Uncle Paul in Istanbul, Day 6, and others

Been a bit quiet around these parts lately, no? Well, I haven't been too diligent about my blogging duties, but I plan to pick up activity on the Four Corners from now on. You may remember the World's Coolest Uncle, Uncle Paul, provided a recap of he and my Aunt Elena's trip to Istanbul last November. I posted up to Day 5 back in January, but then things were interrupted by my own trips to Bangkok and Australia. Well, now I am here to finish up the rest. Its good stuff, and reading about Istanbul is always a treat.

Before that though, here is a link I came across in the NY Times, a list of the top travel destinations for 2012:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/travel/45-places-to-go-in-2012.html?pagewanted=all

Regarding my recent jaunt to Buffalo last weekend, nothing too much to report. I had a great time, saw a number of friends I had not seen in quite a while, and Da'Von, my room-mate during our study abroad in China, was a great host. We did drive around some parts of Buffalo I had not seen before, mainly upper-class areas dotted with old homes cheek-to-jowl with each-other. Despite the awful weather in that place, and the (still) depressed economic climate, Buffalo is a lovely place with many places worth giving a look. Maybe I am biased though, having spent a memorable four years there.

One other thing, should be watching some movies this weekend, so be on the look-out.

Now back to Uncle Paul:

Next up: cruise day for the Rick Steves group.  We took a tram, did some walking, and ended up at the S.S. Ricky Steves for a cruise on the Bosphorus Strait.  It wasn’t actually called the “S.S. Ricky Steves,” but the tour did charter a nice boat just for our tour group.  The cruise was a pleasant, fairly low key way to spend the day.  We sat outside on the deck of the boat, but though the sun peeked out regularly, it was pretty chilly.  Elena and I eventually went into the boat’s cabin, which was warm but still had a great view.  Taylan was in the pilot area narrating the tour on a microphone.  We first rode along the western, European side of the Bosphorus, seeing a lot of nice neighborhoods and beautiful buildings along the Bosphorus, including the Dolmabahce Palace, though I also enjoyed seeing buildings and homes scaling up the hills around Istanbul.  We then switched over to the Eastern, Asian side of the Bosphorus, which is much more residential than the European side, featuring gorgeous and outrageously expensive houses right on the water. The boat docked in the Asian part of Istanbul, in the Kadikoy district.  The area we were in was pretty commercial, but the feeling was smaller and less touristy than the European part of Istanbul.  The group walked a bit through the area, looking at produce and fish markets and restaurants, and we ended up at a restaurant for a group lunch.  The food at this restaurant was more Greek or Lebanese than anything we had eaten previously, and I liked it a lot. 

Unfortunately, at this point Elena wasn’t feeling well in the tummy area.  We thought she might be having delayed reaction motion sickness from the boat trip (Elena has had motion sickness problems in the past), but we later decided it was an intestinal bug that she probably picked up from the water in Istanbul.  Elena and I had been careful to only drink bottled water during our stay, but apparently we weren’t careful enough.  We think we either caught the bug from drinking tea we made in our hotel room with tap water (geez, it was boiled) or from brushing our teeth with tap water.  I mean “we” here deliberately, as I had my close encounter with the bug the next day.  So I enjoyed the lunch, but Elena had a few bites and realized she wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t eat any more.  After lunch, the members of the group went their separate ways, and Elena and I walked through the area, stopping for a while in a nice book shop, but she was feeling even worse and we decided to go to the park where Taylan said we should all meet. 

We sat in the park for half an hour or so, with Elena resting her head on my shoulder.  At one point, a portly, older Turkish man with a bushy gray mustache and a beat-up tweed sport coat sat next to Elena on our park bench and, with a big smile, uttered some words to her in Turkish.  Elena said, “I don’t speak Turkish,” but he continued saying a few more things we didn’t understand.  Eventually he got up and left.  (Maybe he was saying, “Ah, you foolish tourist, you made tea with our Turkish tap water, didn’t you?” or some such thing.)

Eventually the rest of our crew trickled in, and the bunch of us walked to a regular ferry to ride back to the old town.  Elena was still feeling poorly, but I noticed that the ferry was very big and very nice.  We sat outside to enjoy the views and the fresh air, but inside there were comfortable seats and television sets playing news programs.  (But the men’s room was a filthy mess.  The male passengers’ “aim” was apparently very poor on the ferry.)  We took a tram back to the hotel so Elena could rest, though a number of our colleagues, including Taylan, decided to make an unscheduled visit to the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art.  The bug Elena had not only made her nauseated, but also drained her of energy, so we went back to the room to rest.  Elena napped while I made out some post cards, then I napped, too.  In the evening we went up to the restaurant on the top floor of our hotel where Elena just had water and I had a salad for dinner.