this is my kitchen

My Turkish travels: as explained in captioned photographs
a photo essay by Anne Alexander












For my waste, well don't mind if I do
Turkish Air fun in a bag

The ladies and I booked our trip through a discount Israeli travel agency called daka90, included in the price was the flight, hotel and transport from the airport to the hotel/vica versa. Of course we never found the free transport, and neither did a gigantor Ukrainian couple, of whom shared 4 teeth between them. As they have made Israel their permanent home their propensity to save a quick buck wherever possible led us into this interesting situation. For a mere 40 American Dollars the five of us could just split a cab. Brilliant! Cue Mustafa, taxi driver, student, amateur tour guide, con artist, potential rapist extraordinaire. If these gigantors had never happened to us I very well might be several hundred dollars wealthier, but that's another story. Musti made an appearance as a leading character in our travels as our exclusive guide to Istanbul on day 2. (pictures potentially to come).

Pure class at the Klas: a four star hotel in the heart of the Ukrainian textiles district - only the hippest, most happening place in all of Istanbul's Historic Old City. Not to mention this ingenious high-tech system they've got for not only turning on your lights, but also never losing your key. Of which you can see Leore is enjoying quite a bit.

Just a friend of ours at a local dining hot spot. I almost chose this picture as my title photo, alas the flag seemed to make a bit more sense, and although it appears I have nothing really to say about this picture it certainly wasn't going from headline to cutting room floor, so here it is. And I figured since I had nothing else I'd add in a fun little side here: I'm not sure if by spice the men of Turkey mean spicy, as in hot; or when they refer to the three of us young, white, obviously American Jewish girls as Spice Girls they actually do mean the 1990's girl power quintet from the UK. Hopefully the latter.

Though not so clear from the photographic evidence provided, there were three of these boats all lined up and tied to the dock right near one of the bridges that connects the Old and New parts of European Istanbul. One of the boats was gilded in faux gold temples, this one was a bit more "traditional". On board each one of the three boats were these giant grills and several men, all of whom were wearing these absurd little costumes I can only assume which were meant to entice tourists into coming over (although we noticed it seemed to be all locals). The grills cooked nothing with the exception of what I'm relatively sure was Barbun, a native red mullet. The fish comes bones intact (you just chomp on through 'um) in a hoagie style bun with either seasoned raw onions or lettuce, and on the low, small, square tables you'll find naught but salt and lemon juice. Generous portions of each and you've got yourself quite a tasty little treat. Our cabbie "friend" paid for us, so I'm not 100% sure how much each cost but I'd assume somewhere in the realm of a dollar or two. The boats are quite possibly one of the most impractical things I've ever seen. It's not as if there wasn't enough room on the boardwalk for a restaurant on land, and while the gimmick is interesting, and quite obviously drew us in, the boats were slamming into the dock with the tide that was none too friendly. The men on board must vomit several times a day, surprisingly that thought doesn't bother me.

Found in the spice bazaar, caption necessary?

Street vendors! Bagels, chestnuts, corn Oh my!

For those of you who've been to Israel this should be a relatively easy question, what is the most famous brand of Israeli chocolate?






Did you guess Elite, well you were right.
Can you now guess what this brand of Turkish chocolate from the New City was called






Did you guess Elite again, well you're wrong. It was elit, pronounced...(ellipsis wait for it)...elite.

Hello Lover!
Grande Iced Caramel Macchiatto, upside down, 2 pumps, soy milk. Is that really so hard to understand. Why can't all Starbucks employees speak English.
(jokes people, jokes)

Only Lauren and I were brave enough to try local beverage du jour aryan. It's a frothy, salty, yoghurt (I threw the h in because we were in Europe, and it's polite to respect other peoples' culture and incorrect spellings) drink, and it tastes about the equivalent of fermented bull sperm. I tried to choke it down. I even came up with little ways to not taste it so much, like shoving lamb kabap (there's that regional spelling again) into my mouth and then quickly drowning it in the aryan. It didn't work so well, but I was able to get through a lot more of my heaping mug full than Lauren, so that's an accomplishment I suppose.



Banking around a corner in a very, in my uninformed opinion, Vienesse area was a toothless Turkish man standing behind a small red cart that had on top of it three various sized albino rabbits, as you can see. In broken tourist friendly English the man informs us that the bunnies will tell us our fortunes. He slid out those small boards with different colored folded papers on it and put it underneath one of the bunnies. The rabbit bit and picked up our fortunes. I had hoped to save mine to share here with you but unfortunately it was lost in our Klassy hotel. If I remember correctly it had something to do with moving forward in life. Very deep.

I'm almost positive - i.e. I wrote it down, the quote that went with this pose was:
"I just want to copy what Jesus was doing...get a picture"
Thank God Jesus loves the shocker

So I'm not trying to fool myself into thinking that Istanbul is like some undiscovered land or that my friends and I are the first people to tour around. There are thousands of people all over the place, everywhere, everyday...but I bet you didn't see the animal bazaar. The most ridiculous of all bazaars. Clad with poultry of all kinds, both loose and caged, dogs, cats, huge bins of leeches, toys, food, anything and everything you would or could ever need for an animal. Also slightly terrifying, but this adorable puppy was there. I'll try to uncover a picture of a leech barrel for your viewing pleasure.

A final note to self:

A little something I learned this past weekend whilst on a light-rail ride through the Old City on our way to dinner. Though I'd commented to Lauren and Leore that very morning that in general the men of Turkey smelled significantly better than those in Israel, I was decisively and categorically proven wrong. Jesus Christ (it was bad enough to illicit the lord of a different faith). As my mouth filled with vomit from the stench of this man's b.o. laden purple shirted arms. I hastily thrust my hands into my back pocket and grabbed my Burt's Bees Pomegranate Oil Infused Lip Balm. With shaky hands, growing faint from the scent I managed to rip the lid off and quickly shove it up my nose. My saving grace! After regaining consciousness and the room stopped spinning all was well in the world and we quickly disembarked of that smelly smelly train. The moral of the story, never EVER leave home without your chapstick. It could just save your life.



I hope you enjoyed my trip even a fraction as much as I did.


Anne