Berries Berries Everywhere

Bottom Line: 24 pounds of Strawberries is MORE than ENOUGH for two people!



We decided to "u-pick" some fresh juicy ripe local BC Strawberries on Saturday morning. We even went out in the rain, though luckily it had stopped by the time we arrived in Langley. We each brought a bucket and down the rows we went. I guess we were done within an hour and it seemed like enough, but I might have known when I saw the raised eyebrows on the lady cashing us out.

We had a nice lunch in Fort Langley, picked up some dried Cranberries from the chatty Cranberry Lady like we always do, and a hat for Kate (like I almost always do!).

Yesterday, it was Strawberry Central on Haro Street! On the menu:
- Strawberry Smoothies
- Strawberry Spinach Salad
- Cheese and Bread with Strawberry Jam (for dinner!!)
- Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
- Trays and trays of frozen berries for future delight

If I start growing seeds in my pores, would you let me know?

Sadly, the home stretch....

We are leaving Turkey tomorrow. We had one last day for sightseeing and a little shopping at the Grand Bazaar, and happily, are shopped out.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Amsterdam, but for a relatively short three night visit. Unfortunately, the weather forecast is not at all good for the next few days, but our fingers and toes are crossed. If it's not good, we may have to stick with the cafe.s and the Amstel Experience Beer Museum. :-)

We leave Saturday afternoon and arrive, Saturday afternoon in Vancouver. I did finally get Michael to admit he was sort of looking forward to being at home again.

Cheers,
Kate

Plenty to do in Istanbul

Istanbul for 6 nights is by no means too long. This city has been around for about 25 centuries, has a population of about 12.6 million (and growing by 1,000 per day), so there's lots to see and do here.

We keep passing artifacts that seem to originate from below ground level, by sometimes ten feet or more. I continually point out that that used to be the ground level, and now this is the new ground level ten feet up. Today we visited the archaeology museum and I can see that I hit the nail on the head: In fact, some 100 generations have constantly been building and re-building new over old. If you excavate, you come across a new century every meter you dig! Crazy. It's a very complicated archaeology and it must be frustrating for developers.

I have plenty of new photos in my Turkey album. They range back to our visit to Cappadocia two weeks ago, right up to our visit to the spice market this afternoon. Sorry, no time for captioning. This will have to do for now.

I hope you will be happy with these.. I assure you, I've spent more time uploading photos and blogging for your amusement, than I ever would have if I sent you a personal postcard. Obviously, you're not getting a postcard. ;-)

You can view the slideshow by clicking below:

Speaking of Turkish

I have some urgent questions surrounding a delicate topic... I hope you don't object..

If you haven't travelled much, then you may not have had the opportunity to try a so-called Turkish Toilet. It's basically a hole in the ground, with some sort of in-ground toilet apparatus, usually porcelaine, similar to this:

You put your feet on the textured part, squat down, and the rest is your business. In Asia and Turkey where we've been the last few weeks, usually there is no flusher, but a bucket of water is nearby, and you "flush" your business down the drain by washing it down with the water. Often you have to bring your own toilet paper too.

So, my questions are

1. How the heck did Turkey get saddled with this naming? Did they really invent this toilet? Somehow I doubt it!
2. In public places in Turkey there is usually both a Western sit down toilet and a Turkish model. My question is, "who would actually choose the turkish model over the Western". Is anybody still using this, if given the chance?

In one of our hotels, there was a label on the toilet graphically showing how one is NOT to squat on the Western toilet. Very amusing indeed.

Anyway, all is well, I'm not sure why this is on my mind! haha.

We have arrived in Istanbul and our bathroom is very swank indeed. We are staying at the Witt
http://www.wittistanbul.com/eng/ It seems rather lovely, and is well located near everything. We are just about to head out and see what's what. Don't know if we're going to go uphill, or downhill just yet. We can eat dinner in Europe OR Asia tonight, that's still up in the air.

Cheers!