Eastern Europe Vacation, Day 1

Attempting to keep a daily blog about this trip. I know I haven't updated this in a while, but I've just been writing in MS Word and not posting anything. No real reason, I was just giving more attention to writing skills. I am writing these on the fly and I'm throwing the Turkish alphabet out the window on this draft.

Today we flew to Istanbul! It was remarkably easy, this whole planning process, and even being here seemed too easy. This morning, we were already packed, said goodbye to everyone, watched some of Underworld on TV, and Dave drove us to Sharjah. Sharjah Airport is a thing to be experienced, since you just kind of blaze your own trail, any counter you want, and you get a boarding pass. We had McDonald’s for brunch because it was around 11am and we couldn’t stomach Indian or Chinese food that early. Bada bing, bada bang, bada boom, we’re on a plane to Istanbul. There wasn’t anyone next to us, so we spread out. The plane was SWELTERING and it was DISGUSTINGLY HOT. Just a trickle of air from the personalized air vents and everyone started fanning themselves because we’re on a tarmac in a metal vehicle and it’s at least 115 outside with no real A/C and one door open. It was so hot that I could barely stay awake during take-off, I was passing-out hot-tired. I slept for at least an hour, maybe more, on our 4 hour flight and amused myself with my iPod and writing a letter to Jeannie the rest of the time.

We got in to Sabiha and got somewhat screwed because we thought we got visas at passport control, but after we’d been waiting and we were now next in line, they made us go buy a visa at a hidden counter (it really was hidden) behind a bunch of Emiratis who were buying visas for their families of 10. We also got stuck behind them on our exit from the airport and they had hundreds of bags going through the only x-ray machine. Pompous asses. I was more assertive than I am in the Emirates. Watch out world, Miriam is back!

We got on the Havas bus to Taksim, which was only 10 YTL, compared to the 50 Euros the hotel wanted to charge for a pick-up. We were stuck in traffic a bit but it was our first time on the BRIDGE SPANNING THE CONTINENTS! Next thing you knew, we were in Europe, huzzah! We got out at Taksim and I had convinced Aaron to get a cab because I didn’t want to take the funicular and the tram at rush hour with our packs susceptible to pick-pockets, so we took a cab who ripped us off. Lesson learned.

We got to our hostel, a clean, modest place called Second Home Hostel with shared bathrooms. We’re actually sharing a bed (SHOCK!) and we convinced them to bring us in a fan since the room is A/C-less and has no overhead fan, then we lay in front of it for a while. We asked the hotelier’s advice for dinner and ended up at a slightly pricey (but worth it) place called Home Made with a Turkish ravioli chef in the restaurant using traditional tools on a dais in the middle of the dining room. I had an Efes (the start of my drinking thru Europe) because it was almost the same price as soda or water. We shared a platter of mezze and sigara boregi and had forgotten that they always give tea afterwards. Our waiter was very nice and we talked with him about Ephesus, the Virgin Mary’s house, Turkish, and took some pictures.

Afterwards, we walked to the train station and bought our departure tickets to Plovdiv for July 2. Then we walked back to the street next to the hostel, which is set up with pillows galore for sheesha (nargileh here) buffs. We had melon/rose mix, Turkish coffee, and water. Oh Turkish coffee, how superior you are to Arabic coffee! So much more body! Of course, there’s also a ton of sludge in the bottom. Ma fi mushkila.

We’ve been having a hard time because we’re speaking to everyone in Arabic (whoops) and our little bit of traveler’s Turkish is coming back slowly from our honeymoon. We have yes/no/thank you/you’re welcome/1/2/3/4/good morning/hello down. It’s fun to see how many words from Arabic have made it over.

There are street cats here, but they’re so much healthier looking than Omani ones, even if they are skinny too. They’re fed here by everyone and are so perrrrtyyy! Makes us super-miss our babies.

Sushi and Camel Burgers (also on 33eats.posterous.com)

This weekend's culinary adventures can be united by one thing (other than price): no mayonnaise on salad!  Hooray!  We went to a sushi restaurant on Saturday night.  We had heard nothing but praise for this restaurant with people saying that it was even better than Nobu and all the best and favorite sushi places in America.  Braced for the high prices, we took a petit taxi to Kiotori, a chain of Japanese restaurants in Morocco.  The decor was sumptuous with the chefs working on the floor above us, showcased in glass.  I bet you've never seen a sushi waitress wearing a headscarf before.  The first disappointment of the night came with the announcement that they had no tuna.  NO TUNA?!  TUNA IS SUSHI!  We had to rethink our entire order when we realized that we had planned to eat tuna in nearly every dish.  Instead, we had a nice unagi/roe/avocado/crab roll, a crunchy roll with tempura shrimp and some heavenly sauce (maybe the best eel sauce ever), and then some kappamaki, tekkamaki with salmon instead of tuna, and california rolls with and without cream cheese.  This came with a salad and miso soup.  The salad was comprised of long strips of finely shredded cabbage and carrots with this horseradish vinaigrette.  It was a bit difficult to eat with chopsticks.  The miso soup had tofu (!!!!!!!), our first since coming here.  They served it in a cute bowl with a lid, but it wasn't piping hot and the spoon was stoneware, which was remarkably heavy!  The second disappointment was at dessert, when they had neither the passion fruit nor lychee ice cream listed on the menu.  I was even going to just order a handroll: it was mango, avocado, and tempura shrimp with other yummy things, but they couldn't do that either!!  Probably a good thing we left it at that, because we spent nearly $50.  For Morocco, that is LUDICROUS.  For sushi, that is about par for the course.  We thought we'd splurge anyway, since we missed the trip to Marrakesh.  As an added bonus, they took MasterCard, so we didn't have to pay out all our cash.

 

Today, we went back to Cafe Clock.  It's run by a Brit in the Medina Qadima and is incredibly popular with tourists.  It is a very nice cafe, but the prices are most certainly tourist prices.  I was hell-bent on going to the Medina today, even though it was raining.  I didn't realize that the streets would be rivers of mud, but we got to the cafe without getting too filthy and then I ordered their famous camel burger, which came with fries and salad.  The fries were light, not drowned in oil like most fries in Morocco.  Unfortunately, without a dip, I think I would have preferred oily fries!  Back to the sandwich: it was AMAZING.  It was my first time having camel, but it was out of this world tasty.  They dressed it up with "taza ketchup."  I have no idea what that means, but it was just like haroset, which is a Jewish dish served at Passover and is lightly sweet.  We make it with fresh apples, dried dates, raisins, apricots, figs, walnuts, and wine.  We like to eat it with raw horseradish on matzoh.  Digression aside, it was an interesting and complimentary addition to the meat, which also had an onion slice, lettuce, and tomato.  As per my usual, the onion went to Aaron and I enjoyed the burger slowly.  The salad that came with the meal had a horseradishy vinaigrette!  Hence, the connection between sushi and camel burger.  I also had a mocha and then a hot chocolate (it's rainy, forgive my drink choices), but this is the only place I've ever had unsweetened mocha and hot chocolate.  This is especially surprising since most Moroccan drinks are comprised of sugar with some liquid on the side.  It wouldn't have been Morocco if they hadn't offered us sugar, so we sweetened it up just enough.