UA 16 SAN ORD 0618 1221 752 2D
UA 151 IAD ORD 1221 1322 752 4D Ch9^ Empower

I got to IAD early and had a Red Carpet Ale, fairly decent,
like a Killian's but with a little more punch, made by
Dominion Brewery, which is no longer in Virginia, I am told,
but in Delaware. We boarded at one of the D gates with the
tiny waiting areas; I don't know what they were thinking
when they designed them.

Didn't pay much attention to what was going on; after some
mild pleasantries with my seatmate, I conked out; slept
through the snack service. The rest of the flight was
uneventful and early; lili's was late, and so we met sort
of halfway between gates.

After the usual greetings, we decided to go out to Andiamo
at the Hilton (elite security is really pretty fast here
except at peak times), where I had a big dish of fried
calamari (fairly ordinary); then we went back to the RCC to
drown in the now-free cheap red wine, which surprisingly is
(for now, at ORD) the Concannon Merlot, a not unpalatable
little tipple.

UA 940 ORD FRA 1818 0955 777 30HJ Ch9^ Empower^

Our upgrades didn't clear. My fault for not trying to dodge
this hazard of Sunday travel between centers of commerce.
The exit row is quite adequate, though, if one enjoys (but
not too much - the armrest doesn't go up) the company of
one's seatmate.

Don't remember the meal, other than that it was some chicken
curry substance over pebbly rice with peppers and squashes,
vaguely nourishing. I forgot my drink coupons (which had
expired anyway), so we had to fork over for some Chivas.

They parked us at a remote stand, of course, and we went
through the usual idiotic routine, and at length we were
bussed to the customs and immigration booth, went through,
followed bad signage through these twisty corridors and up
and down escalators and elevators,, only to find ourselves
bussed again via a completely different route to a stand
only a few hundred feet from where we had been before (this
happens altogether too frequently).

TK1588 FRA IST 1145 1545 321 28DE

Up those darned airstairs - people keep asking me whether
I can physically stand the wear and tear of all this travel,
to which I answer if I can negotiate Fraport, I'm in pretty
good condition. Which reminds me that I promised lili I'd
write to the guy who'd given us that lovely tour last year
and had promised that this kind of nonsense would stop.

A warmish greeting by the cabin crew, to whom one wonders if
one should be saying Guten Tag, Merhaba, or what.

The plane was mighty full, and the way wayback was the best
we could get. In these far reaches the help help us with
a compromise between Turkic hospitality and Teutonic
efficiency. A smile here and there. The meal was about as
much as one might get in coach on a transoceanic on a US
carrier - beef and zucchini rice with some prepackaged
snacky things and cheap red wine ad lib. We landed a bit
late. Being spewed out into the caverns of IST was sort
of a shock; luckily outside immigration I saw the welcome
familiarity of an HSBC machine and soon was rich. Be that
as it may, I resisted the information booth girl's strong
encouragement that we take a taxi and at length wrested
out of her that in order to get where we needed to be (the
Pera Tulip hotel) by public trans, we had to take the Metro
to Aksaray and then find our way via other means, as there
is no appropriate service beyond that. While we were
talking, some guy insisted in his hard sell that he was
destined to be our taxi driver, a minor annoyance.

It is not hard to use the Metro, with caveats. From the
terminal it's a long walk down to the rather Soviet-looking
train station, where one puts one's dough into the machine,
which takes nothing bigger than a tenner, after the ATM of
course has dispensed only 50s, and gets a handful of tokens
and change. Luckily there is an attendant not in the
attendant booth, no, but by the pass gate, who can break
larger bills.

A fairly comfortable hour through industrial neighborhoods
to Aksaray Metro, which is not particularly close to Aksaray
tram/bus stop, being separated by several hundred feet and
a tunnel. After purchasing a fairly useless city map (the
names of the stations had been changed since it was issued,
for example, as well as the allegiances of half the hotels
spottily depicted therein - the best part was a little
attached phrasebook and descriptions of the major museums,
and even here, the museum times were wrong, and there were
included in the vocabulary the words for knickers (bayan
kulotu) and dirt-track race (kul tablasi) but not for train
station or directions (neither directions directions or
north, south, etc.)), and inquiring nicely of various local
folk, we found a bus that was going the right way and left
us off over the bridge across the Golden Horn in the dusk
for only a buck each.

Thus began our sort of random walk, which was complicated by
half the establishments in the neighborhood having names
starting with Pera. With the aid of the desk clerks at
various of the competition, we at last found our Pera Tulip,
actually quite a nice boutiquey place with Internet stations
and breakfast included.

I had a fairly nice little room; lili's down the hall was
completely different and I thought fairly nicer. Welcome
amenity of fresh but tasteless fruit, something that I found
wherever we went - the stuff looked good but generally was
insipid, unjuicy, unsweet.

After freshening up, we decided to walk around - Beyoglu
appears to be a pretty fashionable and artsy district, and I
could have spent more time there. It has the disadvantage of
being next to Taksim, the happening part of town. So we
walked up Istikal Street - musical instrument stores and
little bars and burger joints made me feel right at home.
The way became more chockablock the closer we got to Taksim,
so we turned around just before the square, returning to a
cafe near the hotel, where we had our first tastes of
Turkish food - palatable but run of the mill lamb kebap
and kofta at what I thought was a slightly elevated price
(but turned out to be pretty much standard through the city)
- and, more importantly, Efes beer, with which we became
very familiar over the next ten days.

Slow but adequate Internet in the library. The Turkish
keyboard has two kinds of letter "i," which kind of threw
us off a bit. Also I'd forgot that AltGr-2 makes the @ sign.

An elaborate breakfast buffet - odd pastries, cheese omelet,
some peculiar sausage things, lots of kinds of cheese and
dried fruit and numerous jams and sweet spreads. Cherry and
orange juice. Coffee, the decaf version of which was I swear
stronger than real caf coffee in the states. Also nice
tomatoes but tasteless fresh fruit. Breakfast cereal was
available. We found a similar assortment wherever we stayed.

The morning was beautiful, so we decided to spend it walking
around: down the hill, past the Galata Tower (refrained
from climbing it), across the Golden Horn on the Galata
Bridge, by the train station, and to the park around the
Topkapi Palace (which was closed on Monday, as was the
History of Islamic Science museum). There didn't seem to be
any sense sticking around, so we took the tram back to
Kabatas and the funicular up the hill to Taksim (we didn't
particularly feel like climbing all that way) for the walk
back to Beyoglu, which in the daylight looked even more
fashionable than it had in the glittering night lights.
Istiklal Caddesi wasn't so crowded as it had been that
night, so we didn't feel hurried as we poked our way
along, looking at menus and dining rooms. We ended up at
Konak Kebap-Lahmacun ve Tatli Salonu, which we later found
has a reputation as one of the best local cuisine places in
town. I had patlican kebap - grilled eggplant and lamb
chunks; lili had the standard doner, which tasted like
doners everywhere. To drink I decided to try turnip juice,
which came as "purple carrot juice" and looked like beet
juice. It was fermented and sour and salty, the taste quite
like pickle juice. Live and learn! So I needed an afters
and jumped at the chicken breast pudding, which was blander
and more unsightly than I had hoped; plus it tasted like
and had discernible fibers of chicken. This recipe is how
they used to make blancmange before there was Knox gelatin:

Chicken Breast Dessert

1 1/4 coffee cup ground rice
1 1/2 cup granulated and bleached sugar
3/4 coffee cup corn starch
7 cup milk
1/2 chicken breast
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup warm water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Turkish coffee cup: 50 ml
cup:150 ml
tea spoon: 5 ml

Cook chicken in a boiling water lightly. It should not be
overcooked. Take half of the breast. Only the white breast
meat will be used. Take away the skin and fat. Breast
should be cooked such a degree so that it can be fibrilized.
Fibrilize the breast so that the yield is fibers of meat.
Wash the meat several times with hot water untill there is
no smell of meat (wash and squeeze).

Put milk in a pot on a fire. when it starts to boil pour
sugar and stir well. When sugar dissolves put salt and
remain boiling (low fire). Furnish starch and rice well in a
cup. Add warm water slowly while stirring. Add this mixture
to the boiling milk slowly while stirring. Stir and cook
until the viscosity decreases (like the viscosity of honey).
Before it reaches to above viscosity take two scoopful of
milk on meat. Stir well with fork untill it become a uniform
mixture. Add this to the cooking milk. Continiue stirring
until it cooks. After it is cooked pour in to the plates and
remain for cooling. Sprinkle cinnamon on plates. Serve cool.

Hints: To understand if it is cooked or not; take a
teaspoonful of it in a glass plate. when it cools turn the
plate upside down. If it releases the plate easy, without
remaining any resedue, it means it is cooked enough.
If not cook a little more. Washing meat, until the smell of
chicken disappers is very important.

Bon appetit
Murat Gurler, NCE 7-30-95

After finding our way in the dark with a defective map to
our hotel, getting back to the airport was child's play: a
stroll down the hill to the bus stop, find a bus that said
"Aksaray" on the list of destinations, and good to go. We
were quite early, but a little song and dance at security
chewed up some time - apparently, lili had travelled tens
of thousands of miles with a standard issue lever corkscrew,
no problem, but it caused a tizzy here and was confiscated.
In the process, she mislaid her passport; after much angst
and thorough reinvestigation of every possible hiding place,
it was refound, and life was good. We celebrated by going
to the Beer Port for more Efes and a glass of a local
wine called Yakut Kavaklidere. When check time came, and
no change was forthcoming, it became clear that the rather
cute waitress was stalling so we'd have to hurry off without
our substantial change. We didn't fall for that and kept
calling after her until she poutingly forked it over. Put
lili off Beer Port, to the degree that when we found another
one at Besiktas some days later, she shuddered.

Anyway, we strolled to the gate in plenty of time.

TK2332 IST ADB 1700 1805 321 19EF

Another crowded flight, a mercifully quick one. Dinner was
a cheese sandwich, which I didn't eat. Pickup at Izmir was
seamless; a jovial driver picked us up along with the
Lieberherr family, here from Australia, and deposited them
after the 45-minute ride at their hotel in downtown Selcuk
and then us at the Kilisealti Guest House in Sirince, a
hill town apparently in the middle of nowhere. Our place
was up a hill on a cobbled street - very atmospheric but
not terrific to walk in the dark. It was a clean but sparse
accommodation, rather B&Bish. We asked the guy for a good
place to eat, and he led us to (of course) the nearest
restaurant, Dimitros, which was sad and empty, while down
the way there was another filled with sounds of music and
jollity. But we stuck with it and were glad we did. lili's
lamb sis was pretty nice; I had a properly oily and savory
imam bayildi followed by a meat crepe, which was floppy
and crepelike. The Akberg Cabernet 04 was dreadful to the
point that I thought the place must have refilled the
bottle with cheap swill. Suddenly the other restaurant
went silent, and one could hear dozens of tramping feet in
the dark, then the sound of a bus going off in the distance.
After which there was an influx into ours - apparently, when
the other restaurant gets rid of its tourists, the staff
comes here to relax. We stayed for quite a while, our
evening enlivened by several glasses of raki, the last few
of which were on the house, or, at least, we didn't pay for
them. We got kind of silly and giggly with the Turks and
then staggered the few steps up the hill to our rooms.

Breakfast was copious and similar to the fancy place in the
big city except for no breakfast cereal.

The driver came to pick us up right on time for our trip to
Ephesus (Efes). Turns out the van just took us to the travel
agency in downtown Selcuk (15 minutes), where we waited for
a bunch of other diasporaed tourists, and we coalesced into
a group that would fill a vehicle. As lili and I both tend
to be prompt, we were among the first there and had to chill
for a considerable time. Eventually our cute, well-educated
guide, who, in contrast to most of the people we met, spoke
excellent English, fetched us and combined us with a motley
group of Anglophones from England and Australia.

Our first stop, which was not advertised as far as I know,
was The House of the Virgin Mary, a newly developed place
of pilgrimage, now sanctioned by the Holy See, where Mary is
supposed to have spent her last days. Apparently a German
nun had had dreams about the place, and as normal most
people colored her insane, but a journalist heard about her
and wrote a novel on the subject, which somehow caught the
eye of some Catholic priests who went and investigated this
place and found the ruins of a 1st century house just as
described by the visions as transmitted by the novel. And
so a rapid reconstruction was effected, and voila, instant
holy shrine and tourist destination.

It wasn't bad, actually.

There's a weeping wall whose waters are said to be holy
(as well as potable); its natural exudations are now aided
by modern plumbing, and one can fill any vessels one has
handy with this elixir at no cost.

Then to the archeological site of Ephesus, which at one time
was one of the most important Mediterranean ports and the
site of one of the great libraries of classical antiquity.

Toward the beginning of the tour a rather athletic-looking
girl named Sandy became ill, and being the only male nearby
able to carry a burden, I did so. The guide and I stayed
with the patient until the ambulance came (the sight of same
made the girl perk up and say she didn't need any help, but
we loaded her on anyhow), and then we caught up with the
rest of the group.

It's like a museum, only in the bright sunlight, with
examples of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine architecture; and
on this gorgeous day it was hugely crowded, especially near
the library of Celsus and the street leading to it: it gave
us an idea what a city of 200,000 strong would have felt
like on market day in year zero or so. Highly worthwhile.

We returned to Selcuk for lunch buffet at a tourist trap;
there were enough buses in the lot that the guide said, oh,
let's wait at the lokoum shop, one of my favorite places.
How transparent is that. I refrained from eating samples or
otherwise encouraging the natives, preferring to stay close
to the entrance and laugh at the strange aphrodisiac
offerings, packaged in jars shaped like satyrs, essentially
pagan godlet figures with their long-standing fallacies.
A few of us got some stuff at about 4x what one might pay
at the bazaar, but whatever.

Eventually we got to lunch, which was okay, but the wine
at TL5 a glass was utterly horrid - reminded me of the stuff
we'd had with gvdIAD in Frascati early this year (when in
Frascati, do as the Frascatoons do and drink WHITE WINE).

And then to the leather factory fashion show, where most of
abused the hosts' hospitality by drinking our apple tea
(why do all these places serve apple tea, a rather silly
concoction that has little or nothing to do with apples?),
laughing at the models doing the show, and sneaking out the
back door and sunning ourselves on the porch while our
co-victims wandered through the store being encouraged to
buy jackets and stuff. At some point the manager came out
and made some pointed remarks about how the economy has
been bad everywhere (he placed the blame on W) but worst
in the UK, a zinger that we shrugged off, even those of us
who were actually from there. Eventually he gave up and
just chatted for a while.

Next stop, the Ephesus Museum, which might not have been
worth the trip, because it recapitulated what we had already
seen in situ - but there were a couple impressive statues of
the goddess Artemis (who, the guide told us, was adorned
with necklaces of bull testicles: not the many-breasted
figure she is reputed to be in the textbooks), some very
nice narrative carvings (orthostats, a word I learned later
at the Archaeology Museum in Istanbul), and assorted small
excavation finds.

And finally the Artemis temple, once one of the seven
wonders of the world and now a pathetic ruin, with one
haphazardly reconstructed column and assorted pieces of
scrap marble lying about, the touts (selling postcards
and fake antique coins) being of a lower and more
downtrodden order than usual.

We were given the option of another artisan tour, but that
was soundly voted down, so we got back to town a bit early.

The van was ready to take us back to Sirince, but we decided
we wanted to wander around town just because, and maybe have
drinks and dinner. The Pink Bistro is right near the travel
agency that seems to be the headquarters for all tours, and
it has a big beer for E5, so we plopped ourselves down for
a couple cold ones. Then a random walk that eventually took
us to the TAT restaurant, where pretty good musaka and
lahmejun filled us up for not very much money. The rather
oily proprietor was just a bit too friendly, but once we
ignored him everything was fine.

We picked up a van at the travel agency and were shortly in
Sirince, the guardrail-less curves even more impressive in
the dark. Once there we decided to explore town a bit and
found the wine-merchant district; parked ourselves at a bar
lined with local carpetry to taste various Akberg products:

Bogazkere - your standard overripe wine but not bad for
that. Flavor of prunes and grape stem, medium dry, okay.

Okuzgozu - this variety, with the previous, are the mainstay
of the Anatolian wine industry. I don't know if there is any
relation, but it tasted kind of like Merlot to me, which is
funny, as the Merlot didn't.

Cabernet - surprisingly, it was as horrid as what we had
been served at Dimitro's the previous night - the aroma
slightly cheesy, no discernible fruit, a strange mouth-
coating blandness such as one gets in homemade wine that
has been infected with a trash yeast strain or something.

Merlot - a little better, with cherry and herbal flavors and
actually tasting almost right, but if you should encounter
them on their native soil, do go with the native varietals.

After a few glasses it was clear that it was time for all to
go home - staff, customers, bystanders - and so we did,
quite happier for the experience. We poked around a little
on the way back and found that there was plenty to explore
just in this quaint little town. Next time.

We got our traps loaded up early onto a van and said goodbye
to Sirince; again we were dropped off at the travel agency.
This time a different assortment of tourists and an earnest
young guide who had learned English in the army. Our
destination, the travertines of Pamukkale, was a 3-hour bus
ride each way with 3 hours at our destination. In retrospect
an inefficiency, but what did we know. Perhaps the
destination was worth it - certainly it was unique.

We started out late, and then there was this obligatory
rest stop, where lokoum and pomegranate juice were being
sold at double what they cost even at the other tourist
traps ... I just went to the gas station next door and
got a liter of Efes Dark for about the price of a juice.

And then there was the flat tire, which stretched our short
stop into quite a lengthy one, with the result that we
rolled into town nearly an hour late.

During the trip our guide was very dry and very earnest.
Informative, too, I grant, and charming in a charmless sort
of way.

Lunch at another tourist trap right within sights of the
famous travertine terraces was somewhat better than the
previous lunch at a tourist trap, with more selection,
fresher food, and actually some protein dishes.

The weird tasteless desserts, which were sort of like the
Chinese agar unspeakabilities, only less sweet, were a
source of hilarity among those at table.

Pamukkale Senfoni 07 (a Shiraz-Merlot blend) is quite
respectable, not overwrought or oversweet or any of those
common things: good but subdued black fruit, licorice,
longish dryish soft finish. It tasted like an older wine,
to tell the truth. We later found it available another
place at E75 the bottle, about 8x what we paid.

A slightly rushed trip through Hierapolis, the Greek/Roman
city built around the baths, Cleopatra's Pool, where for an
extra ten or so you can soak your troubles away in the
mineral waters, and the travertines themselves, impressive
formations formed similarly to cave deposits, only with warm
water rather than cold. We had the chance to wade in the
waters, piped in to artificially enhanced structures (if the
public were given access to the real ones as they were being
formed, they would never be formed, let's face it). The
Hierapolis museum, which gathers some of the more
interesting finds from the city digs, is small but nice.

We were supposed to get back at 6, but with the delay, that
was pushed back to 6:30. Supposedly, the van was supposed to
leave at 7, so we showed up at 7, not having time for supper
but just a beer at the Pink Bistro. No van. Turns out others
were told 7:15. You should see lili's eyes flash when she
deals with an idiot. She turned into a tigress at the
nonplussed travel agent as apparently everyone takes the
budget airline at 9:30 (At-a-loss or Onan or something) and
there's no allowance in the system for anyone on TK at 9,
which we were. The agent tried to maintain his joviality as
he promised us that the van would leave immediately; so we
were trooped to the parking lot where - of course - we
waited on board for a huge time. Even my patience was tried,
as if we'd known we could have had a nice little supper. It
turns out two guys figured they weren't going to show up
until 7:40, which was the time they figured was appropriate
for the 9:30 flight. They were located, with recriminations
all round, and we got underway about 7:30. Arrived at the
airport at 8:15 for a 9:05 flight. Luckily security was
pretty quick.

We hadn't had Internet and hadn't been smart enough to ask
the travel agent to get seats for us, so we were assigned
two middle seats. At least mine was in the exit row. In our
15 minutes in the TK lounge, where I had decent lentil soup
and some bad cake, I tried to enlist the agent's aid in
getting us seats together; she checked and regretfully said
that we had the best seats available (no op-ups for Star
Golds even on a medium-priced fare, H or something).

1007 TK2337 ADB IST 2105 2215 321 11B, 12B

Flow control made this a later departure and a longer
flight than it should have been, so I grabbed the seat in
front and pulled often, something like that, just for
giggles. I can be extremely juvenile when I feel like, and
it's a wonder my travel partners put up with me.

A meal of sorts, not bad for what it was. A chicken sandwich
- flavorful marinated chicken breast on flavorless American-
style sub roll - was sided with salad, minty tabboule, and
a pleasantly flabby pannacotta that reminded me of that
chicken-breast pudding, only without the chicken. No alcohol
as it was a domestic flight, so I just had water, which
seemed to distress the pleasant FA. No coffee? Tea? Juice?
No, thanks, if you don't have that lovely Efes beer that
I've become accustomed to, I'll close my eyes and imagine
that this water in front of me is Miller Lite.

We screeched in for a very hard landing, which caused shouts
of dismay on board and a bit of buzz on the jetway after.

Our driver was waiting patiently for us. In common with all
the drivers we had on this trip, he commented proudly on
the historical and cultural sights we passed. On some of
the rides, the guy's English was barely enough for him to
grunt things like "buyuk hospital," "school," "ambassade,"
"football stadion"; this one had some grasp both of English
and what Anglophones might be interested in, "Byzantine
castle," "original city wall," that sort of thing. He was
pleasant, polite, and, as it was a fixed fare, quick.
Though he took us to the wrong place, as our accommodation,
Sultanahmet Suites, is the blanket name for four properties.

On the second try we found the offices, which are in a
little coffee house in a traditional old neighborhood.
For our prepayment, the night manager gladly took a mixture
of lira, Euros, and dollars for our rent - and gave us a
quite favorable rate, according to my calculations, and then
showed us to our rooms, in an odd building in the middle of
renovation, on the southwest edge of Sultanahmet district.
The digs were comfy though peculiar: we were split up into
basement and attic rooms, each with its own pecularities.
lili's room, a deluxe, was too cold; mine, a standard, was
too stuffy. In the morning, when I went up to discuss the
plan for the day, hers had become too hot - no surprise
as mine had gotten too cold.

Hot water: day 1, plenty; day 2, little or none; day 3,
plenty of decently warm water but no cold!

Our time in town was mostly preternaturally cool; the first
day was unbelievably wet, to the degree that I feared that
my room, being in the basement, might flood (it didn't).
Every day someone we encountered would apologize on behalf
of all of Turkey about the weather, saying it's never this
cold [or wet] this time of year. Fat lot of good historical
meteorology did us.

Day 1

Woke up to heavy rain, and it rained steadily through the
day. We tried to be out and about during the lulls and be
indoors when it was more downpourish. Mixed success.

As the museums weren't open until 10 (said all the
literature), we slid our way up and down the cobbled streets
and eventually found a little place near the train station
for breakfast. I had cake (rather coarse but good, soaked in
a not too sweet syrup); lili had what was characterized as
an omelet - essentially eggs beaten with lots of butter and
cooked over a very quick fire until quite hard, but not bad
for that; with three teas, TL10. This was the cheapest meal
we had in a country of surprisingly costly food.

Our first stop was the archeological museum, which contains
an astonishing plenitude of stuff. One starts at the Museum
of the Ancient Orient, with amazing stuff, then to the
archeological museum per se. We stopped on the way at the
Tile Pavilion, which used to be one of the satellite
buildings of the Topkapi Palace but was ceded to the control
of the archeological museum in a rare triumph of logic over
territoriality. It contains a beautiful selection of Islamic
ceramic tiles and decorative art and is well worth the trip,
especially given that it doesn't cost any extra.

Then on to the main museum itself - enormous, overwhelming,
worth several visits for the antiquities hound, just plain
too much for the rest of us. There are displays dedicated
to all the major Fertile Crescent civilizations, each
containing hundreds of artifacts; to the history and
cultures of Istanbul; to Troy and Ephesus; and the main
floor has hundreds of Greek and Roman sculptures, dozens
of sarcophagi (and a mummy), scores of orthostats (that
word again). Just amazing.

We had to tear ourselves away, encouraged by an alarm that
had been ringing at the end of the Roman sculpture rooms
but was audible for hundreds of feet ... it was there when
we arrived and there when we left three-odd hours later.

And we'd budgeted the afternoon for the Topkapi Palace.
I wasn't thrilled by the palace itself: it was big, it had
nice stuff, but it really looked to me like an extra nice
hidey-hole for hundreds of bureaucrats or something.

The hall that contained relics of various prophets was to
me the most interesting part: we got to see the original
Sword of Ali, Muhammad's footprints and beard (trimmings
thereof, divided into many lockets), Moses' cooking
vessel, ...

It was lunchtime, so we headed for the restaurant and its
supposedly elegant food and dazzling vistas. Well, as far
as the vistas go, the Bosporus was totally fogged in, and
the rains were coming in almost horizontal. We got seated
by a heat lamp, which helped a bit. I guess we could have
gone to the cafeteria on the other side, but we figured
we'd get better service, food, and shelter here, given
that we'd be paying between twice and 3x the price.

Service was alternately willing and sort of bumbling
and totally absent.

The menu listed steak at L42, entrecote at L43; lili asked
the difference - a waiter, not versed in such distinctions,
replied "steak is ... steak; entrecote is ... is ... ...
same." Steak turned out to be a nice-size but rather thin
cut of rump; entrecote, true to its name, was a rib steak,
kind of fatty. One didn't get a choice of doneness - both
came medium, but the quality of the meat was good enough
that medium wasn't bad. These came with terrific heavily
smoked baba ghannouj, delicious meat rice with currants,
and an odd mishmosh of carrots, zucchini, and peas (on
the menu as "boiled vegetables").

The wind howled louder and louder, and our umbrellas shook,
and suddenly one of the many waiters danced by with a
pashmina for lili's shoulders. As I started reflecting on
reverse discrimination, someone gave me one, too.

The prices for wine looked absurd, so we had a bottle of
water for 5 bucks or so.

There was another lull in the weather, it seemed, so we
paid the bill and headed back for the palace proper.

While we looked for restrooms we discovered that the
restaurant has an indoor part! This was crowded, noisy,
stuffy, and objectionable in the mirror way from the
way our setting had been objectionable. We figured, eh,
six of one, half a dozen of the other; but I was slightly
irked that we hadn't been given the option.

Topkapi palace in the rain isn't so much of a must-visit.
We spent more time shivering than seeing, and the enormous
crowd in the treasury was actually more welcome for its
generated heat than annoying for its jostling, shoving
jam-packedness. Some neat stuff here, gifts and tributes
to the sultans from rulers from Queen Victoria to the
various shahs of Iran, and millions' worth of other shiny
things. Okay, it was well more than neat if you're into
shiny things, as the rest of the hundreds of people in
each room jostling for position or just a glimpse of the
shinier treasures must have been. And, oh, there was the
giant diamond about which they apparently had made a movie
some decades back.

After a bit of thought we gave the harem a miss (as it
were); others and their writings indicate that we made the
right choice.

the Sultanahmet Suites, tried (somewhat vainly) to dry off,
and then walked around that conservative old neighborhood,
trying to find a place that sold beer. There was a little
store a couple blocks up the way, where the guy sort of
scowled at us alcohol-swilling infidels, but a big smile and
a heartfelt tesikkurler got us a bit of a nod in return. It
was Marmara beer, and I thought, aha, the guide who told us
that it was all Efes was wrong. Turns out this stuff is made
by Efes, though I found it a tad maltier perhaps. We returned
to one of the places that hadn't sold alcohol, got some
potato chips and nuts and deemed that a sufficient meal.

We had use of the building's computer for our e-mail and
FT and such, and while I was tapping away, I was approached
by the guy who had checked us in, who informed me that
because of a miscalculation of the exchange rates, he had
undercharged me. How much, I asked. US$10, he replied, I
didn't fuss that it had been his mistake or accuse him of
shaking me down. He had indeed given me a good rate before,
and with the correction it was still quite fair. So I paid.

Up early, and guess what, no rain. So we trudged up the hill
to Yeniceriler Cadessi, the road at the northern boundary
of Sultanahmet, where there was cell service, and tried to
get in touch as previously agreed with Where2next? ...
telephone problems scotched this plan for a while, but
thanks to intermittent signal and much persistance we
eventually met at the Blue Mosque. Where2next? had found
this Ihsan guy, who had been Anthony Bourdain's driver for
the No Reservations Istanbul: he was quite a showboat,
perhaps naturally high, talking ninety miles an hour and
driving almost that fast; later on his status was upgraded
to a bit of a madman as he chatted, showed us where we were
on the map, and did a facsimile of a belly dance, all while
driving top speed and with no hands or other visible means
of support on the wheel. Other than seeming to be on
constant audition for a TV presenter spot, and ignoring the
apparently obligatory show of Mediterranean libido, which
got a little silly at times, he was pretty amusing.

on this trip: Where2next?, Lori_Q, totmode, lili, gvdIAD, me

After admiring the wonderful architecture and ceramics of
the Blue Mosque, we headed the few steps north to Hagia
Sophia, where we were allotted half an hour or so, a really
insufficient time (one could spend all day there marveling
at the architecture of the place and oohing and ahhing at
the Byzantine art and the Islamic accretions). Steep, worn
steps and insufficient lighting provided a hazard for the
old and infirm, in which company I count myself, but the
glories were well worth the rather high admission price
and the adventure.

From which Ihsan led us (on foot) down one of the shopping
streets and ended up, not surprisingly, at a rug shop, name
redacted to protect the innocent, where we were treated to
the rug version of a fashion show. Surprisingly, the
quality, selection, and price were all good, and the sell
was not hard. Nonetheless, I don't thrill easily to the
routine of apple tea, historical lecture, demonstration,
lecture on why our stuff is better than anyone else's, and
showroom. Okay, a guy's gotta make a lira, but.

Ihsan pointed us in the direction of the Grand Bazaar and
essentially said, walk this way, which we did, and he would
pick us up at one of the gates in an hour or something. I'm
not fond of shopping or of large noisy enclosed spaces, so
the time allotted was more than ample; luckily Where2Next?
thought to take us to a lokoum shop, much more my style,
and we sampled and bought various kinds of sweets - I got
100 g of prepackaged halvah, which I offered around; but
people said, like, no, you try my halvah (hand cut from the
big block in the window); and it turned out to be the same,
except that mine was marginally fresher, being packed for
travel. Some of the lokoums were interesting.

Back through the purgatory of the Bazaar, where I tried to
lead us in the most expeditious way to the exit, but certain
of us reveled in the experience and tried to lead us astray.
I think plans were made for future investigations of various
shops, corridors, and districts at a future date. Ihsan's
smiling face was there to greet us; he enthusiastically
drove/guided us around town for a while before giving us
two choices for lunch; first he poked into a divey-looking
place, where I would have been happy to eat, but almost
without stopping turned around and drove us to what he
characterized as a somewhat nicer place called Yildiz,
which seemed to be a foregone conclusion and where he
seemed to be well known. It was a pretty good choice:
we were first served big sheets of puffed pocket bread
and a pillowy round bread, both nice, with various dip
things. Most of us ordered variations on doner, for what I
thought too much money: they were good, though. Bucking the
trend, I had cig kofte, a very heavily paprikaed version of
raw kibbe, and icli kofte, fried doughballs filled with
ground meat. I enjoyed my foray into the unfamiliar, washed
down with cherry juice (far more enjoyable than that turnip
juice at the other kebap place).

After lunch, we piled back into the car, wandered through
the old city (including Sultanahmet, where we were staying),
and alit at Eyyub Mosque, apparently a great destination for
Muslims but mostly unknown by non-Islamic tourists; this,
with the tomb of Muhammad's friend Eyyub Sultan next door,
is, if I understand Ihsan rightly, the fourth most holy
place, the first three being Mecca, Jerusalem, and I forget.
On leaving, he showed us the nearby market (for locals, not
tourists, he said - lili bought a rather nice pashmina for
five bucks) and attempted to teach us the iconography of
Muslim tombstones. There was an awkward moment when he
asked about our religious beliefs and got more nonstandard
responses than he would have liked. Perhaps as punishment,
we made a detour to Yedilkule Zindanlari (7 Tower Prison),
where he made us climb a slightly vertiginous stair with no
rail to the battlements, which we walked, and then down a
set of quite steep outside stairs with rickety railing.
Some of us found an alternate inside spiral stone staircase
that seemed a little less exposed. Ihsan showed us various
low points, including the imprisonment places, as well as
the execution room where various captives, criminals, and
even the odd sultan or three had their lives terminated. I
think perhaps this was intended as a memento mori and a
spur away from secular humanism or something - certainly his
presentation was. If he hadn't persisted in playing the
lustful Turk I might have sort of felt sorry for him in his
earnest wish that we repent our ways; but as it was I think
I laughed a little too much inside.

There was this big old amphora in the courtyard with a
catalogue number painted on it. Nobody seemed to have a
plausible explanation for its being there.

We had pretty much covered the perimeter of the old city
wall through the day, and there was still a bit of time, so
we voted to go to the famed Spice Market, which was very
like urban food markets anywhere, only noisier, more

crowded, and more chaotic. I'm not sure if the visit was
worth it except for the being able to say we'd been there,
even though a couple of us bought a few things.

There was a huge traffic jam getting to the Park Hyatt
(the designated end point, where Lori_Q, totmode, and
Where2next? were staying), so Ihsan dropped gvdIAD, lili,
and me off partway down so we could walk down Ciragan
Street to szg's birthday party. gvdIAD wanted to freshen
up at his hotel, so our slightly diminished party headed
to the Kempinski, where after an airportlike magnetometer
scan we were allowed to go to the bar, where we met szg,
flysurfer, and rcs85551 and spent an unconscionable amount
on drinks - two Efes, a glass of Sarafin Merlot, a Coke, and
a fruit smoothie: E100. We were served peanuts, chickpeas,
and other fairly tasty munchies, though.

It was coming on time for dinner, and the rest of our party
had arrived, so we strolled over to the restaurant area, and
guess what, they couldn't find our reservation; after some
mutual confusion between the staff and us the lightbulb went
on - instead of the hotel restaurant, where the prices were
high but manageable, we were supposed to go to the grander
dining room, Tugra, in the palace itself.

I was given the task of finding something we could afford to
drink on a list where Mondavi Woodbridge products as well as
the Pamukkale Senofon stuff were marked up to L75 a bottle.
I chose a pleasantly neutral Thracian Cabernet at a price
that I could get a bottle of Pichon-Lalande of a good year
for at the wine merchant's.

Water was L18 for sparkling, 20 for still. We apparently
drank one each.

Okay, we were in this incredibly luxurious setting magically
overlooking the Bosporus, with the twinkling lights of the
shipping and of Asia in the distance. The appointments were
fit for royalty, and there was a waiter for each person.
Cavils about price are minor by comparison to the rarity of
the occasion. The food was pretty decent, too.

Amuses came to the table: a little plate of baba ghannouj
came with a sort of bolognese sauce next to it, the effect
being a deconstructed moussaka; beautiful soft sesame
flatbread served with black-eyed peas, olive spread, and
cheese mousse was appetizing as could be.

The menu itself is of a conceit - half classic Turkic
cuisine, half modern riffs on ancient themes.

I ordered three appetizers at about 25 or 30 each, instead
of a main course at 64, which I thought excessive and
probably not as interesting as three appetizers. A morel
bourek with morel sauce was liked but not well liked -
probably because it was like any mushroom and puff pastry
dish you've ever seen. I'm sure some unfortunate apprentice
spent hours in the back room stretching the pastry, and some
saucier imported from France or at least Cordon Bleu trained
put the final fillip on the dish, but you or I could take a
block of Pepperidge Farm dough and make something maybe 90%
as good (i.e., good enough to make friends squeal with
delight) for a couple bucks. Large duck manti with duck
liver (their description) had unexpected aspects. The
large manti were maybe medium size, the filling sort of
mystery poultry (to me it tasted, appropriately, more like
turkey), and the wrapper kind of coarse. I'd made lobster
manti once off a remembered recipe, and the outside was not
to my liking - it's nice to know that perhaps the unniceness
was authentic; but the liver ... I'd hoped for foie gras,
but this was a sizable chunk of liver garnish that was as
good as possible without being that costly substance. I've
seen the puree the liver and mix it half and half with duck
fat trick, but an integral piece? the only thing I can think
of is a sous vide in extra fat in a water bath preparation.
I'd ordered the sour lentil soup as dessert, but after
tasting this truly aristocratic substance, I changed my
order to a second serving of duck liver. As it turns out,
nobody else at table wanted any dessert at all, and I didn't
want my gluttony to be stared at, so I cancelled the order,
saving my bank account for another day.

Joining the 6 Musketeers as described earlier were birthday
boy szg, flysurfer, and rcs85553. The party broke up pretty
late, everyone wanting to savor to the fullest the
experience of being in a palace and treated (albeit with a
dubious eye) like nobility. Afterward, lili and I joined szg
for what he characterized as a beautiful boat ride on the
Bosporus from Besiktas to Karakoy: unfortunately the service
had ended for the season, and we had to take the bus (same
price, not so much fun) to Kabatas and then the tram. He had
to go to the Crowne Plaza, a couple stops farther than ours.
I hope he stayed dry, as we got back to the Sultanahmet
Suites just in time, as as soon as we got in, the heavens
opened up.

Day 3 started out moist, as the previous one had ended.
Gradually the rains abated, and it was just a little misty
and squishy when it was time to walk to Yerebatan Cistern
(the famous underground reservoir built by Trajan or
somesuch megalomaniac emperor) to meet our friends at 10.

We got there a bit early and wandered around, thereby
getting to endure two impassioned appeals from the carpet
seller nearest the attraction.

The cistern is really enjoyable: atmospherically lit, just a
little spooky; and, as it was made quickly out of salvaged
materials, a sort of Janson in the flesh, with variations on
Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns everywhere to look at.
Two of the columns in one corner got pediments of recycled
Medusa heads, one upside-down, the other sideways. Amusing.
It also smells like a swimming pool, which, I suppose, is
due to the fact that it would otherwise smell like a sewer.

We walked our people to the Topkapi Palace grounds and left
them off around 11; being a little peckish, we tried to find
the place we'd had breakfast before - it was closed on
Sunday, though, so we spent a while looking at menus. We
chose Faros, a hotel restaurant right on the main drag,
which the map that I just happen to have beside me tells me
is called Hudavendigar Caddesi. Reasons: it had been open
for breakfast, which meant that the kitchen had probably
already been fired up; it was crowded, albeit with tourists;
and the menu had things on it that I found intriguing.

Being the culinary adventurer, lili ordered a cheese omelet.
It looked as if all the other women in the place also did -
next to us there was a 6-top of reasonably cute ladies of
various ages, the proprietor flirting nonstop with the whole
table during their meal, which was six cheese omelets, and
there were other sightings of same in the rather busy room.

I had mince and kidneys in tomato sauce, apparently a famed
Turkish dish and not at all cheap, kidneys not being held in
the same bad odor, har har, as they are in the west. It took
a long time for the food to come out, and I envisioned
someone in the kitchen washing pee out of the little organs
and cursing at the strange Asian tourist ordering kidneys
for breakfast instead of the much easier and more profitable
cheese omelet.

The omelet came out more omeletlike than others we had
encountered in this un-omelettish country and was pronounced
good. For my dish, the mince (beef I think) was gristly,
which I don't mind (what's mince for but to use up the more
dubious parts of a critter), but the kidneys (lamb) had not
been cored, a problem I'd encountered at fancier places but
that still is wrong wrong wrong. These came in a simple but
good tomato puree, sided with excellent mash that seemed to
be half butter and some wet zucchini under the monicker of
"boiled vegetables."

On our first walk through the Topkapi park, we'd noticed
the (then closed) Museum of Islam and Science; this day it
was open, so we went in. Most impressive in scope, but the
exhibits consisted of very artful reconstructions and
replicas of Arab-invented measuring, surveying, astronomic,
and calculating instruments; models of ingenious engines of
war and peace from ballistas to steam turbines; and plenty
of laboratory glassware. You do know what chemists do in a
situation where they don't know what else to do? They make
a rude retort. There was a lot of stuff, which we barely
had time to look at; but the stuff wasn't original, which
should not make a difference but somehow does. To marvel at
an elaborate mechanism and read that it's a model the
original of which is in the Louvre or the British or
somewhere in Hungary or Iran just causes a little feeling
of disappointment.

The weather had turned gorgeous by the time we reconnected
with the crew for the tram trip to Kabatas and the waterside
walk to Dolmabahce Palace, the last home of the last sultan
and the home (and death site) of the first prime minister
Ataturk. It exemplifies 19th century grandeur a l'Europeenne
and, though enormous and opulent and though it gets great
notices (and came highly recommended by some tourists we
met at Topkapi), is just another palace only bigger. The
tour takes you through the harem and then the state chambers
- culminating in the great hall, with its, if I heard right,
second largest crystal chandelier in the world, gift of
Queen Victoria herself. Okay, it was interesting in its way,
but I'd just as soon have been looking out across the
Bosporus in the golden sunlight.

We did stay until approximately closing time; bade our
friends goodbye; and walked back to Besiktas to see if there
were any appropriate ferries we could take for an obligatory
trip on the strait (no); and in addition we were caught up
in the crowd of a Walk for the Cure event. So we skedaddled
out of there and took a bus to Aksaray, a more faceless part
of town, slightly dingy but getting nicer but still faceless
as you walked back toward the Bazaar and Sultanahmet. So we
cut over and found the fish restaurant district ... but lili
isn't fond of fish, and there were only the two of us, and I
like sharing meals and this is a tourist-trappy constructed
attraction if I ever saw one, anyhow, so after poking our
nose in a few places (where we were almost bowled over by
maitres d' looking for a sale) we went back toward the
hotel. Luckily, it didn't get dark until we were at the
little park near home, so I didn't fall into a hole or get
run over by a taxicab.

For dinner we ended up at a place a few blocks from the
hotel that we'd been chased from once before by a
particularly repellantly oily tout; but this time Efes,
hard to come by in this old conservative neighborhood,
called louder than the tout, so we dined at the Koy
Sofrasi (Sef: Davut Urey).

What was characterized as a Big Beer came as a small beer
glass filled to the brim, so sort of 0.4L as opposed to the
0.33L of a small one or the 0.5L of a proper big one. I
wasn't complaining, as I had good company and the prospect
of a good meal. The menu had no English or German, odd for
a restaurant that was working hard for tourist Euros; and
our proprietor/waiter had little of either, though the few
other people hanging around the restaurant were gabbling on
in some Germanoid tongue about how terrific the food was. I
was immediately suspicious of these people (shills?), but
in fact the food was perfectly fine and the prices decent.

As we were seated at the front, we could keep abreast of the
indefatigable efforts of that same tout; it was vaguely
amusing that this person was sufficiently obnoxious and
unskilled that he scared away all the potential diners
he approached. Eventually the proprietor too over, but
even with his more sedate extollings of the wonders of
the menu, he was not substantially more successful in
encouraging custom.

lili had the ground veal kebab, which came with a salad
and an intriguing kamut pilaf. My eggplant and lamb was a
vegetable stew with a very scanty amount of lamb - plenty
of tomatoes, onions, and olive oil gave it flavor, and it
was very good despite the dearth of meat.

Baklava, which we split, was light on the nuts (bad) but
light on the syrup (good).

We were tempted by after-dinner drinks and coffee, but there
was still a liter of Marmara beer to be consumed back at our
place, and so to bed.

Day 4
I woke at 5 feeling not so much like a sultan but managed to
get ready and drag my bag upstairs around 5:30 (the cab was
called for 5:45). I went up to lili's room, two more flights
up, and in the time it took to get up there and escort her
down, a minivan had come and the night manager had loaded
my bag into it. Only it wasn't the right conveyance - it was
headed for the other airport with other people, and I
snatched my bag out just in time.

Our cab, a regular one, came just a little late. We'd been
promised that our fare would be 30 ... on arrival the meter
read something like 30.45; he asked for 30; I gave him 35.

The airport was buzzing, and only one TK chicken was working.
Furthermore, people were cutting in line - some brazenly,
some masterfully - for security. Chaos. Beware old imams who
pretend not to know anything. Especially when they have
canes. Especially when they have canes and large middle-
eastern looking escorts. This time we had no contretemps at
screening (the screener did throw some checkpoint louse out
of line, which provoked much approval from the crowd) and
got to the gate just around boarding time, only to see the
display flashing "30 minute delay." We had just secured
a couple places together in the lobby (there is no Star
lounge in the domestic part of IST) when we heard them
calling boarding all rows. So much for 30 minute delays.

TK2010 IST KSR 0720 0845 321 22BC

We got the nonreclining double in front of the exit row, but
both of us managed to sleep reasonably well. On TK you can't
get the exit row with OLCI.

A short flight that came with sweets and coffee; afterward
the line for the restroom was huge, so I decided to go look
for our van. Discovered there was no re-entry into the area,
I tried to get in the departures side, bladder complaining:
no luck. So I looked forward to the prospect of an hour plus
on a minibus with my eyeballs filling with yellow fluid.

And we waited quite a while for someone on the roster who
didn't show up; eventually we decided she probably had
missed the flight, and the driver drove us off after giving
instructions to one of his cohorts on what to do should the
person eventually get there.

Kayseri is an industrial town, and the landscape, here
merely bleak, turns to blasted but otherworldly as one
got closer to our destination.

The minibus system has evolved peculiarly, with vehicles
crisscrossing paths on apparently no particular schedule
with rendezvous probably much aided by modern cellular
technology. It's a mix and match situation for the
passengers, who get traded back and forth between buses
depending on their destination, but it seems to work,
except that this unfortunate Salvadoran and his wife were
caught in between when the next van didn't show up; they
were told to get into the car owned by the local tea joint,
and the proprietor promised to drive them wherever they were
supposed to go, improv at its best.
===
Our destination, Goreme, is the site of the most famous cave
dwellings. I'd expressed interest in inhabiting same, so
lili had found us accommodation at the Sultan Cave Suites
(as opposed to the Sultanahmet Suites, where we had been in
Istanbul). This facility is part of the Kelebek Hotel, the
first luxury facility to take advantage of the tourist
potential of this area.

We were greeted with true Middle Eastern hospitality and
were offered breakfast before check-in: breads, cheese,
fruit, jams, olives, and beverages, all of exemplary
variety, quantity, and quality.

The hotel (supposedly, according to the literature) occupies
a former cloister carved into the cliffside: the austere
monastic cells have now been turned into rather luxurious
accommodations. In order to afford these, we took one suite
in contrast to our usual splurgy practice of getting two
rooms (beforehand lili had sent me a link to photos of our
digs, which looked big enough so we could have our privacy
as necessary). It turned out to be enormous, luxurious, and
modernly appointed. On negotiating the staircases and twisty
turns on the way from the office, first we encountered the
dining area in front, a patio with a nice little table that
might seat four; then the anteroom, with an armoire and an
antique chest of drawers, as well as plenty of room for
lounging around, but no chairs; off that the front bedroom,
quite attractive, with a queen-size bed; then the bath,
about the size of your ordinary motel room, with a
whirlpool, an old-style sink (with no drain, but I didn't
notice that until I used it) such as we saw in the harem
of the Dolmabahce, a modern sink, a smallish but adequate
shower, and a toilet with about 15 of feet space in front.
Upstairs to the living room, with an apparently nonworking
fireplace, and then the back bedroom, up two giant steps
(they should have made 3 steps, maybe 4); this was actually
inside the cliff proper and very cozy, fitting the king bed
with not an enormous amount of space to spare. In respect
of my Lasix habit, lili took this room.

After getting settled we walked downtown and then the extra
kilometer or two to the open-air museum, a former Orthodox
monastery carved into the mushroom rocks, with frescoes in
some of the churches dating back to the 7th century (though
the nice ones, done in tempera, were maybe 4 or 5 hundred
years later). This is said to be the quintessential cave
community, and it was amazing. On a clear day, which this
was, you can stay forever. We stayed until we got tired of
having bonked our heads on the short doors and until our
feet hurt, having seen many chapels, many frescoes, and
many tourists. Camels, too. Across the road, outside the
museum proper, there's a bigger church, dear to me because
it has a painting of St. Michael in it. And beyond is the
community tucked into the cliffs and mushroom rocks from
which the monastery got its clientele.

The walk back, though largely downhill, seemed harder and
longer, and so when we got back to town we strolled through
the streets of downtown at a relaxing tourist's pace, poking
our noses into stores and restaurants and making plans for
the evening's entertainment. After this surprisingly
refreshing activity, we had the energy to climb up the hill
behind town for a lovely view of the open-air museum and its
nearby valleys. We came down as it was getting cold and dark
and stumbled into a restaurant called Silk Road, on the main
drag, and, as it turns out, recommended in Lonely Planet. As
tourist season was winding down, there were only a couple
other tables occupied; and as it was cold, portable heaters
were deployed and welcome. lili had the traditional warming
comfort meal of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich,
neither of which was quite the same as what one had when one
was a kid, and hurray for that. I had the famous Cappadocian
pottery stew - you lop off the top of the jug, and all this
delicious lamb and juice bubble out, making a mess, in
anticipation of which they put a paper napkin under the
pottery, and the juices make a mess of that, too. This
version was lamb, zucchini, eggplant, and potatoes in 1/3"
dice (the potatoes twice that size), in a thin brothy tomato
sauce. Pretty good. For her: cheap red wine; for me, Efes.

We returned slowly and satisfiedly to our room, where I
showered with the Kelebek Hotel's custom-made thyme soap.
Made me imagine I was a stew myself.

There's a mosque just down the way. Its auto-muzzein was
out of synch with itself, and the canonic effect was amusing
or annoying ... our quarters were not so soundproof as one
might wish of a cave, and my front room was downright noisy
at times, with revelers coming and going through the night.