Paris

While I was in Slovakia working, David continued hosting our guests. London was Cristy’s last stop on her European tour, so she headed back to the states on Monday. The Vollmars took a side-trip to Switzerland on Tuesday, and then the Sylestines left for Paris on Wednesday. I flew back into London late Thursday night, dumped out my suitcase full of work clothes, and repacked with weekend clothes. On Friday after work, David and I hopped on the Eurostar and crossed the Chunnel to Paris to meet up with Molly and Jeremy for the long holiday weekend.

The Sylestines found us a great apartment in the Bourse area of the city through HomeAway. They’ve had really good experiences with HomeAway in the past, but we’d never tried it before. It turned out great! The apartment was huge and really cost effective, which gave us a lot of space for not a lot of money. Plus the owner was nice enough to let us “check out” late on Monday since our train back to London wasn’t until 8PM.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early and took the RER, the Paris rail network, to Versailles. David used to visit Paris all the time when he was younger and lived in London, but surprisingly he had never been to Versailles. And it was Jeremy’s first time in Paris altogether. So since both boys hadn’t been before, we decided to visit.

The weather was gorgeous all weekend, which made our trip to Versailles even better. Everyone else in Paris must’ve had the same idea on Saturday morning, so the line outside the palace was crazy long! It snaked around the entire inner courtyard… and here is where we encountered our first Paris line-cutter. After we had been standing in line for about 45 minutes, some random guy just walked up and stood next to David. At first we thought he was looking for someone, or just pausing. But, no. He was actually trying to stand in line. So David nudged the guy and said, “Hey! What are you doing?” The guy started talking back to David in a foreign language. Instead of attempting to communicate verbally, David physically nudged the guy out of line. Basically, elbowed him away. Who has the nerve to cut like that anyway? We were having none of it!

Once inside Versailles, we toured the palace, which included the king’s chamber, the chapel, and Marie Antoinette’s bedroom with the hidden doorway that helped her escape when the Parisian mob forced its way inside the palace during the Revolution. Of course, she only escaped next door into her husband’s rooms and they were both eventually dragged into Paris and beheaded.

My favorite part of Versailles is still the hall of mirrors and the gardens.

The Marble Courtyard

Hall of Mirrors

After we finished our tour inside, we had a traditional lunch of ham and cheese baguettes out in the gardens. The sun was shining, the fountains were on, and classical music was playing throughout the grounds. David and Jeremy were even inspired enough to dance along to the music!

This was my third visit to Versailles and in all the times I’d been before, I had never been to the Grand or Petit Trianons. I just finished reading Madame Tussaud, a historical fiction novel centered around Madame Tussaud’s life during the French Revolution. Before she became the most famous wax artist in the world, she was tutor to Elisabeth, King Louis XVI’s sister, at Versailles. The Trianons are a central location in the book so this time we paid the extra Euros to visit the Petit Trianon.

The Petit Trianon was Marie Antoinette’s miniature palace, where she went to escape the demands of palace life and the court. Or as Molly put it, “to escape all of those tour groups.”

Petit Trianon

The actual palace was not that amazing… In fact, it was fairly empty, except for the queen’s bed and a GIANT pool table in the billiards room. But the grounds were gorgeous! There is a Temple of Love next to a little pond, and in the back Marie designed an entire farming village complete with cows and goats and chickens, a mill, and cottages. It was an actual working farm two hundred years ago, and it looks like it is still functioning as one today.

The Belvedere

Marlborough Tower

On the way back to Versailles, we decided to rent a canoe out on the lake. David loves to row, so he took over and graciously rowed us around the lake for half an hour. During this time, he transformed himself into Jeeves. He stayed in character the entire time.

After we had worked up our hunger (especially our rower Jeeves, and Molly, who was eating for two) we headed back into the city to Relais de Venise, an all-you-can-eat steak restaurant. The place is extremely popular in Paris but they do not take reservations. So we waited in line for about an hour. And by we, I mean the men. Molly and I found some chairs near the restaurant and parked ourselves there. After all, she couldn’t be on her feet for that long and I had to keep her company!

This is where we (the guys) encountered our second Parisian line-cutter. After an hour in line, we still weren't to the front yet but a table became available outside the café. Out of nowhere a young man escorted his sister and mother to the table and just sat down. They didn’t wait for the hostess to seat them or anything. They just came from the back of the line and took the table for themselves. David was FURIOUS. But we weren’t even in the front yet, and if the people at the front of the line weren’t going to say anything, we weren’t. Plus we kept telling ourselves we didn’t want to eat outside with a long line of hungry people watching us anyway.

Now, this was not a typical American all-you-can-eat restaurant. There was no buffet. We sat at tables and had bread, salad, and wine. Then the waitress brought over a cart full of steak with special green sauce. And every so often, she’d walk by with a huge platter of frites (French fries) and pile them onto our plates. When we asked her what the green sauce was, she swore she didn’t know and refused to talk to us about it. Then Molly asked for ketchup, and she refused to talk to us altogether.  Just kidding!  But she was quite offended... 

On Sunday, we tried to make the most out of the Sylestine’s last day in Europe by seeing all the sites in Paris they hadn’t already covered. Molly was such a trooper walking all over the city, especially in the heat. But she did threaten to throw me over the side of the Eiffel Tower when I suggested we walk up instead of stand in line for the elevator. Luckily for her (and me!), they weren’t allowing anyone to walk up on Sunday, just down. And down was pretty easy, even for Baby S.

We started off Sunday morning on the Ile de la Cite, the tiny island in the middle of the Seine that houses Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame. We were going to eat breakfast first, but when we saw how short the line was for Sainte Chapelle, we took a detour into the church. I had never been to Sainte Chapelle before and it was really beautiful. The chapel was built by Louis IX, or Saint Louis, to house holy relics from Constantinople like the crown of thorns and a piece of Christ’s cross. Once I heard about this, I felt really bad because I realized maybe all of those ‘relics’ we saw in Istanbul (aka Constantinople) were legit! And I totally doubted it at Topkapi Palace and in this blog. Oops!

Rose Window

After Sainte Chapelle we stopped for brunch at a nearby café on the Seine. I had a delicious croque monsieur and the rest of the group had crepes. Then we hopped on the metro and headed to the Catacombs, where we ran into our third and final line-cutter.

The line to the catacombs was outrageous! We heard some man mumble, “Damn History Channel special!” so we figured there was some kind of show on the Paris catacombs and now it’s super popular. Because when I visited six years ago, I hadn’t even really heard of the place and there was no line.

This line wrapped around the corner from the entrance and then down the street! It was so much worse than Westminster Abbey the previous weekend, though probably not as bad as Versailles. But David kept us all entertained when he saw a piece of paper taped to a utility box. Some people had been playing tic-tac-toe. David quickly asked for a pen and jotted down some Catacomb jokes in the leftover blank spaces:

'Why didn’t the skeleton go to the prom?... Because he had no body to go with!'

'Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road?... Because he didn’t have any guts!'

Then he also wrote down ‘3 hours from this point.’ We must have been really bored, because we thought he was hilarious. But once we moved past the utility box, Molly got tired of waiting and wandered down the street to the local patisserie to pick us up some macaroons. Yay!

Meanwhile David spotted a bench with the perfect vantage point of his utility box. So he perched on the bench with Molly and ate macaroons, watching all the passer-by’s and their reactions to his jokes. It was so funny! Some people actually looked at their watches, others laughed, and one woman even took a picture of his work and then showed her husband. After he was done reading, they laughed together and hugged. David likes to think he saved their marriage.

Eventually we made it to the very front of the line (after waiting for well over an hour). Right as we were about to enter the ticketing office, a young couple appeared in front of us. We hadn’t been paying that much attention (David’s next utility box customers distracted us). But when we turned back around, we definitely did not recognize the backs in front of us! Immediately Jeremy (very loudly) asked them if they really just cut in front of us. They kind of snickered (the nerve!) and kept looking straight ahead. Then Jeremy pronounced he wasn’t above shaming someone out of line. Finally, the guy turned around and said sorry and patted Jeremy’s shoulder… but stayed in line! WHAT?! That was it! While the guys rallied the Americans in line behind us to gang up on the cutters and get them out of line, Molly and I jumped in front of them and stated that they were not cutting, but if the people behind us wanted to let them in, that was fine. Finally, the girlfriend turned around and tried to play the whole thing off by claiming, “We didn’t realize there was a line.” REALLY?! You didn’t see all 300 people standing around in line-formation around the building and down the street when you walked up? REALLY?! Well, that was enough to get them to leave. So they did. We shamed them all the way to the back of the line and prayed that David’s prophesy of ‘3 hours from here’ on the utility box would come true.

We were all still shaking from anger when we entered the catacombs, but we pulled ourselves together in time to enjoy the creepiness. Well, almost all of us. Molly was really creeped out. See, about 200 years ago, the city cemetery was too full. So literally millions of bones (around 6 million people total) were transported to tunnels deep underground (much further underground than the sewers or metro system). It took over a year to carry all of the bones and rotting corpses across the city at night to their new home. There are lots of interesting facts about the catacombs though. For instance, Charles X used to throw parties down there and even today people manage to sneak in and have parties (champagne bottles are frequently found). And during WWII, the French Resistance used the tunnel system as their headquarters. The system was also described by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables.

Passage down into the catacombs

It tooks years to carve this castle into the rock

Bones of victims of the French Revolution

After being in the dark underground for over an hour, we needed some sunshine. So we walked through the Luxembourg gardens headed to St Sulpice, the church made famous in The Da Vinci Code for containing the Rose Line and an obelisk sundial contraption.

Luxembourg Gardens and Palais du Luxembourg, today's Senate building

Pantheon

Altar of St Sulpice

On our way, we stopped at La Closerie des Lilas, a cute garden restaurant where famous men like Picasso and Ernest Hemingway used to drink. We got some drinks ourselves and I ordered crème brulee.

The Sylestines wanted to end their trip at the Eiffel Tower at night, so we picked up a couple of bottles of wine and headed to dinner. We still had a few hours before the sunset so we ate at a tourist trap and relaxed. We must’ve had too much sun and wine and gotten restless because eventually we started acting pretty goofy. Plus our waiter was ridiculous. He kept randomly walking past our table and singing to us, so David got into the spirit of things and sang him a song in Frenglish…

Eventually we left and walked down the street to the Eiffel tower. We got to experience the sunset and the tower lit up at night. Even though David is terrified of heights and hated the journey to the tippy top and the walk back down, we had a lot of fun.

The next day, the Sylestines sadly had to head back to Austin and David and I took it easy. We knew we would be back to Paris in about two weeks when my family came to visit, so we didn’t feel like we needed to rush around and see everything. So we walked to my favorite place in Paris, La Place de la Concorde, to see the Egyptian obelisk from Luxor. Then we walked through the Tuilleries gardens down to the Opera house, and circled back around to the Madeleine Church and picked up macaroons at Laduree.

Place de la Concorde

Singing "Au Champs Elysees" on the Champs Elysees

La Madeleine

Eating madeleines on the steps of La Madeleine

While on the Rue Royal near Laduree, we saw the most amazing thing – a dog walking another dog.

See, there was a dog-walker with about 8 dogs in his pack. But we noticed some of them weren’t even wearing leashes (they were walking themselves) and one dog was carrying another leash in his mouth. I was so amazed that we followed them all the way down the street. At one point, the dog that was being walked by his dog friend tried to go the wrong way. So the dog dog-walker yanked him back on track. And then the leash got tangled in the dog's legs and the dog dog-walker somehow got him untangled. CRAZY! I would love to have that dog walker’s job. He didn’t even really have to do anything! Most dogs walked themselves, or others.

That was about all my mind could handle, so David and I headed back to the apartment to pick up our bags and then caught the Eurostar back home to London.  Our trip was great!  Definitely not a...

Full House

Work has been so crazy lately and our travel schedules are getting more complicated, so I made a mistake…

A couple of months ago our good friends Dave and Katie (who got married last November in Houston) and Cristy (who visited us this past winter) told us they wanted to come and visit this summer. A couple of weeks after that our friends Molly and Jeremy from Austin (who we’ve spent past summers at Possum Kingdom with) also told us they wanted to visit later this summer. Of course we said everyone had to come and stay with us!

Usually I am a very good planner (sometimes too much of a planner - for those of you who have seen my packing lists and laughed at me) but this time, I got the dates wrong and everyone showed up on the same weekend! Which just happened to be the weekend I was supposed to be in Slovakia for work. :( Luckily I realized my mistake early enough and was able to fly home on Thursday night to prep for the arrival of our guests on Friday.

Needless to say, we had a mighty full house! The only people missing were the Olsen twins (circa 1996).

Kirby was so happy to see all his old friends.  He wanted

everyone to play ball with him (hence the dirty tongue)!

We all had so much fun together! Everyone got along great, even though the Sylestines didn’t know the Vollmars and Cristy that well before the weekend began. But with all 7 people sharing one bathroom, we got to know each other pretty well!

We took it easy on Friday because Katie and Dave were sleepy from their Houston flight and Cristy was also tired from a long day of travelling across Europe. So we just walked to our local pub across the common and enjoyed some lunch and beers in the garden. After David got off work, we all went into the city and walked from Piccadilly Circus to Covent Garden. In Covent Garden, we had drinks and watched street performers from the balcony of Punch and Judy, an old puppet theatre, now a pub. We had dinner at an outdoor Italian restaurant and then headed back to get lots of sleep before our weekend of site-seeing. Well, at least the girls did. The guys stayed up all night chatting (wait! isn’t that what the girls are supposed to do?) and smoking cigars (not something girls are supposed to do).

The Texas gang at The Grange (Katie really loved this place since she's from La Grange)

The next morning we slept in REALLY late and then the Sylestines arrived. Molly is preggers, so she and Jeremy needed a nap before beginning their European "babymoon." David and I took the rest of the group to Westminster Abbey, which I hadn’t been to in over 6 years. I forgot how much I love Westminster, and it was especially cool to see it again after the Royal Wedding. It was so crowded though. Tourist season has definitely begun! The line stretched all the way around the side of the building. It went fast though and the audio guide was only an hour long, which gave us just enough time to run over to Borough Market for some snacks before dinner on the Thames.

Molly and Jeremy met up with us at the pub for dinner, where Jeremy and Dave enjoyed their first fish ‘n chips meal. After dinner, we crossed Millennium Bridge and walked along the Thames to the Tower of London. On the way, I finally got to see London Bridge… which was terrible! It’s just an old, ugly bridge – what a let-down!

David and me on Millennium Bridge with Tower Bridge in the background (and ugly London bridge)

They used to keep the gates open at night around the Tower, so visitors could admire Tower Bridge and parts of the Tower, like Traitor’s Gate, lit up. Unfortunately, the gates were closed when we got there, so instead we walked across the street to show the group the old Roman wall.

Everyone got a kick out of David, who has no sense of direction and started leading the group in the totally opposite direction of the wall. They also enjoyed his commentary throughout their visit. He loves to make up ridiculous ‘historical’ stories. But the scary thing is, people actually believe him! You’ll hear more about this in the Paris blog coming up next…

On Sunday, we started our day with a delicious breakfast at Tom’s Kitchen in Somerset House, the Tudor-style palace built by Edward Seymour that now functions as a museum. The breakfast was sooo good. I had a banana milkshake and brioche French toast with cinnamon cream and caramelized apples. My sweet tooth was obviously screaming at me that morning!

Afterwards we took the group to the London Dungeon. Cristy was TERRIFIED and it must’ve shown because she got selected to participate in the courtroom, the torture chamber, and she got the beejeezus scared out of her in the operating room. Even though that was my third time to the dungeon, it's still so much fun. I love seeing everyone's reactions. And it’s different each time, too. There are different exhibits and even a new ride coming out this summer.

Unfortunately, Sunday evening I had to head back out to Slovakia for work. The rest of the gang went to a local restaurant for dinner and was even able to include me (by putting my picture up in an empty chair). Awww so sweet!

Last week I was at the W in Dallas for work and Cristy and Katie were also there! So we were able to spend some girl time together celebrating the Mavs victories literally across the street from the arena with all of the sports celebrities and ABC/ESPN sports casters none of us recognized…

And David and I got to spend some extra time with the Sylestines the next weekend in Paris! So stay tuned for the Paris blog!

Istanbul

Two days after David and I returned from Greece I had to hop on another plane back to Eastern Europe. This time I was being sent to Istanbul for an audit, and I was really excited because I had never been to Turkey before and David was able to fly in on Friday to spend the weekend site-seeing with me.

Istanbul is the only city in the world to span two continents - Europe and Asia. The city is divided by the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Marmara Sea to the Black Sea. The huge Bosphorus suspension bridge spans the strait and connects the two continents. Our audit team decided to stay in Beyoglu, the modern European section of Istanbul known for once housing foreign consulates before Ankara became the capital of Turkey. But the Dell office is located in Asia so this made our commute each morning and evening about an hour long. But I’m used to that living in West London and commuting out to the ‘burbs all the time so it wasn't too bad. And once I arrived, the work week FLEW by. I hadn’t been to work in 11 days, so I had A LOT to catch up on and a ton of meetings scheduled with the local Turkey team.

Our first night in Beyoglu the team went out for traditional meze platters (kind of like Spanish tapas, lots of little appetizers). Afterwards we walked back along the main pedestrian street, Istiklal Cad, to get ice cream and roasted chestnuts for dessert. There are a lot of trendy bars and restaurants in the area and cute bookstores and shops. One enormous store sold Turkish delight, fresh or boxed. I could not believe all of the different flavors available. The candy store was huge!

On Thursday night, we had a team dinner with some local Istanbul residents at a trendy restaurant, House Café, in Ortakoy, a bit further from the city center. I chose the traditional pounded steak with caramelized onions and small potatoes. At night, the area around Ortakoy is filled with local bars and a thriving nightlife. It's supposedly a celebrity magnet, but I didn't see anyone I would've recognized. 

Mecidiye Cami Mosque and Bosphorus Bridge from Ortakoy

Friday afternoon I moved from the Dell hotel in Beyoglu to a boutique hotel in Sultanahmet, the more historic district dominated by the Blue Mosque and Haghia Sophia. David arrived around midnight and we tried to get some sleep before our busy Saturday.

It was a bit hard to sleep in Istanbul though. It was warm the week we visited, but the hotels did not have working A/C systems, so we slept with our windows open. But the Muslim call to prayer occurs five times a day, including around eleven at night and four thirty in the morning. Staying in Sultanahmet was a great location, except for this. Because of the number of mosques in the area all going off at the same time, I was woken up almost every morning. For those that haven’t heard the call to prayer, it is a bit haunting.

So David and I slept through our first alarm, but made it in time for breakfast. Turkish food is very, very similar to Greek food so it was chocolate cake for breakfast again for me! Pound cake with jam is also popular in Istanbul. After breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Blue Mosque.

The Muhammad Ali mosque we visited in Cairo was modeled after the Blue Mosque, so it was deja vue during this tour. The Blue Mosque is named after the blue Iznik tiles decorating the interior of the building. The construction of the mosque began in 1609 and lasted only 7 years but the building was controversial because it has six minarets, which rivals the mosques in Mecca, which many considered sacrilegious.

Across Sultanahmet Square is Haghia Sophia, a Byzantine church over 1,400 years old. The structure was built over two older churches and inaugurated by Emperor Justinian in 537. It functioned as a church for almost 900 years before the Ottomans converted into a mosque. However, unlike in Athens and other areas of Europe where the Christians destroyed any non-Christian works of art when converting buildings into churches, the Muslims believe in many of the same Christian prophets so they left all of the original artwork in the building.

Mary holding baby Jesus next to the Emperor and Empress

The church is now a museum, with the highlights being one of the original Byzantine friezes of sheep, the colossal nave, the mosaics, and the galleries accessed by a ramp. Next to Haghia Sophia are the mausoleums of many sultans and their families. I could not believe how many children are entombed there. But I guess if you had a harem full of wives and concubines, you are bound to produce a lot kids. And without modern medicine or the knowledge of babies that we have today, sadly many of those children didn't survive. We visited the mausoleum of Murat III, who fathered 103 children.  The 400 year old mausoleum contains his remains and 54 other sepulchers of his family, including his favorite wife and many children. 

After leaving the grounds of Haghia Sohpia, we walked a short distance to the Pudding Shop, a famous restaurant known for its delicious puddings. David had a de-constructed gyro and I had zucchini stuffed with a cheese blend covered in mashed potatoes. For dessert, we split a vanilla and chocolate pudding.

After lunch we walked to Topkapi Palace. Topkapi Palace is an enormous palace complex built in the mid-1400s by Mehmet II after he conquered Constantinople.

The most interesting thing about the palace is definitely the harem, the residence of the sultan’s mother, wives, and concubines. At one point, over 1,000 concubines lived in this section of the palace. Competition was stiff between the women to become the sultan’s favorite, and maybe even his wife. One infamous wife, Roxelana, was so cut-throat she had the sultan’s grand vizier strangled and later, his heir murdered by deaf mutes.

Inside the courtyard of the harem

The other highlights of the palace were the Treasury, which houses an 86-carat diamond, and the Costume Room for visitors to view the sultan’s XXL robes. Most of the paintings of the sultans depicted them as morbidly obese, which explains why their clothes were ginormous. There is also a Holy Mantle Pavilion, full of "holy relics." I had never heard of this place before, but it was one of the main attractions. The rooms were overflowing with people clamoring to get a view of Moses’ staff, David’s sword, and part of Joseph’s skull. I’ve seen "relics" like this before. In Bruge, there is a small church that claims to have a vial of Christ’s blood. I paid a lot of money (for a penny-pinching student studying abroad) and stood in line for a long time to see that vial. But who really knows where this stuff comes from? That staff could’ve just been some stick someone found in the Sinai. Maybe I'm just a skeptic, but it’s very hard for me to believe that I’ve never heard of this place that supposedly contains all of this important relics. Even now that I know Topkapi Palace is considered a pilgrimage site for Muslims and a UNESCO World Heritage site, it’s still hard for me to believe those objects are what they say they are.

An unhappy David on the Circumcision Pavilion of Topkapi Palace. 

Topkapi Palace is so enormous, you could literally spend all day there. The park around the grounds is also very nice, as it sits along the Marmara Sea. But we only had a weekend, so we headed out after a few hours and walked across town to the Grand Bazaar. This bazaar was also enormous! There weren’t stalls, like in the Cairo bazaar we visited a few months ago, but actual stores so it felt more like an outdoor mall to me. This was a lot better because we didn’t feel pressured to really buy anything. But when I saw a Turkish delight store, David and I had to go in. We chose 4 boxes - pomegranate, plain, mixed fruit, and mixed nut. The clerk originally said 50 Turkish lira, but I had heard to offer about 60% less. So I said 30 and stuck to it. I thought I did a great job bargaining but later we saw an ad for 5 boxes for 20 lira. Dangit! I guess I'm not as good a bargainer as I thought I was! :(

After the bazaar we had dinner outside at a hotel café and then headed to a Turkish bath…

DISCLAIMER – The following section around our Turkish bath experience can get pretty graphic, so don’t continue reading if you don’t want to hear about a bunch of naked people bathing together.

A Turkish bath, or hamam, is kind of like a sauna/bath. Karen did a hamam in Morocco a few months ago and raved about it. But one of my coworkers also did a hamam and said it was one of the worst experiences of his life, but keep in mind he doesn’t really like being touched. Well I’ve never even had a massage before, so it was basically like someone who’s never had chocolate indulging in a hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream and Oreo crush-ins. I dove right into the experience!

There are two historic Turkish baths in the city – Cagaloglu and Cemberlitas. Cagaloglu is 300 hundred years old, on the list of 1,000 Places To See Before You Die (the NY Times bestseller), and it was closer to our hotel. So after David and I drank maybe a bit too much at dinner and convinced ourselves it would be fun, we walked to Cagaloglu ready for our baths. Immediately after we entered, I was whisked away to the women’s section and David proceeded to the men’s.

Cagaloglu Bath Entrance

I wish I had had a friend with me because I had no idea what I was doing. And I was one of the only women in there alone. Apparently it’s very popular in Turkey to bathe with your girlfriends. I think there was even a bachelorette party going on in there.

Changing Room

So here goes:

I was given my own room to undress. But it was only when I locked myself into the room that I realized how unprepared I was for this experience! When we had left our hotel that morning, David was refusing to do the bath, so I didn't really think it would happen. Only when I was getting undressed did I realize I was about to be bathed and I hadn’t even brought a swimsuit with me or shaved my legs in days! The worst part was it was granny panty day! I kept telling myself my "bather/assistant” wouldn’t mind, that she’d probably seen much worse. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw a much older, much larger naked woman walk past my room. I have to keep reminding myself that Europeans have a totally different attitude towards nudity. Just the week before, while sunbathing on Thirassia during our boat tour, a full grown man stripped down to his birthday suit and went skinny dipping right in front of David and me! No qualms, just jumped right into the sea!

But I am NOT European so there was no way I was getting totally naked, so I kept my granny panties on but removed everything else. Then I walked back out wrapped in a couple of towels. They escorted me back into the bath area. I don’t know why I thought I would be getting a private bath, but when we walked back into the sauna room, all of the girls inside were completely stripped down, lying head-to-toe on a giant marble slab in the middle of the room, being bathed in front of everyone else! It was just strange for me, as a prude American, to see BFFs sitting around eating fruit, chatting it up naked.

I wasn’t even that nervous about being topless in front of everyone, though. I was more worried about all these ladies seeing my hairy legs and ugly underoos. The majority of girls were topless with swimsuit bottoms on but some wore bikinis and others were totally naked. I found a free spot on the edge of the marble slab and enjoyed the sauna for a while. Then my bather came over to me naked and told me to lie down for my exfoliation. Before she started, though, she put on a swimsuit uniform. I guess the staff present themselves in the buff to make you feel more comfortable. But it didn't work... So I just lied down on one of my towels and kept the other one wrapped around me. Well my bather was having none of that! She ripped that thing right off, exposing me to everyone. Oh well.

I quickly got over my embarrassment and instead tried to concentrate on the exfoliation, but it kind of hurt! I had even requested the softer towel for the exfoliation, but I guess when you’re scraping dead skin away, no towel is going to be that soft. After scrubbing me down, she proceeded with the soapy massage. It lasted about 15 minutes. And for my first massage, it was really nice! It was so relaxing that I didn’t even want to get up when she announced, “Lady finished!” She brought me over to a tub along the wall and rinsed me down, and then gave me a nice shampoo before sending me on my way.

I realized when I got back to my room that I would have to go commando on the half mile walk back to the hotel, unless I wanted to get my jeans wet too. That was unfortunate. I got dressed and then went back out to the common room to find David. He had a great time, except for the fact that he was just bathed by an enormous, half-naked Turkish man. They obviously do not let you take pictures inside the hamam, but I managed to sneak a pic of David during his bath…

Just kidding!  But this is exactly what it was like, so you get the idea...

In the end, I’m glad we did it but I think from now on, I’ll opt for a normal massage.

BACK TO NORMAL – For everyone that read the disclaimer and skipped the last few paragraphs.

On Sunday morning David and I met up with a tour group and headed to the Spice Market, where I was tired of bargaining and basically got ripped off buying a trivet, two bowls, some pistachios and chicken seasoning. I knew I was getting ripped off, but whatevs. In GBP, the cost was next to nothing anyway.

Then we stepped aboard a huge yacht with the rest of the tour group and started our Bosphorus cruise. We passed so many palaces for the sultans. One was a winter palace, another a hunting lodge, but the grandest of all was the Dolmabahce palace. I told David we had to tour that place before we left! What I don’t understand, though, is why most of the palaces are literally down the river from one another. If I was going to have multiple palaces, I would spread them around the country to see more places and meet more of my people.

Dolmabahce Palace

The sultan's hunting lodge

Winter Palace

The best part of the cruise was the Fortress of Europe. This fortress was built by Mehmet the Conqueror of Constantinople (same builder of Topkapi Palace) to aid in his conquest of Constantinople. It was built at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus to prevent foreign ships from entering the strait. After Constantinople was conquered, it became a prison. It was a pretty impressive structure.

We had lunch at a traditional Turkish restaurant in Taksim Square and then headed to Dolmabahce Palace. It reminded me of Buckingham because of its size and opulence and location in the city centre. It was built in 1856, so it’s still pretty well preserved. To continue to conserve the museum, they make all of the tourists wear little pink booties around inside and you’re only allowed in with an official tour to ensure nothing is touched or harmed. We did a Selamlik (state room) tour and a Harem tour.

The palace is no longer in use, except for the enormous Ceremonial Hall. Most recently Turkey has hosted other Europeans presidents here in an effort to get into the EU. The hall was so big I felt like I was in the nave of a huge cathedral or Mosque. No expense was spared here. The chandelier in the center was sold to the sultan by Queen Victoria and it’s supposedly the heaviest chandelier in the world.

Surprisingly, the harem was in use up until the 1920s when the Turkish Republic was established. The creepiest part of the harem is the sultan’s mother’s room situated between the sultan’s and the apartments of the wives. That way, the mother could watch over who came and went from her son’s bed. The sultan controlled the country, but the mother controlled the sultan’s love-life.

We finished both tours and then quickly made our way back to the hotel to pick up our bags and catch our late flight back to London. If you want to see all of the pics from last weekend, click here.