Second Section - Front Row

Awwww yeah. This girl (meaning me) got the best bus seat in the house! I didn't have to have to make anyone move to get it either.

The bus is clearly empty so it wasn't that sweet of a victory but I still felt pretty good sitting in this seat. To recap, this seat is the best because it's not in the front where you'll probably have to give up your seat to an old person, but it's not in the back. You get the front row of the second section and all the legroom you can stand. 

Small Entertainments

I have spent the last three hours Skyping with my mother and grandmother. I talk to them about once a week, and half the time it's catching up and the other half of the time is us going "same old, same old." Sometimes I feel like nothing notable happens - as evidenced by the boringness of my blog. Nonetheless, these are the days of my Turkish life. I took this picture because I thought it was funny.

Ha. I also like the contrast between the blue screen and the orange and green. That's part of my SUPER healthy dinner of butter pasta with peas and carrots! Yum.

Here's a SUPER artsy picture of the pasta and the peas. Ooooh symmetry! Anyway, I'm tired and there's not a lot going on here. Back to Season 1 of The West Wing...

Happy Hair

So six months ago, I was really stressed out. Really stressed out. And that stress manifested itself in the form of bald spots. I mean, I have tons of hair so they weren't that noticeable but still, bald spots are not cool. 

I'm happy to report that my hair is now growing back! Thanks, Istanbul! You can see the baby hairs growing back in. They're the ones sticking straight up in the air. 

Yeah, that's much more like it. I credit Istanbul for relaxing me enough to make those beautiful locks come back. Tangible benefits.

Afiyet Olsun!

"Afiyet Olsun Türkiye!"

Just like the French say "Bon Appetite," the Turks say "Afiyet Olsun." "Türkiye" technically refers to the country but if you say it in English, you can get a good Turkey/turkey joke in there.

And yes, I'll be eating turkey in Turkey in 17 short hours. 

Aisle 6

Spotted in the grocery store, specifically in the exotic spice aisle:

TEXAS BBQ SENSATION! Holy cowpokes, this is exactly what I've been looking for! Ok, not really. I was shopping in MacroCenter, a large grocery store that carries both regular Turkish grocery store items and more international fare. The taco supplies, barbecue sauce, and Indian curries were all in the same section. 

While I passed on the TEXAS BBQ SENSATION disguised as squeezable grape jelly, there was no way I could pass on these:

Actually I did. But I wanted one soooooo badly. It's a crazy straw with a giraffe on the top. Had the price been marked, I would have bought it, but I was afraid I was bumping against my grocery budget (adult word!). Even now, writing about the crazy straw makes me want one really badly. I'm go back tomorrow now that I'm reminded of how whimsical they are.

Sorry, TEXAS BBQ SENSATION, I won't come back for you - you're just offensive.

More On The Huge Hill

I wanted to give those not familiar with The Hill a visual to illustrate how high this thing goes. I live at the bottom, not that high above the water, but a five minute walk inland. Today, I documented my walk up the hill and photographed my resting points. We'll begin at my first resting point, a four minute walk from my house.

This is the view! Isn't it nice? The weather is ugly but it's okay because on hot days, I have already melted by this point. The next leg is shorter but it still takes me four minutes because it's so steep. This is the view at that resting point. 

We're about two levels of houses above my own. Meaning, you can't even see the roofs of the houses that are at our height on The Hill. The next leg takes anywhere from 5-7 minutes - it's longer but not as steep. 

Usually the weather is different at the top of The Hill. If it's raining at the bottom, it won't be raining at the top. We can now see the sun peaking from behind those hills on the other side! It's a nasty 15 minutes but the view, and the weather, is better from way, way up here. 

Like A Rhinestone Scorpion

I saw these rain boots today while waiting for the bus. Those are rhinestones there, in case you can't tell. 

What are your thoughts on these bad boys? Awesome? Weird?  Is there any creature that could be rhinestoned and actually look good? Is there a point at which the rhinestones go from scary to fabulous? Could a geometric pattern work on these boots? Would the rhinestone scorpion look hot on a shirt or other article of clothing? I need answers!

In any case, I wish I could rock them like this lady was.

(ps- Abby thinks a rhinestone rhino would be cool. I think she just likes to say it out loud and hasn't fully thought about what rhinestoned rhinos on rain boots would look it. But seriously, say it out loud. It's fun.) 

American Goodies

My mom sent me a bag of stuff from America. This picture represents my favorite things.

Starting at the top we have my new class ring! I'm allergic to the nickel in white gold so I had to get it redone in silver. It came back a few weeks after I left (my right ring finger has been sad since I got here). Below that we have the most perfect gray nail polish - my mom found it. Next to that is the moisturizer that I cannot make it through a winter without. It's really expensive in Turkey so I had to have it imported (that sounds so serious). There's also my favorite chapstick. Above that we have awesome office supplies: index cards, post-it notes (expensive unless you buy off-brands), and my favorite pens and mechanical pencils. New shoes (and old shoes not pictured), two novels (English books are really expensive here), makeup and razor blades that can't be found here. And finally, the hottest commodity of them all: tampons.

Yes, my friends, the ones with plastic applicators are impossible to find here. For me, this is not okay. I think that an import business based on these puppies alone would allow me to retire by 30. If I put them on the black market, maybe 25. Any friend who visits me is required to bring at least one box. That's my price, and I'm not ashamed to say it. 

Good News!

Oh happy day! Do you see this? This is the best thing that has happened to me this week, grilled chicken aside.

This is a picture of Niko signing for our Internet. And thus bringing our two month quest for utilities to an end. Now, we don't actually have Internet in our house yet. We won't get that for another week (in Turkish time, it might be closer to two weeks).

Here's a example of the circles of insanity that are so easy to get caught in here. So when we rented our apartment at the beginning of September, we were told that we didn't need a residence permit to get utilities in our new apartment. This was great news because you need an address to sign up for an appointment to get a residence permit, and the appointments are so backlogged that it takes six weeks to get an appointment. So if we didn't need this permit for utilities, we could just sign up for them the next day instead of waiting the six weeks. We signed the contract.

But it turns out you DO need a residence permit to put utilities in your name. So we have had water, gas, electricity, and internet in our house over the last two months but their acquisition was not exactly kosher.

Last week, Niko got his residence permit (the first of us - I get mine next week) and spent the last hours of the last working day before a four-day holiday securing us water, gas, and electricity. So we went today to sign up for Internet. The last thing. So exciting. 

But it raises a frustrating problem - you can't get a residence permit without an address and you can't get utilities without a residence permit. It wouldn't be an issue if the appointment happened a couple days after signing a contract but SIX WEEKS?!?!? That's ridiculous. Most people have their utilities in their landlord's or company's name but neither of those things was an option for us. 

So yes, this blog post is coming from sketchy Internet sources but hopefully, this time next week our apartment will be fully operational. And I'll consider myself fully settled in my new home. 

What I Saw While Eating My Biweekly Waffle

I grabbed a waffle and went for a walk tonight around the Bebek park. There's this swanky little cafe/bar right next to the water but also kind of in the middle of the park. 

Pretty, huh? Mariachi music was playing, and it seriously made me want some enchiladas. And a margarita. Pretty much everything listed here. But then Abby reminded me that it was unlikely that I would find good Mexican food in Turkey. I will keep a look out though. If any Turks or yabancılar have suggestions, please let me know! Past that was the park's waterside walk. Here's a dark picture of the boats that are docked. 

In the background is a big hill. There's more to be said about that big hill but it requires a better picture, preferably taken in daylight hours. For now, just look at the lights dotting the hill. Awwww...pretty. Moving right along, we come to this star!

Just like the cows that pop up in cities all over the world, Istanbul has stars that pop up all over. Sometime in September these guys appeared in the park. There are several scattered around the playground and general greenery. While this one is my favorite in this particular park, there is another. I'll take a picture of my favorite, favorite one (that I've seen) the next time I'm around it. It's in Beşiktaş. 

This has been your tour of the Bebek park at night. I hope you've loved the tour as much as I've loved guiding you. Tips are, as always, appreciated. 

Henna

Henna isn't exactly a Turkish thing but the house had some left over from a hair dyeing adventure (not mine, promise. although i've been told i need to dye my eyebrows so if anyone has any thoughts on that, let me know). So Niko took to drawing on all of us. I picked the soft swirls that seem to grow out of each other and the dots were Niko's idea. What do you think?

That picture was taken during, and after a couple of hours wrapped in saran wrap, it looked like this. 

It looks pretty orangey. Really, I look orangey too. It's the lighting in my house. I don't look jaundiced in real life. But it darkens up over time. This is today. 

Can you see a difference or does the orangey light mitigate any possible change? Here's a look from our entryway.

Ta-da! I'm a big fan of the viney swirls and dots. Even though it's chilly and I've been wearing long-sleeves so no one else can see it, I know that it's there. It makes me happy to think about the happy pattern that's secretly on my arm. Thanks, Niko!

I'm Gonna Miss Her

Bebek, the beautiful neighborhood in which I live, is a five minute walk to the Bosphorus. It's about a 20 minute walk to the next neighborhood, Arnavutköy. The walk between Bebek and Arnavutköy travels right alongside the water and is absolutely beautiful.

In good weather, fishermen line up to see what they can catch. The fishing isn't actually that good - I've never seen anyone catch anything of notable size. It's pretty much a social activity. 

As you stroll along the waterfront, you have to keep your eye out for lines waiting to be cast. Some people that I know don't enjoy walking past them because of the prevalence of hooks and lines but as a girl who spent her formative years standing in my friend's front yard while he practiced casting, it's not a big deal to me. Here and there you'll see large buckets of water holding small fish. I really don't know if these 5" fish are coming from or going to the Bosphorus, but they seem as happy as they could be swimming around in old yogurt containers. 

I really want to go fishing but I need to learn more Turkish before I attempt to penetrate this sub-culture.  Maybe next spring. I'll post pictures when I do. 

Cooking Fail

Ok, I tried to make bulgur stuffed mushrooms tonight. Impressive, I know! It was mildly disastrous. It started off well but ended up being a mess.

Abby and I went to MacroCenter today and got tons of groceries. When we got home I set to work. I washed and capped my mushrooms, finely chopped carrots, spinach, and the mushroom stems. Then I preheated the oven. (Well, it's more of a 20 year-old experiment in mixing microwaves and ovens than an actual oven. Also, all the buttons are in German. But it came with the apartment, so whatever.) I converted the recipe to Celsius and preheated the Gewichtsautomatik. Then busted out the bulgur. Saw that it takes 30 minutes to make. Whoops. 

While it was cooking I reviewed my recipe and saw that I had to cover my mushrooms with foil but it turns out that I didn't have any foil. Whoops x2. 

Ok, let's problem solve. The other day I saw Niko making stuffed eggplant in a big pot with a little water boiling (?) around it. So I figured I would do that instead of using the oven. So when the bulgur was finished, I opened the pot and saw that I had made wayyyyy too much. Like, the I Love Lucy episode where Ricky and Fred make a pound of rice per person. It kind of watered-down (bulgured-down) my carrot-spinach-mushroom mix. Sad. 

Oh well, I piled the mixture on the mushroom caps and stuck them in the bottom of the pot with a tiiiiinnnny bit of water. Five minutes later, the tiiiiiiinnny bit of water was boiling and had taken the smallest of my mushrooms out. Now, they were literally watered-down. Whoops.

Pulled the puppies out and let them dry. Voila!

Cute, huh? Actually they don't look too bad. But they tasted terrible. I forgot the spices, and bulgur isn't that flavorful. Good thing I made enough to last until 2012 and good thing I bought a back-up dinner. Who's going to clean the kitchen? 

No but seriously. 

Disconnected events

I made pudding. 

Also, our taxi driver today told us he once peed himself upon seeing a bear. 

America Is Missing Out

Ok today I will share with you the greatest thing in Bebek, my neighborhood in Istanbul. Do you see this line?

It is from Sunday night, around 9pm. It extends all the way to the street. It's for waffles. Yep. You get a waffle for 9 lira ($5). It's a pretty expensive dessert for this part of the world but it's amazing. And so worth it. First, you get a thinner waffle than you would get at IHOP or would make at home. But it's cooked in a waffle iron right before your eyes. Then you pick what spread thing you want. You can pick one for each side or get the same for both sides. Options include milk, dark, and white chocolate, Nutella, strawberry, or hazlenut spread. I like milk chocolate and Nutella. 

Then you pick your toppings. I personally prefer banana, strawberry, and kiwi. But you can also choose cherries, pineapples, chestnuts, pistachios, sprinkles, and powdered sugar. Any and all toppings. Remember you pay a flat price no matter how much you have them put on there. So pile it on. I do.

Then you fold it in half, taco-style, as best you can. And you keep a tight hold on it, burrito-style, lest any yummy (still warm) goodness spill out. Mine exploded on me the first time I had one but I've gotten much better at managing the amazingness. Now you want one don't you? 

The place is Ab'bas on the main road through Bebek but it's a chain so they can be found elsewhere in Istanbul. Their website: http://www.abbaswaffle.com. Check it out!

Does anyone know of a place in America that has waffles like this? Someone needs to get on it.