Books I Will Write

And the book will start like this: I was visiting Gina in New Jersey and she showed me a flyer she'd gotten about a five-day trip to Turkey. The trip was for travel agents, a "fam" trip to familiarize them with a venue they could then promote to their clients. The package was incredibly affordable and I found myself encouraging Gina to go. She said, "Why don't you come with me?" To which I responded, "Oh, yeah, I'll ask ______ and then I'll come with you." You'd have to know my spouse to see the humor in this -- there was NO WAY I thought he'd let me go. But miracles happen every day, and when I told him about the trip, and Gina's suggestion that I accompany her, he said, "Yeah, I think you should go." I didn't hesitate in booking the airfare.

But then 9/11 happened and the world changed very suddenly. Gina and many other people scheduled to go on the trip had second and third thoughts, and many dropped out. Gina's neighbor, who first sent Gina the flyer, dropped out. Gina called me and shared her concerns -- mostly about the political instability in the world and fear that travel so close to Iraq would be dangerous for Americans.

I told her I was choosing "faith over fear" and that I was going even if she wasn't. We still joke about that -- once I played the faith card what could she do but agree to come along?

So I remember that there were some drawbacks to the low-budget package rate, the most profound of which was awful seats on the red-eye to Amsterdam, where we changed planes and flew to Istanbul. And the travel group we were with was pretty lame, except for just a few women whom we enjoyed being with.

But the hotel was nice, and close to a great shopping district, and we had a Turkish guide who was amusing. He reminded me of Topol (who played Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof movie). Not as old, but similar build and good nature. The letter "v" is pronounced like a "w" by Turkish folks, and this led to some challenges -- for example, we were supposed to meet the van at different locations and had to translate "whan" to "van". One morning our guide told us about what an important and historic day it was because lots of people were "woting". Turns out they had the national elections while we were there, and a Muslim majority was elected. At the time, Turkey was trying so hard to be a secular democracy, and our guide was concerned (although he was a Muslim) that some hard-liners might try to push more conservative social reforms as a result. I was very relieved that we experienced no evidence of anti-American sentiment.

Istanbul is an ancient city, as you probably already know. It was Bizantium, then Constantinople, then Istanbul. There are remnants of the Roman Empire there as well as all the Ottoman Turk influence. Great architecture, from palaces to museums to aqueducts and cisterns. We were there during Ramadan, so we got to experience the early morning call to prayer and the breaking of fast at dusk (although no one expected us to be fasting during the day -- good for me!). Oh, and I loved the food! Gina is a vegetarian (has been since her teens) and I just went along for the ride. We found many restaurants with terrific vegetarian options, and often wine was included in the price of the meal (yippee for me, again!).

It was so wonderful for Gina and me to have a vacation just the two of us. We get along so well and have such fun together. Often we laugh so hard we cry, that kind of thing.

One Turkey story we always come back to involves a long afternoon of rug shopping (warning: do NOT shop for rugs in the Middle East! it is way to easy to be cheated!). When we finally left the rug shop, it was pouring rain, and one of the salesclerks was told to accompany us by taxi to our hotel. All along the way he flirted shamelessly with Gina, and kept asking her to go out with him that evening, to some nightclub in town. Of course she didn't want to go with him, but he was as persistent as if he were trying to sell her a silk rug. Finally he turned to me and said, "Please! Tell your friend she must come with me! I will give 100 camels for her," and he smiled at me with all the slick charm of a rug salesman.

I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I couldn't take less than 1000 camels for her!"

And Gina and I both smiled demurely and were on our way.

So now whenever I see a camel (porcelain, wood, leather, plastic) that isn't too tacky, I buy it for Gina. When she has 1000 I am going to send her back to Turkey to redeem that date night offer.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Monday, August 31, 2009

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

I will write a book about traveling to Istanbul

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Books I Will Write

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