Hamam Stuff

Our sweet friend Müge gave Burak & I the coolest (and only!) anniversary gifts ever from Bodrum Havlu - robes and peştemals (loincloths used in Turkish baths) that are so soft, so quick drying, so absorbent and oh so sooo wonderfully luxurious:

These got me thinking that I could get similar things for Alexis' wedding gifts when I go and visit them in October. I am looking online, but have already found a couple of stores in İstanbul that sell similar products. Let me know if you have any suggestions as to what to get for baby Hannah (almost 1.5) and İlayda (will be 3) as gifts as well.

Adventures

We leave for Bodrum on Thursday. We'll be taking the Sea Line boat, and the cruise will take 24 hours. It was always a hassle bringing the car to Bodrum, so it will hopefully be a practical and cheap considering the gas prices and finding a driver, arranging for his return to İstanbul etc. Anyways, more details on that to follow soon.

Here's a wonderful addition to the stuff I have to face every day, I got stuck in a bathroom stall this past Sunday. I think it tops my "most embarrassing moment" to date - that was when I got stuck inside a size 4 skirt in a clothing store two years ago and had to ask to manager to help me get out. I wear a size 8. Don't ask.

So I go to use the bathroom in a farm where my cool friend Pelin was having a birthday party for her daughter Mercan, Tunca's classmate. The minute I closed the door, the handle broke and I was stuck. Everyone was busy with presents and food and kites and all I could do was just sit on the stall and laugh at myself.

What would you do if you were stuck in a bathroom stall?

Climb on top of the wall, and jump to the next stall, right?

After cleaning the partition of the cobwebs and dust the best I could (what? I was wearing a new outfit) I climbed up, and being the chicken s*it that I am, was now, successfully, stuck on the wall, nearly 8 feet high, afraid to jump down. And there were spiders. And dust. I could totally feel all my allergies going crazy, and just as my hands started breaking out in hives, I saw the guy who was barbecuing right in front of the bathroom.

- Umm, hi, can you help me? I got stuck?
- Yeah, that door handle is broken. (You tell me that now? NOW? I know it's broken. You should have said something when I asked you where the bathroom is you a*swipe).

And with a quick step into the womens bathroom, he opens the door to the stall.

- Well, can you please call my husband? I can't get down. (I've climbed and I can't get down. Yes.)

Burak comes, along with Tunca, who has to pee right then and there, and before any attempts to bring me down, he attends to our wonderful son, who is screaming with laughter at my situation saying "look at mom, look at mom, perched up there like a bird" over and over.

Anyways, Burak brings me a chair, and holds me until I slowly lower myself down. I am so lame and unfit and a coward. With the "stuck in a skirt" situation, I know that I won't even have to see that store manager or the two saleswomen who tried to take the stupid skirt off of me, and they will not know my name and maybe they are laughing at me during their holiday parties , but hey, they're strangers.. With my wonderful family, the "perched on a wall like a bird" comment is likely to continue until I do something even more stupider.

Magic Words

My friend, Ahu, seems to be having a tough day.

I sure wish ViaLetter had ultra mega super fast express service so she could decorate her snazzy new apartment like this:
And then use ViaLetter to send whomever pissed her off a nice little package that contains the letters, K, R, E, and J. Figure it out.

Friends will be Friends

It's time for all our friends living abroad to make their way to Turkey right about now. Mid-July - August is when we get to see people from our past, people who were our "best man" in our wedding, people who bought their first houses and invited us to see it first, people who still live "over there" - some enjoying their dreams, some yearning to come back.

So Thursday, we went to a surprise birthday party in NuTeras. Asyak is a gorgeous friend we met a few years ago - and her husband Sarp managed to get 20+ people together to surprise her. We went to Mikla by mistake at first - no it was Sarp's fault - he told us to meet at Mikla!!! My dad babysat for Tunca, we had a great time, apparently so did they.

Here's Asyak in all her beauty:
We spent Friday evening going to AltınKek for cake & lemonade for Tunca, then walked over to the beach to watch fireworks, very common during weddings in Turkey.

Saturday evening we were in Köşebaşı with my cool friends Pelin and Tolga and their daughters Mercan and Şiraz - Mercan goes to school with Tunca - Pelin & I went to the same middle school for about 4 years.

Sunday we were in Village Park with Cem & Pınar & Duru, then drove around Beykoz looking for houses. At night we went to Feriye for dinner with Burak's sister - I think that restaurant has the best view I have ever seen in the Bosphorus.

We actually spent the whole weekend eating. And with friends. It doesn't get any better than this.

edit: we got an email from another friend, Cüneyt, Sunday evening saying that they're all here in İstanbul as well, so we met them in Reina for drinks and dinner. Cüneyt was Burak's "witness"/best man in our wedding, Gökhan and Selen are one our oldest friends, Seyhan (sans her husband Burak) and Süreyya and Karen were there for a wonderful blue cruise back in 1997... We all see each other (maybe) twice a year, and life goes on, yet things to talk about never cease and our friendship seems to survive the thousands of miles between us all. Süreyya and Karen's son, Morgan, the "firstborn" to the whole group, was there as well and has truly grown up to be a gorgeous, kind, smart and polite young man - so mature for his age.

Sweet Home

When we moved into this apartment 7 years ago, we had a hard time going to sleep because it was so quiet. For many years, we lived in Midtown Manhattan, then for our last few months in NYC, we were on the Upper East Side, very close to Memorial Sloan Kettering and another hospital whose name escapes me. We were so used to the ambulances the clanking of trashcans the fire trucks the police cars and pointlessly loud and yelling people that for our first few nights in İstanbul, we were surprised to hear boat horns in the mist and stray cats and seagulls, whereas our mornings were filled with birds chirping and freshly cut grass.

The "ful" flowers in the garden smells sickly sweet in May and when we wind is blowing just right we even feel the salt from the sea just a few blocks away.

It's hard to even imagine moving. Though moving is the best way to get rid of stuff. My next project: clean the storage in the garage and give everything away so there'll be space for the bikes.

ps.; Karaoke night was awesome.

Breaking All The Rules

As I was reading CoolBroad's "10 Things Not to talk about at a cocktail party " I realized I have basically broke all the rules while we were having dinner with some friends last night. Wonder whether they'll ever call again!

1. Politics; When a friend spoke of checking the eyesight of a famous politician, I immediately had to say "you should have punched him in the eye right there." Hm.
   
2. Religion; "I had not one way of explaining to my child what my religion was, I only said to him that he will figure that out for himself and I'd be more than happy to provide him with necessary information during the process. When he's older, like, 13."
   
3. How gifted and talented your kid is; OK guilty as charged - "why, he DID learn how to ride the bike in just a day." Extra credit: "the guitar lessons have worked wonders on him - he can strum to tunes now." Liar. Bad lying mama!
   
4. How much you just paid for something; "The new bike? We paid x liras." Yours was?" We paid 6 times as much. But I sorta eased out of the situation by stating that ours also flies. Eeek.
   
5. Someone else; I think I passed on that. One point for the good etiquette.
   
6. Taxes and Death; Death was talked about. I didn't bring it up but told of how the kids' school handled the death of a student.
   
7. Your kids (excessively); But that's what we have in common!
   
8. Your pets (excessively); Passed on that as well. Though the lobster issue did come up once.
   
9. Your uber-cool job (excessively); Ha! I can never ever talk about that because as you all know, I don't have a job. If mothering counts, take off the points my friend!
   
10. How much you dislike something; Had to talk about my (non) experiences with cooking and being a "housewife" in general. That's a part of my character. No points deducted (in my opinion).