Istanbul -the rest of the story

Istanbul is really a marvelous city. I am sure that if Mark spent a year here he could run for mayor. There are not many americans here, maybe because the dollar is so weak, or maybe because we have become a little paranoid of moslems and their culture. Almost every vendor (and that is just about every male in istanbul) starts by saying something to us in german--guten tag etc. I say that my english is better than my german. Then they say Where you from, I say America. They say I love America, than they ask if we like Bush. The answer we give to that varies from no! to a blank stare depending if we just want to move on with our business. Next they absolutely need to know what state we are from. When we say Utah they get all excited and yell to their collegues in the shops or restaurants While they yell out Mehmet, or Okur (Utah Jazz Star from Istanbul) Then they ask if we are mormons, which I find very strange but I guess Mehmet is so popular on TV here that they all know about mormons. The conversation always ends with them guaranteing us the maximum discount in thier shop or stall or what ever they are hauling around in their wheelbarrows that day. My favorite was when after going through this routine the shopkeeper told me to buy from him because he was the least dishonest man in the bazzar. He was probably from Orem. All Mormons should come to Turkey this is the new promised land for us.

My favorite site so far was the Topaki Palace. They have a fantastic museum full of weapons and swords, the treasury is jam packed with gold and jewels in every form imaginable from baby cribs to swords and guns. But the best of all is the holy relic room where an imman chants verses from the koran 24 hours a day and you can see a tooth of the holy prophet, his whiskers, and and actual footprint set in solid stone of Mohhamed. There are numerous other relics of bone teeth and swords. It is one of the holy pilgrimage sites for all good moslems. There were believers from all over the world looking at these relics.

For Alex who is tired of Japanese food I will tell you that the food here is definately better than Eastern europe. We are eating probably just what you would imagine here, shish kebab, lots of vegetables mainly tomatoes and cucumbers, olives, pita and turkish bread, hummus, gyro like sandwiches, and rice pudding. (My friend Richard Shafer says that only mormons and turks know how to make rice pudding). The Fish is also good. There are street vendors everywhere selling hugel sesame coated bagels, corn on the cob, pistachios and nuts, turkish delight candy, and various other treats. I will include a picture of one of these little carts.

There is an amazing number of sights to see here. Yesterday we went up the Bosphorus on an all day boat ride it was spectacular and hard to compare wtih anything we have ever seen. The boat was loaded with nicotine addicted germans, and japanese caring about 65% of their body weight in camera gear. I wonder waht they are blogging about us as they write home. We stopped at little towns and villages as we cruised up the straits to the mediterranean.

Today we went to St. Sophias a massive cathedral first built in the year 400 (thats right it is not a typo) and rebuilt many times over the centuries. Finally conquered by the moslems in the year 1200 and converted to a mosque. Truly the most amazing church I have ever seen the inside filled with mosaics and the the tombs of christian crusaders, and moslem conquers. It seems as if we can all get along in death OK and create a lovely environment.

I am sure it would be possible to spend years here and never see all the sights, or eat off all the vendor carts, but for us our time here is coming to an end.

Istanbul, Turkey

We've packed away our jackets and layers of clothing and traded it all in for t shirts and sunglasses.
We've now gone from the lands of Onion domed churches to Mosques and Minaretes calling people to prayers. This is a Muslim country that seems quite tolerant and it is full of absolutely fascinating people and interesting things to see.
We are here for the week, and we're busy exploring the grand bazaar, the Blue Mosque, among other beautiful mosques, the spice bazaar and palaces. It is a huge city that sits upon a hill overlooking the Straits of Bosphorus and there is a lovely breeze blowing through the tiny, winding streets.
We are having a really time just wandering around all day, doing a little shopping and visiting with the extremely friendly Turkish people. Its so interesting seeing women wearing black Burkas,
merchants anxious to sell their wears to you, and tasting the delicious food. It is a wonderful place and I recommend this place to anyone. It is very touristy, and that in itself is fun to see because people come here from so many places....Australia, Japan, Germany, USA, etc. The climate is so pleasant here, you can stay outside all day. Hope you all enjoy a few of the countless pictures we've taken of this place.

Out of Darkness and into the Light

I only wanted to spend one night in L'viv, Ukraine, even though we were staying in a lovely hotel and had a delicious dinner at a delightful small restaurant called "Amadeus". I just felt uncomfortable after going through that crazy border crossing and all of those initmidating guards checking all of our papers. I guess I have just read too crazy stories about people disappearing!!

We got up early on Wednesday and headed west to the Polish border. This time there was a cold drizzly rain going on which didn't seem to make the two hour crossing and dealing with those guards again any better. Did't help either that the unibrow woman guard thought we had stolen the car from somewhere because she couldn't figure out our lease papers.

But once we were across the border the weather brightened up and rain went away and we turned south heading for the Slovakian border and Hungary just a couple of hours past that.

We almost ended up back at another Ukrainian border crossing from a mistake in map reading but we realized the mistake just about 30 miles before there and quickly turned around.

This put us into Hungary a little later than we had hoped but what a beautiful part of this country...this is where the famous (to wine lovers anyway) "royal rot" wine is made. We've never seen so many miles and miles of vineyards and orchards. It is a really pretty spot.

We ended up staying the night in a little village right in the middle of the Tezsa river area and then we spent the next morning walking through the town of Eger. One funny thing that happened on the little road to Eger was Mark spotted a small statue of a gnome next to a tree, which I didn't see so we swung the car back around so I could get a picture. As we drove slowly past it turned out to be a real little man fast asleep next to a tree, so I quickly got a picture before he stirred and woke up. It was a very odd sight indeed! It was very pleasant.

So we were able to drive back into Budapest by late afternoon, back to the Stucki's lovely house. It is nice to be back with some good friends and relax for a few days, do a little laundry, etc, before we head out for Turkey Sunday morning.

Food

For those of you that have asked about the food on this trip this post is for you. Since a picture says more than words it will consist mainly of photos that we have taken along the way.



Now just a few comments about the food in eastern europe. First pork is the king of foods and the food of kings. Every meal has some kind of pork product involved with it. Other than pork the other main food groups are potaoes, cabbage and peirogies, or PCP as we call them collectively. Pieogies are like ravioli or pot stickers, dumplings stuffed with pork and them covered with bacon and grease. After a delicious meal of pieogies, oh say 10-20, they bring out a delicious plate of desert pierogies filled with a single cherry, or a small piece of apple these are covered in sour cream instead of bacon. We have noticed that the farther north and east you go the pierogies get bigger, the amount of filling does not change just the size of the dough container. When you finally reach lithuania and latvia they are called zepplins and about the size of a large baked potato. Cabbage comes in pierogies, on pierogies, with pierogies fried, boiled or as sauerkraut. Or if you are lucky and order the combination meal (Polish happy meal) you get all of the combinations.



The appropriate drink for these foods would be a warm glass of water with about a half teaspoon of detergent dissolved to aid the cleaning of your system. If you can't drink that then vodka or beer is probably the best second choice. If you don't drink alcohol well.....



Probably if you want to feel your best from a digestive point of view it would be wise to concentrate on desert as your main dietary staple. The cakes, rolls and pastries are quite acceptable, but I would not reccomend dropping one on your foot as they could cause a severe injury. And remember like so many things in life they look better than they actually are. But never the less it is important to try everything and as I mentioned they are acceptable





There is also some American influence like McDonalds and Pizza Hut available, we espescially liked the bike up take out windows of the McD's in Vilnius. American ingenuity adapated to local requirements.



So just enjoy the photos and have a few vegetables or a salad for us!

Change of Mind

Last night in our hotel room we were mulling over our options to get to Romania. We looked in the guide book and it was full of praise about what a wonderful place the Ukraine was and how Liev is the undiscovered Prague of the east europe. We checked and found that no visa was required and our car is covered by insurance in the Ukraine so we decided to go for it. The Border crossing was very reminiscent of crossings we made inot eastern europe in the 1970s. 4 different stations and about an hour later we were cleared into the Ukraine. The ladies doing the paperwork looked light the russian models from the night wear/ swim wear adds some years ago. They were constantly mad at us because we always gave them the wrong papers and after it was all done they sent us back because we didi not have our customs form stamped correctly. A lesser man than mark would have given up. Also there trucks lined up over 3 kms waiting to go through the process.

Then we go into the country and we realized that we had no idea of what anything said since everything is written in russian. Even in poland and hungary you can follow signs that say centrum to the main part of they city. Finally after asking directions many times and driving around aimlessly swearing we arrived at the most expensive hotel in europe. Which we gladly accepted since we were too tired to start searching again

We are making this post to document where we are in case we never find our way out of this crazy place. we are going to spend one night here and then head back to poland to try and reach rumania.

Other than that Liev is a truly beautiful city with a wonderful old town that has not been over developed nor destroyed in the war. It also has they say the most beautiful cemetary in Europe, so if we don't make it back this will be a good place to end our journey. It is full of churches and very beautiful buildings. Mark has resisted the tempatation to buy the nazi souvenirs they sell here. He was espescially taken by an original gestapo hat but came to his senses.

4 Days in Lithuania

On Sunday we checked out of our hotel and decided to drive north to see where Mark's family had lived. We drove into the little town of Alknacai and Mark stopped some kids walking along the street to ask if there was anyone in town who knew any of the history. Turns out that the young man who spoke very good English said that his mother was putting together a history of the town and would be interested to talk to us too. We went to their apartment and through his translation found out that she was a cultural teacher at the high school. We ended up going over to her office in the school and she checked with an old man via the phone was had written a history of the town a few years back. Anyway, the whole experience was interesting but really didn't lead to anything.
The Jews in the area had been numbered in the thousands, but had been removed and killed long ago. A good experience nonetheless, and nice to know where the family had once lived.
By the way, Lithuania means wet or rainy place. It was pretty dreary up there, only about 40 miles from the Latvian border. We were pretty far north.
My two regrets of pictures I didn't get were these: One of an old man driving a cart and horse down the road with 3 pigs in the back, bringing to mind the little nursery rhyme, "to market, to market..." and the other was the picture of Mark sitting in the back of a Lithuanian police car after he got nailed for driviing 40 kph over the speed limit. Fortunately for us, Mark can do a supurb blank look on his face and was able to get out of paying the 250 dollars that we would have had to pay on the spot. He is good at putting on that face, wide eyed and dumbfounded, if he is trying to get out of doing something he doesn't want to do. Needless to say, it was obvious why I didn't want to chance taking that one in a million shot....I didn't want to see him behind bars in an obscure dark Lithuanian jail.
So that night, we drove down to the southern end of the country and stayed the night near a beautiful old castle called Trakai. It is very pretty and a unique area because an old Lithuanian Duke had brought back in the l400s 280 Turks from the Crimea for body guards and their ancestors live there still in pretty little wooden houses. It was very cold but we are glad we went there. The kid behind the desk at our hotel told Mark that the hotel had lots to do, restaurant, a gym, a sauna and a bowling alley. Mark told him "he was a great bowler", in which the kid replied, "yes I know, all Americans are great bowlers.....I watch the Simpsons".
Last thoughts on Lithuania, storks, little wooden houses painted green, yellow or blue, beehives.
Lublin
We got this morning and spent the day driving about 400 kilometers to the town of Lublin.
We are on our way to see the painted monesteries in Romania. This is one of the things in the book 1000 places to see before you die. Also, it cost $700 to get a visa to go up to St. Petersburg so we bagged that idea. We will be seeing some gypsies soon, I hope.
Weather is so much better down south, warm and lots of blossoms. If anyone is wondering, gas is about $8 a gallon. Our little fiat gets pretty good mileage though.

Mark says: Please not the last photo it is the major graffiti in the Fishler Ancestral Home.....I wonder if it signifies anything?

Lithuania

We spent Wednesday looking around Warsaw some more and enjoyed the sights, had some lunch then headed off to see the Warsaw Zoo. It was a nice little zoo with some good exhibits. Got up early on Thursday morning and headed out of Warsaw and drove due east heading for a Polish National Park on the border of Poland and Belarus. It is an ancient forest preserve that has never been touched and is home to tarpons and European Bison among many other animals. It was very beautiful and we spent the night at a tiny hotel in the village of Bialowieza. The afternoon we were able to get a 3 hour long ride in a buggy pulled by a nice old horse that took us through the forest to see some of the animals. It was quite enjoyable. Just inside the park are the remains of the Tsar's Hunting Lodge which was interesting to see.
This morning we got up early and headed north into Lithuania. The roads here are pretty bad and have lots of trucks and potholes. Mark says that there are 3 things you don't need here: l, sunglasses, 2, a fast car, 3, a radio. (you can't understand a word they say anyway!) The radio here is stuck in the 70s and 80s. They like lots of disco sounds!
We got into the capital city of Vilnius and Mark felt right at home here with his Lithuanian roots.
By the way, I see where he gets his appetite for fast driving. Its genetic.
We checked into out hotel and walked around the city for several hours. The old town here is quite nice and quirky because it was built upon an ancient swamp so the old buildings, well some of them, have sunk about 3 feet in places. We like it here. The people are friendly and a lot of them speak English, which they don't do in Poland. The girls here look very scandinavian and are tall, compared to the shorter stockier folk in Poland. (the Poles were friendly too though)
Tomorrow we will continue to explore Vilnius, and we're glad that they know what the internet is here, which the forest village people didn't seem to know anything about.