Rabat Continued

Granted yesterday's post wasn't very inspiring. Frankly I'm a little disappointed with myself. Hopefully the rest of my Rabat pictures will make up for it though!

My hotel was in a great location, at the corner of the souk and right on a river that comes out of the Atlantic. So looking out my window this is was I saw:

The first full day in Rabat was sunny and beautiful which was a welcome change from the overcast, rainy, and cold weather I left behind in Istanbul. So we made sure to take advantage of the weather and walked around the city enjoying the water and some of the older, walled in sections of Rabat.

Subsequent days were sadly not as pleasant as the weather turned overcast, rainy, and cold. But we persevered and explored during our free time anyway! And while Francois Hollande had the poor grace to be in town and bar us lowly regular people from the Mausoleum of Mohammad V, we were able to go back another (equally overcast) day to see it.

The tower is actually a minaret for the mosque across the square

It's no Taj Mahal but it's also nothing to sneeze at. Also, that is a ridiculous expression.

It was so overcast I decided it looked better in B&W

 Inside the mausoleum was quite impressive though. I particularly liked the domed ceiling.

And despite their rather stern demeanor the guards were quite friendly and chatty and willing to pose for pictures.

We also paid a visit to to one of the walled off older sections of the city.

Love me some fancy doors!

I felt like I was back in Tunisia! I think there should be more blue and white cities. How could a person not want to live in one? This place was particularly peaceful as we couldn't hear any of the traffic or noise from the city outside.

Our last day we visited the Atlantic and found that an interesting group of people had already laid claim to the choicest of ocean front property.

A cemetery on the beach? Yup. As far as we could see stretched cemeteries. They saw that you can't take it with you; apparently these folks and their great view disagree,

That's not a blurry picture; that's sea spray

It was very windy and the ocean was very turbulent. That did not stop us or others from braving a soaking to walk along the pier that extended out into the ocean though. And while we were as salt encrusted as a good tuna when we got off the beach we did manage to avoid any serious soaking.

The weather also didn't stop the few people on the beach learning how to kite surf, a couple surfers insane enough to brave being smashed against the pier, and the football game happening on the beach. I did however resist the urge to take off my shoes and socks and wade in the water.

Is Rabat an exciting city? No. Not at all. Can you find things to do, eat, and buy while you're there? You bet. So while I get to check Morocco off my list, Marrakesh is still on it!

Rabat...Is Not Terribly Exciting

One of the great things about living in Istanbul is that almost everywhere is so much closer! Which means flights are shorter, cheaper, and I'm not obligated to use American owned airlines. It's so wonderful not being chained to the jerks at United or Delta. That doesn't mean that everywhere I go though is super exciting. For example, at the beginning of April I had to go to Rabat for work. Eh. I've always wanted to go to Morocco so at least I've checked the country off my list; but by Morocco I mean Marrakesh. There's not a whole to do see or do in Rabat.

I absolutely love that this was on the desk in my hotel room.

Not that it was a terrible trip though. I still enjoyed myself but there are only so many times that you can wander around the same small souk, you know?

My future house will have a tent covered terrace

It's worth the trip just to have real Moroccan food though. For me that was the highlight. Tagine, chicken pastille, real Moroccan tea...heaven!

Plus anywhere where menus are real leather!

Moroccan food is so good. The chicken pastille is probably my favorite thing so I was thrilled to have some.

Yumm!

And it may have been small but I still had a lot of fun walking through the souk.

Camels, camels everywhere!

I also tried this random fruit that I still don't know the name of. It was kind of watermelony in texture but tasted like...well...sweet I guess. It was a very subtle flavor. and it turned my lips and tongue a bright purple-red!

I did not try these

It was a good thing this was a work trip with per diem since I did a fair amount of shopping! A jebella, a couple abeyas, some scarves, dresses, a blanket...had to sit on my suitcase to get it zipped shut!

See the blue stripey scarf? I bought that :)

You see the most interesting things walking around. I loved this cat; he was just posing there, letting you know that he know he really is a lion at heart!

There were also completely random pet stalls. Mostly there were fish and birds but we also saw some lizards and a whole lot of turtles!

I really hope these don't become someone's dinner

Even though I didn't do a lot, I took a lot of pictures! It was mostly rainy and overcast while there but we had one bright sunny day and I took advantage so look out for a follow on post with pictures of the city and the Atlantic!

Postcards from Egypt: Temple of Amun at Karnak

Greetings from Egypt! Well, not really from Egypt right now, since I'm no longer there, but greetings to you, readers, just the same, as I retell the story of the highlights of my trip through Egypt last fall. Karnak Temple was one of the first stops on our journey, and probably one of my favorites. Though, who am I kidding, I think they were ALL my favorite! So here we go!

Around the time of the emergence of the New Kingdom, circa 1500 BCE, the Karnak Temple was dedicated to the Pharaoh Amun, and was where he and his wife Mut and son Khons would have worshipped.  And though it's hard to tell by the pictures, the site itself is enormous, covering 1x2 miles in area. Construction on the temple took place over 1300 years, sponsored by more than 30 different Pharaohs who gave the temple its 25 chapels, various shrines, and the 134 massive columns of the largest hypostyle hall in the world, one of the worlds greatest architectural acheivements. 

At one point, these sphinxes lined a road covering the two mile distance from Karnak Temple to the Temple at Luxor.  

It's difficult to capture the immensity of this place. Everything is absolutely huge, and even though much of the temple is in ruins, that does not detract from the sheer magnitude of everything which surrounds you. Think about it this way, this temple stood for two millenia as the ancient Egyptian-religious equivalent to the Vatican today. If you've ever been to the Vatican, and you remember how enormous the site is, this is exactly how Karnak makes you feel. 

There are 134 of these columns. They measure about 45 feet in diameter, and stand more than 70 feet high. As it was known that this section of the temple, the hypostyle hall was begun by Seti I, and finished by his son Ramses II.

 I found myself thinking about the movie the Prince of Egypt when I wandered through the columns:

I imagine that Moses might have walked through these them as well, in their full-color glory! Can't you just picture him among the columns and incense here? You can see that some of the color remains, even after all this time. 

This was definitely a great way to start off my trip, and again, Karnak was one of the most impressive parts of it, for its sheer size and historical significance. I was impressed far more by this temple, than by the Pyramids of Giza, which were also fantastic. When planning your trip to Egypt (and you must!), this location is a definite must for your list of things to see. 

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

Kofte With Garlic Yogurt

Since moving to Istanbul I've had to relearn how to cook. Mostly I make pasta because it's simple, versatile, and doesn't require more than the one pan and one pot that I have. However I do want to learn to cook Turkish food. While in the long run that means getting my rage repaired so all four burners work, buying more pots and pans, and figuring out all the spices, I thought I could at least do something simple with what I had on hand.

I'm always so wrong about these things.

You'd think you could never go wrong with garlic

I can't cook. I'm not sure I ever could? Pretty much anything and everything I have made in the past has been at least 80% done in an oven. I am flummoxed by the range. Although this time I think I can only blame it for a small part of the failure. I was trying to recreate a deceptively simple recipe I had while in Gaziantep and it did not go very well.

This was not such a good idea.

Since I no longer have an oven, a Dutch oven, or a convection oven I was momentarily stumped as to how to do one of my very favorite things-roast garlic. So I turned to that arbiter of all knowledge, Google, where someone had posted that you could "roast" garlic in a microwave.

This didn't work for me. I followed the directions and drizzled a little olive oil on them, wrapped the cloves in paper towel, and nuked 'em for about 30 seconds each side. By the time I'd done all the cloves (doing only 3-4 at a time) and was prepared to chop them all for the yogurt they had all shriveled and hardened. The only good thing that came out of this experiment is that I now know how to make my own garlic powder.

At least I don't have to buy garlic powder now.

My second mistake was the eggplant. I tried to dry roast it on the stove. It actually worked semi well. However I should have peeled it first I think. Scraping the eggplant meat out of the skins was not a pretty process.

The final failure in attempt number one was the meat. I bought ground meat at the grocery, I'm still not sure of it was beef or lamb frankly, and sauteed it with salt, dried red pepper, and my new supply of granulated garlic. When I put the dish together it looked pretty much like what I ate in Gaziantep. It did not, however, taste anything like it was supposed to.

It might look like it's supposed to-it did not taste like it though

Not to be defeated I tried again. This time I thought that, instead of just frying meat I'd also try my hand at making kofte, traditional Turkish meatballs. Wisely planning ahead I put out bread slices the night before so they could dry out. I then crumbled the bejeesus out of them. It worked pretty well until I got tired of smashing hard, crusty bread with my fingers (as a rolling pin is one of the many kitchen tools I now lack).

I also decided to take the garlic yogurt integral to the recipe in another direction. Rather than trying to roast garlic I decided just to use it in its raw and awesome power. So I smashed a bunch of cloves and chopped them all as finely as I could (I also do not have a garlic press anymore). This time I also remembered to add salt. A lot of salt. I don't think the salt here is as salty as it is in the States.

I also decided to save myself the mess of roasting eggplant and just pre peeled and chopped them for a good saute in a little oil. Way much easier.

Of all the tools I don't have I do seem to have a vegetable peeler

And then the kofte. Since the spice stalls all sell "meatball" spice I thought I'd give it try. It didn't work too well. I may not have added enough frankly. Since I have no idea what makes up "meatball spice" I was a leery of using too much so I think I erred on the overly cautious side with not nearly enough.

Obligatory tea back there

In addition to the "meatball spice" I added dried red peppers, salt, chopped garlic, the bread crumbs, and an egg and mushed it all together. I really hate the feeling of raw meat. It's just so gross. And sticky.

I really just needed half an egg...

Kofte are traditionally grilled, I think, but I don't have one of those, or an oven and a broiling pan, so I tried my hand at frying the kofte. Which did not go well. They got a little burned on the outside and I don't think they ever got quite done in the middle. And any part of the meat that wasn't touching the pan got cold. I really have to figure this out.

I need to find a lid to fit the pan

In the end I just got tired of waiting and decided to risk the kofte be they done or not. I'm really not sure at all if they were (I'm thinking not though because there were a little gooey on the inside and meat shouldn't be gooey) but they sure were not well seasoned. At least that's a fairly easy fix if I decide to try these again.

Ahh the victory of partial success!

In the end, the tastelessness of the kofte was saved because I at least got the yogurt part right...so as long as I got some yogurt in every bite it wasn't too bad. I will try my hand at kofte again-but probably not very soon.

The kofte didn't work out at all so I'm not going to bother with that; and I'm not even sure it's worth writing the garlic yogurt recipe since I measured nothing...but here we go.

Recipe:
Garlic Yogurt with Eggplant

• Plain, thick yogurt (maybe Greek?)
• Chopped, crushed, pressed etc garlic. I used about half a head for a cup and a half of yogurt.
• Salt to taste
• One medium sized eggplant, peeled and sauteed

Mix it all together and enjoy! I think next time I'll use at least half again as much garlic in the yogurt. Although likely I'll just stick to pasta for the time being!