I arrived in Istanbul feeling quite excited - I felt I was going to a really magical place - at least in my dreams of the past - dare I say it almost 60 years.
Nice landing, fast baggage pick up and the fastest visa acquisition in my history - especially compared to the rabble attack in Kathmandhu. Fastest 15 Euros I ever spent too. All is good and head for the exit - ATM works and dispenses a reasonable amount of Turkish Lira to me. Turkey is not in the Common Market and is doing quite well compared to places like Greece and Spain.
No one in line for information either - this is a new feeling at an airport where I usually have a bit of trouble finding information. Find the tram in the subway armed with my change of stop direction. There are these orange plastic circles called Jetons that one acquires from machines for the sum of 1.75 Lira. It took two Jetons to get to Sultanhamet which is the old area of Istanbul and where I am staying.
I was immediately aware that the Blue Mosque was readily in view throughout most of Sultanhamet so all the hotels claiming to have a view really couldn't help it. It was 29 degrees and I dragged my suitcase downhilee and headed for the area pointed out as where all the accommodation resided. I finally found my hotel and was told a mistake had been made and I was given a room in another hotel just a few seconds away. It was a dark brown room with no view and though there was a TV the WIFI only worked on my iPhone. I wont go into the hotel fiasco but only so many things work in each room. I now have a nice view but air con barely works and I had to fix the tv myself.
The novelty has worn off a tad but I am certainly in another world. I met a couple at breakfast from this town called Nanaimo...yes...and they were quite helpful in deciding what to do. I did something I have never done before and signed up on a tour today and tomorrow. It is big and overwhelming here and I will get to see all the famous sites and have entrance paid with the tour so I have done that. Todau I did the Bospherous cruise which is the stretch of water sperating europe from Asia as far as Turkey goes. It was pleaant and I got to see a lot of the mosques and buildings. Our guide was very well informed and I got a little sense of what Istanbul looks like.
Tomorrow I will do the full day tour and that gives me 2 days to noodle around on my own and then off to Amsterdam for a few days. I will post a few pics on Crackbook.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
RIGA - CITY OF ART NOUVEAU
After a sleepless night in the Naughty Squirrel Hostel have signed into a hotel with wondrous air con and a great view plus free breakfast.
Perhaps my backpacker days are numbered as I like the peacefulness of the hotel. Only a short tram ride to the centre with its throngs of tourists. It is a mighty different place than Tallin where the tourists move at a slower pace.
There is a tradition in Europe it seems esp with the Brits to come to these lovely cities and wreak havoc with stag nights. Louts parade around in Tshirts ascribed to their wedding affiliations wearing stupid makeup or hats etc behaving like Attila's Huns. Riga is a popular place it seems as was Prague. How to ruin a city! No wonder there are police everywhere here...ah well - I digress...
There is a plethora of the most amazing Art Nouveau buildings here and they are truly beautiful. Yesterday I went to house preserved in its decor which was on Alberta Iela. I sat at a cafe and had a salad and a local beer and paid 6 Latvian Lats which is about 12 bucks in C money - not bad really as far as costs go.
I took a few tram rides, got lost and found myself again and then went for a boat ride on the river which was extremely delightful and chatted with a local man (conductor of a choir) with his 12 year old daughter who kindly explained all about the buildings and about Latvian history.
The weather is superb and will be so for the rest of my days here going up to 29 on wednesday. There is a nice breeze too which helps with the humidity whch it seems is ever present on the Baltic.
Disappointed in the price of amber which is too high - am told it has gone up in the last year. Lots of woolen items to buy but I am travelling light this trip and wont be buying much unless it is lightweight of course.
Latvians are also very friendly and disctinct again from the sour Russians who live here. When boating on the river the man I was chatting with stood up and waved at people on the shore - they stood and looked and did not wave back - I joked with him and said, "they must be Russian" and he laughed hard and said I understood well....haha
There are well over 200 Nouveau buildings here so I shall trip around today and see the sights - the Museum of Occupation is my first call and I will try and see as much as I can. The beach is a 20 minute train ride which might be a nice way to spend the afternoon.
Go Cannucks Go!
Perhaps my backpacker days are numbered as I like the peacefulness of the hotel. Only a short tram ride to the centre with its throngs of tourists. It is a mighty different place than Tallin where the tourists move at a slower pace.
There is a tradition in Europe it seems esp with the Brits to come to these lovely cities and wreak havoc with stag nights. Louts parade around in Tshirts ascribed to their wedding affiliations wearing stupid makeup or hats etc behaving like Attila's Huns. Riga is a popular place it seems as was Prague. How to ruin a city! No wonder there are police everywhere here...ah well - I digress...
There is a plethora of the most amazing Art Nouveau buildings here and they are truly beautiful. Yesterday I went to house preserved in its decor which was on Alberta Iela. I sat at a cafe and had a salad and a local beer and paid 6 Latvian Lats which is about 12 bucks in C money - not bad really as far as costs go.
I took a few tram rides, got lost and found myself again and then went for a boat ride on the river which was extremely delightful and chatted with a local man (conductor of a choir) with his 12 year old daughter who kindly explained all about the buildings and about Latvian history.
The weather is superb and will be so for the rest of my days here going up to 29 on wednesday. There is a nice breeze too which helps with the humidity whch it seems is ever present on the Baltic.
Disappointed in the price of amber which is too high - am told it has gone up in the last year. Lots of woolen items to buy but I am travelling light this trip and wont be buying much unless it is lightweight of course.
Latvians are also very friendly and disctinct again from the sour Russians who live here. When boating on the river the man I was chatting with stood up and waved at people on the shore - they stood and looked and did not wave back - I joked with him and said, "they must be Russian" and he laughed hard and said I understood well....haha
There are well over 200 Nouveau buildings here so I shall trip around today and see the sights - the Museum of Occupation is my first call and I will try and see as much as I can. The beach is a 20 minute train ride which might be a nice way to spend the afternoon.
Go Cannucks Go!
Saturday, June 4, 2011
St Bridget's Convent, Tallin
Visited this lovely site here in Tallin which was founded in 1400s and destroyed by the Russians in one of their invasions. Rediscovered in 1930s and excavated. If you like this kind of thing then read up on it at http://www.piritaklooster.ee/eng_kloostri_ajalugu.html.
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Baltic and Back
It is my last night in Tallin and I will be sad to say goodbye to this lovely, laid-back and funky town. I say town tho it is a city and out of the 1 million people in Estonia half live here in Tallin.
It has little or no trace of its Russian occupation except some pretty ugly structures mainly defensive but grey concrete reflecting the austere and realist approach dating to the Stalin era. About a quarter of Estonians are Russian and they seem to me distinctly Russian. I coin the phrase - as rude as a Russian..haha. Estonians are not friendly but not distant and rude either - I would say they are much like Canadians - friendly when approached and helpful.
Here in the old city it is a preserved and beautiful part of Tallin and lived in rather than just looked at. It houses many tourist shops and restaurants and of course there is the usual town square surrounded by the most expensive restaurants but really not so much compared to many other cities.
Not far away there is a beach - No 1A bus to Pirita and also parks and lots of trees and green space. There is a multitude of conifers everywhere and the wonderful weather brings out the people with their kids and dogs and they seem to be a relaxed bunch, quiet and interested in enjoying themselves.
The hostel is just ok - glad t0 have a little room but the facilities are poor and there is little or no interaction among guests. Staff are friendly and helpful and I just keep thinking the place could be so much better. Still - it is in a great part of Old Tallin and there has been a music festival all week just around the corner.
I really like it here and I think it would be fun to rent a car and drive around the country and see what is outside of here...more conifers I expect.
Did I mention my fave coffee place....mmmmm-off to Riga tomorrow...hope it is half as good as Tallin.
It has little or no trace of its Russian occupation except some pretty ugly structures mainly defensive but grey concrete reflecting the austere and realist approach dating to the Stalin era. About a quarter of Estonians are Russian and they seem to me distinctly Russian. I coin the phrase - as rude as a Russian..haha. Estonians are not friendly but not distant and rude either - I would say they are much like Canadians - friendly when approached and helpful.
Here in the old city it is a preserved and beautiful part of Tallin and lived in rather than just looked at. It houses many tourist shops and restaurants and of course there is the usual town square surrounded by the most expensive restaurants but really not so much compared to many other cities.
Not far away there is a beach - No 1A bus to Pirita and also parks and lots of trees and green space. There is a multitude of conifers everywhere and the wonderful weather brings out the people with their kids and dogs and they seem to be a relaxed bunch, quiet and interested in enjoying themselves.
The hostel is just ok - glad t0 have a little room but the facilities are poor and there is little or no interaction among guests. Staff are friendly and helpful and I just keep thinking the place could be so much better. Still - it is in a great part of Old Tallin and there has been a music festival all week just around the corner.
I really like it here and I think it would be fun to rent a car and drive around the country and see what is outside of here...more conifers I expect.
Did I mention my fave coffee place....mmmmm-off to Riga tomorrow...hope it is half as good as Tallin.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Horus - The Sky God
Resurrection is a common theme these days whether its Easter honouring Jesus Christ and his crucifiction and resurrection or how we gain back our own lives from the brink of sadness, depression or loss of some kind.
I occaisonally get glimpses of something "other" not fitting into what should be but rather a sense or feeling that words cannot often convey the meaning of. It goes back to the heavy footsteps down the hall - ghostly presences in a way triggered me to delve past the obvious, the ordinary and the mundane. There is more to life than just "being" isn't there?
Consequently my thirst to learn more, to question what this "reality" is about led me to delve into astrology, numerology and the Tarot. It was really a quest to understand something intangible and obscure.
I started reading cards well over 35 years ago and from time to time I pick them up again and see what happens. I was thinking about transformation and I was instantly given the flash - Horus - the child conceived by Isis from the phallus of her dead husband. I wont go into details - you can read the story here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus
These thoughts led me to explain out loud, "how do you change" how does one move from one position to another. How do you transform, move beyond what you think and feel to a new and clearer, more mindful self.
Think I had better find those cards and see what they trigger.....
I occaisonally get glimpses of something "other" not fitting into what should be but rather a sense or feeling that words cannot often convey the meaning of. It goes back to the heavy footsteps down the hall - ghostly presences in a way triggered me to delve past the obvious, the ordinary and the mundane. There is more to life than just "being" isn't there?
Consequently my thirst to learn more, to question what this "reality" is about led me to delve into astrology, numerology and the Tarot. It was really a quest to understand something intangible and obscure.
I started reading cards well over 35 years ago and from time to time I pick them up again and see what happens. I was thinking about transformation and I was instantly given the flash - Horus - the child conceived by Isis from the phallus of her dead husband. I wont go into details - you can read the story here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus
These thoughts led me to explain out loud, "how do you change" how does one move from one position to another. How do you transform, move beyond what you think and feel to a new and clearer, more mindful self.
Think I had better find those cards and see what they trigger.....
Thursday, April 21, 2011
G is for GHOSTS
I definitely believe in ghosts - losts souls who don't know they are dead. For without death there cannot be a ghost. The predominant reason I believe in such things is that I have experienced the presence of one who has passed. I have never seen an apparation but for several evenings around 8 pm in the evening I heard one.
This happened a long time ago when I was a mere 14 years old and one could put it down to hormones or auditory hallucinations I suppose; but I know what I heard.
In Tibetan Buddhism there is such a thing as a "hungry ghost", it is a metaphor one might say for those who have not lived their lives to their satisfaction and crave physical desires above all else. They try to fill a void that cannot ever be filled.
I think that I lived with one such creature. She was large and fearsome to me and much despised in my family. I knew that she was old, large and rarely bathed. She lived in a part of my house and looked after her brother, my grandfather. My father did not speak to her - they hated each other and my mother was forced to share a kithen with her and they had several heated arguments while trying to share the space. I really did not know what to do, how to act, to speak or not to speak. I trod a precarious path as I often would encounter her in the hallway of our large Victorian brick house.
Picture this house. When you walked into the house there were large "drawing rooms" on either side and directly ahead a large staircase going up to the second story (the house had 3). To the left of the staircase was a hallway which ended in a pantry directly ahead, a stone floor kitchen to the left and small living room to the right.
My grandfather and his sister, whose name incidentally is Auntie Bette enhabited the room to the left of the frontdoor but we (Mum and Dad and me) used the small room to the right of the hallway as our living room and dining room as the front room was too cold to live in and costly to heat.
Houses of this kind are damp and uncomfortable though they sound quite romantic on the surface they are incredibly uncomfortable to actually live in as a human.
One day Auntie Bette was carted off to the hospital and she never came back. She died about a week later. Well in a sense she did come back, or never left - I have never been quite sure.
Auntie Bette was in the habit, in true English tradition of making a pot of tea before bedtime and every night at about 8 pm she walked down the hallway with a distinct and heavy footstep. The problem for me was that she continued to do it for some time after she died.
At first I was, as one would say in todays vernacular, totally freaked out and went to my parents and told them --aah Auntie Bette's walking down the hallway - but they said the usual, "don't be silly" and "she is dead" and other profound responses to my feares. She continued her nightly voyage down the hallway for some time - at least two or three weeks and my fear level subsided a little to a mere utterance of, "there's Auntie Bette again" but my parents paid no attention to me.
Eventually she figuired out she was dead I guess but I could never go near her room - it smelled of her and it terrified me. I was sure she was still around. Perhaps she still is but its a rented house for students now - I bet there are some unexplained footsteps in the night from time to time.....
This happened a long time ago when I was a mere 14 years old and one could put it down to hormones or auditory hallucinations I suppose; but I know what I heard.
In Tibetan Buddhism there is such a thing as a "hungry ghost", it is a metaphor one might say for those who have not lived their lives to their satisfaction and crave physical desires above all else. They try to fill a void that cannot ever be filled.
I think that I lived with one such creature. She was large and fearsome to me and much despised in my family. I knew that she was old, large and rarely bathed. She lived in a part of my house and looked after her brother, my grandfather. My father did not speak to her - they hated each other and my mother was forced to share a kithen with her and they had several heated arguments while trying to share the space. I really did not know what to do, how to act, to speak or not to speak. I trod a precarious path as I often would encounter her in the hallway of our large Victorian brick house.
Picture this house. When you walked into the house there were large "drawing rooms" on either side and directly ahead a large staircase going up to the second story (the house had 3). To the left of the staircase was a hallway which ended in a pantry directly ahead, a stone floor kitchen to the left and small living room to the right.
My grandfather and his sister, whose name incidentally is Auntie Bette enhabited the room to the left of the frontdoor but we (Mum and Dad and me) used the small room to the right of the hallway as our living room and dining room as the front room was too cold to live in and costly to heat.
Houses of this kind are damp and uncomfortable though they sound quite romantic on the surface they are incredibly uncomfortable to actually live in as a human.
One day Auntie Bette was carted off to the hospital and she never came back. She died about a week later. Well in a sense she did come back, or never left - I have never been quite sure.
Auntie Bette was in the habit, in true English tradition of making a pot of tea before bedtime and every night at about 8 pm she walked down the hallway with a distinct and heavy footstep. The problem for me was that she continued to do it for some time after she died.
At first I was, as one would say in todays vernacular, totally freaked out and went to my parents and told them --aah Auntie Bette's walking down the hallway - but they said the usual, "don't be silly" and "she is dead" and other profound responses to my feares. She continued her nightly voyage down the hallway for some time - at least two or three weeks and my fear level subsided a little to a mere utterance of, "there's Auntie Bette again" but my parents paid no attention to me.
Eventually she figuired out she was dead I guess but I could never go near her room - it smelled of her and it terrified me. I was sure she was still around. Perhaps she still is but its a rented house for students now - I bet there are some unexplained footsteps in the night from time to time.....
Friday, April 15, 2011
F is for Friendship
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
Oscar Wilde
I am not a particularly sentimental or maudlin creature except where cats and 1940s movies are concerned so I embark on this particular concept with some trepidation and hopefully a little humour.
I think of the "friends" I have known and ones that have passed, literally and others who have just passed me by and I sometimes feel a small stab of regret: not a guilty form of regret but rather a sense of having lost something.
I recently "lost" a friend to that evil cancer and years ago another friend to the same evil disease and I always wished that they had the freedom to blossom in their lives. I hoped I had in some ways agitated, provoked and cared enough about them to inspire a little adventure or even - yes brought some joy to their lives as they did to mine.
I also think of those friendships I tried to rekindle and failed miserably - you can't go back and pick up your friends as often you have changed and they haven't and it is glaringly obviouse. I don't live the lifestyle of the young and foolish anymore but rather prefer to curl up with the cats and watch tv or read a book.
As I age I like meeting people here and there but have more faith in the "accident" of friendship, the karma or fate of the connection. I don't want to be everybody's friend dashing around being entertaining.
Marlene Deitrich said, "It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter" and I get her point. I can think of a handful of friends I could do that with and it feels good. The Dalai Lama is very pragmatic about it all and I will end on his quote. Perhaps that is the story of my friendships - they begin with Oscar Wilde and end with a monk's.
"Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day."
Oscar Wilde
I am not a particularly sentimental or maudlin creature except where cats and 1940s movies are concerned so I embark on this particular concept with some trepidation and hopefully a little humour.
I think of the "friends" I have known and ones that have passed, literally and others who have just passed me by and I sometimes feel a small stab of regret: not a guilty form of regret but rather a sense of having lost something.
I recently "lost" a friend to that evil cancer and years ago another friend to the same evil disease and I always wished that they had the freedom to blossom in their lives. I hoped I had in some ways agitated, provoked and cared enough about them to inspire a little adventure or even - yes brought some joy to their lives as they did to mine.
I also think of those friendships I tried to rekindle and failed miserably - you can't go back and pick up your friends as often you have changed and they haven't and it is glaringly obviouse. I don't live the lifestyle of the young and foolish anymore but rather prefer to curl up with the cats and watch tv or read a book.
As I age I like meeting people here and there but have more faith in the "accident" of friendship, the karma or fate of the connection. I don't want to be everybody's friend dashing around being entertaining.
Marlene Deitrich said, "It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter" and I get her point. I can think of a handful of friends I could do that with and it feels good. The Dalai Lama is very pragmatic about it all and I will end on his quote. Perhaps that is the story of my friendships - they begin with Oscar Wilde and end with a monk's.
"Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day."
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