Following sister Bonnie's advice, Karen, Moira, and I took a ferry from Istanbul to visit Hebeliada (which, according to Wikipedia, means "Saddlebag Island"). At just under a square mile in area, this is the second-largest of the Princes Islands scattered in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul. I had assumed that they were called Princes Islands because royalty had favoured them, but apparently the name derives from the fact was because these were popular isles on which to exile problematic royals.
We had a bit of difficulty getting aboard. Moira and I had gone into the ferry building and were trying to figure out how to buy a ticket, whereas Karen was outside trying to do the same thing when the ferry workers quite abruptly closed a garage-door such that Moira and I were locked inside while Karen was locked outside. Wish we spoke Turkish! But Karen used the time wisely and managed to buy tokens so when the garage door went back up and a crowd of scores of eager ferry-goers swelled in she was part of the tide. We scrambled to get through the turnstyles and flowed along with the crowd, boarding a smallish 3-deck ferry that was instantly jam-packed full. It was only after it sailed that we thought to wonder where it was bound.
Upper deck of the ferry. One highlight of the ferry trip was the opporunity it afforded to get an impression of the staggering expanse of Istanbul on both sides of the Bosphorus. The first stop was on the Asian side, and we might have dissembarked and had lunch there but the stop was over and we were back underway before we were even aware that we'd docked. Later, Moira asked a young woman who had excellent English, who told us that Hebeliada would be the third island at which the ferry would stop. So we had a nice long ferry ride and were hungry when we arrived.
Once in Hebeliada, we went to Bizim Mutfak, a shawarma place that Bonnie and Dave had recommended. Exceptionally, the menu was in both Turkish and English.
We appreciated the kindness of that gesture, but parts of the execution had us baffled. For example, several of the dishes featured "chicken returns." Was this left-over chicken? A chicken back by popular demand? After a bit of head-scratching we realized that "returns" referred to the rotating shawarma spit. Anyway, darned tasty and very reasonably priced.
Other than a few emergency vehicles, motorized transport is not allowed on any of the Princes Islands, which greatly adds to the peaceful contrast with Istanbul.
Yes, little wheelbarrows.
It is pretty amazing that a small practice on a tiny island in the Sea of Marmara could treat such a wide range of psychological probems. All of that, PLUS it's a diner! Wow.
Some parts of the tiny town are more prosperous than others.
It was fascinating to watch this guy. He would grab a handful of batter with his left hand, make a fist, and squeeze out a perfect sphere of dough, then pluck if off and flick it in the boiling oil, over and over again, each in the twinkling of an eye until the whole surface of the vat was crowded with TurkTimBits(r).
Karen's place is a bit overgrown. Just kidding, but this place IS on the grounds of Robert College. Don't know the story, but it appears to be a very nice old house that has been abandoned to nature.
As part of a belated celebration of Karen's birthday (back in September), we went to a fancy restaurant called Feriye. Gorgeous location right on the Bosphorus near one of the bridges. The bridge is a non-stop light show.
View from the restaurant, featuring near-full moon.
The restaurant was self-consciously fancy, as displayed in the appetizer featured above. I especially dug the trick with the lemon peel folded back to make a little stand for the wedge.
We decided to pass on the rice pudding -- sounded like it might be a bit gluey.
I brought a pair of runners and my "good" black leather shoes to Istanbul. Whenever I was wearing the runners I seemed to see shoe-shine guys. Usually just a solo guy on the sidewalk with a box with a few brass-topped containers and brushes and cloths and a foot rest. When I was wearing my leather shoes, I rarely saw any of those guys. I didn't bring shoe-care equipment to Italy so the shoes were slipping into disreputability. I didn't realize how bad they were until I saw them in the hands of the Kurdish gentleman below. Karen and I were en route to the Spice Market when we came across a veritable plaza of shoe shiners, each with a quite elaborate set-up including innumerable brass-topped bottles of cleaners and polishes.
His sign said that he charged 4 Turkish Lira for a shoe shine. But my shoes needed much more than a shine. I'd badly scuffed the front tips of each sole such that the were coming apart. He put a bunch of glop from one of the bottles all over the shoes, incude the edges of the soles. Then he painted some other glop as a second coat long the sides of the soles. And then...
He took out a lighter and set the glop on fire. Very exciting. And I must admit it seemed to work to create a new seal all along the sides of the soles. Then he did a whole series of steps involving polish and brushes and cloths and then he shamed me with a public display of the shocking condition of my insoles and persuaded me to try a pair of fancy leather insoles which subsequently he trimmed to fit and viola, 39 Turkish Lira later my shoes looked spectacular and we'd met a polyglot Kurdish shoe shine guy.
So on to the spice market in my nice shiny shoes!
These are reportedly a sort of tea; pour boiling water over one of these and it opens up like a flower and flavours the water.
I like good, descriptive names for things, such as "blue flower."
Turks excel at making tasty crunchy nutty sweets.
Beyond the Spice Market is a warren of tiny streets crowded wth shops. The man whose shop is shown on the left very kindly wrote out detailed instructions that guided us to a place a couple of blocks down where Karen was able to buy a salad spinner. Offerings of particular types tend to be concentrated; one rather sparsely populated laneway specialized in naughty videos, condoms, and Viagra.
Not sure if this wiring is up to code...
These manikins are less than 3' tall.
When good Muslim boys reach a certain age (6ish, I think) they get to dress up as part of a ceremony the culminates in circumcision. Apparently the white outfit is an example of a circumcision costume.
This one, I'm not so sure -- looks like it might be for a differet sort of coming out.
I wish I had tried this. It's a street cart with a sink and a faucet, and a light, thin Kifir-like beverage is circulating rapidly so as to become very frothy.
