The Last Miles -- Home

This is written to reassure you all that we made it home safely, and our luggage did too.  We woke up at 5:30, drove out of Haifa to the airport (with a long side trip in search of gas -- why would they NOT have a gas station anywhere near the airport??), went through the many security lines in Tel Aviv and spent some of our last Turkish lira on ice cream in Istanbul. There was a ridiculously long line to get through the last passport checks in Istanbul -- the gate area could fit about half of us and then everyone else had to stand up in the hallway and the aisles (it felt like a crowded subway train)  and then had a long and uneventful flight home.

Jon and I each watched three movies. Jon watched Saving Private Ryan, The Usual Suspects, and a Bollywood movie. I watched Mom's Night Out, Austenland and A Good Year.  Maybe this explains why we don't go out to movies together very often.  We ate three more Turkish Airlines meals (which are really not bad at all) and we had some naps.

And now we are home, where it is snowy and there is more winter weather on the way.  We have traveled for 32 days since January 4, and now we can settle down again and focus on life in Virginia.  Most excellent.

My Adoring Public Continues Its Pilgrimage to Pay Respects and Beg The Favor of My Blessing

(Our guest blogger, Benjamin, takes a turn...)

From one angle, Mom and Dad are just the latest in a string of pilgrims come to visit me (and maybe enjoy the scenery a bit). Alissa was here this summer, Brian and I somehow missed meeting up here but caught up in Boston, and just recently my good friend Mike came and crashed on my floor for a few weeks. By now I've developed a sort of standard tour: starting in TLV, down to the desert, up through Jerusalem on the way to Haifa. 

On the other hand, travelling with my parents is a strikingly different experience. First off, the food is much better. I've recanted my opinion that Israeli restaurants are limited and uninspired; they're just not usually in my budget. Also, it's been liberating to travel by car instead of public transport (though they've perhaps missed out on an educational perspective). But it's also been a fun opportunity to engage in some of the more touristy activities that I don't do with my grungy bohemian friends.

Today was a triumph on all fronts, if I may say so as the family tourguide. I'll let Mom describe the ruins in Caesarea (Kessaria, Qesariyya...). Suffice it to say we soaked up sun and history both. With a few hours free before dinner, I queried the tour group for their final hopes and aspirations in the Holy Land. Dad said he'd like some sort of agricutural tour so, in a brilliant blend with Mom's longstanding desire to put names to the faces in my life, I phoned a friend.

Half an hour later we pulled into kibbutz Gan Shmuel where we found Guy, one of my flatmates in Haifa. While I've been galivanting about the country, he's taking the winter vacation to put in some of the 115 days he's required to work this year to fulfill his obligations to the kibbutz. Luckily, he'd already put in his hours (about 12AM-7AM) so he was able to give us a tour of the dairy production. Mom and Dad asked lots of good questions and I came away affirmed in my opinion that, outside of PVF, a kibbutz sounds like a terrific place to grow up. Dad thought the place looked a bit scruffy, but Mom and I loved the haphazard collection of bikes and lawn art.

After a quick run-in with the police for calling while driving (I played the tourist card and got a warning) we made our way to Derryn's apartment. She's a friend from my Ulpan Hebrew class and another face to add to the list of names. 

And then it was time to get ready for dinner with Ygal! Again, I'll let Mom tell it but I will take credit for picking out a very nice restaurant right down the street from their hotel; it's also a place I've been curious about for ages since I walked past it twice a day for five months during Ulpan. Despite the inconspicuous   storefront and off-putting signage ("Hanamal 24: Fine Dinning") it was reputed to be one of the nicest restaurants in Haifa, and it did not disappoint. 

And now it's nearly time to close this chapter and send my visitors back to the frozen tundra that is the East Coast. But as they say, this won't be the last time they can visit. And I'm still waiting for Rebecca to make her pilgrimage.

P.S. from Hana:  Caesarea was 400 acres of Roman ruins next to a brilliantly blue Mediterranean Sea.  The brochure said it could take anywhere from 2 to 6 hours to finish walking through it all, but we managed to take a brief nap in the shade and still finish it all in less than two hours.  Once upon a time, Rebecca flippantly said, "you've seen one amphitheater, you've seen them all."  We have seen quite a few of them by now, and I see her point. But it is always fun to imagine the lives of the people who moved through the streets, stored grain in the the warehouses, sat on the stone bleachers and watched the chariot races.  It is hard to imagine that life was ever comfortable, but they did have a lovely climate here in this part of the world.

Ygal Groiser is Jon's second cousin -- their grandfathers were brothers.  Jon's grandfather came to the US from Russia in 1914 (?) using Ygal's grandfather's papers and the two families lost touch in the 1930s or so when the Russian family was moved to Siberia.   We had a lovely dinner at the very nice restaurant that Benjamin chose for us. Ygal drove all the way from Ashdod to Haifa to meet us, and then he told us story after story about his family and his experiences as an immigrant to Israel 25 years ago -- making the rest of us feel as if we haven't done much with ourselves yet. He came here knowing only Russian and he now is fluent in Hebrew and English. He told many stories about how much his friendship with Leon meant to him, and said that while he is not a sentimental guy, saying goodbye the last time Leon and Lilah came to visit about 7 years ago brought tears to his eyes. It was a great way to end our trip to Israel.

Tomorrow morning we start the long trip home. It will be one of those 24 hour days, moving from one mode of transportation to the next.  But the next bed we sleep in will be at home.

Touring in the North

We had Jon's smartphone with the map downloaded, but without wifi there is no new information, except for a little blue dot (us) that moves along the roads.  Benjamin had a test this morning so I was promoted to navigator and Jon resumed the driver's seat.  We got ourselves out of Haifa and on the road to Akko (maybe 12 miles away, around the bay to the north) without any difficulties. In fact, we got all the way to the Old City of Akko without any trouble, mostly by following the signs that are mercifully in Hebrew, English and Arabic.  Parking was easy because it was still before 10 AM.

I realize that we are in a warm and sunny place and everyone who might be reading this is in a cold and snowy place, so I hesitate to describe the weather.  However, in the interests of journalistic honesty -- it was a PERFECT, gorgeous day with blue skies and sunshine, 75 degrees F, light breezes off the water. We are so rarely on vacation in a warm place that this seemed really remarkable. I was down to a tank top and Jon had to buy a hat because he lost his PVF cap somewhere in the last few days.  

I just don't like bargaining. I understand that this is expected, and that you will never get the best deal unless you are willing to haggle, but after about one round of it, I am done. I don't mind spending money on a hat if we want one. Besides, I liked it that we were buying something from a woman for a change. I asked her why it wasn't busy and she says there aren't many tourists now (it's winter and there was a war last summer, which put a damper on tourism) and no one has any money.

Akko is one of those places that has history piled on history, starting back with the first settlement in 3000 BCE, which is the Early Bronze Age.  There have been people living here for 5000 years, through all those invaders (Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Crusaders, Islamic rule, Ottomans again ... eventually Napoleon who only managed to take it for two months before it went back to the Ottomans and then there was the British Mandate and then the Arab/Jew fights to control it). Jon points out that we are not planners, so we never do our homework before we get somewhere, so we have to muddle around and figure things out which wastes precious time.  I point out that I am just not interested in reading about stuff until I actually see it. I would rather read about it afterwards, so I can imagine it all.  Anyway, all I really want is an orientation movie or a museum that tells a cohesive narrative.  Maybe if we had bought all the tourist passes at the visitor's center, we might have found such a thing.  Instead, we walked through the Old City and marveled at how residential it is.  People live in this place that is reminiscent of Jerusalem's Old City, with its tunnels and twisting alleys and Turkish Bazaar.  Gradually the streets filled with groups of school kids on field trips, and the shops opened up.

We had falafel for breakfast at 11:00. Jon wanted to go to the place that was the most crowded, but I wanted to go to the place that we could sit down and there was one lone girl ready to make us our meal.  Of course we went to the place with seats and the falafel was fresh and fine, with lots of yummy vegetables stuffed in the pita. And it was cheaper than the busy place.

By the time we decided to pay the 10 shekels apiece and go to the mosque, we couldn't go in because they were praying. So we bought tickets to go into another tunnel, one that was built to connect the port to the city by going underground, but it was really tame compared to our other tunnel and there was a boardwalk the whole way, and it was just about level.  

Then it was time to go back to Haifa to pick up Benjamin.  We found his apartment, no problem. Well, actually, we took a nap outside the wrong building for half an hour before Jon figured it out.

We went to a coffee shop that B thought might be good for lunch, and the servings were ENORMOUS. For once, we couldn't finish our salads and we had to ask for a take home container.

Finally, we were ready to set off for Tzfat (sometimes spelled Safed).  We had tried to get in touch with Nir's friends who have a gallery there, but we had never heard back.  We thought we would just go and see if they were at work, and Thursday seemed more promising than Friday.  The mission was to find the youngest son of Yair because Nancy thought that Benjamin would like to know him.  There was traffic along the way and we didn't get there until about 4:45, which is very late by Israeli business standards.  But we parked and started walking into town, with very little idea of where we were headed.  I had been there twice, most recently with our little group and Nir as our tour guide, Benjamin had been to Tzfat twice for a total of 3 hours on two different occasions, and Jon had been there once when we all traveled together by bus.  I led the way, following my memory, and then when I ran out of ideas, we had Benj look up the gallery on his phone (duh).  We were pretty close, but above our destination (Tzfat is on top of a mountain). We went down the steps into the Artists Colony and found most of the shops closed up, were accosted by one slightly desperate salesperson, I told him we were looking for Yair, he dismissed that, I repeated it, he said "Oh, Yair with the tallit!" and directed us further up the street. 

We arrived just as Elai was locking up the shop.  Just the person we were looking for. He was nice and polite enough to listen to us, even though he had no idea who we were, and gradually we managed to say enough to remind him why he might know us.  He showed us around, introduced us to his next older brother (whose name I cannot remember now but he is a silversmith), told us about his oldest brother Eden who went to FIVE years of sculpture school and now works full time as an artist.  The whole family works in this business -- their parents are master weavers and make incredibly fancy tallitot and other gorgeous Judaic stuff.  They keep moving their shop and their work space as they renovate new parts of the building -- each time I have come, they are in a different place.  This one is spacious and beautiful, with giant looms that can fit 6 people working in the room at a time.  Anyway, Benjamin got to meet two of the Moore brothers and they invited him to come to see them at home sometime, and he probably will. They are extremely gracious and sweet.  Elai told us to say hello to Nancy Kruger.

It was dark and we thought we should see something else before heading back to Haifa, so we decided to go to a kibbutz that B knows on the way to Tiberius.  We picked up another lone hitchhiker who spoke more English than the last one, left him at a bus stop when we thought we were going to the kibbutz, found the gate closed, picked him up again and took him to Tiberius. We wandered around some Roman stuff, saw the Sea of Galilee/Kinneret and the fancy thing that measures the water level (-212.69 m) and learned that it is quite low for this time of year after the rainy season, and who knew it was so far below sea level anyway?  Walked through some tourist streets, stopped for a smoothie, and then went home to Haifa.

We are behaving like tourists who plan to come back again, so we don't have to make sure that we see every single thing.  As I think about my two earlier trips here, I know that I have only seen Israel with a guide, and I haven't really had to think about how to do anything or how to navigate. Of course we have Benjamin to make this so much easier and more interesting, and maybe some day we will just come to lounge around and visit people instead of moving around so much. But first we have to accumulate some people to visit.  Not impossible.  We have a small running start.  

Finally, finally Jon figured out how to get the photos straight from his phone to this blog, skipping the step with his defunct computer -- but we can't sprinkle them artfully in the text so if you want to go back to the last day in Turkey, there are now photos piled up at the bottoms of all the posts.  Not ideal, but better than nothing.  As you will see, there are a couple of themes going:  picnic tables and Benjamin Taking Pictures.

A Much Less Ambitious Day

We packed up and headed back to the Old City for breakfast.  It was much quieter at 9:00 in the morning than it is later in the day, but there were still groups of Japanese tourists wearing matching jackets and groups of French tourists singing hymns as they walked down the Via Dolorosa.  We peeked into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre but Benj says he wants a real tour the next time he goes there because he has seen it plenty of times without narration.

Even though the service is unremarkable and so is the food, he took us to a place where we could sit outside.  We sat right across from the Armenian church on the Via Dolorosa so it was a good spot for people watching. The food was fine, the waiter never smiled once.

We are satisfied that Benjamin really likes it here.  He feels amazingly at home, and also privileged because he is an American.  He continues to be his chameleon self: when walking around the Old City, he behaves as an American, speaking English, and gets better treatment.  But most of the time he is a recent immigrant who understands Hebrew better than he speaks it. He appreciates the chutzpah (that he says occasionally goes too far and ends up as rudeness) of the Israelis, likes it that they don't live with an assumption of lots of rules and limits.  His personality is very well-suited to this culture -- he likes being in a place that doesn't dress up for no reason.

I waited, sitting and knitting on a low wall outside the Damascus Gate, while Benj and Jon walked back up the hill to get the car.  I watched loads of merchandise arrive at the sidewalk, to be loaded into wagons towed by tractors.  It is quite a job, getting all that inventory down into the Old City, bumping down those stairways.  An old Arab man sat next to me and tried to make conversation.  He pushes one of those three-wheeled carts that appear to be hired to move smaller quantities of goods around.  We could use a cart like that at Blueberry Hill -- they chain an old tire to the back of the cart to act as a brake, and when they go down steep slopes, they stand on the tire and slide down the hill with the cart. 

We left Jerusalem and headed for Haifa.  While it is a small country, there is still lots of agriculture going on, visible from the road.  And no suburbs, really.  Most buildings in the towns are made of concrete and they look mostly the same: square, unadorned, with small windows, not beautiful.  Anything that is not ancient looks like it was built as quidkly and inexpensively as possible.

Benjamin drove straight to the Technion, hoping to find his department open so he could get a paper he needed, but no luck.  Then we went to his apartment, about one and a half miles up steep hills from school. He bikes to and from school -- I cannot imagine getting up those hills on a bicycle. He says he rides on the sidewalk on the steepest hill because he can't go fast enough to ride on the road,  He lives in one of those concrete buildings, on the third floor, with an elevator.  He has two Israeli roommates who were not home today.  Their apartment is comfortable and tidy with minimal decoration.  Benjamin has made his room double as a darkroom (heavy curtains, towel to block the light coming under the door) and he has his less successful photographs on the wall. He gives away the good ones.

He has a test tomorrow, so he needed to get his brain reorganized and remember his formulas, etc.

We left him and found our way to our apartment, 15 minutes away, much closer to downtown.  Having a car can be a hassle when we are in a city, trying to find a place to stash it, spending lots of money to park, etc. But Benj said we should expect to find creative places to park in Haifa without paying, so that was a challenge.  So far we haven't paid for any parking but the signs are completely in Hebrew and we may end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, eventually.

We drove along the coast, around the top and to the west, and figured out how to get to the beach and park for free.  Stopped for a snack of baba ganoush and tabouli and lemonade slush with lots of mint blended in.  This was just a bar at the beach -- I don't think there are any beach bars with food like this where we live.  There were lots of runners and walkers and children going up and down the beach walk.  We gradually noticed that the beach had endured stormy weather, with plumbing uprooted and beach stuff in the wrong places. But it is a lovely beach to have right in the city, like in Honolulu.

Tonight, after Jon wakes up from his nap, we will walk to the German Colony and look for some less wholesome food.

Yerushalaiyim, Indiana Jones Style

We had a breakfast of 20 different little bowls of all the Israeli condiments plus little pancakes and three eggs that turned out not to be hard-boiled so Benj fried them.  Then back down the rocky path to the farm store and the winery.  We had a brief tour, including a 3 minute film showing how they harvest the grapes and make the wine, we bought some wine so B can have gifts as a dinner  guest.

Now Benjamin is the driver and Jon is the navigator.  Sometimes this means we go around the roundabouts a couple of times or we have to make illegal U-turns but they are pretty nice to each other even in those moments of confusion and backtracking.  I just sit in the back seat and stay quiet. 

We stopped for a snack and stretch break somewhere near Be'er Sheva and sat at the picnic table next to the gas station.  I love picnic tables. Then shortly after that Benj picked up a hitch hiker (he says that is how people get around in Israel, in addition to buses, and the only people not allowed to ask for rides are soldiers).  And we got to watch B speaking Hebrew with the guy (who spoke just about no English).  Very cool.  Most of the time people speak to him in English within a couple of sentences so he doesn't get to use his Hebrew very much.  The hitch hiker bailed on us when we got to Jerusalem, after a few of those missed exits and backtracking.  The bus was probably looking like a better deal by then.

We found a parking lot just a short walk from our hotel on King George St, threw our stuff in the room and set out by 2:30.  Kind of a late start for sightseeing. We walked into the Old City (got a cup of sachlav on the way in), walked past some of Benjamin's old haunts, remembered places we had already been together, enjoyed the Escher-esque crisscrossing architecture and alleys and stairways, and found our way to the City of David. I knew just where it was because I had been there in 2008 with Nancy et al.  We bought tickets and headed down the path.  This is an archaeological park, underground, following the tunnels that allowed the city to get to its water source which was outside the city walls.

We had a choice between the dry route and the wet route (Hezekiah's Tunnel), and there were a few signs warning us that the water was 70 cm deep.  Last time I was here, we took the dry tunnel.  This time Benjamin took off his shoes, took a flashlight and headed into the rushing water to see whether it was something his parents might want to do. I wanted to go but I didn't want to be scared. Jon wasn't crazy about getting wet up to his underwear.  Benj came back grinning and wet up 70 cm of his jeans, reporting that the bottom of the tunnel was flat and it seemed do-able.  So we took off our shoes and put all his cameras into the backpack and stepped into the fast-moving water.  Luckily the water slowed down a lot very soon, and unluckily the deepest part happened in the first few steps.  After that it was just up to our knees.  The tunnel was barely wide enough to walk through and sometimes we had to crouch down. I would have been scared without Jon in front and Benj behind, both with flashlights. At some point, B had us all stop so he could take some pictures (but he later discovered that he had already run out of film by then so those pictures didn't really happen) with two flashlights in his mouth. It seemed like a really long way, but Benj says it was about a quarter mile or a little more.

After we emerged from that tunnel -- there was a small group behind us that we could hear echoing and splashing, which was both reassuring and a little stressful -- we gathered our wits, despite our soggy jeans, and headed into the tunnel that would take us back up the hill into the Old City.  Apparently this is a new find.  It was a lot of climbing, a little slippery, and pretty hot.  It was longer than the wet tunnel but at least it was lit. Let me just say that nowhere in America would they allow tourists to go in either of those tunnels.  No one even knew we were in the one going back up the hill. We made one wrong turn at what seemed to be the exit, ended up in an area where there was still a dig underway (but no one in sight), turned around to go back into the tunnel and found a guard closing things up.  He had to unlock the exit door to let us out.  By the time we got out of there, the Davidson Center was closed (that we had bought tickets to, but oh well).  We headed home, meandering through the Cardo, the rooftop, the market that ends up at the Jaffa Gate.  Along the way someone tried hard to sell Benj and Jon some rugs, and they listened with interest to his stories/pitch, but then politely declined and we continued on our squelching way.

I never expected that we would do so much hiking/spelunking today.  We may have walked 5 miles today, and most of that either uphill or downhill. 

Dry clothes felt very good after that.  We went to the shuk and had a civilized dinner, sitting under a heat lamp. It is very entertaining to watch Benj translating the menu, and sometimes discovering that the word is written in Hebrew letters but is phonetic English (what he imagined might be "caramel" eventually became "crumble").

Jon continues to struggle with the photos, which are piling up and will eventually be freed, but his computer isn't cooperating and he is mighty frustrated. Someday the blog will be beautified with lots of photos, but not here, not now.

Wandering in the Desert

Not really.  We have a car, after all, and Google maps.  And Benjamin.  But our touring today was in the accessible parts of the Negev.

Nir, in his professional tour guide way, had estimated that we would be ready to head out of the hotel by about 9:00.  We were slower than that, but we were on the road by 10.  We drove through Tel Aviv so we could see some of the city with Benjamin as our  guide and then we headed south.  

It's a small country so we were allowed to dawdle on the way because our destination was about 2 hours and 11 minutes from our starting point.  We stopped at the Ben Gurion University to meet a couple of B's friends who are grad students there.  One is working on a project experimenting with turning chicken manure into coal -- and she says they showed a group of school kids that the coal actually burns.  She says you lose about half the mass of the original manure in the process of the heating and squishing.  Israel is known for its constant innovation: you never know, there may be coal producing sites on the Eastern Shore one of these days.

While we were there, we walked over to see Ben Gurion's grave which overlooks a vast expanse of desert valleys and cliffs -- the last time I was here, we hiked in one of the wadis up to a pool.  The last time B was here, he did a very steep hike that includes ladders, apparently.  This time we just looked at the view.

It felt like lunchtime by then so we went into Mitzpeh Ramon and looked for somewhere to sit down and order some food.  We found a bar/restaurant that was empty when we arrived, but by the time we finished, every table was full.  Everyone around us ordered huge, delicious looking hamburgers and french fries.  We had a full meal of soups, hummus, labne (cultured cheese), salad and bread.  It is very nice to travel with B who speaks good restaurant Hebrew and is unafraid to ask questions anywhere.

On to the crater -- which is 6 miles wide and 27 miles long, according to Nir -- a geological formation that exists only in Israel. It is called a makhtesh.  Benjamin played with his new (to him) camera, tryiing out double exposures and other tricks.  Unlike the last time I was here, there was evidence of lots of rain.  They had a big storm here just the other day.  Puddles and mud and general dampness.  We saw tiny flowers blooming on the side of the road.

After such a long and arduous day of driving (about 100 miles) and eating, we headed to Carmey Avdat, a vineyard/farm/B&B that was built on an ancient agricultural settlement (1500 years ago they grew grapes here).  In 2008, Nancy and Sara and Sophia and I stayed here, arriving in the dark.  This time it seems much less spooky and much easier to get oriented.  It is a very small place, nestled into a valley, with grapes planted along the bottoms of the valley so they will get water if it ever rains.  This time there is a heater in the room, which I don't remember from last time when it seemed really chilly. But the floors are still made of river rock -- something we have never seen anywhere else.

Benj is heating up some sandwiches that we bought at a market in Mitzeh Ramon, so I have to go eat now.

15 Degrees in Tel Aviv

And sunny.  Gorgeous.  

Benjamin didn't wait for his elderly parents to wake up -- he went on to breakfast by himself.  We woke up at 9:45.  Wow.  Joined him for yogurt and other dairy offerings and muesli and juice (not the same as yesterday but perfectly satisfactory) and then we set out.  Walked south to a film supply store where I realized again why Benjamin is so comfortable here -- Israel is basically unpretentious.  They don't make every nook and cranny into a marketing moment.  Stuff just looks used or useful, there is a lot of concrete that looks worn and old, but there is plenty of motion and activity, things getting done.  It is busy but not polished here in Tel Aviv.  We went down to the beach and Benjamin practiced with his cameras while we just sat there soaking up the sunshine.

He had asked a friend for suggestions of where to take his parents who like history.  We went to the Yitzak Rabin Museum, Benj navigating and Jon driving and me being driven around like royalty in the back seat.  We got audiophones that worked most of the time, telling the story of Rabin's life, and along the way, the story of Israel since 1922.  Benj didn't like the architectural decision to start the story at the top of a descending spiral ramp, with little cul-de-sacs of videos and photos along the way. He thought it seemed depressing to go down and down, ending with the assassination and funeral.  The peace process hasn't improved since Rabin was killed, so maybe they had a point with the downward spiral.  It was a good museum, though.

Then to Yaffa to poke around and have a late lunch.  Delicious beet salad, artichoke, fried cauliflower with tahine, mung bean salad, and roasted eggplant.  Another reason that Benj likes it so much here: there is very good vegetarian food, easy to find.  We wandered through the narrow paths, sat on benches, watched people.

We were invited to dinner at Nir and Hanna's, where Benjamin stayed for his first month in Israel.  They are gracious hosts and had prepared a wonderful, big meal for us.  It seems backwards, us going to their house to be fed and entertained when we should be doing something for them.  Maybe some day we will have the chance. They are in a similar stage of life, their son and two daughters out of the house and gainfully occupied -- their oldest learned German to go to school in Berlin and got a full scholarship as an undergraduate.  What is it with these boys who want to study in a new language and go far away to go to school?

Benjamin says Israel is the most American country there is, except maybe for Canada, and that is another reason that he feels so at home here.  He really likes it here, and that is good to see.

One Last Day in Turkey

We are still catching up with the time change, taking naps, going to sleep too late -- it's a good thing we don't have jobs or anything.  We didn't make it down to breakfast until about 9:30.  Then we packed up, left our bags with the nice hotel people, and headed out for our last day of sightseeing in Istanbul. We could finally see our hotel in daylight, without snow -- it is an odd turquoise-green color.

Blue skies and warm air!  The city looks completely different. There are boats in the water on all the horizons, we can see the cobblestones in the roads, and now we realize that the space in the middle of the Hippodrome is not a lawn, as we imagined, but has a hard surface that can accommodate lots of people stomping on it.  

We went to the Topkapi Palace and started the process of learning about sultans, the long and uninterrupted dynasty of the Ottoman Empire, the function of a harem, how they cooked for 5000 people every single day and then another 15,000 three times a year on payday.  But I quickly realized again that a museum/historic space that is empty of furniture or furnishings is just not that interesting and I don't care about jewels. In fact I start to get very huffy thinking about all the people who were not in that top echelon, and how many people had to work so hard so that the sultans could govern in comfort.  It does make sense that they needed a lot of good space and help to manage the whole empire from that giant imperial compound, but I would rather go to a museum that teaches me about the working people during that time period. The tiles and mosaics were amazing, I will admit.

On the upside, we finally got a good view of the city from that vantage point.  It goes on and on, perched on hills (reminiscent of San Francisco), with bridges crossing the strait, and mosque domes sprinkled all over. I do love the way mosques look, both close up and far away.

From there we could see Suleiman's mosque, way up on a hill, and I wanted to go there, so we set off to find it.  Finally saw some of the city that was more functional, nitty gritty -- blocks of tool stores, kitchen stores, shoe stores...we joined the crowded throng in the Spice Market and slowly made our way out of the crush of humans and into the sunlight near the river.  Stopped for lunch at a tiny shop that sold only kebabs -- no English spoken -- and sat down happily on stools on a relatively quiet street.

Then we climbed a lot of steps and found ourselves right where we wanted to be -- on the plaza outside the mosque.  Shoes off, head scarf back on, and into another quiet and beautiful sanctuary.  With no furniture to define or limit the space, and with carpet covering every inch of floor, it is muffled and peaceful.  On the other side of the low barricade, worshipers sit in small groups, everyone in socks. 

My knees and feet were just about done for the day so we started back toward home, stopping for another snack of steaming hot sahlep (misspelled that yesterday) and baklava.  We stopped in at the rug shop, because we had promised to come and say goodbye before we left, and Jon took a picture of the American-speaking salesman and the shop.

Since we had never learned to get on the tram or the metro, we took a taxi back to the airport, which makes us feel a little wimpy as travelers but it sure seems simple. 

This time our luggage made it all the way to Tel Aviv with us, and we eventually made it through the security and passport checks.  It was so hot!  I kept taking off one layer after another, until I was down to a T-shirt, carrying my down jacket and other layers.  By the time we got our rental car, it was about 12:30 AM.  And by the time we got turned around again, having gone past our hotel by maybe 5 miles, it was about 1:30 AM when we finally found Benjamin playing freecell (with actual cards) in our hotel room.  He looks exactly the same, and it is very nice to see him again.  He immediately unpacked the suitcase with all the presents he had sent himself -- and was very happy with his choices.

Jon is having trouble loading the photos but I will publish this now and hope that he manages to get them included soon.