Change In Plans

This short post relates some of the funny things that have happened while we have been travelling. As noted before, I don’t know how funny they will be in the retelling (particularly in my retelling), but they made us laugh at the time.

1- We have been following the U.S. Presidential campaign reasonably closely, but only through the internet. We did see a replay of the Vice Presidential debate, with Turkish sub-titles, on the boat on our last night in Turkey. India also managed to play the Tina Fey Saturday Night Live impressions of Sarah Palin on YouTube for us (although not in Turkey, where access to YouTube has been blocked by the government).

Somehow, in all of this, the expression “I can see Russia from my house!” has crept into the family dialogue. For example: “Zola, why haven’t you done your schoolwork yet?” “Because I can see Russia from my house.” It is particularly funny when the three-year old says it.

One of our favorite Zola moments was when we were staying at the Ciragan Palace in Istanbul, looking out over the Bosphorus Straits. He woke up one morning and told us, apropos of nothing, “Sarah Palin says she can see Russia from her house. So what?. I can see Asia from my bed!”

2- Our dinner at Donna Rosa restaurant in Monteprusto, Italy was nearly perfect. The restaurant is run by a family, with Donna Rosa and her daughter in the open kitchen, the father and another daughter waiting tables. Three funny things happened during our dinner.

First, we struck up a conversation with a lovely couple on their honeymoon. The new wife, in her mid-thirties, was very interested in our children, and she and India really hit it off. 30 minutes after they left, the waitress answered a phone call, and then summoned India to the phone. We assumed the worst: parents sick, hotel burned down, who knows? The new bride actually had called the restaurant from her hotel, gave India her address and phone number, and invited us to stay with them in London.

Second, there was a large and vivacious American tour guide sitting with a small group of his high-end clients at the table next to us. It was clear that the guide brings all of his groups to Donna Rosa, and that he has a very friendly relationship with the family. Donna Rosa sent our table a small starter, and the tour guide made a humorous show of wanting the starters for himself. After Zola went to the kitchen and talked to Donna Rosa and her daughter, they sent us a small plate of meatballs, and the tour guide made a humorous show of trying to intercept the waitress and get the meatballs. The kids scarfed down the small plate, so she sent a big plate (this was all before we ordered), and the tour guide made a bigger show of chasing the waitress with his fork, asking for meatballs. Tallulah leaned over to me, and said in a triumphant voice: “That big fatman wants our food, but we are NOT giving it to him.”

Third, after his trip to the kitchen, Zola was emboldened to order a ravioli appetizer, even though it had spinach in it (breaking new culinary ground for a very picky eater). He told the waitress: “I would like to order he ravioli, but only half an order of ravioli. That way, if I like it, I can get you to bring me the other half of the order later on.”

3- We have never spanked either of our kids, but when we were in Positano, Zola found a box of matches and lit one by himself in the bedroom, while we were all in the sitting room. This required a reaction which was different in kind from anything he had seen before, and would be memorable, so I put him over my knee and actually spanked him (not very hard) for the first, and I hope only, time in his life.

This was not funny, and was sort of traumatic for all of us. Zola crying, Tallulah crying, India and me upset.

The next evening, Tallulah and I were cozy in bed, reading a story. She interrupted me and said in a soft voice:

“Dad? Remember when you spanked Zola?”

“Of course, sweetheart, it was yesterday.”

“Dad, when you spanked him it was … very … it was so … it was …”

“I know, Lu, it was very scary and awful for all of us. I just wanted him and you to know that…”

“No Dad. What I mean is that when you spanked him it was … so … it was so … nice!”

This short post is about arriving back at our cabin in the Catskills, after the first eight weeks of our trip. It is a sunny and crisp fall day, the foliage is simply spectacular, and we are all glad to be back.

The flight from Madrid to New York seemed to take forever: left a little late, strong headwinds, long delay in starting the kid-distraction movies. Mostly, I think we were just eager to get here.

Once we landed, everything was almost unbelievably smooth. The flight touched down at 7:30, by 7:55 we had all of our luggage and had cleared customs, and by 8:20 we had taken the Air Train out to the remotest parking lot and gotten in the car. Lu was even courteous enough to pee in a dark corner of the parking lot, and save us a stop.

We pulled into the driveway of our darkened Catskills cabin before 11:30, having travelled a total of 20 hours door to door from Positano.

Everyone was up before 5am, confused and jet lagged. The night sky was exceptionally clear, and the stars were bright and beautiful.

At dawn, we went up to look at our pond, and to admire the brilliant foliage up and down the valley. It is a truly spectacular fall day, like Robert Frost would write about, or state tourism boards would photograph feverishly for next year’s brochures. India went for a run in the mountains (carrying her “bear bell”), and was gone so long that we went looking for her. She said that it was so beautiful, and that she felt so good, that she just kep on going.

We have a lot to to do in the few days we are here, starting with about ten loads of laundry. For the time being, though, the kids are playing happily with their long-forgotten toys, and we are just enjoying being in our own place.

This short post is about leaving Positano, and starting the long trip back to our cabin in the Catskills. We will be in the U.S. for the next three weeks (with a short side trip to Canada to see polar bears), before leaving for the second leg of our trip.

We left Hotel Le Agavi in Positano at about 9:30am. The staff there was very helpful (particularly Signor Raffaelle at the front desk) and very friendly, but I think they were not entirely sorry to see us go. Most of the guests were American couples in their 60s and 70s, and the running and shouting of our “mostri bambini (monster children)” disrupted the ambience a little.

We drove up to Naples in about 90 minutes: an hour on twisty, narrow roads perched high above the sea, and 30 minutes on the highway.

Naples airport was in a state of complete chaos. It took a long time to get through each step of returning the rental car, getting the shuttle bus to the terminal,ticketing, checking the baby backpack in the mysterious “special baggage area,” and getting through security. We saw our young friends from the Capri trip in the security line, as they went off to Barcelona.

The kids and I had time for one last espresso (for me) and cold water (for them), and we ran for the plane.

The flight to Madrid was very bumpy. For the first time in our traveling lives, India (a nervous flier) asked me whether she should take Xanax or Valium or something on flights. We will look into supplementing our medical kit, but I can’t imagine her taking pills. Lu slept the entire way, and aside from spilling a glass of water on himself, Zola drew battle scenes and did schoolwork.

We have boarded the flight from Madrid to New York, and should take off soon. This is a long day of travel. Zola and I have been working on a summary of the first leg of the trip.

We are looking forward to being at our cabin

Late tonight, and to spending Columbus Day in the Beaverkill.

This short post is about our trip to the Blue Grotto, a (pretty amazing) natural attraction on the north side of the Isle of Capri.

We took a day trip from Positano to Capri today, and made sure to get on one of the boats that stops at the White Grotto, the Emerald Grotto, and the all-important, “must see, can’t miss” Blue Grotto.

We took a funicular and then an elevator to get from the lobby of the Le Agavi Hotel down to the hotel’s private beach, roughly 700 vertical feet below our balcony. We were picked up at 9:30am on Le Agavi’s rickety private dock (steel scaffolding turned on its side and placed in the water). The boat was a fast and comfortable 30-foot cabin cruiser. The only other passengers were a group of eight young friends from California, who had been picked up earlier in the morning.

The White and Emerald Grottoes were nice to look at from the water, but we didn’t venture inside. I was surprised that at both spots, in the five minutes or so that we were sitting there three other tour boats pulled up to look. We had been told that in the summer high season, sometimes people “line up for two hours at the Blue Grotto.” This was a little confusing, because we were already in a boat, and it wasn’t clear what we would be lining up for.

When we arrived at the Blue Grotto site at about 11am, the warning made sense. The scene was a complete carnival.

In order to get inside the Blue Grotto, you have to transfer to a four-passenger rowboat that is small enough to get in through the cave mouth. There were a half dozen big motor boats, with a total of at least 50-60 tourists, waiting for their turns in the little rowboats.

The size of the cave mouth itself changes, based on how big the swells are. As we waited, we saw some periods where the clearance was 4-5 feet high, and the rowboat pilots would zip in with their passengers lying flat in the low-bottomed boat. To speed through the opening, the pilots drop their oars and pull on a chain which is suspended from the cave ceiling for this purpose. We also saw several instances where big waves closed the cave mouth entirely, and the rowboats would bob (with impatient pilots), waiting for their chance.

To summarize, there is a small cave opening in the side of a sheer cliff, with waves crashing all around. A brilliant Mediterranean sun beats down on the dark blue water. Just outside the cave mouth there are 10-12 of these small low-bottomed rowboats, with passengers sitting low or lying flat, and their pilots jockeying for position. There is a slightly larger stationary rowboat next to the cave entrance, with three rough-looking men who collect the 10 Euro entrance fee from each passenger (nice business!) before the rowboat goes into the cave. Slightly farther out, the big tourist motorboats idle their engines, bob in the waves, and also jockey for position. No one seems to be in charge, the air is choked with diesel fumes, and there is a lot of shouting in Italian.

We ended up waiting for only about 30 minutes before the four of us clambered into a row boat, paid our 40 Euros, and waited for the cave mouth to open. Our pilot dropped his oars, grabbed the chain, leaned way back as if in a limbo contest, and zipped us inside.

Apparently there is another big cave which is underneath the Blue Grotto, and there is sand underneath th e second cave. Sunlight from outside is reflected off the sandy bottom, and up through 20m meters of clear Mediterranean water. This creates a spectacular fluorescent blue color that lights up the otherwise very dark cave.

The color of the water is exactly the same as you would see emanating from the undersides of certain tricked-out cars (particularly in California). That underside glow is usually matched with a glowing boundary around the license plate. Maybe a more recognizable reference: the water looks like a giant liquid glow stick in Mediterranean blue.

After five short minutes of marvelling at the water (with a lot of the other rowboat pilots singing loudly and badly), we zipped back out of the cave mouth and were rowed back to our boat. The pilot made it clear that he doesn’t get anything from the 10 Euro entrance fee, and that he lives on our tips alone.

It was a short ride, but unlike anything I had seen before.

This post is about our long day of travel yesterday, taking us from the gulet boat on the Turkish coast to a seaside hotel in Positano, Italy.

We got into the gulet’s launch a few minutes after 8am, after saying goodbye to the crew (kisses on both cheeks for all of us). By 8:30 we had transferred our bags to a minivan, and were on our way to Dalaman airport.

For the first time on this trip, we cut it a little close at the airport. There were long lines at seurity check #1 (x-ray and metal detector to get into the airport), baggage check in, passport control, security check #2 (to get into the departure gates). For some reason, our seats were scattered all over the plane, and even getting us seated in two groups of two (ie, not having the three year old sit by herself) put additional strain on the system. It is nearly the end of the 9-day post-Ramadan holiday,and Dalaman airport and Turkish Airways were not coping.

The layover in Istanbul was about three hours, which gave us enough time to wander around, spend money on magazines, look for a few gifts, and get the kids lunch.

Even without our checked baggage, I was hauling three heavy daypacks and a big steel drum (souvenir of Morocco). A better man would have borne these burdens stoically, but as I got sweatier and more frustrated with our rambling, I was pretty grouchy company. We definitely need to drop ballast when we get back to the US next week.

When we boarded the flight for Rome, the cultural change was immediately evident. Most of the plane was filled with Italians in their 60s and 70s, on their way home from a package tour of Turkey. The chatter, in sing-song Italian was comically loud throughout the flight. When we landed, everyone applauded wildly, and half of the passengers jumped out of their seats and started for the exits while we were still taxiing. Reinforcing wonderful cultural stereotypes.

Our 45-minute flight from Rome to Naples would have required another 4-hour layover, so we cancelled that, and rented a car. After a week on the boat, we felt as though we were seizing back control of our destinies.

The 250-kilometer drive from Rome to Naples was fast and very easy (unlike my last driving experience in Rome, which was horrendous), and included a dinner stop at the Italian equivalent of a Howard Johnson’s. Our kids fell on the pasta and pizza as if they had been starved during our five weeks in Islamic countries. Zola said, “Finally this meat is from a pig, isn’t it?” At least he learned something about Islamic dietary restrictions.

The 50-kilometer drive from Naples south to Positano is hairy. Narrow, twisty roads perched hundreds of feet above the sea.

Finally, we arrived at our hotel in Positano at about 10:30pm, almost 15 hours after we started moving. Aside from my sweaty grouchiness in Istanbul, and a couple of raucous-kid moments, everyone was on good form throughout a long day.

We woke up to see the spectacular views of rugged mountains and of the sea several hundred feet below our hotel balcony. The sun is bright, and the temperature is perfect. We are off to explore the Adriatic Coast, the last segment in our Mediterranean circle.

This post is about some of the elements of Turkish life which we have found surprising, and that we would not have known without being here.

First, unlike every other European country that I know of, Turkey is a gun culture. Although gun ownership is generally forbidden, there are an estimated 25 million guns in private hands (population of 75 million). Gun violence, somehow, is still very low, maybe because of nearly universal male military service. Men we spoke to about gun ownership said they had them at home, “for security”. Yesterday, India were on a run in the mountains of the coast. We were surprised to hear (and later see) several quail hunters blasting away with shotguns. We were told, by the mayor of Gocek (random!), who we met coming down the mountain with his Italian 12-gauge and a rucksack full of quail, “Turkey is a country of hunters.”

Second, the popular adulation of Kemal Ataturk seems quite real. In many other countries it is required to put the President’s or the monarch’s photo in all public buildings and places of business. In Turkey, Ataturk is depicted in all of those places,but also in every house that we have been in. There is even a nautically themed Ataturk portrait, sun faded and salt-stained, on the bridge of our gulet. One man said, “I have the pictures in my home because I want my children to grow up knowing who we are as Turks, and what we stand for.” The national identity that these pictures symbolize is powerful. We have not seen any pictures of the current president, Gul, nor of any generals.

Third, we walked past a war memorial in the town of Fethiye yesterday. It was a 30-foot obelisk, with the names of war dead, and the dates and cities where they fell, carved in black letters. Around the base were dramatic black cast-iron figures of fallen soldiers, weeping women, scared children. What was strange was that the dates were recent (mostly in the 1990s), and the battles were in cities like Van and Hakkari and Sirnak, all down in Southeastern Turkey. This small town lost at least 20 of its sons fighting the Kurdish separatists. All in, my understanding is that more than 25,000 Turks were killed in this fighting.

Fourth, Turkey and Greece had a big population exchange (roughly 150,000 people) in the 1950s and 1960s: Muslims heading east and Orthodox Christians heading west. This was somewhat similar to the India/Pakistan exchange, but one twentieth the size, and much less violent. Many of the emigres traced their family roots back 1,500 to 2,000 years or more, inluding some of the earliest Christian settlements. Presumably it was at this time that the Greek village of Megrim renamed itself Fethiye, after “Turkey’s first aviation martyr,” who crashed trying to fly from Istanbul to Cairo in the 20s.

Fifth, apparently Turkish public schools teach history starting pretty much with the founding of the Ottoman Empire in 1300. The idea is that Turkish national identity starts with ethnically Turkish people, who came from Central Asia. The thousands of years of Hittites, Greeks, Lycians and Lydians, and Romans and Byzantines is ignored as being “not Turkish.” I would like to know whether this is still true, but public-school eduated adults indicated that it was the case when they were growing up.

Our time in Turkey has been wonderful. We will give some thought to the bigger issues, and will try to connect some of these dots after we leave for Italy on Saturday.

This short post is about buying ice cream from sidewalk vendors in Turkey. As you might expect, with two small children in a hot place, this has been a frequent occurrence.

Who knew that Turkish ice cream vendors are also required to be comedians?

Turkish ice cream is kept very cold, and balls up into a big glob in the freezer bucket. The vendors, who invariably seem to be large, chef-hatted and mustachioed men, poke and prod and stir the ice cream with long, thick-bladed metal spatulas. The spatulas are all metal, with handles about 4 feet long, and small-but-thick crescent shaped blades.

When a child asks for an ice cream, the comedy routine starts. First the vendor scoops out some ice cream with the spatula, sticks a cone onto the bespatulaed wad, and twirls it all around a few times. Just before presenting the ice cream and cone to the child, the vendor deftly pulls off the cone, and the child grabs at air. Then the vendor slyly attaches two cones to the ice cream wad, twirls the spatula around a few times, and the child grabs an empty cone. Finally, the vendor twirls the spatula evasively a few times as the child tries to grab the ice cream and cone.

After a total of 2-3 minutes, the ice cream and cone are finally in the child’s hand.

If the customer is an adult male (me, for example), the routine is the same, except that the customer gets a few pokes in the belly from the metal spatula.

This whole routine is actually funnier than it sounds, and we have seen it repeated several times all over Turkey. Maybe there is a centralized ice cream comedy training center.