Turkey Trip: Miscellaneous Pictures

Final picture post from me for our Trip to Turkey.  This is full of pictures that just didn't fit elsewhere...

Nana nana nana..

Anyone know how to translate Sumerian cuneiform?

Sign in the bathroom of a place we stayed

I found a glitch in The Matrix

Apparently, Santa Claus is more of a New Year's thing in Istanbul

Turkey Trip: Blue Mosque

One of the memories that will stand out for me from Turkey is the sound of the ezan, the Islamic call to prayer which comes five times per day.  We heard it broadcast from loudspeakers that were on nearly every mosque minaret we saw.  Sometimes, we could hear the call from multiple mosques just slightly out of sync, and it was an amazing sound.

Although we heard the ezan in many places, we actually visited only one active mosque: the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (popularly known as the Blue Mosque).

View of the Blue Mosque from Sultan Ahmet Park

View from the entrance to the courtyard

We visited the mosque the same day as the Hagia Sophia.  We arrived during a period for prayer, so we walked through the courtyard and took the opportunity to read educational signs about Islamic tenets and culture.  Once it opened for visiting, we joined a long but surprisingly quick line and were able to enter after removing our shoes (they kindly provide plastic bags to carry your shoes) and, in the cases of Geek Girl and Mama Geek, donning head scarves:

Geek Girl and Mama Geek looking pretty in head scarves

The interior of the mosque is gorgeous.  Practically every square inch is covered with lovely tile - white, red, green, and the eponymous blue.  The domes are beautiful, and the light coming through the stained glass windows is really something to behold.

Interior of the mosque with some of the domes.  See the owl?

Gorgeous tile and stonework

I found the chandeliers intriguing - both for themselves and because their supports hanging down from the ceiling made me think of vines in a jungle.  I thought they made the mosque itself seem alive in a way I hadn't expected.

Chandeliers and interior

Interior with chandelier-supporting chains

Turkey Trip: Street Scenes

One of my favorite bits of travel is just walking around town and seeing what we see.  Along those lines, let me present you with various street scenes from Turkey:

Roman "Castle" in Göreme 

Grumpy panda is grumpy

Street scene in Cihangir, Istanbul

Istiklal Street in the evening

View from the tram going across the Galata Bridge

Street scene with cat and minaret, Istanbul

Street scene near city walls, Istanbul

Geek Girl on a side street in Istanbul on a snowy day

Snow coming down!

Turkey Trip: See, Mom, I do take pictures of people!

My mother always complains that I never take pictures of people during our trips.  Mom, this post is for you:

Geeks getting ready for an early morning balloon ride

Geek Girl and goofy-looking guy at the Göreme Open Air Museum

Mama Geek looking dynamic as she navigates a slot canyon

Parental Geeks at the Hagia Sophia (Aya Sofia)

Mama Geek and Geek Girl with the Hagia Sofia

Mama Geek and Geek Girl in their scarves at the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque)

Geek Girl and Mama Geek on the Istanbul city walls near the Gate of Charisius, with the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque 

Mama Geek and me showing steep steps on the city walls

Mama Geek and me at the Topkapi Palace terrace, with the Bosphorus in the background 

Mama Geek looking pretty with the Bosphorus in the background

Geek Girl contemplates the frescoes at the Chora Church

Geek Girl being a Portal Lion at the Istanbul Archeological Museum 

Geek Girl with a cool dress we saw at the Archeological Museum

Turkey Trip: Food

We ate well in Turkey, including some new treats I had never had.  Some of the highlights for me were:

• Poğaça, a bread roll that we had with various fillings including olive and olive paste and peynir cheese, and plain
• Mantı, Turkish dumplings similar to ravioli or aushak, filled with minced meat or potatoes and served with delicious yogurt sauces
• Pide, Turkish flatbread pizza with a wide range of toppings including eggs, pastrami, and peppers
• Börek, pastries made with phyllo dough and stuffed with spinach, cheese, etc.
• Gözleme, which were basically Turkish crêpes.  We had savory (cheese, spinach, minced meat, etc.) and sweet (apple and cinnamon, chocolate, etc.)
• Testi kebab, a Cappadocian specialty of meat and vegetables cooked for about three hours in a clay pot that is broken at the table
• Simit, available everywhere and basically like a Turkish soft pretzel
• Puddings - I had no idea pudding was so popular in Turkey
• Dondurma or Turkish ice cream, which has a texture that's an interesting combination of the smoothness of gelato and the elasticity of chewing gum.  I read later that is because it includes mastic gum

We also had lentil soup everywhere, partially because it was delicious and warming on cold evenings, and partially because it came with bread for our carb-loving Geek Girl.  I got to indulge my taste for döner kebab with fries, which is an old habit from Zurich days.  We had tea everywhere, and baklava, and of course Turkish delight.

Three places stand out in my mind:

• Nazar Börek Cafe in Göreme.  We had börek, pide, gözleme, and lentil soup here, all of which were delicious.  The owner, Refik Ciftci, and his main assistant were really friendly - telling us stories, showing us books of things to see in the region, and generally making us feel welcome.  Refik even offered to make us the apple/cinnamon gözleme when he was out of the börek listed on the menu. 
• Ficcin Restoran in Beyoğlu, Istanbul.  We had Carcissian cuisine (food from the Caucasus region), which we had never even heard of before.  Delicious mezze, mantı, liver, and a special meat pie that we really enjoyed.  We must have liked it -- we went back twice.
• Cuma in Beyoğlu, Istanbul.  We indulged in one Turkish breakfast out, and this was it.  Geek Girl was thrilled to get her usual Sunday pancakes, Mama Geek got to enjoy salmon and eggs and my olives, and I got a fun Turkish spread including several different cheeses and yummy bread.  

I can't resist some pictures, so here you are - selected culinary pictorial highlights.

Crew working in pide restaurant, Göreme

Testi kebab in Göreme

Refik and crew at Nazar Börek Cafe, Göreme

Ashure (Noah's Ark dessert) from Saray Muhallebicisi, Istanbul

Breakfast out at Cuma on a sunny Sunday in Beyoğlu, Istanbul

Turkey Trip: Picture Post The First

As Mama Geek posted, we went to Turkey for the holidays in 2014.

Along the way, we had a stopover in Zürich and were able to visit some of our old haunts from when we lived there.  Just two highlight pictures here:

Peaceful morning over the Limmat

Mama Geek and Geek Girl with the Fraumünster

Eleven years and counting...

Geek Girl turns 11 today.  It has been a busy weekend of activities, only some of which are specifically birthday-related, but a good time except for late both evenings, when various meltdowns occurred.

The most recent meltdown was triggered because Geek Girl -- deeply engrossed in one of Terry Pratchett's books -- ignored several warnings and kept reading even when told it was most definitely time to stop.  Much wailing and crying begins.  I remained calm, which apparently made things worse ("You're not even getting upset!  _wail_ _sob_"), but eventually Geek Girl calmed down, too.

[Just a brief diversion to note that I think we're definitely in the early stages of pre-teen emotional instability.  Should be a fun few years...time to learn to meditate standing up.]

I gathered up some homework papers and the book and headed out of her room to get Mama Geek for their nighttime ritual.  Geek Girl followed me, which was unusual.  She gave Mama Geek lots of hugs, and hmmm, shocker - the book suddenly reappeared in her hand, having been oh-so-surreptitously picked up.  (Read: I saw it happening the whole time.)  I took the book back, and Mama Geek said, "Oh, we trust her, right?"

I picked up the cue and handed the book back to GG, saying, "Oh, yes, of course.  We trust you, Sweetie; we know you know it's bedtime, not reading time."

Back to Geek Girl's bedroom for our traditional goodnight ritual.  At the end, Geek Girl says, with a frustrated yet resigned tone: "I can't even sneak reading, since you and Mommy said you trust me!"  

I just smiled and said, "Well, Sweetie, of course we trust you."

Geek Girl: "Then why did you just pick up my book light?"

Me: "Well, you won't need it anyway, right?"

GG: "Darn it."

The other funny part is that she wants me to set an alarm for the middle of the night, which would correspond to the exact moment she was born.  I just said, "Do you know what Mommy would do to me if I woke up in the middle of the night just to come wake you up so you can be awake at the exact anniversary of your birth?"  

GG, just as sweetly as anyone could muster: "You could just set an alarm up here, just for me.  Mommy wouldn't even know."

Me: "Nice try, kiddo.  Go to bed now."

She is currently sighing and making the usual noises she makes when trying to fall asleep and not fall asleep all at the same time.  Plus residual sniffling.  I should probably go help with that.

Penguin Day

[Note: GG wrote this last night, but we waited until now to post it...]

Right now, I am wearing penguin PJs. I think penguins pretty much sum up my day.

First, this morning, Mommy made me try on long johns and a parka that made me feel like a penguin for no apparent reason.

Next, I was reading a book that took place in a cold place. Penguins live in cold places.

Finally, we went to an ice skating rink where the thingies that less experienced skaters use for balance are penguins. I found out that I am very good at falling down on ice skates, and composed a (sort of) epic poem commemorating how it feels to have fallen down on your bottom on ice at least four times. Here it is:

Owie owie owie ow,

Ouch ouch ouch.

Owie owie ow,

Ouchie ouch ouch.

Ow.

Here are some pictures at the rink:

 With a penguin in the background:

And some videos:

Then, when we were done, we got cupcakes. Yay!

[Edit this evening: Some people Daddy follows on Twitter said it is #PenguinAwarenessDay.  Did you know that some penguins dive 900 feet down to eat squid? (I read that in Zoobooks.) ]

End of summer excitement

How did it become September 1st already?

We've had a busy summer, including trips to Pittsburgh, Cape Cod, and Milwaukee (post coming on that sometime), and business trips for Daddy Geek to southern California and Japan.  Geek Girl continues to grow like a weed -- she's only about one centimeter shorter than Mama Geek -- and we discovered that 10-year-old girls use email like texting (ack).  Geek Girl has also been learning to ride her bike, and has taken a few 10+ mile rides with me, including her first group ride.  And she has read 84 books so far this summer (she just asked: "Do you think I can make it to 100?!")

Oh, yeah, and we moved houses within the same town.

But this post isn't about any of that.

Rather, we've had an interesting weekend already.  We decided to things off right with a family bike ride along the W&OD Trail, and it was going to be lunchtime while we were on the ride, so naturally the destination was Nielsen's Frozen Custard in Vienna.  We had been there for custard before, but we learned on this trip that they also make some pretty good sandwiches.  Mama Geek and I shared an Italian grinder, Geek Girl had a salami sandwich, and we shared a coffee custard and a "concrete" - vanilla custard with Oreos.  Yum.

On the way back home, Geek Girl had her first real bike accident.  I was right behind her and still don't know exactly what happened, but down she went and ended up with a pretty good scraped knee and elbow, and lesser cuts and assorted bruises.  A kind stranger offered us bandages and such, and we got her patched up for the ride home.  To her credit, Geek Girl toughed it out for another four miles to get home with only minimal complaints, and by the time we got home, she thanked us "for making me ride home, Daddy".

(Memo to Daddy Geek: remember to make a small bike first aid kit and bring it along for future rides, since grace seems to run in the Geek family...)

We'll spare you the wound pictures, but here's a picture of Geek Girl giving me the Pre-teen Death Glare after we got her cleaned up and the injuries properly dressed:

Geek Girl is displeased with being asked to model her bandages

Saturday was another beautiful day, so we walked over to the farmer's market for fruit and Geek Girl's post-accident breakfast treat:

Breakfast of Tough Geek Girls: freshly made mini doughnuts with sugar

The library is closed today and tomorrow, so a visit to drop off some books and pick up a few more was key as well.  Geek Girl's definition of "a few" leads to a stuffed backpack, and my back being 2" shorter than normal...but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Just for the heck of it, and to stretch out her arms and legs (we wouldn't want them to stiffen up after the injury, right?), Geek Girl and I went off to Sportrock Climbing in Alexandria to try some bouldering.  We traded back and forth and she did pretty well despite banging her knee into the wall a few times -- my grandfather's genes at work, I guess.  One unexpected treat: they had a slackline for folks to try, and Geek Girl made two round trips with me giving her a helping hand.  It seems Geek Girl had fun: she wants me to refresh my belay training so she can top-rope.

Today is yet another beautiful day, and less humid, so I indulged in a long solo ride on my race bike (thanks, Mama Geek!), through the northern Virginia suburbs, down into downtown DC -- this was perhaps unwise on Sunday of Labor Day weekend -- and up the W&OD trail home.  It was the longest ride I've done since before I injured my Achilles back in March, and it was great to get out for so long, but something tells me it's going to be easy to fall asleep tonight.

Our last bit of excitement will be this evening's block party -- finally a chance to meet our new neighbors.

Oh, and it appears Geek Girl is excited about school starting on Tuesday; she spontaneously wrote the following poem this morning:

School starts! It's
Exciting! Our classroom has a
Periodic
Table of the
Elements!
Ms. M is my teacher
Boxes of school supplies
Exciting colors on the floor in
Radial symmetrical patterns
(c)

(The copyright symbol is important, apparently.)

Have a Happy Labor Day Weekend, folks.

No more baby teeth...

Tooth number 20 came out tonight!

How to Make Dumplings

Another guest post from Geek Girl:

Yesterday I made dumplings for dinner. Here are some pictures:

Starting.

How to make the dumplings.

The finishing touch.

The Importance of Diversification

Scene: Geek Girl's bedroom. Evening. A game of Monopoly Jr. is underway.

Daddy Geek looks down at the distribution of $1, $2, $3, $4, and $5 bills he has. He has no $5, but lots of $2. He decides to swap 5 $2s for 2 $5s.

A Geek who shall remain nameless, um, expels gas.

Daddy Geek: [looking at bills] I think I'll diversify.

Geek Girl: Does that mean fart?

Both parents burst out laughing.

Sunday Stroll: One Dog, 13 Ducks, and a Ham

Today, we took advantage of a lovely spring Sunday to wander around the National Mall and enjoy the sights. First, we had a picnic lunch along the Ellipse just south of the White House, enjoying the view of the futbol players and the Washington Monument. Then we had a leisurely stroll to view the south side of the White House and glimpsed a member of the First Family playing with Bo on the South Lawn before we, and all our fellow gawkers, were shooed away by the Secret Service.

Next, the Mall proper, starting at the Washington Monument and heading toward Capitol Hill. We kept being passed by tons of folks leaving the 2010 commencement ceremony for George Washington University - where the speaker was the First Lady. (We never saw or heard her.) Our second, very distant brush with the First Family today...

Afterward, we visited the Sculpture Garden for the National Gallery of Art (Geek Girl loves House 1 by Roy Lichtenstein) and watched lots of happy grads taking pictures there and on the steps of the various museums.

Eventually, we ended up at the Capitol Reflecting Pool, where we had some unexpected sights. First, we came across a mother duck (let's call her Suspicious Duck) with four juvenile ducks. Suspicious Duck was quite vigilant for people - any time someone came a bit too close, she craned her neck, started quacking in a low growl (if you can imagine such a thing), and spread out her feathers. Here is a distant shot:

What are you lookin' at?

Geek Girl wanted to sketch Suspicious Duck and her young ducks, so we walked around the pool to sit in the shade of a big tree. While we were sitting there, she drew quite a nice picture and Mama Geek and I chatted. We were pretty oblivious, but eventually we realized that a crowd had gathered, so we looked around and down. Here's what we saw:


That's Trusting Duck with her seven baby ducklings! She was quacking quietly and they were quacking back - almost cheeps. Really cute, and quite literally within my arm's reach as we sat together.

Trusting Duck wanted to take her babies to swim in the Reflecting Pool, so first, she had to get them off the planter and down onto the ground about two feet below. Here's what that looked like:

Ready...

Set...

Go!

All seven ducklings made the big hop and followed Trusting Duck around the edge of the pool. She kept quacking to guide them, and they very politely waddled along behind her. (How does she get them to do that? Never works for us...) Soon, it became apparent that Trusting Duck didn't really know how she was going to get her babies over the decorative edge into the pool, as it is about two feet high, and the babies were definitely having trouble getting that high with their stubby wings. In the end, Trusting Duck and her babies got a helping hand, or four, from me and two of the other bystanders - we each lifted some very soft, fuzzy duckies onto the lip and they slid on down into the water. Yes, Nai Nai, the hat you gave me does double duty as a duck carrier.

Here is a video of Trusting Duck and her babies swimming around in the Reflecting Pool:

It was time to start heading home, so we wandered past the Air and Space Museum to take in the planet walk along the sidewalk. Geek Girl was fascinated and read every sign in detail, and we talked about some fun facts for each planet, like the fact that a Venusian day is longer than a Venusian year and that the tilt of Uranus' axis of rotation is 82 degrees with respect to the plane of the ecliptic (this involved a pen and some twirling).

Between Uranus and Neptune, we stopped off to see some of Geek Girl's favorite art at the Hirshorn Gallery:



Pluto comes at the Smithsonian Castle, which meant we saw the lovely rose garden - and our Ham in Chief wearing The Giraffe Hat Nai-Nai Sent:


We walked on back to the car, stopping along the way for a snack while watching people play kickball at the Washington Monument and then to toss a certain rubber duck around like a baseball (it's a therapy thing). A yummy zvieri with good coffee and yesterday's dessert leftovers, a really yummy dinner made by Mama Geek, and time for this post.

The postscript: I have just been informed that I am #3 on The Official Geek Girl List of The Best Things in the World, behind drawing and reading ("Because you're sooooo funny, Daddy!"). Mama Geek is none too pleased with being #4. If Geek Girl knows what's good for her, she'll bump Mama Geek up to a tie for third. One thing's for sure, Mama Geek and I will never take the top spot.