Plus: My new favorite place

This week we welcomed our niece, Genny, and her friend, Z. We always have an open door for friends and family and we are very glad they are taking advantage of it. We haven’t had so much giggling in our lives since … forever!

We’ve mostly been wandering (as usual). This week we headed back toward Galata Tower, where we stayed on our last trip here. We forgot how steep the streets are, but we managed a modified death march of about 9 miles (and about 20 flights of stairs).

Before we headed over to Europe, we decided to eat near us, mostly because Steven has figured out that he doesn’t like me very much when I am hungry. (Let’s just say that given the choice of standing near a hungry Sue and a hungry lion, I would need to take some time to consider the pros and cons of each.) We keep passing a restaurant called “Mr. Dumpling,” and kept joking that we should go there. Saturday, we decided, why not? It’s my new favorite place! You can guess from the name that they have dumplings, but they also have traditional Turkish breakfast, soups, salads, sandwiches, and all kinds of vegetarian and vegan options. Yum!

Quiz: Do you know how to say vegetarian in Turkish? See the bottom for the answer.

Genny and Z were going to come with us, but the young people have a much different schedule than we do. By the time they were ready to get moving, we were ready to come home from the death march, so we decided to get dinner together. We went to a restaurant that serves traditional Turkish food in the market here that was recommended by several people, Ciya Sofrasi. I guess it’s famous because the New York Times Travel section has written about it. I know this because the page is framed and hanging on the wall there.

Often, we are unaware of the system and Ciya was no different. There’s a menu, but menu didn’t contain most of the vegetarian options we had seen online. That’s because there’s also a kind of buffet. The buffet has all the veggie dishes plus a few others. One of the waiters explained everything to us, we ordered and then they brought us a ton of food. I can’t tell you exactly what we ate except that Steven had lamb and chicken and I had lentil soup and various vegetarian dishes, one of which was bulgar that kind of reminded me of fakey chicken nuggets.

We were very excited to finish our meal with baklava even though we were STUFFED. The waiter told us they were fresh out and tried to sell us a different dessert, but we opted for just tea instead. Then, through an interpreter (another waiter), he said he would get us baklava if we would take him back to Chicago with us. Seemed fair. Next thing we knew, baklava appeared, but a ticket to America did not.

Sidebar: In Europe and non-European Turkey, you have to say American. No one understands United States, but if you say American in Central or South America, you are insulting an entire continent and a half. (I have taken to just saying Chicago, because everyone knows the name Chicago and knows it is in the United States, even if they don’t know exactly where it is.)

Sunday, we opted for leisure and just a short walk of about 4 miles. Everywhere you go in Istanbul there’s a ton of shopping (and hills! – and we are always walking up them). Everything from bad knockoffs to high-end international brands. We discovered yet another street of shops – there are so many! For our Sunday night entertainment (no football this week), we went to an English comedy show (once we found the unmarked club) with a Pakistani standup who is still learning his trade. He was funny, but uneven. While we were there, we met a South African man who lives there with his wife, who was transferred here, and a woman who lived in San Francisco for 15 years before she decided to begin the nomadic lifestyle partly because SF is on a serious downward spiral. So sad.

I think last week may have been a week off school since the streets were a bit quiet. Originally, I thought it was because it was cold, but this morning at about 7 we heard the Turkish national anthem, “İstiklâl Marşı“or Independence March. We are across the street from a high school which seemed abandoned last week, but now contains students who apparently start their day early by paying homage to the country. Luckily, it is only a minute long (but very very loud!).

Quiz answer: Vejetaryen