swimming with the fishes

After being in Monterey for 2 1/2 years and going to the aquarium many, many times, the incredible thing about the Atlantis is that it doesn’t look cheap and dinky in comparison. Not much can compare to the amazing displays they have in Monterey, but the Atlantis has a really impressive main tank and some great smaller exhibits.



The boys and Josh toured it back in May while the baby was napping so I was looking forward to visiting it this time. And from the way Camille was oohing and shrieking each time we walked past the main tank, I really wanted to see her reaction to all the different fish.



The name of the aquarium was The Lost Chamber, so in addition to all the fish, there were all sorts of Atlantis themed metal sculptures/décor that the kids had fun exploring.



 

I have no idea what these sculptures are supposed to be, but they looked like something from the Roswell set or a steampunk version of LOST.

Judging by the happy squeals, I'd say she was pretty impressed by all the swimming creatures. (the original video isn't this dark, but it uploaded this way. I'm re-uploading it to see if it makes a difference).

  

One of the best tanks had these HUGE fish and the kids kept pretending they were holding them up with their bare hands.

Or like this kid, pretending to eat them . . .

Atlantis: part deaux

We arrived at Atlantis yesterday for an end of summer-back to school-burn up the last few days of Ramadan vacation. We're only here for 2 nights and it's passing too quickly. This time we upgraded to the Imperial Club level which is more expensive (obviously), but one of the perks is FOOD. We get breakfast included, plus there is a lounge that is open from 7am until 11pm and food and drinks are always free for the taking. Last time we were here I had stories of $100 lunches at the waterpark and $9 coffees, this time we can snack and drink whenever we want.

In addition to basic snacks like fresh fruit, chips, cookies, pastries, nuts, etc. that are available all the time, in the late afternoon and evening they serve heavy (gourmet quality) appetizers that were plenty for dinner. Last night we had sushi rolls, Thai noodle salad, Greek salad, finger sandwiches, spring rolls, smoked chicken, brie with fresh bread, stuffed mushrooms, and more . . . there was plenty of food, good variety and everyone was happy. Even with the increased cost, we have certainly come out ahead, especially because it includes breakfast at any of the hotel restaurants, including the buffet with the chocolate fountain. Guess who was dipping marshmallows in chocolate at 9 am?

At the moment I'm sitting in the club lounge with my non-napping baby. She woke up early and ate breakfast and then she fell asleep on my back on the way to the pool. I took her up to sleep, but that lasted less than an hour. We went down to the water park, played in the kid's area, went down a few slides and even rode the rapids with daddy, but then she started rubbing her eyes and yawning. Time to head upstairs to our room. When we walked into the hotel the Arctic blast of the a/c perked her up -- the difference in temperature between the outside and inside is crazy. Instant teeth chattering when you come in and are wet from the pool. So as much as I tried to pat her and get her to relax . . . no luck. Instead of getting her suit back on and taking her down only to have her be crabby we headed to the lounge for snacks, drinks, and play. They have a glassed in kid's playroom with toys so I'm sitting here with a Pepsi and a plate of watermelon and pineapple, watching Camille strut around among the toys.

The boys have been having a great time at the water park with all of their friends. Three Marine families -- 11 kids altogether. And you wonder why I joke about us being "breeders." After we leave Atlantis tomorrow afternoon we will be staying at a Holiday Inn closer to downtown (instead of out at the end of the Palm) and we will celebrate Eid (the end of Ramadan) there. We aren't doing anything to celebrate Eid (except I will joyfully be brandishing my bottle of water), but there should be some fun events and special things going on in the mall. I just hope I haven't been permanently spoiled by our visit here. Like I say about so many of the places we visit: I could live here.

something fishy

Pulling myself out of my 1960s Mad Men fog to continue our Turkey story. Who knew that there was all this bed hopping, smoking, and drinking back then? It makes life in this millennium look practically puritanical.

After the Spice Market we walked across the Galata bridge in search of dinner. There was a beautiful warm breeze, ships cruising up and down the Golden Horn, and tons of people out enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon.

There were hundreds of people fishing off the side of the bridge, mostly catching tiny anchovies. Carter wanted to stop and fish, but he settled for checking out this guy's catch instead.

While they were admiring his haul, one of the fish jumped out of the container in a last ditch effort to gain freedom. Josh tried to catch it, but it was so slippery he couldn't get a hold of it and it continued to flop around on the ground. The fisherman grabbed a terrycloth towel that he used for fish handling and was able to get a grip on him that way and plopped him back in the bucket.

 
It took about 10 minutes to walk across the bridge. On the other side there was a guy selling freshly caught grilled fish from a wooden cart. We ordered two sandwiches (4 TL each, $4.50 total) and the guy split open rolls, picked some fish off the grill, added lettuce and tomatoes and wrapped them in paper. We found a park bench on the water and sat back to enjoy the sunset (and the sandwiches).

After dinner we headed for the train station to head back to the hotel. The kids were happy to finally get their ride.

As we were exiting the train at our stop we saw this guy riding around on his motorcycle with his dog in sunglasses. He's holding up his hand telling me he wants 1 TL for taking his picture. Sorry, sucker. If you don't want to attract attention, don't dress up your dog.

in a rut

It's very clear why people leave Oman for Ramadan . . . it's sucking the life out of us. We end up staying home all day because everything is closed, but by the time stores open at 7 pm the baby is almost ready for bed and we're sluggish and feeling like couch potatoes and don't have the energy to go out and do anything because we sat around all day doing nothing. And since we're home all day the house is in a constant state of disarray, but no one has the energy (mental or physical) to clean up either pre or post tornado.

The weather has been beautiful lately, but I refuse to go to the beach if we can't take food or water. Plus I'm not much in the beach mood because lying around the house all day makes me sleepy. So I'm either tired because I napped or I'm tired because I didn't nap. Either way, by midnight I'm wide awake and not able to fall asleep until 2:30 or 3am which means I'm tired in the morning and the afternoon which requires napping or fighting a nap. Repeat for the next 10 days.

Yesterday was our 14th anniversary. What romantic thing did we have planned? We took all 4 kids to the doctor to get their physicals for school. Baby had her shots and then was crabby for the rest of the day. We sat in our living room all afternoon and folded laundry, napped, and knit while watching Netflix until our eyeballs were ready to fall out of our heads. Then Josh made dinner and we told the kids to go to bed. Many times. The end. At least we could joke that it was better than our 7th anniversary when we had to drive to Loma Linda with our 3 kids under the age of 6 (including our 1 month old baby) so Josh could have back surgery while I, the "support person" was out of my mind crazy.

Only a week left of Ramadan and then we'll be Back In the High Life Again (remember the Lakers v Celtics NBA championship series theme song -- 1987? Best basketball series ever). Looking forward to the Return of Lucy, the Start of School, and Normal Life Where Humans Eat and Drink during Daylight Hours. I better hurry and dig out of this rut before it turns into a ditch.



Good times . . . remember watching this one Dad? I wanted to find the highlight reel set to the song that they played after the Lakers won, but it isn't in the YouTube vault. And what's up with a Laker win, but the top 10 best plays are split evenly between the Celtics and the Lakers? (insert rant about East Coast bias here.)



***The basketball tangent came about because I was grumbling about our dirty house and then off hand thought to myself "pretty soon Lucy will be home and we'll be back in the high life again" which made me think of that song, which always makes me think of the Lakers. The End.

ready to run

Yes, we bought them. We were feeling the love and the kids needed some new shoes anyway . . . now we're a family of barefoot freaks.

adding a little spice to our lives

A fun place to go in Istanbul is the Egyptian Spice Market. It got its name because for a long time that's where they traded all the spices and things that were brought from Egypt. It was built in 1664 so it has been in business a long time.

Even though it was hot, we decided to walk so we could explore the neighborhood around the market. It was mostly downhill and we promised the boys we would take the train home if they agreed to walk there. They were still protesting about wanting to take the metro instead so we just said, "too bad, we're walking."

Lots of people, lots of old buildings and shops, many trinkets, and lots to see . . .

Walking around Istanbul without a plan feels is an adventure. There's so much to see (like Egypt), but it's clean (unlike Egypt). We could have explored the city on foot for another week without even beginning to be bored.

Inside the Spice Market looked just like this -- if you imagine it going on and on and around the corner and on and on some more. We wandered around for over an hour and it just kept going.

We smelled the different teas, tasted some different spices, and had samples of Turkish Delight. I don't like Turkish Delight. When reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe I thought Turkish Delight had to be some rich creamy chocolate or caramel candy -- something that would go well with the steaming hot chocolate that the White Witch served to Edmund. It turns out that Turkish Delight is actually gummy fruit squares with nuts in them. I mean, it's OK, but it's hard to imagine that Edmund sold out his family for some nutty fruit leather . . .

At the entrance to the Spice Market there was a place selling soft serve cones. After our long, hot walk, everyone deserved a treat.

I'm making this picture extra-large so you can read the sign right in the center: Turkish Viagra (they are dates stuffed with nuts). If you click on the picture to look at it up close, it says "5 times in the night." Gross.

At another spice place in central Turkey we were sampling different nuts and fruit combos and I asked the guy what the bright pink stuff was. He said it was concentrated cranberry, "good for the milk" and proceeded to use his fingers to create two jet streams shooting out from his chest. Um, oh-kay then! I thought maybe I had misunderstood what he was doing, so I asked Josh about it on the way home. Yep, that's exactly what he was doing.

Right outside the Spice Market there was a man who was offering bird food for "tuppence a plate." It was only 1/2 a lira (30 cents) for a small plate of corn.

Caleb and Carter had fun feeding the pigeons until . . .

this little boy intentionally ran through the flock and made them fly . . .

up to a safe haven -- a high ledge on the side of the building. He was only 2 years old and was shrieking with excitement so it was pretty funny.

After spices and pigeons the boys wanted to take the train home, but it was about time for dinner so we went in search of some fish.

The Spice Market is right across the street from the entrance to the Galata Bridge and there are always people fishing from it. Rumor had it that you could buy fresh fish sandwiches right from the dock, so off we went in search of dinner . . . (to be continued).

Your Guide

For the first time in many years, you are going to have to find your way without me. I'm talking about this: the Fall 2011 TV schedule.

Since I'm limited to Netflix streaming of old shows (Firefly and Roswell have been recent favorites), it seems rather torturous to go through and find the best shows that I can't watch this year. So you'll have to go on without me.

As far as returning shows that would be at the top of my watch list (in order of when they air in the week)-- I just peeked for a second; I couldn't help it:

How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
NCIS (both regular and LA, but regular is WAY better) (CBS)
Raising Hope (FOX)
Survivor (CBS)
Modern Family (ABC)
Parks and Rec (NBC)
The Office (NBC) (to see what they do post-Michael Scott)
Amazing Race (CBS)
30 Rock would be on this list, but it doesn't start until mid-season because Tina Fey is pregnant.

I haven't looked at any of the new shows, but I would certainly recommend checking out Simon Cowell's new project, The X Factor. Basically AI with a new name. They're even airing it on Wed night to make it easy for you. Figuring out what else is worthy in the rest of the lineup will be up to you. May the Guide be with you . . .

Mosaics: more than smashed up pieces of pottery

I decided to go back and do the Istanbul posts so there's some semblance of a timeline to these stories. It would be nice to actually post them in order of when we visited the various places, but I don't feel like figuring that out right now. You would think I'd be able to tell when we went where based on the time/date stamp on my photos, wouldn't you? Well, I couldn't figure out why when I would upload photos at the end of the day that some would appear in a file dated that day and the other half on the previous day. Until I realized that the small camera I use was still set to California time so any photos taken before midnight pacific time (pretty much any morning photos in Turkey) would be dated the day before while the rest would be filed under the correct date. So I've been having to go through and figure out if the photos of old architecture and arched ceilings belong with this particular historic site or that particular site. They all start to look the same after a while . . .

Today's story takes place at Chora Church. Now you probably thought like I did that this place was pronounced "chore-ah" church, huh? In all our travel planning I kept pronouncing it that way in my head only to find out the day we visited that it's actually pronounced "Korea" church. I don't know why it's named like a country in Asia and just because it makes more sense to me, I continue to call it "chor-ah" in my head.

These were the only two photos I got of the outside. I wasn't really focused on the exterior because the reason the guidebooks tell you to come here is all on the inside.

"Hello, happy family!" is what is what many of the carpet salesmen/restaurant hosts/people selling crap would call out as our big caravan would ramble down the street. Thankfully most of the time it was true.

Something that is pretty nifty: the photo on wikipedia is only a little bit better than mine. Well, theirs is centered, right side up, and has better color, but you can tell we were in the same place . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Istanbul_Chora_Church_01.jpg

So "korea" church is famous for its mosaics. This dome is painted, not a mosaic, but still cool. I guessed it was Mary and baby Jesus surrounded by the 12 disciples because anytime you're in a church and there are 12 people, it's usually the disciples, but these "people" all have wings and holy halos, so they are probably angels.

Of course there's a cat. A very friendly cat. Caleb, for all his love of cats was a little nervous about petting it. When we first got to Turkey he wanted to pet all the cats, even the mangy, weepy-eyed, possessed looking ones and I might have said something like, "You can't pet the cat because if the cat nips at you we'll have to take you to the hospital in case it has rabies and then you'll have to get some shots." I might need to dial that back a bit because he was pretty jumpy and flinchy around it.

Carter was petting it and it was purring and nudging his head against his hand trying to get him to scratch behind its ears.

Here's what this church is famous for: mosaics of all these different scenes from Jesus' life. You can see how big they are compared to Josh in the corner of the photo.

Up close. I don't know what they used for the gold, but it was glittery. It was amazing how the picture was made up of all these little bitty square pieces laid out perfectly.

Close up of the pieces that make up the big picture. This is part of Jesus' robe from a different mosaic.

The framed marble panels on the wall behind us are made from pieces that were sliced and then opened up side by side to form a mirror image of the grain.

There were mosaics all over the walls and ceilings. I would have liked to see them up close because that is when I was really able to appreciate the detail and the work that went into creating them.

This mosaic was pretty easy to figure out. Jesus' first miracle where he turns the water into wine.

The ones on the ceilings were much better preserved, but the distance made it difficult to see the detail. I also would have needed a guidebook to tell which scenes they were depicting, but I didn't mind that much. I pretty much walked around getting a crick in my neck thinking, "ooh, pretty." That was good enough for me.