Package in the mail!

I love getting packages in the mail. Today I received my special thank you cards I purchased on Etsy. They are so beautiful and I'm so happy with the pesonalised ones. I bought them from a lovely seller, storybymia. Mia is from New York City and everything is made and designed by her in her studio.

Now you all know how I will occupy myself this long weekend! It's way overdue though, so I'm looking forward to getting them out.

Garlic anyone?

That's right. This truck was making it's way from Anatolia to Europe laden with garlic. It's hard to see, but it really was full to the brim with garlic. We were on the Asian side today and I spotted this truck going by. What a sight!

Unexpected guest

Tonight while shopping at Istinye Park, Ken's phone rang. It was his brother asking where we were as he was at our house. Needless to say, Ken was not happy but we stopped our shopping and headed home.

Yasin will stay until Tuesday and I do like having him to stay. He is an easy guest and great cook. He helps out in the kitchen and tonight made by hand my fave dish of çiğ köfte. It is extremely labour intensive. Served with fresh mint, lettuce and herbs and ayran (yoghurt drink). Followed by fresh fruits and nuts. So tasty.

Freedom from Guantanamo

On Friday 2 May I was so happy to read that Al Jazeera cameraman, Sami al Hajj, had been freed from Guantanamo Bay where he has been held for more than six years without charge.

Late last year I came across the below banner on the Al Jazeera web site. If you clicked on the picture it took you to a website dedicated to Al Jazeera's campaign to free him where people had posted prayers and messages of support.

Sami al Hajj was arrested in Pakistan while he was travelling near the Afghan border in 2001. At that time, he was employed with Al Jazeera as a cameraman and was on assignment with them and had with him the the relevant visas.

I guess I wanted to write this post because of the extreme injustice that is Guantanamo Bay. Sami was never charged with any crime and faced no court while in Guantanamo. Still today 275 people remain there. His American captors alleged that he had run a website that supported terrorism, and that he was somehow involved in terrorism because he worked for Al Jazeera and America believed that Al Jazeera was a front for al Qaeda.

Regardless of that and any other claims made against him, he was never charged with any offence in nearly six and a half years. To think that six and a half years of this mans life was needlessly wasted absolutely shocks me. He has not seen his son since he was a small toddler and his wife had no idea where he was until she received a letter from him telling her he was in Cuba. He now suffers from severe medical ailments; depression and the like and the throat cancer that was in remission in 1999 has returned due to him not having access to the drugs he was to take daily for the rest of his life.

I am sure I don't need to mention the abuses that have taken place against him either. Not only the physical, sexual and mental abuse, but abuses of his human rights in every form.

Clearly the six years in detention has taken a toll on him as the 38 year old is described as looking like someone of 80 years of age.

The horrible truth is that Guantanamo Bay is and will remain one of the worst products of the war on terror.

Nobody deserves this fate.

Happy memories

I was flicking through all my photos and found some nice snaps of when my family and friends were here and thought I would pop them on my blog as a happy reminder of a great time!

Lazy weekend breakfasts

I love breakfast with Kenny on the weekends. It's always quite the spread and we take it in turns to prepare it while one of us trudges up the hill to the newspaper stand and bakal to collect papers and bread and on the way back grabs a few simit from the simit cart parked outside the real estate agents office.

Usually breakfast is a mix of olives; green and black, an assortment of cheese; including blue and standard kaşar cheese similar to Australian everyday cheddar, tomatoes and cucumbers, green peppers chargrilled over open flame on the stove top, fresh boiling çay; salam or pastirma and some vegemite in a tube to squeeze all over the fresh white bread or simit. This weekend he made his famous egg salad with red chilli flakes, parsely and a bit of olive oil- very tasty.

There we read our weekend installment of news and gossip; Ken reads Hurriyet, Sabah or Vatan and I read my favourite Today's Zaman or Sunday's Zaman; always the expat column first!

It is such a nice peaceful start to the day. Also this weekend we had our new 40 something inch flat screen LCD HD 25 billion contrast something-or-rather installed plus Digiturk HD box. Needless to say, Ken was a happy man!

Hubwear

I was browsing something the other day and came across the above site, Hubwear, that make specialty t-shirts for those regular travellers who spend time in airports or for those who live between cities. The t-shirt displays two airport codes on the front and back of them, for example MEL (Melbourne) JFK (John F. Kennedy NY)on the front and the reverse on the back, JFK MEL.

This is the creator's story which I think is so cool.

My fascination with airports started when I was little. My family went to London Heathrow all the time. But we never actually flew anywhere – we’d just go to Terminal 3, and then come home again.

I was born in Burma and moved to England when I was young. Every year we had lots of Burmese visitors. Each one meant a trip to an airport, without ever getting on a plane.

For me, this was just unfair. I grew up being teased by Heathrow Terminal 3, excited at the possibilities of travel to foreign countries, always so tantalizingly close.

These days I live in Chicago, and travel often. My work has taken me around the world and back again. So now, airports have a new meaning. It’s good to leave, but it’s good to come home.

My route is ORD-LHR.

—George

Giving my two homes, I was thinking to get MEL-IST/ IST-MEL on a t-shirt. I thought it was a really cool and creative idea.

Günaydin for Lunch

We went to Günaydin which in Turkish means 'Good morning'. But Günaydin is good for lunch and dinner and I must say I had the most amazing lunch there, some of the best Turkish food I have eaten to date.

We started off meze of with mini findik lahmacun (small Turkish style pizza with nuts), Erzincan Tulum Peyniri (flakey style cheese served with fresh walnuts),patlıcan salata (eggplant salad), antep patlıcan dolma (stuffed eggplant) and gavurdağ salata (chopped salad served with nuts and pomegranite juice). The following dish, antep peynir, was a cheese specialty dish that was served in a clay pot and the cheese was hot; almost like hot mozzeralla balls. Then we had the main which consisted of kebab- all types; chicken, adana kebab, lamb chops and köfte.

Dessert followed (of course!) by which time I was splitting at the sides, but of course, there is always the 'dessert stomach'. We indulged in a large shared portion of Gaziantep Katmer tatlısı. It is a pastry dish filled with chopped nuts from Gaziantep area of Turkey (South east) and served with dondurma (ice cream).

Turkish coffe followed with tiny cubes of Turkish delight just to really send the calorie intake overboard. Hence, I did not eat dinner and once back at the office needed a kip under the desk. We left totally stuffed but so very satisfied.

Let them eat cake

I love cake. Especially home made cakes.

I hadn't done much baking here as I find the ingredients harder to understand in the supermarket and it's just easier to get my fix from a few bits of bhaklava.

An expat posted a great site with pics of cakes and she had made the carrot cake ("havuç kek"). I bought my first cake tin on the weekend and decided to give it a go. I was most worried about the philly cream cheese substitution but thanks to handy tips from other expats the suggestion was to use 'labne' which is more of a yoghurt based spread but very similar in texture to cream cheese.

I have to admit after labouring in the kitchen it was very much worth it!! The cake was delish and moist after adding some crushed pineapple. The frosting was perfect too!

You can check this recipe and other here at Joy of Baking.

Mid week day off...

Today, 23 April, was a public holiday here in Turkey for National Sovereignty and Children's Day. The founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, dedicated April 23 to the children of the country to emphasize that they are the future of the new nation. It was on April 23, 1920, during the War of Independence, that the Grand National Assembly met in Ankara and laid down the foundations of a new, independent, secular, and modern republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

So, I decided to go to my first ever expat meet up. I'm glad I went. It was nice to meet new people and put faces to names. I am a member of an expat web portal here called Sublime Portal and a few people at the meet up are members of the site.

One of the members owns and runs her own pizza shop in Sultanahmet and it was decided the meet up would be there. I took along my new Aussie friend Angela and her English teaching Ameican boyfriend, Travis. I had not met him before, so it was nice to catch up with Angela and meet her man and get to know him. He teaches at a high school and is very passionate about his work and students.

I met several other members from the forum, some of which are part of a writers group in Istanbul. One of the writers writes for my fave newspapers Today's Zaman and some of the others were teachers and artists. I think Trav was a bit overwhelmed with all the ladies, but all in all, we had a nice day.

We then headed to Beyazit Mosque as Trav is reading a book set in the 1800's and the current chapter is based around the Beyazit Mosque and the murder of a man. So we took a stroll around the mosque as he read to us from the guide book.

We also checked out Istanbul Univeristy which sits right next door and then headed down the back way from the Grand Bazzar and onto Eminönu where we arrived to the Egyptian Spice Market. We parked up for a few glasses of taze portakal suyu (fresh orange juice) and then said our goodbyes as they headed for the İskelese to take the ferry to Üsküdar and I jumped on a tram to head back my way. I must say the weather was perfect. Not too hot and not too cold with a lovely breeze. This week has been so weird with the weather, 34 and humid on Tuesday, 26 and perfect today and tomorrow the forecast is 12. Go figure...