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!