Visitors from 2012

We had some wonderful visitors this year.  It is always great to see familiar faces from back home.  Stephanie stopped in London with her mother on their way to visit Paris.  

  

We met up with Robert and Celeste in Scotland for the Fringe Festival.

Tony's friends Scott and Lorraine came to visit for a a week.

Alice came for a break in the bad weather on the East Coast only to find bad weather here too.












Stephano  was here with his girlfriend.

Paul and David stopped to see some theater on their way to Paris for New Years.















Ishmael was in town for a conference.

And of course the Space Shuttle, which was cruising over Los Angeles, made an appearance in London thanks to photoshop.

Christmas 2012

Christmas is a time of mixed emotions for us, as it is a fun time to be in London and see all the downtown lights going up, and all the fun Dickensian Christmas qualities popping up all over town. 






It is also a time, when I feel the absence of long time friends and family more than ever. 

This year, which is my 4th, has been the hardest of any so far. 

We made the best of it, and put up a tree with decorations, and went out to see a bunch of London all decorated up. 

There was even a tuba player shooting fire out of his tuba.  You don't see that everyday!











Here are some of my best shots from Christmas 2012.

 

Going to see the Arsenal Gunners

 One Saturday afternoon recently, my friend Andy called to tell me that he had 2 extra tickets for a Football (Soccer) game at the Emirates Stadium, home of our local team, the Arsenal Gunners.








I'd been bugging him to get us in, as you need to be a member of the team club, or know someone who is.

 Andy and his father go to see a game together almost every weekend.  Andy's father drives all the way from Nottingham (3 hours north of London each way) for the games.  In fact, Andy's initials,  AFB, stand for Arsenal FootBall. 

It was a great afternoon watching the game, even though it appears that the Gunners' best days may be behind them, as they lost (again) to a team that was ranked well below them. . .

Istanbul's Spice Market

We did a self-guided walking tour that took us from the Grand Bazaar to The Spice Market. 















We took a slight diversion from the tour to visit the mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent. 











It is a beautiful mosque perched on a hill overlooking the harbor.  It is beautiful inside, and has a fantastic view of the harbor.  In fact, when I recently saw James Bond's Skyfall, I noticed that they did an establishing shot of Istanbul from a similar vantage point to where I took this picture.  Fantastical.








From the mosque, we strolled through some narrow back streets, where you can find a lot of the same stuff as in The Grand Bazaar, but at a much better price.







We weren't overly impressed with the Spice Market, but the perfumed smell of the air is worth the visit. 

 

We did stop for lunch at Pandeli, which was a recommended restaurant right in the Spice Market.  We had a terrific lunch of Lamb and grilled Eggplant.  

If you visit the Spice Market, I'd at least stop for lunch there.  It is sit down, and  the prices are reasonable.  It is only open for lunch however.

Turkish Street Food

Tony and I love to try the local street food wherever we journey, and as Turkey is famous for its street food,  we knew we would be in for another moving feast.

We tried the Shwarma, which we can easily get in London, but it was important to try it at the source.  The one thing we didn't get to try was the fish from the floating grill restaurants at the port.  It looked and smelled amazing however.

We did try Gozleme, which is a bit like a burrito crossed with a crepe.  It is a very thinly rolled out dough, that is cooked on a griddle and filled with various items.  Ours was filled with goat cheese, and burning hot off the griddle.

Pomegranates are also big in this region, and we had to have a glass of fresh Pomegranate juice.  We hoped that any potential bugs that we might get from our food adventures might be offset by the vitamins in the juice. 













Delicious if a bit sour.

I highly recommend trying the street food in your travels.  If you are reasonably careful, you can have some terrific food at a good price and have an amazing adventure.

A trip to a Turkish Hammam

 As part of our Turkish Adventure, we knew we would have to visit a Turkish Hammam to get a massage and body scrubbing.

We went to Cağaloğlu Hamamı, which is 300 years old, and has hosted some of the most famous people in the world from Kaiser Wilhelm, to Harrison Ford and Cameron Diaz.  It is a trip through history.




As you enter off the street, you can immediately smell the soap.  And there is a large display of soap in a fountain at the front door.










It is listed as one of the top "1000 places to visit before die".  I'm hoping we've managed to visit a few of these in our European travels.





You check in, and they assign you a changing room, where you slip out of your street cloths and into a little towel that you wrap around your waist.  You also wear these amazingly uncomfortable awkward wood shoes that are an experience in themselves.  From there you go to the steam/treatment room.

  It is basically a large round dome shaped room, with water everywhere.  I signed up for a massage, while Tony did the full massage/exfoliation treatment. 

I'd definitely recommend this experience as part of a Turkish adventure.

Istanbul, Turkey - Baklava

Certainly one of the highlights of the trip to Turkey was visiting the birthplace of that wonderful buttery honey dessert Baklava.  











I was amazed to see all of the different kinds ranging from towers of beautiful pistachio stuffed log shaped baklava to pistachio green colored baklava to flat bar-shaped baklava.  And I set out to try them all!











 Some come with walnuts, hazelnuts, and even almonds.  You are out of luck when it comes to baklava if you have a nut allergy.  Some come shaped kind of like croissants - these were the messiest to eat. 

Some even come paired with Pomegranate flavored Turkish Delight.

We went to a patisserie that is famous for its baklava.  They have an entire menu full of the different types.

Tony and I tried two types of Baklava that we'd never seen before.  One was the log type filled with pistachio nuts, and the other was a pistachio-filled baklava with ground pistachios used in the filo dough.

 After a busy day of site seeing, the quick sugar-boost provided by the baklava, and the quick caffeine lift from the Turkish Coffee was much needed. 

In the end after much taste testing and deliberation, my ultimate baklava was the pistachio cream baklava.  It had just the right combination of gooeyness and nutiness for me.  Delicious and they go surprisingly well with ice cream.  Who would have thought. 

For the flight home, I smuggled out four baklava.  They helped make the 3 hour flight back to the UK livable.

Thankfully, we don't live too far from an area of London which is unofficially known as little Little Turkey, so finding good baklava will not be a problem.