etc. etc.

My daughter pointed out that I had used the wrong picture for Steve's dip in the sea, it was one of the balder guys. Here's Steve emerging from the sea like Venus on the half shell, only hairier:


Then there's the issue of the hotel bidet. I'm not a rube, ya know, I've seen my share of bidets. But this one is incorporated INTO the toilet, instead of being a separate unit. Steve took a picture. There's a lever on the right side for water.

Today's posting is more like a flogging than a posting, because I've been behind! Slog on, go to coffee and read more later!


On Saturday morning we got up at 5:30 to go down to the sea and watch the sunrise and then a few people, including Steve, dove in. The water is a shock at first at this time of year but is still warmer than the outdoor pool. Turns out the sun didn't rise until about 6:30 but we were there at 5:30. Bad pic but proof of Steve in sea rather than a bad picture of the sunrise:






The weekend then flew and dragged by. We had a bus tour with guide on Saturday. Steve was the ONLY one of the group who elected not to go. He doesn't like planned tours. He missed an interesting but long day. I offer this picture of our group of women: Iraqi, Palestinian, American, Belgian, and French. The men add Czech and Chinese to the mix but that picture is in another's camera.


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We drove an hour to the first place and beside each ruin and waterfall there was the ubiquitous market of crap and tchotchkes. Here is a link to the sights we saw, must be the typical tour bus tour. Perge, Aspendos, Side (C-day), http://www.adiyamanli.org/aspendos.html The pictures will be better than mine if you can wade thru.

Even tho this is not the high season, there were several full buses at each stop. I can't even imagine the horror of tourist season!!

The longest walk was in the old city of Perge, an ancient agora (marketplace - this is where Steve's agoraphobia comes from...)) and walked and walked and walked, it was hot and I got a little wrecked but carried on. I got an arm to lean on from many people. We always had the bus to get back to, very comfortable and everyone had their own double seat.

Here's Sidney eyeing a cat at the amphitheater in Aspendos.( All the cats we see are strays and are so tiny and baby-looking, unlike our overfed feline children.)


a couple of the students at well known waterfall, Manavgat: Mohammed and Mohammed.(!)



We made a stop at a huge jewelry store. For more than 5,000 years, the people of Anatolia, the part of Turkey that comprises the peninsula of Asia Minor, have been crafting and wearing gold jewelry. Today, Turkey is the world's fourth biggest market for gold jewelry, its third largest manufacturing center and its second biggest exporter, according to the World Gold Council, an industry group. I lifted that from the web. I would have said "Turkey is famous for its gold." We were immediately swooped upon by slick, friendly, articulate men and women. I casually mentioned that I don't like/wear any real jewelry but that I might look at a very simple wedding ring, since Steve and I had never exchanged them. Ooops, I named a price I wouldn't go above, was brought a very simple band whose price in euros was way more than I wanted to spend, and it miraculously (with tweaking of a tiny calculator) was brought down to a price in dollars I could deal with. Items here are either in euros, Turkish lira or dollars. The experience of being whisked into a private room, given chai (their plain but strong tea, not spiced like what we call our chai tea) and charmed by a stunning, 35-ish Indian man, raised in Kenya, educated in England and now swindling tourists in Antalya, was more than I could cope with and Viola, I have a simple wedding band. And his email address. We're such good friends now.

I am also sure that the tour guide gets a kickback from every purchase made.

A bunch of us we went into Antalya old town yesterday. We took the bus and Steve was able to participate in the handing up of the liras. There were mosques and minarets and gates and ruins but I really get bored quickly and more prefer to watch the people. After seeing a few sights, we simply walked the streets. They are lined with shops ( mobile phone, photo, optical, clothing, carpets, all repeat every few yards) and then the alleyways are lined with more shops, each with more souvenirs and especially knockoffs of e.g. Prada, Dolce and Gabana, Dior, Tommy, you name it, clothing and purses. I am told by a hotel person that Turkey is known for these knockoffs, they are made in Turkey, not China, and are well-made and a fraction of the "Rodeo Drive prices!" Do I want any of these items? Yes/No. (There was a cute leather Batman jacket I would have bought for my grandson but the knock off price was $380.)

We went into a couple of carpet shops for a quick peek. My mother has told me repeatedly since the inception of this Turkey trip almost a year ago that I would be "a fool" not to purchase a Turkish rug. So we landed in this shop, started talking to the congenial owner, who began throwing down carpet after carpet, unrolling them with a flourish, on the floor. I wanted a rug in front of my sofa, something more modern looking. I didn't like anything he showed me. Then he unrolled a rug I did like, of course he was playing with me and it was much more expensive. Blah blah blah and much negotiating and I offered a price he didn't take, we began to leave the store and he suddenly went berserk, "get the fuck out of my store, you can take your fucking money and get out of here, and much more anger and cursing ensued and followed us down the little alley. I was afraid he was going to radio ahead and have a compadre shoot us. We escaped, and mom, I'm not getting a rug. Not yet, at least.. Then we had some apple tea at charming small restaurant veranda, the ower asked if we wanted to do some nargile, the Turkish water pipe tobacco smoking, and we had a tour of the cistern they use for the water. Suhair, our Arabic friend, (Steve's translator) said most houses have one built in underground.

I am so happy to meet Suhair!


Then we had a great lunch and came back by a lurching taxi, no lanes. I needed a nap and it was dinner, some time on the bike in the gym and bed.

Today, Monday, Steve and his group got to work, Sidney took off to town to get a shave and a haircut, and I signed up for a Turkish bath at the hotel. It might have been a bit more authentic in the old town but I needed the reassurance and safety of the hotel where someone at the front desk spoke English. My skin hasn't been this smooth since birth. You get naked, lie on a heated marble slab and have very, very warm water thrown on you for a while. Then you are left for 5 minutes to brine. Then you get slathered with bubbles and water and treated to a tingly scrubdown, all over, I mean all over. If I had any cellulite before, I don't now. I had expected some huge loofah but it was a thin, scratchy mitt. A massage, tons more bubbles and a hair wash (unexpected) and you're done.

More on the hotel. Here's what we have to put up with every day in the "lounge." But this one, Petra, has become a friend. She's Dutch and speaks very good English. Even tho she's not wearing the requisite pointy-toed shoe/boots, she's a stunner with long legs. The Marlboros she smokes recklessly, in front of her darling 3 year old child (see rabbit). The wallet pays for the (at least) 6 cappuccinos and wines she imbibes in the lounge every afternoon and evening. Child (Ricky) is in the hotel room with a baby monitor.



Each breakfast and dinner presents us with many opportunities to see gorgeous, young women. Some look pretty tacky, some look beautiful, but most are very trendy. I am not the oldest or only slob here but I do need all new clothes.

I'll try to write a little bit more often! I wouldn't have missed this for all the turkish delight (candy) in antalya, but I'm ready to come home.

It has quickly become Friday in Antalya

I haven't posted since Sidney arrived. He was glad I showed up to pick him up, nothing like a friendly face in a new town. Then he was sick a day or so, jet lag combined with perhaps a bit of flu.

We took a mini bus to the old town of Antalya. One of the main street boulevards. There must be a trolley but we never saw it.
Walked around, saw a few sights and had a bite to eat and then the adventure began. We got on the bus for home, it was VERY VERY crowded. Interesting fact - people enter in the middle of the bus and then, in order to hand their money up to the driver, it has to go hand over hand over hand to the driver, then he starts the process in reverse to hand back the change. Very polite.

After about an hour we thought we might be on the wrong bus and asked a woman who happened to speak English. "Oh, you are on the complete wrong end of Antalya, you'd better get out here." We got out and immediately another mini bus came barreling along with its door open, crashed into a garbage bin and knocked the whole door off. Everyone had to pile out of the bus while the driver picked up the door, stuffed it inside and headed off. It began to rain and Sidney held his umbrella over a young woman with a sleeping child in her arms. We finally got on what we thought could be the correct bus (I'll save the suspense, it was) and it now became darker and darker and we were still driving, with many people and fogged windows and trust we would ever see the hotel again and yelled out the hotel name to the driver, who said to get out "here". "Here" was a pile of mud and we had to cross the busy highway to get to the hotel, I crossed myself in thanks, and we walked in. Not until I got to the room did I realize we'd tracked mud all over the clean white foors and the dark blue carpets in the room hallways!! I change my shoes and reported the infraction to the reception people and within minutes the carpets were being cleaned and the floors mopped. I assume we were not the only mud people, ever.

While in the old town we visited a restored old home fromthe late 19th century here. Very, as you'd expect, Turkish, with people lying around with a Black servant, beautiful stone courtyards, which they poured waer over to keep it evaporating and cool during the hot summer.





Pottery from the era, only interesting because it was labeled "sugar bowl."





The Hadrian's Gate (or Hadrianus Gate or Üçkapılar (meaning "The Three Gates" in Turkish)) is a triumphal arch which was built in the name of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who visited Antalya in 130 A.D.
Here is Sidney looking casual

Quiet afternoon

I changed my picture from the one in Paris to one from yesterday and it came out too huge but can't yet figure out how to change it, so forgive my EGO looking pic until I smaller it!

Met a few of the students, some speaking limited English and others speaking quite well. At lunch there were all these videos of burning cars (not sure of the orign) and one guy said, "nothing unusual for us." I wanted to scream but that's not the way a Canadian would behave...

Going to the airport tonight with yesterday's tour guide, who offered to pick up Sidney, who had a 5 hour layover in I'bul. After he recovers, maybe we will do a few things outside of the hotel that I can't do by myself.

I forgot to add a picture of only a tiny portion of the dessert area of the dinner buffet.

Monday morning

Today bloomed bright and so sunny I have to close the blinds to write! Now that the 24 Iraqi men and women have arrived (some not until 3 a.m. this morning), the training is underway and there will be fewer pics until I get out and around with Sidney. My first impressions were of the borg-like white attendants (thnk mental hospital) and the white white white surroundings but with careful walking I've come to almost enjoy everything. It's VERY comfortable, the staff is uber attentive and sweet. A woman just knocked on my door, said she was a floor supervisor and, after a bit of language difficulty, I understood that she was SIMPLY checking that there was an umbrella in my closet. I asked if she would come every day to check this and she smiled and said, "No."

Here's what is left on the bed after cleaning:

Beautiful Sunday on the Mediterranean

Last night's movie wasn't in regular theater seats. Oh, no, they, of course, had to be in white lounge chairs and deck chairs. Bags of popcorn were given at the door. English with Turkish subtitles, of course.


And here's dinner in the all red restaurant!






Today we went out for a driving tour of Antalya, mostly, it turns out, to see ALL the VERY fancy hotels lining the shore. It looks like Miami Beach. Here is Thamir, our congenial guide, in our hotel lobby..err lounge. It turns out he is Iraqi, Turkish mother, Father was a general in the Iraqi army and he married a Turkish woman and moved to Antala because Istanbul was too darn cold! (I got all this info from him in the first hour by asking him how he came to live in Antalya - the company's guys who had met him previously hadn't known any of this. I ask questions!







A gorgeous waterfall into the aquamarine blue Med!!


And Soon Seng and I are at the beach behind the hotel





See our hotel behind me:


More tomorrow! The Iraqis arrive early this a.m. and the training begins in earnest. My friend Sidney arrives from Boulde tomorrow to hang out with me!
Karen

It is 3:30 Saturday afternoon here, POURING POURING, I mean POURING rain, like we never get in Bellingham, and nice and cool, after a muggy morning. My comfort range is pretty narrow: 68-70 degrees, so I felt a little warm this morning, not sure what the temp was. My patio door, with the requisite white lounge cube on the deck, is open and I can see the beautiful people on the treadmills and bikes in the workout area below. We switched rooms this morning. The people in Lux who set up the hotel for Steve's training probably thought I might like a HC room because I walk with a cane. I don't really need one and the huge rails around the toilet and the shower that was just a seat in a square with a drain was awful. The great room with the view of the Mediterranean was going to be $65/night more so we couldn't do it but we do have a peekaboo view from the edge of the patio! And the advertised in room wireless Internet is not free (as it was in Prague). But I am not going to be w/o for 2 weeks while Steve is working, so we paid up.

I haven't yet been out of the hotel and it has taken me all day to figure out where I'm walking (yes, mom, carefully) in the labyrinth hallways (hey, I have 2 weeks) but tomorrow we're getting a tour of Antalya from (Steve says)the charming father, our age, of the kid who met us at the Istanbul airport with our tickets to Antalya.

There's a happy hour at 5 and a scary Halle Berry/Bruce Willis movie that I normally would never see but, whatever,at 9.

Now it's 6:30, we're getting ready to go down to our first trendy dinner!

More soon.

Mom, Did you know you can make picture bigger by clicking on it?

Picture of Steve and Pavel setting up for their training, just so you know he's working:




Pictures of room, lava lamp is just so daring, and help me pick a name for the goldfish:

Antalya Hotel, OMG WIERD WHITE WILLIES

I was sad to leave Prague, of course, I was just learning my way around the neighborhood. It always takes me a few days before i feel comfortable. And I was learning to walk diagonal on the cobbles, a little easier. :) It was SLEETING as we got to the airport.


Flew into Istanbul and our flight to Antalya was 1.5 hrs delayed, so we sat around (with Pavel,40, a Czech and Soon Seng, Chinese,from Malaysia, only 28 years old but already an expert in something they need.). I had my first turkish coffee, MEDIUM, they call it, pre-sugared and stil very strong. Macho man ordered it full bore and it was DENSE!

Got to Antalya late, were met at the airport by the hotel bus and the white willies began. White bus, white lobby, desk clerks, etc. all in white, I'd read about the silver disco balls hanging in the lobby and the beautifl people lounging and kanoodling on the many, many white chaises in the lobby. Steve thinks they may be models hired to lounge. Room is all, EVERY bit stark white, a goldfish swims in a bowl. It's 12:45, I'll put this and me to bed and write more tomorrow.

I have never seen a bathroom mini-bar before. The toothbrush is $11:


Dark picture of me lounging in room:

Just a quickie before we take off to Antalya

Here they are actually building NEW cobblestone walkways EEK but tamping them down with yellow machine and adding sand to level




Reading last post, I see I left off saying why I see so few gimpy people. It's definitely because of the cobblestones...:-)

I forgot to send these pretty pics of that new mall - I know it seems like I'm not sending the tourist pics but I've seen all that last trip and this trip I've just been trekking towards that new mall and back, for exercise, enjoying seeing the locals, old an young, and laughing at juxtaposition of the old, old statuary adorning every building and then the ads for bottled water or lingerie! I love hearing the sound of czech spoken.

Offline and loving it (and hating it!)

These are the cobbles in the lobby

Well, I've been off line since my Wednesday morning. I have been almost apoplectic but, really, why?!!! I am so used to being instantly connected to news, email, and now, when he is away in his Prague office, to Steve on IM in his office!!! But I've been doing much more reading than ever!!! And there's always CNN, which shows the same news over and over and over and over :-) . I walked out this morning to explore a bit more and found a gorgeous crisp day, the best we've had in 4 days here, tho I barely got back, as I got weak-legged (my knee buckles) after only 1 1/2 hours out. But proud that I got back, as I took a slightly different route and felt lost for a minute! And I have to add that in my 4 days of walking around I have seen one wheelchair, one elderly man with a cane and one young man with forearm crutches for an apparent broken leg. I think the reason I have so rarely seen "crips" in Europe

The cobbles on the street that eat my shoes

Steve came back to the hotel at lunchtime and finally figured out that it was NOT the hotel's wireless fault but my damn computer's wireless card!! And he has now bought me a wireless hub that can be plugged into my USB port, which should have m up and running for our whole Antalya trip. I'll post this my Thursday evening, when he gets back.

Speaking of CNN, I don't have CNN at home but it's not as international in the states as it is in Europe/Asia, is it? Because I get all of my news normally from Google, I'm not used to all these "in-depth" stories about e.g. Pakistan/Bush's (ex?) best friend Musharaf's state of emergency, the school shooting in Finland, news of Japan, and even the fabulous ads for Greece, Montenegro, Tunisia and even Turkish airlines. They all seem so exotic and culturally diverse. I just watched an interesting piece about "gat," a drug-like leaf chewed in Lebanon, (story was in Beirut) , for at least 8 centuries and is seen by many as the cause of umm, ongoing malaise in the general population.

Here's a funny note and you'll be glad you read to the end: I could get no email at all yesterday so couldn't respond but at lunch today when Steve brought home his computer so I could check my gmail account, I found a mail from our Boy from aBroad, Mark Harfenist! He was letting me know that he was taking a train to Prague today (from where, Mark?) to catch a plane to Stockholm and would have ONE hour, could we try to meet up!? Now, had I actually gotten his email in time, I doubt I could have figured out how to get to him anyway, but wouldn't that have been a fabulous picture!!??

Off to Turkey tomorrow.

Prague, the good, the bad and the ugly

First, I want to make a disclaimer: While it may appear from words I may write that I'm a grumpy curmudgeon about my lot in life, I'm realistic about my physical limitations and not upset about any tourista restrictions I face. I can't walk far, I have to miss lots unless Steve and I rent a tandem AND I DON'T CARE! I came with Steve to be with him when he is not at work. And I WILL have many new and great adventures and experiences.


So, after a wonderful time with our 18 month old in Pittsburgh and a rockin' 42nd mini-h.s. reunion, we arrived in Prague yesterday afternoon. All went very well on flights from NY (LGA) to Atlanta and then on our non-stop from there to Prague we had to go straight back up thru NY to get over the ocean to Prague! Seems like a silly waste of time but we were on Delta and Atlanta is their hub. Got to our hotel, , Steve took a nap for 2 hours and then took off for the office. I tottered out for a look-see. This hotel is in a different location than last spring's hotel (near Fred and Ginger, remember?) so I'm trying to get my bearings. The hotel entrance, inside, is all jagged cobblestone s, my nemesis! Steve thinks it must originally have been a driveway? Outside, more nemmies. I must befriend them, so will call them nemmies instead of nemesis. The sidewalks are smaller, walkable cobblestones. The cobbles on the streets, where you have to cross, are all just about the size of my feet, so unless I step very carefully, I slip in between the cracks, arrrgh. This makes for too cautious crossings, looking down the whole while. Mind you, I am not complaining, just trying to give you a picture of my time. I walked along a street, tried out a few shops and promptly fell off a step I didn't see. Two very nice young couples came to my rescue, picked up my cane and were very sweet, making sure i was on my feet before leaving. I was mortified.

Came back to the hotel, where I spent the rest of the day until Steve came home after work. We went across the street to a resturacea/bar with good reviews online. ICK! It was small and the hostess LITERALLY chain-smoked the whole the time. But the duck was FABULOUS!!! And made up for our ashtray aromas.

Then we walked to a brand new HUGE mall with many, many $$$$$ boutiques (I recognize the names but haven't had the chance to be in most of them!), trendy and less costly C&A and H&M, and Marks and Spencer, a Brit institution like Macys. We were mainly looking for a toilet and Steve's not more than a window shoppper, if that. Came back for a game of snooker on the telly.

Today I again walked out, decided NOT to look down at my damn feet and promptly tripped into a "chasm!" I decided to watch where I walk and enjoy the beautiful and OLD stones. I am fortunate that my hotel has wireless in the rooms and I can write and Google myself senseless.