Adios, Eleven!

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

Happy New Year! Mutlu yıllar! I hope you had a great 2011, and I hope you make your 2012 even better. 

Love from Istanbul,

Kati

Kutular (Boxes)

In my post from last week about wrapping presents, I mentioned that the previous tenant left a large number of shoeboxes in our apartment when we accidentally told her it was okay for her to do so. There were several people who wanted to know more, or more specifically, wanted to see more.

So there you go. I count 66 boxes in this picture alone, and there are two rows not pictured. That's a lot of shoes. I have eight pairs of shoes myself right now. I encourage you all to count your shoes and determine how many pairs you think would make your collection excessive. I think my number is somewhere around fifteen. No judgment - I would love to be at a place in my style where I could figure out what to do with dozens of shoes, but I'm not there yet. 

Also, a shout-out here goes to Niko for buying a new light bulb for our utility closet and therefore making this picture possible. Least Lazy Roommate Award goes to him!

Fruit (Meyve)

I'm a big fan of fruit. It's sweet like a dessert and healthy like bran (or some other gross but healthy food). When I first moved into my apartment there was this nice guy who sold fruit, and everyday I bought a peach from him. Then, when the seasons changed, I bought an apple a day from him. I knew he was overcharging me for this fruit but I had a "buy local!" mentality. I could have purchased fruit more cheaply from the grocery store. I went to him for my produce needs, including the weird leafy vegetables, until he went out of business at the beginning of this month. 

So I've switch produce suppliers. This is my new one:

Look how pretty everything is! This cornucopia is conveniently located on my way home from work. I bought oranges the other day; they were inexpensive, and the man threw in an extra one for free! If there's one thing I love more than fruit, it's cheap fruit! 

I'm trying to stick to seasonally appropriate purchases. This, and the desire to buy from small businesses, stems from my Princeton-born awareness of the benefits of purchasing local foods. Buying from independent sellers keeps them in business, and buying in-season fruit keeps the energy required to transport them from tree to shelf low. The next level is buying from the growers themselves but that's not really an option - no farmer's markets.

But really, doesn't this fruit stand just look prettier than a grocery store?

So Cool

I arrived back in Istanbul early this morning and thought I would post a little bit more about my trip to Dubai before returning to our regularly scheduled programming. First is a gorgeous picture of the Burj Khalifa at sunset.

You can tell from this picture, which is the view from Amy's house, that the Burj Khalifa completely dwarfs every other building to the point where the sun still shines on it after the sun has set on the other buildings in the skyline.

On Christmas Day, Amy and her mom and I went to the Dubai Mall to see The Dubai Fountain, which  was built by the same company that designed the fountain in front of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. We scored a great table overlooking the fountain and...

Just so you know, they have a wide range of music that the fountain "dances" to. The song after this was the theme song to The Magnificent Seven. Anyway, I had a great break from Istanbul, and I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas in the Middle East.

More!

Fun! Fun! Fun! Christmas fun! This is a picture of our Dubai Christmas tree and all of the presents that came with it!

It's a palm tree decorated with pictures of the sheikhs and the UAE colors. The tree topper is a camel muzzle which is used to keep camels from spitting on everyone and everything. After we opened presents, we went to breakfast at the Intercontinental where they had a life sized gingerbread house!

According to the sign it took over 200 kilograms of eggs to make. There were more facts about it but I've forgotten them and the sign with that information is obscured by the white fence in the photo. Oops.

Today we went sightseeing for a little bit. We headed down to the beach, which was full of tourists, she said with a haughty tone. It's hard to be disdainful though when I am a tourist myself. Apparently, in the summer, it is so hot that the beach is empty. Winter is beach time here!

There was also a great view of the Burj Al Arab. It the iconic image of Dubai, and it's supposed to resemble a boat's sails. From what I've been told, when you view the Burj Al Arab from the sea, a helipad intersects with the vertical edge of the building, or the sail's mast, and gives the illusion of a cross. Some were not too happy about that for obvious reasons. But it's only from a certain angle and most people don't view the building from that direction so it wasn't that big of a deal. Not a big enough deal to tear it down and start again anyway. 

Not Pictured: Two Games of Cluedo

I arrived yesterday morning, and I was immediately whisked out of Dubai to the smaller town of Al Ain. And we saw giraffes...

...at the zoo. We saw white lions, flamingos, and a whole bunch of animals that I had never heard of or seen before. Like oryxes, gemsboks, and ibexes. Yes, they all sort of look the same. 

We also saw Jebel Hafeet, the tallest mountain in the UAE. Apparently, some of it is in Oman. On the right side of the photo, you can see some royal dude's palace overlooking his entire desert kingdom. 

Also on top of the mountain is the most inconvenient convenience store I think I've ever seen. 

Credit for that joke goes to Mr. Ridgeway, by the way. After we got back to Dubai, we took a short break and then headed back out. This time we went to Global Village! It's a kind of world's fair. There are dozens of countries who have their own sections filled with booths selling their country's goods. They also have fair rides like this ferris wheel!

Of course, they have a huge Turkish section full of the usual. We walked around for a while, and it was great to be able to listen in on conversations among vendors. Sneaky Turkish skillz. 

All told, I got bracelets from India, a ring from Zanzibar, dinner from China, and baklava from Turkey. I couldn't resist!

Out Of Turkey

I left Istanbul late Thursday night. Just like in every city ever, Atatürk International Airport is far away from everything and public transportation is just not a time/cost efficient option. So this is what me and my roommates do: we take public transportation to Taksim and then take a Havataş bus to the airport. The Havataş bus is great. It's a private bus company and they charge 10 lira ($5) to take passengers directly to the airport. 

The total trip was about an hour and a half, which is pretty good considering the fact that the airport is 20 miles from my house and there is always traffic. Also, note that those 20 miles are full of solid city, like downtown-style. The outskirts don't happen for a long while and the suburbs are so far away we don't even go. Istanbul is huge. 

I love travelling by myself. It makes me feel responsible and independent. I get a few hours where I don't have to talk to anyone to do anything, and I get to sleep and watch movies. It's great. 

I had a layover in Bahrain from 6-7am that was boring but I got to take a bus from the terminal to the tarmac and walk onto the plane while the sun rose behind us! That was cool. And, hey, now I've been to Bahrain!

On the flight to Dubai I started wondering about a visa. No one had told me to get one or mentioned anything about it, but I also hadn't thought about visas at all. Turkey requires a visa but you pay for it at the airport, and I was hoping the UAE did something like too. I also briefly devised a Plan B and a Plan C, in case I was supposed to have secured a visa before I arrived in the country. Luckily, it turned out that Americans don't need a visa! Yeah America! Way to get along well with other countries!

If you squint at this picture, you can see the Burj Kalifa. This building is sooooooo tall. It looks double the size of all the other buildings around it. It's also featured in the new Mission Impossible movie, as is Amy's dad's office building. Cool.