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  • Day 2, Jun 27: Istanbul, Part 2

    Day 2, Jun 27: Istanbul, Part 2

    Dan made up for his bad first night last night and slept easily until 6am, about 7 hours. He says he would have slept longer if we’d closed the curtains so the sun wouldn’t come in. I had my traditional bad 2nd night – went to bed around midnight, slept for about 1.5 hours, then up for several, finally got 2 more in between 4-6. But I managed to make it through the day. Hoping tonight is better.

    We had breakfast in the hotel and went out about 9am. We walked about a mile to Dolmabahce Palace, the new home of Sultans starting 1856, when the one in reign at the time decided he needed something more modern than Topkapi (which we’ll get to later in the week). Six sultans lived there until Turkey became a republic in 1923, and then its first President, Ataturk, lived there until he died in 1938. He is generally credited with bringing lots of positive reform to Turkey and making it the more modern country it is today compared to its Muslim brethren. In addition to making it secular and underscoring religious freedom, women were given the right to vote, he banned the fez, abolished titles and had had everyone take surnames. The airport is named for him.

    Above: a nice garden leading up to the palace. Below: the entrance gate we’d just walked through to get here. (Strange poses like this result from Dan going “Look up. Towards the sun. Now look at me.”)
    You could not enter the palace on your own. If you weren’t with a group or your own tour guide, of which there were many, you were held to the side and put with one of the palace docents to take you through it. Photos were not allowed inside. They pushed a lot of people through this thing, and the groups were close together. The one we started with was pretty big. We eventually stole away into another smaller group, and then another still smaller one. It was a little strange but we mostly pulled it off; the middle group never noticed – despite the fact it was all Indian – and the last group leader just said “you should stay with your group.” Dan told a plausible story of how we got mixed up in one of the rooms and lost our group. At any rate, he was pretty nice and didn’t seem to mind us tagging along, in fact even invited us to join them where they were going next at the end!

     

    I stole a couple of images off the internet that I thought showed several of the rooms well. Above: the grand staircase shortly after you entered. Those columns are not marble but wood painted to look like that. This palace is built on landfill and they were trying to keep the weight down. Below: one of the salons, or halls. A unique thing about the palace design is it is completely Western – particularly Baroque and Rococo – style in a traditional Turkish layout, with great halls around which are many rooms. Western palaces have thinner corridors with the rooms off of them. It’s mixture of East and West symbolizes much of Istanbul’s attitude about who she is.

    When we were in this room we’d commented on the “standing chandeliers”, at which point I said, isn’t it really a lamp? In this photo, that’s exactly what it looks like.
    This was the ceremonial hall. That chandelier weighs 8500 pounds and was purchased from Britain a for 2.5million “gold coins” what all he said, from a decoration budget of budget of 5mill – so half spent on this one thing. He didn’t know how much construction cost.
    The palace sits right next to the Bosphorus Strait.
    Our plans for the rest of the day was really just neighborhood walking. Many of the things on our list are still closed today due to the religious holiday so we moved some things around on our itinerary. Our hotel is in a general area known as “the new district” – which, in Europe of course “new” is the most relative word ever  – and this dates back to Constantine’s time when Catholics left the “old” district to form new neighborhoods north of the Golden Horn to get away from his Eastern Orthodox ways. We stayed on this side of the Horn all day and hit several distinct areas.

    We walked first to Taksim Square, a gathering place where large festivals occur and protests have been held, including a recent youth based protest in 2013 that’s referred to as the Tiananmen Square of Istanbul – estimate more than 3million people participated. This is Taksim above and below. [And by the way, complete non-sequiter: there’s no “x” in the Turkish alphabet, so when you need to get somewhere you hire a taksi….]

    Next was Istiklal Street, a few blocks down from Taksim. This is #33 on TripAdvisor’s list of 1051 Things to Do in Istanbul, and Rick Steves recommended highly as well. It’s literally just that – a street – with lots of side streets and passage ways off of it, with a wide array of retail and restaurants. We thoroughly enjoyed checking things out and people watching.

    We saw a sign from the street pointing to this Turkish Bath so thought – when in Rome and all that. I’d been thinking I wanted to do one while we were here. We went inside. It was a little divey and cheaply priced. We passed in the moment then checked TripAdvisor and it was rated only 2.5 with hundreds of review. A definite pass. But yes that says 1481, as in how long it’s been there. We’ll look for others to go to.

     

    One of several passageways we went down.
    Lots of little markets in addition to restaurants.

     

     

    We ended up getting a similar lunch to yesterdays, although we both agreed yesterdays was better.

    Where this street ends, the Galata area picks up. The only other thing on our list to go in was the Galata Mevlevi Museum. And odd little side trip, but on the museum pass. It focuses on the history of the Mevlevi order of Sufi-ism, which, in addition to being the order Rumi was in, is famous for whirling dervishes. Yes, they are an actual thing, not just a Sound of Music reference. You can still catch a performance of them here on Sunday nights, and several other places around town, but you have to book early which we of course didn’t. So I took a few photos of photos instead. I learned before we got here that it’s not so much a dance as a religious ritual. I came here hoping to find the meaning behind it but left still with that question in mind unfortunately. Later I found a reference indicating it’s commonly believed to be a re-enactment of birth and resurrection. But this order has been whirling since the 1300’s.

     

     

    This is the hall on the 2nd floor where they dance. I found a YouTube clip of one taken at this same place in 2012. Check it out and fast forward to about 4:00.
    A strange little graveyard off to the side. We didn’t notice it when we came in but could see it clearly from the windows upstairs.
    No date provided, I just liked the way it looked.
    Dan liked this calligraphy here but we don’t know what it means.

    Next we went to the Galata Tower. Built around 1348 as a watchtower at about 220 feet high, it is now an observation point, and has a restaurant up there, too. We had no plans to go up, and even if we had we certainly would’ve changed our minds with the line we saw that indicated it was at least a 45 minute wait. While only about 83 degrees today, it was humid and seemed much hotter.

     

    Up and down more fun streets.

     

    Eventually we got to the Galata Bridge and I got a close-up of what I couldn’t get from the tram yesterday: Lots of folks fishing off the bridge. The bridge is actually 2 layers: cars and public transit on top, shops and restaurants below.

    We took these from a landing below. Not sure which mosque that is; pretty sure it’s Suleymaniye, which we’ll also hit later. (And based on the map I just reviewed, that’s exactly what it is.)

    Dan: “Look up. Now turn to the sun. Look back at me.”
    Me: “Take the damn photo!” My 3.5 hours of sleep was showing.

    We took public transportation back to the hotel, and rested for a few hours, including a shower and steam room for me (which we’ve done every night by the way), and probably about an hour unplanned nap. We at first were going to go out for dinner but decided to wait and see what the food in the lounge was. It was pretty good, so we stayed in.

    That soup was yogurt, rice and mint and surprisingly good Other nice things: the little squares were lasagna; roasted chicken tenders were pretty tasty. In the little bowls were a kind of frittata, with plenty of dill, a taste we keep rediscovering in this lounge for some reason.

     I couldn’t really describe the two things in bowls but that cheesecake was incredible.
    We left about 7pm for our final neighborhood, Besiktas. #82 on TripAdvisor’s list and very close to our hotel. We enjoyed this neighborhood a lot.
     We came across a tiny mosque on our way in, has been here since 1665.

     

    Turkey has 2 soccer teams, one of them is named after this neighborhood. Their colors are black and white and I guess they just won something big? Anyway there were flags everywhere. Note the middle of the street below.

    The thing to know about the next 3 photos is I was standing in the same place when I took each of them, middle of the street: to my left, in front of me (and a better photo of that flag), to my right.

     

     

     No dollar store’s here. This actually works out to be about $1.75.
     Above and below: a little park just as we got close to the hotel on our way back.

     

    We really enjoyed our day, we love seeing how the locals live. And now thankfully it is bedtime.

     

  • Day 1, Jun 26: Istanbul, Part 1

    Day 1, Jun 26: Istanbul, Part 1

    I managed to sleep about 6.5 hours and got up about 5:45. Dan only slept about 4 hours and had been up since 3am. Breakfast was open at 6am so we went down as soon as we got up.

     Dan having a little fun since we had the place all to ourselves. There was literally no one else in the restaurant when we got there about 6:15.
     It was quite a spread. All kinds of stuff, including the best scrambled eggs I’ve had in a long while. (For one they were very fresh, not out of a carton which is so common in hotel breakfast buffets, even nice ones.)
     Fresh honey. Haven’t seen that before.
     The view from our table.
    We headed out about 8:45. We caught a bus right across the street. The fare was supposed to be 8 Lira, 4 a piece; we had a 5 and a 20, he had no change, so waved us on after taking the 5. At a transfer point, we bought an Instanbulkart which will let us ride at 2.30 lira each. That got us on a tram which we took into  the Sultanahmet District where we would spend the day. This is the historical center of Istanbul.

     

    First stop was Sultanahmet Camii, better known as the Blue Mosque. Built between 1609-1616, it has one main dome, six minarets, and eight secondary domes. It incorporates some Byzantine Christian elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period.

    As we were walking in we saw all these faucets lined up were people were washing their feet before coming in. This is an interior courtyard. As visitors, we were directed around the side and the back to ensure we were properly attired. We’d read on the website that you couldn’t wear shorts so both of us had worn jeans out today for that reason. When we went through the line we figured out they would have just given us these skirts to wear instead. Darn :)
    It was a decent size but honestly not all that impressive. We’re probably just used to Christian cathedrals, which are much more ornate with lots of art. I will say the carpet was nice though. You had to take your shoes off before you went in and since I was wearing sandals my bare feet sank right into it and it was great.

     

     

     

    The dome was pretty, and I loved the sign below which describes a nice sense of respect and tolerance. Shocking for a Muslin church, I know. (That was sarcasm if you missed it.) It was right above a box where you could ask questions about the religion, leave an email address and they would send you the answers.

     

     

     

     

    This is the Hagia Sophia, literally across the square from the Blue Mosque. It is older by more than 1000 years and probably has the most interesting history of any church we’ve been in. Starting out as Christian, the first church built on this site was built by Constantine around in the 300’s AD. It was destroyed by riots, as was a second one. The one still standing was built by Justinian and completed in 537. Since Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was “the” power after Rome fell, emperors’ coronations were held here while it was in power.

    Remnants of the 5th century church on the side as you enter.

    We passed on the audio guide but watched a little movie that was showing to the left of the entrance and it was very informative. Most of what I write in this section I got that from film. This remained a Christian Church until 1453 when the Ottomans conquered this area. The leader of that conquest, Sultan Mehmed II, was so impressed with the beauty of the church he let it stand as is, and added Islamic pieces to it instead. So it’s certainly the only building we’ve been in that has both Christian and Muslim backgrounds. Today it operates solely as a museum.

    The Turkish symbols are painted on large wooden discs and literally just hung from the walls like you would a painting in your home.
    One of 4 angels painted into the corners of the ceiling.
    Columns with ornate tops and the symbol of Justinian in the middle.

    There were several Christian mosaics still in decent shape, this one from the 12th century. Mary and Christ in the middle, with an emperor and empress on either side.

    From the 11th century, Christ with Constantine the IX and his empress.

    From the 13th century: Christ, Mary and John the Baptist known for highly expressive faces. Again, these are mosaics, not paintings. The movie had nice close-ups of this and you really appreciated the detail of the tiny tiles.

    Brought here by a sultan in the 16th century from ancient Pergamon, this marble jar is from 400-300 BC, the Hellenistic period.

    One of the angels in the corner, with the Turkish writing underneath. I do love the mix of religions in this church.

    Ditto.
    The dome above what would have been the altar.
    The pulpit. Oddly similar to the ones we’ve seen in Germany and Belgium. But different.

    The movie also did a nice job of pointing out how all the walls have all this detail in them with all these different kinds of marble, granite, etc. This section a good example of that.

    So let’s talk about the cats in Istanbul. They are everywhere. On our walk this evening we counted 10 of them just in this one block. And while stray, definitely not feral. They are as docile as can be; we noticed on our walk that could be because people leave food out for them. This is the only cat we’ve seen inside a building, it was enjoying the sun in this spot. We were afraid it was going to go after that little kid who kept poking at it. It just sat there.

     

    An exit off to the side, which had a bronze door that’s about 2200 years old, shown below.

     

    A baptistery in a side building, complete with hot tub :)

     

    A nice fountain in the square separating the two mosques.

    Next we went to the Basilica Cistern, constructed in the 500’s, Justinian again. Built to store water, it can hold 100,000 tons of it. It was dark, wet, and cool.

    And Dan says scenes from a recent Dan Brown movie were filmed here, although he couldn’t remember which one.


    These columns above and below supported by heads of Medusa. The mystery is they were brought from somewhere but no one knows where.

     

     

    Next we just meandered around town. Today is part of a holiday (Ramazan) so lots of stuff was closed. In a way we liked it because there were less people about and the stuff that was closed were shops we weren’t interested in to begin with. We came across this little mosque below and wandered in, never did get the name of it.

    Maybe this should be the Blue Mosque 2.

     

    It was light, airy, comfortable.

     

    Really nice carpet again and I took advantage of it. Is that sacrilegious? The photo below is the mosque from the outside which we took when we left.

     

    A little place we stopped for lunch with mostly outside seating. There were a few tables, above, upstairs, which we saw when we used the restroom.

    A very typical Turkish meal, similar to Turkish food we’ve had in Germany and Austria.

    These sweet shops seem to be on every block. So far we haven’t ventured into any. You can practically smell the sugar walking by.

    Next we went to the archeological museums. There were 3 different buildings and lots of sections closed off because of renovations. We moved through them pretty quickly and didn’t take a ton of photos, but they were interesting and we appreciated the history. Lots of stuff from 800 BC – 200 AD, with good stories about Mesopotamia, Assyrians, Alexander the Great, etc., which we find interesting but haven’t seen a lot of in other European museums. Gotta get closer to the source I guess.

    This statue of a king is almost 4000 years old, one of the oldest pieces in the collection.
    King Shalmaneser III from Neo-Assyrian period, mid 800s BC.

     

    It was odd seeing this here: replicas of things from Pergamon, an ancient city in Turkey. The originals found in this important dig we saw in the Pergamon museum in Berlin, this from the Ishtar Gate. Just seems wrong.

    Interesting column base from about 500 BC.

    The description is “a grotesque mask of terracotta.” No argument. Have never seen anything quite like it this old, from Carthage circa 650 BC.
    Elaborate sarcophagus
    It was about 3:15pm. We were hot, tired, and ready to rest. We went back to the hotel the way we came, same series of public transportation and transfers. But traffic was awful and everything was very crowded. Thankfully, everything was also very air-conditioned.
    .

     

    This is the Galata Bridge, one of three that connects the two parts of Istanbul separated by the Golden Horn, a little tributary of the Bosphorus Strait. It was hard to capture what I wanted to but if you look closely you can see fishing poles. We noticed it when we were crossing in the morning, and here it was again: lots of people fishing from the bridge.

    The bus drops off right in front of the hotel. We went to the lounge and sat there for a good 2 hours, say 4:30-6:30. I started working on this, Dan did a little work. We nibbled on lots of interesting things, including this sweet potato pie below which I thought was quite good, Dan thought was too sweet.

    We went out again about 7pm, through some of the same area we walked last night, but even farther out. We had walked up this hill last night; I didn’t realize until this evening how steep it was, with a bit of a view of the Bosphorus Strait in the background. Again, the photo doesn’t quite cut it.

     

    We laughed when we saw this bus. You can’t really tell but it is PACKED. As in like sardines. We couldn’t believe the traffic. We walked a good mile up this rode and the Entire Time the walkers were moving faster than the cars, without exception. Awful.

    We were headed to a neighborhood called Ortakoy. That’s the Ortakoy mosque below, and there are photos of the inside coming up. If there were lots of other tourists we didn’t see many; felt mostly local to us. Lots of shops and restaurants and just lots of people out and about. We took photos that we’d hoped would capture the lively feel.

     

    Second time we’ve seen some guy selling mussels from a stand. These had rice in them somehow; Dan tried to get a close-up below but it didn’t quite come out.

     

    We both enjoyed being out and seeing all the people, Dan especially. He really likes it when there’s a lot of people out and about enjoying their city.

     

     

     This is the inside of the mosque.

     

     

    The next series of photos try to capture something we’ve never quite seen before. We came into this opening that had all these little food stands. Except Every Single One of them was selling stuffed potatoes: baked potatoes stuffed with all kinds of stuff including multiple kinds of olives, pickled cabbage, sausage, carrots, peas, corn, other stuff we couldn’t identify. It was just so odd – there must’ve been 8-10 of them in a row, all selling exactly the same thing.

     

     

    And then, we go a little further, and the same dynamic now only with waffles: the Belgian kind that are intended for dessert, not breakfast, with all kinds of syrups, fruits, sprinkles, etc., as toppings. A little further out from here it opened up, and there were all these people sitting out by the water eating stuffed potatoes and waffles.

    The Bosphorus bridge going over to the Asia side of Istanbul. We’ve been in the Europe side and hadn’t made any plans to go over. But we made it through quite a few things today and still have 3 days to go, so we may have to figure that out.

     

    Other things we noticed today beyond lots of stray cats: also stray dogs. Not in as many numbers, thankfully. Because while the cats all look pretty healthy, the dogs not so much, more than half of them we’ve seen are mangy.

    Lots of BO in this town, too. Lots of it.

    Our experience of the people so far as been lovely. We can tell from the way they interact with us that they figure out we’re American pretty quick (although often it seems they’re not quite sure about Dan – he definitely gets more stares than I do, I tend to blend in easier). And we’ve been treated extremely well everywhere we’ve been. So for all of those who were worried about us coming here, you can stop now :) We’re having a blast and the people are quite enjoyable.

  • Departure: Sacramento/Raleigh to Istanbul

    Departure: Sacramento/Raleigh to Istanbul

    As I type it’s coming up on 10am ET Saturday morning. I’m in the British Airways lounge of Terminal 7 at JFK. I took a redeye last night on JetBlue, landed around 8:30am local time and got to the lounge about an hour later. Not bad for a terminal change and going through security again. Plus I don’t know this airport very well and it always takes a minute to orient myself. But it was relatively easy and security wasn’t crowded. Deplaning actually took the longest!

    Dan is still in Raleigh. He will meet me here this afternoon, say 3ish. We have a 6:30pm flight to Heathrow, a 4 hour layover, then on to Istanbul. If all goes well we should be in our hotel no later than 6pm Istanbul time.

    So I have a good 4-5 hours to kill before Dan gets here. I didn’t sleep much on the way over so may find a place to curl up here in the lounge. Or not. One of the reasons I didn’t mind the long layover here is it’s nice way to decompress and start to disconnect from every day life and work: forced to do not much at all. Darn. But I figured before I venture into nothingness I’d get started here. I have a whole photo file system I set up for these blogs and I’ll get that done, not that it’s that time consuming. Had some coffee, juice and oatmeal for breakfast. I love the glorious feeling of an unstructured day and not knowing what you’re going to do next until you decide. So we’ll see. .

    A few photos of this lounge:

    The main room as you enter.

    I’d read about the fountain in some reviews of this lounge. It is a nice touch and the area above it brings in a lot of natural light. And oh by the way, in case you missed it: yes, there are reviews on lounges. Dan has introduced me to this whole travel subculture. I can’t decide if it’s intriguing or just bizarre.

     Primary food and drink bar, with a juice bar off to the far left.

    Alcohol bar as well as just water, snacks, etc. There’s also more lounge area behind me and to my right but you get the idea. It’s a pretty nice lounge, despite all the reviews complaining about how outdated it is. If you don’t have to sit at a gate and buy expensive and unhealthy airport food, I’d say you have it pretty good. And I do.
    _______

    It’s now Sunday morning, just after 9am London time. We had an easy flight over and both managed to sleep a few hours on the plane. We’ve been in the lounge since about 7:30am and boarding should start in the next 30-45 minutes. I’ve been reading a book I started on the plane last night, “That’s What Friends Are For” by a friend of mine who writes under Kenneth Sean Campbell. It’s fiction but memoir-like about a group of gay friends at the beginning of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco starting 1980. I always enjoy his books because the stories are relatable, I know some of the people he’s acknowledging in the beginning, and I read it with his very distinct voice in my head. And the landmarks are correct. The book I finished yesterday afternoon was a new author to me and I won’t read him again. It was one of my go-to genres – murder mystery or legal thriller, in this case the latter – set in LA. Not only was it not the best writing, he kept getting landmarks wrong – streets leading places I know they didn’t, Disneyland in LA county instead of Orange, and other incorrect references; it was just annoying.
    Enough of that. After I’d finished that book yesterday sitting where I am in the photo below, I went back to rewatching Game of Thrones, preparing for Season 7. Finished 5 and about that time Dan showed up, roughly 3pm. The lounge had been pretty quiet most of the day as indicated below. He had access to the first class lounge because of his miles status so we went to check that out.


    The view I had for the early afternoon until Dan showed up just after 3pm. The lounge was nearly empty when I got

    The photo above and below are of the first class lounge. Not all that much different, just a little quieter. I didn’t notice until after I took the photo below that Dan’s standing at the buffet bar.

     

     We sat there for a little over an hour then went for a “pre-flight supper” that they offer business class flyers. The food was very good, better and more options than you would get on the plane. And eating first allows you more time to sleep on the flight, which is why they give you the option. We sampled a bunch of stuff as shown above: on the small plate, corn and bean salad; arugula with onion, feta and grapefruit; and in the little cup some rice, salmon, cucumber and sriracha. Top plate included pork belly which was the best dish of all, and cashew chicken which was just OK. Bottom plate more pork belly (we really liked it), swordfish, roasted carrots, asparagus and cauliflower that were all pretty good.

    Some decent cheese and cookies for dessert, with a little jam. They had this other thing for dessert that sounded good on paper but was awful. It was a sugary fried thing – it was so bad I don’t even remember – it was like biting into oil soaked dry sponge, and not in a good way. The photo below is the food line on the right and the dessert table on the left.
    We landed on time and made it to this lounge pretty fast. The lounge is crowded and that makes me self-conscious about taking photos so I didn’t. Plus we’ve been here a bunch of times so if you’ve traveled with us on prior trips, you’ve been here already :)
    We should be boarding soon. See you in Istanbul!
    _________
     We had business class seats on the connection and sat in the first row. Dan loves being the first person off the plane! The seats are identical to economy except the middle one is turned into a table of sorts which comes in handy and is just less crowded. Plus you get food. But the best part about business class we learned as we were getting off: a Fast Track pass through customs. We had no waiting, walked straight up to the window, and by-passed the line with a couple of hundred of people probably.
     This was the lunch, most of which is pictured below. We both got the salmon and linguine and, while tasty, didn’t photograph well. That chocolate tart orange bitter sauce thing? Amazing. I almost licked the bowl.
     Our first glimpse of the Black Sea, with Bulgaria in the foreground, and coming up on Turkey below, with the Bosphorus Strait in the middle if you look Really Carefully.
    I do love getting these messages when I turn my phone back on!
     Highs all week will be in the mid-80s, a good 20 degrees less what we had in Sacramento last week.
     If you read our Pre-Departure entry, I mentioned how excited Dan was about this hotel. It’s the Conrad Istanbul Bosphorus. They confirmed yesterday we would have a corner suite with a view. There weren’t any additional upgrades available when we got here. We’re not complaining. This is by far the nicest hotel and nicest room we’ve ever stayed in. Living area below. Not pictured: a half bath off the entrance.

    A nice little welcome package. When we came back to our room later in the evening they’d done a turn down service with more water, slippers placed strategically on each side of the bed on these little mats. Pretty adorable.


    No complaints about that view.

    All kinds of toiletries, and a TV screen in the mirror!

    We unpacked and cleaned up a little then went to the lounge. We just had some light snacks for dinner, we weren’t really hungry after that big lunch on the plane.

    Dan likes the staircase in the lobby.

    Above and below: some of the neighborhood close by.

     

    We went walking along the strait and there were lots of ferries, boats, and restaurants.

    We went into town a block and walked several more. There were lots of people out and about, 95% of them or better local. Dan noticed no one wears shorts here, men or women. Oh well, that’s pretty much all we planned on.

    We came across this park that was entwined with something that looked like ruins, ancient city walls or something. The park was built into a series of hills and there were lots of retaining walls and they looked Really Old.

     

    This wall in particular looked pretty old.

    One of those times the photo doesn’t do it justice. The background was quite pretty. I have a feeling that’s going to happen a lot.

    Again, you can’t really tell how steep this drop was – one of those retaining walls I mentioned earlier – and the severe case of vertigo that was setting in.

    Not a bad view from our bedroom at night either.
    When we went to Paris in 2014, several times that day we said “can’t believe we’re here.” This was that oh x10 at least. As soon as we got out of customs into the main part of the airport it was clear we weren’t in Kansas anymore. The language – written and verbal – very different from anything we’ve experienced. While we’re getting by so far, English is not as predominant here as it’s been other countries we’ve gone. There’s a frenetic pace to the people – traffic especially, very aggressive drivers, lots of honking and yelling.
    The cab ride from the airport to the hotel was an adventure. We met a local woman in the airport who offered to share a cab with us because she was going in the same direction and could help ensure the taxi driver didn’t gouge the poor locals by going the long way around. Now remember, it’s Dan we’re talking about, who always has Google Maps running, and has this very fun story about correcting a limousine driver in Belgium, and who got after a Raleigh cab driver on one or our first trips there together for the very thing this woman was saying she would prevent. So the chances of that really happening are slim-to-none. Somehow we took her up on her offer anyway. Very long story short: we won’t be doing that again. Our read of the cab driver when he dropped us off at the hotel was she made him absolutely nuts. And Dan ended up having them change course at least once; she spoke English, the cab driver didn’t. And that’s enough about that :)
    We will have 4 days on the ground here and are so looking forward to it. We love history, and there were 3 big and very different civilizations here, all with different religious undertones, if nothing else indicated by the number of times the city changed names:
    • Byzantium – around 700 BC (pagan)
    • Constantinople – capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, circa 300 AD. It roughly held that name (with other variations) for the next 1500+ years. (Christian)
    • The Ottomans conquered in 1453 and it’s essentially been Turk ever since. (Muslim)
    • It became Istanbul after WW1 in 1923 after Turkey became a Republic.
    That’s enough to set the stage. It’s now 11pm Sunday Istanbul time. Tomorrow we start in the old district and will hit the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque for sure. Looking forward to sleeping in a bed for the first time since Thursday night! See you tomorrow…

     

     

  • Pre-Departure

    As I mentioned in our recent Chicago blog, that was the beginning of a bunch of travel for us, especially if you’re Dan. That was just a few weeks ago for Memorial Day weekend. This weekend we met in Los Angeles for an 80th birthday celebration for his mother. We both flew in to LA Friday evening, and stayed two nights at the Hilton LAX.

    Yesterday we just hung out: breakfast in the lounge, then took Lyft over to Manhattan Beach. From there we walked through Hermosa and Redondo Beaches along the beach, admiring the interesting architecture (at least for us) of all the houses that face the Pacific Ocean. We walked back to Manhattan Beach via the Veterans Parkway, and 3.7 mile trail that’s laid out over defunct railroad tracks. Through all that we managed to walk over 9 miles.

    Dan’s niece, Irene, picked us up at the hotel around 5pm and we met his family at a place in Koreatown. Yongsusan is not a typical restaurant, at least not in a sit-down-and-order-off-the-menu sort of way. It only hosts parties, everything is sectioned off into rooms, and the menu planned in advance. We had a decent sized room as it was a decent sized party, as the photo below indicates.

     

    The food was amazing and we had a nice time visiting everyone, especially his nieces and nephew.

    Since we were quasi-dressed we asked Irene to take a photo of us on our way out.
    Dan had a 6am flight home this morning, so he said goodbye to me about 4:30am. I had a 9am flight and we both made it home just fine.
    Next Friday night, I will take a red-eye on JetBlue to JFK Airport in New York City, where Dan will meet me later that afternoon. From there we fly to Europe together for our annual adventure.

    Tradition requires that I do a little Pre-Departure entry. I think I did the first Pre-Departure entry for the 2nd trip, just as a way to create the blog address and send it to people who had expressed an interest in following but who weren’t on Facebook or Google Circles. I wanted to send it before I got so tied up in getting ready that I forgot. Somehow it just became the thing to do; over the years this entry has grown to function as a little teaser.

    Over the years. Seems odd to say because it’s all gone by so fast, but our first trip was in 2013; this is the 5th year in a row we’ve gone to Europe and the 6th trip. People have said “wow, you must really like Europe – when are you going to go somewhere else?” It’s a good and fair question. The first 3 trips were all tied to Dan’s work so that’s what drove those. But somewhere during that time we made broad plans about all the things we wanted to do in Europe, and we’re still not done. So for now we’re just kind of committed and even when it’s pure vacation – like this trip and the prior two have been – we’re still working our way through our Europe list.

    About a week from now Europe time we will have just landed in Istanbul. I can honestly say it would never have occurred to me to go there, but it’s been on Dan’s list for awhile. I didn’t get interested in it until we went to Rome. It’s hard to be in the birthplace of Western Civilization and the Catholic Church without picking up on what happened next (you know, after Rome fell), and there’s this guy named Constantine that played some heavy parts in history oh around 300 AD. Constantine –> Constantinople –> Istanbul. My interest grew when we were in Dresden last year, because there were some interesting Turkish ties there. And now I can’t wait.

    We will be there for 5 nights. Turkey’s economy is such that things are pretty cheap compared to what we’re used to, and we realized we could stay at the Conrad there for less than we’ve paid in other places for not nearly as nice. Conrad, if you’re not familiar, is the high end of the Hilton chain. And they’ve upped the game a bit, offering a sweet deal to upgrade to something that should be very nice. So we’ll see how that plays out. Dan may be as excited about the hotel as he is about Istanbul in general.

    People who’ve never been say “isn’t it dangerous?” Others who have say “you’re going to love it and it’s totally safe.” We’re not very worried. There have been terrorist incidents in many cities we’ve been in: London, Brussels, Paris, NYC; our attitude is if we stay home in fear the terrorists win. So we go. But we’re not reckless. Syria, for example, is not on our list…

    After Istanbul we fly back to Heathrow and are doing something we’ve never done in Europe before: renting a car. When we were in Edinburgh in 2014 we did a day tour by bus of the Scottish and English countryside and loved it so much we hatched this idea back then: rent a car, and just drive from town to town. Because we also love cathedrals and castles, I’ve described this as a Cathedral & Castle Hop through Southern England. We’ll hit Canterbury, Dover, Salisbury, Bath, Cardiff, Oxford. Of all of that, I’m most excited about Dover. It will combine my love of castles with our appreciation for WWII history: Dover played a major role in the Dunkirk evacuation. (Watch for the movie opening in July – the trailers look Amazing.)

    Six nights of that. And then we’re doing 2 nights in NYC on the way home. We’ll be staying at the Millennium Hilton. The only “for sure” thing we’ll do is the World Trade Center memorial, and after that will see where our mood takes us. We are within reasonable walking distance to Chinatown and Little Italy in one direction, Brooklyn Bridge in another, Ellis Island in yet another. I’m thinking we’ll find stuff to do without much planning.

    So there you have it: the preview. I’m ready for a big trip and a vacation – last time for either got me home last Labor Day. And of course, traveling is now how Dan and I connect so very much looking forward to 2 weeks together. (And no, still no updates on that front…) As always, we love it when you join us and will see you there next week…

  • Monday, May 29: Chicago – Day 3 and home

    Monday, May 29: Chicago – Day 3 and home

    I’m writing this Tuesday morning, May 30. I took today off as well and I’m so glad I did. Today I get to do what I’d originally intended to do with most of this 5 day weekend: as little as possible. Well, not really, just whatever I want on an unstructured time table. Which is really a continuation of how we approached this entire weekend. Dan and I were going over TripAdvisor’s list of Things To Do in Chicago yesterday at breakfast and we were surprised at how much of the top 20 we hit on without really even trying.

    We left the hotel early knowing it was a short day, about 8:30. We had nothing planned than exploring more of the city and stopping for lunch at some point. And that’s exactly how it unfolded. We started by going back to Millennium and Grant Parks. It was beautiful weather again and there were lots of people out and about. It was obvious that many were locals and we always appreciate seeing folks taking advantage of the outdoor space available in big cities. Lots of runners and bicyclists. In many ways, these parks rival Central Park in size and beauty we think.

    Dan was drawn back to Cloud Gate – called it “magical” several times – and wanted to get a few more shots while there were less people about.

     

     Dan – you’re right: it could use a good polish! I see what you mean now.

     

     

     

     An amphitheater with seating up front and a large field for standing folks.
    A long wood bridge connecting the parks over the street below, with great backdrops.

     

     Where Dan was drawn back to Cloud Gate, I was drawn back here. There’s something majestic and calming about this fountain.
     This is towards the end of Grant Park. We sat and people watched. Dan grabbed this photo of me (taking photos which I ended up not including).
    Museum of Natural History. I was there in 1979, first time I’d seen dinosaurs, etc.
     Next 3 shots all of the sculpture installation, described below, with Dan mimicking one in the last shot. Not sure what it’s supposed to represent – something about walking – but it was cool looking.

     

    We were headed to Union Square, just because we like to visit train stations. We’d left the core downtown area and were headed back into it.

     What you have to appreciate about this photo is that the sun was directly in my eyes and I couldn’t see a thing. Not bad! That’s the Willis (Sears) Tower. At 110 stories and 1250 feet, it was the tallest building in Chicago for awhile until the Trump Tower surpassed it. I went up in 1979. Since we’d just done John Hancock the night before, we didn’t feel the need to visit the Skydeck, which is famous for a clear ledge that allows you to step out into the sky.
     Union Square. We love big train stations, especially the older ones like this and Grand Central Station in New York, built at a time when trains were “the” way to travel and the buildings were built as an art form.

     

     

     To All Trains – and the Food Court. Dan found a good spot for lunch right here.

     

     Notice the arrow to the Food Court. It was accurate :)
     We loved that most of the options in the food court were focused on Chicago traditions (we skipped the popcorn but I was tempted). The Sacramento airports have done a nice job of that approach – I noticed on this trip that even the Starbucks is gone from Terminal A, replaced with a Taylor’s market. Love the focus on local. And this was our last chance to get Italian Beef and a Chicago hot dog so that’s what we did. And the French fries were Amazing.

     

     After lunch we kept meandering. Dan at the base of the Willis Tower.

     

     A Picasso sculpture in the square outside of City Hall (in the photo below) and the courthouse (behind the sculpture). You can see from the kid it’s pretty big, and there were several children using it as a slide.

     

     At the corner in the middle of the photo is The Dearborn, where we had dinner with Irene Saturday night. I could see this sculpture from where we were sitting at a booth along the sidewalk.
     The Flamingo by Alexander Calder. At 53 feet high it’s fairly tall, with me standing in the middle for perspective.
     We sat on a bench in this square for a minute and I laid down and took this – I liked the reflection of the clouds in the buildings. We really did have amazing weather on this trip, despite the gloomy forecast predicted when we left on Friday.
    We went back to the hotel about 1:30 to pack and check out.  There were many things about this hotel which irritated us through the course of the weekend, but the one thing that worked well was the express elevator. Our last elevator ride up.
     
     We took the train to the airport, about a 45 minute ride. Got through security quickly with TSA Pre-check and were able to relax in the lounge and eat an early dinner. The lounge was pretty crowded except for the “quiet room”, which we happily took and had to ourselves most of the time. We had stopped at a different lounge first to take showers and it was very nice to have that option.
    My flight left about an hour before Dan’s, and was of course longer. We both got home just fine. This was the first trip of the summer, with two more to follow closely after. In 3 weeks we meet in LA for a quick weekend to celebrate his mother’s 80th birthday. The following week we meet at JFK airport in NYC and travel together for 2 weeks. We will spend 5 nights in Istanbul, then 6 nights castle-hopping in the southern portion of England and Wales, ending with 2 nights in NYC. We’re very excited about all of that and ready for another adventure. I’ll skip LA, but will definitely blog the longer trip, so we will see you then!

     

     

  • Sunday, May 28: Chicago – Day 2

    Sunday, May 28: Chicago – Day 2

    I didn’t go to bed until after 1am last night, which is late for me by any standard, since I’m generally in bed by 9:30pm Pacific and I’m 2 hours ahead here. Slept about 5 hours which (unfortunately) is normal, went out to the lounge for coffee about 6:30. Breakfast with Dan then I went to the gym. He stayed behind. One of his feet has been bothering him for months. In an attempt to protect it, he overused the other late yesterday and quasi-injured it. So he will be trying to stay off it as much as he can.

    We had a light day planned anyway so that worked. The weather forecast keeps changing. It was supposed to be raining much of the day; thankfully, not so much.

    We left the hotel about 10:15, took a right on Monroe and headed several blocks to Crown Fountain at the head of Millennium Park on our left, and the Art Institute of Chicago across Monroe from that on our right. That’s the beginning of Crown Fountain above. It’s 2 walls of concrete I guess with water flowing down, and images on the insides that face each other. The black wall on the far right is the 1st one; the 2nd in the background you can see the image. Lots of people cooling their feet in the water in between, not more than a couple of inches deep. The photo below is the other side of the 1st one, and by the time we got there she was spitting :) We were actually headed to the park entrance behind it, and just happened to time this just right.

     

     A little sculpture garden at the entrance to the park.
     The Art Institute opened at 10:30am. We got there around 10:40; there was a decent line but it moved fast. (That’s me right of center.)
     Moving my way through the line. That’s Dan sitting at the top of the steps to the right of the lion.
    It’s a pretty big museum. There’s lots of stuff we decided early we could skip based on we’ve seen a lot of it, namely European art, and anything smelling like Antiquities. So we headed to our favorite: Impressionism. And we were impressed. This is the best collection of Impressionists we’ve seen since the Musee d’Orsay in Paris; possibly better. Probably better? I’d have to go back to Paris to be sure :) Who knew?
     
     A Renoir called Seascape. This was definitely the largest collection of Renoirs I’ve seen, and they were excellent. I only took photos of a few.
     This is Dan’s favorite of the Renoirs – Chrysanthemums.
     Two Sisters (On the Terrance) – the colors were quite vivid.
     
     One of the most famous in the exhibit – A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, by Georges Seurat.
     Van Gogh – self-portrait
     Monet – Irises
     Monet – (yet another) Water Lilies
     Monet – Water Lily Pond
     Harald Sohlberg – Fisherman’s Cottage. We loved the overall look of this.
     A sculpture called Le Grenouillard, or Frog Man, aptly named. It was the back of it that got my attention first in passing, then the front was even more intriguing. Below is a view from the side that also shows the back.

     

     Camille Pisarro – an artist we’d seen before, but not this many at once. More impressionist stuff that we really liked. Above: The Place Du Havre, Paris. Below: Peasant Woman Gathering Grass.

     

     “Paris Street; Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte
     The wing that contains Modern Art is appropriately designed. Dan liked the clean lines, the glass and the wood.
     Tanktotem I by David Smith. At least it was interesting.
     A Pollock. We’ve seen several over the years, and, although I enjoyed the movie about him with Ed Harris in the title role, I can’t say I understand his work. But here it was in an American museum so we figured we might at well get a photo.
     Around the corner from that, the epitome of the kind of modern art we don’t care for. Those of you who have traveled with us before know the rule: if Dan can do it, it doesn’t belong in a museum.
     Examples of post modern design. We thought it was interesting and loved the colors.
    Dan thought his rule applied to this so much he took a photo to help remind him he wants to try to do something like it! While you can’t tell here, this is big – at least 6ft x 6ft.
    Tansaekhwa – Korean for monochrome.
    Rene Magritte – On The Threshold of Liberty
    I thought this was fun. Ed Paschke – Minnie.
    This was very cool but the photo didn’t quite capture it. The piece is Untitled; artist is Kevin Beasley. He assembles his sculptures from articles of clothing – “sometimes his own, and more recently, house dresses and kaftans sourced from the same store his grandmothers shopped in.” It looks both fragile and scary, with a ghost-like quality.  What you can’t see as clearly in the photo are what look like pools of water in the folds of the fabric on the floor. Look carefully and you’ll see them.
    Kurt Seligmann – Magnetic Mountain
    Another fun one, Dan called it whimsical. Small Town by Day by Georg Scholz. Lots of stuff going on, the most interesting the butcher scene towards the bottom, of which I got a close-up below.

     

    Paul Delvaux – The Awakening of the Forest
    Another Rene Magritte: The White Race
    And another: Time Transfixed.

     

    Joan Miro – an artist we learned about in Barcelona and hadn’t heard of before that trip. This is just called Woman.
    Salvador Dali – Anthropomorphic Tower
    Pablo Picasso – The Red Armchair
    Hanns Kralik – Out My Window
    And a few Warhol’s below which need no description:

     

     

     

    When we first got there, we made reservations for lunch in the museum restaurant for 12:30. It was that time we moved in that direction to the 3rd floor in the Modern wing.

     

    Dan had steak and eggs, I had a burger.
    This was on the terrace outside the restaurant, and was part of the art exhibit, representing among other things, juxtaposition, especially on warm days.
    A nice view of some skyline at the end of the terrace. I found a photo on the internet of about what this portion looked like in 1979 when I was here last, below.

    Next we went to see more American art, focused especially on 1900-1950. Some fun things there, many you will recognize.

    James McNeill Whistler – Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother)
    AKA Whistler’s Mother

     

    This was on tour so will have to catch it next time.
    Georgia O’Keeffe – Yellow Hickory Leaves with Daisy

     

    Edward Hopper – Nighthawks. I’m guessing you’ve seen most of these so far before (Except maybe the O’Keeffe)

     

    Archibald J. Motley – Nightlife

     

    Ivan Albright – Picture of Dorian Gray

     

    Otis Kaye – Heart of the Matter
    What you can’t really tell in the photo is the money and the pencils intentionally look very realistic, and there’s an almost 3D quality to them.

     

    There is a bridge that connects the 3rd floor of the museum to Millennium Park across the street, so we took that.

     

    This is a sculpture in the park called Cloud Gate. We forgot to take a photo as we were approaching, so I had to steal one from the internet so the next photos made sense.

     

    As we were crossing the bridge a bit ago, this father told his young daughter as he was taking a photo of her, “I like your pose.” She was doing some cheeky thing with her hand; Dan said “you should do that.” He was happy I attempted it in the photo below.

     

    Underneath the cloud.
    We went back to the hotel to rest a little. Dan put some ice on his foot. I started working on photos. We stayed for 2-3 hours and caught a bite to eat when the lounge opened up for dinner – buffalo chicken wings and macaroni and cheese. Worked for us. We went out again for the sole purpose of going to 360Chicago – the observation deck in the John Hancock Center. Irene had given us tickets for it that she’d won at a comedy club. To make a very long, frustrating story short, we spent 2 hours in line and had to pay for tickets anyway by the time we got there. It wasn’t really worth it but we did get some good photos of Chicago at night. And we got out at night – it was a lovely walk back in 70 degree weather.
    John Hancock Center. The Observation floor is 94.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    We were done there about 9:30pm. We sat for a few minutes (below) then decided to walk back. We’d taken Lyft there to help save Dan’s feet, but he was feeling better and really wanted to do it.

     

     Chicago Water Tower, built 1869
     We walked along Michigan Ave, aka the Magnificent Mile.

     

     A lively little place called Shake Shack where we stopped for a late treat: vanilla custard with strawberries for Dan, and a salted caramel shake for me.
    Waiting for our elevator back at the hotel.
    A pretty full day I guess. We intentionally didn’t walk a lot due to Dan’s feet and still managed to log around 5.5 miles. Tomorrow we will have the morning and early afternoon before we have to head to the airport around 3pm. We have no idea really what we’re doing yet. So unlike us and that’s so working for me right now.

     

  • Saturday, May 27: Chicago – Day 1

    Saturday, May 27: Chicago – Day 1

    I don’t remember what time I went to bed last night; 11pm probably. Dan was already asleep. We were up a little after 5am. Breakfast was at 6am and there was no coffee in the room so I went out right on the dot. Dan joined me a little while later and we had a leisurely meal, leaving about 7:30 to go to the gym. The gym here is the best I’ve seen in a hotel, except for the one in Dresden (of all places) which was pretty incredible.

     I needed a round two of breakfast after the gym and came out to the lounge for some fruit and a muffin. It was a little more crowded than it was last night and at 6am this morning that’s for sure.
    We headed out about 10am I guess. We had no plans really, so unlike us: the weather was great and we just wanted to walk around and enjoy until Irene, Dan’s niece, contacted us around 2pm to get together with her. That was as much structure as we had to the day when we left the hotel.
     We love cities with a big nice downtown and beautiful skylines and Chicago’s is great. So lots of photos of just that.
     The black building up the center is the old Sears Tower, now called with Willis Tower. At 110 stories, it’s the tallest building in Chicago.
     Above and below: Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. Built in 1927, inspired by a fountain at the Palace of Versailles.

     

     The areas closest to Lake Michigan have been built up quite a bit since I was here in 1979. There are lots of new or at least refurbished parks and many new buildings, many of them condos. You can generally distinguish condos from office buildings by the presence of outdoor space (IE balconies).
     I don’t remember there being much around the Standard Oil Building in 1979. It’s the plain white one left of center. Although now it’s called Aon Center, it’s the 3rd tallest building in the city.
    Lots of nice parks dot this part of the city.
    A staircase up to the street level so we could cross the river.

     

     Trump Tower – 2nd tallest building in the city.
     Chicago River

     

     

     We were headed towards Navy Pier. This is probably about halfway down it.
     There are a few rides on the pier, including a Ferris wheel. I thought this was an interesting angle.
     A free little stained glass gallery at the end of the pier, with Tiffany works from 1870-1910. Same family, but the son of the founder of Tiffany & Co.

     

     

     Towards the end of the pier and huge Lake Michigan.
    As we left the stained glass gallery, we were talking about taking Lyft to the restaurant we were going to go to for lunch, which was about a mile away. By this time it was about 12:30, we were hungry and ready for a rest. Then Dan saw a sign pointing to a free trolley. We followed the sign and the trolley pulled up as we walked out of the building. It gave us a much needed break and dropped us off about 2 blocks away from our destination.
     On the trolley. The black building with rabbit ear antennas on the right is the John Hancock center, 4th tallest building in the city.

     

     Our destination for lunch: Lou Malnati’s. We saw the crowd outside and were like “oh man, what kind of wait is this going to be?” We walk in, they ask how many. We say 2. “Follow her.” We couldn’t believe we were seated right away. Everyone waiting must’ve been in larger parties. We were very pleased about that.
     We were seated just behind where I’m standing.
     We were hungry but didn’t want to eat too much at one time. So we split a chicken BBQ salad and a personal pizza. The salad was very tasty, although highlighted differences in taste between me and Dan: he says “I wish it wasn’t drenched in dressing.” Me: “I’ve seen drenched before and this is not it; I’d call it lightly coated.”
     We both agreed the deep pan pizza was very nice – sausage, mozzarella, and tomato, and I’m pretty sure the tomatoes, though stewed, were fresh. Have never had any from a can that tasted that good.
     The iconic Marina City on the banks of the Chicago River.
     We loved the skyline views along the river.
     We stumbled upon the Memorial Day Parade going along State Street. I managed to catch a decent shot of an armed services group in front of the Chicago theater. Dan couldn’t resist the marching Chihuahua below with another group.
     The entrance to our hotel from Monroe above, and the first glimpse you get of the lobby below.

     Same room just the opposite angle.

     We were only at the hotel for a minute; I don’t remember now why we went back. But pretty much left again to catch a bus to meet Irene.
     Irene lives in Lincoln Park the neighborhood to the west of, well, Lincoln Park, behind me. Below, the front view from where I’m standing and where we met her, the Conservatory.

    We spent most of the afternoon just walking through different neighborhoods, which Dan and I always like to do. It’s nice to get out of the tourist stuff and see how the real people live. We walked some through Lincoln Park then over into Old Town. We stopped for lattes (me and Irene), a cappuccino (Dan) and a few treats.

     

    We ordered Lyft as we were leaving, and had him take us farther north to Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. As the true sports fans we are (baseball, right?) we forgot to take a photo. I swear we were there though. But mostly we were there because it was close to Boystown, Chicago’s gayborhood, and we wanted to check that out. (See, priorities…) And we walked, and walked, stopped for popcorn, walked some more.

    A little display of all of Chicago’s Sister Cities. 

     

     And eventually we ended up downtown again. According to the Health app on my iPhone we walked 14.4 miles today, probably a new record for us. And look, we’re still smiling (with still about 2 miles to go at that point).

     

     This is when I need Photoshop: Irene’s face above with mine below, and vice versa.

     

    We stopped at the hotel while Dan worked with the staff to try to change rooms. He’d asked for a different one before we left (this one is really small) and they texted him in the afternoon that they’d found one and put it aside for us. Only they didn’t. Kinda like not having the room he picked when he checked in online available when we got here. Remember the classic Seinfeld scene about the rental car reservations? Kinda like that. Twice. They eventually offered us a smaller room with a bigger bed. Uh, no. We stayed where we are and headed out to dinner. We went to The Dearborn a few blocks from the hotel.

     Irene and I both had a local farm salad, with blueberries and candied pecans towards the bottom. It was very nice.
     Fish and chips for Dan.
     Scallops for Irene.
     Oxtails with chorizo, polenta and spinach for me. It was great.
    Irene caught a bus home just outside the restaurant. Dan and I came back to the hotel, only I stopped at Target on the way to pick up a couple of things. Which is why I found myself alone in the elevator on the way back up, below. We kept joking about taking a photo of the elevators with seats in them so I finally remembered to do it. This is one of two express elevators that go up to floors 22 and 23.
    And that’s the day. Beautiful weather, great food, lots to see. And so ready for bed :)

     

  • Friday, May 26: Catch-up and Travel Day

    Friday, May 26: Catch-up and Travel Day

    I’d started writing this thinking I would do a little synopsis of the year since our last blog, in LA for New Year’s weekend. I sit here a little blank ,realizing it’s hard to summarize. “We’ve been busy” doesn’t seem to cut it. Lots of things are up in the air and/or moving very slowly. People who know us well have commented and complimented us on living pretty complicated lives that are full of ambiguity, and how well we keep our sanity around it. It’s true. We’re used to it.

    Dan is still living in Raleigh. My favorite thing to say now about when we might live in the same city again is “we don’t know, and we don’t know when we’ll know.” And that includes when and where. He has traveled a lot already this year – 4 trips to California, 2 to Europe, 1 to Brazil. I haven’t traveled at all – my flight here was the first time I’ve flown since Philadelphia at Thanksgiving. I can’t remember the last time I went 6 months without being in a plane. 2006 probably. I’ve been very busy at work, some volunteer service, and doing my part to keep some long term projects we have moving.

    Not having taken any time off besides normal holidays since last summer, I’d decided to take 5 days around this weekend. The original plan was to spend time with our friend Jon in Puerto Vallarta. Turns out flights were ridiculously expensive this time of year, so we’ve put that off. Chicago has been on our list for awhile and that sounded good when Dan suggested it. I’ve only been here once, when I was 16. It was my first big trip, first trip to a city this large, and I loved it. Been a city boy ever since.

    We will be here 3 full days, leaving late on Monday (then I still have Tuesday off). We haven’t planned much beyond seeing his oldest niece tomorrow, who lives here. The whole point for me was to have it be as relaxed and unstructured as possible. The last couple of months at work have been wild (for the HR folks reading: a major HRIS upgrade just before Open Enrollment – yikes, which included a 12-days-in-a-row work binge) and I’m in a “I don’t feel like making any decisions” mood.

    So with that background, I have no idea what to tell you to look forward to :)

    Today was just a travel day. My plane landed 30 minutes ahead of schedule; had I been able to text Dan 3-5 minutes earlier he would have waited for me. We took the train from the airport into downtown. We are staying at the Palmer House, a historic 92 year old hotel that has been a Hilton property since 1940. The lobby is beautiful and museum like; will try to remember to get some photos later. Dan’s hotel status got us on the executive floor, with an express elevator and that’s pretty cool: no stopping at every floor on the way up to 23.

    It was raining when we got here and most of the evening. Dan was looking for restaurants and couldn’t decide where to go. I reminded him when we were in Philadelphia we went on a sandwich search – 3 different places now as I recall – and Chicago is supposed to be big on “Chicago style” hot dogs and pizza. Why not?

    He found this place literally around the corner from the hotel.

     

    Can you say “hole in the wall?” It’s practically the definition. We got our food to go and went back to the lounge in the hotel.
    The entrance to the lounge off the main bank of elevators.
    We’ve been in lounges that had free alcohol before, but never it’s own bartender. Breakfast will be served in here in the morning. They had dinner in here but nothing we wanted to eat. (Bad Americanized Asian food…)
     It’s a decent sized lounge with several seating areas. Since the food had been put away about an hour ago, everyone cleared out and we had it mostly to ourselves.
     Dan went back to the room to get his iPad and my Kindle and we found a nice quiet corner to eat in.
     We asked the guy at the sandwich place to cut each order in half and he obliged. This was the Italian Beef sandwich. Lots of thin, wet beef with hot and sweet peppers. Pretty yummy.
    The hot dog. We love a good hot dog and this was excellent.

    It’s a little colder than I thought it’d be. I’d checked the forecast and saw highs in the mid-60s to low-70s so still packed only short sleeves. Brought an umbrella – likely going to rain every day except maybe tomorrow – but no jacket.

    See the blue dot? That’s me. We are smack in the middle of downtown. Great location. tomorrow we’re just going to walk around and see what we find. I’m guessing there’s a thing or two to do.
    Whatever you’re up to this weekend, stay safe and have fun!
  • Day 2: Saturday, December 31 – The Getty

    Day 2: Saturday, December 31 – The Getty

    Happy New Year everyone! It’s New Year’s Day, about 6am as I start this. Dan had a 9pm flight to Raleigh last night; I was in bed shortly after that. We long ago gave up trying to stay up until midnight. When I woke up he’d texted me that he landed. All is good with the world.

    Yesterday we did the day we’d originally planned with the kids: The Getty Center and The Getty Villa. Turned out we needed reservations for the Villa and it was too late to get them by the time we learned that. But we could get them for Saturday, so we planned for that and Dan came up with the alternate “family history” plan for Friday, which actually worked great and probably better. I had never done any of those things either so it was new experiences for all.

    I worked on the blog in the morning in the room and in the hotel restaurant, got it posted just before we headed out. Hope to do the same thing today :)

    So what I’m calling “The Getty” is really 2 museums, funded by the same foundation, and very closely related. J Paul Getty (the oil tycoon if you don’t know the name) owned a mansion in Malibu. He had a passion for art collecting, especially antiquities. Initially he just had his collection in his home, which in 1954 he opened up to the public a few days a week because he wanted to share it. But his collection was too big to be enjoyed from just a few rooms in his house. In 1968, on the same property he has a villa constructed as a recreation of the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman country house discovered in the late 1800’s which had been destroyed by the Pompeii earthquake in 79. (Just plain old 79…like 0079.) This opened in 1974 as the J Paul Getty Museum.

    Getty died in 1976. His trust kept collecting things. It’s also very involved in conservation and, partnering with UCLA, offers the only masters program on the subject in the country, with all of the labs and equipment to go with it. The collection outgrew the existing museum, and a new complex with built further inland in the mountains. This became The Getty Center, and opened in 1997. At the same time, the earlier museum closed for renovation and reopened in 2006 as The Getty Villa. Today is houses the antiquities collection, and everything else, along with the research institute, is in the Getty Center complex. We did both today. And were fascinated by the fact that both are free. It’s gotta be a heckuva endowment. We paid $15 for parking at the Center, and got a coupon which waived the parking fee at the Villa when you do both on the same day. Pretty good deal.

    The Getty Center sits in the hills just north of Sunset Blvd on the west side of the 405. (Uh oh – you know I’m in SoCal when “the” is in front of the freeway name…) It’s nestled in the hills and, while you can walk up to it from the parking structure, we chose the tram instead. My legs have been killing me from the running I’ve been doing in the hotel gym in the morning before breakfast.

     “The 405” from the tram.
     I’ve never seen a museum complex quite like this. It’s worth the visit just for the grounds and the architecture.

     Another cloudy, rainy day in LA.
    We signed up for one of the many free tours. Meet Patty. A little verbose for our taste, but we appreciated her approach. She did a nice job of explaining how to look for symbols in the painting reflecting what the patron wanted. It was a nice refresher on this perspective which I’ll admit I tend to forget: most art from the Middle Ages through Renaissance was for the rich, and usually commissioned by someone with money who had something to say, and since people couldn’t read generally, there are lots of clues in the paintings, you just have to know how to read them to tell the story. The patron got to pick the subjects, the colors, the message, etc. So they were always something pretty personal to the patron, and knowing who it was and why they may have commissioned it is critical to understanding the message. And at the end of this great education piece instructing us how to determine the message she ends with: “it’s either a celebration of a birth, or an engagement of individuals from two families who didn’t quite get along, we’re not really sure which!” It was still instructive :)  
     A glance back to the hills in a glass hallway connection exhibit halls.
     
     Dan always likes these very realistic paintings of flowers.

    Look carefully at the photos of the next 3 paintings. If you had to guess, are they all similar size?

     
    Could one of them be bigger than the others? 

    Could one of them be like 10 or more times larger than another? 
     

    Which one is the big one?
     
     
     
     
    Dan was fascinated by the detail in all 3 of them. But mostly fascinated by the size. The first one is like 3ft x 3ft, at least. The bottom two are like 4x5inches.
     
    
     Lots of interesting architectural details in this complex. That’s actually a shallow pool of water behind me that I’m trying not to fall into, with water coming out of the rocks and down the back wall.
     More water features.

    They had a special exhibit on alchemy which we made our way to next, killing a bit of time before the lunch reservations we made for 12:15. The guy below was the first exhibit, representing the Roman god Mercury.

    Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks) was worshipped as the “transmitter of scientific and medical knowledge and thought to hold the secrets to the preparation of therapeutic drugs.” Mercury’s reputation as a trickster may have inspired the Romans to equate him with the quirky and mysterious metallic element known as quicksilver. What I loved most about the explanation was the Greeks called him “psychopomp – escort of the soul through the underworld.” I think I need to adopt that.

     

    /

    There were several eating options; we went for the fine dining one. And the food was pretty good. Our results with museum food over the years is pretty much 50/50 – sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. This was a winner.

     Dan got the cioppino and was impressed with how fresh the variety of seafood was, and how perfectly cooked each was, including sea bass, mussels, clams and scallops. They were cooked separately, put into the bowl, and the broth poured over it at the table.
    I got the chicken pot pie. The sauce was surprisingly cheesy but worked. Both dishes were great on what was turning into an uncharacteristically cold and wet day in Los Angeles.
     
    

     Back to the alchemy exhibit after lunch. They had lots of old books with Dan always enjoys.

    The photos above and below go together. I’m keeping this whole explanation in tact because it’s too hard to explain otherwise. It was surprising on a couple of levels: one, that a display about color would end up talking about heroin, and two, that Dan’s employer gets mentioned in the process! This is the 2nd time we’ve seen Bayer referenced in a museum, the first time this past August in the German History museum in Berlin.

    This is a plasma globe. Plasma is the 4th state of matter (after solid, gas, liquid) discovered in 1879, and which scientists now believe is the most abundant type of matter in the universe.

     The electric field in the globe responds to the plasma in your hand.

     
     Both Getty museums had lots of umbrellas available at each exit. Good thing!
     Not in season and closed due to the weather, this garden was designed by the architect to be a work of art all by itself.
     
     
    Missed the explanation for this and couldn’t find it online. We thought it was fun though!
     
     
    Here’s a nice photo of the complex I found online;
     
     
    We left about 2:30 and took Sunset Blvd all the way to the Pacific Coast Highway. Take a right and the Getty Villa is on your right not even a mile up. It was about a 20 minute drive through Brentwood and the Pacific Palisades so lots of beautiful homes with fun views from the hills. We passed Rockingham Ave and I was like “hey, isn’t that where OJ lived?” Yep. The things I remember….
     
    
    
    The Getty Villa is just as impressive architecturally, just from an entirely different perspective. The Center was all modern, the Villa is based on 2000+ year old styles. Like all good architecture, both take excellent advantage of the nature around them. The photo above is the entrance you approach from the garage. You take an elevator up to the landing at the top of the photo above, which is where I’m standing in the photo below looking back at where we just entered.  Notice the Pacific Ocean in the background below. (And I just noticed in this photo apparently we could have taken the stairs…oh well…my legs are still hurting a little bit!…)

     Dan hadn’t been here since the late 80’s and said all of this is new and very different from his last visit. The amphitheater wasn’t there then.

     Ever since the Louvre in Paris in 2014, we have a running joke about “we’re in antiquities, get ready for lots of erect penises and other displays of bodily functions.” This museum did not disappoint from that perspective. As you’ll see, it might top everything else we’ve seen so far on that front. The above was in the Very First Display case we came across. Something about an ancient parody where a child with a ram’s head emerges from a basket with an erect penis. So there you have it.

     

     The two above and below were in the same hall as the first.

     The villa was beautiful though, with a lovely courtyard.

    This is the Greek god Herakles, or Hercules to the Romans. This was Getty’s first and favorite item in his collection, and the one that inspired the Villa. He wanted everything around it to support the times it came from.

     A nice little side garden, with a close-up of the mosaic fountain below.

     The back gardens, with a tiny sliver of the Pacific past the columns at the end of the pool.

     

    This was a small, ancient copy of a 40 foot enthroned Zeus. For some reason in this museum, I really “got” that the ancient really believed all those gods existed, were real people up on Mt Olympus, and why there was so much art about them.

     

    We’ve seen Roman mosaics before in Trier, Dresden and Berlin, but this exhibit was pretty extensive and we enjoyed it. The detail and the scope is always spectacular. That’s a lion eating a donkey in case you thought it was something else :)

     

     

     “Combat between Dares and Entellus” from Virgil’s Aeneid.
     

     

     Dan always likes the mummies. This was interesting in that they’d done a CT scan on the sarcophagus and confirmed that all of the organs had been removed prior to burial. They could also tell that it was a relatively healthy 20 year old man or so, who probably died from a bonk on the head.

     

     Here we go. There was this whole series called “The Symposium” which is essentially the ancients version of “boys night out” or “what happens in Athens stays in Athens” I guess. Although this looks more like a bowl or even just a plate which high edges, it’s called “Wine Cup with a Sexual Encounter”, and the woman is presumed to be a “professional entertainer.”

     

     “Wine Cup with a Drunk Man Vomiting.” We can’t make this stuff up.
     

    “Wine Cup with a Drunk Man Singing”, or, uh, urinating might be a better description. “His young servant is ready to minister to his needs [uh huh, I bet] holding the man’s belongings as well as the jug into which he urinates.” At least the narrative confirmed we weren’t imagining that.

     

     “The inscription on the vessel refers to the Athenian social practice of men courting young boys.”

     

     “Victorious Youth”, an athlete after successfully winning a competition, placing an olive wreath on his head.

     

    Wine Cup with a Man and a Youth Kissing. “The relationship an adult male citizen and a freeborn youth was a fundamental part of elite Greek society.”

     

     

    And on that note, it was time to go :)

    We left right when it closed at 5pm, stopped in Santa Monica for gas, and went to a sushi joint Dan found in Old Torrance which was close to the hotel.

     The meal started with a small salad, then this amazing egg custard soup with mushrooms and bits of seafood. Asian comfort food on what was still a cold, wet day.

    Mine above, Dan’s below: the only difference is I got spicy tuna roll, Dan had a nice variety of sashimi.

    And that was our day. We went back to the hotel briefly so Dan could finish backing and I took him to LAX for his sort-of-redeye flight home. He likes to take a late flight back and sleep on the plane, otherwise it feels like he’s losing a full day in that direction.

    We had a great visit and he will be back to Sac in late January before he has to go back to Europe again in February. Last week we did some good planning on our next big trip which will be 2 weeks starting the end of June: 5 nights in Istanbul, 6 nights in the southern English countryside. Planes and some lodging are booked, now we start working on the details. Should be a fun trip. (And no, we’re not too worried about Istanbul….)

    It’s 8:30am now and I’m headed home. Have a great New Year everyone!

  • Day 1: Friday, December 30

    Day 1: Friday, December 30

    Our lives are definitely about travel these days. After a great stay in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, we each went home for a very full month before seeing each other again late December, including another trip to Europe for Dan the week of 12/12.

    He came in to Sac late on Thursday, 12/22. We enjoyed a really nice 4 day Christmas weekend, which was a nice balance of time with friends, productive planning and just pure veg time. (We binged on “3%” a new Netflix series – only 8 hours – which we highly recommend.) This time also included our “2nd annual” walk to the Fabulous Forties to see the lights on Christmas Eve. It was a nice brisk 5 mile walk in total in lovely 36 degree weather. At least it wasn’t raining like it was last year! We also went out for dim sum for brunch on Christmas Day which, albeit a bit cliché perhaps, might need to be a new tradition. Whenever Dan is in Sac we tend to focus on Asian food since there’s a nice variety of decent quality restaurants there compared to Raleigh.

    I went to work on Tuesday and Dan kept himself busy working on some of our other projects. We drove to LA that evening, leaving a little before 4pm and getting to the hotel before 10pm. We are staying at a Hilton (of course) DoubleTree in Torrance. It was cheap, close to the airport, somewhat central to things we would be doing here.

    I didn’t take any extra time off and worked on Wednesday and Thursday from our office in downtown LA. Dan went into the office with me both days and worked himself from a small conference room. There was hardly anyone there, it was very quiet and we both got quite a bit done. He also went out for lunch continuing his quest to get good Asian food, which is even better in LA compared to Sac, especially Korean. I ordered Indian in on and Wednesday and powered through on a protein bar on Thursday.

    A classic shot of downtown LA, Dan took this on one of those days while I was working and he was in search of Asian food. The iconic USBank building is what helps id opening shots of movies and TV shows as LA. Between that and the palm trees, it’s hard to get more LA than this.

     

    The Westin Bonaventure, the largest hotel in LA. The first time I came to LA for work with my present employer I wandered into this trying to get to somewhere else and it’s a very confusing building. But very interesting architecturally. It is famous for its outside glass elevators, and has been used as a location in many movies and TV shows, including True Lies and LA Law (which to this day is one of my favorite series of all time).

     
     A nice public courtyard across from the Bonaventure.
    For Thursday night we had made reservations in Little Tokyo at a highly rated place called Sushi Gen. The line at opening at 5:30 was ridiculous. One old guy was giving us hard time about what looked like us cutting in line. When we said “we have reservations” he said “they don’t take reservations.” But they did when we called, the website even said “call us for reservations.” Yet when we got there they said “you have the stand in line.” So the point of the reservation was?? We left, and went to a ramen place across the little strip mall, which was great and much cheaper anyway. Afterwards we went to the Japanese American National Museum. At that moment I wasn’t planning on doing a blog so wasn’t thinking about photos. Mostly it was about internment camps (a timely topic given recent news events) with some other interesting exhibits.
    Friday was all about getting together with Dan’s family, the point of the trip to LA in the first place. We spent the day with most of his nieces and nephew, and joined the entire family for dinner in the evening. Alvin and Irene picked us up at the hotel and we headed into downtown.

     

    Los Angeles City Hall, another iconic building. Built in 1928, it’s a great example of Art Deco style. Also used in many movies and TV shows including LA Confidential and Dragnet.

     Dan caught this great reflection of City Hall in the policy department headquarters building across the street.

     

     We went up to the observation deck for some great views of the LA basin. As you can see, it started out as a pretty clear day. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that way. Who says it never rains in Southern California?

    A nice advantage of traveling with family is there were lots of options for others to take photos of us which, if you follow our travel blogs, doesn’t happen a lot. This one courtesy of Alvin at the top of City Hall.

     Sorry for the quality, the zoom made it fuzzy. But any soap opera fan – ABC anyway – can immediately identify this as General Hospital. It’s actually the LA County/USC Medical Center. Marilyn Monroe was born here.
     Above and below: the dome and hallway of the 3rd floor, which actually opens up at street level.

    After City Hall we were going to go to The Broad, a free contemporary art museum. The line was RIDICULOUS – with workers saying it was 4-5 hours to get in. What we couldn’t figure out was why anyone would wait 4-5 hours for anything. Given that it’s modern art, which we have an ambivalent relationship with anyway, we didn’t pause for a second to think about that. Next!

     Above and below: the Disney Concert Hall. We roamed the Blue Ribbon Garden area where shots from The Soloist were filmed.

     

     3 of Dan’s 4 nieces: Janelle and Judith (sisters) holding Irene.
     The gang for the day, taken by a passing tourist: Dan, Irene, Janelle, Alvin (Irene’s brother), Judith, me.

    We went for lunch in Koreatown, to 8th Street Soondae (not ice cream!), where Dan had lunch on Wednesday and liked so much he wanted to go back. Soondae is a type of blood sausage. You know you’re in trouble when that’s the name of the restaurant :) Blood sausage is one of those things I keep trying for Dan, each time him saying “this one’s different, you’ll really like it.” And each time my reaction is the same: not so much. What’s the definition of insanity? The things we do for love I guess.

    A big heaping plate of soondae up by Dan (with tendons and liver just to balance it out!), and all of the side dishes typical in any Korean restaurant, which I like a lot. Below is the soup I got. I will admit, while I didn’t care for the sausage by itself, when partnered with the soup and the rice/bean combo, it was pretty good.

     

    Dan took the gang through the old neighborhoods him and his brothers grew up in, telling lots of stories. This was an apartment building they lived in from 1979-1985 (4 of them in a one bedroom!) before moving to Glendale. They got to this country from Korea in 1978.
    Welcome to Rydell High! AKA, John Marshall High School, where all 3 Joo brothers went to high school. As well as Judge Ito of OJ Simpson fame, Leonardo DiCaprio and Heidi Fleiss. In addition to Grease (if you didn’t catch the Rydell High reference), this has been the location for LOTS of movies and TV shows, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Pretty in Pink, The Wonder Years, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Boston Public to name a few. It’s also well respected academically, with lots of Advanced Placement curriculum which feeds a decent number of alumni into Ivy League schools (including Dan).

     

     The gates were unlocked and we went wandering around the back. The hoodlums in the group (everyone but me!) climbed a fence to get down to the track field and football stadium.
    And here’s the video of this auspicious race.
     Coming back over. Any attempt on my part would have ended badly. I know my limits!
    Our final stop for the day was Griffith Observatory, just above the old Joo neighborhood, which is essentially Los Feliz.  Griffith is a free planetarium with apparently great shows, but LOTS of people on this day and we passed on the lines to get in. Mostly we wandered around and enjoyed the great views, and got some great photos while we were at it. Too bad it had clouded up by this time. See below how different the sky is compared to when we were at City Hall.

     

     The Hollywood sign way in the background.

     

     

     

     One of these days we’ll take that path down, but we didn’t have enough time to fully explore this time.
     My reaction to Irene’s threat to photo bomb.
    What is this?
     Irene’s success.
     

     

     We even went inside for a minute. The crowds were a bit much though.

     

     

     Judith had this cheeky “Smile!” thing she would do which cracked us up every time, as seen above and the two photos below.
     On our way back down to the cars.

    Everyone got together for dinner at Chosun Galbi, a Korean BBQ place in “K-Town” as they call it, Koreatown. I’d been looking forward to this all day. We came here last year when Dan and I were here for Thanksgiving. Great food, and they put us in the same semi-private room we were in last year. From left to right: Judith, Emily (Irene and Alvin’s younger sister who didn’t join us today), me, Paul, the oldest brother, his wife Tammy, Dan’s Mom and Dad, Jacob, brother #2, Alvin, Dan, Irene (who suddenly got flu-ish on the way to the restaurant, yikes!) and Janelle.

    Nice photos of Dan and his parents at the end. They will be 83 and 80 respectively this year.

    We had a great day!