The Final Stretch

There really is no place like home. Thanks Gavin, it's good to be back.

So I have been slow as molasses recapping this trip....I do apologize. I have not even sent out the photo album. With all the commotion that occurred upon my return, it's been tough to get some time just to recap what we did while we were away. So luckily I am sitting in a hotel room in Redmond, typing out what I think is the final wrap up of this trip. So funny, I haven't even been back a month yet but it seems like a lifetime ago. Strange how time does that.

The last day of our trip was basically a travel triathalon. I use the term "last day" loosely as the travels covered 2 days and about 4 time zones (and that's just the time zones we stopped in, who knows how many we actually crossed over.)

We started off leaving Istanbul...once again, it was a cloudy sky, and we were oh so happy to be heading home. We had our final breakfast at the Oran, said farewell to our favorite hotel worker--He told us that the weather was bad because Turkey was upset that we were leaving. All over the world we are still loved and adored! haha.

We got to the airport and we were pretty early. Surprisingly they are a lot more lax about the whole carry on liquid thing in Istanbul. They just ask you if you have something larger than 3 ounces. I said no, but then realized I had a bottle of water...however I figured there would be another check point, but there was not! YES! taking it back to the old school with some contraband bottled water.

Rachel and I tried to shop, found out that they would charge us $11 US dollars for an imported copy of People magazine--we declined. But we did stay in the magazine store for quite awhile soaking up some good old fashioned American tabloid trash. We found out that Halle Berry was pregnant and saw some pics of Britney Spears from the VMAs. Awesome.

After boarding the plane we headed to London. We get to London and shop around for a bit. Unfortunately the flight was slightly delayed. It wasn't too bad, but we did manage to squeeze in some time for the Captain.

Finally we got to leave Heathrow, but not before I hear a butchered version of my name being said in a British accent calling me to the counter. What? Um why are you calling me?? Turns out they just wanted to confirm I was on this flight. RANDOM!! The flight to JFK featured a meal of either Indian food or Mincemeat Pie. Jesus...so that for me was like asking if i wanted to cut off either my right foot or my left foot....I didn't want either! However since I was starving I chose the Indian entree called "butter chicken" it didnt taste like butter and I didnt feel so hot after eating it. For once I didnt finish my food. However other than this meal, British Airways had some pretty tasty vittles. I was impressed. They've easily become my favorite international airline.

Also on the flight, Rachel's seatmate initially was this chick who was wearing a gallon of perfume. Honestly, you are in an enclosed space...have some respect for those around you!! Luckily there was a family that wanted to sit together and so the girl moved so the mom could be close to her kids. That was great in theory until the child starts throwing a full on tantrum. Instead of the dad and mom swapping seats to get the kid to stop wailing, they just kept trying to reason with him and coo to him. Dude, you are NOT helping. Switch seats. But once everyone was settled a good flight overall.

After what seemed like forever, we arrived in NYC. Almost HOME!! However, when we got through customs, I got stopped. The official asked me if I had reported my passport lost or stolen. Como? What? Seriously? So I said no, that I had my passport with me the whole time and it hasn't been lost. Then he sent me to this other room to clear my passport with another customs officer. Rachel was already through security and waiting for our luggage. I had to ask the woman why I had been pulled aside, and she told me that a passport number similar to mine had been reported stolen. So that's why they pulled my passport aside. Randomly, this is the second time on our vacation that I have had someone tell me something about my passport. Started off in NYC when the guy said we were on the watch list, and then now this. Oh well, fortunately everything went fine and they stamped my passport and I was back on US soil. Holla.

Our night was far from over. We had to try and catch the shuttle to our hotel near JFK. Unfortunately I was disoriented and gave them the incorrect terminal number so the people were unable to find us. Mother Christ. After 20 minutes Rachel and I give up and just head to the taxi queue. We get to our hotel, and although they were meager accomodations--it was what we were used to at this point. We ordered nachos and hot wings and watched American TV. It was pretty awesome. I fell asleep to Best Week Ever and then awoke about 4 hours later in order to board our flight.

The Holiday Inn was so shifty--we needed a cab, but for some reason they sent us in a Town Car...which happened to cost more than the taxi. Whatevs....we were just trying to get home at this point.

We get to JFK and they had this scale ready for weighing. WHAT? Wouldnt you know that Rachel and were on the floor at JFK unpacking crap from our suitcases. They were going to charge 50 bucks for any luggage over 50lbs. I needed to take out about 5 lbs of crap to make the grade. So i just put it in a plastic bag and chose to have 2 carry ons. Such a pain to have to unpack though. Then they confiscated my toothpaste that i forgot to put in my 50lb luggage in security. Damn it all, can we just get home already???

Drinking some coffee at the crack of dawn on our final flight of the trip.

After getting through the forcefield of security, we got some coffee from Peet's (begrudgingly....I am not a Peet's fan, however this one was good. BUT there were like 5 workers at the kiosk with only 2 of them actually doing any work.) Fortunately the flight was good and we got home pretty early. However, they did not have a movie for our entire 5 hour flight...AND I slept not at all. It was so long. I was trying to read this book that I procured from the Hermes, but even that wasnt helping make the time go by faster.

However we finally returned to San Francisco, and claimed our luggage while we looked on at a warm welcome from my favorite hottie mayor Gavin Newsom. Thank you Gavin, now let's make out.

As for us, this concludes our Greek and Turkish adventure. I really hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I suppose I can still continue to post here, however the blog title won't be so relevant since the trip is now completed. But I am a slave to the people, so if you want me to write more, just name your topics you'd like to read about and I can write about it.

However, if not. It's been real friends. May you have safe travels yourselves.

Logging out.

--Lu

Our last day abroad, Living the good life in Istanbul

Turkey is so Bazaar. These are the lanterns that haunted my dreams only to let reality kick in and tell me that I would never use them.

So our last day in Turkey started off not too promising...It was rainy and overcast and a little chilly. We sure weren't in Greece anymore.

It was a bummer because today we were going to go to the Asian side of Istanbul as well as take a cruise on the Bosphorus. Not to mention finish up the rest of our shopping and pack to head HOME!

We got onto our tour and we picked up the Spanish ladies from yesterday. Oh no, not again...luckily they were scheduled for a Spanish speaking tour.

We also saw our friend from Georgia and his cousin on our tour.

Speaking of tours...we saw the people from our Gate 1 tour as well today. Gross. We made sure to avoid eye contact. Luckily they were on a different tour company. Thank God we didnt choose to take the tour with them. I would have pulled out all of my hair one strand at a time.

Anyway, today's tour guide was much better than yesterday's. However he was a bit of a tour nazi. He was all about his ground rules, and he actually scared me a little. However, his english was excellent and he was all about telling us historical tidbits, and you know I love that stuff. He had a really deep knowledge of the history of many of the places as well as factoids about famous people and things they have done in Istanbul. Tell me more!

We drove along and stopped at the spice bazaar first. That was actually pretty cool. They had a bunch of bins of spices that you could buy. Usually this would be all up my alley, but since my funds and time were limited, so I just took some photos and looked around. There were some pretty cool things I would have liked to buy. However they were not spices. I really wanted to get these mosaic lanterns. But I know myself. I won't use it. It will sit in it's little turkish box until god knows when. So I just admired them and went along my merry way.

after the spice mkt we went across the water and drove along this kinda richy part of Istanbul. They had all these ridiculous super clubs on the water. It was just reeking with money. It was ridiculous...and awesome. For the record if I ever return to Istanbul, I need to go baller style. None of this shady business I have been doing. Granted the hotel staff was super nice, and it was a decent place, I need to be pampered and go to fancy restaurants next time.

We arrived at the dock and got on our private boat. It was filled with people from our tour and the spanish speaking tour. So all in all probably about 40 people. Not too bad. The bosphorus cruise was really cool. We got to sail on both the European and Asian sides of the bosphorus. There were some incredible houses along the water. However a lot of them were gaudy. Very French Baroque and over the top. I need some modern simplicity in my over the top houses.

After the cruise we went back for lunch and then drove over to the Dolmabace palace. First of all, they told us that we wouldnt be getting back to our hotel until 630, so at that point Rachel and I made the decision to cut out after the palace and take the tram back to the Grand Bazaar so we could get our shopping done before the place closed. We checked out our map of the metro and then figured out that we could walk a few blocks to get to the tram from the palace.

The Palace was nice, but it was really tacky. They had all these chandeliers....like seriously, chandeliers for days. I just kept thinking of that Scarlett Johannsen SNL skit. Anyway, the one cool thing is that they had the Largest Chandelier in the World in there. No joke. The thing was ginormous. I read about it and it weighs 4.5 tons. They also have this wild staircase where all the things holding up the bannisters are Bacarat Crystal. You better get out with that. Can I put one in my pocket?? Also, they had this racket of paying 6 lira if you wanted to take photos in there. So we paid the 6 lira and I took pics of every flippin chandelier in that joint. However, the castle was warm and like yesterday I was tired, so we were glad to leave the tour and be on our own. The thing about the tours was that they were good in the morning, but then we started to get restless. it's just hard to listen to facts all day long. There's a reason I am not in school right now. My ADD kicks right after lunch.

4.5 tons of crystal ecstasy. Aww yeah.

We headed to the Grand Bazaar and it was a hot mess in there. Everyone hawking their wares while also hitting on you...it was very unnerving. Plus it was a bit crowded. Fortunately not as crowded as the metro or anything but still. And then damn Turkish ATMs only give you 50s so it's a bit ghetto to be all, i only want to pay 10 lira instead of 20. Can you break a 50? However I made it work. I got some really cool mirrored compacts as well as some handmade turkish bowls and a trivet. Also, I got some evil eyes--they have these all over Greece and Turkey--they are these colbolt blue glass circles that have what looks like an eye painted on them. They are supposed to be deflectors of negative energy. If that is the case, it is possible that I might just wear one around my neck for the rest of my days.

I still needed to get a couple of other trinkets so we headed out towards the stores near the blue mosque. (BTW I think the official name of that place is Sultanahmet Mosque, but I can't be positive) I was able to get my magnet and coin purse quota taken care of. Since neither of us wanted to eat at the hotel we went to go get something to eat on one of the well lit streets by the mosque. We ended up at this one little random place. Sadly I can't recall the name at the moment. I know I have the card, but I am too lazy to go look for it. (BTW you should all know that I am just procrastinating on packing for my week in Seattle right now. Crimony. I feel like I have been packing and unpacking for the last month! I am tired!!)

Anyway, we had this dish that was made in a clay pot and then they bring it out and break the clay pot in front of you to get all the food out. It was pretty dope. AND the food was awesome. Just the right amount of spices and the chicken was all tender. Dude it was good. I have photos. OH! It's called the Cozy Pub, I read it on the waiter's shirt in the photo. Holla.

The top photo is mid-break of the clay vase and the bottom photo is the actual food. Tasty.

After that we came back to the hotel and packed our things for our triumphant return to the US. (to NYC at least).

We both had an incredible time on our travels, but we were so happy to be heading home.

I will continue with the end of our saga upon my return from Redmond. Have a lovely week.

Turkish Delights--Our first full day in Istanbul

Rachel and I obeying the rules in the Blue Mosque.

So it's been a minute since i have been able to post on this blog and finish our stories. I guess quitting your job has that affect on the rest of your social engagements. Anyway, now that I am free from work, at least for today, I decided to hurry up and finish these posts.

Our last days on the trip were sort of a whirlwind. We still took lots of photos, but after three weeks of photo ops, we were both a little lackluster on taking a bunch of shots.

Since we were also on tour for the two full days we were in Istanbul, we really didnt have to worry about too much in terms of thinking of logistics.

On our first full day of touring we went on a city tour that had all the major mosques (or moss-kays as the tour guide's thick turkish accent made it sound)

We started off at this random restaurant which we realized that we'd be seeing a lot more of in the next few days. Truthfully I have no idea what the place was even called, but it was a little bit lame since there were these random souvenir sellers inside the restaurant. They were basically street peddlers so that was a bit annoying.

We met our tour guide and he was just wearing some crazy t-shirt that said something about not making friends in his tribe or some randomness... The thing in Turkey is that the guides dont really have uniforms or anything and some of them just look a little suspect.

Our tour group isnt too big but how come there is a group of ladies who should have been with the Spanish Speaking tour group so they are only half understanding what the guy says. I am only half understanding what he says as well since his accent is pretty hefty. Ugh.

Our first stop is the Hagia Sofia and The Blue Mosque. You know there were like 5 gazillion people up in that mix. Damn it. There's like cruise ship tours, regular tours, all hitting at the same time. It's so stupid that we have to wait in line to get into the joint. It's a good thing Rachel and I already went to this place the day before but still.

We also figured out why it wasnt smelling all footy in the mosque. They had just replaced the carpeting for Ramadaan so they had a nice new carpet in the mosque. It was really pretty carpeting too. However it could have easily been in vegas since it was all patterned. Have you ever noticed that the carpets in the vegas are always these loco patterns? Like you can never figure out where you are because the carpet and the tables all look the same throughout the entire damn casino. You have to find your way on the fringes. But I digress...

After we went to the mosque and mini-museum we drove around and headed to a carpet demonstration and the Grand Bazaar. Unfortunately because the carpet demo took so long and they were WAY out of my price range....what? did you say that welcome mat sized one was 400 Euro? Oooh i gotta go. So we haul ass to the bazaar where they tell us we have about 20 minutes to check it out. For those of you not familiar, the Grand Bazaar is kinda like Istanbul's tourist flea market. The wares are all in mini-stalls/storefronts, but there are approximately 4000 of them. Honestly, 20 minutes will not do the job. We decide before we even get there that we will need to go back for our souvenir shopping.

We get to the bazaar and it is totally overwhelming. Every single stall is crammed full of stuff. So we also need to try our hand at bargaining. I have decided that I kinda suck at bargaining. Like i can comparison shop like nobody's business, but that bargaining part just wastes my time and energies. Why don't you just tell me how cheap you will sell me something?? Anyway, we look at about 3 stalls and decide that we need to bounce out. However, we do find a couple of things that we'd like to come back and purchase. We go back to get lunch with our tour.

As usual we have a suspect lunch and we also find out that there everyone at our table only speaks Spanish. That was totally not helping our cause to convince people that we were indeed NOT Mexican. Every single person at the Grand Bazaar asked us 2 questions. 1) Como estas senoritas? and 2) are you sisters? oy vey. We don't even look alike people. Crimony.

We saw a bunch of other mosques during the rest of the tour, but I was pretty over it. The guy was hard to understand and I was getting super tired. However there were these Australian guys with their mom on the tour that were pretty hilarious. We found out they were at our Whirling Dirvish show too. So there's kids everywhere trying to sell you shit--kinda like in Mexico and the kids selling chicklets....anyway, these kids sell crap like these light up spinning tops. so they try to sell things to everyone. The one guy on our tour, although it wasnt right, i was laughing.... So this kid tries to sell the Aussie a top and the guy says no thanks, and he had his little sticker to identify him as part of our tour on his hand. He pats the kid on the back while sticking the sticker on this kid. It was so childish, but I was dying. Sorry, I am still immature. It was hilarious, but reading back, definitely a had to be there moment. Maybe it was just hot so it was funnier? I don't know.

We also met another guy on our tour who was from Georgia but was visiting Turkey with his cousin (who seriously I thought that was his GF...a little too familiar to be family...but maybe that's just me). Anyway, he was cool too. They had been vacationing with the rest of their family in Baku. Yeah I had no idea where it was either...I guess it borders Turkey. The family is from Iran, so there are only certain countries that both of them can visit together and he was military so he had issues getting into Istanbul. Whoa. So many government restrictions.

Oh and also, the rest of the mosques...smelled footy. Doesn't help that there are a ton of people with no shoes. Thinking about it makes me need to get into wide open spaces. Damn sensitive nose.

Finally our tour ended and we had about an hour to relax before we went to the "dinner show" We didn't know what to expect from this thing.

The car picks us up, and I am relieved to find out the place we are going is not the same restaurant that is the tour meeting place. We drive across town to the Taksim district (apparently the business district in Istanbul--apparently lots of places to go out too...but it looked safe and modernized. I love this place.)

So we arrive at the restaurant, and there are like 5 people there to greet us. It seemed a little odd, but we just figured they were friendly. However we walk into the restaurant to find out that we are THE FIRST PEOPLE TO ARRIVE!!! !Dude....seriously, this place is pretty big, how are we the first people here. I felt so lame. So our waiter comes over, brings us our wine and some Turkish apps--it's dark as hell so I have no idea what we are being fed, I am trying to pull the candle on our table as close as possible to my plate to get some idea what we are eating. Since we were first in to the restaurant we had prime seating next to the stage. Fortunately people started to arrive at the restaurant and it got probably around 3/4 full by the time the musicians came out. The show was totally hokey. Think Turkish Luau but not cool like a Hawaiian luau....however it was still pretty fun. Since we were so close to the action we were participants on more than one occasion.

enjoying the turkish dance party

The funniest (ok maybe it was the second funniest) thing that happened that night was that our waiter who was totally sweet asked Rachel if she needed a friend in Turkey. And if so, he wanted to be her friend. He really meant well, but I couldnt help but think that he sounded like Borat. It was like, "I like you, I want to be your friend. Do you want to be my friend?" Totally meant well, but it was pretty funny.

I think the FUNNIEST thing that happened that night was that when we got pulled up to go dance on the stage with a bunch of random people this one guy (photo below) took this as his moment to SHINE...like he was on dancing with the stars or some madness. Dude went off, he was doing like these drop kicks and all sort of belly dancing moves. He was getting his groove on. Rachel and I were dying. Rachel actually snapped him mid dance. Flippin hilarious.

shaking what your mama gave you.

After all the laughs we needed to leave. We tried to go for a walk so that we werent stuck watching more old people dance on stage, since our ride wouldnt be back for another 45 minutes. So when we attempted to leave on our own, they flipped out. We just said we were going to go outside and walk around, and the guy was all, "no. I am sorry, it is not safe" EXCUSE ME??? Whoa. Rachel and I were like this looks safer than where we are staying?! But they wouldnt budge, totally made us sit and have some turkish coffee, which tastes like crap btw, and then they called our driver. Even the driver was like, no you can't go out by yourself over there. not safe for woman. oh dear. I need to go home now. and i mean HOME HOME...take me back to my mean streets of the US. So that was day 2 in Istanbul. Good times