Totally rocks. And, as it turns out, it is a delicacy to eat the hardened layer that is on top of the yogurt when you open it. After trying some, I agree. I am contemplating a way to bring a crate full of it home with me, but I don’t think it will be less than 8kilos to carry on the plane.
More to be posted about my trip to Istanbul later, when I’m not enjoying yogurt and pretending to pack. Until then I leave you with a rare sighting of TURKISH GODZILLA attacking Galata Tower! Rawrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
- Run for your lives tiny Turks!!
It is 2:09 am (what’s up with my 2am postings?) and I am laying on the couch in my cousin’s apartment in the middle of Istanbul. I’m traveling on this leg of the trip with my Mom and step-dad whom I met up with yesterday in Barcelona to spend the night before our flight this morning.
So far my time in Istanbul has been interesting and fulfilling, both emotionally and physically. This city is unlike Platja d’Aro in many ways, but there are elements that are strikingly similar. People out, bustling around, the energy of a city buzzing with sights, sounds, and motion. I love that about this place, and about where I have been in Spain as well. You can wander and feel alone but a part of something at the same time. This is something I have come to appreciate while spending time by myself, the ability to exist alongside someone else and share in an experience without actually having to interact.
I am spending the next four days in my cousin’s apartment which is incredibly comfortable and stylish and makes me want a place just like it. My mom and stepdad are sleeping at my cousin’s boyfriend’s place, walking distance away. Although it should be noted that walking distance here appears to always involve a hill of some sort. My butt has gotten quite the workout in the past three weeks.
Tonight for dinner my cousin made reservations at a kebab (literally, meat) restaurant that is popular with both locals and tourists. The area where we were seated was on the top floor of a building with floor to ceiling windows lining the dining area for full views of the Bosphorous and various mosques and other sites of importance that I will learn about. We ate our fill of appetizers (many including walnuts and pistachios in different forms) and then were presented with a huge plate of kebab pieces of lamb and chicken. My favorite had to be the lamb one with pistachios mixed in. It gave it such a yummy texture and flavor. This followed by a dessert of layers of thin filo-like dough filled with cream and pistachios and covered with sweet syrup and more pistachios, was incredible. And to think my grandmother used to say pistachios were only for, “little rich girls.” They are also for Turks of all economic classes and American tourists who happen to be slowly running out of money. Pistachios – the nut of the people.
I have rekindled my love of this sweet spread in the last few weeks, and boy, does it feel good. I realized that on my trip to Sweden Nutella was a staple of my diet, and I’ve brought it back in my daily food rotation. Last night after returning from a weekend trip to Talamanca I freaked out and ate my body weight in Nutella, peanut butter, and bread. I started to feel guilty about the amount of bread I was consuming, because really, all those carbs?? Come on now, let’s be civilized. That’s when I found myself at 2 am in my kitchen, barefoot eating Nutella straight out of the container from a spoon with a side of Special K. Much better.
Caro and I decided to, after a long day of sightseeing, to treat ourselves to a nice dinner in a Parisian restaurant. On the street of our hotel there are a number of cute ones, and we chose one advertising itself as a “Pizza Resto.”
“Pizzaria” seems to be used pretty broadly here and in Spain, but this particular one did indeed have pizza on the menu, as well as other Parisian/Italian fare. It also looked pretty reasonably priced, so we went in.
Now, it must be mentioned this was our first opportunity eating a real meal at somewhere other than a cafe. Multiple courses were available, as were lots of wine choices (much to the enjoyment of the person in our party whose name starts with a “C” and ends with “arolynn.”) We were seated by a very friendly waiter/manager/owner who I swore was speaking some sort of French-Spanish hybrid and was quite a smiley guy.
Is the best! After much hesitation and sweating on my part, Caro and I were able to abscond with some extra food from the hotel breakfast this morning. Though the breakfast wasn’t free it was a buffet, and everyone knows that’s what you do at buffets. Or maybe it’s just what Americans do which is why I got cold feet for a minute there. Luckily Caro has no qualms about stealing food and now I am the proud owner of two slices of bread, cheese, and an orange! Fuel for sightseeing, which we will be doing a lot of today!
On the agenda: Cemetary, catacombs, some garden, Musee d’Orsay, and Eifel Tower in the evening.