A SNAFU AND MODERN ISTANBUL

My 14-year-old grandson, Owen, accompanied me on this 16 day trip to Turkey. We left his house with two bags each and a heartfelt goodbye to family.

Fourteen year olds don’t yet know everything,  and they are still interested in keeping company with grandma. Maybe. Hopefully we have learned something about each other on this trip.

San Francisco’s United Airlines provided us with an hour-long snafu and I only mention that because a travel mate, Mike, informed me of the origination of that word. It was a common military acronym that stood for Situation Normal All F. U. You can guess  the last two words since the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the most liberal papers in the U.S., has a very rigid censor. Mike also taught me an extension of that acronym that came out of the Viet Nam military era, called F.U.bar. _ _beyond all reason. A marvelous exhibit of Belgian lace borrowed from a museum in nearby Sunnyvale, made up for the snafu, but I will never use that word again without a secret chuckle.

Our guide, Usla, pronounced Oulash picked us up at the airport and pointed out the famous Blue Mosque…

…ancient walls of the “old city” and sights we will visit in Istanbul.

My eye was drawn to modern, renovated buildings like this hotel, sidewalk cafes on cobble streets amid older buildings of wood.

Hotel Armada Ahirkapi, on Street 24 Sultanahmet  was hosting a wedding and the wedding guests were eating canapes and drinking champagne when we arrived late afternoon the 19th of April.

A woman in a stunning strapless gown? This is a Moslem country and we are prepared to keep shoulders covered at all times, no shorts, hair covered in Mosques. Hmm!

Another strapless gown. Notice her tattoo.

Young wedding guests with short skirts.

I couldn’t understand the ceremony, but it was fun watching all the excited faces and a panoply of ages enjoying this special time.

What a fascinating wrinkle to my expectations. This is modern Istanbul.  A city of a thousand years, in its current transition. I’m trembling with excitement as Owen and I head out for dinner on our own. Usla pointed out a few restaurants right around the hotel.

We chose Cankurtaran Ogretmenevi. It has trees growing through the floor and ceiling.

I wasn’t very hungry but Owen slept through dinner on the airplane and he ordered Chicken Shish.

It came with a basket of bread, bottled water and seasoned olive oil to dip it in. I had a bowl of wonderful lentil soup and a huge bowl of yoghurt. I gave  $12 since  I had no Turkish Lira, yet. And they tried to give me change.  Ahh, the surprises that await us.

 

 

A LAID BACK DAY.

We drove up the coast headed for Galveston. We stopped at a BUC EES, I think that is how you spell it. I saw a  huge billboard advertising genuine Czech Kolaches. Well, as y’all know by now, I’m a foodie. If I haven’t tasted it I gotta try it. They had sausage and jalapena, sausage, sausage and cheese and ham and cheese. Well, guess what a kolache is just a Czech name for a sandwich. These were not even good sandwiches. White, pasty bread, the sausage itself was good, but the cheese was Velveeta or its cousin. People must love them, but I’ve never been a sandwich person and these were  mundane. (They are eaten heated.)

We drove past miles of beautiful beach. Jim commented how nice it is that Texas has many beach exits for people to enter the beach. They didn’t allow private builders to gobble it all up and prevent the public from enjoying the beach like in Florida and many places in California. But it is January and people were swimming out there? I guess I have to try it, because the weather is warm enough.

We waited downtown for about three hours to get permission to park in a very crowded American Legion. We waited happily catching up on our reading, but the trees wanted to scrape the top, the place was busy and narrow. In the end, we moved 15 miles to the mainland  and found this friendly VFW, post 8248.

We had a couple of drinks and had fun visiting with Kathleen and Denise.  Denise told me about a new food to try. The Spanish call it barcoda. I won’t tell you what it is until we find and taste it. Hey, gotta keep up my reputation for trying new foods. Denise is the Commander of an American Legion Post and a member of this VFW. Fun gals. Kathleen is hoping to hit the road some day.

Since this is a short blog, I thought I’d tell you about a Port Aransas wedding. Weddings can be very personal. I once saw a wedding invitation posted on a light pole in downtown Murphys. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but it read, Sandy Bristow has finally gotten Ricky Sanders out of the bars and off the streets of Murphys. Come join us for the event at Murphys Park, etc. etc. with a picture of Sanders  with a lasso around his  neck and his new bride in a cowboy hat and boots.

I read about the Port Aransas wedding in the Coastal Bend’s Community Magazine. Because it was Halloween, it was a two day wedding. The setting was a Port Aransas Beach Lodge described as  laid-back and casual, nestled in the sand dunes with a commanding, panoramic view of the Gulf with awesome sunrises.  The day before the wedding,  gaiety started as the sun began to set. Guests donned their Halloween costumes and went off in rented beach carts for a fab dinner at LaPlaya. Afterwards, in full costume, they set off for the Salty Dog where they drank and danced . The next day, they hired a boat and went on a two-hour cruise. Entertaining land locked guests with the beauty of sky, sea and sun with dolphins playfully posing and following the boat enraptured them.  Back at the lodge, the guests enjoyed a scavenger hunt, a white elephant party and a final ceremony at sunset on the wharf. The dinner was a crab boil with champagne.

Sound like fun?  Wow!

Scrub-Adub-Adub Continues…

Jim says:

Mary and I had a second day of cleaning the motorhome. After six months on the road full-time, it was ready for a good cleaning. Between the two of us in two days we accumulated 16 hours of cleaning and now it’s looking good!

Mary cleaned the inside of the motorhome.

I cleaned the outside of the motorhome.

In other news…
Yesterday was also my son and daughter-in-law’s 19th wedding anniversary, so Mary and I took them out to a nice Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately, Mary left her camera there. We were supposed to hit the road again this morning…but the restaurant does not open until 5:30 PM. So…whenever we manage to retrieve her camera…we’ll hit the road again.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2010
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