Oh the Ups and Downs...

I am acclimatizing more and more to living in Istanbul and I have a routine now and am settling into life here. However I am also still experiencing a few ups and downs.

I finally figured out my washing machine. Don't get me wrong, I am really happy to have one but there are so many settings and words that are not in English that I just couldn't figure out how to run the thing. The washing machines in my building in DC basically had: cold, warm, hot, and on.

Seriously, who needs this many washing choices?

I spent a lot of time running from the washing machine to my laptop so I could Google translate (which so far as proved pretty decent for the Turkish). The first load I washed took over three days to dry and I had to wring gallons of water out of each article.

And what's with all the numbers?

However after yet more Googling I realized that all those numbers were the spin cycle! Subsequent washing has gone much better and things take hardly any time to dry since the 1000 setting there practically dries everything in the machine. Which is a good thing since, in place of a dryer or drying rack, I run a line from some pipe to the shower, wrap it around the shower frame, then run it to the other side of the bathroom to the towel pegs. It's really disruptive to my make up routine to try to apply it all while peering around drying socks and underwear.

Not pretty but it works well

And while I'm all happy about finding the spin cycle the universe says, "No, no you cannot enjoy that triumph," and I fall down. Usually I save my falling down stories for my other blog,but I really just don't like drawing stick figures. It's a lot harder than you'd think. Anyway, I fell down. I was walking from the tram back to my apartment and since the weather was so nice I was wearing a skirt. So when the universe pushed me down I left most of my skin on the sidewalk.

Glad I wasn't wearing tights; they'd been destroyed

It was a pretty good fall too; I went from vertical to sprawled across the sidewalk with all my things spilled around me in a matter of seconds. I guess the good thing about an injury like this was that all I had to do was walk, well limp really, into a pharmacy and point at my leg. No language skills needed.

Apparently this wasn't enough for the universe though. The next day I was limping to a meeting with official US government personnel when it happened again. Luckily, I didn't actually fall this time; I just did that swimming in the air dance you do when you try to not fall. I may not have made it if I'd actually fallen. I was on the busiest pedestrian street in the entire city and may have been trampled. While I saved my skin from further removal, I tore the muscle in my right calf that I had strained a few weeks previous. Unfortunately I still had to limp my way down the entire street to get to my meeting and was completely flummoxed as to how one limps when both legs are injured. I totally took a cab home.

A few days later, a friend from my Turkish class introduced me to a local, independent coffee house, Cherrybean Coffees. Absolutely fantastic. I have never used the word 'luscious' to describe coffee before but it is a well deserved adjective.

Hidden gem!

This is now my Sunday post Mass hangout where I do my homework. I also bought some of the beans and make coffee at home. And sometimes I just take it out of the freezer to smell it. It is THAT good. My only wee little complaint is that people here don't seem to understand how a French Press works and grind the coffee for me in a grain almost fine enough to make Turkish coffee. My mom is totally bringing me a coffee grinder when she visits next month. Little does she know!

And lest I should think I came out on top of the universe, it struck again. I think I have fleas.

Universe - 2
Andrea - 2

Shanghai

The train from Xi'an to Shanghai is 16 hours long. 16. Hours. Long. That is a very long time. On top of that our train was delayed out of Xi'an for a reason completely unknown to me. When we finally boarded it was to our shock, surprise, and mild horror that we realized we were not in the same compartment. We asked the train guy (what's the word?) if we could be together but said positively no. So into her compartment went Lauren and into mine went I...trepidatiously. My bad feeling upon entering the compartment was soon confirmed by my new bunk mates.

I have never in my life heard such snoring.

The both of them! It was completely outrageous and I’m still not even sure the sounds they were making were human! I slept not all during the night and was sorrier than ever that my mp3 player had given up the ghost on me the day before we left for China. A few times when it was at its worst I banged the metal ash tray against the metal water carafe. That would stop the snoring for a few blessed seconds. One of the guys woke up enough to start yelling at me (in Chinese) and I yelled back for all I was worth in some pretty foul Chinglish (foul because of the words not the lack of ability). I had no idea how to say ‘snore’ in Chinese and really wish I had (it’s dahan btw). At one point I actually pulled out my little camera and turned it to film so I record the horrific noises they were making to show Lauren. I sadly lost the recording and have not even the words to describe what it was like. The best I could do would be to say that it was what I imagine the inhuman growls of sinus blocked netherworld dwellers sound like. We finally arrived in Shanghai though and my erstwhile bunkmates were relegated to amusing anecdote glory while we concentrated on this newest, and last, city of our tour.

Shanghai was fantastic. It was so completely modern and immense in a way that was barely comprehensible. If we thought that Beijing was roughly the size of three New York Cities then Shanghai was easily ten. Our hostel was very nice. The Shanghai City Central hostel is the largest hostel in Shanghai and while the private rooms were utilitarian, they were clean, the television had the channel that played our favorite Bruce Lee soap opera, internet was free, the restaurant/social area were nice, and there was a free shuttle service each morning to a few different sights in the city. On that first day we found the metro close to our hostel and headed to the large pedestrian shopping area. It was warmer in Shanghai than had been Xi’an but still was chilly by the time we finally arrived in the pedestrian area. It was still chilly enough though that I was regretting my bare arms and was taking some good-natured ribbing from the girls at the bubble tea stand where Lauren and I stopped for zhenzhu nai cha.







The pedestrian area was so large that it was flanked by two different metro stations and had a little mini train running back and forth. I was thrilled to discover that it even had a Costa, which is my second favorite coffee chain. Naturally we have none f this British chain in the United States so usually I only get to enjoy their macchiatos while in Belgrade. I do wish they would set up shop here though; maybe give Starbucks a run for their money. But I digress…



We managed on that first night to find one of the pearl markets. There are pearls everywhere in China but I’d been holding out until Shanghai knowing that these would be the best deals. One of the few good things Frommer’s did was to list this market under its section on shopping. And ironically, the construction going on in the building made it easier to find as the façade was covered in a drop cloth with big ads for each store inside. We got to the right level and were confronted with booth upon booth and store upon store with pearls. I was a little overwhelmed at first, especially as the bling that accompanied many of the pearls was a bit intimidating. I walked around a bit ignoring the various hawkers until I saw, all the way in the back of one of the stores, trays and trays of color. Color!! That was exactly what I wanted in my pearls. I wasn’t really caring for shape or size or even matching (especially since I wasn’t planning on spending enough money to insist on matching); but I wanted color. People who know me know that I am not a fan of pearls…I kind of think they’re boring. However a few years ago I discovered why. The American pearl market sucks. I have no idea who decides these things or how often the research is done, but apparently American buyers are only interested in the whites, greys, pinks, and blacks; although I have seen a bit of brown sneaking in. This color limitation is such a sad thing because pearls come in all colors of the rainbow and even a few in between! Reds, oranges, yellows, golds, silvers, purples, blues, greens, coppers, and colors that look like oil slicks (you know, the pretty multi-colored effect, not the sad killing the environment part). I’d been pretty much left along by the sales staff, which is a bit of a miracle in this country, until I started really examining some of the trays. I struck up a conversation with one of the sales girls (in Chinese, thank you) and after a few minutes asked how much X strand of pearls cost. She looked at them, looked at me, looked at them again and said, “For you, $4.00.” Ok, I thought, let’s shop.







In the end, between Lauren’s and my purchases I felt kind of like a pirate with booty. We had, I think, 5 bracelets, 2 double strand necklaces, and maybe 20 single strand necklaces. And not a one of them was white, ivory, pink, grey, or black.

Greetings From Serbia-Randomness

The lovely and unseasonable weather we've been having in Belgrade has sadly come to an end. Since Thursday it has got steadily colder and rained. Today after Mass I even saw that most dreaded thing of all...snow. However, far from cursing its advent as I would normally do I am rather happy about it and hope that Belgrade gets enough snow that it sticks and at least moderately covers surfaces for a day or two. I have never seen Belgrade in snow and look forward to the opportunity to shoot Kalemegdan and the rest of the city under a blanket of white...I'll even get up before the rest of the city to do it before people trample it.

Work stuff is going semi-well here although I am having a major gripe with the staff of our donors who are being counter-helpful. I vent enough to my colleagues here in Belgrade so I shan't say anything more about that here-only that if I cannot get all the activities under this program complete in the short time I have it is not my fault as the funder continues to hold me back.

So that randomness as I'm sure you were wondering where it was. Many people have heard me mention my favorite coffee place here, Coffee Dream, and have heard me lament that while in the States I cannot partake of Coffee Dreams strawberry frappes and moccachinos (which are the most perfect blend of European drinking chocolate and coffee). My friends here have introduced me to another recently arrived coffeechain: Costa Coffee. A British chain it serves Italian style coffee with flavour almost as intense and dark as Illy. It has also introduced muffins and cafe sandwiches to Serbia. Although I have been told that the muffin dough is imported from England as they do not trust the Serbs to follow a recipe, the muffins are lovely and, as I found out after Mass today, so are the focaccio sandwiches. What is truely gratifying though, is the coffee. Costa's macchiatos are what a macchiato should be, not the giant cups of coffee Starbucks want you think it should be, and Costa's ristrettos are strong and tart. After I broke through the thin crust of foam so dark it itself tasted like a coffeebean and took my first sip, my heart stopped. The fumes rose from the petit cup through my nose slamming into my brain with a force to knock me backwards and as my blood cucled that first sip around my body and returned to my heart stained as black as the coffee my heart again began to beat. Deep and hard THUNK! THUNK-THUNK! It has been ages since a coffee affected me thusly.

I certainly needed that kick today as I was out late last night with some friends. One of the things I enjoy most about my job (other than of course the travel!) is the people I get to meet. Three of the four people last night I knew previously through my job and and all four are long-time journalists who told amazing stories about their work and travels. Even though my job restricts me to the adminiserative side of media, my hunger for travel and desire to be a writer made their tales shine more brilliantly than perhaps they would have otherwise. And speaking of journalism, I may yet have a chance to write some interesting things for even just this blog.

I've mentioned the political situation here a few times already. Things only continue to get worse, not better, despite the less bad guy winning the presidential elections. The Prime Minister V. Kostunica, retains too much power and both can, and will, oppose Tadic and leas the parliament against him. In addition to the weakening state of the governmnet, Kosovo is expected to finally declare its independence sometime between February 16-18. should this happen my friends once again advise that I stay in my room until they can come get me and take me to their place. I may yet get my wish to experience another protest infront of the American embassy; although this time I do not know that I shall risk going near it. Well maybe near it, but not into it as I did last time.

Oh, and the thing I love best about Costa Coffee...it has a no smoking section which here is pretty unheard of.

Coke Blak

Ok, so yes, Coke Blak is old news. But I wrote a mini review of it when it first came out that was featured on another blog but must simply be shared.

So Coke Blak. Now, I love coke, and I love coffee, but putting the two together is just wrong. However, always on the search for the next caffeinated beverage that will keep me awake (I used to swear by Water Joe, caffeinated water, in college). I was game to try it when Lauren brought it home last night. We actually got the word on this new beverage months ago (I believe it debuted in Europe quite ahead of its release date here) and we've been looking for it ever since. At one time, our ghetto Safeway had a big huge display set up for it...but no product. However, Lauren found it last night at the Hidden Safeway and we were ready to go!



I felt very brave as I took my first sip. Its smell was somewhat noxious and I'd just seen Lauren's entire body shudder after her first drink. Not entirely sure what to expect and somewhat put off by the drink's smell of burned sugar, I cautiously tilted back the bottle and let the black brew slowly spill from the mouth and over my tongue.



And this is all I could say about it:


*Disclaimer*

And yet, for some reason, I continued to drink! And drink and drink. It became a compulsion and I simply couldn't stop!! I can't say it really gave me any special powers, no boost of energy, and I certainly didn't feel the desire to stay up any later than normal.

So coke blak gets two thumbs...to the side from me. It definitely does not taste nearly good enough for even one thumb up, but the curious desire to keep drinking means it shouldn't get a thumb down either.

*Just an fyi that I am far more attractive than that.