6th stop - Istanbul

I was very excited to go to Istanbul for a variety of reasons.

Geographically - Because of its location on the Bosporus Strait, all traffic going to/from the Black Sea by water has to go through Istanbul. It is also the only city which is situated on two continents. This ensured a flow of many ethnic groups through Istanbul, and allowed the city to prosper through trade. Something I found very hard to believe - they built the FIRST of the two bridges that span the Bosporus Straits in the 1970s, and the second one later. Prior to that time, the Asian side was mostly "summer homes" and people had to boat over.

Historically - The original settlement was Greek. Rome conquered and took it over. With the fall of Rome, Istanbul became the seat of the Byzantine empire. The Ottomans conquered the city, and eventually Turkey became a republic. Remnants of all these groups exist in Istanbul, both in tangible items such as buildings and monuments, and also in the cultures of the people who live there.

Religiously - Because this is where basically East meets West, there is amazing religious and cultural diversity. On the streets you can see "ninja turtles" (strict adherents to Eastern religion that requires head to toe black coverings) walking right next to someone wearing the absolute newest in western clothing. And at least on the surface, everyone coexists peacefully.

Unbelievably - Istanbul surpassed even my expectations. I would go back in a heart beat. I don't even feel like I scratched the surface of the history and culture that exists there.

Out of the few places we had time to visit, I enjoyed the Blue Mosque the most. Our wonderful guide Hale gave a wonderful detailed explanation of the Islam religion while we sat on the floor of the mosque, just absorbing our surroundings. The building is absolutely breath-taking. Almost every inch of the interior is covered with mosaics in exquisite intricate designs. It is called the Blue Mosque not because of the exterior color, but because the interior mosaics make it appear blue inside at first glance. One interesting sidenote -Muslims wash themselves outside any mosque before entering, and there are very specific "rules" about the parts of the body that are to be washed, and in what order, and even how.

FYI - Our earlier stops included the spot where the literal crossroads existed in historic times, and an ancient Egyptian obelisk that was transported to Istanbul centuries ago.

Hagia Sophia (pronounced iya sofea), also known as St. Sophia, was another major stop. Hagia Sophia was originally a Catholic Church, but was modified into a mosque due to the overwhelming number of Muslims in the city. It is universally accepted as one of the greatest buildings of the world. The exterior is a beautiful pinkish hue, with the added minarets common to mosques. The inside was modified to accommodate the Islam culture and religion, which included moving the altar and adding interior structures. The mosaics were all covered, but current restorations are uncovering at least some of those.

fyi - if you're as confused as I am right now ;-) .... followers of Islam are known as Muslims.

ok... so back to the tour...

Our last major stop was Topkapi Palace, built in the mid-1400s in typical Ottoman style. There are four courts, replete with pavilions, fountains, kiosks, gardens, etc. We had lunch at the Palace at an outdoor dining establishment that was kind of "fast food" - basically a cafeteria line where you chose the items you want. It was fabulous dining overlooking the Bosporus Straits! Anyway, we wandered mostly around the courts, but did go through the Treasury rooms, which contain jewelry and other jewel-encrusted items - the Treasury is the biggest national treasure in the world! It was quite amazing and overwhelming. We also did go into the Circumcision Room - built specifically for that purpose, and only used once. The mosaics inside and out were absolutely beyond belief - just amazing exquisite detail.

Another sidenote here - on our cruise, Annie, Greg and I all got sick from Norovirus - what most folks think of as the stomach flu is really Norovirus. And yes, it can proliferate any where there is a "captive" audience, such as schools, nursing homes, and cruiseships. Cruiselines take just about every precaution they can, but if even one person gets on the ship sick and doesn't keep their hands sanitized, Norovirus will spread very quickly... So anyway, Annie was in pretty rough shape in Istanbul, and I wasn't much better. Our guide, Hale, suggested the local cure to alleviate the major symptom. So Annie and I both choked down a heaping tablespoon of ground coffee that had a drizzle of lemon juice in it. ACK!!! OMG - you cannot believe how horrid that is! It just sticks in your mouth and throat, and it's hard to swallow and almost hard to even breathe. And well... it really didn't help. :-( But hey - we tried!!!

And even though Donnie didn't get Norovirus, his back started causing him problems early in the trip (actually he had problems before we even left), and it was really bad the day we were in Istabul.

So that being said, after these stops, we took Donnie and Annie back to the ship, and Hale and Greg and I continued. We went to a part of town where the locals hang on weekends and evenings. It was on shore near one of the two bridges. There were little vendor shops and a promenade. And there were BAKED POTATOES. ??? Blow Greg and I away! If you think about what Milwaukee (or Wisconsin) would have for street food: brats, burgers, french fries, deep fried cheese (or anything else possibly deep fried!), elephant ears, etc. - all the typical fair food.... here we were in Istanbul and almost everyone was eating a huge loaded baked potato. Weird. LOL

blog challenge again

Gotta love the blog challenges... This newest one:
Challenge for Wednesday: It's the middle of the week.
What do you start to look forward to, during the latter part of your week?
Anything?
Blog about it... is it something consistent week to week, or does it change as life changes??
Share about some things you are looking forward to.

Easy enough for me. I look forward to the end of the work week, when I get a two day reprieve from boring accounting/finance work. I may have a weekend totally planned out and scheduled with fun cool activities. I may have relaxation time - time for me. I may motorcycle, scrap, read, go to various events, be with friends, be with my honey, work out, eat out.... It's all good!!

new ribbon storage

The excitement in my life... new ribbon storage!

I've been looking off and on for a while for a solution to my ribbon concerns. I really loved how I used to have them hanging on my studio wall, but with the boys (my kitties) loving to chew on stuff, I couldn't have hanging, swinging ribbon tempting them. So the ribbon needed to be in containers.

Lots of scrappers put ribbon into jars. Well, I knew quart size was NOT going to work. I tried two quart size plastic jars. Still not big enough. Not only did I have to smoosh my ribbon in, I had to pull it all out every time I wanted to find that perfect color/style. There are some very cool penny candy jars with bigger mouths, but I wasn't about to spend $6-$8 per jar, especially when I need 10!

My mom-in-law brought me an even bigger jar from the Dollar Store. Hmmm.... definitely big enough, but I still had to pull everything out. But she mentioned clear plastic shoeboxes. Hmmm...

So I went to check it out. And OMG - I love 'em. They're big enough, and I can just pop the top off and look inside without pulling it all out then pushing it all back in. yahoo!!!!

The pics aren't all that great - glare from lighting. But I'm way too busy to keep trying for that perfect picture, so that's just too bad!

sigh...

My hard drive died a couple weeks ago. Ya know... I never realized how much I use my computer until then. I finally have a running computer again, thanks to my wonderful hubby who put a new hard drive into my PC and then dealt with all the weird issues from that.

Greg and I had made some backups in April and June, so I didn't lose too much, but my entire email address book is gone, all my emails, and some recent things I worked on. Plus all my software needs to be reloaded. And my 2000+ fonts are gone (yes, I'm addicted to fonts!).

So long story short - I'm way behind again on computer type stuff that I was actually slowly catching up on. And I'm not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. ;-(

new scrappin' stuff!!

Cool stuff these days...

I took a class at an Archivers this past week. I made a most adorable card file using a lunch pail and Tim Holtz alcohol inks, along with ribbon, Heidi Swapp ghost flowers, regular stamps, souffle pens, etc. SWEET!!!

I also finally managed to find one of the cool new totes that Michael's stores carry (some of them anyway). They have a few colors, and I opted for the bluish/teal and brown combo. It has lots of various sized pockets on the outside, as well as a long zippered pocket, and then the inside is divided up too, but the center section is the full length to hold idea books and mags. CUTE!!!

5th stop - Kusadasi

Most folks have never heard of Kusadasi. It's on the southeast edge of Turkey. It is now becoming a resort town, but it is most famous for the amazing ruins nearby: Ephesus. Ephesus is a "magical" word to us armchair archaeologists, but not really known by the general public, at least in the U.S. Only part of Ephesus has been uncovered, and it's huge and amazing.

After a slight mishap with our guide - we couldn't find him and he couldn't find us - we had a great day. Not only at Ephesus, but also at other interesting stops.


Our first stop was at a shrine which stands at the location where supposedly the Virgin Mary lived her last years. The possibility of that location really being the home of the mother of Jesus is quite intriguing to me. The small church built on the site looked interesting, but there was a prayer service going while we were there, so we merely peeked in.

Then we headed to Ephesus. We did book a private excursion, thank goodness. Our guide was a professor. He really tried to make sure he provided us with accurate information, not some of the myths told by most of the other guides. He has a friend who is an archaeologist at Ephesus, therefore his info is as accurate as it gets - as known / theorized at this time.

The Library of Celsus is the most well-known sight of Ephesus. The front wall has been pieced back together. The worksmanship is absolutely phenomenal - and it's mind-boggling that the detail is still visible, considering the building was completed in 135 AD. This pic shows Greg and I on the right, Donnie and Annie on the left, and our guide in the front middle.

Even tho Ephesus is huge, there were so many people that it was always crowded. But it was interesting and fantastic nonetheless. I cannot imagine being part of a huge tour group, in a crowded place like that, trying to see things and hear the guide, etc. We had great, personalized attention. Our guide (can't remember his name at the moment, it's getting rather late!) even had drawings of how various buildings and areas were believed to have looked like - VERY COOL!!!


The amazing detail is seen everywhere, in the intricate designs carved into the stone. It is also seen in a mosaic floor, which somehow has survived quite intact, if somewhat faded.


One of the "fun" highlights of Ephesus is the communal bathroom. This particular toilet area was for men only, but I decided to take advantage anyway! LOL It's interesting seeing the expressions on people's faces when they realize that everyone went to the bathroom in public. It's even more fascinating when they hear that the bathroom was actually a bit of a social place, where gossip and business occurred. The toilet area did have "running" water - the sewer system was quite amazing. Actually, the water and heat system in the baths were phenomenal.

Another magnificent building in Ephesus is the theater, the largest in Asia Minor, which holds over 24,000 people. And this is not the only theater; there is another smaller one. The smaller one was more for senate discussions and perhaps small plays, while the larger one was used for the gladiators.

Interestingly to me - all the streets of Ephesus were illuminated at night with oil lamps. This shows how rich the city was!

There are a ton of other buildings and monuments of interest in Ephesus - several gymnasiums, multiple baths, many shops, homes, temples, etc.

We stopped at the location of the Temple of Artemis, also known as Diana, which was one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple is long gone, and all that one sees is a marshy area with one solitary column raised to mark the spot. There was actually at least 5 different temples at the site, each one built on top of the previous after it was destroyed. The last temple was the huge, beautiful and famous temple. Of course, there are no drawings of it, only written descriptions, which may or may not be correct. But this site has an interesting artist's rendering: http://www.unmuseum.org/ephesus.htm

We visited the Mosque of Isa Bey, built in 1375. It was quite beautiful, austere, and calming. It can be a little startling for Christians to see rugs all over the floor - this is for kneeling on during prayer. One thing I noticed here was that people often "stole" from earlier buildings to build new ones. It looked quite unusual to have Greek columns in the interior courtyard area of a Muslim mosque.

We also spent some time in the Kusadasi area learning about a couple of the industries still in existence there.

We watched a guy making pottery, and then he induced Annie into giving it a try - she did pretty good! Then we saw the ladies who paint the pottery - amazing, intricate designs. One lady was working on a plate that they expected to take 2 months to paint!!! And of course we had to look at their finished products, and buy a souvenir. It's funny how a person is so much more inclined to buy something when they've seen the process of it being made, and especially if they are part of, or feel like part of the process.

Included in our tour price, which was actually rather inexpensive, was a picnic. Ok... I thought picnic in our terms. You know - a blanket or a picnic table, sandwiches and salads. The usual. Yeah, right! OMG, you wouldn't believe our picnic. We had a nice table with regular plates, silverware, etc. There were umbrellas to shade us. Most amazing was the food. We were served a bunch of cold salads, family style. We thought that was our picnic, and we thought it was pretty good. Then we received a hot appetizer kind of thing. Then we got platters with three different meats. We were admiring the outdoor pizza oven, so they brought us some pizza. We even had dessert. We were STUFFED - and we didn't even come close to eating everything. And it was all so very nummy!!

After lunch we learned about the 2nd industry: rug (carpet) making. Before we had gone, I had read horror stories of people being cornered and made to watch a long display of carpets. Well... we kind of got caught with that too. But I actually thought it was quite interesting. First we saw how the carpets are made - by hand on various sized looms. Then we went into a different room and the door was shut. That should have been our first clue to BAIL. But we thought our guide wouldn't keep us there long, as we kept saying that we hadn't made it to the museum yet. Well... they brought out rug after rug after rug, and showed us the differences between wool and silk and mixtures of both, and showed us the various designs, and how some look different shades depending on how they're viewed. As long as we were just sitting there, I accepted the coffee that was offered. OMG - I knew Turkish coffee was strong, but wow! - it was MUD!! hahaha... anyway, I personally think I enjoyed the carpet display more than I would have liked the museum anyway!!