Check out BOTH our Istanbul and Seville posts below

Istanbul Part 1…..otherwise known as Paradise Found!

J and I have been waiting for years to come here and it has not disappointed…..the land of ouds, exotic tiles, minarets, mosaics and a thousand and one beautiful lamps! (and taxis where seat belts are but a piece of pretty, unfunctıonable decoration)

We are staying in a very nice little hotel with traditional kilims and traditional decorated throws…well…thrown everywhere - over couches and as a canopy on our four poster bed. The rooftop terrace, be-cushioned and be-flowerboxed with geraniums and small lemon trees, overlooks the harbour of the Bosphorous on one side and glimpses the spires of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia on the other (and serves at least half a dozen types of cakes at breakfast much to the girls’ delight – adds that much needed alternative to the staple diet of bread). (I also like the very modern new bathroom with the best plumbing quite frankly since we left Perth! – ah, the things that start to matter after a while.)

We’ve done the essential sights - the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and Harem, and several Lamp shops. They (the sights) are very beautiful – but in quite a different way to the Moorish architecture which had more pronounced filigree plasterwork and pointy arches – the Turkish style is more plain in structure but much more decorated in the tiles – every surface in the blue mosque is covered in beautiful tiles, and the domes and arches soar so high that photos really cannot capture it (Jase is bemoaning that he did not after all buy the wide angle lens he had been coveting – and yes Kingsley he has been dropping into the odd camera shop here and there). The Palace Harem was a very strange and interesting place – some amazingly beautiful palace rooms for the sultan and his sons and mother but the rest of it really was a glorified prison and felt like that even now. Some suffering and tragedies must have occurred in those little laneways and rooms over the centuries (So I think Jase’s suggestion to have Barry White songs piped throughout the Harem wouldn’t have been well received).

And….the OUD. We all took the ferry across the harbour (crossing from the European side deep into the Asian side of Istanbul) to meet Jason’s master oud-maker, Faruk Turunz. And what a genial, charming little old man he was (complete with little leather cap much to Jason’s envy). He was a most warm and generous host entertaining us for a few hours so he and Jase (and a French guy who had come to enquire about ouds) could discuss all things oud-like, whilst I tried to keep the girls from tearing the place apart - and invited us to share lunch with him in his factory, cooked I think by his oud-makers. So we ate some traditional fare – a kind of lemony-flavoured barley soup (yummy) and a dish of mixed up rice, mince and spinach with egg on top (and of course just bread for the girls), together with a typical Turkish yoghurt drink called Ayran. After a few hours we caught the ferry and a couple of taxis home, cradling the precious oud all the way, and my over-joyed hubby strummed his oud all night (no that is not a euphemism for anything) – and despite the fierce concentration in his face in the photos he is actually very happy with it! (despite half wishing that he had gotten a different wood selection similar to one in the shop that caught his eye – Arggghhhh!!!) So that’s Jason’s bit of paradise found.

As I said, we have done most of the sights now. Which leaves me a couple of days to scour the Grand Bazaar and the rest of Istanbul for the perfect lamp(s)! And there are so many to choose from. Jase is quaking in fear – my capacity for procrastination seems to increase in direct proportion to how badly I want to buy something. (NOW aren’t you all, who know me well, glad you didn’t come with me?!)

2 observations on Turkey – this also a paradise for cats obviously – they are Everywhere, dozens of them snoozing and prowling on every street. A kitten was miaowing on our little window box very early hours this morning and then simply hopped through our open window and climbed into bed with us. I kept telling Jase to chuck it out with whatever fleas and germs it had but we were both too sleepy to get out of bed so it stayed with us until breakfast-time when it tired of the girls fussing over it and calling it “puss-puss”…..And secondly, the guide books that said people here like children did not tell the half of it. We can’t walk 10 steps down the road without people clucking over the kids, wanting to hug them, play little teasing games with them, joking them they have a little brother for them to marry, giving them little gifts – it’s nuts. At first we were finding it bordering on the slightly creepy, but every one is like that and in a very good hearted way. The girls are not quite sure how to take all the attention – Gizane giggles and Francesca becomes quite over-silly. The other funny thing is that no one here picks us for Australians and they always start talking to Jase in Spanish or Turkish. One guy thought Jase was Pakistani, which seemed to get up his nose a bit!

Hola from Seville!

Not speaking a word of the local lingo is a bit of a challenge, but luckily more people spoke Ingelish than we had imagined and we managed to survive and indeed thrive – succeeding in purchasing from the very local, non-touristy market where we were staying such delicacies as churros con chocolat; jamon y pan y queso; cerveza sin alcohol, pedro ximenez (don’t hold me to the spellings of any of the above – hope to get the general gist) and a delicious restaurant just 3 doors down from us which served a fusion of kind of Spanish/ Moroccan – so yummy we went back 2 nights and would have returned for a third except we felt obliged to try something new. Jason did most of the food negotiations and did an excellent job ( I kept slipping into French as my autopilot default). However that began only after we had been there a day and had gathered some courage, hastened by our nervous first dining experience where we went for the apparent safety of a pizza café – which served the world’s WORST pizza. The tragedy was we actually ate there again another night later on, but only because the girls were becoming monsterously hysterical with hunger and apparently no Spanish establishment serves food before 10pm (!!) and we promised the girls pizza in a desperate moment after having tried every bar/café in a 2 mile radius. And so we arrived and then had to wait half an hour until 8.30 when the chef finally deigned to open the kitchen and cook a pitiful insult to good pizza!

After a while that aspect of Spain drove us nuts – fine if you’re a swingin’ young thang to nibble tapas all afternoon in siesta-mode (which seems to last about 4-5 hours!), only to roll out to dinner after 9 pm, but a bludi nightmare when you’re dragging 2 starving 3 year olds around. Our vain hope that in renting an apartment we would be able to cook dinner some nights, sadly collided with our total disinterest in cooking dinner whilst on holiday in a place renowned for yummy (if late) dining! (although frankly why we bothered taking them anywhere other than pizza places was a waste of time as all they would eat anyway was bread and the Spanish biscuit/crackers that they serve everywhere – with predictable digestive problems ensuing!!).

God I’m rabbitting on about food again. We loved Seville and Cordoba, where we went for a day trip. We loved the Moorish/North African architecture - amazingly intricate filligree plasterwork, ornate tiles, soaring arch ways and marble columns (somehow clean and simple and yet ornately luxurious at the same time) - mixed amongst the renaissance and baroque over the toppness of Spanish architecture. And when I say over the top, I refer and not in any exaggeration to the Spanish churches and Cathedrals, which are really quite INSANELY dizzying in the amount of gold/frills/suffering/curlicues/heavy wood carvings and flourishes that the feverished imagination of overpaid architects and designers could come up with. Like Malta with its shrine statutes built into every street corner, Seville has a tiled azulejo image of the Virgin or Jesus or some saint on someone’s wall on every third street and church bells ring out from one or another church nearby every half hour (the girls were particularly impressed by the church bells and made us stop to watch them all) – quite a nice comforting sound really. (I liked the wrought iron Spanish crosses on the exterior walls of some churches).

Of course no visit to Seville is complete without….Flamenco and Bullfights. We did not (on account of the girls) brave traipsing around the flamenco bars at midnight to chance upon some spontaneous “authentic” flamenco dancing and instead went to the museum of dance which was putting on a special performance – glad we went – the main female dancer was amazing – a passionate Force of nature! I wanted to be her. The girls were equally entranced. Every time she went off for a costume change and rest Gizane was most worried to know if “the princess” was returning, and when indeed she did, in a brand new dress, she gasped out loud “Oh Yes!”. Needless to say we were dragged thereafter into every tourist shop selling flamenco dresses and eventually succumbed. We visited the bullring but fighting season was over – luckily for the bulls!

Enduring memory of Seville – avenues and avenues of orange trees. Amazing for a busy city to have wonderfully fruiting orange trees lining every street. When we caught up with Kelly (Gatchell) and Andrew she said it was lovely when they are all in blossom and their fragrance wafts all around the town.

The only thing I was happy to say goodbye to Seville for was the damned cobbled streets so narrow that we were lucky to fit together walking side by side with the strollers, thinking what cute little pedestrian walk ways, until a car thunders around the corner and hardly waits long enough for you to jump onto the non-existant or crumbling-away-to-nothing footpath! Lunatic drivers in streets obviously designed for one skinny horse at a time. So far only the footrests have broken off the strollers (although the girls Fell off a few times as the wheels jammed into yet another hole in the incredibly bumpy road!).

Bye Bye London

Well it has been wonderful for us and the girls to catch up with all our far-flung family. Far from being too overwhelmed by all the different rellies everywhere we’ve been the girls have loved everyone and had a wonderful time – as have Jase and I.

Upon returning to London from Malta we all shacked up with Trish and Harry, where the girls found themselves in a veritable paradise – a wonderful big garden complete with trampoline and tree-house and Harry and his room full of toys (especially, to Gizane’s utter delight, knight’s armour and swords for dressing up – move over princess dresses, we have a new passion!!) – and of course not to mention, Trish and Harry – whom the girls had a ball with. It was nice to chill out and relax in a home without having sights to see and tours to catch every day.

We returned also, to VERY cold weather, which surprisingly for me, I actually enjoyed after the humidity of Malta (and because we were only there for a week). Very autumnal, being cold but sunny with the gorgeous big trees turning yellow, red and orange and leaves flying everywhere.

Simon very kindly lent us their spare car for our stay, which allowed us to visit Grandad almost every day, as well as visiting Jeremy and Emma and gang in Brighton and then Simon and Leigh and gang in Haslemere. In Brighton Jeremy introduced Jason to yet another funky hat shop, to my Horror (!), but I was glad we went in cos it was indeed very funky and thankfully had a much better array of girly hats than boys’ (on the day) and I came away with a new hat – yay! Twas my birthday that morning in Brighton and Jeremy very kindly baked me a yummy cake.

Unfortunately the next day was less pleasant when I had a bit of a fender bender with another car in the hideous traffic congestion near Kingston station one dark, gloomy, rainy dusk, which caused some scratching to Simon’s car (I am SO Sorry) and quite a bit more to the other. Urgh!!! That was NOT a nice night! (This has been a jinxed trip for cars - Andy scratched our hire car in LA and Uncle Paul scratched the car he hired for us all when we first arrived - I'm never borowing/renting a car Again!!) Trish had organised a Guy Fawkes bon fire night (complete with lifelike Guy) and I felt like burning that whole afternoon’s event on the fire with the Guy. Some heavily mulled cider soon eased the pain. The bonfire (very ably built by Ian) managed to burn away merrily despite the constant rain and most of Jeremy’s fireworks succeeded in dazzling the night with only a couple sputtering out in the wet!

The week flashed by and too soon we were saying ciao and bye to everyone. Very sad to do so, especially to Grandad, who had interrupted his chair-aerobics to spend our last morning with us there. It was lovely to see everyone and especially nice that the kids all got along so well with their second cousins, having had an absolute ball with all of them. So enamoured was Francesca of Jonti’s expert monster impressions that she has now adopted that as her default pose for photos!! Thank you Jonti! Unfortunately we did not get to catch up with Jack due to conflicting schedules but luckily we were able to see Brenda for a brief afternoon and introduce the girls to her.

(PS - we forgot to upload photos for first UK post - hence there's lots here, to read with that one)

Blog Update – London part 1 and Malta

Bye Bye New York – we loved ya!  Thanks to Rebecca and Max for lending us their luverly apartment. It had great views over the Hudson River and Jase had a few mornings jogging along the river bank, which I kept promising I would do too and never got around to.  Got enough exercise walking Manhattan instead.

Highs of New York (in no particular order):

• -          Getting cool and groovy in the funky Zebra Room in Harlem’s Lennox Lounge;
  
• -          Spending time with the lovely Ben, a most charming and generous host (who, if I can return to my favourite theme – food (Ben’s too I think!!) – took us to Hill Country restaurant to savour traditional Texas BBQ.  Being a Texas lad he was eager to show off his State’s specialty in the best Texas restaurant in NYC.  “But Aussies do the best BBQ” I hear you scoff.  Well let me tell ya – I have never had BBQ meat as DELICIOUSLY tasty, tender and yummy as they do it down the Lone Star way, complete with ranch style baked beans (I gotta get me a recipe) and fluffy sweet corn mash, pecan pie….Ah, I drool remembering it.)
  
• -          Riding the traditional old Carousel horses in Central Park
  
• -          Wandering through Central Park
  
• -          Friendly courteous people wherever we went
  
• -          Slices of mushroom pizza
  
• -          Hmmmm, what else? Just being in New York I guess.
  
• -          Jase will no doubt go on about all the jazz gigs he went to and famous musos he heard,  rubbed shoulders with and chatted to (James Carter; Louis Hayes; Craig Handy; Fred Lebayle (maker of mouthpieces); Marcus Strickland )– of which probably only Alf and Dave will be impressed as I’m sure the rest of you out there share my total ignorance of these talents!
  

 

London Part 1 

We had a quick 2 day pit stop in London on our way to Malta to catch one of the rare sightings of Uncle Paul at Ham Common.  We all had a wonderful time catching up with Uncle Paul and Aunty Chris and Grandad.  The girls got a little confused in all the family relationships and kept calling Uncle Paul and Aunty Chris “Grandad” and “Grandma” too! (A reflection on how happily they all got along). He taught them some magic in Grandad’s room – wiping off a rainbow prism reflection with just his hanky and the magic words “Abracadabra, Isaac Azimba, Zimba Zee! Mange mina lo ngango!” (or was it nganga?? – something like that - I guess only true magicians know).  The girls were suitably amazed!  They loved meeting Grandad and kept him busy doing monster spider impressions and practising lobbing rolled up balls of plastic wrap into a copper cup – and I can report that Grandad still has a good eye, getting a few in and only Just missing others!

Uncle Paul took us on safari to Richmond Park where we successfully crept upon some deer for Jason to  photograph  (getting into practice for Africa one day!!)

Malta

Well we managed to get to Malta on EasyJet (only just – almost missed the flight, thanks to Jason mooching around looking at magazines in the airport shops until after the plane was boarding, so despite having checked in the night before in order to secure priority boarding for unassigned seats, we ended up being the last people to board the flight!!  Luckily a kind gent offered up his and his (older) daughter’s seats so that at least the girls and I could sit together in a row of 3.

 

We were met at Malta airport by a large party of Josephine’s family who had kindly come out to meet us.  (And the girls were introduced to the confusing array of the Aunty Marys!)  Uncle Tony and Aunty Mary looked after us splendidly, kindly driving us around to several destinations. Valletta was beautiful - we loved the steep, narrow, stone streets (even though they were murder on the legs), overhung with balconies and box windows and a church on every other street and a shrine built into every street corner.  The Grand Harbour was so beautiful and we were lucky enough to be staying very close to it so could admire the view from the top of the cliff over the harbour to the 3 cities each day.  Discovered a lovely little café to sip a beer or hot choccie of an evening, overlooking the lovely view as it sunk into dusk and the evening lights began to twinkle on the other side of the water. 

We managed to catch up with most of Josephine’s side of the family, either individually or at a lovely family dinner we all went to at a nice hotel in Paceville – where little cousin Emma did a splendid job in entertaining and corralling our increasingly excitable and out of control kids. (By the end of our stay we were quite ready to leave them in Malta).  I think our favourite spot, besides the lovely harbour views, was the ancient little citadel of Mdina, where we spent a nice afternoon wandering around with Aunty Marie and Uncle John.  The girls couldn’t get enough of her and kept calling her “Nanna”!

We also went to visit (another) Aunty Mary – Jason’s paternal aunty this time and cousins Valhmor, Sandro and Jesmond. It was a nice evening followed by a follow-up lunch and the day spent with Valhmor, Mary-Grace and Aunty Mary later in the week.

 

All in all we enjoyed spending time with Jason’s extended family and were very grateful for all their efforts and hospitality!

 

We enjoyed Malta and just managed to fit-in some sightseeing as well as family get togethers at a rather hectic pace! The only failure of the trip was our visit to Gozo when the morning sunshine quickly turned into early afternoon showers and we had to abandon the Gozo streets in favour of a nice Gozo pub! The photos give an indication of the girls’ reaction to the rain and cold! So the Gozo trip was 4 hrs travel (return) to achieve only 2 wet hours in Gozo!

 

‘Saha’ to Malta for now and ‘Kafinti’ yee olde England…and the next round of family get togethers…