We've been in Bodrum for August and Ela has loved swimming in the Aegean!

Elanur's grandparents came from America to visit when she was 3 weeks old. They were a super help! (just about when I was reaching my breaking point from exhaustion!) They had a fantastic time seeing all the sights in Istanbul and also Ephesus and Cappadocia, but most importantly Ela.

Ela and her cousin Charlotte chomping on their fingers at the beach on Long Island with Grandmother. We spent nearly a month there and had a great time. We also drove to Pennsylvania for Charlotte's christening. Ela loved all the attention from her grandparents! and watching all her big cousins run around.

(Having a baby was a lot more work than I imagined, so I haven't posted in a few months!)

Bobby and Katie got married! The big day was the lucky date 7/7/07. It was a gorgeous wedding and we all had a fantastic time. The happy couple took their honeymoon in Iceland (naturally) and Scotland.

Elanur Rose was born in Istanbul on Saturday, April 7, 2007 at 5:42 AM! We feel so blessed to have such a gorgeous healthy baby (and a complication-free natural birth).

We haven't had much winter this year in Istanbul. Yesterday was 60 and sunny so we decided to walk around my favorite Bosphorous village- Kuzguncuk. There's a fantastic plant nursery there right by a string of restored homes.

Baby is due in 5 days! Can't believe how big I look in this photo. Actually, I do feel huge too. I read first babies are an average of 8 days late, so I should be prepared for a bit more waiting!

Emre and I went to Bodrum for the first week of January and were lucky enough to come across a Deve Gureshe festival. Camel wrestling has been popular for hndreds of years, but it is pretty rare now. (Emre had never seen it before either.) The camels are all tied up near each other and then a female is walked around. The male camels all get aggitated, foamy and ready to fight.

Emre and I with a scarey foaming camel. There were 160 camels there, and all were getting foamy and ready to fight. was scarey to walk around!

Here camel Ozkan has lost. His head is pressed to the ground, but the fight is broken up quickly. The whole fight is only a few minutes and the camels don't get hurt. (Sometimes a camel just runs away before they even start, and they are not forced to fight.)

Emre and I went to Italy for a week in the beginning of November for our "babymoon". (last trip before the baby!) Even though it got pretty cold some days, we still had gelatto at least once a day. a definite highlight. (especially since I had to skip the wine and cheese.)

The Trevi Fountain. Emre really LOVED Rome- his favorite city. We spent 4 days there and saw all the highlights, including St Paul's and the Vatican. Then we rented a car and drove to see Pompeii for a day. (After seeing Ephesus so many times, it was great to see. Less impressive buildings, but extremely well preserved.) That night we slept in Cortona (mentioned in "Under the Tuscan Sun"), a super charming small walled city in Tuscany. We had 2 days in Florence and got to see the highlights in the Uffizi.

Us at the Colliseum.

This year I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner. (It's a much nicer holiday when someone else does all the work!) I cooked for 11 hours and made: waldorf salad, roasted root vegetables (which are mysteriously different than the ones in the US), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmellow (had to get some Americana kitsch in there- especially since my sister imported marshmellows for me), brussel sprouts, stuffing, cranberry sauce (also imported- no cranberries here), and of course turkey. Emre's mom was suprised to hear that it's the American man's job to carve the turkey (it's the least he could do!) and Emre did do a great job. Actually, he was in charge of roasting the turkey, which was pretty easy in one of those roasting bags. I also made pumpkin pie, apple pie and rice crispie treats. I was relieved that everything actually came out pretty good.

We celebrated with our dutch friends Helen and Pieter, english friends Pami and Julian, also Eda, Heiko and Emre's mom. This was also the first week I actually started to look pregnant and feel the baby too!

Emre carved his first jack-o-latern. All those years in art school really paid off! ;)

Pumpkins here are actually light green on the outside, but the same inside.

We had a Halloween party last night and was really fun! I was a witch and Emre was a devil, but lost his beard, so looks like a minibus driver!

Turkish Halloween party! Our friend Fusun was a nun and her husband the imam- definitely the hit of the party. (Halloween is apparently only celebrated in the U.S., but everyone got into the spirit here. My sister brought all the decorations and candy from home.)

Joann and Mike came to visit for a week. This is a shot of them in Sirince, a charming old Greek village near Ephesus. They were here during Bayram, a 3-day holiday at the end of Ramadan, so we had a few big family dinners too.

My sister and I at Ephesus. (2 pregnant ladies!) We had a crazy two-day tour of Troy, Assos, Ayvalik, Sirince, Ephesus, the house of mother Mary and St. John's basilica. It was great! Emre and I were so amazed by the new museum that just opened inside Efes where you can see the ancient mansions with gorgeous intact mosaics.

I got a new car! It's a 2005 Toyota Yaris- tiptronic with a 1 liter engine. TINY! It's great for driving in Istanbul. I like it because it feels pretty spacious inside and is a bit high up, but still easy to park. The hills and crazy traffic here are still challenging for me, but I'm getting used to it. Will be much easier to get around with the baby in the car, rather than the dolmus. (I'm not really showing much yet, but did have to buy some maternity pants to fit my belly.)

Cappadocia

We went to Cappadocia for a long weekend in October. Such an amazing place! This is a photo taken at night with the full moon.

We went there with Emre's cousin Asli and her husband Gunner, who were visiting from Germany, and Eda and Heiko. Each day we took a hike through the fantastic canyons. Ancient cities and churches, like this one, are carved into the rock formations and are barely detectable from the outside.

Anna came to visit in September and we went to dinner at 360, the most glamorous place we could find! It has amzing views of the Istanbul skyline. Our dutch friends Helen and Pieter are sitting across from me. We got the very cool round table! Brian and Maurice also came in September and we went to 360 with each of them.

Mexico, Belize and Guatemala

Emre and I flew to Cancun and went travelling for 2 1/2 weeks in August.

Tony and Ashley came with us for the first 4 days. We rented a car and drove all around- found great snorkle sites! Amazing that everyone crowds in Cancun when you can find perfect empty beaches 40 minutes away. We spent a few nights in Tulum and saw the Mayan ruins there.

Afterwards Emre and I took the bus to Belize City and then to Tikal (more ruins) in Guatemala. We spent a day in Flores, which was very charming, but touristy. Emre did a day trip to (more ruins) Ceibal, which I skipped. (he said too many mosquitoes and not much to see anyway.)

Then we went to Antigua and to Lake Panajachel. We crossed back into Mexico and spent a couple days in San Cristobal (similar to Antigua- charming colonial city) then saw the ruins at Palenque and Chichen Itza.

After I got Turkish off my mind, I realized my Spanish has gotten really good! I guess I learned a lot more at my job in NY than I realized. Overall, we had a fantastic time. Guatemala was especially interesting. Emre says Antigua was his favorite.

We went snorkeling at a couple cenotes (fresh water caves) near Cancun. super! Emre went scuba diving there one day and said it was his most interesting dive yet.

Belize City. only 90,000 people and not much going on. We could barely find an open restaurant for dinner. We only spent one evening there and then continued on to Tikal (mayan ruins in Guatemala.) Spent my 31th birthday having a small child throw up on my feet during the bus ride.

We spent two days in Antigua, a super charming colonial city in Guatemala. We were just suprised by the number of tourists! (Italian backpackers everywhere!)

Typical Guatemalan bus (probably left over from a LI school district) painted very dramatically. This is near the market in Antigua.

View of volcanoes and Lake Atilan. It was suprising and interesting to see so many people in traditional clothing in Guatemala.

We took a boat tour from Panajachel on Lake Atilan that stopped in a few other small villages. In one town, people there made a shrine to Maximon, which is apparently some combination of Catholic saints and pre-Christian religious figures. People pay to enter and give offerings of cigarettes, rum or beer and then pray to Maximon. crazy!

Emre and I finally made it to Chichen Itza after an overnight bus ride from Palenque. We thought all the ruins were very interesting. Chichen Itza was probably the best restored. We got there very early before the hourdes of tourists arrived, which was good.

We spent a week on Long Island visiting my family in August. My niece Fiona loves swimming in the big waves there more than any other two year-old!

The view of our balcony in Bodrum. We spent three weeks there in June-July. Spent a lot of time fixing up the apartments, but they are looking really good now. (All painted fresh white with new wood floors.)

At the end of June we took the hydrofoil from Bodrum to Rhodes. (was only 2 hours). Rhodes is a beautiful island with an amazing old walled city that was under Ottoman control for a few hundred years before Italy took over at the beginning of the 2oth century. (now part of Greece.) We spent 2 days there and then 2 more on Kos, which is just across from Bodrum. (We can see the cars driving on Kos from our balcony in Bodrum.) We had a great time exploring the old town and driving around the island to see the ancient city ruins.

Another view of the bustling walled city of Rhodes. Loads of tourists from everywhere!

This is me and Emre at Solar Beach, a beach club on the Black Sea at the end of July. It's just outside of Istanbul. Has nice sand and waves, but it is funny to see the huge oil tankers going by. Very fancy club though...

I haven't posted in so long! This photo is from mid July when Ariane came to visit. We had a fantastic time together. She first arrived in Bodrum, where we spent 2 days. We drove back to Istanbul, stopping in Bursa. Then 3 days touring the sites of Istanbul with perfect weather. Also had a fantastic boat tour and swam in the Bosphorous. This is us at Rumeli Hisari, the first fortress built by the Ottomans in 1452 as they prepared to capture Constantinople. That is the second bridge behind us.

Bobby and Katie got Engaged!

Bobby and Katie were in Turkey and he proposed in the Hagia Sophia on April 9th! They seem very happy and excited.

The four of us in front of the library at Ephesus. We stopped off for a tour on the way from Istanbul to Bodrum.

Germany

Picture of me and Emre in Bremen.

We just got back from a 9 day trip to Germany. We spent 4 days with Emre's sister Eda and her husband Heiko in Bremen, a charming small city of 500,000 people in the north. They were fantastic hosts and introduced us to the morning cocktail "fruhshop" and their favorite game, bluff, which we also got addicted to.

We had 4 1/2 days in Berlin, which was really amazing. Compared to Istanbul, the public transportation is AMAZING (Although people openly drinking beer on the U-bahn was a bit suprising. It was definitely a bit sketchy at night, and there is graffitti EVERYWHERE.)

Bremen Bahnhof

Eda and Emre saying goodbye in Bremen.
We ended up renting a car and driving from Berlin to Bremen because the train was 250 euro. normally it would be 90 euro round trip, but you have to buy it 3 days in advance (a German custom we never could get the hang of!) I had always imagined the "autobahn" to be a scary superhighway, but really it is just two lanes in each direction- like a local road on eastern Long Island. But the Germans DO drive extremely fast- no speed limit. We saw a horrible accident in the other direction, including dead bodies. awful. I will stick to the trains...

Hamburg

Eda and Heiko took us on a daytrip to Hamburg. These are the old wharehouses along the river. It was a lovely, wealthy city.

Berlin

The renovated Budenstag building.

Construction

Berlin is one big construction zone... This was my third visit (before in 1996 and 2001) and each time it has looked completely different! A lot of the ugly 1960s buildings are being knocked down and the olders ones are being renovated. There are also loads of super modern glass structures.

The Wall

A short portion was left for artists, but most of the murals were covered by graffiti. This is a pretty desolate area. The wall surrounded West Berlin, so actually the "lucky" West Berliners were really trapped. 17 years after it was knocked down, the whole city is still a construction zone.

Museum Insel

This is a cool view of the S Bahn passing between the striking neoclassical buildings on museum insel.

Museum Insel

This is us on a bridge to Museum Insel (Island) where there are five impressive museums and the Berlin Cathedral. (Two of them are under construction though.)

We also went to see the Jewish Museum in another part of town, which was designed by Daniel Libeskind. Very moving/depressing/interesting...

Doesn't Emre look like the Cesar? This is at the Pergamon Museum where there are loads of statues and buildings from ancient cities in Turkey.

Brandenburger Tor (an old city gate) is a very impressive ending to Unter der Linden Avenue which has lots of neoclassical buildings. Next to the gate, the new American embassy is being built. There's also a Starbucks across the square (even here!). The gate was in East Berlin and the wall was just past it.

another night in Berlin

Emre's old roomate in the Bronx, Giuseppe, is now working at a glamorous club in Berlin, where we went one night. He took us around a few other areas another evening, which was great.

Giuseppe's parents are Italian, but he was born and raised in Germany. I didn't realize there was such a large community of "gastarbeiters" (guest workers or immigrants) from Italy and Spain, as well as Turkey, Lebanan and other Arab countries in Germany. Germany has a population of 80 million and 2.3 million of them are Turks. Berlin has the highest concentration of immigrants.

Kreuzberg and finally FOOD

Photo of Kreuzberg, which is supposedly the Turkish ghetto. We thought it was the most charming area! There are loads of fantastic restaurants and lively streetlife. Berlin is generally rather economically depressed, but somehow Kreuzberg seemed the liveliest and most interesting area to us. We decided we'd like to live on this street overlooking the river.

And the FOOD!

The street food in Germany is wurst (sausages with mustard, very yummy and nothing like a hot dog!) and pommes frites. "Kaffee und kuchen" is another German custom I really love - afternoon coffee and cake. I love apple struedel, kase kuchen (means cheese cake, but lighter and more lemony) and plum schnite! All the bakeries were really amazing- fantastic bread!

Berlin had fabulous restaurants. One traditional gasthaus we tried was Restauration Gambrinus on the corner of Linienstrasse and Oranienburger strasse. We had jaegar schnitzel (mushroom sauce) and fantastic salads with pickled shredded white cabbage and beets on top of regular mixed salads- excellent! Another good place was Assel on Oranienburger strasse, which was also fantastic. The area around Oranienburger strasse, just north of Alexanderplatz and Hackescher Markt in East Berlin, was very lively with lots of cool spots to check out. Another typical German dish is gulash which I had a great place under the S bahn in Hackescher Markt. Also came with celery cream soup, which was zuper!

Bosphorous Cruise

We took the Bosphorous cruisde with Tony and Ashley, which ends at the Black Sea. We stopped at a cute village for lunch and hiked up to the remnants of a castle.

Me, Ashley and Tony at the Blue Mosque.

Emre and Tony at the Turkish barber. It's not just a haircut, they drink lots of tea, get facials, have their ear hair burned out and have their eyebrows threaded.

View of the Bosphorous as night from the Asian side.

What to See When You're a Tourist in Turkey

Istanbul is by far the most interesting place to see in Turkey. Even in winter (which is short) you can enjoy the sites and city life.
-Spend a day in Sultanahmet, the oldest part of the city visiting Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the underground cistern and the Grand Bazaar.
-Visit Topkapi Palace
-Spend an afternoon strolling Beyoglu, the hip part of town, across the golden horn from Sultanahmet. Visit Nisantasi, the poshest part of town too.
-Visit the Istanbul Modern, the new Turkish modern art museum and have lunch at the cafe there.
-Take a cruise on the Bosphorous and see Ortakoy and the other charming old fishing villages, now hip areas with great night life.
-Take a ferry across to the Asian side to see modern middle class Turkish life. Everyone strolls on Baghdad Avenue to shop and bump into friends.

Outside of Istanbul my favorite place is Cappadocia, an amazing region in Central Anatolia. The landscape is unimaginable- ancient cave dwellings and churches carved into lava formations. It is a 8+ hour drive from Istanbul, so an overnight bus is a good option. The public bus is about $25 each way. You can hire a taxi to drive you arround for the whole day there for about $75. Or Fez Tours offers a short guided tour there: www.feztravel.com/

From May through September the coast is fantastic! Loads of ancient ruins dot the beautiful sparkling blue sea. Rent a car and drive along the coast staying at a tree house in Olimpos, spend a few days in the charming small city of Kas where you can kayak over an old Lycean city now underwater, visit Dalyan (Lycean tombs on the cliffs), Fetiye and end in Bodrum. Consider a few day cruise on a gulet or a side trip to Rhodes.

On your way back to Istanbul don't miss Ephesus, the largest ruined city in Turkey. Here's what Lonely Planet says about it: Of Turkey's hundreds of ancient cities and classical ruins, Ephesus is the grandest and best preserved. Indeed, it's the spunkiest classical city on the Mediterranean. Ephesus was Ionia, a flourishing cultural centre during the Greek Empire, and a busy provincial capital during Roman times. Ionia's Temple of Diana was counted among the Seven Wonders of the World, and the city was generally renowned for its wealth and beauty.

Sts Paul and John took up the quill in Ionia and the Virgin Mary is said to have spent her twilight years here. A walking tour of the ruins will take at least half a day. Places you'll come across include the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers, in which seven persecuted youths slumbered for two centuries, then woke up and ambled down to town for a meal; the colossal Harbour Gymnasium; the grand marble-paved Arcadian Way; the impressive Temple of Hadrian and a scattering of Roman fountains, pools, brothels, libraries and public toilets.

The Asian Side

Istanbul is divided into two main parts- the European side and the Asian side. The historical part of the city is on the European side, which itself is split by the Golden Horn.

The Asian side was a few fishing villages with mainly Greek and Armenian residents until the 19th century. There are still many churches and a monastary here. By the mid 20th century it became the residence of choice for middle class Turks. All the old wooden kushks (very large single family homes) were torn down with itnternationlist style 6-story apartment buildings put up instead. They are pretty ulgy, but the area has maintained the garden surroundings of the old homes, so it much more pleasant and residential than many parts of the European side. One other plus is that we never have power or water cuts here, while they are frequent on the European side. We also have the best markets and malls. There are constant ferries across to the European side and two bridges, but traffic is terrible.

Here's a bit I lifted from Time Out Istanbul:

Though lacking the European city's richness, the Asian shore does offer a pleasantly less hectic experience. The two main centres of Üsküdar and Kadıköy offer shopping with a regional slant and a sprinkling of historic sights. North of Üsküdar, the settlements along the Asian Bosphorus still resemble the quiet fishing villages they so recently were.

While most of what's interesting dates from the past 100 years or so, the area's history predates that of the European shore. The oldest settlement in the Istanbul metropolitan area, Chalcedon, was discovered near Kadıköy and dates from neolithic times, much earlier than anything on the European side. The first Greek city was also founded at Kadıköy in 675 BC -17 years before the founding of Byzantium. But, separated by water from their more powerful European neighbour, the Asian settlements suffered badly over subsequent millennia; the work of various invading armies explains the lack of substantial early remains.

Before the 19th century, only Üsküdar saw any significant development. That changed in 1852 when a steam ferry company, Sirket-i Hayriye (literally 'the good deeds company'), started plying its trade across the straits. Rich Levantines from Beyoğlu began constructing elaborate summer mansions along the shore to the south and east of Kadıköy. For the first 50 years of the service, the ferries were all products of British shipyards. In fact, trade between the Ottoman and British empires was at such a level that by the end of the 19th century the Kadıköy suburb of Moda was more or less an English colony. (Our apartment is in Moda.) Under the republic, most of the mansions were demolished and replaced by apartment blocks. These retained the mansion garden settings, though, something which gives the Asian shore, especially between Kadıköy and Bostancı, a more spacious feel than the European side.

Click on the link below to read the rest.
http://www.timeout.com.tr/show.php?isim=asian.htm

Bodrum Castle

This is another photo of Bodrum from our trip the first week of February. That is the Castle of St. Peter in the bacground, built in 1402 by the Knights Hospitaller based in Rhodes.

Bodrum was also the site of King Mausolus' Mausoleum, one of the Seven (Ancient) Wonders of the World.

Princes' Islands

That is me, Pamela, Hoai and Charlotte in a horse carriage on one of the islands. They are all studying in my Turkish class too. So nice to have new friends here!

Us at the ruins of the ancient hellenistic city of Priene.

Solar Heating

In Turkey everyone uses solar water heaters. This is the view from the roof of our new condo building where you can see all the solar water heating systems and Greek island of Kos (in the back) and a Turkish island. It is the cheapest way to heat here. The whole system costs about $450 and is widely available, including at the equivalent of Home Depot and local hardware stores.

And we can be dangerous too!!! 2003 Las Terrenas- Dominican Republic. During an ATV safari. 

When we were young and curly... 2003 Samana, Dominican republic 

Santo Domingo 2003 

Our Diving trip in the Dominican Republic February 2003 

8/11/05 Karen's 30th birthday party! With yummy red velvet cake from the famous cake man in fort greene, brooklyn. The party was in the garden of our Crown Heights brownstone on the HOTTEST day of the summer. Was so nice that 60+ people came, including my sister, brother, nieces and friends from all over.

subway ride home from our wedding 11/06/2002

The park on the Marmara Sea at the end of the street in Istanbul.

The apartment building in Istanbul. The street ends at a staircase that goes down to the waterfront park.