Istanbul - days 3 and 4

Day 3 was the day of boat rides, and the day we went to Asia for an evening out.

First, Brian and I took a boat tour on the Bosphorus. In case you need a little geography refresher, Istanbul is a city on two continents, with the Bosphorus strait dividing the European and Asian sides. I am not a geography teacher, I am just married to one, so here's a map that might help you:

The boat ride was windy, sort of dramatically so since we cruised past palaces and mosques and colorful, crowded apartment buildings several stories tall and at least a century old. I tried adding to the drama by wrapping a scarf around my head (for the wind, not for modesty this time) and wearing the big sunglasses that I bought on Istiklal street for 10 lira (around $5). They are Prada sunglasses, if you believe the logo printed on them, which of course I do. I have this sunglass issue – I lose them, break them, leave them at home, need to buy new ones in unlikely places. My sunglasses all seem to have stories lately. These ones will known as my Jackie Onassis-on-the-Bosphorus-look sunglasses forever, or at least until I leave them somewhere or they break. So Brian and I sat on the top deck getting windblown, watching container ships and small highway traffic on the bridge overhead, trying to match what we saw with the map in our borrowed guidebook until we gave up.

In order to get to the Bosphorus from our hotel, you have to walk down Istiklal street, around the Galata Tower, and down to the Galata Bridge. The bridge is busy not only with pedestrians and chestnut vendors, but with fishermen. They stand along the rail, their backs to the slow-moving traffic, and bait their hooks with small silverly (sometimes bloody) fish kept in plastic tubs on the ground. We had to pause a few times as we passed by to give a fisherman room to cast. I wonder how many oblivious tourists are hooked each year as they cross the bridge.

On the other side is the dock where you can catch the boats, and it swarms with people walking quickly, slowly, weaving in and out, stopping at ATMs, selling little toys and sesame-covered bread rings. The man finding passengers for the tour boats calls out “Bosporo Bosporo Bosporo” over and over again. On the other side of the bridge is the old city. This is how we walked to get to the Blue Mosque and the elusive cistern on day 2, and how we would walk in search of the Great Bazaar on day 4. 

After our boat ride and a nap at the hotel (all that walking around had caught up with us), we met up with our intrepid tour guide Liz. We ate some Chinese food, and then we went to Asia. That's right, we took a ferry to Asia in order to find somewhere to drink beers. First we got on a Dolmush, which is a kind of shared taxi mini-bus. We took that down to the ferry terminal and took a boat across the Bosphorous to Karakoy.

We ended up at a place called the Corner Bar, listening to what we later determined was a Turkish rock cover band. We figured since most people in the place were singing along, either these guys with Ataturk style mustaches and hipster outfits were really famous, or were playing someone else's songs. We didn't know the difference. Then we hopped on a Dolmush that drove all the way back across the bridges to our side of town.

Thursday (day 4) was Bayram, which is the Turkish version of the Islamic holiday which celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. The holiday weekend started Wednesday, and continues until at least Monday.  We felt like it was a Sunday too. There was less traffic, many shops were closed, and we were moving slower as a result of the late night described above. We caught up with Liz and wandered back down to the old city, pausing for a casting fisherman along the way. We were trying to find the Grand Bazaar, which is supposed to be the world’s largest indoor market place. Unfortunately, it too was closed, or at least we assumed it was since the streets around it were all deserted. Instead we took to slow wandering back down the hills and in and out of tourist shops. Things to buy in Turkey include candies, spices, baklava, ceramics, scarves, olive oil, and little brightly colored dancing donkeys that play their own music. We ended up at a café with walls covered in newspaper and huge picture of Nicolas Cage on the wall. Then we ate tapas on the second floor of a restaurant (we had tired of kabobs by then) while watching people on the street below and feeling pretty tired.

Early this morning we left Istanbul. In the darkness just before 7am, a taxi driver spotted us on the street with our suitcases, flashed his lights, hit the brakes, reversed uphill on a major street to pick us up. It was pretty cool. If he had missed us, there were three other taxis approaching to offer us a ride.

I like Istanbul. Brian described it as a "Southwest Asian/Mediterranean/Middle Eastern San Francisco," which is an apt a description as I can think of.

Even though I’ve had my fill of crowds for a little while, I’d go back. I’d like to see the rest of Turkey too. Until then, I will check out the one of the Turkish bakeries I’ve seen in Hannover, read up a little on Istanbul history, go through all my photos, and I probably wrap a scarf around my head and put on those Prada sunglasses.

Istanbul - days 1 and 2

We arrived in Istanbul Monday afternoon. Here are a few observations so far:

Our tour guide: Liz is a very well-traveled 22 year old who graduated from the University of Minnesota and moved to Istanbul in May. She loves living here and seems pretty happy to show us around, even if Brian used to be her geography teacher. The boyfriend she met during a semester in Morocco was here teaching English before she came and found them an apartment that was built long before anyone used the word 'studio'. When we walked in the building, an old couple was fighting loudly on the first floor and the wooden stairs were soft underfoot, but the apartment itself has a new floor and some nice windows, even if it currently has no hot water. The cuteness of Liz's tiny kitten alone (and I don't even like cats) would make it worth coming home.

Our neighborhood: We chose a hotel in an area that is close to Liz's place and near the center of town. We are near the busy transit hub of Taksim and the bustling Istiklal street. Istikal is full of shops and restaurants and it's the place to walk around if you are stylish and out for the evening.

The food: On Monday we ate the best falafels and hummus I'd ever tasted. The street food of choice here is roasted chestnuts, cooked on little carts until they pop and the yellowy insides poke out. There are also men with carts selling orange or pomegranate juice that they will squeeze in front of you, corn-on-the-cob stands, and people selling bread rings with sesame seeds on them. Doner is everywhere, as are kebabs and a salty yogurt drink called Aryan.

The sights: Yesterday we walked from our hotel to the old city and in many circuitous patterns finding our way around. We saw the Aya Sofia from the outside - originally built as a church in the 6th century and later turned into a mosque, now a museum. Across the way is the Blue Mosque, built a thousand years later in the 1600s. We did go in the Blue Mosque - it was free. In order to go in, women are supposed to cover their heads and their legs. If you are wearing a skirt, they have small blue sheets to wrap around your waist. Everyone needs to remove shoes, and you get a plastic bag to carry them in as you walk around. The mosque was beautiful inside - all painted tiles and mosaics and stained glass. It made a church from the same era seem dark and clunky. Then we began a quest for the Basilica Cistern, which involved asking directions (unsuccessfully) from a chestnut vendor and (successfully) from a tour guide. The cistern is a huge underground reservoir built in the 500s from the with ornate greek columns, and fish swimming in the water below. During our quest to find it, we got to hear to competing calls to prayer from the muezzins in mosques on either side of the square. I am not sure who won, but those guys can sing. Finally, Liz took me up in the Galati Tower to see all of Istanbul laid out below us. It reaches on and on, over hillsides and up to the horizon. There are something like 13 million people living here.

I like this city. It's crowded but clean, and full of small winding lanes on hillsides. The skyline is defined by mosque rather than skyscrapers, though they have those too. People are stylish and diverse, and they cross the street by walking out in the middle of it until cars stop. It doesn't have the chaotic, harrassed feeling of Cairo but is more relaxed and feels cultured somehow. Today we are planning to take a boat ride on the Bosporous and then see where the rest of the day takes us. I would bet it takes us up and down some hills, past some tea shops and junk shops and fancy boutiques. Where else? I'll let you know tomorrow.

Off to Istabul

I have just packed my bags for Istanbul.

We leave tomorrow, for 4 nights and 4 days of tourism with some guidance from Como Park HS alum and Istanbul resident Liz Wilcox. I don't know what to expect of Istanbul... maybe something like a blend of Cairo and London. I know there are mosques and markets and museums, trendy bars, fancy hotels, and a lot of kebabs to eat.

Tomorrow is also our 7th wedding anniversary. Istanbul will be a memorable place to celebrate. Of course, it was memorable when we spent our first anniversary at Brian's high school reunion, hanging out in his friend Taylor's basement, but in a different way). Anniversaries mean more than birthdays to me... on a birthday you celebrate another year. On an anniversary you celebrate another year, together.

In the mean time, here are a few photos from the weekend. It's gotten warm here, like Indian Summer. Except, in Germany the word for this kind of weather is Altweibersommer, which translates as something like "old hag summer". I looked this word up (on the internet, where else?) and learned that the name comes from spider webs that are covered in dew or frost and look like long gray hairs in the wind at this time of year. Anyway, the weather has been beautiful...

Hedgehog rescue

Last Friday night, after I saw a play put on by unemployed people over age 55 about how they take a trip to Mars in order to find happiness, I had a conversation about hedgehogs (typical, right?).

The prickly little guy... the word for hedgehog in German is Igel

My American friend Renee and her German friend Caro were telling me about how it is the time of year that hedgehogs need to be getting fat and settling in for the winter. They explained that if you see skinny hedgehogs you need to feed them, but after another week or two it will even be too late for that. Skinny hedgehogs need to be rescued.
"Rescued? Why?" I ask. "Aren't they wild animals?"
Renee and Caro proceeded to tell me that if the hedgehog tries to hibernate without adequate fat, it will die over the winter. And then...
I am waiting for the punchline... Maybe if a hedgehog dies it will haunt your house for years as a prickly little ghost, or it will release a poisonous gas, or it will at least wreck the food chain...
But no. Hedgehogs should be rescued because they are cute.

So what you are supposed to do, and apparently some people actually do this in Germany, is take the hedgehog inside. You are supposed to pick it up, take it in your house, or your cellar, or your garage, put it in a box for the winter, and feed it cat food. They also eat chicken and scrambled eggs. In the spring, you can release them again.
If you find a skinny or injured hedgehog you can also take it to the hedgehog rescue center, in case you don't want it (and its ticks and fleas) hanging out in your living room.

I hate to sound like a mean rodent-hating American, but, so what? Shouldn't we just let nature take its course? Yes, hedgehogs are cute. I get it.
There are no rodents from my former life that I can imagine wanting to take inside for the winter. How about a family of racoons? Maybe some squirrels, or a possum? That would certainly lead to ransacked trash cans, torn curtains, and broken dishes at least in the first hour. Then they'd bite your arm off and give you rabies. Maybe German rodents are like German dogs, much better behaved and more subdued than their American counterparts.

It also makes me wonder, what sort of a magical fairy land do we live in here? There is almost no violence or serious crime, no real poverty, stores are closed on Sundays, the government pays people to have kids, people only cross the street on green lights, skinny hedgehogs get to come inside for the winter... If people smiled while they walked down the street and the sun shined a little more often, it could be almost perfect. 

If you want to read more about hedgehog rescue, check out this website of a pro-hedgehog society that I found.
I will not be picking up any prickly little critters to bring them inside and feed them cat food. If you do, I won't judge you either. Just beware of hedgehogs hauntings this Halloween.

Sitters and standers

On our first trip to Germany in 2010, I noticed this sign in the bathroom at Sonja’s parents’ house:

At first I thought it was quirky, maybe a joke or maybe just the rules of the house. Either way, I was sitting down to pee so it didn’t affect me.

But shortly after moving to Germany, I saw that sign again, in another house. Then between me talking to Brian and him talking with friends and us asking around, the truth was revealed… German men sit down to pee.

It’s not that they never stand. In public places (so I am told) Germans stand proudly at urinals like anyone else. The sitting down rule only applies in someone’s home.

The official reason is that upright urination causes a mess, which does not happen in a seated position. I don’t know if this is because German men have poor coordination or because there are no Cheerios in this country with which to potty train little boys, but I have never noticed a big mess in a bathroom where standing is allowed. Brian’s theory is that when the big strong men went off to fight in World War 2 and died, the women took over and decided to implement this emasculating pee policy, so that men would no longer have a peeing advantage over women.

The sitting-standing issue causes some interesting cross-cultural dilemmas. Our American friend Andy and his German wife Anne have a son named Noah, who just turned 3. When he started going to Kinderschule (day care) last year, the teachers were shocked to see him stand up at the little toilet.  When they told him to sit down, he refused. “I pee like Papa,” he said. “I stand up.” This was not an acceptable answer to the ladies teaching the Kinderschule. They kept trying to get him to sit down and he kept refusing, until the next day he rebelled by not using the toilet at all but taking a poop in his pants. This incident prompted some very concerned calls home to Noah’s parents during which Andy beamed with pride that his son would not submit to these unjust rules of urination.

Is sitting down somehow less masculine? Did Hitler sit down to pee? What about Schwarzeneger? These questions could be debated for years. As someone who doesn't have an option of sitting or standing, I don't really care what men do. I just think the whole issue is kind of funny. Maybe there's a new market for Cheerios here.

I am a mushroom head

This week I am suffering as a result of (select one):
a. linguistic misunderstanding
b. lack of consumer assertiveness
c. cultural aesthetic differences
d. overzealous scissors
e. all of the above

I think the answer is E, but I'm still not sure.
I got a bad haircut.

Everyone's had one, or two, at some point in their lives.  I've had at least two in the last year. It's hard not to blame that on Germany. I don't know whether I got the bad cuts because I can't articulate what I want, or I don't know what I want, or that the hair stylists' ideas on what would look good are not the same as mine. True, the mullet is still hanging on in Germany. But most peoples' hair looks good most of the time. They apparently don't have the same struggles as I do.

I know I've written about my quest for a good haircut before, but this one merits another posting. It's short, and round, and very full-looking. If I was a 55 year old German supermarket cashier it would be the look for me.

I had my hopes up - I was trying a new salon that was recommended to me, and there was an English-speaking hairdresser there. It was a little more expensive than the no-appointment place I went to last time, but (so I thought) not much more expensive. Mistake number 1 - I didn't bring a picture. I let the hair stylist suggest something and, mistake number 2 - I trusted that she'd know what would look good on me. She also charged me extra for blow drying and styling my hair in a big poof so that I looked like a human mushroom. I was trying to convince myself it wasn't so bad when Brian came home and his eyes got really big while he tried to think of something nice to say.

If I don't blow dry my hair, it looks a little more normal. And it's getting cold enough to wear a hat too. Since I now look like someone who weighs your bananas and asks if you want a receipt, maybe I won't stand out as a foreigner. I am camouflaged. Especially since now that my hair's really short I will need to wear scarves to keep my neck warm. That's extra camouflage.

So I have resolved to go shoulder-length from now on. If none of the four different people who have cut my hair in Germany can figure it out, maybe that's a sign. The longer it gets, I figure, the less damage they can do. Yesterday I looked on the internet (where else?) for information about how to make your hair grow faster. There are tips on everything from taking Biotin and B vitamins to eating avocados to holding your head upside down for 30 seconds a day. I might try all of them. And I'll be bringing a picture along next time.

Drying out in Hannover

It rains differently here than in the U.S. It rains in a steady, soaking, sometimes horizontal way that makes you think the sun won't come out for a month. I feel like the rain drops are smaller here, and sneakier. There are very few claps of thunder, no flashy lightning or big dark clouds, just a mean, gray, siege of wetness. It started raining Wednesday night, and by today (which is Sunday), I think it has stopped.

Yesterday I took the cross country kids to the Berlin British School for their big meet. I had my big yellow rain boots on and my raincoat and a Minnesota-worthy system for layering my clothes. There were multiple zip-loc bags in my backpack and an umbrella in case my raincoat somehow failed me. We only had 8 kids at the meet... not as many as I'd hoped but way more than International School of the Rhine, which had 3. Frankfurt and Leipzig dominated with at least 20 skinny running kids each. Our only chance to shine was in the JV girls race - we took first and third places and finished second as a team. We practice so little that I can't really take credit for any of those performances, but it was nice to bring home a little trophy. More importantly, it only drizzled in the woods outside of Berlin, whereas Hannover was under a stinging, wet attack of rain drops all day long.

The Hannover kids' favorite part of going to Berlin has nothing to do with the train ride, the athletic competition, or kids from other schools.  It's Dunkin Donuts. There are several Dunkin Donut stores, which you can't find in Hannover (or even in the Twin Cities). I like donuts pretty well, but I think that any bakery in town has gooey treats that taste as good or better. The novelty is in the fact that you can't get Dunkin Donuts just anywhere, so they are therefore a much desired, way overpriced, and very exciting commodity for 7th and 8th graders. During our 90 minute delay at the train station before heading home, our soggy runners spent most of their time choosing, buying, and eating donuts.

Even though I've done a few of these trips already, I still get nervous sending other peoples' kids out into the world. One mom told us that her son would just take the tram home after we got back to Hannover in the evening. So we sent him off on public transportation with his backpack and belly full of donuts, mostly sure that he would not be abducted. Hannover is the safest place I've ever lived, and these kids go all around town on their own all the time. They know the transit system better than a lot of adults I've met (including the woman with four teeth who asked me how to get to a tram stop that was in the opposite direction of where we were headed... she also said she liked my yellow rain boots). Parents can send text messages to their iPhones at any moment. But still, it makes me a little uneasy.

Today I plan to relax and enjoy a day away from pre-teens. The rain defeated us for a while but since today it's in retreat, Brian and I might go out on a bike ride. He has already eaten the Dunkin Donuts I brought him. 

Day of unity, and absentee voting

Today is a holiday in Germany. It's "Tag der Deutschen Einheit" or otherwise called the Day of German Unity. It commemorates the day in 1990 when East and West Germany were reunited.

(Right now a cheesy duet song is playing in my head - reunited and it feels so good, reunited cause we understood...
I don't think it's about German unity but it would have been cool if Helmut Kohl sang it karaoke style back in 1990).

So I am living in a city that's around 700 years old, which is in a country that's officially only 22 years old, at least in its present form. There is an official celebration showcasing different regions of Germany that moves to a new city every year. This year it's in Munich - with Oktoberfest going on, it won't be the only celebration happening in Munich. In Hannover, however, just the shops and schools and offices are closed. If you're interested, check out this link to the official government info on what the Day of Unity is all about.

Most of the holidays in Germany are Christian holidays, so today is as close to official patriotism as we get. There is very little flag waving though, unless you are at a soccer game (then it would be ok to paint your face, or even your whole body and your hair in black, red and yellow). Nationalism and flag-waving didn't work out too well for the Germans during World War 2 so they stay away from it.

I plan to exercise my own patriotism today by voting. To register as absentee, we filled out some forms with our most recent U.S. address and wrote in a drivers' license number, then mailed off the paperwork to Ramsey County.  Then the ballots just come to use in the mail.

My absentee ballot gives me choices for President, Senate, and Representative. I don't get to vote on the Marriage Amendment or Voter ID Amendment referendums because there are no state or local referendums listed on my ballot. So I'll fill in my bubbles and seal a series of envelopes, grateful that have not been exposed to any sort of campaign TV commercials. Then I'll stick a German stamp on it and throw it in the mail. Maybe I should make myself a red "I voted" sticker to feel more official.

How many people are doing this between now and November 6th? Somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000 Minnesotans voted from abroad in 2010. There are about 5 million American expats of voting age living out in the world, but how many of them will get the votes in? Who knows. Maybe if the government mailed those little red stickers out when they got the ballots back, voter turnout would be higher.

Our other plan to celebrate German unity today is to go out to a loosely organized gathering at our friends' kleingarten to grill sausages and drink beer. I think that's as patriotic a German celebration as you can have. I will just have that "reunited" song caught in my head all day long.