here we are in istanbul with steve, zeynep and their majorly cute little girl, asya, who is currently playing with mark. the one and same mark who not long ago took a wee tumble down the stairs and is now nursing a couple of swollen toesies - nothing major, so don't worry. they have been sufficiently iced and prodded, and we think he's just slammed them good. so that was our bit of excitement for the morning.
we arrived yesterday (friday) afternoon around 3.45 turkish time (this blog is still set to australian time). steve picked us up from the airport, and we had some dinner and drinks and caught up (the last time we saw steve was when he was in australia ten years ago, though this is our first meeting with zeynep and asya). we stayed up till 11pm which was a pretty good effort i thought, seeing as we'd been up and about for ages... there's a 7 hour time difference between toronto and turkey, and we had a half-hour delay in heathrow on the way. the weather here is quite a contrast to toronto, where it was clear and cool - here the weather is quite pleasant, high teens and lovely. today we're having a chillout day so mark can rest his toes, then tomorrow we'll have a look around. we're thinking of going into the city for a couple of days during the week, then we're all going to gallipoli next weekend.
on our second-last day in toronto, we did a segway tour of a historical area of the city called 'the distillery district'. mark had always wanted to try one out, and i'd also been a bit curious - they teach you how to ride it first then the tour itself goes for 90 minutes. i found it weird to start out with - the controls are intuitive, you have to lean forward to make it go, and backward to stop or reverse - and it feels a little wrong and wobbly. but mark took to it like a roast duck to hoi-sin sauce - he was zooming around like crazy. it was fun, though i kept forgetting to keep my legs loose and my knees bent - the more rigidly you stand the less balanced you end up being, so i had stiff leg muscles for a bit afterwards. the distillery district used to be (funnily enough) a whiskey distillery back in the 1800's, and now the whole area is classified national trust, and is an arty district. there are many beautiful galleries there, and we saw some amazing works in glass. half of one gallery was works by australian artists - unfortunately we couldn't take pictures. the glasswork was amazing in their scale and intricacies - i wondered how they transported it from australia without losing half of it. there were also a couple of large-scale nail and cotton works, of profiles. from a distance they looked like lead drawings on huge white canvasses, but close up it becomes apparent that it's actually black thread wrappedround hundreds of nails. amazing stuff.
we caught a street-car back to he station then a bus home, where alll the family came over for dinner. i cooked a curry and mark made a raita, and it was an excellent evening. more pictures coming soon!
also in toronto i made a little purchase for myself - the first season of beveley hills, 90210 on dvd. finally! do you think aaron's passing had anything to do with that? makes one wonder, does it not? hmmm.
and damien won idol, huh. well done him. would have been a great final to watch. i'll have to borrow the dvd when i come back!
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s?nce i wrote the above post, a day has passed - blogger was freaking out a bit. we woke up rather late today (again, ? know!) and tg?s afternoon headed into buykgekmege, a l?ttl bus-ride from steve & zeynep's place. we checked out some shops, took a walk by the sea-s?de and drank some turkish tea. tomorrow i have decided to follow steve around at h?s work - he's a pr?mary school teacher - and then on wednesday, mark and i will be head?ng into istanbul for a couple of n?ghts. we go to gallipoli on friday - zeynep actually grew up there, so we're go?ng to get to meet her parents. we've been toss?ng around some ?deas for our next destination after turkey, but nothing's set in stone yet. i'll keep you updated.
oh, by the way mark's toes are okay, though they turned black last n?ght, and now they've calmed down to a lovely shade of purple. he's walk?ng alr?ght, but m?ght have a rest-day tomorrow. pictures of zombie toes will be up on the web soon.
we arrived yesterday (friday) afternoon around 3.45 turkish time (this blog is still set to australian time). steve picked us up from the airport, and we had some dinner and drinks and caught up (the last time we saw steve was when he was in australia ten years ago, though this is our first meeting with zeynep and asya). we stayed up till 11pm which was a pretty good effort i thought, seeing as we'd been up and about for ages... there's a 7 hour time difference between toronto and turkey, and we had a half-hour delay in heathrow on the way. the weather here is quite a contrast to toronto, where it was clear and cool - here the weather is quite pleasant, high teens and lovely. today we're having a chillout day so mark can rest his toes, then tomorrow we'll have a look around. we're thinking of going into the city for a couple of days during the week, then we're all going to gallipoli next weekend.
on our second-last day in toronto, we did a segway tour of a historical area of the city called 'the distillery district'. mark had always wanted to try one out, and i'd also been a bit curious - they teach you how to ride it first then the tour itself goes for 90 minutes. i found it weird to start out with - the controls are intuitive, you have to lean forward to make it go, and backward to stop or reverse - and it feels a little wrong and wobbly. but mark took to it like a roast duck to hoi-sin sauce - he was zooming around like crazy. it was fun, though i kept forgetting to keep my legs loose and my knees bent - the more rigidly you stand the less balanced you end up being, so i had stiff leg muscles for a bit afterwards. the distillery district used to be (funnily enough) a whiskey distillery back in the 1800's, and now the whole area is classified national trust, and is an arty district. there are many beautiful galleries there, and we saw some amazing works in glass. half of one gallery was works by australian artists - unfortunately we couldn't take pictures. the glasswork was amazing in their scale and intricacies - i wondered how they transported it from australia without losing half of it. there were also a couple of large-scale nail and cotton works, of profiles. from a distance they looked like lead drawings on huge white canvasses, but close up it becomes apparent that it's actually black thread wrappedround hundreds of nails. amazing stuff.
we caught a street-car back to he station then a bus home, where alll the family came over for dinner. i cooked a curry and mark made a raita, and it was an excellent evening. more pictures coming soon!
also in toronto i made a little purchase for myself - the first season of beveley hills, 90210 on dvd. finally! do you think aaron's passing had anything to do with that? makes one wonder, does it not? hmmm.
and damien won idol, huh. well done him. would have been a great final to watch. i'll have to borrow the dvd when i come back!
---------------
s?nce i wrote the above post, a day has passed - blogger was freaking out a bit. we woke up rather late today (again, ? know!) and tg?s afternoon headed into buykgekmege, a l?ttl bus-ride from steve & zeynep's place. we checked out some shops, took a walk by the sea-s?de and drank some turkish tea. tomorrow i have decided to follow steve around at h?s work - he's a pr?mary school teacher - and then on wednesday, mark and i will be head?ng into istanbul for a couple of n?ghts. we go to gallipoli on friday - zeynep actually grew up there, so we're go?ng to get to meet her parents. we've been toss?ng around some ?deas for our next destination after turkey, but nothing's set in stone yet. i'll keep you updated.
oh, by the way mark's toes are okay, though they turned black last n?ght, and now they've calmed down to a lovely shade of purple. he's walk?ng alr?ght, but m?ght have a rest-day tomorrow. pictures of zombie toes will be up on the web soon.
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