Haydarpasa Train Station

The Haydarpasa train station was featured in "Ghost Train to the Eastern Star" written by Paul Theroux. The author is repeating his journey made by train some 30 years earlier. My Nazareth, PA book group is reading this book for our July meeting. After visiting for a few days, Theroux departs Istanbul via the train to Kars, from this train station. Haydarpasa is located on the Asian side of Istanbul on the Bosphorus. Checking the train schedule, the train to Kars leaves every morning at 7:10 a.m. and arrives there 7:30 p.m. the next day. The train station can best be viewed from water, as on the ferry departing from just opposite the exit doors. The current building was completed in 1909 in the Neo-Renaissance style, and has serviced trains going to Baghdad and Damascus.

Inside, arches, stained glass and plaster relief are used.

Before you get on your train, you can stock up on snacks and water.

For passengers terminating at Haydarpasa, you can take a ferry from this terminal to the other side of the Bosphorus, to pick up a train heading to the west or to visit the old historic section of Istanbul.

While in Istanbul, Theroux meets two well known authors; Orhan Pamuk, whose "My Name is Red" is one of my favorite books and Elif Shafak, whose historical fiction "The Forty Rules of Love" about the influence of the 13th century mystic Shams from Tabriz, Persia (Iran) on the mystic Rumi from Konak, Turkey is on the shelf of the Nazareth, PA library.

Tuesday's Market

Every Tuesday, a road nearby my home is closed to traffic so we can have a market or pazar. As some rain was expected for today, the vendors had canopies over their merchandise. I went to this market to buy fruits and vegetables. They are very fresh and the prices are very good. With an Envirosax in each hand, I purchased a kilo of tomatoes, a kilo of apricots, a kilo of cherries, half a kilo of plums, 3 heads of lettuce, a bunch of dill, half of a kilo of barley and two large loaves of bread. All that food was about $10. I had to take a taxi home, as my arms were not strong enough to carry the bags back to the shuttle bus that brought me down from my home on a hill.

Clothing and housewares are also available at this market. I bought a thin rolling pin - less than an inch in diameter. I will use it to try to roll out some pie crust. The rolling pin is about a foot and a half long and is used to roll out a very thin bread called yufka.

Just about everything can be grown in Turkey. In the north, tea is grown. In the south, oranges and cotton grow. Everything else is in between. The fruit and vegetables are very tastey also. My guess is that they are picked once rippened, as opposed to days before.

I'll spend some time washing all of these goodies. I am using a fruit and vegetable wash, which has some suds in it as the first wash. Then I was the suds off with tap water. Then I wash again in tap water with vinegar to counteract the bacteria that may be in the water. It takes much longer to wash than to purchase or eat.

Still Life with Pencil Sharpeners

I needed a pencil sharpener and found at a department store, that you cannot buy just one. Several varieties were available, all in packages of four. So I sprung for the price of all four - the equivalent of 16 cents! Nicely packaged, labeled in Turkish and barcoded on the reverse side. All that for 16 cents, which includes the 8% government tax! Can you guess the most expensive item in the picture? The lime was fairly pricey at $1 for the one lime. Lemons, on the other hand, are quite inexpensive and used liberally in the Turkish cuisine. The lemon cost about 18 cents. Limes are not traditionally used, and in the food store, they were also labeled as lemons. So, the big ticket item in the picture is the sweet potato, priced at $4.37! I did not realize I was buying such a pricey item, until I reviewed the receipt later in the day. And then it was a big decision whether to include the sweet potato in the fish soup I was making for company the next day or not. But no sense hoarding a sweet potato, so into the soup it went.

I also purchased some green glass dishes for the table, to add a bit of color to the room. As you can see, we now have chairs for the table as well as a carpet beneath the table. All set for company. Outside our picture window, we have green hills and terracotta tiles roofs, so I decided to use those colors in brighter hues of light green and orange as accent colors. The dinner was for family and it was nice to see everyone. Only one person tried the fish soup, so as it turns out, I have most of that expensive sweet potato to savour this week as I eat the leftovers!

Did anyone guess the sweet potato as the expensive item? The prize will not be a sweet potato from Turkey, but I do have three extra pencil sharpeners! And yes, the sweet potato price also included 8% government tax!

Enjoy your next sweet potato for me!

Amy

The Church of St. Anthony

I took a walk on the historic street named Istiklal which has embassies, shops and the Church of St. Anthony. The church was open for visitors, so I walked in. The church was built from 1906 to 1911, and opened in 1912. The designers of the building were Giulio Mongeri and Edoardo De Nari in the neo-gothic style. The facade reproduces the 14th century Tuscan-Lombard style. In 1932, the church was elevated to a Basilica by Pope Pius XI. In 1949, a triple electric organ built by an Italian firm was added. There are organ pipes in the upper levels over the entrance to the church. The round windows on the front of the church have blue glass in the center and white outside.

Istiklal is closed to traffic, except for an historical tram that takes passengers from Tunel to Taxsim. There are many fine buildings along the way. I had gotten to Istikal by taking one of two Istanbul funicular trains to Tunel. This train was designed by the French engineer Henri Gavand and built between 1871 to 1874. It is underground and the trains were originally pulled by cables. The length is just 573 meters, but it allows passengers to ride up a very steep hill. It was electrified in 1971. A one way ride is just one Turkish lira, or about 65 cents.

Pera Museum - Botero

I had a wonderful excursion to the Pera Museum this week. They are currently hosting a temporary exhibit of the work of the Colombian artist Fernando Botero. The Pera Museum is housed in a beautiful building built in 1893. It was established as the Pera Museum in 2005, after previously being a hotel. There are 5 exhibition floors to the museum and the Botero exhibit was featured on 3 of the 5 floors. Included in the exhibition was a video of Botero's life, made in honor of his 75th birthday, 3 years ago. Botero started painting and drawing at a yound age. He initially drew figures from the church, as they had the best costumes! The people portrayed in his work are rounded, to enable more space to paint - they are not fat! Series of his paintings in this exhibition include circus characters, matadores, and "after other artists". The painting used for the sign is "After Velasquez".

Replicas of his paintings were mounted on the elevator doors on each floor. I have some pictures of them here. The matador in black is a self portrait. The exhibit continues until July 18th, in case anyone is in the neighborhood.

The Pera Museum also houses permanent collections of 17th to 20th century paintings of Istanbul made by foreign artists, Anatolian weights and measures and Kutahyu tiles and ceramics. I will make another post for weights and measures. More information about the museum is on their website http://en.peramuzesi.org.tr/

Nestle Makes the Very Best...

Water! This is our source of water for drinking and cooking. 19 liter bottles of water are delevered to the house when needed. I successfully called last week on my own for two bottles to be delivered. The supplier uses caller id and knows your address for delivery, so I really only had to say "2 bottles" for the order. Very simple. Delivery is within two hours and right to the door! The water's original source is Uludag, a mountain near Bursa. I have not visited this mountain, but it looks like it should be on the list of things to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluda%C4%9F

Home delivery of water and food are just some of the conveniences of life here.

At the shopping mall, you can go to the banking section and choose from 10 different ATM machines representing all the major banks.

And have you every had the problem of not remembering where you parked your car at the shopping center? Well, here we have a machine mounted on every row of the shopping center parking lot, which is huge. You push the button, and a ticket comes out with your parking row noted as well as your parking level. How convenient is that? You just need to remember too empty your purse of the old ticket before saving the new.

A mezzo Day

Sometimes it is too hot outside for touring. Sometimes is it raining torrentially outside. Sometimes you need to stay home to wait for furniture delivery. Sometimes you need to stay at home to wait for furniture repair. And on it goes.


Those are all good days to turn on the TV to see what's playing. We have a good number of stations that have shows in English. I found an "Ellen" episode taped just before Thankgiving 2008, "Martha Stewart" taped just before the movie "Road to Rodanthe" came out, and "Jay Leno and the Tonight Show", just two days old. Since I never saw any of these shows the first time around, they all seem new to me.


I am happy to see that we have Eurosport in English, which shows a good number of tennis tournaments. They are even showing tennis matches with the World Cup Football (soccer) tournament going on now.


The best TV channel by far is called "mezzo" and it must be from France, as all the advertising is in French. "mezzo" features classical music and dance performances. Most of the performances are from European festivals or concert halls. Again, all new to me, as I missed the original performances.


The workers (workers always come in pairs) who came to replace the chipped leg on the living room chair must also like 'mezzo' the best. Their eyes were glued to the violinist in the red dress the entire time. Fortunately, they could multitask, and the chair is as good as new.

Bye for now,

Amy

June Flowers

Fishing

Wherever there is an empty space without a "no fishing" sign, there are fishermen. Here are some fishermen on the Galata Bridge, on an overcast morning. The black smoke in the air is from a ferry or multiple ferries pulling out from the landing nearest the oldest historic district in Istanbul. There are several ferry lines that stop at this landing area, so it is always busy with boats.



Further north, there are fishermen near Emirgan. They use huge poles and each line has up to a dozen hooks. They are catching small silvery fish, which glisten in the sunlight. I did see a fisherman pull out his line with about 10 of these small fishes on the one line. It was a beautiful sight that I was not quick enough to catch on the camera. In the distance, you can see one of the two bridges that crossed the Bosphorus. This is the more northern bridge, more commonly known as the second bridge, as it was built after the first bridge.

And the tradition is extending to women also, as I spotted some fisherwomen trying to catch a little something for dinner. Eating fish in Istanbul is a treat, as it is always fresh.

Bye for now,

Amy

Today's News

Today's original plan was to visit the fortresses

opposite each other on the Bosphorus. In Ottoman empire days, these fortresses were linked with a chain at night to keep ships from passing through without paying the toll. I can see both sides from my apartment, so I thought I would walk to each. The fortress on the Anatolia side is not as extensive as the one on the Rumeli or Europe side. The walk to the fortress on my side of the Bosphorus took 50 minutes. With a bright sunny day, I was wilted by the time I got on the ferry to cross.




The ferry crosses the Bosphorus and docks at the ferry landing in Bebek (baby), which has a large natural harbor. Fortunately, there is an empty V shaped path of water for the ferry boat to get in and out. Bebek has some nice shops, including a couple of western coffee shops, and still wilted, Starbucks pulled me in for an iced coffee. I browsed through today's paper, the Radikal. Browsing for me consists of looking at the pictures, of which, there are many in Turkish newspapers.





Lang Lang is in Istanbul for a concert tonight for the Istanbul Music Festival. This is useful knowledge, as I did not know there was a music festival going on. Will try to find its website to bookmark. I have no hope of going to tonight's concert. Dilbert was featured early in the paper's pages, and I am sure it was a funny one. They always are.

Ads are always colorful. And as you can see watermelon is in season. The price equates to 14 cents per pound, in case you cannot convert the Turkish Lira to US dollars and the kilos to pounds.

Often there is some foreign interest story in the paper, and the pig in boots from London made the news today. We just had two very heavy days of rain, so we can all relate to his predicament.

After my coffee, I walked 20 minutes toward the fortress and did not quite make it. I will try another day when I first ride to the ferry, rather than walk. I returned to the Asia side by ferry and stopped in a local market to look for heavy things to carry home. I was going to take a taxi home, and that's the best time to carry the liquids. I wanted some vinegar to use in cleaning fruit and vegetables. And, of course, I did not have the Turkish name for it with me, so I hunted. It was not near the oil. It was not near pickled vegetables. I thought I was close when I was in the juice section, but no, that was fermented carrot juice. Well, I eventually found it, right next to the pomegranate sauce. I got some of that, too. And after getting home, the word on the bottle I did not understand means sour, so sour pomegranate sauce. It has a consistency of cough syrup and the bottle says it can be used on a certain kind of meatballs, a certain kind of soup and fruit and vegetable salads. After tasting it, I think it can be used on a congested throat, also. And for my vinegar, I chose the apple over the grape.

Hope you have a good day, also!

Istanbul Modern

The early morning ferry down the Bosphorus was a pleasant means of travel to get down to the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, also known as Istanbul Modern. Here is the museum as I passed it on the ferry. In the background on the left is the famous Galata Tower. After passing the museum and docking, I walked past the local police station housed in a beautifully restored older building with not one, but two vintage Chevrolets nearby. My day was to have a third Chevrolet a little later.

Outside Istanbul Modern, an exhibit, titled "Rusty End" by German photgrapher Thomas Radbrush, was exhibited on a long wall of the parking lot. 29 photoes of old cars from car dumps of different countries were displayed on a plastic type canvas that can handle weather. The rust, funghi, and colors gave the pictures a modern surreal look. Very impressive!!!

Inside the museum, were exhibits by Turkish modern artists,and photography is not allowed. I did sneek one picture of my lunch - chicken Ceaser salad, which was a work of art in itself. Beside my salad is the small notebook given to me my Laurie, in which I am recording artistic impressions.

One of my favorite paintings exhibited in the museum, is Hikmet Onat's "Morning
at Topgartepe", painted in 1956. Onat was born and lived in Istanbul and painted this and many other paintings along the coasts of the Bosphorus. More about him and his picture are available on Vikipedia http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikmet_Onat . I was able to purchase a print of the painting in the gift shop and now it is hanging in our dining room.

On my way home, while waiting for the ferry from Arnavutkoy,
I saw this mint condition powder blue Chevrolet with two actors

being filmed. I do not know if this was for a movie, TV show or advertisement. I do know I will not be in any shots as an extra.

All for now,

Amy