Welcome New Lovely Geese?

ON the first few days of the University, a few of the staff started to notice signs posted everywhere. "WELCOME NEW LOVELY GEESE!" they shouted in capital letters. I wondered if this was a prank by one of the staff members and how the students would react to being called geese.
Today (October 29) I discovered that I was wrong and am returning to edit and post. It seems this is a sort of local joke. Students in upper years call the first year students geese as they are supposedly equally clueless about university life. One new student said that this makes some of the first year students shy, but judging from my class, clearly not all of them!

Morning Rituals

So after a vacation, I promised myself I would try to do yoga every morning... but somehow, I just can't seem to get up early enough. But if I put the coffee on before showering, I am able to get up early enough for breakfast. And, recently the wireless connection actually seems to have gotten stronger, so I am occasionally able to check my email over coffee from my bedroom balcony before going to catch the 8:00 or 9:00am bus to work.

Mina made us...

...walk like an Egyptian! Just joking.



What she made us do was MUCH worse.
Do you know what song was playing? (Photos by N)

Do I look like that?

Photogenic, photogenetic, photogenius, photo-shy... I find it interesting the different ways in which people react to the camera. Many seem resigned to having their photos taken. But these two were the opposite extremes. "Mina" (who you will recognize from the posts of this past week) expended a lot of energy avoiding the camera.

"Banu" not only posed for the camera, but was happy to relieve me of the camera to photograph herself!

(These photos were taken at a party on the 7th floor. Many thanks to the host.)

Rotten Tomatoes & a Recipe Request

If you were searching for movie reviews and came across this posting accidentally, my apologies. This title is a diatribe against the lack of the most vital item for cooking in Kurdistan - tomatoes. I am not sure why or when this happened,but it could be that: a) tomato season ended; b) Ramadan started and people are stocking up for the evenings: or c) it is just to vex me on my return to Erbil. Since moving to Kurdistan, I have found I can't find many of the things I was used to eating/cooking when in North East Asia, and hence have had to learn how to cook using the ingredients most readily available here: tomatoes, zuccini (courgette), eggplant (aubergine), green pepppers (capsicum)... With these ingredients, one might think that the easiest thing to do would be to learn to cook the dishes popular here... except that they all seem to contain lamb or mutton and/or seem labour-intensive. As a result, I have turned to almost-Turkish and pseudo-Indian cooking. But pretty much ALL of my recipes are heavily reliant on tomatoes. Even those dishes like dahl (where you can't detect the presence of tomatoes) don't taste nearly as nice without.

This week, (really it must be Ramadan?) I ended up buying a different assortment of veg than usual: cauliflower, okra and red cabbage. The okra was really a brave experiment for me since I really don't like okra. I remember eating it at relatives' houses in the Caribbean - essentially polenta, but with the cornmeal held together with okra slime. As there is no cornmeal here, I figured there must be better ways to prepare it. Success! Sauted with salt and pepper, corriander seeds and a pinch of allspice; then tossed with garlic, hot sauce and lemon - completely edible! The other dish in the picture above is your basic Caribbean coconut chicken curry.

Now, as for the cauliflower, that is no problem. There is a beautiful recipe for red lentil-cauliflower curry on "Almost Turkish" (a blog I will add to my sidebar because it has many tasty recipes for all the ingredients available here. NOTE: The recipe for Yayla Çorbası - Yogurt Soup is very good). And there is always Aloo Gobi. But AS FOR THE RED CABBAGE, I have no ideas. Please post me your ideas or send me your favorite recipe.

The Ainkawa Gossip Network...

... is not as active as "Paddy" thought! In fact, it seems this very blog is a source of gossip. I am not sure whether to be be sorry or proud! Last Thursday at the Edge, the very friendly staff (please leave me a comment if you are reading this) went up to Paddy and asked about his little trip to the police station. He was a little unerved that the gossip travelled even to those outside the university. As he was busy trying to figure out who the leak might be, it slipped out that they read about the event here on "Daily Hawler". Oops.

In truth, it seems nights at the Edge are often getting me in trouble. The night somebody's butt erased all the Z's from my phone made me feel like an idiot earlier this week as I was unable to recognize the marvelous Dr. Z's number and ended up asking him (rather impolitely), "Who IS this?"

Kiki in Skopje

Although those real estate agencies for expats are always advertising prime property deals in Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Tf figures Albania is the way to go. "Buy NOW before all the rich Europeans starting to vacation there drive the prices up." However, since I have never even once been to the Balkans... and since I am not really in the income bracket as those considering a winter get-away on the edge of a Costa Rican rainforest or a summer home in Spain, I can only hope for a litte vacation here or there.

Although Albania wasn't on my list of places to go this year, Greece and Macedonia were. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to either. But two friends did! And ironically BOTH of them started blogs to document their travels and life overseas TODAY! "Kiki" (the person I planned to visit in Macedonia) has started a weblog to make it easier for me to dream of rollerblading along the River Vardar... and "Mina" (whose birthday I documented yesterday) posted photos of her vacation in Greece. Both weblogs are now included as links in the right-hand sidebar.

Birthday Bowling Bash

OK, so it's a cheesy title, but so are the things we did this evening: bowling, fast food, and umbrella drinks! Today was "Mina" (a new teacher)'s birthday, so "Mary" (a returning teacher), Mina and I went to the Aqua Park to wait for iftar (during Ramadan, restaurants in Hawler are pretty much closed until the time to break the daily fast). Anyway since no pools are open due to a cholera outbreak, we bowled. YES! There is a bowling alley in Erbil. After one game, which the birthday girl appropriately won, we went to Today, a shiny diner-like restaurant for dinner. Our dinner of pizza and fries wasn't much to speak of (no salad- also because of cholera), but what you see to the left is one of the smoothies we finished with. They were unbelievable concoctions topped with slices of apples, bananas, plums, lemons, oranges, pinapples and a few walnuts- the lot held together with toothpicks and a bit of whipped cream. I promise anyone who comes to visit me here in Hawler one of Today's special smoothies.

Last Minute thoughts

So I am sitting in the Apple shop in Şişli waiting to pay for my laptop's HD upgrade. My measly 60GB of hardrive was completely full. Anyway, I feel all the regular things on the end of vacation. I am completely anxious about going back to work and haven't slept in 3 days. I am already missing my new friends from İstanbul (Seda and all of you from Salsa, Elena, Tiziana and all of you from both TÖMER and EF, that means you). I also regret that I didn't leave nearly enough time for the Grand Bazaar. I didn't make it to the Egyptian spice bazaar. I didn't do half of the things I was supposed to do yesterday and I need to stop writing and get myself to the airport bus stop. I regret I couldn't post for you pictures of the ice cream sellers flinging their wares around on sticks to attract customers. But I suppose on the more positive side, I will be happy to sleep in my own bed on the new fitted (yes, I found fitted sheets in Turkey!) sheet and prepare my own food in my own kitchen.

Nazar Boncuk and other neat stuff

Since nobody was able to guess where these photos were taken (and since they could essentially be taken anywhere where there are tourists) I will tell you that they were taken in the Grand Bazaar. What a shame that I left the bazaar until the last week... and that since I went on the same day that I went to the travel agency to buy my RIDICULOUSLY expensive 1-way ticket back to Erbil. $500 US! The agency is located in Aksaray. I arrived a little after 5, purchased my ticket and went 2 stops back on the tram line to the bazaar. As the bazaar starts to close after 6:00pm, this was a bit of a disaster. All the touts were out in full force, "Madam, Madam, I want to tell you something." "Where are you from?" "Silk scarf? Very beautiful!" "What is your name?" SIGH. However, despite this annoyance, there really are some beautiful things there... and real leather shoes that I didn't have time to try on, but cheaper, more comfortable-looking and of just as good quality as the ones in the shop windows in Taksim. No photo album of Turkey would be complete without a photo containing nazar boncuk. I heard that sometimes mothers pin one of these to the clothing of their children to protect them from the evil eye... and in Cappaddocia somewhere, B found a whole tree of them!
I include this second picture because there was no room in my luggage for one of these lamps. Seeing as the lights in my apartment in Kurdistan are just naked bulbs, how great would it be to hang one of these over the dining room table?

The next time in Istanbul, I plan to start my shopping here, visit the Egyptian Spice Market, and go for coffee on Baghdad Street in Kadeköy.

Turkish School No. 2

So there are some problems with switching schools... for example, paying to learn the same thing twice as there is bound to be some overlap. In this case, perhaps the repetition is exactly what was needed. My first program was only 2 weeks long and then (as mentioned) many of my classmates had to leave. In truth, although introduced to lots of patterns, I think I could only grasp the concepts, but not apply them at all. So repeating was NOT a problem. As an added bonus, the new school is less than a 10 minute walk from my hotel. Anyway, although I still don't know most of my classmates (I went from a class size of 5 to one of about 15), I have made some friends here too. Yesterday a few of us met up twice at the same restaurant to chat. Tiziana (I figure it is OK to use her real name since she is a public figure on Sky TV Italia anyway) has requested thatI stay longer. I wish I could.

Rüstem Paşa Camii

I reached the mosque just after the 5:00 prayer finished and before time to break fast. Yes, it is Ramazan now. Anyway, although small, I think this was absolutely the most beautiful mosque I visited. No others where as beautifully adorned by blue Iznik tiles. Like the Süleymaniye Camii and parts of the decoration of Ayasofya, this mosque was designed by Sinan. Although the rest of Sultanahmet was crowded with tourists and others, this mosque was quiet and, I think, well worth a visit. What do you think?

Ayasofya

Built between 532 - 537 on order of the Byzantian emperor, Hagia Sophia is one of the largest and most beautiful cathedrals in the world... (so says Wikipedia). Anyway, as most people know what it looks like, I only post 2 fuzzy photos. Fuzzy because I didn't reach it until about 5:00pm and the light wasn't so good. I found the intereior interesting as there was some restoration going on and the decorative work was so... what? Some parts had be redone by Sinan when Ayasofya was used as a mosque.This picture shows some of the detail of one of the many balconies.
And this one is of the marble floor of the hall. I always notice how smooth and hard the stone is and wonder at the number of visits it takes to wear down the marble like this.

The Museum of Anthropology

What else do I have to say? Since I had been here almost a month and had done less sightseeing than most do in a weekend, I decided to "catch up" this weekend. On Saturday, I went to Dolmabahçe Palace (as you know) and on Sunday, I went to Sultanahmet to visit a few places I hadn't been before. I started with the museum of Archaeology next to Tokapı Palace.

This picture shows people who have just left the section displaying that which is 3-6,000 years old to the section with statues a mere 2-3000 year old.
This photo is from a separate building housing artifacts from Mesopotamia and outlying areas. This "dragon" is from a Babylonian Palace from the time of Nebakanezer.
And from the garden... The garden was full of artifacts that were merely numbered. I post this because I think this Medusa head looks a lot like the ones at the Basillica Cistern. I wonder what the story behind this one is.
Finally, we have cats. There were cats of all colors and ages everywhere at this museum. I wanted to catnap a few and take them home with me to Iraq.

Outlet Shopping

On Staurday (after Dolmabahçe Palace), I took a ferry to Kadeköy to scope out the outlet shopping there. Tf went there and apparently his gf went crazy at the Mango Outlet. He advised me to get there before the sales were over, but as I needed fall clothes more than summer ones, I waited. He was likely right. I bought only 1 small item on sale in the outlet and 3 items downstairs in the regular shop. Sigh. Why is this always the story? Anyway, in general, things are cheaper on this side of the Bosphorous. I saw a hair salon advertising manicures for 6 YTL and pedicures for 8! WOW! I guess I would have to live on the Asian side on the small salary one could earn as an English instructor.

PS. The picture is irrelevent. It was just a strange brick something-or-other that decorated the street in front of the Mango Outlet. I liked the juxtaposition of crumbly brick and glass.

4.5 tons of glass...

... and decorated with 14 tons of gold. That's what I remember about Dolmabahçe Palace. So much gilt and so many chandeliers! (the largest collection of Bacharat and Bohemian crystal chandeliers in the world!) And the biggest one, a gift from Queen Victoria, was constructed of 4.5 tons of Bohemian crystal and had 750 lamps. Personally, I found it rather a monstrosity and would be scared to stand under it, but not so this smaller one (pictured) found in the Dolmabahçe Mosque located nearby. I took this photo lying directly beneath the chandelier there. The only other thing that struck me on my visit to Dolmabahçe was the room in which Atatürk died. The bed was covered with a bright red bedspread stiched to resemble the Turkish flag.
And this view is from the garden. I was a little interested to see the gaden since "garden" is part of the name of the palace. "Bahçe" means garden and "dolma" is a form of food in which vegetables or vine leaves are stuffed with rice, etc. But as it turns out, there was no vegetables in the garden, "dolma" means stuffed and in fact, the garden is stuffed only in the sense that the palace (the first European style palace in Turkey) was built on reclaimed land. The best part of the garden is not pictured: the aviary filled with exotic chickens, swans, guinea fowl and peafowl.

Balık Ekmek

What you see below is the most fabulous value for money to be had anywhere in Istanbul- Balık Ekmek! You can find it at Kadeköy, Karaköy, Eminönü... Anywhere there is a ferry dock: It is grilled fish (as good as any in the expensive restaurants) served with your choice of compliments (parsley, tomato, onion, lemon, red pepper flakes) all in a fresh sandwich roll! Add a drink and the total comes to $3 YTL. Seems an especially good deal after paying $18 YTL for the lousiest Iskender kebab and a mineral water in Sultanahmet yesterday. I should have looked at the menu prices before ordering... or gone back to Karaköy

Intermission

Yesterday, still feeling under the weather, I decided NOT to go sightseeing, NOT to go shopping or to the gym ( I would be required to travel). As I seem to have lost my voice, I also didn't want to meet anyone for dinner. Instead I opted to buy some cough candies and go to the movies. (I didn't want to spend another day just staying at home. Plus I had discovered that movies - unlike TV programs- are not dubbed, but subtitled). One hour into the 90 minute Holleywood flick the lights came on and the curtain went down. For a minute I was confused... perhaps the reel had broken? But then everyone else looked as those this was natural and were filing out of the room. Could it possibly be that in Turkey, there are those that can't make it for over and hour without a cigarette? Or is it in order to give the snack bar an extra chance to sell popcorn and soda or even the extra opportunity to show a few more commercials at the start of the second part of the movie?

Amerikan Hastanesi

After being almost a year in Kurdistan, where I was afriad to go to see a doctor when sick, I headed promply to the hospital yesterday when it was clear I was sick. I have had a chronic throat problem anyway, so it wouldn't be a wasted visit to go for my cold... or so I thought. I asked around and everyone seemed to think the American Hospital in Nişantaşı was the one most people recommended. I taxied there, feeling worse and worse minute by minute, but the wait at the hospital was surprising short. I went directly to the ear, nose and throat section and was seen within 15 mintutes. The doctor spoke English and seemed a little sad to inform me that he believed the American Hospital to be the best that Turkey had to offer (am I to infer that to him it was still somewhat lacking?) Anyway, it was clean and smoke free, so I was happy. I was also happy to hear that my throat problem was not an infection, nor was it cancer, but it was irritated. Unfortunately, the cause was determinted to be environmental... Meaning I need to identify whatever causes the problem and avoid it. Could it be Iraqi dust? Diesel exhaust?

The bad news of my hospital visit is that without health insurance, a 10 minute consultation with a doctor costs 140 YTL (about $120 USD). Sigh. And this was just to get a prescription for an over-the-counter cold/flue remedy and some super-strength lozenges. Anyway, I spent ALL DAY today in bed with a fever, bad cough and runny nose. Not such a nice thing when on vacation, especially since - as always - I have left all the things I really want to do till the last minutes: visit Dolmabaçe Palace and Hagia Sophia, catch some of the exhibits for the Biennale and maybe watch a movie in the cinema (there are movie theatres here!), shop for clothes (non-synthetic) and books... I think that is mostly it. Tomorrow I will go to Turkish lessons, but having missed a day and having done no homework. Should be fun. Till later, Ciao!

Dancing at Ağva

The place we stayed in Ağva was diferent; although perhaps not what I have conceived for a hotel complex on the Black Sea, the whole place was set up like some kind of cowboy town complete with covered wagons and wild west signposts. We stayed in little log cabins - two to a hut. Although we only stayed one night, I had two different roomates. After my roommate went to sleep, I was asked to change rooms and stay with Shepnam who was the only one without a roommate and was edgy about staying on her own. The photo below is Shepnam. Anyway, before sleeping, the two of us joined a group which stumbled down the path in the dark to the beach (where our roomkey got lost). Unfortunately, the hotel manager couldn't find a spare key, so we had to go to another cabin (on stilts) to sleep (like the ones below). This was terrible because we didn't have our pajamas and the temperature droppped so much that we had to sleep in our jeans huddled together under one insufficient bblanket. At about 3:00am, the wind started to howl and our house started swaying on its stilts. But we still managed to get up for breakfast, after which Shepnam returned to the beach, found the key and we were able to retrieve our swimsuits. It would have been terrible to also swim in our jeans!
After swimming and lunch, it was time for dancing. I am not sure, but I think the photo below was of a bachata lesson.
And finally we took a few group pictures before packing it in and heading back to Istanbul.

Ağva - on the Black Sea

This weekend, I didn't go to the gym or shop or do any sightseeing. The salsa school I go to in Taksim planned a weekend retreat to Ağva. The salsa school is not really such a serious dance school. Most of the students are beginners - perhaps this is why they are not so competitive/friendlier than lots of other salsa communities. Anyway, we left Taksim at 3:00pm on Saturday and arrived just in time for a late dinner (after sunset- traffic was terrible). On Sunday, we swam, danced and took lots of photos. The scene above is what welcomed us when we awoke on Sunday.
So, I bet you didn't know that this is what people do on the beach in Turkey - smoke and play Tavla (backgammon)!
Although you can't tell from the pictures, the waves here made it hard to swim... but it was great to get tossed around a bit by the waves. All of us in the above picture had a great time splashing around and diving into the waves. At the beach, I discovered that I was not the only one who could not speak Turkish. As the dance teacher is Iranian, he invited a couple of non-dancing Iranian friends. There were two sisters - the two in bikinis (one from Kurgistan, one from Russia) who, while they spoke perfect Turkish, also spoke perfect English.
This photo and the one below need no explanation. They are views of the bay we stayed at.

Klübbing in İstanbul - Reina, Murphy's & Mojo

So in case you were curioius about nightlife in Istanbul, it is all here... whatever your pleasure. I have only been out to clubs 3 times as I rather like the low key dinner parties in Beyoğlu at restaurants with live music. I also like hanging out at the salsa school. Anyway, my first club was nothing like "Halay" in Van... It was all glitter and glamour.

Reina!
This was the first club we (Peter, Ecco, Trish and I) went to. Seems it is a club that young beautiful people (like the host sister/brothers of the families Trish and Peter were staying at) liked to go here. WOW! It was fancier than the clubs at the 5 star hotels in North East Asia... and equally as strange. Located under the bridge it was open and afforded all a gorgeeous view of the Bosphorous.... and the other Reina go-ers. Everyone was dressed to the teeth; women in sexy, tight, flashy clothing (surprised they let Trish and I in. Likewise for the guys.... but they did give Ecco the head to toe. He is the "prettiest" of all of us, but he had on sport shoes). Anyway, there wasn't much dancing going on. Just a lot of posing. People wanting to be seen. The ones really dancing stayed with the people they came with and didn't have tables (like us) and were somehow "uncool". The entrance fee was 50 YTL and included one drink (25 YTL each), but a table would have cost several hundred Euros! As it stands, one time was enough for me.

Murphy's
The next club event was after Tuesday's salsa class. Sayeed (the teacher), his partner and 2 others, Trish and I went squished in Sayeed's car and drove a distance that felt like we were driving half-way across the country. In fact, it was just to Kadıköy on the Asia side of Istanbul. The club doesn't look like much in daylight, but at night you can see that all four walls are glass and allow you to watch the boats coming into the marina and docking. That's of you are bored with watching the dancers. Some of them are spectacular. There were at least 2 couples who were as good as any performing in NY and London. If I ever live here, I will definately go back (if only to watch... too intimidating to dance).

Mojo
This club was really really close to me. In a side alley off of Istiklal Caddesi. It was Trish's pick on her last night weeknight here (the Friday night before I headed to Ağva). It was noisy and smoky, but surprisingly good. There was a band that sang covers of a wide range of musicians... and most of them were good. We stayed for 1 and 1/2 sets and then the smoke was so bad I had to go. However, it was very comfortable. Opposite to Reina, it was so dark, you could have gone in your pajamas it's possible nobody would notice.

Cağaloğlu

The big event of Thursday, September 7th was a trip to a Turkish hamam: Cağaloğlu! (Try saying this... the soft 'g's are essentially silent.) This particular Turkish bath made into a book listing 100 things to do before you die! Hmmm... Although I generally enjoyed my Korean bath/scrub/massage and sauna more, the age, atmosphere and history of the actual hamam is superior to any other public bath houses I have been elsewhere - it even came complete with centuries of mold! The photo below is from Cağaloğlu's own website. Click HERE to visit their flashy flash site.

Kanyon Cow Parade

MORE COWS!!! "But why?" you ask. Well, last time I forgot to write anything about the cows other than that they are everywhere...



Well, as many of you probably know more about the cows than me, I will just let you know that they are part of COW PARADE (click)- a worldwide public art event benefiting charity.





These cows were sighted at the highly pricey Kanyon shopping mall. I carted my laptop there for an update the Mac store (which everyone referred me to) couldn't provide. It's off to Şişli station later in the week.





Anyway, the trip wasn't a total bust as I was able to photograph the basketball playing cow with Y-chan who met me there for lunch.


Say "moo"...

Büyükada

One of the items on Trish's list of things to do before leaving was to visit one of the islands making up Prince's Islands. Büyükada was not only the biggest (büyük even means "big"), but also the farthest. The weekday schedule was not so great and we waited nearly an hour an a half for our trusty vessel, the "Şehit Mustafa __" (and I thought all boats were women) to depart. Sure enough, the island was calm and removed from Istanbul city life (except that most of the people on the island were likely tourists from Istanbul). There were few cars and it certainly wouldn't have been easy (if at all possible) to rent one... but we would have had an easy time catching a horse and carriage. The picture below is from the (can I say "hitching post"?). Anyway, we opted to forgoe the carriage for bicycles. Unfortunately all the women's bikes were too small... and not only for us - plenty of Turkish women are much taller than us and were also having some difficulty. When we reached the base of the final hill (the one to the monastery with "the view"), we briefly contemplated riding donkeys to the top, but instead parked out bikes and walked the final leg up to the top.
Dogs napped, played and fought at the top of the hill... Sorry, I didn't take too many pictures of the monastery itself, but I do have one of my favorite dog:
And this is the view from the tea garden/restaurant:

And this is Trish. She is smiling because she thinks we have made it back to the dock in time to catch a smooth ride back to Istanbul...
Unfortuantely, this was not to be so... We did in fact get to the dock in time. There were two ferries there, so we took the one from the gate labelled with the dock in Istanbul we wanted to reach. Unforunately, a few hours later when we reached the other side, we discovered we were not in Istanbul, but somewhere rather far. Ever heard of Yakova? Anyway, there were no more ferries from there to Istanbul, so a lovely local woman escourted us to another dock with ferries leaving to a place called Pendik on the Asia side of Istanbul. From Pendik (which we reached shortly before midnight) it was only an hour drive by taxi into Taksim (Levent for Trish). Anyway, we were lucky as the taxi from that stop operated like taxis in Iraq and the fare wasn't so bad as we shared the taxi with two other travellers from Diyarbakir. Trish was embarassed, but the man at the gate at Pendik wasn't so surprised by our error. I hope Trish is laughing now that she is back in Holland.

Mosaic Museum and Süleymaniye Camii

These photos in this post are typical sightseeing snapshots, so I will let them speak for what we saw. The first picture Trish took as I had no camera. It was taken of a sample of the mosaics found in the Mosaic Museum. This was of particular interest to her as she herself does mosiac work in Holland.
After the museum, we went to Eminönü where I took a little time (or a lot) to replace my lost camera with a much better one. Then we went to visit Istanbul's grandest mosque, arriving (thanks to my shopping) just as the call to prayer rang out. We decided to wait out the prayer time at the çay bahçe in the picture below. There are tombs behind the mosque where not only Süleyman the Mangificent is buried, but also the mosque's architect, Apparently he built one somewhere else that he loved more, but perhaps he figured that the one is Istanbul would be visited and remembered? After all, it is the biggest and grandest.


The last photo, althought slightly fuzzy (couldn't keep hand steady enough without flash) is for you to admire the stained glass. I want a chandelier with little bublbs of such kind of stained glass mosiac-like patterns to hang over my dining table in Iraq, but I don't see it happening since I haven't even gone shopping yet and my luggage is too full.