I Think I Was Just Raped by a Luffa

Do I even need to write anything? Like, seriously... you all owe me one for posting these pictures. I'm serious. I have given you material to humiliate either of us at your will. It's only fair... (bitch) tit(s) for tat.

So, obviously, we had our Turkish bath experience. It was like nothing else I have ever done before and I think I'm O.k. with that. At 8 a.m., we walked to the Cover Bazaar and Cagaloglu Hamam not sure what to expect. Ryan's stress level was now at an all time high and I'm pretty sure he just wanted to get it over with. We entered the Hamam after walking down a short flight of stairs and found ourselves in some sort of grand room (pictured below - if you go to their website that I linked, you'll find better pictures of the actual building. We couldn't exactly take our camera in because of the humidity and besides, there was only one place to store it and it wasn't going to happen, if you get my drift).
We waited at the counter for awhile. Then waited some more... and some more. We couldn't have looked more like tourists - guide book, running shoes, "please help us" look on our faces. There were three men in different parts of the room, one of them wearing only a towel. They had all looked up at one point or another and kept on with what they were doing. After several minutes and a brief Turkish argument, the loser got up and pointed to the menu. After checking out our options, we paid (which was far more than expected, never ending story) and were directed to our lockers. We had brought shorts and asked if we should put them on but were cut off mid-sentence with a "NO" and were each thrown an oversized terrycloth. We each took our key and stepped into our lockers. By this point, Ryan's eyes looked something like this.
We both came out wearing nothing but the cloth and these hard wooden clogs. We walked from the lockers into the actual bath which was a massive marble cavern with 40 foot ceilings with adjoining rooms. We were told to go to the "hot room" for "ten, maybe fifteen mee-nuts." Ryan and I went into the 40 degree room and sat down. As we looked at our rolls spilling out over the towels and we both thanked our lucky stars that we were the first customers of the day and the only ones there. After losing about half a litre of sweat, we heard Turkish echoing through the building. Ryan asked me to sit up so that I would be called first. Turns out there were two men coming for us. This was going to happen at the same time.

We sat down on a marble riser that was about 6 inches off the ground. We're talking knees by your ears kind of sitting down... in a short towel... you would not have been wanting to sit across from us. The men poured water over our heads and started to exfoliate our entire bodies with their hand scrubbers. Indeed, they got all of the dead skin off... and I'm pretty sure they sandpapered off most of my nipples as well. They had no problem reaching up under the towels either... dangerously close to stripping the bark off of my twig and berries. They continued with the soap, which was administered with a octopus-looking luffa, and then rinsed us off.

Here's where my experience differed from Ryan's. Every time my dude ran his scrubber down a part of my body, he let out a moan that sounded not unlike he was climaxing. It was especially disturbing when he was lifting up my boobs to scrub underneath them and I got the moan, combined with the blast of Turkish tobacco breath. Don't get me wrong, this was as un-sexual an experience as you can get. I'm just having trouble interpreting it.

Before our helpers (ewwww... I'm not sure what to call them. Everything sounds so dirty) left, they were quick to deliver the one English phrase they had mastered. "Tip Please." We were then ordered to take off the wet towel, and they cinched up a dry one so tight that it acted as a bustier. Just what I needed (see picture above). We then went back to our lockers and saw ourselves out.
We got back to our hotel bright red and dead-skin free. We are transferring to the other Istanbul Four Seasons hotel today and are needing to pack so we'll post about it when we get there.

A McWord to the McWise

Now, I don't want to sound too glamorous here but I have eaten at McDonald's all over the world. I've eaten everything from a McLobster in Halifax, Canada (pictured) to a McRice Burger in Hong Kong, to something called a McAustralian in Prague. I even had an brief affair with a hamburger topped with kimchi in Taiwan when I was living there.
People, before you waste your $5, let me save you from wondering if you should order 'that crazy special.' It's all CRAP. Ryan always sticks to (not surprisingly) the sure things (he just informed me that he prefers to call them classics. A thousand apologies). I always decide to 'go for it' and order whatever McDonald's has come up with that combines their grade Z beef with the local culture and their food.

What really drove it home tonight was the McTurco. Two patties (lamb perhaps?) wedged into a dry pita with a super sweet, spicy sauce... the same spicy sauce that seeps out of the pores of every sweaty shop keeper I've come in contact with here.
All I'm sayin' is that you can't go wrong with McNuggets. Don't say I didn't warn you.

A Post. A Boring Post but Still a Post

So no Turkish Bath yet....we are thinking tomorrow before we transfer to the new hotel.

This morning we went on the Bosphorus ferry cruise which took us on a 1 1/4 hour sail up the straight past some amazing sights to drop us off in a fishing village. There was no glamour at all in this voyage. It was a mad crush of the masses to get the best seats once they let the gangplank down. Crying children, tour guides in every possible language speaking at maximum volume to their "private" clients. The ferry was super cheap so it was worth it to suffer a wee bit to get some good photos of the city. We also got a glimpse of the hotel that we are moving to tomorrow and all I can say is "Oh my God I looks F'ing amazing!!" (3rd picture down)...get me out of this dump already.After the cruise we stop of a beer on a rooftop terrace before taking a taxi to the new district to check it out.The new district has a totally different feel from the old city where we are now. If you where plunked down there you would be hard pressed to distinguish it from many European cities...crowds, name brand shops, hi rises. We had a lovely lunch in a very European/North American (read: food I will eat) restaurant and watched the throngs of people walk by.

We are now having our afternoon repose in air conditioned comfort of our room before heading out to try find a souvenir of this city. It's between a ceramic vase and Alper, the super hot waiter that serves us on the rooftop patio.

Eggplants and Dervishes.

Well its 4:40 am and I just heard the first call to prayer coming from the Blue Mosque and guess what...I'm up and wide awake. Jess is in a coma and it looks like there is a sleeping pill missing, hmmmm. We have things to do and places to see! Maybe the sound of me typing will wake him.

I'm awake (this is Jess). I'll write my comments in red.

Yesterday we had our cooking class and it was great, much more hands on than our class in Italy last year. There were 10 of us in the class and even one girl from Saskatchewan who Jess immediately bonded with , of course. We cooked for just over 2 hours then sat down to eat the 5 courses we had prepared. The lady who runs the course is from Holland was trained at Le Cordon Bleu in France, worked at the St. Regis in New York, helped open the Four Seasons George V in Paris (probably the nicest hotel in Paris) and then ran a hotel here in Istanbul for 11 years and now just runs the cooking school. My favorite dish was the pan fried (of course) zuchini pancakes and the eggplant stuffed with tomatoes and onions....actually it was all really tasty... even the lamb in grape leaves.
I'm pretty sure, in a former life, the lady ran an all girls school or something. She didn't mess around. We were at a table with a mother and son, all on 'tomato duty.' She walked up to the mom and sternly said "What are you doing? These are huge." She then went on to loudly call out that she needed a volunteer to come and fix these tomatoes." The mom just sat there stunned. It was hilarious in that 'It's funny cause it isn't me' kind of way.

Me mixing the lamb, tomatoes and onions with my bare hands. My hands still smell.

After all that cooking, eating tonnes of food and wine to go with it we went back to the room to crash for a couple of hours. I always feel guilty when we waste time relaxing in the room but with the heat outside it almost makes sense to venture back out in the evening. It is amazing how quickly it cools down once the sun goes down and there is always a nice breeze off the sea.
Notice how he describes taking a nap as 'wasting time.' Do you see what I have to work with people. Never ending.

In the evening we went to watch the Whirling Dervishes (as seen in Madonna's Bedtime Stories video *thank you Patrick*, and on The Amazing Race *do you remember that mom?*). Those suckers whirled non-stop for over half an hour. (Boooooooooorrrrrrrriiiiiinnnnngggggg) I kept waiting for one of them to put on the brakes bend over and hurl. To be honest there is not much to it but just whirling and after 5 minutes and 20 photos we were ready to slip out (but didn't). Nope, we sure didn't. We sat there and listened to the *lovely* traditional music which was about 75% of the show. Traditional TURKISH music. Cymbals, warbling voices, glorified recorders. It was wonderful... cough, cough. I'm SO BUMMED we forgot to buy their C.D. on the way out.

Today we plan on taking the ferry up the Bosphorus Strait that separates Europe and Asia and then hanging out in the new district which is supposed to have tonnes of funky shop and restaurants. Who knows we may even try to squeeze that Turkish Bath in yet. (He means WILL be squeezing in a Turkish Bath).

Tomorrow we move to the Four Seasons on the Bosphorus which just opened one month ago. The hotel looks amazing as it is perched right on the ocean with an infinity pool and a gorgeous outdoor terrace. I hope it lives up to expectations. Apparently we are supposed to relax while we there (hi Tracy). Ya... Here's my opportunity to relax. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to do that, walking around with my rolls cinched into the ridiculous bathing suit I bought (only one I could find the day before we left... purple horizontal stripes) but I'm certainly going to give it a go.

Surprise Dinner Guest

All over this city, there are cats everywhere. They actually look like well fed, tame, healthy animals that just happen to be wandering in packs.

Last night at dinner, we ate outside at the hotel. It was a perfect setting to relax and unwind... until I casually looked down and saw this. At first take, I thought... oh, isn't that cute. Scared me a little given the fact that I didn't realize there was an animal less than a foot away from me, but still cute. So, we took a picture:
Upon closer inspection, I started getting a little squirmy. It kept inching closer. You'll also notice in the picture that only one eye has been illuminated by the flash of our camera. One eye normal, the other missing. Now I'm grossed out. Mangy street animal, getting ever closer. Ryan, safely on the other side of the table, thinks this is hilarious. I had three prawn tails on my plate and opted to throw them away from our table to get the cat away. I don't need to tell you this didn't work. Once she had gobbled them up, she was crawling under my feet.

There's not really much more to this story... except the joy of watching Ryan's face fall as the cat decided to go and visit him and being able to watch him try and 'shoo' her away with his dinner napkin. The waiter explained that on more than one occasion they had driven the cat far away from the hotel and dropped her off. You know how the song goes...

Surprise...NOT!!!

Today was supposed to one of a couple of surprises I had planned for our trip. Last summer while in Italy we attended Mamma Agata's cooking class and it was the highlight of our trip. This trip I booked us into Eveline's Cooking Alaturka and I had planned on surprising Jess with the class today. Well, Jess was apparently "reading the recycling" before we left home and found an email from the cooking school.....so no surprise...oh well, we are still excited about the class. (I do have a surprise planned for Budapest that he doesn't know about) As you can tell from previous posts I'm a bit of a fussy eater and I am hoping that by having my hand in the creation of some Turkish dishes I will feel more comfortable with the food here.

This morning started the usual way...up at 5am and then off for a walk around the city. We wanted to also retake our photo in front of the Blue Mosque as we thought our faces looked too dark and we had finally figured out the flash on our camera.

The good news is the photo is better.
The bad news is Jess tripped over the 1 ft high fence separating the grass from the path and went ass-over-teakettle onto the stone path. His hands and knees are a little worse for wear but thankfully there was not a soul around to witness the event. Unfortunately, this injury puts him at severe risk of picking up an infection at the Turkish Bath. I am a trained professional and know this to be a fact.

We still managed to go on a nice long walk and get some good photos.So we are off to our 4 hour cooking class and have booked tickets to see Whirling Dervishes this evening. Will let you know things go later.

This is what Jess is doing while I write this mornings blog entry:

Sociology 101

We've all seen movies where the main characters are predominately white and there is that token gay guy... or black guy... or Indian guy... and everything even slightly remarkable about that character is emphasized or blown out of proportion, and every sweeping generalization that could be added to the character description is included. If it's a gay guy, he has a lisp, is attracted to everything with a penis, and wears body glitter. If it's a black guy, he wears a lot of bling, talks with words he makes up as he goes along, and wears a backwards baseball cap and an XXXXXL T-shirt. Then we get to the Indian guy: thick accent, turban, and no one wants the locker beside him because he smells like curry.

People, I learned a valuable lesson today that there is something to the 'smells like' thing. The Indian guy DOES smell like curry, assuming he actually eats curry. When I was living in Taiwan, I was told that us whiteys (or more accurately, North Americans) smelled like butter and cheese.

Remember that Turkish breakfast sausage I showed you in the previous posting? Well, EVERYONE eats it here. Yes, every last single person. A lot of it. Add 37 degrees and crowded markets to the mix. Sweet mother, I thought I might pass out a few times.

Hmmmm... it just dawned on me why I keep smelling fermented McChicken sauce every time I get near Ryan.
Here are a couple shots from the Spice Market and the Grand Bazaar. It was mind-blowing on so many levels: the sheer number of people, the brashness of the merchants trying to make their living by selling something like buttons (flanked by two other shops that also sell buttons), the sea of colorful scarves worn around the women's heads, the smells (occasionally good, mostly bad, always pungent), the uneven cobblestone... everything was so far removed from what our 'normal' is. It made us feel fortunate to have been able to experience it and also very fortunate that it is not our daily experience. Living in a crowded city of 15 million people would definitely take some getting used to.
Tomorrow were going to venture out and have our Turkish bath experience. Even I'm freaked out.