Aisha and the $2,059 Turkish Bath

No photos from this day, just lots of angst.  (I wrote the following by hand after I got to the Istanbul airport.)


Short story: I thought my flight home was today (28 July).  I had it in my head I'd be home on the Thursday the 28th and need to take leave on Friday the 29th to recuperate from time travel.  After all, why go into the office for one day?  


Well, as we all know, Thursday was the 29th and Friday the 30th.  The reality: I was supposed to fly out on Tuesday the 27th and arrive home on the Wednesday the 28th, meaning the 29th wasn't Friday.


So it's 9:30 this morning, I'm sitting on the bed sorting through important paper stuff (like which ticket stubs to keep), and decide to double-check my flight departure time.  Aegean Air's confirmation page is very difficult to read - all caps, single spaced, lines run together -but even after ten double-takes it still read: "ISTATH27JUL1620PM" and squinting at my day/date watch kept confirming it was Wednesday the 28th. (At least I did have the time right.)


What's most embarrassing is I had written the correct date in highlighter at the top of the page.  Had I looked at it Monday, I would have been packing on Tuesday instead of riding a ferry to Bursa.


Panic is close to an adequate word.  The nice English-speaking desk clerk let me call Aegean Airlines from downstairs, but of course the ticket couldn't be changed.  On the bright side, they're going to refund the $17 in airport taxes I would have paid.  At this point it's 11 AM, I'm not packed, and I don't have flights home.  The manager agreed to let me check out at 2 instead of noon, and I spent an hour trying to find the least expensive fares, through every city in every combination imaginable.  One option had me going through Budapest.  The best I could do was fly Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to London, stay overnight, and fly Air France to National Airport via Paris and JFK.  I lost count of how many times I checked myself on getting the connections right.  Arriving at National instead of Dulles was the one bit of good news.


You've never seen anyone pack as fast as I did, and I was a decent imitation of a whirling dervish, though it wasn't quite as spiritual.  Forget about a shower.  I figured I'd be grungy from the plane trip anyway.  By 2:05 I was rolling me and my bags into the elevator.  The desk clerk who doesn't speak English scheduled an airport shuttle for 4:20.


Since I was hot, sweaty, and had 2-1/2 hours till the shuttle, I asked whether there was a hamam (Turkish Bath) nearby.  There was, and they had a free shuttle to pick me up at the hotel.  The brochure claims the hamam was built in 1425 by one of the most famous architects of the Ottoman Empire.  Everyone who's been to Turkey has recommended these, and wouldn't it be making lemonade out of lemons to have one? 


Here's a photo of a hamam similar to the one I was in.

Maybe if the shuttle hadn't been late (because of traffic) and if we hadn't gotten to the hamam so late (because of traffic), and if the guy at the hamam had spoken English so I could explain my time constraints, then I might have enjoyed my Turkish Bath. I tried pointing to my watch to indicate I wanted to know how much time it would take and the man kept pointing at the hours of operation in the brochure.  I tried drawing two clock faces, one showing 3:15 and the other showing 4:00, which is when I'd have to leave to get the shuttle.  All he did was shake his head and point to the hours of operation again.


Finally the driver who picked me up came in.  He apologetically explained that the free shuttle was provided only one way, but that walking would be faster anyway - because of, you got it, traffic.  I told him I wanted only a 40-minute massage/bath (very inexpensive, by the way - about $20 no matter how long it lasted).


A nice woman about my age came out to take me to the changing room and then to the bathing room.  She asked my name, and the rest of the time directed me from one segment of the process to the next by saying, "Aisha!" and then leading me as if I were a trained seal (though not in a mean way - just enthusiastic).  I tried to relax, I really did.  I even enjoyed the pleasant breeze on the "walk" back to the hotel.  I was thrilled to find the hotel.  And more thrilled that the shuttle hadn't already come and gone when I walked into the lobby at 4:21.  I guess heavy traffic can be good for something.


I got to the airport in plenty of time to make it through what seemed like 18 wickets that required passports and carry-on scanning.  I exchanged TL for pounds sterling.  I bought a paperback book.  I was in the home stretch.


From Heathrow I got a taxi to a little B & B called King's Paget Hotel.  I got to the front door, which was locked, there was no one at reception to let me in.  I pressed the buzzer repeatedly to no avail.  Finally, I tapped on the window of one of the guest rooms and the nice man let me in.  I went to the reception desk and there was a sign directing me to dial a phone number and then press the buzzer.  Well, I didn't have a cell phone.  Another nice guest called the number for me and the woman who answered said she'd send someone right over.  The room was small, and there was a shared bathroom (not a big deal since I was the only one on the floor), but it cost only $50 and included breakfast.  It was a difficult night, though, because I was afraid that the battery would die on my iPhone (and of course I didn't bring my UK plug adapter since I wasn't supposed to BE in the UK) and I wouldn't wake up on time.  My stomach was still in knots and the only part of the English breakfast they served (toast, eggs, baked tomato, and baked beans) was the toast. 


The nice cook was also the on-site manager, and he called a cab for me for 10 AM so I get to the airport well ahead of my 12:50 flight.  From there everything went smoothly.  I even found out all of the miles from the UK would go to my Delta FF account since Air France is under their umbrella.  When we touched down at JFK (the skankiest airport I've ever been in), I put the SIM card back in the iPhone, but it didn't work and I couldn't get it out.  Great.  No way to let Steve know the flight to National was delayed for an hour.  At National, I did something I haven't done in years:  I used a pay phone.  Steve was circling because the cell phone waiting lot was full, my bag arrived on the same plane I did, and I got to sleep in my own bed.


So here's the tally on costs for this little brain fart of mine:
$115 for the tour to Bursa.
$50 for the additional night in Istanbul.
$165 to fly from Istanbul to London.
$1660 to fly from London to Washington DC.
$54 for the B & B in London.
$34 for the taxis to and from Heathrow.
[-$17 return of Athens airport taxes]


A $ 2,059 Turkish Bath.  Priceless.


So that's it for the blog.  I hope you've enjoyed the Adventures of Aisha!

Bethlehem

Think about this: What's the difference between what new Americans did to Native Americans and what Israelis are doing to Palestinians? 

There is no place on the Earth that belongs to anyone.

Historical tradition is the same as "house rules" (whoever owns the house, rules).

Control issues cannot be justified by faith.

Self-righteousness is not a viable excuse for inhumanity.

The wall is wrong.

Retrospective of Turkey and the Tour I Shouldn't Have Taken

From the terrace of the hotel, I can see a 24"-wide piece of the Bosphorus through the dulled plexiglass enclosure.  The heat of the day that's already rising brings a haze to the horizon, so I'm really only surmising what I can see is the Bosphorus because there's a stick-figure bridge and I know the water is in that direction.  


The cobblestone street that passes the front of the hotel isn't wide, but it's a major thoroughfare for cars, taxis, large and small tour buses, and delivery trucks.  One interesting custom here is taxi drivers beep their horns once or twice to let drivers around the corner know they're coming.  Very wise.  One driver told me, "You have to be crazy to drive in Istanbul."


In the four days I've been here, I don't like it better than I did when I began our acquaintance, but I've made peace with it.  I'm managing my expectations, carrying loose coins in a pocket to dole out to beggars, and realizing I've seen too little of this city to make an across-the-board judgment.  I've stopped thinking that western-looking people will speak much, if any, English.  I don't startle when a taxi zooms past within a foot of me.  And I've become comfortable with walking by merchants and restaurateurs without a sideways glance (though sometimes I deign to give them the internationally-recognized "stop" sign language, as in "talk to the hand").


Turkey has given me the most intense and meaningful (and expensive) experiences of my journey ("trip" is too inconsequential a word).  Since I've not been able to write about Day Whatever - I've lost track - and since the tour to Bursa is the story that best illustrates the distinction between journey and trip, I'll tell it here.


This is the tour I took in response to the experience the day before at Topkapi Palace.  This is the tour I took when I realized I'd had a sufficient amount of coordinating sightseeing with Lucy and Valentina.  This is the tour I took when I should have been packing to fly home.  


So...Topkapi Palace, home of the sultans and harems of the Ottoman Empire, another FAMOUS PLACE (well, I had heard of it).  After Lucy, Valentina, and I had breakfast at the hotel, and I discovered the sad fact that I had lost my sunglasses (including the pouch they were in), my day was off to a not good start.  I tried deep breathing and being thankful the loss happened near the end of the "trip," but the day was doomed.  Since I had loaned Lucy the 200 TL (Turkish Lira), I needed to find a cash machine, so we went in search of one.  There were several in a row near the Blue Mosque and lines of tourists at each one.  


If you recall from the blog that included my flight from Athens to Istanbul, I sat next to an archeologist from U of KY.  Well, in the line next to mine, there he was!  Amazing to see someone I "knew" of all the places we could be in Istanbul, and he's not even staying in Sultanahmet.  He asked me if I like Istanbul, and I said, with no tact whatsoever, "No.  It's overwhelming and confusing and I've come across only two friendly people."  He said that he was very sorry to hear that, and the Turkish friend he was staying with told me that it's different outside Sultanahmet.  I shrugged, said goodbye to John (said archeologist), and L, V, and I walked on to Topkapi to join 100,000 hot, irritable, claustrophobic tourists pushing and shoving their small children and strollers toward the narrow gateway and then through a narrower, one-lane security scanner/turnstile to enter the palace grounds.   


As if that weren't enough, we found out we had to buy tickets before we went through this process, so we had to do an imitation of salmon swimming upstream to get them.
It wasn't just the heat that was getting to me.  My water bottle was empty and my throat was parched.  The palace isn't set up like a museum we're all used to; for those of you who have experienced Night in Old San Antonio, it's like trying to get from one side of La Villita to the other on college night.  In other words, imagine people in a nightclub trying to escape through one set of doors when the fire alarm sounds.  It gave me a first-hand understanding of why so many people die in spite of adequate routes for evacuating a burning building.


I made it through the wardrobe room, a dark and dank place with no air movement whatsoever.  Remember that surging humanity and strollers? And have I mentioned that the people here have no sense of personal boundaries?  The caftans were laid out in lighted display cases - the only light in the space.  It would have been nice to see a couple of them on mannequins so one could see how they wore the darn things.

Being an already unhappy camper, halfway through the next dark, stuffy, crowded room - treasure room -I did a Popeye: "That's all I can stand and I can't stands no more."  After finding the cafe (best place there, shaded tables overlooking the Bosphorus) to buy water, I went out to the covered arcade to wait for Lucy and Valentina.  Somehow I missed them, and spent 2 hours searching, sitting in a central park, then moving to the exit.  Stuff it.  I walked back to the hotel.  The only photos I took at Topkapi were of V (top) and L.

Upon reflection, I realized the exotic language (plus no English), demeanor of the crowds, and generally unfriendly atmosphere weren't the only problems I was having with this city.  I had sufficiently experienced ruins and other ancient architecture, I was ready to go home, and I was exhausted.  Though I've enjoyed the company of Lucy and Valentina, walking around Sultanahmet with them has introduced the compromising and waiting I haven't had traveling solo.  There's a reason I didn't do this journey with a tour group.  Quite a paradox: I don't want to be isolated, but I need to be independent.

So that brings me to now (when I wrote this by hand sitting at "my" table on the patio at Medusa).  After my deflating, had-it-up-to-here experience with Topkapi, I came up with the idea of going on a day trip out of the city, on the Asian side, with lots of natural beauty, as an antidote.  Whilst dining, I studied brochures and consulted with the owner/manager (I don't know which we was).  He recommended Lake Abant and Bolu.  I also asked Mesut, my buddy at the souvenir shop, and he showed me photos on line.  Sile and Agva, on the Black Sea, also looked nice.  Here's a photo of Mesut I took late one night.

Then there was Bursa.  I can't tell you why I chose this tour.  Maybe photos of the view from Mount Uludag  (OO-loo dah) and I like mountains? (I didn't learn till well into the trip that Bursa is the Detroit of Turkey.)  From the brochure: Mount Uludag is near the historic center of Bursa, and is the Mount Olympus of the ancient province of Bithynia, rising 8343 feet.  Plan a minimum of 3-1/2 hrs for a visit to Uludag by cable car, allowing time for the ride up and down, waiting time for the cable car, and an hour to see the scenery on top." The only true statement here is that one could spend an hour looking at the scenery if one could see the scenery.

  There were only 9 of us, counting the tour guide, Hanifi (HAHN-if-ee) and driver: a family from Egypt, a couple from Abu Dhabi, a couple from Manchester, England (originally from Casimir), and me (there's a photo later).  Hanifi's English was very good, and I could tell he was going to be a character as soon as he told us it was the driver's first day on the job.
I took this photo to show the countdown light that shows drivers how much time they have till the light turns green.

We drove through parts of Istanbul that were very different than Sultanahmet, and crossed the first bridge that connected Europe and Asia (both sides are Istanbul).  The city has grown from 3M in 1960 to 14M now.  The Asian side is mostly residential and industrial, with no focus on anything historical.  As we drove, I saw a huge ad on a building for Re-Max (they don't have billboards.)

It didn't take long to get to the ferry, where I encountered my first minus 1 "toilet."  It's an official squat only type (visualize a port-a-potty with the hole in the ground and a toilet-shaped surround that has two non-slip places for one's feet either side).  I don't remember much else about the crossing of this little inlet of the Bosphorus.

Our first stop was a "kafeteria" that mostly just has Turkish Delight.  I checked the "nutrition" label and saw that one piece (approx. 1" x 1") has 500 cals.  All I bought there was water. 
For the next leg of the drive, the woman from Abu Dhabi, Fatma, moved to the back row and we had a nice chat.   Because English is their first language, conversation was easy.  We discussed shopping at Target and Kohl's on line, fast food restaurants, Skype, our children, the huge indoor ski slope in Dubai, where she'd like to visit in the States (I advised she avoid big cities since they'd look just like Abu Dhabi), how hot it gets there (122 deg!), how she handles the heat - she wears a next-to-full berka (photo later) and said that when she's home she can be "free," and her brother being a pilot and living in Phoenix.  Her husband was tracking our progress on his iPad and handed it to me to try out.  
We got to Bursa about 1-1/2 hrs later, and it started raining.  Ah, saunas.  After seeing a mosque/mausoleum, we had lunch, which was excellent.  The plan was to go up the mountain first, but the line was really long, so we saw another mosque that has wonderful calligraphy and wood carving.  Outside there's a place for men to wash their feet after going in.

 The Grand Bazaar was next.  Every "street" through it specializes in merchandise: shoes, linen, clothes.  It's easy to get lost.  While finding my way back to the entrance, I stumbled onto this wonderful plaza.

I had started for the entrance well before the rendezvous time, and sat on a wall people-watching.  When I was taking a photo of an interesting-looking chimney, a woman sitting next to me asked me to take her and her sister's photo (as least I think she said it was her sister - language barrier, you know).  She was making a big deal about my smile and gave me kisses on both cheeks and bought me a simit (sort of a 7" diameter flat bagel with sesame seeds on it - very popular - it's what the man in the photo above is selling).  She also pulled her purchase from her plastic shopping bag - hair coloring!  This is one of my favorite photos from Turkey.

Though you can drive the 14 miles to the top, we went back to check on the line for the cable car. It was a more reasonable wait, though we still stood in it for over an hour. 

It took a lot of negotiation for Hanifi to convince the gatekeeper to let us get on as one group.  The trip up takes 30 minutes and you change cars half way.  (What I thought was the top, because that's where the cable car ends, is not actually the top.  It's a 4-mile drive to the ski resort hotels beyond where we stopped.)
  

Mist had started thickening as we got higher, and it was only about ten minutes till it started raining. The view disappeared.  I went into the little cafe (an overstatement) and had tea with Hanifi. 
When it was time to get in line to return to Bursa is when the "fun" began.  We got in line for the cable car at 7:00 and reached the mid-way point easily.  The next leg is another story. 


Everyone wanted to be in the same place in line as everyone else - at the front.  People were "cutting" and being nasty and arguing and the soldiers wouldn't do anything.  I took a couple of photos, but they don't do the experience justice.  The young woman from Egypt (Yasmin), Fatma, and I chatted about when Yasmin put on the veil - against her parents' wishes; the many different styles of Muslim dress for women. Yasmin and her mother sat on a bench for a while.  Hanifi told us about a book called Perfume.   It got cold (at least it felt that way since I was in a sleeveless top).  And we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And tried to hold our place in line as a group.  And waited.
Yasmin's mother had a hurt leg and was using a cane, so she sat on the lower rail.  A little boy touched my painted toenails with one finger.  Women started sitting on the concrete floor.  Hanifi argued with the soldiers to bring some order to the crowd, with no success (you can see him in white below).  Yasmin's father argued with the soldiers, and that finally improved the situation.  

Below is the photo I took at the last minute before we got to the front of the line.

The man to the left of Yasmin is her father, and her brother is peeking out between the two.  The couple between Yasmin and her mom are from Manchester. The man on the left is Fatma's husband.  (Knowing names wasn't an important aspect of any of this journey.) It was even colder outside the waiting room, so Yasmin's mother and I sat next to each other and she put her arm and shawl around me.  It was almost midnight when we got to the bus and 3:15 AM when I walked in the door of the hotel.  
Based on what I experienced on this tour, even though it was grueling and didn't have much in the way of nature, I wouldn't trade it for the other two. 

This brings you to my last day in Istanbul post.  But I want to add a couple of photos I took in the park between the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia.

Last Day - Goodbye Istanbul

It's my last night in Istanbul and I still feel awful from my 3 AM return from the tour to Bursa.  I slept from 4 AM to 4 PM in the grip of a 24-hour bug.  Made myself get out of the hotel and went to the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya (known to westerners as Hagia Sophia), but couldn't appreciate them.  At six I met Lucy and Valentina back at the hotel to wish them bon voyage for their 10-hour bus ride to Cappadocia.
I ventured out to find a restaurant with something other than kabaps (it's spelled with a "p" here) on the menu, and walked in the opposite direction from the hotel because I just can't be "on" with Mesut at the souvenir shop and the wonderful staff at House of Medusa.  I settled on one on a bustling little off-the-beaten-path street, closed to cars, and everyone is having a fun evening. I had tomato soup, which tasted like Campbell's, and Fettuccine Alfredo. The pasta was good, I guess, but I just couldn't eat it and pushed it away after four bites. The restaurant owner was concerned that the food wasn't all right, and offered to bring me something else, but I reassured him it was fine.  He brought me some watermelon "on the house."  I wandered aimlessly and took a few photos of some of the cafe side streets. The one in these photos has cushions instead of chairs and shishas.

Eventually, I ended up on one of the busiest streets in this part of Sultanahmet.

I bought a couple of fridge magnets, then found one of the ice cream vendors wearing a fez I read about in Sally Buchanan's "Talking Turkey."  This young man put on a great show, like one of the chefs at a Benihana. He handed the cone to me, but then pulled it back and did a juggling act, pulling the cone with the ice cream out of an empty cone, then another empty cone out of that, then pushed the ice cream onto my nose.  What a surprise!

By this time I was feeling a bit mellower, so I walked back to the hotel via my usual street.  The owner of Medusa was standing in front, and he asked me how the tour was.  When I told him when I got in and why and how tired I was, he said, "Yes, you look tired."  When I walked by the souvenir shop where Mesut works, the owner was sitting in a chair, leaning against the building.  He had tried to sell me another tour and two Kilims earlier in the day, but this time he just waved.
The night manager at the hotel is very nice and his English is pretty good.  I asked him if I can get a taxi from the hotel to the airport for 35 lira and he said that I could.  He's going to leave a message for the woman who's here during the day, whose English is practically non-existent, to call for me.
Though I had planned to pack tonight, I just don't have the energy. Instead, I edited the photos from the past two days and posted this.  Maybe I'll have time to go to the Spice Bazaar in the morning and still have time to pack since my flight isn't till 4. Now to bed.

Day -14 Istanbul

 

Hi - Here I am, partaking in my first shisha (hookah) with new friends my first night in Istanbul.  (I know you miss the hat and sunglasses, but it was night.)   

Noor is a very nice 26-year old from Pakistan.  We got connected through the TravelBuddy website because we would be in Istanbul at the same time.  The three lovely ladies are (L to R) Irene (Ee RAY neh), Katia, and Ivana, all from a small town near Warsaw.  Noor and Ivana met on line four years ago and decided to meet face-to-face in Istanbul for tea.  Ivana teaches math and her two friends teach Phys Ed.  Noor just took the exam to get into the foreign service, and is just being lazy for a while.  His English is very good, Ivana's is pretty good, and Irene and Katia speak better English than I speak Polishh.  We spent the evening and into the wee hours of the morning in this lovely outdoor restaurant.  

Because Irene is a character, we became close friends with three of the waiters, and they joined us to share the shisha after they got off work.  When the little "band" was playing a set (Turkish music, go figure!) they turned off the fountain.

The four of them walked me back to my hotel, accompanied by a couple of dogs that reminded me of Lady and the Tramp.  I was beat - too much fun.


Fast forward to 5 PM Saturday...

Transcription:

I'm writing this by hand first, sitting in a lovely tree-shaded garden patio at a restaurant called "House of Medusa," just around the corner from my hotel.  There's a classical Spanish guitar CD playing, and soft romantic vocals, and it's comforting to hear something familiar.  The breeze is heavenly.  There's an impressively large Camellia next to my table.  See the sign to my right?  It says, "Japonica Camillia Since 1970."  I slept almost all  afternoon, after I got them to give me a different room because the air conditioner didn't work.  I'm having a light snack of Puree de Fava, bread, and a Pepsi Light (hey, tourists can't be choosers) before meeting up with my next two new friends, Lucia (Lucy) and Valentina, a single mom and 16-year old daughter from near Venice (Italy).  

Lucy and I met this morning when we were both complaining about how skimpy the breakfast was.  A little later, when I went down to complain about the air conditioning, she and Valentina couldn't get connected to Hot Mail to let family know they arrived safely (they also came in at 3 AM).  I brought my laptop down to the lobby and they were able to send the e-mail.  While getting settled into my new room, there was a knock on the door and it was Lucy and Valentina.  She wasn't able to get cash with her Visa card and she asked if she could borrow some money till Monday.  I was impressed that she was willing to ask in spite of feeling very embarrassed, and happy I had lira to loan her.  They were going out to see the sights near the hotel, and we arranged to meet back at the hotel at 7:00.  When the waiters brought my soda and water, they also brought a cute little silver ice bucket with tongs, and it's so wonderful plunking the cubes into my drinks :)  I can hear seagulls, which reminds me I'm on the water (no sighting of the Bosphorus at this point).

Flashback to my flight to and arrival in Istanbul ...I sat next to a man who turned out to be an archeologist who specializes in ancient Greek sites.  He's a professor at the U of Kentucky and reminded me of Indiana Jones (though I didn't mention this to him).  He was very interesting, and the flight seemed to go very quickly.  We landed at 4:30 PM and it took half an hour to get through passport control.  Turkey isn't as welcoming (at least not to English-speaking visitors) as Greece is.  Very few signs have English as well as Turkish (as opposed to Athens, which is very bilingual).  After figuring out how to get a Metro token, I began the arduous journey to Sultanahmet, where I'm staying.  My first decision was whether to follow the hotel's or the guidebook's directions to the hotel.  It seemed reasonable to choose the former.  BIG mistake.

[A begging Muslim crone just came to the entrance to the patio.  One of the waiters took a coin to her and she left.  Probably a daily ritual.]

Back to the Metro...either choice involved a transfer to a tram.  As it turned out, going the hotel's route required me to lug myself and bags up 30 steps to the walkway spanning the tram tracks, then 30 steps down to that platform.  It's 100 degrees.  Going up, I carried the suitcase by its handle.  Going down I let the wheels bump down each step.  I hope they're built to last like Samsonite with the orangutans throwing cases around.  The tram ride was an experience in itself - rush hour, you know.  When I got off at my stop, I thought I was following the map, but after dragging the suitcase 1/4 of a mile over cobblestones, I asked two policemen for directions and they pointed me back to the tram stop.  I almost started crying, but opted to take a taxi instead.  The driver gave me a story about having to go a long way  around because roads were closed to cars.  At this point, he could have driven me back to the airport and then to the hotel.  I saw a labyrinthine section of Istanbul for 15 lira.  Best $8 to go three blocks I ever spent.

From the outside, Hotel Albion looked as charming as its photos on the web site.  My room had about three too many pieces of furniture for its size - sort of like having to stand on a toilet to get bags into a stall and close the door.  Oh, well...

So that's what I wrote; now back to the present.

Lucy, Valentina, and I walked toward the Blue Mosque, not having a plan for where to eat dinner.  When we came to an intersection with a little side street, it looked so inviting we walked up and ended up finding a wonderful restaurant.  It even had a 3-star bathroom (which has become the highest rating possible).  

We walked leisurely back to the hotel, admiring the Mosque at night and Pashminas on a rack at one of the ubiquitous shops.  The plan for the next day was to visit Topkapi Palace.  BIG mistake.  To be continued...

Day 13 - The Oracle of Delphi

I didn't find the best photographers for this trip, but it's better than nothing! :-)
This is on the side of the mountain where the lowest level is. 


I decided to take another day tour since I'd run out of things to see in Athens.  It was probably the best tour I've ever been on.  The guide (I never heard her say her name, but I'll call her Ariana; it's a nice Greek-sounding name) had an amazing breadth of information and tied it all together very well - history, mythology, etymology. She reminded me of Michael Constantine's character in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" because she could connect every English word to a Greek root.  She had a style that was similar to the other two guides I've had (in Rome at the catacombs and in Tel Aviv): she would ask a question and then answer it herself (And how did they build the temple? Well, I'll tell you...)  But she wasn't the only good part of the tour: everyone on the tour spoke English!!!  I sat behind a couple from Ohio (he took the photo) and at lunch we sat at a table with a couple from Toronto and newlyweds from Denver.

I took this photo of Ariana in the museum at the site (and a guard told me that I can take photos of only the old stuff!).  I was amazed we could take photos at all.


But back to the tour...

Here are some photos - easily as good as some I've seen on line ;-)


Those are olive trees in the rows.  I was surprised this photo turned out at all since I took it from the moving bus.  You can see blurred trees at the bottom.

The scenery around Delphi is beautiful (location, location, location).  

The stadium is on the highest level (it's 582 ft long and this is a standard length known as a "stade."  It was quite a hike up here in 97 degrees.  Also, many of the steps were slick - polished by feet and wind - so on the way down I put my camera inside my bag (see photo above) - (I had mailed the camera bag - and other extraneous stuff - home when I was in Tel Aviv) so minimal damage would be done to it if I slipped (not worried about broken bones; just broken camera)  

Some of the other walkers weren't so concerned with the walking issue I guess, based on their trekking attire.  I especially like the blue ball cap with the white ball gown, the black purse, and flip flops. Very creative combination, yes?  Especially the off-the-shoulder touch.

Then there was this fashion plate.  Notice her shoes.  A bold choice for this outing.


Finally, here are shoes I could never walk in even on flat pavement without slipping back and catching my heel on the edge of the wood.  

After the hiking and heat, we went to the air conditioned museum - yea!!  Here are some photos of their amazing collection.  This would have been a gift to Apollo.  This is gold.  And notice the eyes!  Not blanks.

The charioteer below has bronze eyelashes!!

Ariana ushered us through the museum selectively - so we were there for only about 45 minutes.
Next we were treated to lunch in a very nice restaurant (famous and wealthy people eat here, too!).  

The cost of the tour was $128 and included entrance fees to Delphi and the museum, lunch, the great guide, and pick up from/delivery back to our hotels.  You wouldn't believe some of the driving required.  The town of Arachova, on the way to-from Delphi, has one street and it's only two tour buses wide.  Barely.  And two tour buses had to pass.  Amazing!
I saw something else amazing on this tour:  RAIN!

It lowered the temperature to 70 degrees!


The last stop was back in Arachova to shop for souvenirs.  Ariana told us to haggle, so I did.  One shopkeeper was very persistent in showing me a handmade silk piece for "only" 150 Euros and I might have caved if I wasn't going on to Istanbul.  Instead I went across the street and haggled from 17 to 13 Euros - a $5 savings.  I got a real bargain for $16.75!
Fortunately, we had only about half an hour for shopping.  


Here's the final view of the trip back down to Athens.  

So that's about it for Greece.  Here's the last photo of this part of the trip, from the roof terrace of the hotel.

And some random info-toids provided by Ariana...
* Demosthenes was the father of the atomic theory
* There are 300 sunny days in Greece
* The three main sources of revenue here are shipping magnates, tourism, and agriculture
* Pistachios are a major cash crop
* Olive oil can be used as a face moisturizer (and anything else - like Windex in MBFGW)
* Delphi is thought to come from the Greek word for dolphin, which carried Apollo from Mykonos to mainland Greece 
* The word "ecstasy" described the falling down trance the priestesses at Delphi would go into
* There are 140M olive trees in Greece - that's one inventory I wouldn't want to take!


On to Istanbul tomorrow!!!