Costa Rica, here we come!

In 15 days Niblet & I will be leaving for Costa Rica with Marc. We've rented a house in Nosara and are currently discussing activities. I expect to get a Canopy Zip-Line tour through the Cloud Forest in Monteverde in, and we're talking about horesback riding trek to a 200 meter waterfall.

This is a picture of the house we rented, called Los Pericos (The Parrots).

Paris - Revisited - Part 4

At 3 pm that afternoon, I approached Cafe Pierre, a cafe at Place de la Republique, where I'd breakfasted earlier in the week. I was pretty sure the fabulously dressed thin guy with great hair talking on his cell phone was Sebastien, but I couldn't be positive, so I stood a bit away from him. He hung up and after a minute or two approached me. We introduced ourselves formally and exchanged French cheek kisses.

I got the Gay tour of the Marais. Which is somehow better than just wandering around the area, knowing it's the Gay center of Paris (though Monmartre is now giving it a run for its money), with shops, restaurants, bars and nightlife. The Centre Pompidou is in this area, but as I'd been by it many times, Sebastien took me a slightly different route. He pointed out the cool nightclubs on the way to one of the Islands in the middle of the Seine, Ile Saint-Louis. We walked by Notre Dame on Ile de la Cite, and onward to Saint Germain and the Latin Quarter, where Sebastien took me inside Eglise St. Germain.

Wandering around the flea market outside the church, we ran into Paul & Mary. Paris isn't that small, and so yes, it was odd to run into 2 of the 5 people I knew in the city.

From there we walked to Eglise St. Sulpice, thus completing my Da Vinci Code tour of Paris. The Delacroix murals were all I expected, and I'm glad Sebastien and I managed to find the church.

We boarded the Metro and headed toward Monmartre, home to the Moulin Rouge, and Paris' second largest concentration of gays and lesbians. The area immediately in front of the Moulin Rouge, on Boulevard de Clichy, is safe enough by day, but a rough area at night. The gay enclave, as you head up the hill toward Sacre Coeur is slightly more upscale and exclusive than Le Marais.

As we climbed toward Sacre Couer, Sebastien took me on a detour to show me one of his favorite spots in Paris. Down a side street to stand beneath a balcony with a plaque in French on the building, explaining that an Egyptian-born Italian Chanteuse named Dalida had hung herself in the bedroom, just inside the door to the balcony of her home. Her suicide note said simply "Life has become unbearable ... forgive me."

She was 55.

It was not her first attempt. She'd tried before, in 1967, when her singer lover Luigi Tenco successfully took his own life. Her ex-husband shot himself several years after she left him, still distraught over losing her so shortly after their marriage in 1961. In 1983, her lover, magician and entertainer Richard Chanfray also took his own life.

It's not hard to imagine why she felt life had become unbearable.

From there we walked to the junction of Rues Girardon and Abreuvoir in the Butte Montmartre, where a lifesize bust of Dalida was erected in 1997, 10 years after her suicide, commemorating the spot as "Place Dalida".



Over the course of the afternoon, Sebastien had made and received a few calls on his cell phone. Outside the Moulin Rouge, he'd told me we would be meeting up with a couple of his friends.

We met Eric and Sandrine outside the Dali Museum, and they came with us to Sacre Coeur. They were cute, and sweet, but not a couple. I'm pretty sure Eric is gay. I know for a fact Sandrine has a boyfriend, and though she's in her early 20s and they aren't yet married, they are trying to have a baby.

They also happened to speak less English than I do French. Communication wasn't easy, but we all tried really hard!

I was probably more disappointed with Sacre Coeur than any other site on my journey. This huge church built to rival Notre Dame. There was just something so - American - about it. It's not old, but they are full as fuck of themselves. No pictures allowed -- of course not, because they want you to stop in the shop and buy them.

The view from the steps of Sacre Coeur, however, was breathtaking. You look down at the rest of Paris. And it was a beautiful day. We sat on the steps for sometime afterward. Partly to give Sebestien's feet, and my own, a rest. But partly because it is so stunning.

The View:


As we were sitting there, a commotion started on the steps beneath us. A young couple was getting married! It was touching, and it made me cry.

Until the bride stripped off her "wedding dress", a tear-away thing she'd just had on for the photo shoots. They were simply taking the announcement photo for the newspaper. I felt jipped.

We made our way back down to Monmartre proper, and Sebastien sent me with Sandrine and Eric to have a drink while he went shopping for food to make us for dinner. Thank god I had my french-english dictionary with me, or we would have sat there staring at each other.

Outside Sebastien's studio, we said goodbye to Eric. Sebastien lives on the 5th floor of a 6 floor walk-up. Oh, you want to know why Parisians are so skinny when all they eat are fattening, saucy foods, boiled, nutrient lacking veggies, and pastry? It's the walking. And lack of elevators. The French outside of Paris resemble Americans - it's only the nature of Paris urbanity that keeps Parisians fit.

We were not there long when Sebastien's lesbian friend, Sabrina, joined us. While Sandrine would be leaving after dinner, Sabrina was going to come out with Sebastien to lesbian bars. Sabrina looked like your typical butch-lesbian. I think maybe they were trying to set me up, because until we were walking around and I said something about a cute boy, Sebastien had been under the impression I was a lesbian, not bi. Unfortunately, I don't go for butch - unless it's that kind of ambiguous, is she butch, or just tough and suicide girl like, kind of butch. The upside was that Sabrina was at least slightly more conversant in English.

Sebastien pulled out a photo album and I got to see a set of pictures from his latest drag performance. He and his current boyfriend are a part of a Cabaret Troupe that performs at gay and lesbian clubs around Paris. That was a LOT of hair. And a lot of shock-blue glittery eyeshadow. But they were fabulous.

When we said our Goobyes to Sandrine, Sebastien, Sabrina and I headed back to the Marais. First they took me to a divey little lesbian bar that didn't seem very lesbian: half the patrons were men, and not with women, and not easily identifiable as gay. That was unusual for this space, according to Sebastien - it's one of the places his Cabaret performs.

Eventually they took me to another bar called "3W". Now THIS is what lesbian dance clubs should be like. Full of smoking hot, scantily clad, not butch, super cruisy lesbians that look you up and down like they're going to eat you alive. Oh. My. Goodness. YUM.

If only we'd gotten there earlier, or I wasn't so tired from being on my feet for the better part of 12 hours, maybe I would have gotten French pussy in addition to the French cock I'd had earlier in the week.

Ah, regrets.

Still, it did turn into Sunday while we were in that lesbian nightclub. I turned 30 in a lesbian bar in Paris.

The bar closed down, and Sebastien offered to take me to another, later place, but I was exhausted. He walked me home, and we said our goodbyes.

He was sweet, and hospitable, and generous, and I really enjoyed spending time with him and his friends. He reminded me SO much of a french version of my best friend, Steve (who is just a little less gay than Sebastien, but not much).

Sebastien, Sandrine, & Eric:





Thank you, Kristy!!

Paris - Revisited - pt. 3

Saturday, June 3, 2006. The last day of my 20s. How many people get to say they spent such a monumental (pun!) day in Paris? Well, besides Parisians of course. And other people who live there. The first thing I did upon wakening was check the weather forecast. The sun from the day before was predicted to hold, and to my great delight, CNN's international weather woman announced a veritable heatwave from the day before. Gone were the rain and temperatures below 60, replaced by clear blue skies and temperatures close to 90.

Showered, dressed and baked, I packed Niblet in the backpack and headed toward the metro. Destination, Eiffel Tower. The stop directly serving the Eiffel Tower was closed, necessitating an early disembarkment. This provided the opportunity to approach one of Paris' most famous monuments from a slight distance, building the anticipation until finally I crossed the street and stood at the Trocadero, looking down a large staircase strewn with tourists taking pictures.

I bought a Nutella crepe from a street vendor and stood on the terrace with the Tower in a straight line in front of me until there was nothing left but the Nutella I quickly licked off my fingers. After snapping a few pictures, I descended the steps and approached the Tower, the sense of excitement mixed with anticipation and a bit of fear mounting the closer I came.

You can see the Eiffel Tower from various vantage points across Paris. Sometimes, you just see it poking up at the sky off in the distance. Though it towers above everything around it, you really don't get a sense of the enormity until you are standing right in front of it, almost underneath, and have to drop your head all the way back to look up and see the top. Only the skeleton of a building with a few decks as you ascend, the sun shines down through the lattice of metal, reminding you how naked the structure is.

You can go up from any of the four pillars, by elevator to the first and second levels, or on foot via staircases. It costs extra to go all the way to the top, accessible only by a second set of elevators on the 2eme etage, or second floor. I chose the pillar with the shortest line. It wasn't until I was just about to purchase my ticket that I realized the elevator to the 1st floor from that corner was broken. I figured, what the hell? I've climbed the stairs to the top of the Statue of Liberty before (sure, I was 13, but so what?). Besides, I wasn't going to start over in one of the lines 4 times the length of the one I was almost next in.

I ordered one ticket in French. She asked if I wanted to go to the top. I said "oui" and she charged me the 12-26 year old price of entry. I didn't tell her I was 29.

I mounted the stairs and about 2 flights up, the sense of excitement/anticipation/fear started to overwhelm me. I'm prone to panic attacks on occasion, brought on usually by crowded public transportation, long, high bridges, and heights. Low-grade panic set in, and it lasted the remainder of my Eiffel experience. I wasn't going to let it stop me: just because something freaks me out, doesn't mean I won't do it.

Now, I don't freak out just going up any old tall structure. And I have no problem with skyscrapers and looking at views from the safety of the building's enclosure. The Eiffel Tower, obviously, isn't enclosed. Sure, there's a metal fence. But tell that to the phobic part of my brain. I kept getting stuck behind slow-moving families, which wasn't helping. Eventually I'd manage to pass them, but it prolonged my discomfort.

I reached the 1st floor and made my way to the edge. I didn't take Niblet out because I kept picturing the scene in National Lampoon's European Vacation when Clark throws Rusty's beret off the Eiffel Tower and some woman's poodle leaps from her arms after it like it's a frisbee. Yes, off the Eiffel Tower.

Luckily poodles are light and so the wind catches it and the poodle ends up in the pool. Still, I didn't want to chance it with Niblet.

The hike to the 2nd floor was similar. Inexplicably, the lines to the elevators to the top wrap around the outside of the 2nd floor. You might think they'd have roped off the queue some other way. Instead, you can't exactly get to the edge to peer over from the 2nd floor unless you are in line.

The line to buy my ticket took less than 20 minutes. The line to the top was 30 or more. My patience was thin (panic attack, remember?) and I wanted to kill the bitch behind me who kept needlessly elbowing and jostling me. I hate that about lines in general. Invading my personal space really isn't going to get ya there any faster.

The top of the Eiffel Tower is divided into two floors. The first, where you exit the elevators, is enclosed by windows. Up a staircase, you reach as high as they'll let you go, surrounded by wind, protected by a mesh fence. No death by Eiffel Tower incidents, merci beaucoup. (No, really, thank you! It's windy up there!)

The crap part is that you have to wait in line again, to get back down to the 2nd floor. So, one tour around the top and I went back down and got in line. Not before stopping to buy myself a shot glass from the souvenir shop at the top. What better way to commemorate conquering a fear than obliterating the memory with booze? If only I'd brought the booze ...

The journey down from the 2nd floor was quick, and as a reward when I was on land once more, I bought myself an ice cream cone. Soft serve choco-vanilla swirl on a cone. MMMMMMMMM. I licked 'til I relaxed, and was very proud of myself. No, the height fear didn't go away. But I did it anyway, and the panic attack never got out of control and it went away quickly once I was on the ground again. Maybe that fear of heights will never completely leave me, but it is nice to know that I'm not so phobic as to let it stop me.

Paris - Revisited - pt. 2

When I returned to my hotel from D'Orsay and the Centre Pompidou, I made two phone calls. The first to Sebastien, the ex-boyfriend of a former co-worker of Kiki's who had agreed to be my gay tour-guide for a day. We made arrangements to meet at 2 pm the following afternoon. The second call was to Jim, to make dinner arrangements for later that night. He gave me directions for the metro and told me the street address. He said "86 Tombe Issoire" which I misheard as " 86 Dombasle", both streets off of Rue de Alesia in the southwest of Paris. I took a shower, then mapped out my route. It seemed a little odd that he'd put me on a metro line that entailed such a long walk, but what the fuck. I was in Paris.

Now, to be accurate, I didn't mishear "Dombasle" ... I wrote down "Dombassu" or something similar. "Dombasle" was the closest thing to what I'd written that I could find intersecting Rue de Alesia. Otherwise known as "when deductive reasoning fails".

An hour after getting off the Metro*, I arrived at Rue Dombasle. Only there was no 86.

Fuck.

It took a few blocks before I found a Tobac** so I could buy myself a phone card. Payphones in Paris don't take coins: you need a re-fillable phone card. This is assuming, of course, you don't have a cell phone.

I called Jim.

Not only was I on the wrong street, I was in the wrong arrondisment! Sigh. My sense of direction is great! My aural comprehension of the French language? Not so much.

Luckily I was across the street from a stop for the bus line that would take me from the 15th to the 14th, and to Jim's corner. He told me how to pay once I was on the bus, and said he'd see me soon.

15 minutes later, I stood outside the gate at 86 Tombe Issoire, in the 14th. I punched the code into the security pad and entered a long, narrow courtyard. Jim was walking toward me. He looked just like his picture on the website, but older, in a dapper hat and a 3/4 length overcoat. He told me we'd be meeting a couple, friends of his, and there was a possibility of journalist and the french girl he'd picked up the night before. Except for the french girl, all were Americans.

We walked to a tiny chinese restaurant 2 or 3 blocks from Jim's atelier, and were greeted warmly by the married proprietors. This was obviously a regular haunt of Jim's: he was on a first name basis with the owners, and throughout our meal they bent over backwards to ensure we were content.

Paul and Mary arrived shortly after us. A couple in their 50s, I suppose, who currently live half of each year in Paris, and the other half in Portland, Oregon. Paul is in the Peace Corps, and does AIDS work in Africa. Mary used to own a catering business when she and Paul were based in DC, where she lived full time while Paul travelled with the Peace Corps. They've known Jim for 30 years. I didn't get the story of their meeting.

Chinese food is chinese food everywhere in the western world, even if the menu is in French. We were going to order dishes for the table to share, and I decided I would just go along with everyone's choices. Jim ordered soup to start, so did Mary, and so did I. I had no idea *what* kind of soup it would be, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be Hot and Sour soup, a favorite of mine (often used as a comfort food at the tail end of any flu or severe cold I contract). A chicken dish was ordered, along with some pot stickers, a beef dish and a pork dish. Still feeling starved for vegetables, I suggested a veggie dish. Mary and I split a bottle of white wine.

Just after the pot stickers arrived, so did Jeff. Without the french girl, whom Jim had suspected would be frightened of coming to dinner with 4 english-speaking Americans and one ex-pat. I'm not sure how Jeff communicated with this girl: his french is practically non-existent. I suspect there was a lot of gesticulating going on.

To picture Jeff, imagine Anthony Hopkins at the end of Silence of the Lambs, when Hannibal calls Clarice during her graduation ceremony, from some non-descript tropical location, a little sunburnt, wearing a crumpled white linen suit with a fedora. Jeff looked like he'd just stepped out of that scene. In one of his incarnations as a mainstream journalist, Jeff had met Jim 20 years earlier, tasked with writing an article on Jim's Sunday Dinners for an Austin newspaper. These days, Jeff has changed his last name and is running a talent agency out of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Jeff wanted in on the wine, so we ordered another bottle.He sat next to me, and spent the rest of the evening talking mainly to me, or Jim. He seemed wholly uninterested in Paul or Mary. Throughout dinner, I kept feeling like this cute, thin french girl with short dark hair sitting at the table behind Jim and Paul was looking at me. Or trying to not be caught looking at me, more like. But I wasn't sure because whenever I noticed her apart from this, it seemed like she was having a really intense conversation with her boyfriend. Heavy relationship stuff kind of intense, so I chalked it up to my imagination.

I thought the overall dinner conversation was interesting. I was asked about school, my goals, talked about my blog, my orientation, the fledgling porn company that occasionally shoots in my living room. We talked about Paul's work in Africa, about the perception of American arrogance as right-wing fundamentalism pushes its abstinence-only christian morality on populations that can ill afford such a head-in-the-sand approach to the AIDS pandemic.

We talked about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and Jeff opined that, having seen first hand what is left of New Orleans, Shreveport was on its way to becoming the cultural center of Louisiana. New Orleans, he suggested, even in recovery, would not be the same. Much of the local flavor went with folk who relocated to Texas and elsewhere throughout the US, who will not have the financial ability to move back, or capability of affording the housing that will replace their homes. The areas destroyed and left vacant, once low income and poor, will gentrify and the city's cultural, economic and class diversity, from which that flavor derived, will be forever lost.

At the end of dinner, it was decided Paul and Mary would walk Jeff and I to the Metro stop, the Metro being on the way to their apartment, and Jeff's hotel being one Metro stop after mine. I excused myself to the rest room. When I emerged, my entire party was waiting right out side, putting on their coats. The cute french girl was waiting in line for the bathroom.

Or so I thought.

It turns out, she'd just been talking to Mary about me. She wanted to know if I was an actress. Apparently, she was really taken with my voice. She had told Mary that she was very sensitive to sounds, and my voice sounded very even and metered and lyrical, like it had been trained. When Mary told me this, the girl turned crimson and rushed into the bathroom.

I think that may be one of the best compliments I've ever had. Certainly one of the most unique.

We said our goodbyes to Jim, and headed for the Metro. Instead of continuing on to his stop, Jeff asked me if I wanted to get a drink, and got off at my stop. We walked into the closest cafe and ordered 2 glasses of red wine. This is when I learned that Jeff had been the managing editor of Hustler for a time, right around the infamous shooting, when Althea took over for Larry. Before that, Jeff and some friends had, in the 60s, started an underground, subversive magazine in New York, called The Rat. Among other literary noteables, The Rat was fond of publishing works by William Burroughs.

My one on one conversation with Jeff over drinks was decidedly more personal than the conversation at dinner. I won't bore you with it all (although much of it was quite titilating), but it was nice to have a conversation with a stranger who has spent his life learning people, of coaxing truths from them, and listening to his assessment of me. He's been with 100s of women spanning decades, and yet he found me attractive and interesting enough to proposition. And was gracious and treated me no different when I politely declined.

We made arrangements to meet for a drink before Jim's dinner on Sunday, and he walked me back to my hotel.





*I walked for an hour. Or so. There was a brief stop at Starbucks. Just to see. 5 euros for a tall caramel macchiato. That's close to $6.50. for the SMALL one!

** A tobac is a store that sells various tobacco products. Tobacs also sell metro passes, tickets, and phone cards.

Paris: Revisited - pt. 1

The day I went to the Louvre (my Thursday in Paris), I walked there from my hotel near the Place de la Republique. I spent maybe 5 hours in the Louvre. It's impossible to see the entire collection in one day (hello, 100,000 pieces of art!) so I started with the antiquities (I saw a de-mummified mummy!), moved on to the Italian sculptures, visited the 18th century Italian painters, where you can see Mona Lisa - if you can get through the throng ... Da Vinci Code mania, let me tell you. There is even a Da Vinci Code tour of the Louvre - not to mention the Da Vinci Code tour of Paris.

More sculpture - more Italian painters, before moving on to painters from France, Germany & Holland. Eventually, they all begin to blur together - I think this may be why people advise taking a few days to view the Louvre. You can only see the same scenes, depicted over and over so many times before you begin to go cross-eyed looking at them. As Mejane pointed out to me, it wasn't until fairly recently that painters could paint what they wanted, and not what they were commissioned to paint. Still, there were some highlights.

I loved Delacroix's Death of Sardanapole and Delarouche's Le Jeune Martyre. They're both so dark, yet to me, utterly beautiful.

Delacroix's piece was the reason I later went to Eglise Saint Suplice. I had an initial aversion, not wanting to follow the Da Vinci trail, but the chance to see Delacroix's murals there was one I decided not to pass up.

You know what you shouldn't do after walking from your hotel to the Louvre, and spending hours there? Decide to walk from the Louvre, up the Champs Elysee to the Arc D'Triomphe.

Because eventually you're going to have to walk back.

I almost went and saw the Da Vinci Code in the theatre that afternoon just to give my feet a rest.

Instead, I braved the Paris Metro. Luckily, some jerk in line in front of me took 5 minutes to buy his Metro ticket because he refused to hang up his cell phone. This didn't give me time enough to figure the machine out, but it did give the very androgynous guy behind me the chance to get fed up, so when I approached the screen and faltered for half a second, he came to my rescue and completed the process for me. I'm a quick study, so I watched his process and after that, had no trouble using the Metro ticketing machines.

I had my last solo meal in Paris that night. I was so starved for fresh vegetables at this point, I ordered a big salad with my dinner, and when they brought me a huge bowl full of romaine mixed with iceberg, and one sad cut-up roma tomato, with just enough French dressing, I inhaled that bowl full of lettuce as quickly as I could.

Everyone who knew me as a child has now keeled over in shock at the idea that *I* craved vegetables.

***

Friday saw my last tours of Paris museums, with a visit to the Musee D'Orsay & the Centre Pompidou. D'Orsay was formerly a train station, and trust me to go there on the one hot day of the Paris leg of my trip - guess what happens when the ceiling is made of glass? Yep, you cook.

In the rooms safe from the sunlight, there are sections devoted to Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Neo-Impressionists. There was also a good section of pastels, but they were in rooms so dark that without a flash, the pictures just came out blurry or black. A shame, too. I really liked Degas' pastels.

This is the best example I could manage:


The Centre Pompidou was something completely different. For a start, most of the permanent collection was closed, so what I got to see was mostly the current exhibit, devoted to moving images. Instead of paintings and sculpture, there were videos, rooms where light was the key, installations and slide shows.

Istanbul - the finale

It may be a little anti-climatic, but I spent my final day in Istanbul shopping on the Asian side. I went to a flea market in Kadikoy, then up what is called "Baghdad Street" (not sure why), the Istanbul equivalent of Melrose or Haight Street. I got some cool things, tops, presents for friends, etc. Excellent sales - in one place I bought 3 tops and a hat for 58 lira, or about $40. I also stumbled across the bakery that has been making Turkish Delight for the longest time (since 1777) while wandering down a side street, and bought a box to share with my friends.

What I liked best about this day was the absence of man hos and the hard sell. Even on Buyukuda and when I was in Andalou Kavagi, while there were no guys trying to hit on me, there were many trying to sell me something, or get me into their restaurant. But in Kadikoy, on Baghdad Street, the shop people were all women, and while they may offer to hold items for you while you look around, they do not bother you or try to get you to buy anything. On the Asian shore, most of the customers are local and there is no commission for sales, so they don't work you they way they do in Sultanahmet.

Back in Sultanahmet, I bought some kitschy souvenir things, and made my last, and most impressive, bargain for Mejane's birthday present. It's a little intimidating when you walk into a store full of whatever it's full of and not see one price listed on anything. I've found that with bargaining, it's easiest if you have some idea of the quality of an item and what the going rate is or should be. When they talk to me about carpet quality, for example, I'm lost. But there are certain goods I feel at least marginally good about judging quality and worth, and so it was easier for me to pick a starting bargain price because I could tell what they were initially asking was the greatly marked-up "tourist" price.

For our my last dinner in Turkey, Anna and I went to a restaurant off the main drag in Taksim called "5 kat" (pronounced "besh kat") bes is the word for 5 and kat means floor, so the restaurant is literally, "5th Floor" and it is on the fifth and sixth floors of a weird little building - no idea why she thought a restaurant would be a good bet there, but the owner has made something that's rather turkish in feel, but would hold up against some world class restaurants in cities like San Francisco, New York, Paris or London. She's an actress and singer. We sat on the roof terrace, and I got to mark off another "thing I want to see before I die" and that is the full moon rising, blood red in color, over the Bosphorus. Stunning.

When we were done, we walked to the Orient Hotel, where Agatha Christie stayed, and penned some of her novels. A taxi ride back to Sultanahmet, and we said our goodbyes and agreed to get together in San Francisco.

I went back to my hotel to finish packing. At 1:30 in the morning, I checked out and one of the reception guys from the hotel drove me to Sabhia Gokcen (pronounced sah-bee-a go-chen) where, at the 3rd of 3 security checkpoints, one of the security people dropped and broke my brand new digital camera. I bought it for the trip, sure - but I was hoping to have it afterward, too. Fuckers.

I love Easy Jet. It's great that they make you go through this elaborate "line up in the line with the correct letter, A, B, C, or D, written on your boarding ticket" process that takes half an hour, just to load you onto a bus to drive you MAYBE 50 meters.

What the hell?

***

I'm not sure I like leaving someplace on a flight that takes off in the middle of the night, well before dawn and still in the pitch black. It doesn't give you the chance to look down and recognize anything and say your final goodbye. It's a little jarring.

On the other hand, it feels less like leaving something behind.

Istanbul - pt. 6

I spent Saturday doing two of the things I'd gone to Istanbul to do: visit Topkapi Palace and the Harem, and have a Turkish bath at the hamam built for Nurubanu (wife of Sultan Selim II and mother of Murat III) in 1584 by the famous architect Sinan, who designed many of the city's mosques (his protege designed the Blue Mosque).

You may be wondering why these two things were so high on my list of reasons to visit Istanbul. When I was a teenager, my grandmother gave me a set of romance novels written by Bertrice Small - the saga of the O'Malley women, Irish and English descendants of an Irish shipping clan set in Elizabethan England. Each of the heroines of the novels takes her turn trapped as the property of some Arabic, African, or Asian man. One of the women, and subsequently her daughter, end up in harems of Ottoman Turks, and Sultan Selim and Nurubanu are featured in the stories, as are sights around Istanbul. The novels were fiction, but they made a huge impression on me (many of my kinks and the things I find hot today were introduced to me in these books). It was pretty amazing to be able to wander around places that had previously existed only in fantasy for me.

Topkapi is huge, set just behind Aya Sofya, looking with birds-eye views of much of Istanbul. You can peer out over the Marmara, the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn. Useful for defense against foreign invaders.

Technically, the Harem is just the Sultan's living quarters. There are places for concubines, places for each of the four wives, and the Valide Sultan (mother of the Sultan), the most powerful woman in the empire, lives in the center, separating the concubines and wives from the Sultan. There are quarters for the Eunuchs who cared for the women. The women at a long bar just outside their dormitory. There is a hallway called the Hall of Golden Coins, because the favorites would be lined up along the wall and the Sultan would walk through and toss coins at their feet. One of the posts for the women to stand on had a hook in the floor. I wonder if it was customary that the Sultan had a favorite who wasn't exactly happy with her position? Because in the books I read, the heroines got to be favorites by presenting such a challenge the men felt that had to "break" them.

Shhhhhh!. Let me have the fantasy. :P

I certainly couldn't help but think, in certain parts like the Sultan's bath (which, by the way, had hot and cold running water, and the tiles heated from beneath), and private chambers, that there had been a number of slave girls forced to submit to powerful men in those rooms.

The rest of the palace was awesome, too, particularly the treasury (holy crap, jewels!), and the room in which they showcase some of the Sultan's clothes. Fuck, were those guys huge! You know in the miniatures they show of Ottoman life, in which the Sultan always looks twice as large as the rest of the people? Well, they weren't just flattering him and making him larger than life because he was Sultan. Those men were huge. It makes sense, given all the sons each Sultan had, and the fact that the first son was not automatically Sultan upon the father's death - it took the biggest, mightiest of them to concur and subdue the others (or the one with the most conniving mother).

After Topkapi, I sat in Sultanahmet Square for maybe 20 minutes, just taking in everything I'd seen. A Muslim woman sat next to me on the bench. One of the Man Hos approached me, he'd tried several times before, but I guess now that I was seated he felt he had a better chance. The old Muslim lady next to me was not amused. She made hissing sounds at him, and shooed him away and said something to him in Turkish, and he walked off. Heh.

When I was ready, I walked to Cemberlitas Hamam.

I ordered a bath with shampoo and massage for 18 euros, about $25. After paying, I was sent into a long corridor with lockers, and given a towel and a locker and a pair of rubber slippers. I stripped down to my panties and wrapped the towel around me before heading into the room for the bath. I was planning on going totally nude, but it seemed like other people around me were leaving their panties on, so I didn't want to offend. But when I opened the door, I saw several of the women in there with no panties, so turned around and put mine in the locker.

When you walk into the steam room, it's like a sauna. But hotter, and made of stone and marble, with a large round marble slab in the center, with women lying around the outside in different stages of being bathed. The room is round, and the ceiling is domed, with holes peaking through to let the light of the sun in. The light is soft and steamy. Instantly, you start to sweat. Laying on your towel on the slab, soon the towel beneath you is soaked.

Eventually, the girl to bathe you comes over. She is wearing panties. She tells you to turn onto your back (unless you already are) and starts scrubbing your skin with a camel hair cloth that removes not only dirt, but dead layers of skin. She does your whole body, turning you onto your stomach to get your backside, too. Then you are doused with lukewarm water. From there, she begins soaping up your body, smoothing and massaging the suds into your skin, manipulating your limbs and body as you lay limp from the heat and decadence. She rinses you, and soaps you up again, paying more attention to the massage aspect the second time. Your arms, shoulders, calves, feet, back.

After rinsing you again, she takes you off to the side near the basins with running water, and washes your hair for you. When she is done, you go back to laying on the slab, for as long as you want to. There is no time limit. You get all sweaty again, but it hardly matters given how clean you are. It just feels nice, and cleansing.

I think the whole thing lasted for me for about an hour. It's hard to say. The experience was one of full body hedonism. Pleasurable, but not exactly sexual. It easily could be though, under different circumstances. I felt light and floaty almost the minute I walked into the bath. That feeling lasted for hours after I left.

I'm not sure I can express how amazing this experience was. I wish we had something like this in the US, the full experience, and as cheap. It was one of the few times in life where you have the fantasy of something, and when it happens, the experience is everything you imagined, and more. For me, that usually involves sex.

I will definitely go to Istanbul again, and the hamam visit is going to be a tradition.

Some Pictures

Aya Sofya:


Inside Aya Sofya


Blue Mosque shining in the sun:


Basilica Cistern:

Princess Islands - view from monastery rocks:

Istanbul - pt. 5

By Friday I'd have enough of the Man Hos* in Sultanahmet, and wanted another day out of the city. Besides, after 2 weeks of using almost nothing but my feet for transportation, I needed a break from all the walking. It seemed the perfect day to cruise up the Bosphorus, to wear it meets the Black Sea. I filled up on my daily hotel-provided breakfast of crusty wheat bread with butter and fresh strawberry preserves, yogurt with honey, fruit and a hard boiled egg for protein before heading to the Galata Bridge, where the ferry terminals are located.

the ferry departs at 10:35 am or noon, returning at 3:00 or 5:00 pm. It takes just under two hours, zig-zagging its way across the Bosphorus to terminals along both the Asian and European shores. The return trip saves 20 minutes by making fewer stops.

I had plans to meet a Swedish girl I'd met in San Francisco near the Obelisk of Theodosius in the Byzantine Hippodrome of Sultanahmet Square at 7:30 that night. Anna is a Swedish woman, also 30, who has been living in the Bay Area for some time. She responded to a post of mine on the travel forum about her Istanbul dates overlapping with mine. We had lunch in SF to get acquainted, and made the plans described above. Today, she should be having her turn in a Hamam**, before departing for Bodrum & Ephesus (where you can see the Virgin Mary's house), and eventually Greece.

Given the plans with Anna, I opted for the 10:35 ferry up, with a 3:00 return. On my way to the ferry, Danger approached me.

Danger wore faded jeans with parts of the legs worn partly to holes. He had a white v-neck undershirt, sporting a hole about 3 inches beneath his right nipple. His arms were tattooed, and like Hasan, he'd gotten those tatts the hard way - the old school, non-electric method of tapping the ink into the skin, like this Maori practice. He had dark, short, curly hair, was fair skinned for a Turk, and had those really pale turquoise blue eyes some of them have. He was tall and muscular, but not abnormally so. His voice was raspy and gravelly. Total bad boy type, different than the other men I'd encountered. He just oozed the vibe that suggested he may as well have "danger" written on his forehead.

Really, his name was Oman.

We talked for a bit, and part of me really wanted to accept his invitation of drinks later that evening, because he seemed the sort that would throw me up against the wall. But I decided I'd gotten myself into enough trouble for one vacation.

He gave me his phone number, saying "I don't think you're going to call me".

He was right, *sigh*, although I had quite a lot of fun thinking otherwise on the ferry.

* * *

On the way up the Bosphorus I saw dolphins! Unfortunately, I couldn't get the timing right to get a picture. I also saw a lightening storm over the European shore, while the Asian shore remained sunny. As you move further from Istanbul, the towns and ferry stops take on more and more of the look of old fishing villages, old as in from previous centuries and run down over time. Modernity hasn't invaded to the extent it has in Istanbul, which in addition to being a fusion of east and west, is also a fusion of old and modern.

At the end, you arrive at Andalou Kavagi on the Asian shore. Immediately off the ferry you encounter a string of fish restaurants serving up the fresh local catches and a sign that says "to the castle" the draw of the island. It was built in the 6th century by the Byzantines, on the site of a former Greek temple to Zeus. From it, you see the mouth of the Bosphorus, the Black Sea flowing into it. You can peer out over the Asian and European shores of the Black Sea, as far as the horizon will allow.

It's a steep 20 minute climb up the mountain to the castle. I managed to beat the rest of the people from the ferry up the hill and had maybe 10 minutes to myself to walk around the ruins. There were formally 13 battlements, now only 2 are standing, with other bits of structure around. I admired the view (and cried), and soon was joined by others from the ferry.

A couple of the guys started climbing the castle. I had the thought before the others joined me, and seeing them do it, I knew I could, too. Something most of you don't know about me is that growing up, I was equally comfortable playing tomboy as well as barbies. I built forts (with wood and hammers and nails). I've always thought I'd enjoy rock climbing, but have only done some amateurish stuff climbing around on the cliffs of Santa Cruz, without any kind of harness. I like to climb. I like the methodology of it, and the physical challenge. I just don't like to look down when I get to the top of something steep with a shear drop.

Side note: It's a little hard to climb with a seal on your back. I'll posts pics of Niblet on the castle later.

It was fun, in sort of a pure, childlike enjoyment way. I got to play on a castle!! Not just walk around inside of it and look at things, but actually put my hands on and climb through holes in the structure!!!

I wanted to follow the guidebooks suggestion of not taking the road back down, but instead following the dirt path through the heath, but as I started down, I noticed the bees. There were flowers growing in the heath so sticky with pollen you could see the liquid glistening in the sun. I kept going, not frightened of a few bees. Eventually I came to a place where for about 20 feet, the path led by a wall of those sticky flowers, and I could see dozens of bees in the path. I'm not allergic, but that's not to say being stung many times simultaneously wouldn't cause a reaction, and no one knew where I was, and there was no telling when someone else would come along to help.

At the bottom of hill, I had a delicious lunch of a pita and minted yogurt meze, calamari, and 1/4 of a melon.

This day trip was easily one of the best parts of my vacation.

* * *

Dinner with Anna was nice. We ate at a restaurant under the Galata Bridge (there is a level under the main bridge that has a row of restaurants on each side, one facing up the golden horn, the other across the Bosphorus to the Asian shore.

We opted for the Golden Horn side, because it was sunset, and sunset on the Golden Horn is one of those things on my list of things to see before I die.

I almost cried, again. I probably would have if Anna hadn't been there.

After dinner, we rode in a taxi to Taksim and walked around. I bought a cool t-shirt in a trendy jeans store called Rodi. During dinner, Anna had been flirting with our waiter (after the 2nd glass of Raki he'd given her for free), and also this guy at the table next to us (I was over it, and just sat and watched bemused), and we ran into the other table guy on the main drag in Taksim several times. At one point, he bought and gave her an Evil eye bracelet (they cost 1 lira).

Eventually we took a taxi (they spell it "taksi") back to Sultanahmet, and Anna got her first glimpse of the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya at night. We made plans to meet for the light show at the Mosque the next night, and headed back to our hotels (I had the kitty-in-the-tree incident on the return).

The evening was quite pleasant. It was nice to have company and conversation with someone who didn't want anything else from me.


*I've since figured out the scheme. Some are interested in foreign women for the novelty, and the perceived high chance of sex. Some are trying to hustle you into a shop, because it's their job, and they make a commission off of anything you buy. Some are honest-to-goodness gigolos. You can usually tell these by the expensive designer Italian clothes, presumably given as gifts. (heh, I saw one who must have been new. He was still wearing dockers and a polo shirt). Please note, Hasan fell into the first category - he "romanced me" and paid for everything.

**I will explain later.

Istanbul - pt. 4

On Thursday I rode the ferry to the Princess Islands. You can get off on any of them, but I chose to wait to get off at Buyukuda (which literally means "big island") because I wanted to hike up the mountain to the Monastery of St. George.

I opted to take the horse drawn carriage from the ferry to the base of the mountain, and area called Luna Park, where you can rent a donkey to ride up if you choose, or just walk. I figured the steep climb would be more than enough excercise. There are no cars on the Islands, which are like a Turkish version of the Hamptons. 6,500 people live on Buyukuda for most of the year, but during the summer that number climbs to an astonishing 40,000. There are some vehicles, but they are mostly work trucks, or belonging to the rich summer dwellers. People walk, ride bikes or rely on horses for transportation.

The hike was hard on my feet and legs, and I was wearing good sneakers. What is with crazy women who wear heels to hike up a mountain?? Just before the crest, I stepped off the cobbled path and followed a dirt path into the woods, to a clearing that allowed me to look over at the asian shore of Istanbul along the Sea of Marmara, where I smoked a joint. (Side note, I have always sucked at rolling, it takes me half an hour at least to roll a rather small and unsmokeable joint. But somehow, here in Istanbul, I've managed to roll nice fatties that smoke well in just a couple of minutes. It just clicked finally. Only about 13 years after I first learned how to roll one). It was peaceful and nice.

Back on the cobbled path, I made my way to the top. The Monastery structure is rather unimpressive, but I climbed all around the top of the mountain on the rocks that line it, and had breathtaking views of both Europe and Asia. From some places, there is almost a 360 degree view, and it was absolutely stunning. Something about my pilgrimage made me feel like I was climbing the Tor at Avalon.

I sat on the rocks for a long time, sometimes taking pictures, but mostly just meditating. This is a short blog entry even though it was quite a long day, because most of it was spent in self-reflection. I think I managed to figure a few things out, but they're not necessarily for posting here.

There is a cafe on the top of the mountain that has a limited, though delicious menu. For 13 lira, or about $10, I had a meal of kofte, fried eggplant, a really fragant melon, sparkling water and apple tea. You cannot beat the value you get for your money in terms of food in Turkey.

It started to sprinkle, so I walked back down to Luna Park, and took the horse buggy back to the ferry. The ride back was crowded and uncomfortable, but I used the time to write about Paris in my journal (I'll post it here later).

Back in Istanbul, I went back to my hotel and rested a bit (and tried to call Hasan for the first time), before heading to a well-known backpacker restaurant near by called Doy-Doy. I ordered the mixed kebab, which turned out to be a plate of food that would easily feed 2, perhaps three people. I tried a bit of everything, but except for the two small pides (turkish pizzas), I finished none of it. For 11 lira.