OK – I’ve done a bit of traveling the past few years and never have time to write about it. I brought my laptop and the internet connection was down for a bit in the hotel and it gave me the time to write each night in my hotel room. IF YOU ARE BORED about my wanderings – STOP HERE ! Otherwise - This is about my trip from xmas to new yrs (12/23/2005 to 1//2/2006) to Istanbul, Turkey.  Because of the pictures inserted with the text it may take awhile to "load" into your computer (& if using AOL with "no images" checked, you won't see the pictures unless you "uncheck" it.  It's about 17 written pages & a number of pictures that I thought were appropriate for the text .... A typical “Bazaar” sales shop: 12/23rd (Friday) – day went okay. Took some work with me, packed what I thought I needed. Before I left I tried my wireless laptop connection and in the middle of a page it stopped working & hasn’t worked since.  I’ve tried everything – it’s definitely a virus is all I can think it is. Which really really sucks. [post-vacation note – it wasn’t a virus, but a correctable software error. I HATE computers!] The two or three nights before we left I got nearly no sleep, trying to work like a crazed workaholic.  I called Marcelle to see what was doing with her.  She was telling me something and after awhile I told her I couldn’t talk anymore & had to go. She said goodbye as if she understood my time constraints.  More on this later … We got to airport – the right one, for a change! [Yes, I’ve gone to the wrong airport – 2 yrs ago, to London, for T-giving weekend. We went standby and got to London a half-hour earlier]. We went thru TSA really fast and had the time to sit and have a beer.  This is NOT going to be a dietetic or non-gout vacation.  We then had to wait because the plane didn’t take off on time (surprise? Like they ever do?).  When they finally boarded, I went thru the place where they take your ticket.  Marcelle was a little slower going thru the check-in gate and was a few people behind me.  I’m not happy that she’s reading a book about the Holocaust (and the name Hitler is on the cover page in big letters) while we are waiting. We are flying Lufthansa and I don’t want to call attention to her choice of reading material. She yells across the crowd to me that she was worried that the guy had also taken her thru-ticket for our stop-over in Germany (Frankfurt) to Turkey.  I yelled back “Not now” (what I meant was, when we are in our seats, we’d look for the Frankfurt/Istanbul boarding passes and if he did take it, I’m sure we’d get a duplicate).  Well, we got to our seats in the middle of the plane.  It was one of the wide bodies with 8 across – 2 on each side & 4 in the middle. I’m waiting for this old fat black lady to put her stuff in the overhead & I say out loud to her “I’m sitting in this aisle, next to you”.  She replies “I see you waiting, I’m not blind”.  I’m thinking “how lovely, 7 hours next to this bitch”.  I sit down. Marcelle sits down with a guy next to her, on her outside (4 seats across in the middle of this really large plane and we are in the middle).  Marcelle turns to me and tells me she is upset with me. She felt that I was too curt with her on an important issue. I look and find that I had the tickets for the next leg of the flight and she had the tickets for the luggage.  She then tells me that I was wrong in saying “not now” so curtly as to cut her off; I was wrong in hanging up on her in the middle of a conversation on Thursday night; everyone she knows, she’s told them I’m a (fill in an expletive).  Now she doesn’t say this to me quietly between us.  First the fat old black lady says something to her.  Then the stewardess comes over to verify that we are together & I’m not a stranger (OK, I may be strange, but not a stranger) that is harassing her somehow.  Then the steward comes over to her to ask if Marcelle is okay and what is her problem and if she wants to move to another seat or leave the plane! Then the kid sitting next to her moves (with the steward’s permission) to another seat.  And Marcelle is berating me loud enough to temporarily drown out the dueling babies that are wailing at the top of their lungs in a contest “Who can drive people on this plane batty from little kids” about 4 rows ahead of us. And let me tell you, these kids could yell (I think there’s a rule that a crying and screaming baby be on every plane ride that I plan on sleeping on). I’m reading the newspapers and looking for a hole to drop into because I’m so embarrassed by the carrying on.  I see no reason in responding to her vitriol, so eventually we all pass out.  We are awakened to the plane personnel handing us, unsolicited, what may have passed for a sandwich.  It used to be (we think)  ham and cheese.  I felt for the cow and pig.  I don’t think a single person on the plane ate it. Some may have used it as a notepad to write on. And we also were given blueberry yogurt (must have been the pilot’s favorite flavor) that no one liked.  They announce that we are not arriving at the gate that was planned, because it was the other end of the airport and we’d all miss our connecting flights because our flight was so delayed.  The Stewardess is called over by the black fat old lady to ask if she’ll make her connecting flight to Athens.  The stewardess goes to ask another stewardess if she knows this, when the pilot starts announcing “rebooked” flights for some of us.  The lady screams at the stewardess’ (who are trying to HELP her) to shut up, she can’t hear!  What a pleasure.  And all night, wherever I put my feet in front of me, she’d push them with her fat legs. OY!  So restful.  Not! We land and are told that about 15 of us have to travel 10 feet or so from gate 63 to gate 61 AND they were holding the flight up to Istanbul.  So we have legs and run and make it.  All 15 of us.  Luggage doesn’t have the legs of us lucky 15. Yup…… Now it’s Saturday, Dec. 24th – I THINK … Without Ms. Fat old black lady, I’m out cold on the next leg of the plane flight (despite the baby across from us).  We land and the pilot apologizes for a delay in our flight, due to the heavy SNOW that is falling. We head to the luggage carousel. Why did we bother?  Finally someone starts calling out names. The Frankfurt 15.  We head into the lost and found, for Marcelle to say that she can’t find the tickets for the luggage (she DID find them 2 days later in her bag).  She is ballistic again. I explain that they’ll work around it.  It seems that it was the first snow of the year for Istanbul. They get about one or two a year.  It snowed in our honor? Must be because we arrived there. Then they tell us the luggage is in Frankfurt and will get to us eventually.  Marcelle wants to go home; and at this point, I can see why she isn’t a happy camper. She’s going on about how WARM her friends are, having gone to Florida for Xmas break.  Maybe she has a point in being upset. I tell her that it’s a G-d send – it forces me to go shopping for her.  She doesn’t buy it.  We start looking for Lufthansa to book her a ticket home.  She finally calms down, begs me to forget about her explosions and “move forward” (I’m guessing that means we’ll be shopping in Istanbul until the clothes arrive) and we get a cab to the hotel. She and I got along fine from that point forward. Our hotel was the Bartolo Eresin Hotel.  It seems that Spaniards just bought this place.  It was a 3 star and is now a 3 & half star on the way to a 4 star.  Seems the difference in price and stars is the old real estate adage “Location, Location, Location”.  It’s about 15 to 20 minutes from the heart of everything. Otherwise, its really really nice (Okay, our windows open up to the back of the hotel & we can see run-down apartments. So we keep the curtains closed and both us really loved the room).  We take a nap & decide to eat in the hotel dining room. Yup, we are the only ones not dressed decently (well, for me, my tee shirt and “Big Dog” pajamas that I wore on the plane were quite decent).  We are seated next to an elegant older couple (him in a smart looking sports jacket and her in a dress) who spent a year in Albany (he taught chemical engineering) and six months in Charlotte.  Their daughter was in Las Vegas at the moment.  Charming couple.  They made small talk at first and then he said to ME: “You look Jewish”. OY I replied!  The meal was awesome.  We loved eating some things. Wish we knew what they were.  We asked the waitstaff. Guess if they spoke English better, they’d have told us.  We went upstairs and agreed to forget about the issues Marcelle had with me and her response. We went to bed. The Blue Mosque: I THINK it’s Sunday, December 25, 2005: After 15 hours of sleep, we guessed it was time to get up. Concierge told us to take a tram (busses on an overhead wire, like S.F. or Boston trolleys) to Sultanahmet (or something like that). After asking several people, we gave up, got on the tram and after two stops, saw that the stop we needed was also written in English (for tourists). It was in the other direction. Got off, changed platforms and went to the correct stop. It’s about 3 blocks from where we were going. We stopped in a dive and had a lite snack. Stopped to admire a tourist junk store that had lots of stuff I really liked but didn’t buy. Guy that was standing next to me looking in the window and talking with the owner asked where we were from. He has a carpet store in Sarasota, Florida and comes back to buy carpets periodically. Looks at me and says “Happy Holidays – not Christmas – ‘cause you look Jewish” !!! OY again. Guess I can’t pass. And this is BEFORE I start speaking. Marcelle is safe (no-one guesses she’s jewish). He wishes us a great vacation (they are ALL really nice). We continue walking and I see a place that sells SIMM cards for my phone and has internet service. Marcelle goes out for a smoke and is near a Laundromat. It’s cold. The Laundromat guy comes out and asks if she wants to smoke in his store, to avoid the cold. The internet café guy insists on checking out the SIMM card on HIS phone to make sure it works before he gives it to me (I left my phone in the hotel) at no extra charge. We start walking to the “Blue Mosque”. Guy sees us looking hesitant and comes over to us and asks where we are looking for. I tell him Topkapi Palace. He says we are walking to the Blue Mosque and should continue, it’s a better place to go at this time, because they aren’t davening (praying) at this moment and we can get a better view of the place. Keeps walking with us. Once inside, he tells us every detail – how many tiles, minerets, etc. Shows us the head Imam (high priest, rabbi) of the place. I’m getting nervous. Keeps taking to us like he’s a tourist guide. Tells us he has a part-time carpet store if we are interested. I look at the time & realize we don’t have much time (nearly everything except the Mosques and Malls are closed on Sunday). I ask him if it is true that Istanbul has the largest Mall in Europe. He glows & says “I’ll take you there – I’m heading in that direction”. He says “we need a cab”. We flag down a cab. The cab goes down a deserted street and stalls out. I’m nervous. He says we should all get out. I’m more nervous. Seems this deserted street is a cabbie hangout. We flag down another one. When we last saw our driver he had the hood up and was saying something in Turkish to his cab. I don’t think it was nice words. We continue on in the new cab with this stranger. While it’s stuck in traffic, we find out that he’s divorced and when he isn’t selling carpet, he’s a part-time tourist guide with a bus, etc. He then says that his girlfriend is ALSO Jewish like I am - he tells us this without our volunteering anything about us (his name is Ali). Gives us his cell number if we want to hire him as a guide. Tells us how comfortable his tour guide van is, etc. Gets us to the mall. We give him $12. I get a lecture how I should watch my pocketbook. From a stranger. Oy again. The mall has to be seen to be described. Beautiful. Each “area” or “section” is for a specific type of merchandise. For example, the furniture section; electronics section; appliance section, etc. We do a lot of walking around. We see a Cineplex. Playing King Kong in ENGLISH with subtitles in Turkish. Everything is closing. So we saw King Kong. In the movie, Joe Black says “you look like a size 4”. In the subtitles, he’s saying “you look like a size 36”. Cute. Apparently their sizes aren’t the same. Oh well. Movie ends and we follow the crowd to the subway, which has no maps. We give up and walk outside. Flag down a cabby who doesn’t speak English (except “Thank you” and “A Little”. Ask them – any of the residents of Istanbul – if they speak English/Spanish/Any Language. The response in is always the same – “A Little” – those are about the only words they ALL seem to know!). We explain we want to eat in a nice place on the way to our hotel and it seems everything is closed. He has a menu in his car of a good fish place. We say okay. I’m so proud of our job of charades. I don’t know WHO left the menu in the car. We get to the Blue Mosque and he pulls over at the cabbie hangout and calls someone over. The guy speaks English and tells us to get in his cab. We say no. Seems our cabbie didn’t know DIRECTIONS to the restaurant of the Menu that was in his OWN car. After a bit of haggling, the other cabbie agrees to jump in the front seat of our cabbie and direct him. Now we’ve got TWO strangers driving us someplace. After awhile we notice that he’s made a complete circle and then drops us off in front of a place that looks open and is NOT the same name as on the Menu. Seems they BOTH couldn’t find the street. After I paid them, they were in front of the place and I could see them both arguing with each. Wonder if the English speaking guy realized that he wasn’t getting back to his cab if he kept it up. Oh well. We walk in and the place is deserted. We go up a flight of stairs to a room that is empty but there is deafening music from the 3rd floor, above us. The owner comes down to explain. There’s a wedding that is having their PARTY on the top floor, but we should stay and eat. Service that was impeccable. Food that was awesome. Great wine. Fish and more fish. Marcelle doesn’t like full fish, so the guy filets her fish for her in front of us! Hey, we had fish (seafood) for our Xmas dinner. Maybe it is the Italian influence on us in Staten Island. Because of the wedding, we had a choice – what they gave us or nothing. No menu available. Apparently the cook was making one dish fits all. Fortunately, it was GREAT. However, they insisted that we have our tea or coffee ONLY by joining the wedding party upstairs. Women in short skirts dancing with women with shetls (head scarfs) and men. Nice wedding dress. One guy was wasted and kept dancing by himself. IF looks could kill, his wife wanted to be a widow. She sat there with a really pissed off look. I saw the wedding bands and realized that when he wakes up tomorrow, he’s going to get a second headache from her. Oh well. The band was really great musically and the singer had a nice voice. Everything of course was in Turkish. Unfortunately the owner insisted we have dessert – after having dessert downstairs. I’m going to explode. Hopefully our pictures of the band and wedding party folks will come out. It’s 8 pm NY time (3 am here) so I better go to bed. The Blue Mosque (named for the inside tiles) from another view: 12/26/05 OK – so I toss & turn until 4 am here (9 pm in NYC).  I finally fall asleep. Next I hear the announcement over the loudspeakers from the 1300 or so mosques in Istanbul calling all Muslims that it’s time to daven (pray).  I look at my watch & it’s the noon call. OY!  We jump up and get going.  Today it’s the “Grand Bazaar”.  Built over 500 years ago, it was the first “mall”.  Today it has 3600+ vendors – mostly the same items repeated endlessly.  Enough leather that herds must die daily just to provide the stuff for this place.  “chatchkas” (junk for tourists) abound.  Every five feet someone stops us to offer us something.  “Come into my store, best BLANK” in Turkey.”  We move on. We see some funky jewelry. A pendant and earrings. We bargain him down a bit and buy it.  He then directs us to one of the in-door restaurants, where I have an eggplant stuffed with pieces of flanken (flank steak) and potato with cheese topping and baked. Marcelle had a mixed grill, with one piece being meat stuffed with cheese. Incredible taste (though not exactly kosher).  And of course, endless tea.  They sell small expresso cups of coffee that I’m told look like mud and are nearly as strong as doing cocaine.  I don’t drink coffee.  The majority of people I see are drinking little demitasse cups of tea. Either “Turkish” which appears to be a strong regular tea, or “Lipton’s”.  So far I’ve seen more tea drinkers than coffee drinkers. Somehow Lipton’s seems to have cornered the market in Turkey – or at least in Istanbul – every shop.  After several cups of tea and a dessert for me, we move on.  We pass one store that has Chanukah menorahs in front for sale.  Seems there’s about 20,000 jews in Turkey, mostly in Istanbul.  This store owner (jewish) and his Muslim employees were well-versed in Judiaca.  Had tons of beautiful paintings, jewelry boxes, and silver stuff imported from Iran and a bit of stuff that was done in Turkey.  Seems the 30,000 jews left in Iran make this stuff and export it to Turkey, since not many jewish tourists will be visiting Iran or buying their stuff in a country whose President has called for Israel to be wiped off the map.  A couple walks in to the store. They are Jews from London.  They explain how, because of the non-Turkish Arab Muslims, if you want to visit a Turkish Syngogue, you need to make an appointment in advance and give your passport number so they can verify it for security reasons.  He gives us the telephone number and tomorrow we’ll call.  We buy way too much dreck (tourist stuff) and drink more tea and have more dessert and then move on to the hotel and a long nap. 12/27/05 So we decide to get up early.  We did – 11:30 AM!  Putting in some heavy sleeping time on this trip.  We got off the trolley two stops before the tourist area in search of …FOOD! Oy, are we eating too much.  The Halvah is in several varieties and dirt cheap.  About $2.00 for a lb and really really fresh.  We walked around and saw store after store selling leather – coats, shoes, belts, etc.  I honestly can say that so far leather in Turkey is more noticeable for sale and use than in Argentina (when I was there).  Just as cellphone stores and tailor shops (want a suit mister?) are everywhere in Hong Kong, so is leather in Turkey.  Also enough Pashmina Cashmere stores.  AND FOOD!  We ate in a small off the beaten track place.  Marcelle is in love with the “mixed grill”. The Obelisk:  We then walked some more and then visited the Egyptian obelisk that Turks brought to Istanbul in 3 AD, when the obelisk was already over a thousand years old!  At the time the Turks had their own culture and religion – neither Christian  nor Muslim.  We also saw another monument from 4 AD.  I try to imagine the workers who made this – I wonder if they stopped for a moment and wondered if their work would survive the test of time.  Who could have imagined that their work would leave Egypt and end up in Turkey, or that 3000 years later people from Staten Island would come to stare at their handiwork because it has become a major tourist attraction.  Imagine, if you can.  Next we walked from Sultanahmet (where these things were located) two trolley stops down, to the spice market. On the way we were stopped by the dozens of shills.  One was nice & suggested we see a 1500 year old underground water system (Cistern) that was a big tourist attraction.  We thanked him and did.  It was worth seeing. When we got out, he was waiting to take us to his family’s ceramic store.  The young girl that took us thru the massive store was incredible.  Pleasant, polite and everyone in the store kept offering Turkish coffee and tea for free.  Had to buy something (jews are  big on guilt) and so we did.  They suggested we head to the “Spice Market”.  On the way we saw the same stuff we had “bargained” down and bought in the Grand Bazaar – but a lot nicer looking and for a lot less!  So much for my bargains.  Every shop has a shill trying to get you inside to buy.  We succumbed to some.  They all sell FOOD – referred to as “Turkish Delight” - mostly stuff with honey or nuts.  Since I’m nuts over honey, we bought too much.  Walking back we hit upon a tourist restaurant and ate and drank more. Efes is the beer of Istanbul.  Not bad. Not great.  Back to hotel after eating more.  We’ve got an 8:15 bus tour tomorrow and we haven’t left the hotel before noon yet. Sophia Church/Mosque/Tourist attraction: 12/28/05 Got up way too early. Met the bus. We were the first stop.  Picked up some more people and drove to Sultanahmet to start our tour.  It was supposed to be a half day tour of Byzantine Istanbul.  Like I just wrote “supposed to”. OH well.  Our first stop was the Church of Sophia.  The 4th largest church in the world, it was built around 1400 years ago and was an awesome looking church.  Then along came the Muslims and they converted the church into a large Mosque.  Rather than spend the time chipping away the paintings and frescoes on the walls, they plastered over them.  When all Christian paintings were painted over, the mosque was complete.  Of course our tour guide put the “spin” on it and said that rather than take the time to chip it away, because they were so tolerant a people, they merely plastered over the paintings to preserve them and not deface them. Obviously (in my opinion) a false self-serving statement, but I’m not about to argue with our guide. Then we went for a 3rd time to the large “Blue Mosque” next door.  From there we were told we would learn about the Ceramic industry (very very large) in Turkey.  We were brought to this guy’s connection and given a very brief history of how they make ceramics and would we like to see and buy their stuff.  From there we were shown where the Hippodrome was set up by the Romans and where the Chariot Races were held.  Much of it has been destroyed due to housing construction and other office structures built on the site.  Sort of like NASCAR wanting to come to Staten Island now.  Then we were told we would finally learn about Turkish Carpets.  We were brought to a large store where we got a great lesson about the different carpets and then given the usual “what would you like to buy” that made me feel uncomfortable.  From there it was supposed to be the Grand Bazaar and back to the hotel.  Instead, we left the tour.  We mentioned to the carpet guys that Marcelle’s prescription sunglasses had lost the screw on one lens, which popped out.  They insisted on sending one of the kids working for them with us until he found an Optical store - even though they knew beforehand that we wouldn’t buy anything. Typical of what we’ve seen of their hospitality.  The optical store owner asked for a Lira (about 72 cents) to fix the glasses and put in a new screw.  We mentioned that she wanted a case for it.  He grabs the glasses and fixes other parts of it and gives us a case for free (we give him another Lira anyways). Typical from what I’ve seen of these Turks.  From there we go to eat (of course).  After which we grab a cab to Neve Shalom, the synagogue that has been bombed twice and lost 23 people during Sabbath services.  You have to fax your passport in advance for them to check it.  Then they make an appointment.  We got there and they were the absolutely ONLY people of all the people we’ve met in Turkey that were rude.  After ringing the bell and having someone reply in Turkish, we finally saw a security guard that was on her way to her shift who came over to us.  We were told to give them our passports again and wait.  Then we had to go thru the airport-style metal detectors and then through several metal doors into the synagogue.  No one should have to live like that, but to be a Jew in Turkey, this is what it has come to.  I cannot think that Fort Knox could have been any harder to get into.  Once inside, it was “okay, you are in” and were left to ourselves!  We wandered about.  Some guy saw us and put on the lights in the synagogue part and asked us for a donation to the shul for doing so!  We saw them preparing for a Bat Mitzvah – their catering hall was really beautiful.  Marcelle pointed out how all the guests had to go through metal detectors, searches, etc.  What a way to go to a party.  After wandering around the place unattended, we found one of the two security booths with the half dozen cameras showing the outside.  We asked to leave.  They opened one of the doors, gave us our passports and walked back inside. When we couldn’t open any other doors, we rang the buzzers and one of them came outside and escorted us to the street.  From the street you would never know a synagogue existed on that street.  It is in the “electric” district.  Every other place on the block (& for several blocks around) were electric related shops (i.e. lamps, light switches, etc.).  No one lived in that neighborhood any more. (That’s the street in the above picture – the yellow building is the outside façade). From there we flagged down a cab (lots of them) and told the driver we wanted to go back to Europe (we had crossed a bridge to Asia).  He didn’t speak a word of English, but we somehow communicated (I challenge all comers to charades after this trip!) and he drove straight to where we wanted to go.  He did know the word “traffic” and make a face.  Seems every city in the world has TRAFFIC! Asia & Europe together: We got to the Spice Market.  The first booth we stopped at was to look at scarves that were being sold along with spices!  (I got about a pound of fresh cinnamon tea which the vender vacuum packed).  The guy looks at us and asks Marcelle if she is either Russian or Spanish.  Nearly everyone has guessed Spanish for her.  He then looks at me and says “And you, of course, are Jewish”. OY !!!  My face must be some give-away.  He drops something on the floor behind him and I pointed it out.  He then says “See, if you were Christian you wouldn’t say anything & I would step on it and ruin it.  But Jews are businessmen so you all have consideration”.  Shame.  It’s a left-handed compliment.  People are prejudiced around the world.  They have to hate someone.  It appears in Turkey they are still fighting the Crusades and mostly like Jews. Why can’t everyone in the world just hate my ex-wife and love each other?  We continued through the market and ended up buying a Turkish version of “head cheese”.  Instead of aspic, they put tongue with bologna.  I got some. Marcelle went for a nice piece of cow’s tongue.  We got some gruyere and saw a guy selling sesame covered soft bialy or bagels.  Delicious with fresh squeezed cherry juice for me and pomegranate juice for Marcelle.  She never ever had had pomegranate juice until now and loves it. I have a jacket with 4 pockets – 2 on each side, one deep and one shallow. I call the office while in the street. We run to the tram and as we do so, I put the phone in the wrong pocket – the shallow one.  Get off the tram and to our hotel room. I cannot find the phone. It is gone. Either pickpocketed or it fell out of my jacket.  So now no phone, no computer internet in the room and I’m eating too much. Lovely. After I use the hotel computer for awhile to learn about the office (not good stuff) we go out to eat.  Too much food once again. It’s 5 pm in NYC but midnight here & I’m tired. 12/29/05 Decided to get up early – like 3 am. Unfortunately that translates into 10 am here in Istanbul.  By the time we got moving it was 11 am and I was NOT moving out of the room until I could at least get my computer working since I had no cellphone and using the business center’s Turkish keyboard was driving me nuts.  We waited about 45 minutes for the computer techie of the hotel to come by and tell me that their system was down and that was why my internet connection hadn’t been working!!!  The front desk didn’t know – OY.  So then we waited until he got everything working and we left for Topkapi Palace.  We are staying in the Topkapi area – which I booked online to be near the Topkapi Palace.  Seems the area was named AFTER the palace, but is no where near the place. Oh well.  We really like our hotel, though it’s far off the tourist area (across from a holiday inn and another hotel so I guess lots of tourists like us stay here in error).  We take the tram (trolley) for about 10 minutes and get off to eat at “Sultan’s Pub” – a tourist trap.  Service sucks but the food is good (as is too usual here).  We finally leave and it’s raining – the first day of rain despite “weather.com” saying rain for every day of our trip.  At least it’s the warmest day, in the mid to high 50Fs.  We get to Topkapi Palace to find it closes at 5 pm and it’s 3:30 already.  We buy a ticket and walk around.  Awesome place.  The kitchen service has been preserved.  Most of the dishes were from either Ming Dynasty or earlier – the Sultans liked imported Oriental stuff.  Afterwards we decided to go to the Mall where we saw King Kong.  We flagged down a cabby and told him the big new shopping mall.  He took us over the bridge into Asia and I fell asleep.  I woke up an hr and a half later, stuck in traffic and barely able to breathe.  Smoking is ubiquitous in Turkey – in restaurants, all public and private places except hotel rooms by request for tourists, etc.  The cabby was getting nervous and cursing the traffic.  We had already spent 40 Turkish Lira (30 bucks, approximately) and had no idea where we were except we weren’t heading towards the same mall.  He said another hour at least – he was taking us to another mall !  For what it was going to cost, we could have flown there.  We literally told him to “pull over now” and left his cab.  We saw a Tram and got on.  Got off at a Metro stop – thought we’d try the subway system.  I saw a phone place across the street.  They were a cellphone repair place only.  They said (in German – they spoke no English but I took 2 yrs of German in College) to try around the block.  I saw an “international calls” place and went in to call my office. As I did so, Marcelle needed a bathroom.  One of the people in the store insisting on walking her to another store that had public restrooms.  They are really incredibly polite here.  My office was doing it’s standard job of flipping out with calls from clueless clients that want to close yesterday and can’t understand that no title agency can accommodate the impossible.  Everyone calmed down after a few conference calls and peace was made.  Marcelle came back from the bathroom smiling.  We then continued and saw a small cellphone place.  No one spoke English.  We played Charades and I got exactly what I asked!  A used phone with charger and SIMM card for about $45. (60 Lira including 100 minutes on the SIMM card).  A phone apparently costs the same as a taxi in traffic!  I asked the guy in the phone store (in charades) for a really nice restaurant and not the zillion dives that were in the neighborhood (including several Russian ones and some that were barbequing entire lambs on a spit in front of their places).  We really were doing well with Charades and understood each other in the cellphone store. As is typical, the cellphone guy asked someone to watch his store and escorted us to an awesome place.  Called “AKSU”, it was 3 or 4 blocks from the Akasay tram stop.  The service was impeccable.  Marcelle said it was one of the cleanest bathrooms she had been in (& she’s been doing her share of checking them out).  They asked our language – they had at least 4 or 5 different menus – English, Spanish, German, etc.  I had a grilled whole fish that was beyond excellent and she had lamb baked in philo dough.  We had multiple drinks beforehand and tea and dessert and appetizers.  The entire meal, which was one of the best we’ve had so far, came to $45 (yup, the price of a cellphone) and in Turkey they tip 10%.  They added it to the bill.  I insisted they change it to 15% and they refused!  I insisted before we left and they took the extra 5 Lira.  We grabbed one of the last Trams of the night for 4 stops to our hotel and told the concierge about it.  He photocopied their business card (which we took) as he himself couldn’t believe the price, service, different menus, etc.  But for the cabby driving us to China (at least headed in that direction, since we were in Asia with him) we never would have found this lovely place. Cellphone in hand, and immediately in my ear for much of the balance of the night, we continued to our room to await the next days’ adventures. Ministers’ Meeting Room at Topkapi Palace: 12/30/05 Got up with the help of an alarm clock.  Went to Topkapi Palace. On the way we stopped for morning tea (Chai).  It was one lira per glass. In the hotel it is 6 lira. Every tourist place rips you just like every other city in the world.  I can’t really describe the place properly.  From the Harem with it’s 300 to 500 concubines, to the incredible opulence of the place.  They make you pay extra to visit the Harem COMPLEX – rooms for schools, for the mother of the Sultan, rooms for black and white Eunuchs who were the only men allowed to hang out with the women concubines, the place that the favorite women of the day hung out waiting for the Sultan to do them and hopefully get pregnant with a son, the various rooms added by each successive Sultan, etc.  Tiles behind belief.  Apparently wearing pants that looked like baggy pajamas was in style from day one of their Empire up until the 20th century (though they did get smaller after 1826).  (Maybe the fact that I love to wear “Big Dog Pajamas” at work means I have Sultan blood in my DNA! After all, Esther was a concubine to a Sultan before she became a Queen and we had the holiday called Purim). Even the rifles on display had inlaid ivory or bone for the regular militia – opulence and flash seemed the norm for this Empire.  There was the physician’s room – the note in front said that it was required until the 1700s that the Royal Doctor be Jewish – even then, apparently a nice Jew boy living in the Empire could have his mother yell at him growing up, to become a Doctor!  After the 1700s non-Jews were allowed to become the Royal Doctor but only if there were Jewish doctors as assistants. OY!  I can see in the middle 1500s the women sitting around the Mikva saying “My son? He’s a nice Jewish Doctor. Know any nice Jewish girls?” OY & OY. The Harem Courtyard: There was a Circumcision Room where the Princes got it chopped when they hit around 12. No wonder these leaders weren’t smiling in any portraits. Seems when they found a young boy that was intelligent from a civilization under Ottoman control, they would chop his nuts off and make him a Eunuch – which was a position of great power.  Me? I’d trade the power and become a peon if I could keep my family jewels. Hey, what do I know? There was a religious relic “kiosk” (large separate room).  It had several rooms. In one was a tooth of Mohammed, hairs from his beard, his footprint preserved in concrete or mud and his sword.  Also a letter that flipped me out badly.  It was a letter from Mohammed to the Coptic Christian Community in Egypt.  He wrote to them that if they would be kind enough to convert to his religion of Islam, he would treat them wonderfully and respectfully.  If not, he’d kill them.  Such is the writing of the guy that founded Islam.  That and his sword explains a lot.  I recall as a kid a story that one of the reasons that Moses wasn’t allowed into the promised land (Israel) was because when the people were without water, he told them to watch and instead of speaking to a rock and asking for water, he took his staff and hit the rock to get water.  G-d was pissed that he used violence as the means towards the end and punished him.  What a difference in outlook.  The main word in our language, Shalom, has dual meanings of Hello and Peace.  When we have to fight, we fight.  But our religion more or less says, “hey, if you don’t agree with our ways, you are welcome to observe your ways, as long as it doesn’t interfere with our observance”.  Quite the contrary in Islam.  When Israel was founded in 1948, Jordan and the Moslem clerics controlled the Wailing (Western) Wall of our old temple.  Jews were not allowed to come near it.  When Israel won the 1967 war and took it (& the Mosques above it) from Jordan, we immediately allowed the Moslem clerics to continue to control the Mosques and allow Moslems to worship in them – even to the point where they threw rocks down on Prime Minister Sharon and other worshippers at the Wailing Wall.  Our culture and religion is based on pluralism, on respect for peaceful neighbors even if they differ from us, but this room at Topkapi Palace had me realizing how narrow-minded the strict interpretation of Islam really is (or at least was).  Though there are groups of Moslems that follow our way – most of the Turks in Turkey.  What a tolerant and polite people they were to us (of course if we were Kurds or Armenians, I wonder if they would still be so awesomely nice).  They are the only reason I didn’t come away from the Palace hating all Muslims.  The pamphlets about the religious kiosk room claims that they have Moses’ staff and Joseph’s hat in another room, out of the public’s eye. Hey – ain’t that ours to at least see? We left the Palace and took a bus to the City’s 6 stop Subway (Metro). Then took it for two stops (looks like a newer version of the English Tube) to the mall that we were in previously.  Walked around a lot, amazed at the cleanliness of the place.  The food court on the top floor was a riot.  A Turkish Restaurant with lamb dishes and then McDonalds. A Turkish Restaurant with bread stuffed with various strange foods and then next to it a KFC.  A few Turkish sounding places with weird looking lamb and other foods on their menus – next to a Burger King (with no Onion Rings on their menu!). NEARLY Everyone – (it seemed that) at least 90% of the people in Turkey smoke incessantly.   So we are sitting and eating dinner while I choked.  I must have inhaled enough second hand smoke on this trip to equal a year’s supply.  We leave and take the Metro back to the bus stop.  We get in line for them to stamp our “Metrocard” (Long term monthly transit pass).  Several people point out that we need the daily single ticket line.  The guy stops selling his tickets to explain what bus we should take that is direct to our hotel.  It’s pouring out and he stops everything to tell us.  Typical hospitality in Turkey.  We get on a bus and mention to the driver which hotel we are staying. He stops the bus by the hotel.  It is NOT a regular stop – he stopped just for us.  No one minds. So typical of these folks. Back to the room – I’ve got a cellphone and Internet connection for my laptop.  Who could ask for anything more? 12/31/05 We get up too late, as usual.  We run out to the tram.  Not sure what to do today.  There’s a 2 pm boat ride and a 1 pm “around the city” Bus tour with audio headphones describing each stop.  Decisions, decisions. We decide – we’ll go eat lunch.  After lunch it’s 12:30.  We decide to go on the bus tour. The kiosk person tells us it’s 50 YTL (new Turkish lira – about $39.).  He also tells us that we can “hop off, hop on” at designated stops, but that since it is Saturday he only has one other bus, so if we hop off, we have to be back on in 2 hrs. We have a choice of the “open” top part or the bottom.  We bundle up and head upstairs.  The kiosk person tells us we can head to Dolmabace (pronounced Domabache) Palace – the place that the Sultans moved to when they outgrew Topkapi Palace!  We can do one of the two sections in two hours and get on the next bus.  We head out.  We pass the Palace at breakneck speed.  The audio works fine in German, Turkish and French but not English.  We stop at “Taksim Square” – the Times Square of Istanbul.  The driver does not speak English.  There is another guy at the stop, waiting outside.  He explains that the English sound system is down; that we had to have told the kiosk person to tell the driver or he just doesn’t stop.  We weren’t happy.  We got off and wandered about the Square.  This was obviously the better section of town and it showed.  No grime on the outside walls at all.  After 2 hrs we got on the next bus and drove around the outskirts of Istanbul for an hr & a half – I guess we saw stuff, we just weren’t too sure what we were seeing as we drove by!  We headed back to our hotel and called the same place we had eaten in, Aksu, for New Years Eve reservations. They confirmed with the hotel concierge that there would be live music, dancing and belly dancers.  Not a word about price.  They said festivities start at 8 pm but show when you want to. We showed up and were given a regular table in the local part of the restaurant.  When we finally made it clear that we had made reservations, we were transferred upstairs. There must have been a party of 30 from Bulgaria. The men were rather poor looking (Marcelle & I agreed) but the women!  All were really well built and thin.  Marcelle and I decided that with all the cigarettes that these Europeans smoke, they had no time to eat food, and hence, were thin.  There were people coming and going all night in and out of the restaurant.  We couldn’t figure it out.  They had a different singer each hour to join the keyboard player in some Turkish tunes.  All the men danced with each other.  Two of the women got up to show how they can gyrate their bodies. No belly dancers but these girls could qualify. I have videos. Amazing.  I was getting very seasick watching their posteriors move.  I kept moaning and saying “Oy”.  At least I told Marcelle I was seasick J.  The men were doing a conga line around the restaurant. One tried to teach me a few steps and I gave it a brief shot.  One got Marcelle to try and she also gave it a brief attempt.  We drank and ate and then drank some more. The  bill was the smallest I’ve ever spent on New Years Eve in decades and more enjoyable (to both of us) than much more expensive ones in the past.  One of the owners or maitre’d (we couldn’t figure it out) was named “Gino”. He wore a zoot suit and walked around hugging and kissing everyone. He seemed to especially like kissing my bald head every time he walked by.  He gave us some free wine and pistachio nuts at the end of the night.  We have videos of him leading the waiters around the room.  Our waiter changed into street clothes after midnight but hung out to dance!  When we decided to leave at 2 am, we asked one of the owners/bosses where to get a taxi.  In typical Turkish manners he insisted on walking out with us and finding us a taxi and telling the driver where we were headed and telling us how much the fare would be.  Very typical of what we’ve seen.  Going to bed at 4 am was not usual for us, but our clocks are so screwed up, it doesn’t matter. New Year’s Toast: January 1, 2006 I told Marcelle we should get up early.  Of course we didn’t.  We got to the area for the boat trip around 2:15.  The boat leaves at 2 pm.  So we had lunch instead.  Then we headed for the newest mall, just opened two months ago.  We took a bus to Taksim and then took the subway. Told to go to the Levent area.  The last two stops are “Levent” and “4.Levent”.  Seriously!  Not exactly sure of the difference, but we got off the wrong stop, walked around a fairly deserted commercial business district and saw the “modern” side of town.  Then we got back on the subway (“Metro”) to the other stop and found the mall.  Almost “yuppie”.  Since everything is basically closed, the people head to the mall.  The stores were about 30% names from any upscale mall in the USA, but again, they position the stores so all the menswear stores were together; all the electronics, and so on.  There was Burger King and McDonald’s and Schlotsky’s Deli !  And Sultanahmet’s Donner Kebab.  There was Chinese (Marcelle loved the Hot & Sour Soup) and a double-baked potato – free toppings.  There were Muslim women, some with scarfs and some with the bedsheets sitting among mini-skirted Muslim Turkish women, all smoking (of course) and eating Deli !!! Oy doesn’t do it justice (so I’ve got the pictures): January 2, 2006 Before we go up to the room we ask them for a wake-up call around 5:10 AM, as we unfortunately have an 8:30 am flight.  As we pack, I decide to tidy up the room.  As I look at the garbage pail (next to the desk where I had the laptop and all of my stuff), in it is my “lost” or “pick-pocketed” cellphone!!!  When I took my coat off, it must’ve fallen out and on the floor and since the cleaning girl/guy never emptied the pail in 9 days, it stayed there.  I then went on the Internet and found that the Turkish cellphone I had bought (used) for $30. ($15 for the SIMM card) which I used with difficulty since I had no menus to read, all of the phone’s writing being in Turkish, was also sold in England and I downloaded the manual and converted it to English.  Now I have TWO international cellphones (and about 260 minutes of talk time in Turkey!).  My (originally priced at) $300. phone is not gone! Not only that, but on the internet I saw that the Jets and Giants won and the Net have won 7 straight.  A good start to 2006 indeed. We are both over-tired and don’t go to bed until well past 2 am, Turkish time.  I roll over to see how much time I have to go back to bed.  It’s 10 to 7 am!  They forgot to call us.  I jump up, wake Marcelle and shout “Here we go again”.  We both wash up, pack and get our luggage into a cab.  We check out of the hotel.  We are told it is a 30 minute drive to the airport. The cabby says “Don’t worry”. Now I know how it feels to drive in a Nascar event. At the curb we meet a porter. We explain we are late and wave Lira ($) at him. He then takes us to the preferred check-in.  By 7:35 am we are at the Gate and told there is a delay.  We made a check out of the hotel, hailed a cab and got thru customs in 45 minutes, but our plane leaves an hour and a half late.  Last few times I’ve had the same problem – thinking I’m not making the flight, rushing and after barely making it, the flight is delayed.  We arrive in Frankfurt with an hour before our flight.  The gate person tells us to be back 40 minutes before takeoff.  We wander the duty free area.  We decide to buy something with one person ahead of us in the line. Between waiting for them and Marcelle needing a restroom, we get to the gate as they are boarding the last bus that takes you to the plane.  They rush us thru and then we wait at the bus. Waiting after rushing. Again! Aarghh!  On board and home at last. Our plane arrives and we walk to the baggage claim area. We wait and wait. Now you have to understand that seeing as everyone has solid colored luggage, at Busch Gardens in Tampa last year I bought a set of beige animal-patterned luggage. Looks gay – actually I don’t think gays would go so campy. But my luggage can’t be missed! Eventually my two bags arrive, but not Marcelle’s solid black luggage.  She does her best attempt at recreating the cool, calm and collected Marcelle of the Istanbul luggage claim area.  I send her outside, where my friend Richie is waiting for us, so I can file the claim without her threatening to blow up all of Germany or at least Lufthansa or something like that. Not sure exactly what she was ranting about.  They swear they have her luggage – hers is still in Frankfurt.  After 2 days, they finally deliver it and the trip officially is over. Observations:  All of the insides of buildings are in decent shape, but no one cares about the smog that has made every building in the older part of town and nearly all the mosques, etc. into a grayish-black mess on the outside.  Nearly every person under 60 does NOT wear a hat – not a baseball cap or anything. If you see a hat, it’s a tourist. No matter how cold it is outside.  Generally, most people are my height – i.e. not too tall.  We saw very few tall Turks and the entrances to the older buildings reflect this fact. No problem for me!  Every place I look, they are selling fresh squeezed orange juice, most places also sell fresh squeezed pomegranate juice, pastries, sesame rolls and skewered/sliced grilled meats.  Leather abounds. Everyone smokes every place non-stop and no one seems to wear sneakers to walk around – with leather so cheap, everyone wears leather shoes.  Very few women wear high heels (as opposed to Japan or Cuba where nearly EVERYONE including elderly folks did).  Hospitality and manners – people immediately get up from their seats on the tram if an old man, woman or someone with a child comes aboard.  They serve tourists like their lives depend on it (which it may, financially) but somehow it seems like everyone goes the “extra” yard in being nice to tourists for no reason.  The average “joe/ahmet” dresses plain, but the only sweats and tee shirt person that I saw in the entire time we were in Istanbul were on my person!  Everyone says they speak “a little English” and most of the time, they are telling the truth – very little!  But they are always trying to help you.  I met one person that wasn’t nice.  I was buying two bus tickets back to the hotel and gave the kid selling the paper tickets, wearing a ski hat and looking about 16 years old, 3 turkish lira for a 2.40 lira fare.  He refused to give me back the change and said he charges 3!  The only bad mannered person in Istanbul, Turkey, that we found. Figures that he was a young kid with a hat and an attitude. I almost felt back in New York. If I bored you – you shouldn’t have read it!  If you found it interesting and may visit Istanbul one day, I’m glad to have been of service. And if you are just a “yenta”, glad I gave you some gossip on how my last vacation with Marcelle went.  Get even with me for writing such a long story  – tell me what’s doing with YOU and I’ll be GLAD to read it !