Froehliche Weihnachten

Wien was a great trip.  The city is beautiful and it was certainly great to spend Christmas in a place where most of the population celebrates.  There's lots of photos after the jump (somewhere around 150).  Just saying.

Click on for the pics.  That's what you really came here for anyway.

This is where I live

Friends from India arrived yesterday for a vacation/honeymoon/stop on the way to the States.  I met up with them today for a cold boat ride up the Bosphorus.  Here's a good view of the city from the water.  Maybe this break I'll take some time to visit other areas and show you what they look like too.

 

 

 

That's the mosque in my title picture.  It's being redone at the moment.  Keep heading up this direction and you'll eventually hit my place.

Pfizer.  There's lots of Viagra on display in the pharmacies here.

A favourite nook for breakfast.

 

Hagia Sophia at night.

Blue Mosque at night.

'Tis the season

For Gram

When I came home this evening I did my usual thing of putting up my scarf and hat and realised it reminded me of something.  Well... more of someone.  A bunch of hats hanging up just inside the doorway when you walk in, anyone?

 

:)8

10 on Tuesday (two days early??)

10^0 - I have committed a cardinal sin.  I have begun listening to Christmas music.  I don't care what people say about not until after Thanksgiving.  Contrary to what ties you might believe Turkey has to the holiday it is not celebrated here.  Therefore, ergo etcetera I am starting to listen to it now.  It makes me happy.  Except for the times it makes me sad.

The smallest prime integer - I went on a ten mile hike with the Scouts today.  It was through Istanbul.  Along the Bosphorus.  On the Asian side.  Alas, I forgot my camera at school so no pics for you.

pi rounded to the nearest whole number - The brother and I have started a new blog born out of some musings over the past few months and my post with Cthulhu.  Approximately once a week we take turns picking a topic and then we both post drawings/sketches/whatevs for it.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

sqrt(16) - The parentals have bailed on me for the holidays.  Some friends and I are thinking Vienna.  Egypt is also in the cards as is Italy.  Any other suggestions?

-log(0.00001) - I need some other Christmas albums to pad my Christmas playlist.  I'm leaning more towards things like the Vienna Boys' Choir, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Chanticleer, et al.  I'm open to other suggestions.  I also love my Bing.

3! - It always amazes me how much all of my senses are tied to memories.  For me I think it tends to be mostly sound and smell.  I was listening to some Bing the other day-- I think it was Christmas in Killarney-- and it immediately took me back my first real LEGO Christmas.  I had gotten a few Pirates sets and I distinctly remember sitting at the dining room table putting together the Lagoon Lock Up, my first "big set."  I can vividly picture putting those yellow blocks together and marveling at how awesome the whole thing was.  I also remember losing a sword that same night to the infernal, yellow shag carpet.  I miss LEGOs.  Don't get me started on Bing's Do you see what I see?  Smell is the same way for me.  I once got into an argument with an ex (SHE WHO SHAN'T BE NAMED) about whether or not I thought about my other exes.  I told her that sure, I do sometimes but never deliberately.  The best example I could give her was I had to stop using a certain kind of deodorant (and more recently all deodorants, but that's just getting off topic from the story) because the smell of it reminded me of the time I was with a different ex.  I said that I'm sure there are other things that crop up that will cause those synapses to fire and make me remember something.  She didn't believe me because she said things didn't happen like that for HER.  Really, it just snowballed from there.  Seriously, dodged the bullet on that one.  Anywho...

The number of legs on a seven-legged spider - I made my first batch of Istanbul chili last weekend.  It was topped off with some slightly overdone (not burnt) cornbread and some bad, processed "cheddar cheese."  The friends I had over said it was really good and all seemed to enjoy it.  They were really astounded by what all I put in it.  Don't you add whisky, chocolate and honey to your chili?

(I'm too lazy to keep doing this) 8 - Bex, I need some of mom's cookie recipes.  I have a decent oven, decent access to ingredients, a more adventurous attitude toward baking and cooking in general, and a need for some of mom's cookies.

9 - Just finished Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour.  It reads like an episode of No Reservations and I really enjoyed it.  I've been looking for a new read.  I've started a few but couldn't get into them.  I'm blowing the Le Petit Prince and will soon finish it.  Recommendations for something new?

10^1 - Speaking again of memories, I picked up oranges yesterday.  For me, oranges are the ultimate cold weather food.  Not in the sense that they're going to warm me up or anything like that but more from the fact that each year we got a big box of Pittman-Davis oranges and grapefruits from one of dad's siblings or pseudo-siblings.  Often they were left on the porch to keep cool.  Just another reminder of Chirstmas.  One day I'll move my Christmas stuff to wherever it is I live (along with my books and other crap) and I'll be able to put up my ornaments and nutcrackers.  I'll put it all out, turn on some Bing, Chipmunk Christmas, and/or Peter, Paul & Mary Holiday Celebration, turn off the lights and cuddle on the couch with my dog and a mug of peppermint Schnapps infused hot chocolate.  How cozy!

Bonus (oh how lucky!):
10 + 1 - A friend and I were discussing having a Christmas movie marathon.  We came up with A Christmas Story, Home Alone and Christmas Vacation.  What others?  I mean, besides Scrooged, obviously.

:)8

Edit:  I was looking through the pages of LEGO Pirates sets and found this one.  Seriously?  How does that even work?  Forget the fact that the cannon would probably just sink the boat or blow a hole in it when it was fired.  Logistically, how the hell are you supposed to load that thing?  Most cannon crews had something like three guys on them.  Standing up and moving around on the tiny boat would quickly capsize it.  Oh well.  I'm sure that as I kid I would have loved this set as my little renegade to take on my pirate ship.  Think X-Wing v Deathstar.

Vacation to Izmir

I've been on holiday for the past week.  It's Kurban Bayram in Turkey.  My Turkish friends described it as basically the Muslim equivalent of Christmas.  I'm not up on all the details but I know it is about sacrifice and ties back into Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.

If you recall, I spent the previous Bayram (at the end of August) in Istanbul.  I spent a lot of it holed up in my apartment because of a bad ankle injury.  I made for a proper trip this time and spent five days south of Istanbul in Izmir.  It was only an hour flight south and I was soon into warmer climates and the bustle of holidays.

Keep reading after the jump for pics and stories.

Halloween

Ahh... Halloween.  It really is one of those magical times of the year.  Here in Istanbul it falls around the same time as Republic Day.  As such, we had a half day of classes on Friday.  Not wanting a perfectly good half day go to waste with productive classes and learning we had THE HAUNTED HALF-DAY, oooooooooEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The kids were split up into all day activities consisting of movie making, dancing, and some art projects and others went to rotating workshops.  Not surprisingly, I got roped into doing a mad scientist's lab.  We had a few demos for the kids -- puking pumpkins, beating hearts, burning money-- and we also let them make some slime.  And let me tell you.  Carving pumpkins can be a pain.  Most people who read this are probably familiar with pumpkins as being the orange, smooth-ish round things.  Well, those ones are fine for decoration and all but when you eat a pumpkin it probably comes from this lumpy, green monstrosity with flesh a few inches thick.  We bought a few of these for the labs and proceeded to carve them the night before.  I spent a good hour doing mine.  Not because it was intricate and detailed, but because it was so thick that cutting out simple triangles takes a very long time.  The end result was good though and they did their jobs amicably.  

After the half-day a few of us went out to hang with the Brits and play a Halloween themed quiz game.  My team, Jaws 13 in 3D, came in third place.  Not too shabby but no real bragging rights either.

The next evening we went to hang with the Americans at the Marine House.  Everyone showed up from Mexican wrestlers to Canadian mounties to Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice.  Yours truly attended as Dr McNinja.  What?!  Who's that, you ask?  Well, he's Irish, he's a doctor and he's a ninja.  What else do you really need to know?  Fine.  Here's the link.

I'll let the pictures do the rest.

Lurch and I getting ready for the fresh meat, I mean children.

I've been drawing zombies, vampires and werewolves all month for my kids.  They love it and so do I.

This guy stayed in character as a zombie too well.  He only groaned and kept his face perfectly expressionless.

Me with two of my helpers, Igor and Captain Underpants, getting ready for some hijinks.

 One of our demos. 

The same demo again from another class.  Note the scary music in the background.

Making slime is so gross!

In case you were wanting to make your own slime (it comes out like that Nickelodeon Gak of yesteryear) all you have to do is mix a bottle of glue (make sure it says PVA or polyvinyl acetate on it) with a little less than equal parts warm water.  In another container saturate about the same amount of warm water with some borax found in your local laundry aisle.  When no more will dissolve start adding it to the glue mixture and you should immediately see the polymer (the slime) start to form.  Mix it well and when you get a big glob pick it up and start kneading it with your hands.  It should come together with some squishing.  You can play with its consistency and stickiness by changing the ratio of glue to borax.  Add food colouring to the glue before the borax to colour the slime.  You can also use glue gels (again make sure it's PVA) to get clear slime that looks a lot like snot.  It's perfectly safe to handle but, like all things you can make in the lab, do not ingest your slime.  The slime bounces but don't throw it hard.  It will shatter and tiny pieces will go EVERYWHERE and get stuck to EVERYTHING.

Performing Thriller!

Getting ready to hang with the Marines.

Hanging out with Diana Ross, Holly Golightly, Robin Hood and the Queen of Spades.

Drinking some of the most vile blood I've ever tasted.

Out with the Brits.  This is my Blue Steel.  I used to be a hand model you know.

Team Jaws 13 in 3D

The doctor is in

:)8