POST SCRIPT - ISTANBUL, TURKEY

by Dan Winters (posted by his more techy savvy daughter)
 

It is our final morning in eastern Europe. We watch the Asian borne sunrise seep over the jade mountains to the east,  float across the iconic Bosporus, to illuminate one of the jewels of the world—the Blue Mosque. Not really, we actually are back home. I am jet lagged in my office (my son's old bedroom) trying to focus on the dim sun that  leaks over a partly cloudy San Jose. Life is good.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "It is a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what's changed is you." Some truth about a lack of change but our lawn had changed : it was even deader, a bear had smashed the shit out of our Tahoe cabin, twice, our bank account was a disaster, and the Giants

had tanked. Carol says that is not what the F. Scott was talking about. Thus, we contemplated our change status (changitude?)  We had not gained weight, no change there, in fact Carol had lost some, although her suitcase had mysteriously put on 12 pounds. On the last two flights, they had red tagged her bag,"...danger overweight, consider use of lift." Our diet had changed, sliding more veggie on the veggie/ carnivorous scale.  A Croatian Mixed Grill will do that to you: all ham

appetizer, entree of 3 kinds of sausage (Jimmie Dean, Red Hot and Ballpark Frank) and 3 mystery meats - one could have been veal, don't even ask about dessert. Burkas don't freak us out anymore, not after you see that most have jeans and Nikes on underneath plus a tattoo or two. Just ladies with some different rules. We might have a new ethos or in Midwest talk "Tude" It is derived from a metaphysical tenet exposed by mid 20th century philosopher Ferris Bueller (of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a deeply misunderstood movie. Some people actually thought it was a comedy!):

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"                                                

 

Example. On our last day, we took a bus tour of Istanbul. It was painful. Our hotel was 30 yards from the Blue Mosque. The bus picked us up at the hotel, drove for a half hour,  transferred us to another bus, it drove for a half hour and dropped us off at, you

guessed it, the Blue Mosque. The day kind of went like that. But we got to sit with Ned from New South Wales Australia. He said "I am just a dirt patch farmer." What we meant was that he only had had 15,000 acres in his patch, the big ones had 250,000. That's a lot of dirt. We got to talk to Mike Haza in the row ahead. He was wearing a Chicago Blackhawk jersey and shorts. The mosque guards weren't happy with that outfit. Turns out he is a Jordanian born, Blackhawk maniac, 40 year south side of Chicago resident, Muslim - a unique breed with a laudable perspective. He said this world is screwed up, "but it's not the religions, it's the people." He also predicted a

Blackhawk Stanley Cup. We got to sit with a young Indian couple at the included tour lunch. I had the vegetarian dish (there didn't seem to be any vegetables, not sure what was in it.) The wife could have been a stand in for the exquisite co-star of Slumdog Millionaire and all the husband had was a MBA from Oxford. They said it was an arranged marriage but, she asserted proudly, "We had met each other before." They seemed pretty happy.

Later after a Die Hard worthy tour group escape and a

cocktail sunset, Carol spied a sign,"Panorama Restaurant" on the top of an old school hotel. It had a great view of the massive Hagia Sophia. However, It turned out to be only a Halforama, maybe a Quarterorama  and it was cold with the east wind howling. We would have bolted for cover, except we had a couple of

spectacular G &Ts sitting in front of us. Things were not going well for a special final night. Then, the Muslin call to prayer started, the five times a day ritual that is incredibly exotic, stirring, reverent and irritating, all at the same time. This particular caller had to be the James Brown of local call to prayer wailers. He felt "Good!" It was epic, it was freakin'  Muscle Shoals soulful. Meanwhile the Halforama filled up with thirty or so striking steel jawed men in sport coats. Two charmers engaged us in conversation. They and the others were officers in the British Army assigned to battle tactics development.  They had traveled to Turkey to study the Gallipoli invasion,  a disastrous landing attempt by a mostly Australian force in World

War One. Wikipedia says it was a nightmarish blood bath for both the Allied and Turkish sides. To learn more, netflix Gallipoli, the 70's movie with a young, sensual and then closet anti-Semitic Mel Gibson and the 2015 The Water Diviner starring Russell Crowe who is still trying to rehab from his throw up singing portrayal of Javert in the miserable Les Miserables. Just an opinion. Carol asked the officers, "I thought the modern warfare would be gorilla war, not assault landings." They said, "Russia, China." I said, "Well, at least no more cavalry and oxen drawn cannon." They said, "Afghanistan, Syria, Iraqi." We ordered more gin. 

We were told that Istanbul has a population of 20 million plus at this time of year a half million tourists, every day. It felt that big, that unwieldy. So, we went Bueller, we tried to look around. It was hard, Istanbul is one big ankle breaking tripping hazard, restaurant barkers attack from the side, rug salesman nip at the stragglers, rumor has it there is a bounty on pedestrians, worst, you never, never have the one lira needed to use the WC.  But if you pay attention sooner or later - magic happens  - "Holy Shit" and "Oh My" moments. Istanbul is fascinating but, you know, our fellow ragtag tourists were too. Maybe that is what Ferris meant.

Thanks to those who took time to read some of this smack. You really need a hobby. A shout out to the real writer in the family, Kristi for putting these together. Most of all thanks to Carol for being the cutest and best travel companion ever. She is even hooking me on her Hop On, Hop Off Bus addiction.

 

 

URGUP, CAPPADOCIA, TURKEY

by Dan Winters (posted by his more techy savvy daughter)

 

  "Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith" --  Margot Shepard

Turkey on the Rocks     

This Cappacocia region is a geologist's pornography. There are huge x-rated rock formations that are so stupendously weird that they are beyond words—designed by Tim Burton's production crew on acid or by Frank Zappa when he wasn't hungover. Trust me. Google Cappadocia, then book a trip. Just as weird, there are thousands of caves, dug and lived in by hundreds of thousands of Turks for centuries. What do you do with them now that condos have been invented? You are correct. Answer C: Make them into tourist hotels. We stayed in one. Our room was in a cave. It is the thing to do when you are in Urgup. It could not have been more stylish. It maybe is the coolest place we have ever stayed. Here is the irony. A cave's Achilles heel has always been that there are no windows, all the light and air has to come through the front door.  A belch stays with you for hours, a two day old open can of tuna for a season. We've all lived in stuffy holes like that in college. We have been avoiding them since.

 

 

 

The Turkish Bath       

We had to do it. There was a Turkish bath in Urgup. We had some time and it looked perfect considering it was built a couple of hundred years ago. We ordered the Traditional Bath, it cost $10 each for 45 minutes, we turned down the coffee scrub—it was another three bucks. It was 10 a.m. and we were the only customers, apparently in Urgup, bathing is an afternoon sport. It was a good thing because we didn't know what the procedure was and the manager did not

speak English. He gave each of us what was clearly a table cloth (I think my Mom had the same pattern. I can see the tin foil of the TV dinners on it). We got naked, wrapped the table clothes around us and were led to a big public bath area, fortunately empty. There was a 12 foot diameter, 2 foot tall tiled circle in the middle surrounded by benches. On the benches were marble cisterns with metal dog bowls in them.

The attendant instructed us to use the dog bowls to pour water on ourselves, then to lay down on the circle thing. We did, the circle was warm, the water was warm. The air was hot. As we laid there sweating, we had the same thoughts: 1. Hope a tour group doesn't show up, 2. This is exactly like August in Illinois. Three hours later (OK, fifteen minutes), we went to a joint massage room and met our masseurs. Carol's was a mid-thirties man wrapped in the same table cloth. He had some serious back hair, but it was well groomed. Mine was 55ish, pot-bellied with a smokers cough or maybe tuberculous, it was hard to tell. Nice guys. The first thing they did was to take a pot scrubber (that is what it felt like, could have been a piece of Astro Turf) and scraped the epidermis off most of our bodies. It was OK, we deserved it. The highlight of the Turkish bath gig is they pour all this luxurious soap foam on and rub it around. It feels great, kind of like a sponge bath when you were seven months old. Yeah, that good.

 

 

 

Erectile Dysfunction

Other than cave dwelling, hot air ballooning over the looney landscape at dawn is the Cappadocia experience. We read that in high season, there are over a hundred balloons flying a day, close to 1,500 white knuckled, jet lagged, partly hungover, camera-ladened tourists. The foreplay is van pick up from hotel at 4:45, blind ride to a field somewhere, wait while the staff erects the huge balloons. They start erection by blowing. Fans blow into a

large cavity. This causes the limp balloon to slowly rise until it is engorged, finally popping up firm and erect. I signed up twice but both times my balloon failed to complete the erection process. Carol assured me it was not my fault. It was the weather. I was unsatisfied.

In a display of marital-felity, Carol was there at both nonevents. She had nixed ballooning due to a fear of former sheep herders being in charge of safety. A gamer, she wanted to see the takeoff but the van driver refused to let her ride along. This, he explained, was due to corporate assholeness, showing that Turkey is progressing toward becoming a modern economic state. So she cabbed it, facing serial hurdles: There were a whole bunch of desolate, unlit takeoff sites. There was no record of which van went where, the cabbies only spoke Turkish, but did chain smoke, it was cave hotel dark, she hadn't had coffee yet and she had to go to the bathroom. Impressive. Like I said Carol is a gamer.

 

 

 

         

MARMARIS / FEYTHEY, TURKEY

by Dan Winters (posted by his more techy savvy daughter)

 There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud. -- Carl Sandburg

 I.  TURKEY APPETIZER

We are finishing up our weeks abroad with 10 days in Turkey. It's the finale, so we don't want to blow it. We decided to prepare: a fellow traveler suggested "some musts" at the border.

“Try Turkish Amphetamine” – So we drank Turkish Coffee, you know the blackish sludge in the dainty looking tiny china cups, the kind your grandmother had, the ones you hold between the thumb and first finger. Well, that is all show. The Turks are all just mainlining massive toxic amounts of caffeine and sugar. The first energy drink.

Evidence of loss of comb-over

“Try Turkish Water-boarding” – I decide to get the famous Turkish Haircut. There were no warnings. First the barber Edward Scissorhanded my comb-over to oblivion. Then he slapped me around a bit. Then he got serious. The Guantanamo part began when he crammed spoonfuls of white hot wax into my ears. I know the ladies are saying, "You should try a bikini wax, girlie man." Ok, I get it, but it was agony and he charged me for it. Then he jammed more up my nose. That was just pure sadism. He finished off by slapping my head for a few more minutes and then for sport, rubbed some burning antiseptic smelling something so I could remember the pain for another two hours. The good news is that now I have nostrils and earlobes as smooth as a baby's behind, which makes me kind of a catch. P.S. Later, I got a Turkish Shave. It was much less painful, but there was a lot more blood.

saying goodbye to my money

“Exchange Real Money for the Turkish Lira” – This is no statement about the Turkish economy. It is just that no one seems to want lira. All prices are quoted in euros, British pounds, then maybe in lira. Of course, each has its own exchange rate. Three lira to the dollar, but euro and pound, who knows? When you buy something, it's a multiply choice quiz. Carol doesn't believe that math is a part of shopping, so she says screw it and just turns her wallet over to the shopkeeper. That's one way.

“Choke Down Turkish Wine” –  It has a bad rep, but it's damn good, or at least a lot better and cheaper than the BevMo ½ price swill we normally drink.

II. TURKEY SOUP

Blogger in action

We started our Turkey emersion by cruising for three days on a gulet boat between Marmaris and Feythey. There were fourteen passengers and four crew members. The boats are two-masted schooners of polished dark wood. Magnificent from afar, pretty beat up on closer look. We asked the 23 year old Turk Captain (his dad was the cook, his uncle was the navigator) if we would sail much as opposed to motoring. He said, "No, we had three sails but two broke." That will happen. The passengers were German, Swiss, Turk, Irish, Scot and Illini. There were two teens and a twelve year old.  Interestingly, the teenagers got to share cigarettes with their parents. I am not sure this is what the Pope and his crusade to solidify

the family unit have in mind. Our shipmates were all charming, funny and energetic. We ate together at a long deck table. The food was prepared in a half ass 1940's galley by a cook who looked like a hitman for the Greek mafia.  It was five stars: stuffed peppers and eggplant, string beans in fresh tomato sauce, spicy kabobs, grilled fish… amazing. The scenery was equal in quality—rugged yellow cliffs, shiny green vegetation, famous blue Aegean waters. The highlight was a side-trip we took with Tish of Cork, Ireland and Ross of Aberdeen, Scotland. We were picked up from our sailboat by a vessel that looked and sounded like Bogey's African Queen scow. First stop was a mile long sand beach famous as a nesting ground for

sea turtles. We were post hatching, the turtles safely in elementary school in the Aegean. Then the Queen sputtered though the snaky, narrow waterways of a five mile long marsh made up of supersize, clearly on steroids, mega-reeds. Ultimately, we came to the upscale resort village of Dalyan. The spanking new resorts were sprawled beneath the Lycian Rock Tombs. These ancient tombs were

sledgehammered into a cliff hundreds of feet up. There were a lot of them, maybe 20 feet high by 20 feet wide by 4 feet deep. They were like thin slices of some falling down thing you would see at the Acropolis. Behind this veneer was a hole just big enough for a casket and perhaps a few of the harem, or a wife or two? Not sure what they were into in those days. I think you ought to be able to picture these tombs exactly from that description. All four of us had the same response, "I bet Trump has one of those on order." These tombs were the ultimate wacked death selfies.    

If that wasn't enough, the trip ended at the Dalyan community mud baths. For two bucks you got to climb into a dark pond of mirky luke warm dirt soup with thirty or so strangers, grope up handfuls of slimy grey mud and smear it on a loved one. It was a second grader's dream. No it's everybody's dream—a primordial urge, part of the human DNA. Talk about bucket list.

 

 

RHODES TOWN, ISLAND OF RHODES, GREECE

by Dan Winters (posted by his more techy savvy daughter)

"Vacation calories don't count" -- Rue Lata

  

If Nafplia is past elegance and Athens is future apocalypse, then Rhodes is freakin' Cancun—hundreds of mega resorts, thousands of beach lounges and an invasion of the Northern Europe tribes. Rhodes has a lot of important history, the most famous the Colossus of Rhodes, a 100 foot statue of somebody (neither Trump or Lebron). It was one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World. Unfortunately, we just missed seeing it, as it was destroyed 2,200 years ago by the same tribes that now vacation here. We decided to sample the magnificence of this famed, now besieged, island.

A.    Guppy Pedicure. Yes we spent 5 euros to have two inch long guppy looking fish nibble away at our heels. It was creepy. Carol said, "They are no different than the IRS when you make some money."

B.    Traditional Greek Food Special. Tasty and based on the core principles of Midwest American cooking. If you cook anything (meat, starch, vegetables) long enough and drown it in sauce also cooked long enough, everything will taste exactly the same and it is unlikely you have to douse anything with ketchup.

C.    Ferry Ride to WWII. We signed up for a ferry to the other end of the island. For two hours we steamed by the rugged, character lined cliffs and mountains of Rhodes until we got to the caves that housed the legendary "Guns of Navarone", of WWII movie fame. When you are at the Parthenon and the crowds are down and it is quiet (last time was 1956, I think), they say that one can almost hear the senators and Caesars speak. Same along these cliffs, except it's the ace Allied special demolition team of Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn and the British actor who is always in charge of the secret desperate operation but you never know his name. Well his name is Richard Attenborough or Anthony Quayle or maybe Jack Hawkins. I hope that clears it up.

D.    Search for the Perfect Aegean Beach. At the far end of our ferry ride was a sand beach that should at least make the Sweet Sixteen of Beaches. Lindos Bay is as was said in the 60's "totally boss". It sits protected on three and a half sides and is towered over by a

cute whitewashed village that hangs on a cliff midway and a dual threat antiquity at the to—a medieval fortress with those wall openings perfect for archers or boiling oil dumping and a surprise mini-Acropolis. The top is a five euro donkey ride. We bailed.

Partly because of anticruelty to jackasses concerns (Carol says except Trump and Fox News) but mostly because we are cold turkeying all Acropolises (Acropoli?), maybe for life. The only thing that might keep Lindos Bay out of the Elite Eight of Beaches is the disturbing lack of toilet paper at the beach WCs - usually a mandatory point reduction.

E.    Culinary Back Roads of Rhodes - We met a classy New Zealand woman, Rachel, who had key insider information—a list of trendy, locals only, restaurants. We decided to go out to dinner together. Tanden was the self described "smallest

restaurant in Rhodes Town." There was a long waiting line— that trendy. We don't know much about Norway, but our guess is that it is not famous for its comedians. You Google "Norse Humor" and you get nothing. The guy in front of us in line turned out to be Gunnar, a hilarious Norwegian wise ass. His t-shirt "Bon Jour Bitches" should have been a clue. The restaurant comped the waiting line-standers with fluted glasses of Sangria, we ask Gunnar how long the wait was. He said, "I am not waiting. This is the only place in town where you can drink free." He was with his cousins, his girlfriend and her kids. They were smart enough to be cocktailing at the bar across the street while Gunnar held a place in line. He said, "Yes, waiting for a table for 7 in a 12 table place. We are the clog in the sewage line." According to Gunnar, Norwegian weather was "Shitty. Even when it's good, you think, well it's going to be shitty soon," and Norwegian food, "What food, first night you have cod, it's OK, second night, not so Ok. Third night, coma."  The food was good at Tanden, but the only trendy element was vertical stacking. You know how they pile the fish on top of the mash potatoes which is on top of the veggies. Carol and I oppose it. We are from Illinois, there is no vertical there. It is flat. It is a horizontal state. The tallest place in the state used to be a garbage dump in Cicero. We like our food flat.