since my korean is rusty) that he's taken her on. if my dad was SB's dad, he'd have made some really awful joke about how "her spending habits are YJK's problem now." hardy har har.

SB's dad's speech made me CRY so much. it was the sweetest dad speech i've heard. maybe ever. and if you've seen SB's dad, he's the world's cutest. so it was doubly awesome.

after the evening ended, we got home and i crawled into my couchbed. exhausted. but super duper happy!!

i miss my friends so much. sometimes i wonder why i'm such a dunderhead and i don't just move back to the motherland. but then i hear random violent screaming outside my window in brooklyn and i think, "and what ... give up all this?"

[insert smiley face here]

vancouver, interrupted

but to be continued now.

the rest of 09/21/07 went like this:

D.B. wisely pointed me in the direction of free interwebs access at the court. what a vastly different experience from going to the court in new york.

for instance,

1) Not once did anyone yell, shout or otherwise verbally abuse me
2) Not once was my intelligence and propriety doubted
3) Not once was i subject to any searches, body-cavity or otherwise

in fact, the sign just inside the lobby of the building said that if you had a camera with you, you had to check it in at the sheriff's station. so i faithfully went over to disclose my camera and check it in. the lovely sheriff at the station (wearing a wicked awesome hat, by the way) was so soft-spoken, helpful & courteous (three qualities NO ONE working for the US/NYS government has EVER possessed) but he told me that if i kept my camera in my bag and didn't pull it out, i could just take it up with me. at first he thought i was at the courthouse to see the swearing in ceremony taking place that afternoon. in which case, i was welcome to take my camera up to the atrium. i actually stumbled upon that swearing in ceremony accidentally, anyway. but he said i could take my camera up to the law library as long as i didn't take it out of my bag. there were no rules about phones either. just cameras.

i got up to the library, which was 1) quiet & serene; 2) populated by employees who were both able & inclined to assist; and 3) clean & non-scented. thank you my sweet homeland. in short, it was an oasis. not only that but the computers are for PUBLIC use: don't have passwords, don't have to prove that you are a lawyer or a law student, don't have to sign over your first-born, provide your social insurance number (the canadian version of that crumbly piece of green paper in the u.s. which is the holy grail to getting anything done -- except S.I.N. cards look actually like cards and are not so fragile as to blow out of your wallet if you sneeze while carrying it. piece of crap!!)

now the fact of this free computer use might not seem significant to those of you who live in places where "public" isn't necessarily a dirty word. i was amazed by how accessible the courthouse library is given that when i was studying for the bar exam (the NY State bar exam), i called all the law schools in NYC to see if i could come and study there for the bar. apparently, these hallowed institutions permit only students & alumni to use their facilities. forget borrowing books - just sitting there and reading the books you brought from home is verboten. wtf!? anyway. i just had a flashback of how irate that made me. yes, the fancy NYC public library wasn't too far from my place but the hours were pretty limited. anyway. i'm getting over it.

so, internet-ing done. my next stop was the pan pacific hotel, spa utopia where S.B.'s wedding party (i wasn't in the wedding party but got special-out-of-town-visitor status) was having a spa day. i signed up for a hot stone massage. it was really amazing. like muscle melting magic. honestly, i can't say that it's something i'd always get (because the masochist in me doesn't believe it's a massage unless it hurts so bad i cry) but it was definitely worth it. i didn't see S.B. before going in for my treatment, but i met the entire wedding party (S.B.'s side), her mom, her aunt, her cousin, etc. once i got out of my appointment. S.B. came out into the lounging area, looking resplendent. seriously. she could wear a paper bag, cinch it here & there, throw some binder clips on her ears and look like a billion bucks. anyone who knows her agrees with me. she would blow everyone on project runway out of the water.

the ladies were all going out for dinner post-spa, but i had made plans for dinner with S.D. & P.B., two more friends from law school. i think my popularity really peaked in law school.

dinner was great. i met P.B. in yaletown. S.D. was held up for a bit by work, and came and joined us when we shifted locations for dessert. it was super catching up with them and knowing that some things never change & that distance doesn't make the heart grow more absent or less fond or more forgetful or something. yippy.

vancouver, my lovely...

09.21.07:

i love vancouver. i'm entirely biased. but my views are propped up by the yearly survey that tells you the best places to live. they agree. they love it too. but my love for vancouver started when i was a lowly undergrad at UBC. well my love started before that, actually. but i'll start with UBC. i wanted to go to school in vancouver so much that i don't think i applied to any other schools. maybe that was cocky, or maybe it was one of my few decisive decisions.

trips back to vancouver feel like home-comings. i have a few friends kicking around from those days. and a lot of friends in vancouver from law school. so the combination of knowing a city + knowing cool people there = warm, fuzzy feelings. i even love the drizzle. i love knowing where to go. where to eat. where to shop. where to sip lattes. where to browse books. where booster juice is. that i can have wicked awesome sushi that blows NYC sushi out of the water. that i will slot myself back into the lives of my friends as though i was gone in just a blink of the eye.

my first plan was to meet D.B. for lunch. i got the meeting place super early (a hotel where her conference was going on -- p.s. D.B. is in vancouver whenever i seem to be - a feat in itself. and i appreciate it so much, since this visit was going to be a victoria-free one (unfortunately - just not enough time - i already felt like the weekend would breeze by).)

we met & had lunch at the hotel. hugs all around. good hugs. hearty hugs. the kind of hug where you feel every ounce of love. not sophisticated hugs where arms & shoulders barely graze and i always seem to go in too fast and too close. we had the exact same order. the burgers were yummy. before we knew it, an hour was up and D.B. had to go back to her conference. so not enough time. D.B. and i are talker-machines when we're together. so 1 hour is scratch the surface, i've been living sort of chatter. not the heart to hearts we could have if i would just move my butt back to victoria (i'm sure D.B. would take me moving to vancouver also).

my tedious, tangent-filled, verbose ramblings about the rest of my friday will have to wait until later.

JFK -> YVR

so, i've been lax about posting lately. i think it's that whole post-holiday let-down, when you come back into your "real life". but i got to go away again. so more to tell you about.

i went to vancouver the weekend of the 21-23 septembre for S.B.'s and Y.J.K's wedding. but before i get to the wedding (it was awesome!), let me start off in order.

JFK to YVR, Cathay Pacific Flt. 889, 20.09.07

of course, in order to save scads of money and to minimize travel time, i opted for the less than $400 cathay pacific flight. this flight goes from ny to vancouver and then on to hong kong. this flight is overrun with young-ish couples. who have babies. whiny, wailing, split your nails it kills my brain loud babies. in the economy class where the other plebes, like me, sit, there were 16 babies. 16. and you could feel it. one would start and the others would pipe up like it was some sort of torturous round or something.

the two people beside me (i was the middle seat of 3) were very interesting & easy to chat with: she = a vancouverite; he = a victorian. the glitch was that immediately in front of us, there was a man with a baby. no mom. no breasts to suckle. just a man and a baby. the baby was really freakin' loud. & did not stop crying until we began our descent into vancouver.

oh, did i forget to mention that this flight leaves new york at 11 PM and arrives vancouver at 2 AM.

oh but before i even get on the flight, i had foreshadowing that the trip to vancouver was not going to be as easy-peasy as i had thought.

J.H. had come over for dinner. we then walked up to the subway to catch the A - me in the direction of the airport; he towards manhattan. we part ways at nostrand station. and then spend another 10 minutes talking across the platform until J.H.'s train came. mine followed shortly thereafter.

one or two stops fly by. when i realize that i don't have my passport in my bag. sh*t! i hop off the train at the next possible station, loop back to the franklin avenue shuttle stop on fulton street and then shuttle back to the apartment as fast as the MTA will allow us to move. so my whole "get to JFK for only $7" plan thwarted! had to hustle home, call a car & dash to the airport.

Dash to the airport ... only to wait. There was a delay (of course), the airline needed to load 16 families with small, small children on to the plane, then the elderly, then people with platinum-plus-plus-plus super-elite better than the rest of us cards get to go on. Finally, the rest of us - aka the plebians. The worst part about this ordeal was that all the shops were boarded up. ALL of them. There was Hudson News taunting me with all the magazines & books I couldn't browse. The only place to get food was this one "sit-down" restaurant or McDonald's. I finally buckled to see if McDonald's had hot chocolate (because the terminal was freeeeeezing). Of course they didn't. The order person looked at me like I might be certifiable. Hot chocolate. What a concept.

Alas, finally we board. All of us.

My seat-mates are very cool. A Croatian guy living in Victoria now (we sympathized over his dating prospects, going out options) and a middle-aged-ish woman in Vancouver (we discussed restaurants & neighbourhoods). Lovely people. In front of us however was a demon-child. And a father that even my frozen heart could have sympathy for. he was traveling to hong kong with his baby (who seriously looked small enough to still be in the womb) and he was doing this all by himself. his baby was wailing at 700000 decibles and he seemed clue-less. no doubt, if he could lactate, all would probably have been well. someone really should have pointed out to him that little babies can't eat the food served in-flight.

between the discordant crying from 16 different areas of economy class. apparently people in first class don't (a) have children (that's why they have lots of money) or (b) sedate their children (leading to life-long substance abuse problems) or (c) leave their children at home with a nanny-entourage. unclear.

flight arrives vancouver at around 2:30 am. i call A.K. who had graciously offered to put me up, but also to wake up and let me in at 3:00 am. bless her. i hop into a cab driven by a young asian man, who went to uvic for fine arts and is now saving money from his job to go to film school. he wants to study in the u.s. but doesn't want to start selling organs on the black market to pay for it. so he'll probably stay in vancouver. he was very nice and helped me figure out exactly which house in the darkness that can only be found in cities not new york was A.K.'s. A.K. lives very close to commercial drive. a great location. and a great apartment. and the hospitality -- check plus plus. A.K. lets me into the apartment & leads me to the couch which looks as inviting as a sleepy's mattress warehouse.

sleep.

poetry in static

the MTA puts poems in the subway cars alongside the advertisements for laser hair removal, acne-scar banishment, erectile disfunction zapping and weightloss of an astonishing 75 lbs in just 2 weeks. the poems are part of the "poetry in motion" thing.

but what about poetry in static? some of the best poems are about things and people being stationary. i can't think of any right now, but i'm sure some poems are static and that some of them are among the best. of the entire poetry universe.

i'm no poet (though i did once have a haiku published online when cbc radio3 still had their e'zine online). but i thought i'd take a stab at poetry in static. please contribute some of your own efforts. and if we have enough, maybe we can publish an anthology (tentatively titled something really awful like "take a stand"):

molasses
doesn't move as slow
as me
on the couch
reaching for the remote control
the big one
turn the tv on
move think feel react for me.
where is andersen cooper today?

i called 311 yesterday

to make a noise complaint about my neighbourhood. & i don't care if that makes me just like my dad. but g'd it, people.

of course, nothing has changed. tonight, like last night, some total monotard is outside playing his geee-tar thinking he's carlos santana. there's something about a guy + guitar that makes me want to scream cliche. at least play something different. pick up a xylophone. a guitar! argh!!!!

add to that the sounds of 10,000 parent-less or poorly-parented screaming kids running around on the street. i like kids. as much as the next person. okay, no i don't. i don't like kids as much as the next person if the next person thinks the din from outside is adorable. or spirited. or tolerable. or anything that falls short of a violation of human rights.

p.s. i do like kids when they are kids i know. well, if they be likeable that is.

anyway. when i called 311, it was as though i was talking TO the city of NY. i felt empowered. pppshawwww.

wait a minute. i hear a siren. please please please please be the cops coming to shut down the strumming lothario out there. even buskers need a license!

INSANITY.

another picture from the brillenmuseum in amsterdam. can't tell you how much fun i had looking at the exhibits in this place. for someone who has worn classes for most of her life, a museum about the design history of glasses is really special.

picture this

the brillenmuseum in amsterdam was a superfantastick place to take pictures. no one else was visiting the museum while i was there (everyone else was probably jostling for a look in the rijksmuseum: fools) and the glass and angles made for some faux-artistic pictures. barry from my digital photog. workshop will be proud.

is this the end ...

of my t-log? technically i'm not t-ing anymore and i've logged all the t i did, and the mandate of my t-log has been fulfilled. but i've so enjoyed my musings (yes, i enjoy my very own musings and read and re-read them over & over again, refreshing for new comments.)

what do i do?

my trip winds downnnnnnn.

21.08.07 & 22.08.07:

my arrival back at P's, C's & E's place was a home-coming. on a side note, P & C are coming to NYC this weekend & staying with me. hardly a fitting payback for my insinuation into their lives & home for so long, but it's a start. i guess i can pay it forward.

so my airline, aer lingus, was on alert for a pilot strike, which meant that i wasn't entirely sure what was going to happen with my flight. phew (though a last minute call from the governor type respite would mean i could stay in europe a bit longer), my flight was not one of the ones cancelled. so i was still good for making it home. though my chances of making it to vancouver for my cousin's wedding were dwindling, especially since holy jetlag!

but i digress. i went to bagels & beans to celebrate/mourn the air lingus non-strike. i love bagels & beans, especially the one in the passage. we had a lovely dinner at home that night (my last night with P, C, E & newcomers P & E.) but i did get to do my laundry again before leaving the netherlands & bask in the awesome friendships forged.

the next day was my flight from schiphol (best airport ever!) mid-afternoon. P (C's P, not P, L's friend P) helped me to den haag centraal because he's such a gentleman. maybe i need to go to lisbon next! i get to the airport without incident. board my flight to dublin, kick it in dublin airport for my layover & then board my flight back to NY. ahhhhh. the flight was great. my entire row (all the way across the plane) was empty so i really got to stretch out in those 3 middle of the plane seats. lovely. i forget what movie was playing. i think it was blades of thunderous steel. i practiced mouth-reading by not using my headphones even though they were free.

and then the inevitable happened to mark the end of my trip.

my pen exploded.

In need of a better life (or, how appearances could be deceiving)

GUEST BLOGGER!!!!!!!!! check it, but don't wreck it.

*****

So, looking at just the bare facts, one could conclude that Our Heroine's (OH's) life is going verrry nicely. We've got a little sleep-in this morning, followed by a handsome man on a lovely black motorcycle arriving at her house. After mumbling something about "bed" into the enter-phone, he's buzzed in immediately. All positive signs to the casual observer.

But wait. Fast forward 20 min, and we check back in on OH. Have the positive signs of the morning born hedonistic fruit?

Manly-man, nowhere to be seen. Still wet and mostly nekid from a shower, OH is clutching her favourite flip flop in one hand and a broom in the other, chasing the LARGEST spider she has ever seen all around her bedroom. The same spider she watched crawl out of, and on top of, the air mattress (laying where dropped in the middle of her bedroom) to survey his new domain. A spider who was a champion and who took at least 10 minutes to kill.

Oh yes, OH's life still needs a whole lot of work…

Gorusmek uzere, istanbul!

20.08.07:

see you soon, istanbul!

my flight leaves around noon. i buy a few souvenirs, meet up with G to say bye and speed off to the airport.

after all my flying woes, the sun shone down on me. turns out my return flight was in business class. suh-weeeeeet. that sort of thing never happens to me. i have no idea how it happened. i thought the check-in counter woman was bumping me up, but she told me that i had been booked into business class. that was really news to me, since (a) i hadn't flown in business class on my way to istanbul & (b) i was pretty sure i hadn't paid business class fare. but i'm not going to complain.

i chill in the business class lounge and try to eat and drink all i can consume for free. my flight back to amsterdam was really quick, especially because i was seated next to a nice dutch guy who has lived all over the world because his parents worked for KLM. he had lived in istanbul for a while, too. but went to high school in india. all made for very interesting conversation.

i made my way back to the hague and back to P's place. it was a full-house: along with the three of them (P, C, and E), C's friend from portugal, P, was visiting. & in anticipation of C's move to d.c., E from canada, had moved in already. & then there was me. 6 of us! i did my laundry and settled back into my home away from home away from home away from home. i'm missing some away from homes in there. but you know what i mean.

pamphlet perv strikes!

19.08.07:

my time in istanbul is almost over. i have today and then tomorrow morning, basically. i have to leave for the airport by noon to catch my flight back to amsterdam & then go back to the hague for two days, waiting for my aer lingus flight back to new york. i hate saying goodbye, to people & to places. still, i do it alot. sometimes i wonder if i'll get tired of it. sometimes i think i am tired of it. and sometimes i can't wait to say hello to somewhere new.

G and i met at noon at my hotel. we'd planned today as a bhosphorus tour day. we got to the ferry terminal and were told that the tour (which is a summer-time tourist route) is a 6 hour thing. that's 3 more hours than the passengers on the minnow & they ended up deserted on an island. we decided to biff it. that's way too long for our adhd selves. we decide to make our own tour. but the convergence of adhd & lazy make for a pretty skimpy tour. plus being on a ferry takes us far from tavla, and that's unconscionable. so we get on and off two ferries that don't really take us anywhere we haven't really seen already. but whatevz. that's enough to sate me. i've been on the bhosphorus. we go back to my hotel, shower and change, and then head over to beyoglu. internet first, tavla second. after playing many, many games (i am actually improving both at tavla and at smoking narghile), G and i part ways. he's going to hang with some people he met & i decide to poke around town again. my 25 y.o. man friend from yesterday has the day off today, but i decided against hanging out with him again. i wanted to sort of have a low key last night in town. to bid a languid goodbye to the city.

G heads off in his direction. i walk back to galata tower to check out some of the side streets. eventually, i wind my way back to the main drag of beyoglu. i catch some pervert-y looking mans staring. i've faced down worse. indian men would put these guys to shame in a lechy stare smackdown competition.

i pass by our friend, pamphlet guy. he sees me alone and marks his prey. brochure guy is going for broke tonight. he grabs my hand and tell me how beautiful i am. he doesn't see G anywhere in sight so he comes closer. too close. i tell him that i'm going off to get a drink. he invites himself along, or rather invites himself to take me out for a drink. i point out that he would be a very bad employee if he ditched work right at prime pamphlet-handing out time. he shrugs and says he can work later. apparently (and perhaps creepily so), my beauty is so captivating that it is worth losing a pamphlet-passing out job for. suck on that nyc boys.

anyway, i manage to sidestep away by saying that i'd come by again later but that i had a "friend" to meet for drinks. by "a friend to meet" i mean G. he understands. backs off. watches me go up to cheap beer alley. now maybe i shouldn't have gone to cheap beer alley; it's right near the pamphlet guy. but it's also a good place to go & i sort of feel familiar there by now. i get a drink at post-punky-cheep-beer place and end up sitting outside at a table beside many of the punk contingent. we talk. we laugh. we cry. okay, no crying. but we did laugh. and smile. i, having nursed my beer for a century, finally pay up, say goodbye and foolishly walk back down the direction of pamphlet perv. i spot him, but he has his back to me. so thinking fast, i figure i can stealthily sneak right past him without him seeing me. oh but i am not a lucky woman. never have been.

he is delighted to see me. and especially to see me sans G. he stops me. he tells me loads of woo-ing me sorts of things. i'll speed this up actually since it went on for a while. i'm beautiful. he wants to live with me. he's never seen anyone so beautiful. he wants to marry me. he wants to take care of me. he wants to be my husband (i'm not sure how that differed from marrying me, but anyway.) he wants to know everything about me. he wants to meet my family. blah. blah. after 20 minutes of fending off his weird level-jumping advances. marketing to blase westerners is really not his thing. not that i'm blase about it. i really want out. of there. finally, i tell him that i have to go because G is waiting for me. then he starts insisting on a kiss. just one kiss. just one kiss on his lips. okay, no, just one kiss on his cheek. on his chin. forehead. lips again. neck. can he kiss me. on my lips. on my cheek. on my forehead. neck. chin. eyelids. we list all the parts of my face he can't kiss. which is all of them. i think maybe i can shame him. after all, he's seen me with G a lot. he knows G. i tell him that G is my boyfriend and that i can't kiss anyone else. he looks around and says "G isn't here right now. i won't tell." WOW. mind you, this is right on beyoglu main street. now, people are starting to look at us. and i feel really weird. i tell him i have to leave. i withdraw myself hastily from his grasp (he's been holding on to my arm and standing super close to me. i say i have to go to the tram to meet my boyfriend. he asks if he can walk with me. i don't say anything. he walks with me.

first thing he does as we head off toward taksim square is fling his arm over my shoulder and draw me close to him. i fling his arm off my shoulder and move away. the barrage of compliments and requests for kisses continue. all the way to the tram. the arm flinging persists now and again. he can't really keep up all that well because i am practically sprinting to the tram. i see resignation on his face. turns out i'm not interested in him. go figure. i make it to the tram station and he waves from the top of the stairs.

ick. i really should have just gone out again with C, my waiter-friend.

i get back to my room, pack up my things and flop into bed. all by myself. never thought that would be such a happy thought.

tourist-y business & solo wanderings

today was an interesting day, to say the least!

wanna know more? well, then you have to read my verbose and stream-of-consciousness ramblings. oh, but i know you love it.

so G and i met at my hotel in the AM. i was supposed to be switching rooms today, since someone else was coming to stay in my double. originally the hotel desk clerk told me that i had to move to their sister hotel across the street. but then they decided to make things a little easier and i got another "double" room in the same place. however, thinking i could just move stuff over myself, in plastic bags, or whatever, i hadn't really packed up all my junk. but it turned out that the guests in my new room hadn't moved out because they had late check-out. lazy-as* slackers. oh, before i forget. the rooms at this place had names. my first room was called hittite & the second one, troy. pretty awesome, hey?

so i had to leave my stuff and G's in the hallway to be moved when those fools in troy finally got their sh*t together. harrumph. so not in my agenda. oh yeah, G's stuff was going to be staying in my room too since he was crashing with me. we head out.

our first stop was gulhane park, sweet, sweet escape within the city. not that you need to go to gulhane park for respite. still it was nearby and had a great view. we stopped for tea inside the park, gearing up for topkapi palace (beside the park). can i just say how awesome it is that things we wanted to see were relatively close to one another. of course i can say it. you are my captive audience. so i really wanted to see the harem here. really. but it was an extra 10 lira on top of the entrance fee. i checked if you could just go to the harem, but of course not. thanks istanbul ministry of tourism. mean. just plain stingy. so neither G, nor i were willing to pay extra for what (in my opinion) really ought to have been included. turns out that was a good thing since the guide book said that you get "herded through" the harem and you can only do it through guided tours that take place on a schedule. instead, we wandered around the palace. pretty cool place. especially the display of weapons. i could do some major damage on the streets of NYC. we did see the sultan's bed. which upon closer inspection apparently revealed some stains. of the semen variety. okay, gross. sorry. but c'mon it had to be said.

the coolest things were (a) a st. john the baptist relic (his ARM and a piece of his SKULL; and (b) muhammed's jacket (in a box) - you couldn't actually see the jacket, but i believe it. and we saw a kickass huge diamond. a diamond that had been located (at one time) in a dumpster. puts a whole new spin on dumpster diving.

we then decided to go check out a movie at the beyoglu sinemax. i had to go see a movie in an istanbul-i theatre. the highlight of the movie was the cute woman working the concession stand. seriously. high. light. the movie we saw is called outlaw. it was a scottish film and required a dictionary to understand. G had found an awesome baklava place on the main drag of beyoglu. i snuck it in. G snuck in a beer because he's bad like that. & that's just the way he rolls. so, to give you an idea of how kick-a*s this baklava is. the hotel front desk guy at G's hotel raised his hands to allah when he saw G with the baklava. this is a very good omen, natch. never thought i'd use natch in a sentence (written or otherwise) and now i have. sky has not fallen. though my cool barometer just hit the abyss. when G offered some baklava to the guy, he closed his eyes, raise his hand (palm-up) to G, shook his head and said "my wife says too much baklava." super cute. i didn't actually witness this exchange. this is all G's information. it's probably true since he doesn't exaggerate nearly as much as i do.

or maybe he does. & everything he told me was a lie.

the movie was so-so. the air/conditioning barely worked. i could have stood at the front of the theatre and blown air on everyone and it would have been cooler in there.

so, we had to go back to our cafe for some narghile, tavla & tea. me smoking the narghile is a pretty awesome sight. if G sends me the pictures, i'll post them up here. i can't really moan about that since i'm still not finished cataloguing mine. i need a personal assistant to assist with tech-related stuff. any offers?

so, G had plans for the evening and i was on my own. not to worry. on my own? i'm practically always on my own if you factor in my inner-mind fantasy land.

i think i previously mentioned the guy handing out pamphlets for the fancy restaurant. he parks himself at the end of the lane with our cafe. and really loves to chat with us. he kept trying to give us the brochure for the "memories" -- of what, i'm not sure. memories of harassment. good times. anyway, we really didn't know what he was touting. we took the pamphlet for the memories. we stopped to chat a bit (in retrospect, bad idea). he asked us where we're from and what we do. he joking (i hope) asked if we could take him back with us. ha ha. when G mentioned he was a teacher, he sort of ah-ed and nodded. when G said i was an avocat, he practically did a back-flip. he then insisted on trying on my glasses. i warned him that he'd be blinded, probably for life, or at least for the next 15 minutes. then of course, i caved. he was then wildly blinded. anyway, the excitement over my job was really weird. most of the time, guys run away like i'm about to hand them a subpoena. jeez louise. am i really that scary? c'mon i look like i'm 14.

i dropped G off at the funicular for his fun evening. i walked up & down beyoglu's streets, wandering in and out of shops. here and there. everywhere. starving. G and i had seen a "world coffee" place that looked cool & had good coffee (or so we'd heard/read/something.) it turned out to be a mirage because i couldn't find it. i was about to buckle and go to starbucks when i remembered a place called ada, cool coffee shop/restaurant/bookstore. i passed by it. easy to spot since there was scaffolding on the building next door. decided to dine there. and read my book. the menu didn't have much turkish food. i opted for pasta. and some turkish cheese rolls which turned out to be like wontons or spring rolls with with the local cheese inside. this might be a repeater story (what can i say, i'm turning into my mom) but when i asked at breakfast one morning (one morning when i actually ate my included with the price of the room rooftop breakfast) what the name of the cheese was. it's really delicious. like feta without the salty edge. the woman serving breakfast said "it's called cheese." yes, thank you. i thought it was called "goat". anyway, i asked what kind of cheese. she said "white cheese." what! white cheese! wow. anyway, without being any more snarky, it turned out that G had had a similar experience when he inquired about the cheese. i'll hit up murray's and ask for turkish cheese. should be good enough.

so my dinner was pretty good. i had a super cute waiter (deja vu!). we chatted and i turned on my feminine charms. namely, smiling a lot. he asked me some of the usual questions. where i'm from...what i do...what i think of istanbul. the you-zh. i go on about how i'm staying in sultanahmet and it sucks over there. next time, i'll stay in beyoglu. he agrees that sultanahmet sucks elbow. i finish up dinner; read a bit; ask for the cheque (yes, it's cheque, not check (mark).) anyway, he comes by to drop off the bill and asks me if i'm going to go back to sultanahmet. i say, yeah my travel companion is busy tonight and that i might wander around a bit and then take the tram home. i mention how i got stuck and had to take a vastly overpriced taxi one night. he asks if i want to come back to the restaurant when he's done his shift (in about half an hour), we could hang out, walk around beyoglu. i had nothing to do and it was still pretty early, so i say sure. he looks like he's about 20 but whatevz - i'm a lady about town. or a cougar. unclear. okay, it's clear but i prefer the former. and besides, who am i to turn down the attentions of a cute young man. i come back in a bit, browse the books, have a latte at the restaurant until he's ready to go.

we go out on our date. now, i'm tempted not to say anymore about the date because, well, i like to keep you guessing and i like an air of mystery. but i also like attention so i'll go on a bit. he takes me out to a fancy cafe (the beer is considerably more expensive than down cheap beer alley.) i tease him about being a "bad muslim" for being a beer-drinker. he tells me about his family. he has a 6 yr old sister who he absolutely adores. he wants to work on a cruise ship so he can help out his family with more money. his father makes just the rent on their apartment, so his contribution is really significant & important. so different from my life. i worry about my parents & about how they will do financially once my dad retires, but i can scarcely say i contribute to financing their household. we have a lovely time. we talk about my family, where i grew up, how few indian people there were, but what i've retained/rejected from my heritage. he's really interested in how multicultural society works. he's quite idealistic about it. i tell him that sometimes the diversity tapestry is frayed. and kind of tired looking.

he wants to hang out some more. and so do i. he's really good company and his english is really good, actually. we can actually communicate beyond the basics. so we decide to go back to sultanahmet since i have to go back there anyway and it's getting late. in true gentleman form, he wants to make sure i get back safely. quite the contrast to the NY "drop off" at the subway with a quick see you later. don't mean to hate on boys here. but there's something nice about being taken to your door. and that delicious butterfly feeling thinking about a goodnight kiss. so we head to sultanahmet in a taxi that isn't a rip-off. we pick up some beverage along the way. the bars/restaurants in my nabe are lacking ambience, kind of lame and packed with grizzled-looking australians and brits. we head to my room with our drinks to keep up the conversation. ostensibly.

now this is where the story is choose your own adventure. because, well, like vegas whatever happens in istanbul stays in istanbul. but don't let my mysterious ways constrain your imagination. envision whatever you want in your musings. i will tell you that: i'm not married or pregnant. those things are certain.

so go wild. you can't expect me to spoon feed you everything.

oh, he turned out to be 25 years old. my friends here think 25 is my magic number. i'm inclined to agree.

scrub-a-dub tourist day!

17.08.07:

today was our one official day of tourism. anything else we saw on other days was just superfluous. G and i had the awesomeness of wanting to see the same things and wanting to spend the same amount of time seeing them. this worked out to brilliant advantage for both of us. i'd be eying the exit, G would be too. yay. no feeling like you're rushing someone through a UNESCO heritage site or wondering just how long some can stare at a mosaic tile before losing the will to live. so it all worked out wonderfully.

we started off the day meeting at my hotel, which was about 5 minutes from both the blue mosque and hagia sofia. so i told you about the blue mosque already. so, haiga sofia. warning: more education. put on yer thinking caps kids.

Hi-YAAAA SOPHIA:

the most striking thing about hagia sophia is its massive dome, epitomizing byzantine architecture. for nearly 1000 years, hagia sophia was the largest cathedral in the whole world! pretty, cool.

hagia sophia was originally constructed as a church between (get this) 532 and 537 on the orders of byzantine emperor justinian. it was the third church of the holy wisdom to occupy the site. the prior two churches had both been destroyed by riots. two architects, isadore (of miletus) and anthemius (of tralles), designed the church. the church contained a bunch of holy relics. among other things, it had a 50-foot silver (i had to look this word up) ICONOSTASIS (a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church). hagia sophia was the patriarchal church of the patriarch of constantinople (lots of patriarchy there!) and it was the religious focal point of the orthodox byzantine empire for nearly 1000 years.

way back in 1453, constantinople was conquered by the ottoman turks and sultan mehmed II ordered the hagia sophia building to be converted into a mosque. the bells, altars, iconostatis and sacrificial vessels were removed. many of the mosaics were eventually plastered over. the islamic features -- such as the four minarets outside, the mihrab (a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, i.e. the direction of Kaaba that Muslims should face when praying. the mihrab gives the impression of a door or a passage to Mecca. mihrabs first appeared in the prophet Muhammad's house in Mecca) and minbar (not to be confused with minibar!) (a pulpit) -- were added over the course of its history under the ottomans.

hagia sofia remained a mosque all the way up until 1935, when it was converted into a museum by the secular republic of turkey.

hagia sofia had a profound influence on architecture. for almost 500 years, as the principal mosque of istanbul, hagia sofia served as a model for many other ottoman mosques, including (its across the street neighbour) the blue mosque.

although it is sometimes referred to as Saint Sophia, the Greek name in full is church of the holy wisdom of God and it was dedicated to the holy wisdom of god rather than a specific saint named sophia.

trivia time: hagia sofia is featured in the 1963 bond film from russia with love where bond's lover tatiana romanova slips bond small blueprints of istanbul's russian consulate where bond needs to steal the lektor communication device. the hagia sophia is also seen in background shots in the 1999 bond film the world is not enough.

the hagia sofia is a striking building. calling it a museum (as it is today) really doesn't do it justice.

i am glad we did check out the blue mosque and the hagia sofia. but my favourite site visited on official tourism day was the basilica cistern, and not only because it was cool inside and therefore i wasn't sweating my own body weight.

THE BASILICA CISTERN:

the basilica cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns (receptacles for holding liquids, usually water) that still lie under istanbul. the basilica cistern is located near the hagia sofia (are you noticing a trend in our tourism, yet?) and was built during the reign of emperor justinian I in the 6th C, byzantine empire.

the cistern is the size of a cathedral. it's an underground chamber of 143x65 metres, capable of holding 80,000 cubic metres of water! the space is broken up by 336 marble columns each 9 metres high. the columns are arranged in 12 rows each consisting of 28 columns. apparently, emperor constantine had already built a basilica and cistern on the same spot, but as the demand for water grew, justinian enlarged the cistern and incorporated the basilica.

the bases of two of the columns re-use earlier blocks carved with the head of a medusa. no one knows the origin of the two heads. another mystery (call nancy drew!) is why one of the heads is upside down, and the other one tilted on its side. "scientists" commonly accept that that was done purposefully. i suspect the work of extraterrestrial forces, myself.

and, because the entire budget of from russia with love was blown in istanbul, the cistern was also used a location in that movie.

after all of our touring, G and I knew we needed a rub-down, smack-down sort of cleansing. with 7 layers of sweat having been dried & reactivated all day long, i was ready for someone to give me the bath of a lifetime. so we went to a hamam. G had wisely purchased scrubby mitts for us to take with us. trust me, there's nothing caring about sharing a dead-skin scrubber with other people.

G signed up for the lo-fi bath. i signed up for the hi-fi, scrub me, rub me, make me yours service. i can't speak to G's experience - all i can say is that the world is a small place because G ran into the guy of the american law firm tote carrying couple i was cold-shouldered by in the boarding lounge of the flight to istanbul.

my time at a hamam (or how i lost my inhibition to walk around naked around strangers):

i go in, pay the fee for the full-meal deal and am lead to a very nice change room. i change into the robe they give me, put on some flip flops and go to the bath. the bath is in an absolutely gorgeous marble steam room with a giant dome, shaped like a hexagon. it's quite large. placed along the wall are basin and taps. you fill the basin with water and use a scooper-outer to languidly pour the water over your body. this is how my mom used to give me baths. we never did the whole fill up the tub and sit in it thing. well, not until i heard about it from the outside world (i.e., school). and then i finally graduated up to showers. but i really liked the being scrubbed and shampooed by my mom kneeling by the side of the tub. and pouring water over my head. yay! so after a while of pouring water over me, a large turkish woman named maryam comes over to me. maryam is a lovely, though mostly silent woman who has the misfortune of wearing a bathing suit 4 sizes too small. now, everyone in the bath is naked, except for the employees (who are wearing bathing suits). there was one polly prude in the place (a foreign woman wearing a thong -- okay, i'm sorry, but if you are wearing a thong, you might as well wear nothing. i can see it all anyway). but the rest of us were naked. i have realized that my coping strategy for situations that at some point in the past would have been awkward (such as sitting in a room of naked strangers) is that since i can't see well without glasses and/or my contacts work less well than glasses, i don't care if people are staring at me and wondering how a freak of nature isn't working at a carny (because i can't see them.) and frankly if i can't see you, you don't exist. it's a glorious realization to have.

so maryam comes over to me, tells me to go to the center (there is a hexagonal raised platform there, so everyone can see whatever happens to you) and lie down on my back. she comes over and gives me a scrubbing! talk about big time scrub-a-thon. she removed dead skin cells from the entities i was in past lives! it was a very brisk and refreshing feeling actually. or i am deeply tolerant of having my body sandpapered. she gives me an amazing scrub. all over. ALL over. i then go back to my basin and wash myself off. she comes back to me after i've bathed again and brings me back to "our" spot on the hexagon platform. i am then massaged blissfully thoroughly and lathered up and shampooed. it felt wonderful! yay! thank you maryam!!

post-hamam experience, we took off to beyoglu for some tea, tavla & narghile. after much tavla fun was had, we wandered around beyoglu. i wanted to go check out topshop (hey, we don't have it in ny) and i wanted to check out a turkish music store to get some of the amazing pop we'd been hearing. G bought the cd with my favourite t-pop song on it (romeo by hande yener)! i bought a couple of cds too. then i went to starbucks (yes, i know -- how gauche) but i really just wanted a latte (as G would say - i succumbed to the trappings blah blah blah). we took some tourist loser pictures in starbucks. for proof of my lameness, i guess. we did some interwebs. and then went to the cheap beer bar G found. G had grabbed some food prior to us going to the beer place. i had not. the place was PACKED. there was nowhere to sit outside. we had to haul as* up to the top floor of the place and squeeze ourselves into a table. there we sat listening to amazing 80s and 90s music, wetting our whistles, scoping the crowd (there was a strange punk element there -- definitely some bizarre style choices like this guy with a super crazy-freak-on afro) and we had a heart-to-heart. which was absolutely wonderful de-tox for me. so thanks, G. you are a sweetheart. i needed to get home. back to sultanahmet from beyoglu, so back to the funicular + tram combo. G drops me at the funicular.

i take the funicular to where i transfer to the tram. or so i think. turns out the tram has stopped running for the night. it's not yet midnight. i walk to the transit guy standing at the entrance telling us that we can't go in. he tells me the tram is no longer running, that i can either go back on the funicular or take a taxi. i ask him what time the tram stops running. he says (get this) 11:50 pm!!! 11:50!! weird. so i ask him what time the funicular stops running. he says (i'm about to burst with anticipation) midnight. so, i ask him, the funicular runs until midnight, the tram until 11:50 even though the funicular connects up to the tram. he looks at me funnily and says yes. i start laughing. that's hilarious. he looks at me like i am mentally challenged. anyway. later G tells me that he heard that they both ran til at least midnight, or maybe until 12:30 or 1:00 AM. who knows!

so i take a taxi back to my hotel. we had to go all these weird back roads (maybe just to jack up the fare). by the time we got home, i was so happy i could have cut off my right arm as the fare.

dropped into bed! yay!!

the story about the funicular/tram reminds me of something hilarious again concerning the transit system. so G and S had these awesome little sticks that they could just put money on and then zap themselves in through the stalls. like a metrocard but not a card. it's much cheaper to have one of those because then you can just transfer from one form of transit (e.g., funicular) to another (e.g., tram). if you don't have one of those, then you end up paying 2 tokens for the ride (they didn't give you a transfer to get on another form of transit). so i spent so much time trying to track one of these down. you can recharge them pretty much anywhere, but they appeared to be IMPOSSIBLE to find! absolutely impossible. as you all know, patience is not my strongest quality. so by this time (after having asked about 6 different places over many days) i was about ready to bust through a metro kiosk. someone finally told me (instead of just directing me to another f*(king kiosk) that they don't have them anymore. apparently these very practical, very useful, very handy, very NECESSARY metro sticks ran as a limited supply, limited time only thing. RIDICULOUS. at that point, i was so drained that i wanted to just cry at the sheer absurdity of it all! G told me later that he met some people from istanbul who thought he actually lived in the city because he had one of those -- he could probably sell it on ebay for $100. jeez louise. it has to be said again. loud and proud, people: JEEZ LOUISE!!!!

rest in peace mr. ramsankar

i just found out, via the magic of facebook, that one of my teachers from junior high school (grades 7 and 8) at alexander forbes passed away. mr. ramsankar was a tough, but fair teacher. he taught me science. one of his notable quotes was: "open your reminder ... [30 second pause] ... binder." loved it. oh and before tests and quizzes: "please get a blue or black ink pen."

mr. ramsankar was a superb teacher. he really put a lot of thought into teaching and genuinely cared about his students. i think many of us who had him for a teacher regarded him with affection. he will definitely be missed.

beyoglu, modern istanbul & some edumacation

16.08.07:

today S and i were going to meet G in his (much cooler) nabe. where turkish people actually hang out, and not only to sell you carpets. S & i met up at the blue mosque, which is sort of halfway between our two places. G and i actually went into the blue mosque another day, but i will tell you about it now. because you need some culture in your life.

HISTORY LESSON NO. ONE

the blue mosque is called the blue mosque because it is one of a few mosques that are adorned with blue tiles on their interior walls. it was built between 1609 and 1616 (and man does it look it) (haha), during the rule of Ahmed I. why was the mosque built? read on ... basically it was built to appease Allah because of a few embarrassing defeats. the blue mosque (which officially is known as sultan ahmed mosque) was the first imperial mosque in over 40 years. because ahmed was a sultan-loser (i.e., he hadn't won any notable victories), he had to use money from the treasury to build it and thus provoked the anger of the ulema.

the mosque was built on the site of the palace of the byzantine emperors (take that!), facing the hagia sophia (pronounced hi-ya sophia) and the hippodrome, a site of great significance apparently (and also a place i walked past without realizing it about 14 times.) like any contractor, the sultan had to buy and then have torn down a bunch of other palaces that were already on the site. this would be one of the first usages of the eminent domain doctrine.

in a move that would be emulated by many important public figures throughout time, the sultan came down to the site to break the first sod in august 1609. he intended for the blue mosque to be the first mosque of his empire. the organization of the mosque was immaculately detailed, with many to-do lists. the opening ceremony was held in 1617, although the building wasn't finished (because contractors were just as unpredictable and unreliable even back then) and the accounts were signed by his successor mustafa I (who must also have inherited a huge deficit).

so there you have it.

S and i met at this historic place and trod the soil that the great man himself walked on. we took the tram to the bottom of the hill leading up to the galata tower.

HISTORY LESSON NO. 2

the galata tower is located north of the golden horn (you have to look that one up yourselves). it's huge, cone-capped, cylindrical and dominates the skyline on the galata side of the golden horn (have you looked it up yet?), which isn't saying much because, well, the area isn't known for its skyscrapers. so get this. the tower was built in 1348 (making the blue mosque modern architecture) as a fortification during an expansion of the genoese colony in constantinople (this is obvs ripped off of wikipedia). there was also an old tower of galata, but that tower was destroyed during the fourth crusade in 1204. during the ottoman period, the tower was used as an observation tower for spotting fires.

in 1638, turkish dare-devil, hezarfen ahmet celebi, used artificial wings (made of gossamer, one wonders?) and flew from this tower over the bhosphorus to the slopes of a mountain over on the anatolian side. for his feat, he was awarded 5 goats and a hudson bay company blanket.

as of 1960, the tower has been open to the touring hordes. there's a restaurant and cafe on the upper floors and there is also a nightclub up there!

okay, back to our riveting tale. we got off the tram and began our steep ascent to the galata tower, where we were meeting up with G. we then meandered our way through a series of musical instrument shops and a few cute-looking cafes (geared toward the tourists going to the tower). we then came to a huge promenade, which is the main strip of beyoglu. i wish i could remember the name of the street and i'm too lazy to look it up. it's the happening area. no matter what time of day you go there, there are tonnes of people milling about. to give you a sense of the area, here's a description.

imagine a large promenade like the champs elysee, but imagine breaking off from it numerous streets and alleys, who then intersect with one another using small streets and alleys. so you have a main artery down the center and then on both sides of it, you have smaller veins running into one another. i think viewing it from above (next time, hot air balloon ride) would be really neat. the main street has mostly shops and restaurants like mcdonald's, starbucks, turkish eateries, some turkish chain cafes, topshop, benetton, etc. G's hotel is just off of the main drag. many of the smaller intersecting streets seem to be themed, like cheap beer alley, tavla-cafe alley, restaurant row, music venue street, etc.

we wound our way down to the modern. the istanbul modern is istanbul's new contemporary art museum - inaugurated in 2004. it's located inside a converted warehouse in the tophane district on the bosphorus. it's the first contemporary art museum in turkey. the location has it's pros and one HUGE con. the pros are the funky industrial/warehouse area is a great venue for a modern art museum and the space is really well used, i thought. the big CON is that giant cruise ships dock basically right beside it. so the awesome view of the bosphorus that you would have is marred by a princess cruise lines floating hotel. ick. lucky for us, the entire ship didn't disembark and come to the museum.

to get to the museum, we walked along a pathway through a bunch of turkish cafes & places with narghile (or shisha or waterpipe or whatever), which was vastly overpriced due to the proximity to the museum i guess. the museum was great. it features a permanent collection on the top floor of turkish artists. with visiting exhibitions downstairs. on thursday, the admission was free. but i would have paid to go in. that's saying a lot.

some of the pieces i really enjoyed are listed here, so you can look them up if you want. or not. or if you are thinking of something awesome to buy me for my birthday. i listed the names of the pieces where i know them. for those of you working the law firm cocktail party circuit, these are sophisticated names to drop the next time pretentious partner X stops by the circle of great conversation you were just having which abruptly halted into awkward silence. it sure beats listening to someone talk about the last time they went fox hunting.

* turan erol (ararat mountain, 2002)
* balkan naci islimyeli (straitjacket, air-water-earth-fire-ash I, woman in black)
* bedn rahmi eyuboglu (self-portrait, 1964)
* ergin inan (self-portrait, 1996)
* burhan uygur (kapi, 1987-89)
* cihat burak (the death of the poet)
* fahre inissa zeid (my hell, 1951)
* monica bonvicini
* bakim noktasi (pitstop I, II and III, 2007)

the big visiting exhibit was andreas gursky photographs (hong kong shanghai bank, 1994, montparnasse, 1993, pcfi paris, 2003, kuwait stock exchange, 2007, times square, ny, 1997, madonna I, 2001, may day V, 2006, chicago board of trade II, 1999 - these a few that i noted.) gurksy hangs at the MoMa too, so some of the pieces were familiar.

there was a super cool photography exhibit - a young turkish photographer named ahmet polat. the exhibit is called kim sin set? which means who are you? polat is the first turkish photographer to have won the "Best Young Artist" award from international center of photography (the place i took my digital photography workshop, not that i'm winning any awards for my stuff). anyway, the istanbul modern's website is a little too flashy for lo-fi me, so i am giving up on mining it for more information about polat. the exhibition consists of 82 photographs on various issues, immigrants in transvaal, homeless in tilburg, the 1999 marmara earthquake, turkish ghettos in the hague, etc.

the other really neat thing (that i would like to do in my home if i someday own one) was this cool faux ceiling of hanging books that the museum had in its education wing. super cool. the installation was created by richard wentworth.

so after our fill of amazing art and i of the gift shop, we stopped off for tea/drinks at one of the cafes we had to wind our way through to get to the museum. there were some other foreigners sitting near us. one of them, a blond woman G said was british, was like a melting together of posh spice & britney spears. in the worst possible way. they were icky. anyway, the place we stopped for tea had these awesome barbapapa looking beanbag chairs. the chairs actually resembled the blobby shape of the barbapapas!

after tea, we took the funicular up the hill (the funicular is really clean & really air conditioned & thus really super-fantastic) to grab some lunch. S was leaving istanbul to go meet up with some friends from school whose parents lived somewhere outside of istanbul. sad. i really like hanging out with her. hopefully, we'll see one another again, either in ny or in korea. we found a great place for lunch and i had an awesome shish tavuk in a pita. we then dropped S off at the bottom of galata hill. G and i walked back up, again winding our way up to the main street in beyoglu. we stopped by G's hostel to do our business (not dirty business; just WC business, but apparently the front desk guy thought that G had once brought S back to his room for some sexin' because he said that they could only stay in G's room for 5 minutes. anyway, there are a lot of things to say about that 5 minute comment but i will refrain because this is a PG-13 blog.)

we wandered off in search of internet. found it. and then came the best part of our trip. we found an awesome place to get tea, smoke narghile & play tavla. it turns out that on our first time there, we were at one of the cafes and then subsequently we were at a neighbouring cafe called viva cafe. we only realized this on my last day in town, when the guy we thought of as "our guy" told us that he actually worked at a different cafe. so this was the second time i played tavla. at first, i was on a total winning streak. major beginner's luck. people at other tables were amazed by my prowess, but then the inevitable happened. as quick as was my meteoric rise was my tumultuous fall to the abyss of tavla. G is a super teacher though. i feel like i am armed with some good moves and that i have a great foundation for occasionally winning. never again did i reach the amazing summit of such victory. but something to work toward.

we set off post-tavla to search for a place called peyote that i read about in my guidebook. it's supposed to be a cool place to hear indie music. we walked around and around and around the intersecting veins of beyoglu. we were on a mission. even the 7500 restauranteurs trying to woo us with their yummy smelling foods were not enough to tempt us to abort the mission. we did finally find it. but what an anti-climax. we don't really know how the place is since we walked up the stairs only to be told that they were full. but on a positive note, G did get a WC break out of it. so all was not lost.

we then went and grabbed some dinner. i had turkish pizza. it was delicious. post-pizza, i head home on the funicular and then the tram. ah sweet home.

i got huge blisters on my feet. blisters like winnipeg mosquito bites. blisters like blood suckers. blisters like covering the entire ball of my foot. ouch.

just for deannabanana

newsflash:

smoove r has competition on prospect place! how does smoove's alter-ego, RM, handle the heat? with her sharp tongue (no, not that way). read this exchange:

[on the way back home from the brooklyn public library]

RM (your humble blogger) walking eastward on prospect place, spots a few males loitering (aka skeeve-y guys, or SG) outside a building, doing the stoop-hanging-outing thing. paying them no mind, RM continues down the road homeward bound.

SG are checking RM out. RM can just tell. she doesn't even have to look in their direction to know that they are in awe of RM's beauty and her gazelle-like grace.

SG (they are all interchangeable) says: "hiiiiiiii beautiful" in the voice you imagine smoove r speaks in. a sort of sing-song lilt. and then: "hiiiiiii sexy."

RM retorts with nary a glance in their direction & with the same tone: "hiiiiiii creepy. hiiiiii weirdo."

his SG friends erupt into gales of laughter. RM continues down the street, with a spring in my step.

it's really a shame ...

... that more of you aren't commenting. i'm pouring my guts out on the interwebs, risking possible future-employment related repercussions, battling my short-term amnesia to put things down with at least 65% accuracy. so c'mon. wake up. is your work really that important? are your social lives really that thriving? are your thoughts really so depraved that putting them down here would result in a life-time ban on using the internet?

don't you miss me. even a little bit?

even mean comments are welcome. but you'll have to live with knowing that you made me cry.

oh yeah... fenerbahce won 1-0

can't believe i forgot to give the score. i was delirious with the thoughts of the hottt boys! ooops.

go fenerbahce -- rah, rah!!

15.08.07

met G and S in the morning at the new mosque. i got there early so i poked around the spice bazaar. great sights & smells. i ended up buying some dried fruit & almonds. i am crazy about dried strawberries, so i bought some of those. and also dried kiwi (weird!) and apricots (the grandaddy of dried fruit). anyway. delicious. the process of buying the fruit was entertaining. there were tonnes of people in this little spice stall. and they tried to sell me "the sultan's aphrodisiac" - when i looked faux-miffed and said that i am the aphrodisiac. they laughed and said i should get it for my friends. i wasn't feeling gag-gifty. so none of you are getting the sultan's aphrodisiac. just put on some axe like everyone else.

the three of us also scoped out the grand bazaar, which is a maze-like (indoor -- yay!) marketplace with lanes that sell specific items. for example, we accidentally strolled down leather-dead cow lane. the thought of leather jackets in 35 degree weather was nausea-inducing. we wandered around and i found a neat jewellery shop, with a lot of felted jewellery and some wickedawesome hats (of course we tried them on). the general feeling in our group was that pushy sales techniques make us want to never return to a stall, where as north-american style ignoring the customer is what we do respond to. yes, i want to have to chase down the salesperson. having someone leap upon you the minute to look in the direction of their wares is a little irritating. i need to contemplate in silence. there was a market outside the grand bazaar as well. G bought a jersey for the football match we were going to later that day. it was a wise move as it endeared him to many, many turks (and by extension, S and I too.)

we all split up for nap-time, second showers, etc. we were to meet up again at our new mosque meeting spot around 6 pm. i went back to my hotel, took another shower, walked around in search of some internet. realize now that i had walked past a bunch of internet places that i didn't spot. i got to the meeting spot insanely early. so i walked around some more. i found a street with (new) bookshops. wandered in and out of the bookshops and the stationary stores in the area. meandered my way back to the meeting spot.

the three of us took the ferry over to the stadium. the stadium and fenerbahce's base is in kadikoy, in the (surprise, surprise) fenerbahce district of istanbul. the stadium is an interesting story in and of itself. it's called sukru saracoglu stadium & inaugurated in 1908!! according to my friends at wikipedia, the stadium is the first one in turkey designed according to official football regulations and standards (it was renovated between 1999 and 2006). it's been selected to host the 2009 UEFA (Union of European Football Associationg) Cup final. the total capacity of the stadium is 50,509. kinda cool.

so, we follow the wave of blue & yellow striped jersey to the ferry and from the ferry to the stadium, stopping to grab some dinner. the match was between fenerbahce and a belgian team, anderlecht (i took to calling them anderblecht). the match was important (and now i remember) because it was for advancement to the champions league. and fenerbahce needed to win. the air was thick with excitement and anticipation. the stadium filled up (not to capacity, but decent) with waves of blue & yellow striped fans. i filled my belly with turka cola, a coke rip-off that was actually quite refreshing (that's a huge statement from someone who refused to drink generic coke and would rather go without.)

the game was super exciting. we were all really into it. we asked the group behind us (mixed group, adults & kids) to teach us some of the cheers. the crowd was doing chants in support of fenerbahce. and S and i were keen to know what the cheers were.
the guys sitting behind us wrote them down in my notebook.

here they are with loose translations:

oooooh sampiyon fener [fener are the champions]
en buyuk fener, baska buyik yok [fener is the biggest team; nothing else matters]
burasi kadikoy buradan, gilels yok [this place is kadikoy, there is no way out from here]

pretty cool.

what's also pretty cool are the two hottt turkish guys (definitely dual citizens of hotttistan) who were wildly cheering. and seriously were the dreamiest boys i have seen in a long while. S, on her way back from the washroom, had to pass by them. they stopped and chatted a bit. it pays to have a hot japanese lady in your group! then we kept looking at them, and them at us. i took some crappy photos of them. seriously, super duper couldn't get them out of my head. even now, i'm smiling a goofy smile at the thought of them. okay. crazy.

post-match, we followed the crowd out of the stadium (talk about bottleneck at the gates). G's awesome jersey got us props again. we boot it back to the ferry, but we're going separate ways. S and i are heading back to sultanahmet and G is back to beyoglu. S and i take the ferry back to the area around the new mosque and walk back together.

a perfect day.

gotta note how awesome G was in planning out an agenda. i could just go along with it because he planned everything i wanted to do. total travel mind meld. love it.

more information courtesy of wikipedia:

fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü (Fenerbahçe Sport Club), commonly known as Fenerbahçe (IPA: [feneːɾbatʃe]), is a professional sports club located in Istanbul, Turkey. The team is based in the district of Istanbul named Fenerbahçe. The name of the district and the sports club derives from the lighthouse located in the district ('Fener' in Turkish means lighthouse, 'bahçe' means garden). The most popular branch of the club by far is the football team. The club also competes in basketball, volleyball, rowing, boxing, sailing, athletics, swimming and table tennis. Fenerbahçe's football branch currently plays in the Turkcell Süper Lig. They are nicknamed the Yellow canaries and play their home games at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadyumu in Kadıköy. Fenerbahçe is celebrating its centennial year, as of 2007.

my first evening in istanbul

so. we head out from my hotel, G, S and me. S is meeting up with her turkish school-mate friends later. we head to the area of the new mosque, where we will have our meeting place with them. we decide to sit in a cafe and have some tea while we wait. on the walk along cafe row, we are barraged by offers to drink tea at the establishments of numerous friends. we opt to go to the top of the little hill for our tea. G is stopped 70 times. he actually stops when people try to talk to him. S and i walk on past. i give my sweet-sounding, polite, canadian "no thank you" with an amazing, dontcha love me smile to each of them, thus breaking hearts in my wake.

for the time that G and S have been traveling/wandering together, people have hilariously assumed that G is a frenchman traveling with his hottt japanese gfriend, S. S is korean. konichiwa, say all the turks to S. konichiwa (in the most girly voice i can manage without barfing) is the motto for our hangings-outs with S. konichiwa, S. wherever you are (probs back in korea).

turkish tea is addictive. G was on some 6 times a day kick. i was less addicted but i'm sure after a few more weeks there, i'd be hooked up to an IV. we met S's friends -- 3 sisters, two of whom study in korea. when we met up with them, their mother was there too, so we got motherly turkish hugs (3 time, cheek to cheek) awesome! we had dinner at a nice place nearby - they chose the dishes, and they were all delicious. the company was great & so was the food. they (especially the eldest sister (very beautiful woman) who didn't speak much english and hadn't lived outside of turkey) were very inquisitive and curious about canada, our thoughts on turkey, preconceived ideas we had about turkey, etc. they were so open & warm right from the beginning. and so generous. the eldest sister had paid for the meal! of course, i protested, but to no avail. as in india, mehman is bhagvan -- a guest is a gift from god. and are thus treated well and shown respect. i actually noticed quite a few similarities between turkish culture & indian culture. not surprising, but cool to see.

the sisters asked me whether i had a boyfriend -- i said, nope. they were genuinely surprised at my boyfriend-less, date-less situation. and said they would find a nice turkish boy for me. to that, all i could say was inshallah.

post-dinner, we all split our separate ways. S, G and i were walking in the same direction. well, G went out of his way to make sure i figured out my way home. we split with S around the blue mosque area and G walked me back to my hotel. there is a bar at the intersection near the hotel. G and i stopped there for a beer & a game of tavla.

tavla = backgammon. G is really, really good at it. he taught me how to play and i very quickly became a tavla junkie. with...drawal. so much fun & such a great way to let time pass by.

collapsed into bed.

IST arrival part 2

i get out of passport control and emerge in the main hall. while i was waiting in the passport line, i had been called to the information desk. my hotel had arranged for a ride from the airport to the hotel, and someone was supposed to be waiting for me with a sign that said "MR. MANGAT." i can't believe my dad is such a follower that he couldn't even arrange his own, original vacation. but whatever! so i hustle to information (not tourist information, where i went first by mistake) to say that i had been paged. ok, p.s., i love walking out of the baggage area of the airport knowing that someone was carrying a sign with my name on it, like i'm a VIP or something. the information desk calls the driver over. we hug. seriously. the guy hugs me. maybe he was trying to cop a feel. maybe he was just delighted to learn that i hadn't been abducted and brutally attacked on his watch. i like to think it's the latter.

we are waiting for another couple who are heading to the same area for their hotel. they are a lovely portugese woman and her irish husband, who lives in lisbon and has fallen in love with it. i love how inter-state europe is. people from one country move and live in another, fall in love with the place or with a local and stay forever. it's my notion of romance and love of border fluidity brought together. while we are waiting for the couple to get out of the baggage area, i spot two familiar things. an ATM for citibank, my bank. and starbucks. i tell my driver-friend [p.s. EVERYONE in istanbul is my FRIEND. i feel like norm on cheers] that i'm going to head over to Citibank so that, for the first time on this trip, i will not be paying an additional $2.30 to take out my very own money from my very own account.

we drive (like madness) to the sultanahmet area, where the touristy hotels and hostels are. i wish i had known that i could have stayed in G's area, beyoglu, which is where turkish people actually hang out. the sultanahmet area is where the blue mosque and haiga sofia are, but also where 10,000 australians and germans are. but lesson learned. next time i'm in istanbul, i will stay in beyoglu.

i check in, take a shower. i had arranged to meet G at my hotel that evening. post-shower, i get a call from the front-desk saying that my friends were waiting for me. i go down to meet G and his travel friend, S (he met S on his other travels in turkey.) S is a lovely korean woman, who has friends from turkey (friends who are going to university in korea). friends we will meet up with later. anyway, not only do i greet G and S, but i mistakenly think the front desk guy (who i had just met not an hour ago) is one of their friends. after introducing myself and shaking his hand (quelle embarrassment), i ask G quietly if this other guy is part of our group. G says no, he's the front desk guy, you fool. we head out from the hotel. i now vow to greet him everyday as though it's the first time we're meeting.

before signing off this post, a word about my room at the hotel. it has (!!!!!!!) a four-poster bed. i have always wanted one. i am delighted. the room is nice and quite spacious. it has a very nice hard-wood floor & wardrobe. the mattress leave much to be desired though. as i'm sure i will mention several times on this blog, the mattress feels like sleeping on hangers, with the pokey-outtie side all randomly dispersed, so you can't even predict where it might jab you in the solar plexus. but anyway. i don't care because i am in love with the four-poster-ness of the bed. being a neat freak, i carefully inspect the bathroom. it's clean. nice. big enough shower (by european standards). i am overall pleased as punch.