Bon appétit!

A variety of fresh blends of teas & spices at the Spice Market

Ian, Ainslie & Isaac have taken off by now for Thailand, so I'm here for another partial day on my own, and then I fly to Chiang Mai to join them tomorrow. We went for our last walk together this morning, and finished our day with the boys walking down to see the sea for a last time, and the girls going to the square by the Blue Mosque to have my much awaited Turkish tea, served up proper in the glass cups, as is the custom. So, um, turkish tea, while more palatable than Turkish coffee, is just a really killer strong thimble full of black tea...which the Turks, I'm sure, sweeten with several cubes of sugar. I drank mine straight up as we basked in the last rays of sunshine. We poked our heads one last time into the Blue Mosque in hopes of remembering what we had seen oh! so long ago on our first jet-lagged day here. Ainslie noticed that we were getting 'different' looks from the general public now that we were travelling without a man, and once I paid attention, I realised that she was right...a few more direct looks from men, that just didn't happen when we travelled as a harem (one vendor actually joked about both of us being Ian's wives!).

I haven't talked much about food yet, so thought I'd spend a bit of time here, describing our experience.

Fruit at a sidwwalk stall

I think I've already spoken about how competitive it is with restaurant after restaurant on every street we have walked. We're out of tourist season, so the restaurants are relatively empty, and it would appear that the servers are working on commission...they stand outside of the restaurant, almost begging you go come and look at the menu, which they delight in reading aloud to you (menus are also in English).

One of the countless sidewalk café restaurants: note the hooka pipes on the table, for flavoured tobacco delight

They generally try to befriend you, throwing in a joke or two (at one restaurant, the server wanted us to go to their rooftop dining area for dinner, and he made the claim that "it was the highest rooftop restaurant in the world". When he saw the look of disbelief on our faces, he quickly added, "in MY world". We all had a good laugh, and we kept on our merry way. Then we met one fellow at another restaurant, who told us his name, and when we said we'd think about coming back another day, he kept asking us each day when we were going to eat at his restaurant...so we started going another route to avoid meeting him.

A rather cool café, built into the fortressed wall of Istanbul

They are all harmless, and I appreciate their good humour, but obviously, we can't please each & every seller we meet!

Restaurants tend to be jazzed up with lots of fabric, and bread is an important part of each meal- most restaurants seem to serve up what is like an elongated, puffy pita bread, with a few other shapes & types,  but it's all white bread. We had read that you have to be careful that you only get what you order- it seems that servers will sometimes ask if you want this or that, and if you accept, you generally pay for it later (exception is Turkish tea, which is delivered for free at the end of the meal). Our tactic was to shop around and find decent prices, trying to get away from the more touristy places. We were especially attracted to places with mostly local people in them. Ian did a great job scouting them for us!

Ian & Ainslie went to a restaurant last night which claimed to have authentic old recipes from the Ottoman era- which sounds more exotic than the kebabs and other food we had found up until then.

We were generally trying to find meals for between 10 and 12 Turkish Liras (which I always thought of as just under $10 and $12 Canadian, but upon a quick check just now, it seems as though our exchange rate is even better than when we first arrived. 10 Turkish liras converts to $5.46 or so- which is cool. So, if we found that range of price, we would get some sort of kebab (chicken or veggie), rice, sometimes a salad, and bread- a really decent feed, for sure. Ian was great for seeking out the best deal in town for lunch & dinner, so today's lunch was an awesome chicken & veggie pita sandwich for 2.50 Liras- a mere $1.36, and it was killer good, and quite filling too. Oh yes, and the sandwich, like many other sandwiches & wraps, has french fries in it, which of course, appeals to the potato lover in me!  The vendor was quite cheery and wanted me to take both his photo and a photo of the prepared sandwich, which I happily did.

Our super cheery sandwich chef from today

The chicken/veggie pita sandwich

One of Ian's sandwich finds from a couple of days ago

For such a seemingly high starch diet (so much rice, potatoes, and bread), we haven't seen a lot of obesity in Istanbul, but then again, most people are walking everywhere they go in this part of the city. And while they seem well off, I suppose we don't really know how many meals people eat each day. We did stumble into some less well-off areas of the city on our many walks, but the poorer districts still seem to be prospering to some degree.

In this restaurant, they had women making bread in view of the public at the front window- hard to see, but they are making flat bread, and cooking them on a domed (gas fired?) stove. Perhaps touristy, but boy, could they roll & flip bread quickly- makes me look like such an amateur!

Bread rings, dappled with sesame seeds, available for 1 Lira from vendors across the city- very tasty, and very! inexpensive!

A bakery just across from the Galata Tower

I haven't really bragged about the place we've been staying- the Marmara Guest house. I think I mentioned that while we have private rooms & bathrooms, it is 'hostel-like' in its ambiance. Breakfast is quite a spread of all kinds of fresh olives, tomatoes, homemade jams & preserves, breads, and a killer yogurt.

This morning's breakfast at our hotel

 This has been an incredible place to stay in terms of location, and the staff are all really friendly. If you are travelling on your own, it's a great place to stop over, in that you can meet other international travellers and get good inside information about where to go, in addition to the help from the owners & staff.

Fresh pomegranite or orange juice is available every morning for 3-5 Liras in our hotel

My breakfast from this morning (sadly, it's Nescafé instant coffee in the cup, sniff, sniff!)

Since I was alone in a country where I don't speak the language, I decided to be safe and stay within our neighbourhood for dinner, so I headed to a restaurant that's very close to the hotel, one we have been to once before. The server remembered me, and told me that he saw my husband and son going by earlier. I chuckled and told him that they are my good friends- one wife is enough for Ian! I enjoyed my meal, but the best part was I got to witness the ritual of the water pipe at a couple of tables. The servers first of all added the pipe extensions to the hooka pipes, and then they blow through the tubes (to clear them out?) before bringing them to the table. They were delivered to the tables after the clients had finished their tea (tea is served traditionally after the meal). I noticed one woman put a mouthpiece into their pipe, and then she sat it down on the table- I waited for them to start smoking, but after 5 or 10 minutes (I dragged out eating my meal, 'cuz I was DYING to see how this happened!), the waiter came in with a tin bucket containing coals, and placed coals into a tin receptacle at the top of the hooka pipe. I still waited patiently to see how they would do it, and then, casually, two people at one table, and only one person at another group, began smoking their scented tobacco. I was expecting a stinky smell, but honestly, I smelled fruitiness with just a hint of cigar smoke, and it was quite pleasant. The one fellow who was smoking solo at his table took repetitive hauls on the pipe, but at the other table, it was more relaxed, and after several minutes, a fellow passed it to his partner (wife?) who then took it for the next few hauls. The server delivered tongs so they could move the coals around if needed, but I didn't see anyone use them. All in all, I'm glad I got to see that! It looks like a very civilised ritual, somehow.

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Tonight's dinner- a bubbling hot mushroom casserole cooked in a cast iron hot pot- miam, miam!

My single room is quite lovely, with a really cool 4 poster bed clad with a lovely embroidered awning. And now, I think I'll relax in this delightful bed, dreaming sweet dreams of...elephants, as I make my way via Germany to Thailand tomorrow, to get to the elephant sanctuary. I'm itching to do some physical work (not that all of this walking hasn't been physical- I feel like I've walked more in the past 5 days than I have in months, or maybe years!), but I miss building, so I look forward to whatever building projects Darrick & Lek can throw our way!

My fancy bed for the night!

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