Here We Go Again

Less than two months after returning from Turkey (and it feels like even less, since I only finished blogging about the trip last week), I'm off to the other side of the world one more time.

A friend is getting married in Sri Lanka, and we seized the opportunity to do some more traveling. Why, I'm not exactly sure right now.

The bride is Sri Lankan but the groom is not, and the wedding will be traditional Sinhalese (no, I'm not sure what that means really, but it's most definitely a Sri Lankan thing). When I found out about the wedding I felt the need to show some solidarity with the guy having a wedding that has nothing to do with his culture on the opposite side of the world from his family.

I've been there, man. I feel your pain. Those Asians are apparently damn pushy.

And so we decided to make the trip. And hey, since we're there anyway and aren't likely to ever go back, why don't we see some of the country while we're at it? And hey, then why don't we go to India and visit the in-laws? And hey, since I fully expect the in-laws to complain about us being so close and yet not spending all the time with them, why don't they just join us in Sri Lanka too?

And that is how you talk yourself into a nearly three week vacation with your in-laws. Let that be a lesson.

We'll head first to Sri Lanka. Spend a few days seeing the sights (including an elephant orphanage!), a couple days chilling on a beach (the water is 80something degrees all year round), then head to the wedding.

After that it's off to India, where we'll visit the southern state of Kerala. Not sure what it's all about yet, but it's supposed to be beautiful and there's a wildlife sanctuary.

Then it's up to Goa, a former Portuguese colony that is quite the hot spot with drug addled party goers. And hubby's friends. A day or two there with friends, then back home to Pune for another day or two.

Then it's a train ride to Khambhat in the state of Gujarat, my mother-in-law's home town. Every year they have a kite festival that is supposed to be amazing, and this year we get to see it.

After 17 days, it's back to home sweet home. And likely not leaving again for the next two years.

I feel like I've spent more time on an airplane this year than anywhere else. But hey, seize the opportunity while it's here. If you wait for the "right time" you're never going to do anything.

See you in the new year!

A Merry Christmas Indeed

The celebration of Christmas in my family has definitely changed over time.

Growing up, I can remember lining up with my sisters outside the living room door, eager to get to the tree and see what Santa had brought us. There was much laughter and Christmas carols and general happiness. We had three Christmases, one with just the five of us and one with each side of the family. All were fun and made for amazing memories. We would go to the Christmas Eve service at church, have dinner, then drive around town looking at decorations. I always looked forward to it.

In my high school and college years, Christmas never lived up to my expectations. I would imagine all the excitement over our gifts to each other, storytelling, Christmas songs coming from the record player, cooking together, and just being happy to be together. Christmas a la Leave it to Beaver.

But this was not reality. After my grandparents died, Christmases with each of my parents' sides of the family stopped. There were several Christmases where someone in my family was either recovering from or waiting to have back surgery. They were in pain, and so understandably grumpy, but it was Christmas dammit and I wanted a fairy tale.

Then there was the fighting. Inevitably someone would end up offending or upsetting someone else, there would be yelling, and by the end of Christmas day I would be crying in my bedroom wanting to be anywhere but there.

And then my dad got sick. Presents had to be opened in installments because he couldn't sit up very long. At the big Christmas meal, he merely picked at his plate, unable to eat. This wasn't the jolly, fun dad of Christmases past. Though it had only been a month since his diagnosis, we all knew on some level that this would be our last Christmas with him. We wanted it to be perfect, to be like in our childhood, to be able to look back on this holiday and remember it as a wonderful time. Of course, that wasn't possible given the circumstances. We went through the motions and just tried not to fall apart.

The first Christmas after he died, which also happened to be my husband's first Christmas with our family, no one was sure if they even wanted to celebrate the holiday. It wouldn't be the same, it would be sad, how would we handle it? Gifts were few and the festive spirit was completely absent.

The second year, my family came to DC for Christmas. The previous year had been so difficult we thought perhaps doing something new would make it easier. We had homemade Indian food for Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas morning was in our one bedroom apartment with no space for a tree. The Christmas meal was held at my uncle's house.

We enjoyed ourselves, and enjoyed being together, but it still couldn't hold a candle to what I wanted it to be.

I found myself wishing that my husband had seen how Christmas used to be. How could he understand my disappointment when he'd never witnessed the crazy fun we used to have?

By the time we started dating in college, Christmas was already stressful and he was at the other end of many a distressed phone call. After several years where one sister either brought her boyfriends home or missed Christmas to be at their houses, my parents instituted a new rule. We would all be home and no one else could come to Christmas until we were married. Not that it had ever occurred to me to bring my boyfriend home for Christmas anyway.

So as far as my husband knew, Christmas with my family was a time for anger, sadness, and awkward silences.

But this Christmas, oh this Christmas was different.

We had the holiday mall shopping experience. We decorated a tree and hung lights around the windows. We played Christmas carols and baked (ok, I baked). When my mom admitted missing my dad helping her with preparations, we made plans to go down early.

I spent several days in the kitchen with my mom, talking and cooking. We spent an evening, just the two of us, sipping wine and swapping stories. My oldest sister and I braved a store two days before Christmas and even had a good time doing it.

My brother-in-law joined us on Christmas Eve. We all went to church together, and my husband and his brother expressed a curiosity that delighted my mother (always the religious one in the family).

Come Christmas morning, we had breakfast together and had fun exchanging gifts. After the big meal, we played a game together that elicited lots of laughter. We managed to surprise my mother with a birthday celebration, something my dad had always managed to make special. We watched A Christmas Story. We watched some home movies. We went to bed exhausted but happy.

Sure, there were some things I would change about it. The tree was not fully decorated and there were no presents under it when we arrived. Several presents only got wrapped on Christmas Eve, taking a little away from the festive sight of presents bursting from under the tree. There was still some sniping and I did a lot more mediating and making sure everyone was happy than I would have preferred. And I would have liked more help in the preparations from my sisters, so that my mom and I wouldn't be so completely exhausted when it was over.

But those are tiny things. When it comes down to it, it was the best Christmas I've had in a very long time. And hopefully my husband now sees the things I always loved about this holiday.

Turkiye: Now It's Istanbul, Not Constantinople

From the moment we stepped off the bus in Istanbul, I started singing this song. I even had a kicky dance to go with it. Entertainer of the Year-caliber stuff, I'm telling you. But the fact that I only knew the one line started to wear on hubby's nerves after a while. I can't imagine why...

For your musical enlightenment (and to feed the mental picture I know you're working on), I present: The Four Lads.

Ok, now that's out of the way.

We had an exciting first morning in Istanbul. We took the metro from the airport and found our hotel with relative ease. It was probably the nicest hotel of our trip. It had hot water and heat and everything!

After we checked in, we showered and went to sleep. And slept until mid-afternoon.

Basically, instead of sleeping all night in a hotel and spending all day on a bus, we sat up on a bus all night and spent all day sleeping in a hotel. But let's not split hairs.

Once we finally ventured out of the hotel, we discovered that Istanbul is a beautiful, incredible city.

The Blue Mosque is probably the most famous of all of Istanbul's attractions, and is so named (unofficially) because of the tens of thousands of blue mosaic tiles that decorate the interior. There are also 260 windows. I'm not exaggerating either, those are legit numbers. So you can imagine how huge the place is.

Because of its fame, you might expect the Blue Mosque to be mostly hype, as so many attractions are. You would be wrong. The place is so exceptionally beautiful, and photos come no where close to doing it justice, that I would honestly recommend visitors see it even if they see nothing else.

Please excuse the ridiculous number of photos. Though they don't do the beauty of the place justice, I still can't choose any fewer than this.

The dome

Courtyard

Blue Mosque at night

From there we moved to the Basilica Cistern, which was used to store water for the Great Palace and surrounding buildings during the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine period was apparently a great time for architecture, as many of the most impressive places were built during that time.

Due to the dim lighting in the underground cistern, photos were difficult. But here's a few that turned out well.

Note the reflection of the pillars in the water

It's Medusa's head! Upside down!

Next up was the Küçük Aya Sofya, or Little Aya Sofya. Built just before the Aya Sofya, I have no idea why they share a name as they look completely different. Anyway, it's a quaint little church turned mosque.

I should probably break this post up. These photos alone will probably crash Blogger, and this was only less than half a day! But I'll be optimistic (about both the website and your ability to take in so much in one sitting) and carry on.


Day 2 in Istanbul!


After a breakfast of the usual bread, jam, cheese and tea (which never failed to launch me into a rendition of  "tea, a drink with jam and bread"...every single morning), we hopped back onto the public transportation system to head to the "new city" on the other side of the Golden Horn (don't ask me why the waterway is called that, it just is).


This is when we discovered the complexity of the transit system. Going from the airport to the otogar at the beginning of the trip, and again from the otogar to the hotel, we stayed on one line of the metro. This time, however, we had to transfer from the metro to the tram. The stations are a block apart. You have to exit one system and walk over to the other, meaning you have to pay twice. There's a third system called the funicular, but we never found out what exactly that is. We just had fun saying the name at the most random times.


We took the tram north, then walked back south through the new city. This is where the locals are. There aren't many sights to see, but it's a cool little neighborhood and the tourists don't get in the way. Of course, the locals will mow your ass down if you don't watch out, but I'll take that over flocks of tourists any day.

Walking across the Galata Bridge:

Next up was Aya Sofya, not to be confused with Little Aya Sofya because that is frowned upon. Not really, but seriously, why do they share a name? Oh and Aya Sofya is also known as Sancta Sophia, Haghia Sofia, or the Church of Divine Wisdom. Complicated, no?


Completed in 537, it was the "greatest church in Christendom" until it was converted to a mosque in 1453. In 1935 it was declared a museum, and therefore legally able to charge visitor's a ridiculous amount. But I must say that it is worth it.

Our final stop of the day was Topkapı Palace, which was built by Mehmet the Conqueror after the Conquest in 1453. The palace is made up of four courtyards: the first court was open to the public; the second only to people on imperial business; and the third and fourth only to the imperial family, VIPs and palace staff.

Contrary to popular belief, the Harem was not a place designated for hanky panky, but was actually the imperial family quarters. 

An interesting fact for you: the women of the Harem had to be foreigners, as Islam forbade enslaving Muslims. There is an endless list of things I can say about that, so I'm just going to let you mull it over for a while.

Another interesting fact: all men who worked in the Harem were castrated so as to not, shall we say, mingle with the women. How's that for job benefits?

The real beauty of this place is in the tiny details...unfortunately those tiny details in photo form can be kinda dull. So here's some "big picture" shots.

Don't panic, they're just mannequins

And so beings Day 3 in Istanbul, our final opportunity for sightseeing.

We set out early in the morning hoping to get to the famous Grand Bazaar before the crowds. We had put off buying anything earlier in the trip so that we didn't have to cram anything else into our bags, so we had big plans to stock up on souvenirs in Istanbul. 

And the Grand Bazaar was...closed. For the holiday. Not reopening until Thursday. Our flight was on Tuesday. Well how bout them apples.

So we hop on the ferry across the Bosphorus to the Asian Side. I'm not kidding, that's what it's called. 

The Asian side is home to some incredible markets. Fresh fish, veggies, and nuts filled every street, interspersed with little shops and incredible restaurants. We had the best meal of the entire trip here at Çiya Sofrası. Look it up if you ever find yourself in Istanbul.

On the shore of the Old City, the only way to get from the docks (ferry landings and Galata Bridge) is to cross under the busy road via a tunnel packed to the gills with people and lined with stalls selling sunglasses, bags and "real fake rolexes" (whatever that means).

The only way to or from the docks. Underground. And cue panic attack.

Once back in our neck of the woods, we spent the evening wandering the streets. We saw Istanbul University, two more mosques, and attempted to haggle at many many shops (vendors are NOT willing to bargain).

Before I forget, a few random tidbits from the trip.

When I was in India, both on my first trip in 2009 and again this summer, any time I was expected to respond to something in Hindi, all my brain could come up with was Spanish. In Turkey, every time I attempted to come up with a word in Turkish, all I had was Hindi. Maybe in Sri Lanka I'll be able to speak Turkish?

Wake-up calls in Turkey are completely unreliable. They either don't come at all or they come at the wrong time. Like 3am. Or an hour late. 

Animals are the be-all and end-all. People daily feed the pigeons. And not just some leftover bread they happen to have either. Bread and crackers bought for the sole purpose of feeding the pigeons. Same goes for stray cats. Stray cats are absolutely everywhere and are extremely friendly. This is because everyone feeds them. People buy cat food and leave it strewn across ledges. Or buy sardines and leave them outside their door. Stray cats in Turkey are treated better than my cat at home.

The morning of Day 4 was our flight home. That provided almost as many interesting experiences as any other day of our trip.

We were picked up from our hotel by a shuttle. We drove around in what seemed like circles picking up more people before arriving right back at the road of our hotel. We could see our hotel from the shuttle. You mean we could have slept an extra half hour?

Immediately upon entering the international airport in Istanbul, you must send your luggage through a scanner and walk through a metal detector. Then you better check the monitor that lists flights and gate numbers, because what line you stand in depends on what gate you're going to. Someone checked our passports and reservation while waiting in line, and grilled my husband for about 5 minutes on how many years he's lived in the U.S., where he works, what his job is, etc. He has a green card and you're not immigration so what's it to you?

Once you get to the front of the line, your passports are checked again. Then you get to a desk to check in.

Next stop is "passport control", also known as "immigration" (but if you call it that, people get snippy). Apparently they're checking to make sure we had the appropriate visa stamp to be in Turkey. Although since we're on our way out, why exactly does it matter?

Once we reached the gate, our passports were checked again (fourth time, including check-in, in case you're counting). Then we moved through the line to the window side of the gate, and our passports were checked again. Security checked our tickets, then we did the part of security where you remove your shoes and baggy of liquids (did I mention we were at the gate and could see the airplane?). Someone again checks the stamp in our passports and we enter the waiting area for our flight, basically a walled-off section of the typical gate area. It is then that I realize there is no bathroom. I could leave the gate to use the bathroom since there's still quite a while before boarding, but then I would have to have my passport checked four times within a 10 square foot area again. No thanks.

11 hours later, we land in DC. Unloading the plane, riding the "people mover" from the random spot the plane had been parked to the terminal, getting through immigration and customs, and getting outside to the bus stop all took approximately 40 minutes. Riding the bus to the metro and the metro to home took an hour and a half. Damn you Virginia. But I did learn that I can ride the train standing up with a heavy pack on my back completely exhausted with my eyes closed and not fall down. Silver lining I suppose?

All in all it was an incredible trip. I will probably never get to return because I'm not a millionaire and there are so many other places I want to visit with the funds that I have. But if I could, I would. In a heartbeat.

Turkiye: Hiking and Ruins and Kofte, Oh My!

I have been remiss in my blogging duties. My apologies, I didn't mean to leave you hangin' in the ice cold pension in Faralya.

To recap, we were staying in a village on the edge of Butterfly Valley, home to zero butterflies in November, had encountered a deadly bat in the dining room (or just a regular bat, whatever), and had slept in a room with no heat under a blanket that didn't quite cover the bed without anyone lying underneath it. We woke to find there was no hot water, and barely managed to wash our faces and feet without screams of pain, at least until the numbness set in. It was very Little House on the Prairie.

In the interest of time, and because we couldn't sleep in those conditions anyway, we set out for our hike into Butterfly Valley almost as soon as the sun crept over the horizon.

Our handy dandy guidebook said, and I quote, "be sure to wear proper shoes and keep to the marked trail."

Now, I don't know about you, but to me "proper shoes" means not wearing spiked heels to the beach or don't wear platform flip flops to a funeral. And "keep to the marked trail" means about the same thing as "keep to the paved road."

It's just a steep hike, right?

Lonely Planet is a big fat liar.

This was no hike. There were no steep hills along a paved, or even stepped, path. It wasn't winding down the cliff as you would drive down a mountain road.

No no, this was rock climbing. Or rather, on the descent, rappelling.

And it was only on select sections that they even deigned to provide a rope. Tied to a tree abuzz with the sound of a million angry bees. Needless to say, by the time we arrived at the bottom I was bruised and bloody with quite a large amount of dirt on my clothes. It was (mostly) worth it though.

After the long climb back to the top and a quick breakfast, we hopped in the car and hit the road. Again. Through the mountains. Again.

It seems that all of Turkey is mountain after mountain after mountain. The mountains even go right into the sea. And the roads, oh my god, the roads. Hairpin turns, unpaved roads, random road closures and detours through freakishly rural areas where the road seems to be not just an afterthought but a waaaayafterthought. And all the while, there's my husband, driving like he's Michael Schumacher.

I'm the kind of person who gets a little carsick. Not crazy-projectile-vomiting-as-soon-as-I-hit-the-seat carsick. Just must-look-out-the-windshield-at-all-times carsick. Can't sleep, can't read, can't even look at other people while talking to them.

But at some point while in Turkey, I developed the uncanny ability to fall asleep as soon as the vehicle started moving. Ten minutes into a bus ride through mountains (a bus for pete's sake!), I was asleep so hard my husband couldn't wake me. In the car leaving Butterfly Valley, we're driving through mountains at such a fast speed I have to hold onto the door to keep from being thrown around the car, and I'm actively reading a map when all of the sudden, bam! I fall asleep. I wasn't even tired! But the car started rolling, which is all I apparently needed. Like a baby who conks out as soon as you start walking him in the stroller. Kinda freaky, but a great way to catch up on sleep.

After a few hours we arrived in Denizli, a town which seems to exist solely to serve visitors to Pamukkale. Kind of like how you'd never go to the town of Niagara Falls, New York for any reason other than to see the falls.

Pamukkale is like another world. I've never seen anything like it before and probably never will again. There's a tiny village at the bottom of the hill, the ruins of an ancient city at the top, and between the two...

That's not snow. It's calcite, from thousands of years of mineral water seeping from the ground. No one we talked to, or our guidebook, really seemed to know exactly how these pools came to be. But when you're in the midst of it you really couldn't care less.

Do you remember when you were a kid, going to the toy store and staring, wide eyed, at the seemingly endless shelves of toys? Yeah it was kinda like that. One second we're giddy and the next we're in reverent awe.

I think the travertines were the single most photographed place of our entire trip. 

The waters are said to have healing powers. I'm pretty sure it's now just a good way to pick up some kind of foot fungus, but hey, who am I to question ancient civilizations?

Once we finished oohing and ahhing over the travertines, we had less than an hour to see the ruins before the park closed for the day. So we sped through, hitting the highlights, and basically just taking photos as we ran past.

Once we hightailed it back out of the park, we met the guy who was picking up our rental car and driving it back to Antalya. He dropped us at the bus station in Denizli and we asked at the desk how to get to downtown, where we would find the hotel recommended by the guy at the kabob place where we'd stopped for lunch. The guy from the bus company walked us out, deposited us on the correct shuttle bus, and told the driver what hotel we were going to. The driver then told us where to get off the bus and how exactly to get to our hotel from there, as well as where to wait for the shuttle back to the otogar in the morning. All very nice and polite, but the best was yet to come.

Being the super observant people that we are, we managed to walk right past our hotel. But, of course, a pastry shop caught our eye. We stopped in and, in between salivating over the various pastries on display, managed to convey what we were looking for to the non-English-speaking owner of the shop. He left his shop and led us a block back down the street to our hotel.

After getting settled in our room (and after assuring myself that there was in fact heat and hot water in our room) we decided to go back to the shop and actually try some of the pastries.

BEST decision of our trip. Best pistachio baklava ever in the world. Seriously. I would go back just for that baklava.

After gorging ourselves on sweets, we decided to attempt getting a recommendation for dinner. I mean, a man who makes pastries like that should know good food, right?

Once he figured out what we were trying to say with our elaborate gestures and our few (possibly made up) Turkish words, he again left his shop to escort us to dinner. He walked us several blocks away this time, way out of sight of his shop, led us into a restaurant, introduced us to the staff and told us what to order. And man, did we eat well that night.

The next morning, we took another 4+ hour bus ride to Selçuk. As soon as we arrived at the otogar, we checked with the bus company to see if they had any seats available on a bus to Istanbul that night. We'd only managed to get tickets for the next morning, meaning we'd have to pay for a hotel in Selçuk and have one less day in Istanbul. We lucked out and were able to exchange our tickets for the last two seats on an overnight bus.


One thing we had learned by this point was that Lonely Planet isn't worth crap when it comes to finding good food. It will point you in the direction of what used to be inexpensive food before the restaurant was featured in a guide book but now has crazily high prices. But it will not tell you where to find anything actually edible. Being in a hurry, though, we decided inedible food was better than no food at all. We headed to a place with the best kofte in town (this being a tiny town, we didn't have high hopes). It turned out to be so tasty we went back and had more for dinner!


And then we were off to Ephesus, the "best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean [meaning, Turkey] if not all of Europe".

I'm not going to lie. The cats were one of the best parts.

Check out that walkway! They did not skimp on ornamentation back in the day.

Using the toilet was the social event.

Library of Celsus

Once the site closed, we still had about 5 hours to kill before our bus. Easier said than done. Selçuk is not an exciting town. There are no little cafes to sit and chill, there are no cute little shops to wander around, there is not much of anything except overpriced creepy bars and an internet cafe. We wandered the streets for as long as we could stand in the cold, then wasted more than an hour in the internet cafe. Which is where I was when I learned Kim Kardashian was getting a divorce, by the way. Because you know that's one of those important events in history we'll still be talking about in 20 years...or not.

What felt like many many hours later, we boarded the bus for the 11 hour overnight ride to Istanbul. As we drove through the countryside, we noticed there tons of trucks and roadside pens full of sheep. It was cute and intriguing for about a minute before we realized that weekend was the holiday of Kurban Bayrami during which every family sacrifices a sheep...