Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, and Berlin decided to celebrate by not being 1000 degrees. It was a much more reasonable 73, and while it did pour later in the night, I preferred that to dying of water loss.

Some epic clouds, foreshadowing
the downpour to come

Marcos and I slept in, because what is your birthday for except getting obscene amounts of rest? Then we walked to Maximilian's, a traditional German restaurant about 20 minutes away. We got the Bavarian starters, which included a couple of dips (one cheese, one yogurt) and a pretzel––the ratio of carbs to dip was not nearly ideal, as we had a good 2/3 of the dips leftover, but it was very tasty––and the "sausage parade", which was 6 sausages of 3 different types with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.

Marcos deemed the white one "grub-like". Fortunately,
it tasted better than it looked.

There were radishes, which we did not eat. Meat and
carbohydrates only!

It was very delicious and extremely filling! We also got a light Munich beer, which Marcos found to be extremely mild and therefore drinkable.

Deutscher Dom

Afterwards, we ventured to Gendarmenmarkt, the square with the Französischer Dom and Deutscher Dom churches (which I visited 3 years ago), and then went to Fassbender-Rausch chocolatiers (which I also visited 3 years ago!).

Französischer Dom in the background

I had wanted to go to the Operncafe for my birthday cake, but they closed in 2011, sob.

Thanks for the gigantic chocolate recreation of the Reichstag,
honey––it's just what I wanted!

F-R was delicious, though! We got a mocha chocolate mousse cake and an Eisschokolade, which was cold chocolate and ice cream––very rich and filling.

OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITED

We then booked it back to the hotel so I could try and Skype with the family, but they had not had success getting it to work and were a bit annoyed by the time we finally got in contact. Still, it was nice to hear their voices :-)

Ric came over around 8:00, and in my excitement to see him I managed to break a wineglass in the bathroom, so we chilled in the hotel room while we waited for housekeeping to come up and clean up the glass.

Marcos had gone to get razors and got to walk in to a glass-strewn room, which was probably less surprising than I might hope, given my general flusteredness. Ric is doing really well––he's married (we get to meet his husband later this week, at which point we can apparently also do laundry at their place, hurray!) and runs a modeling agency and seems very happy with his life, which is great! We drank the rest of the vişne şarap (wine) we'd gotten in Şirince, and then ventured out for a birthday drink/snack. It was raining by that point, but we trekked up to Potsdamer Platz and had a cocktail in the Sony Center, after which Marcos and I headed up north to meet Matt at a jazz club.

The S-bahn did not seem to be running that direction, so we took a cab up there and arrived just as the jazz was ending. I was quite tired and a bit hungry, so we took the S-bahn back down to our hotel (it's less than a block away from the station!) but were unable to find any open food places, so I snacked on some Tibs and called it a night. All in all, it was a very pleasant day, and it's nice to be back in Berlin!

This is half a block from our hotel; Ric said it is the only part
remaining of the old head train station, through which all
deported Jews were processed on the way to the Concentration Camps.
Hence why nothing else is left of it. Such poignant reminders
strewn throughout the city of its horrific past.

Today, we were thinking of going to Potsdam but after all the walking yesterday, but I ended up not feeling up to it, so instead we just took an easy day in. We walked to the döner place around the corner (only 3€ this time!), and then to the grocery store a couple blocks away where we bought 4 different kinds of chocolate and some off-brand Pringles, because we are adults.

Mm, yes, the Brandenburg Gate

You can see here, the horses and columns representing
militaristic strength

Truly, a memorable monument.

I actually have no idea what this thing is. --Marcos

Me: Look happy about meeting your true love!
Marcos: They're never happy about it when they meet him.
Me: Then look unhappy about meeting your true love!
Marcos: (This face.)

Me: Am I allowed to eat my true love? Otherwise,
I am not interested.

Then I did some preparation for the conference, though not as much as I had hoped as the sites I was supposed to download content from were not working, and just chilled out, as it was raining and gross for most of the day. For dinner, we went to a Vietnamese-sushi place a couple blocks away (I'd forgotten how there's no such thing as non-fusion Asian restaurants around here!), which was quite affordable and, as usual, very filling. Now we are relaxing in our very nice hotel room (free upgrade!). We're moving hotels tomorrow to be closer to the conference, and I have a tutorial to go to tomorrow afternoon about using Mechanical Turk for research, so no more nice relaxing days for awhile. Marcos is planning to wake up early and go to Gendarmenmarkt to get the Domen in the morning light, when they're not backlit. We'll probably eat döners for lunch again, haha––so cheap, so delicious!

Arrival in Europe Proper

We arrived safe and sound, and just ate a Berliner döner kebap--as delicious as I remembered! Our room doesn't have internet, but the lobby does, so I will be able to check in as usual. I'm typing this on my iPad, which is getting old fast, but I will have a real post for tomorrow! It's nice to be back in Berlin :) Though it was obscenely hot today, yuck.

Antalya, Part 2

Well, I spent most of the flight from Antalya to Cologne sleeping (Marcos and I had our entire row [ie, 6 seats] to ourselves, so we both took one side of the aisle and napped away), and then going through photos took a good hour, so this will be another relatively wordless post. Don't worry, though, there's photos enough to make up for it!

Antalya Museum: We'd read it would take no more than 1-2 hours. Maybe if you didn't actually stop to look at anything, but we spent 3 hours there and Marcos only got through half of it. Museums are fun!

Part of a series I deemed "creepy faces", ranging from 4000 to 2000 years old

Little figurines! The one at the bottom is a horse,
but I'm not sure what the top one is––pig? Dog?

A variety of terra cotta vases with glaze. Widdershins from top left: "We are men!",
"We are pegasi!", "We are on horseback!", "We are in a parade!", and "I am an owl!" 

Things you can drink out of: A ram, a foot, and what Marcos
deemed a clam with eyestalks

Various pottery with glaze––amazing how intact the colors
are, even after several thousand years! The one in the top right
was used by soldiers to carry alcohol. An ancient hip flask, if you will

Some nice glazed green pottery

Some old treasure––the stuff on the right was salvaged from a wreck,
hence the atmospheric blue lighting

Statues of dudes: Headless Emperor Hadrian, headed Emperor Trajan, headed Emperor
Hadrian, and armless Alexander the Great

Statues of ladies: Not sure who these all are (at least one was labeled "young woman"),
but golly, aren't they beautiful?

Pretty, nearly perfectly intact statuette (I say "nearly"
because I assume she was once holding something in her right hand––
but maybe she's just flexing real hard?)

Statues of dude gods: Hermes and some M-dude (Marsyas, maybe?). These were
taken from the Theater at Perge, and they are huge, at least half again as tall as a normal person

Statues of lady gods: Nemesis (left and right), Hygeia (center, from whom we get the word hygiene!)

And the sarcophagi! Were amazing! I want one when I die.

Example 1

From an angle

Up close; look at that exquisite detail! 

Example 2

Example 3

Close up of Example 3 (Dionysus inspired): I like the hermaphrodite!

Gorgeous glass: The bowl edition. So much vibrant glaze! Don't remember
how old these all are, sad

Gorgeous glass, vase edition

Goodies from the Byzantine/Ottoman eras: Iznik tiles, gold illustration,
gorgeous Arabic script (and look at that blue!!!", and some crazy wardrobe doors

Ottoman ladies' prayer scroll necklaces

Selection of Ottoman-era dress, though no dates were provided

Ottoman Anatolian example rooms (plus a nice rug)

And there were peacocks!

Majestic flag

Beautiful mountains, courtesy of Marcos

Ditto

Mountains at sunset!

My almost-mosque-appropriate outfit (just add headscarf!),
so worn because I was out of other
clean clothes. The face is due to the heat.

We went to the grocery store and found these Cheetos, biftek flavor,
aka beefsteak. We did not purchase them, opting for the Doritos a la Turka
(tomato and sesame seed, from what we could tell)

After museuming, we ran around town some (visited the Sephora, because I wanted to see how it compared––basically the same, plus Chanel, but they got mad when I took photos), then Marcos did sunset pictures and then we went to Sim for dinner. It was amazing.

Widdershins (=counterclockwise, in case that wasn't clear) from top left:
Garlic-herb butter, the mysterious meze, a half-distributed mixed grill, and
part of my half of the grill. The chicken was Granary kind of good––I KNOW, RIGHT?!
(For anyone not my mother, go to The Granary and have their herb chicken.
Then you will understand.) All the meat was equivalently delicious, yum yum.

We got the mixed grill, which was 6 (or 7?) different meats, and every single one was delicious (though Marcos wasn't fond of the lamb, that's because he doesn't like lamb––it was a great "do" on the meat). We also got a cold meze (starter) of sesame oil, cumin, garlic, and pepper, but I cannot remember the name. It wreaked havoc on my tongue, but it was so tasty! Very rich and creamy and tangy, mmmm.

I'm really glad we're going back to Turkey for a week at the end; there's still so much more I want to see/do/eat!

Waiting for our flight to Berlin out of Cologne. It's been delayed, for some reason, but there's free internet and not at all free water (6 € for a liter?! I could buy 3 bottles of wine for that much back home!), so things could be worse.

Antalya, Part 2, Draft 1

Today was our last full day in Turkey (for this leg, anyways). We went to the Antalya Museum and ran around town some, finishing off with a really awesome meal. I have a ton of pictures of ancient stuff, but I am very tired (it was 99 today in the shade, blech, and I had to pack up my stuff), so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll work on it on the plane! Whee.

Our flight out is at 12:10, so we're leaving the pension at 9:00––have to return the rental car and get to the airport using a sometimes-glitchy GPS. Maybe we should leave even earlier...ugh. At least we're going back a timezone! It won't be extra painful to wake up on Monday: I guess I'll consider it the world's birthday present to me.

Hoşçakal, Türkiye!

Antalya

It was very, very hot today, and we all know how well I do in the heat––not very. As such, I am quite tired and lethargic and I do not really want to write anything. Fortunately, not a whole lot happened, but I'll be keeping it super brief even so:

Kaleiçi: Super cute

And they hate cars so much you have to go through this
toll gate to even get into it. Those who stay at lodging inside
are absolved the traffic fee, fortunately.

Set my alarm for 8:30 to check if the language schools had responded, went back to sleep until 9:30 when they had not. Got up around 10:00 to eat breakfast, then went back to sleep. Woke up at 2:45, still no response from the schools. Tried to find them on Google Maps, but was completely unable to locate one of them (Antalya Language School). The map on their website didn't work, either, so for all I know, they do not exist. Took forever to get out of the pension, and also awhile to find our way out of Kaleiçi, what with the tiny winding streets and dearth of street signs. Made our way to the other school, but it was closed; seems conveniently located (a block away from the tram), but I don't know if I'd be able to bear going to school here in the summer anyways: the lack of cooling down at night is really a bummer, though our pension owner said this is an unusually hot time, so I'll try not to write it off entirely just yet.

Weird statues of Roman/Greek ancients using modern technology
along Atatürk Blvd

I love this guy's expression

Ate pide for dinner––basically pizza on pita bread, and it was delicious.

Free starter salad

Karışık pide (beef, cheese, and peppers)

Kıymalı pide (spiced ground beef)

Wandered some, checked out some stores, and got some baklava and a weird kiwi slushy.

Subpar, as far as baklava goes.

Total spent on food for the day: 34 TL. Better than last couple days! Drank a lot of water. Now relaxing in our somewhat air conditioned room, though it is still quite humid (and even with a/c on full, upwards of 75 degrees). Tomorrow, we will visit the Antalya Museum, which apparently has all the most awesome finds from the ancient ruins around the southwest Mediterranean, so it should be fun!

Mountains across a harbor

Then packing in preparation for our flight to Berlin on Sunday. Crazy that we're almost done with this leg of the trip!

Next post, I will include all the subject pronouns.