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Friday / honeymoon / photo — Comments Off
28
May 10

Istanbul, Turkey

The Blue Mosque

I wake up to the sound of this rhythmic thumping. It is so precise, so insistent and inoffensive that my sleepy mind thinks there is a tugboat alongside and he’s having engine problems. So you know your brain has adjusted to shipboard life: Your non-waking brain is rationalizing input in a nautical context and it almost makes sense.

Only I’m not sure anyone would dream of bringing a tugboat alongside the Equinox. They have stabilizing propeller equipment that emerges from the side of the vessel, so it can apparently travel on a 90-degree axis. Why would you need a tugboat for that?

So I go look out to the stateroom’s balcony to see, “Hey, Turkey.” It is a hazy day, but still so incredibly bright as to offend the eyes. The drumming is from a band, decked out in some type of red traditional apparel, welcoming you into the city from the ship. Not too long after I notice them they stop playing and climb onto a van to leave.

So we have breakfast and we leave. We go through the security control of customs, where a hulking man with a submachine gone is waving people through a metal detector even if they set the thing off. We climb onto a bus, where the local tourism official says “This is Istanbul’s busiest weekend of the year.”

Istanbul is a city of 17 million people.

“Formula One is in town this weekend. An international medical conference is taking place. There are several other conventions going on. What should be a 30 minute drive to the drop-off point could take up to 90 minutes.”

It did not take that long, but it was an adventurous drive. You think traffic is bad in Wherever, USA? Visit Istanbul. The roads are overtaxed, the drivers are full of derring do.

So they drop us off next to a jewelry store. Celebrity has partnered with several local, preferred merchants so you can be assured quality and premium mark ups. They drop you off at the jewelry store, tell you “The mosque and museum are is this way, the bazaar is that way. Have fun. Watch out for pickpockets.”

Umm. OK.

We get off the bus and head away from the bazaar. It has more than 4,000 shops and is packed and pushy. I’ve decided to limit my exposure to large crowds like that as much as possible in life, so I’m not missing anything there.

Instead we turn toward the museums. We walk through Gulhane Park, around Topkapi Palace, which was the home of the sultans. Nearby are the Archaeological Museum, the Museum of the Ancient Orient and the Museum of Islamic Art.

We found a bunny that would tell your future. We met a man who said he used to be a philosophy teacher, but who is now selling rugs and leather jackets. And won’t you buy a leather jacket? Pay no attention to it being in the 90s today. He showed us his store and a few nice rugs and tapestries, but he didn’t talk price so we didn’t talk money and excused ourselves to leave.

We headed up to visit the Blue Mosque, above, built in just seven years during the early 17th Century by Ahmed I. It sits on the site of the former Byzantine palace’s ruins. It is an imposing building, with a few more minarets than you normally see. We met a guy who offered to take us into the mosque, which is open for tourists when not in prayers.

Mustafa, our unofficial Istanbul guide.

Mustafa said his son was studying in the U.S., but everyone here says that as they try to build rapport with touring customers. “He is at Yellowstone, is that beautiful?”

Mustafa is not a tour guide, but he offered to walk us through the mosque if we’d only come see his store when we were done. This is a small price to pay, especially when considering the entire line of mosque visitors he skipped. He walked straight up to the door, “My cousin works here. We go right in.” He gives us baggies for our shoes and we go inside.

It is a little dark, but ornate and beautiful. Mustafa tells us about the construction, how the prayer schedule works in this mosque, where the sultan prayed, where the women prayed and about the recent renovations. He brags about some of the recent work and then clucks at other parts. He explains the color scheme. We learned a great deal.

He told us that he sometimes comes here to pray, but he also goes to other mosques. In Turkey, it seems, you don’t belong to a particular mosque. It can be an issue of convenience, or of who’s prayers start faster or run the longest. Some things are the same all over, I suppose.

The 20th Century was one of political, social and religious change in Turkey. During the mid-century reformation a lot of the religious practices were questioned or relaxed. Now, Mustafa says, practicing Muslims are only a percentage of the population. In the second half of the 20th Century there was another re-examination of religion in Turkey and there was a revival of religion within the culture.

Secularist and religious debate continues a very lively debate even today. What we do not talk about with Mustafa is how these movements are beginning to appear in Turkey’s international politics. It would seem … impolite.

The people of Turkey are renowned for their politeness. They are also all salesmen. You can’t walk down the street without being invited into a store to buy … something. After we hear all sorts of neat little trivia about the mosque and surrounding neighborhood — some which may be true and some which is surely just made up to be a good story — we do as promised and visit Mustafa’s store. He drops us off with his “cousin” and disappears, probably to find more Americans.

So we sit in the show room of a traditional Turkish rug store. The walls are covered with hanging rugs. There are benches surrounding the walls, with the big empty space in the middle where the show takes place. A salt-and-pepper gentleman with an easy smile sits down and offers us a beverage. This is the show of Turkish hospitality, the offering of tea or coffee, and to turn them down is an insult. So we accept a tea.

He asks where we are from, asks if country music still exists. He says he likes country music. He is the most polished foreigner I’ve ever seen when it comes to relating to and imitating Americans. I suspect he was educated on the east coast. He later said he had family in the Carolinas and Virginia.

He promises a no-hassle presentation and he delivers. Two of his employees beginning rolling out rugs. They are beautiful work, done in various wools and up to silk. They are hand-made, we learn. Usually by a woman. “Because men usually don’t have the patience for this.” And always by one person because the tying of knots is key to the symmetry of design and if two people tugged differently at the material it would ruin the appearance.

We learn it takes up to 18 months to make one rug. He shows us the famous flying rugs of Turkey. This one started out blue with red and white accents. He picks up a silk rug the size of your coffee table and flips it in the air with one smooth motion. When it lands it has rotated 180 degrees and is now white with blue and red accents. I could watch him do that all day.

The handmade, silk rugs that change color and are the size of your coffee table, he says, contain one million knots per inch. That’s what he said.

Who counts those? I ask.

“We do,” he says.

That same rug starts at $6,000. That includes customs, taxes and shipping. You buy it, it will show up at your door at home.

Now, nothing in Turkey costs what they say it does. We’ve been told that you can typically get everything down to about half the asking price. Even still, we can’t buy a $3,000 rug.

But they were beautiful.

The lower end of the wool rugs start around $600. They are very handsome, but after you’ve seen the silk ones you aren’t really interested in the wool anymore.

We learn more about the rugs. The art is dying, he says. It sounds like the industrial revolution. The rural women who make the rugs are being replaced by younger women who’d rather be in the cities and not making one rug for more than a year “for peanuts.” Which was the only part of the polished presentation that was in error. As soon as he says she makes nothing and you tell me the price I begin to think of the mark-ups.

So after we visit for a while we thank them for the show and the tea (something like a warm apple cider which actually works on a hot summer day) and leave, without having purchased a rug.

We make our way back to the jewelry store which is the cruise ship’s pick up point and decide to look at jewelry. Only this is a real jewelry store and not some place that sells a few pieces among the art and kitsch. The Yankee is picking out several things of interest and the jewelry store people are very happy with her. She has no idea of the price. And then she says “I like sapphires.”

So we go to the sapphire room.

On the way a guy that worked there asked me if I was from Birmingham.

How did you know?

I was wearing an interlocking AU shirt.

“You have on a UA, University of Alabama.”

Close, I said, explaining the AU and UA difference.

“Oh, Auburn. Go Tigers!”

I’m counting it as our third Auburn experience during the trip. (In addition to meeting a lady in Rome, someone on our ship has an old co-worker who graduated in the 1940s who “talks about Auburn all the time.”) That guy should watch less Sportscenter.

Meanwhile, the person who thinks she’s about to make her next four car payments on whatever she’s selling to The Yankee finally starts talking about price. These things aren’t in our budget, but bless ’em, they tried to find something she could buy.

Kentucky Fried in Turkey

On our way back to the ship in the bus we almost lost our lives a minimum of three times. We almost rear-ended a cab at speed and played chicken with three other taxis. We almost ran over an elderly couple. We passed many people selling their wares in the road at red lights. People would be arrested in the U.S. for doing things we’ve done here today. How people don’t die on these roads every day is a mystery.

In Rome, traffic signs and lights are a suggestion. In Turkey these things are decoration.

But we made it back safely, somehow. We had dinner. The ship is staying overnight in Istanbul, so we went up to the top deck of the ship and made nighttime pictures of the skyline. You can find the pictures from the day here and the nighttime photographs are in the growing cruise ship collection.

To see Rome look here, here and here. Also, be sure to check out Santorini and Mykonos. We still have more days on the high seas, another day of Istanbul and Athens to go!

honeymoon / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
27
May 10

Mykonos, Greece

The Yankee in Mykonos, Greece.

We were in Mykonos, Greece today. The cruise ship arrived this morning and departed mid-afternoon. This is another place you’d like to visit a little bit longer.

There are just under 10,000 people in the island’s main town. The economy is centered on tourism. It is beautiful. Everything is bright white with blue or red trim. The streets are all old stone, maybe ship ballast, or dug from an offending hillside somewhere nearby. They are narrow, curvy and confusing. They were designed to throw off pirates.

The windmills of Mykonos.

The windmills are the famous image for this area. There are a handful left, they were once used to grind up wheat for the locals, though they are no longer operational.

We are here to shop. That, I think after only my second cruise stop, is the entire purpose of the enterprise. The cruise company is in collusion with the port towns and villages to get you there for shopping under the guise of sailing in luxury.

Not that anyone minds, clearly.

So we started working toward crossing everyone off the souvenir list. I picked up something for my mother. We got a few tiny things for others. We walked through the town, stopped in the chapels, looked at the restaurant offering today’s special: sun-dried octopus.

Right out front they had them hanging on a rope on a boat, fresh as a squid, drying in the sun, can be.

We demurred.

We checked out the windmills, watched the tide come in and walked around. We decided to retire here.

If, you know, Greece is still here by then.

Greece is in a great deal of financial difficulty just now (See that, rest of the world? Any of us could be next.) Germany and others in the European Union have bailed them out for a time. This happened just before our trip, incidentally. We’ve visited parts of three countries in the EU since then and have watched the Euro fall each day.

So if Greece is still here in 30 or 40 years, this place is a candidate. Athens may feel different, we’ll be there in a few days, but Mykonos is as isolated, idyllic and unaffected as you can imagine. Or at least that’s the impression you get from walking around in a place for six hours amongst people determined to find just the right thing for the aunt they really don’t want to visit when they get back home. That’s the impression you get while watching octopus skin glisten, wondering Just how long does it take to one of those things sun-dry?

We walked along the beaches, picking up sea glass. The Yankee and her mother collect it. She found some blue pieces which, I’m told, are especially tough to find. The locals just looked on and laughed.

“Silly Americans. Cleaning our beaches.”

I also picked up a few rocks. I’m going to put them on a potted plant’s soil one day, maybe a jade tree. Those, I’ll say, are my little piece of Greece.

Here are a few more pieces, in the form of today’s pictures. Just 17 in that gallery, but that puts us well over 200 published photos for the trip. Here we are at sea. We spent a few days in Rome, you can see those here, here and here.

There are a few videos below, and cross-posted to the A/V page. I have one planned for yesterday and one for today, but it’ll be a few days before I produce them. There’s a panorama of Rome and also a panorama of Santorini.

Not too bad, so far as content goes. Tomorrow we’re in Istanbul. I’ll try to come up with something in the day’s adventures for you to enjoy. We’re enjoying it. This is a great trip. Take it if you can. Or, just send us again.

honeymoon / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
May 10

Hiking a volcano, swimming in the Aegean

Santorini, Greece

The Equinox found her way to Santorini this morning. There’s no port here, but tenders — smaller vessels — come out to pick up the cruising crowd.

It was an overcast day, for the most part, which is a shame because this is a beautiful area.

There were a few excursions for those interested in leaving the ship. We chose the most extreme one, mostly, I think, because we’re afraid of thinking of ourselves as wimps.

"This is a serious disembarkation pro-cess."

Before you could leave, though, you must visit the 1115-seat Equinox Theater. Cesar is in control there. You present your excursion tickets, they give you a number and Cesar calls out the number when your tender is here.

He entertains with jokes and tries to get people to sing. He makes sure you have your smile. “They are doing smile inspections on the gangway.”

And then he calls out numbers. “Groups Number 16 and 17, have a nice day.”

He repeats it a few times. And then he pauses. He tells a joke, or works some dialog with someone in the theater. Then he says “If you are in group number 16 or 17 and you are still here you must ask yourself … ‘Why?'”

I instantly decided that will be what I say if anyone ever gets upset with me about their own shortcomings.

So Cesar sends us on our way. We climb aboard the tender and I can show you my first picture of our home on the high seas (which are incredibly calm):

The Celebrity Equinox

I can see our stateroom from here!

So we putter on over to the volcano. Santorini was once a large island. About 3,500 years ago the volcano erupted — believed to be one of the world’s largest — and blew the island into several islands. The ship is sitting in the caldera which was filled with the ensuing tsunami.

This is our first active volcano.

The volcano is still active. It erupted three times in the 20th Century, most recently in 1950. The landscape is rocky and generally barren. There are a few scrub grasses and a few flowers. Rabbits scurry around, though we don’t see any. Lizards are the dominant creatures here, and they are hiding under the rocks.

You hike up the rocky path to the highest point on the island, you pass two volcanic craters to get there. In a few places you can see the sulfur stains on the rocks. In other places this is just a barren landscape. Near the peak there are a few vents accessible to visitors. You can smell the sulfur, see the steam and feel the heat rising out of the earth.

Active volcano.

We also swam in the warm springs trickling into the Aegean Sea. My night ended by adding “Swim off of a Greek isle” to the list of cool experiences.

Our guide suggested that after you swim up to the source of the warm springs that you should rub some of the mud on your skin, “Gentlemen your wives won’t know who you are when you get back on the ship.”

That’s because you’re rubbing sulfur mud on yourself. And you stink, badly. The wetnap “for refreshment” she offered did not help very much.

Here I must point out that the excursion literature said “Swim in the hot springs!” The guide said, twice “And when we go to the hot springs, or I should say, the warm springs … ” And then she tells you the water temperatures. You dive into the cold water, about 55-degrees, and then swim your shivering self to the springs which are about 70-degrees, warm by comparison only.

Shivering, smelling of sulfur and trying to get dry we putter on over to the village of Santorini.

Santorini, Greece

Most of the town, which is driven by tourism, is high up the hillside. There are three ways up: walking the 500-plus steps, cable car or riding a donkey up the 500-plus steps. We’ve already swam on a Greek isle, so here’s another opportunity for an unusual experience. We took the donkeys.

Which are really just wild-eyed, crazed death mammals. There are stirrups, but no reins. You aren’t steering anything. The donkeys know where they are going and they don’t care about the pedestrians that are in their way. The people walking, though, are very displeased with you. You’re holding on for dear life though, and all you can do is look back, toss a hasty “Sorry!” (You realize the futility of explaining pretty quickly) and then turn to re-grip your tenuous hold.

The Yankee and I ascended with three ladies who have never been in a saddle. This was a traumatic experience for them. After the donkey driver started whipping my ride I decided we weren’t riding back down. For entirely different reasons The Yankee had already decided she’d find a new way down. If the return trip was as chaotic as the journey up this would prove a very wise decision.

So we shopped. Found a few things for us, found a few gifts, met a few nice people, including an Australian who found her way to live and work in Greece. How? “My husband.”

We walked around, seeing the sites and wishing we had more time here. The only real schedule on this ship is “Be back before we depart, because we will leave you.” So we have to be aware of the time. Everyone here is, because there are two cruise ships here and we have three ways to get back down to the water.The cable car line, we later learned, was more than an hour wait. (And not for the faint of heart, we heard.) The walk was a good choice.

And they look like this:

There are lots of stairs.

So your ankles and knees hate you. And you realize, about halfway down, the long, irregularly spaced path of switchbacks, that going down 500 steps can take a while.

But we made it. We were the last ones off the island. Or we might have been. Who is to say? You begin to perceive people and time differently in this environment. There is only what is in front of you. It becomes implausible that a person is standing to the side. It is impossible that anyone could exist behind you. This is what it is like when people turn their brains off. You make the meals — and, because it is a cruise ship there is a shameful amount of food available — and that’s about it. The food, in fact, is the only difference between vacationers and a desperate mob heedless of all else happening around it.

Not to sound grim, but food choices are tough, taking up all the mental power any of us packed. (There are many people here mystified by the purpose of the glowing arrows prominently on display at the elevators.)

Have you ever seen a sunset over Greece?

Sunset over Santorini, Greece

The day’s pictures are here. Would you like to see a hasty panorama from Santorini? Try here.

Here we are at sea. And there are lots of pictures from Rome: Day One, Day Two, Day Three. I’ve published almost 200 from this trip already. I’ll have a video from the day at some point, but that will probably take a while.

Tomorrow: Mykonos, Greece.

honeymoon / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
25
May 10

Sea Day

This is a big ship.

The captain — or as they like to call him, the master of the Celebrity Equinox — refers to it as “this magnificent vessel.”

He’s right.

honeymoon / Monday / photo / site — Comments Off
24
May 10

Sailing away

Take a good hard look cause we're sailing on a boat.

We wake up this morning with an even greater purpose: We must make it to our cruise ship.

So we enjoy the little breakfast provided by our fabulously located and luxurious two-store hotel in Rome: hard roll, sugar dusted croissant and all the TANG you can drink, everyday.

We wrestle our luggage out of the hotel, which is so small that the two of us and our suitcases can’t stand at the desk all at once. We navigate our way into the hallway and to the elevator. The lift is so small that it can’t hold us and the luggage — and we didn’t even over-pack this time. The lift is so small, in fact, that one person, two rollers and a backpack are capacity.

So down from the fourth floor goes the lift. And then it comes back up again. And then I climb in, shutting the exterior wire door and then the inner doors and then sliding down to the ground floor. This takes a while, but it is “quaint.”

And then we walk to the Termini, the bus/train stop in the city center. I know that our big suitcases are close to 50 pounds each. Our smaller bags are, of course, less. We each have backpacks stuffed to overflowing. It is a bright, sunny, warm day. The walk isn’t long, but just long enough.

The Yankee left her special lipstick at home, but not to worry. In Termini there is a Sephora and she is able to pick up a replacement. I stand guard with our luggage, enough for an entire 17-day European adventure. Finally she emerges. “Italians.” Picking up one piece of lipstick takes a while.

So now we must find the train. Now Termini doesn’t look that big from the outside, but it meanders. And I think, at one point, I went down one flight of stairs so I could walk 25 feet to walk up another flight of stairs. I’m doing the gentlemanly thing and carrying the bigger luggage.

We finally find the right line, and then must find the proper train. This involves much more walking. I’m drenched in sweat. We see the right train and, somehow, she realized it was about to depart. So The Yankee sprints. With luggage. And she manages to jam her foot in the door as it is closing.

Two nice guys pry the door back open. She climbs in, I’ve caught up — with the heavy luggage — and I stagger on board. Our bags are too big for the overhead rack, so we just do our best to stow the stuff in adjacent seats. If there had been someone there to monitor tickets and seating I’m sure he would have demanded we purchase two more seats.

So we ride northwest for an hour or so to the town of Civitavecchia, which is how the Romans cruise. We are actually a few minutes early, so we catch a bite to eat in a cafe at the train station. A girl who was just getting off work was doing her best Frankie Valli. She was embarrassed when she noticed I was watching, but she did a good job. And since it is such a good song …

So we had a sandwich and then started the long walk to the port. We found a bus, somehow lugged our luggage on and then drove to the ship to begin the embarkation process. You must fill out paperwork that says you haven’t been sick, don’t know any pigs with the flu.

They take our picture. They take our passports. They give us a little card with a magnetic strip. They run us through metal detectors. We board the ship. They spray us down with antibacterial hand soap. They begin offering drinks within six steps of being on board. We have embarked.

We find our room, throw our backpacks inside and head to the pool. We got onboard very early, so there is time to kill. We decide to read.

This ship has a library. It spans two decks.

There is also a conference desk. Not sure what they expect people to do there.

We found the dining room tonight and I had my first dose of cruise ship food. I’m sure it will only become more ridiculous as the voyage continues.

This is my first time cruising. The Yankee is the expert. We both agree this place is huge. More on that later.

For now, there are a few pictures from today. You can see the pictures from Rome here: Day One, Day Two, Day Three. Of course, you can see years of pictures, if you were so inclined.

Tomorrow we’re at sea; we’re taking it easy.

We’re on a boat.