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Posts Tagged ‘europe’

Our first night out in Istanbul was a bit of a mixed bag, as we clearly struggled with both language difficulties and cultural norms. Based on the recommendation of the concierge at the hotel, we headed down to the harbour to find a restaurant. We didn’t have a specific place in mind, but we were told that there were plenty of good places and that we’d find one if we simply walked around the area.

After a few minutes of walking around, found a place that looked okay. There was a rather formidable woman in the window rolling dough and cooking something, and the place looked busy enough, so we went in.

Enticing us into a restaurant, Turkish-style

Enticing us into a restaurant, Turkish-style

Our first struggle was ordering a few beers. We ordered beers, and they were brought out for us – but they were weak and warm. After using our best sign language to indicate that we’d prefer cold beer, we were presented with a bucket of ice cubes! At this point, we sort of gave up on the beer idea and decided to order some wine as well. After considerable misunderstanding, the guests at the next table kindly stepped in and explained that the restaurant was Muslim and therefore didn’t serve any alcohol – which explained why our (apparently non-alcoholic) beer tasted so terrible. We reverted to tea.

Matt and Swami tuck into a Turkish feast

Matt and Swami tuck into a Turkish feast

The second problem was trying to explain that our colleague, Swami, was a vegetarian. The concept of a vegetarian is apparently unheard of in Turkey. After explaining politely to the waiter that ‘chicken’ wasn’t really a vegetarian option, we finally ended up ordering something from the big woman in the window – as best we can tell, it was some sort of bread with cheese and spinach. It wasn’t entirely successful, and Swami supplemented his dinner with a few bowls of peanuts at the bar we found afterwards.

Swami in the bar, enjoying a vegetarian diet of peanuts and beer...

Swami in the bar, enjoying a vegetarian diet of peanuts and beer…

We were drawn into the bar by the live music – which seemed like a good idea at the time. In fact, once you’ve heard the millionth song played on the lute with a dodgy Turkish singer, you’re about ready to shoot yourself. He kept turning to us and apparently asking for our requests, but as my Turkish is a little rusty, we weren’t able to comply. He seemed pretty disappointed that we weren’t singing along.

The taxi from hell...

The taxi from hell…

Our taxi ride back to the hotel was a little hair-raising, even by Turkish standards. I suspect we should have been tipped off by the sticker on the side of the cab. Hanging from the rear-view mirror was a shark’s tooth, which indicates slightly more risk-taking behaviour on the part of the taxi driver than, say, a crucifix. We made it back in one piece, but we were definitely more ‘shaken’ than ‘stirred’.

The hotel we’re staying at is brand new, but quality control doesn’t seem to have factored into the equation. Everything is falling apart despite its newness. The light switches are all wonky. The tap on the sink doesn’t work property. The tap on the shower came off the wall when I tried to turn it on. The air conditioning in the conference room doesn’t work. And the lights seem to go on and off at random intervals, plunging our conference room into darkness. At least it adds some excitement to the day.

Finally, a moment of light relief. Realise, of course, that I don’t normally use a bidet. And that I didn’t really intend to use a bidet. But curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to see how the combined toilet / bidet worked. Fast forward to a jet of water shooting out across the bathroom and out into the hallway and frantic mopping up with towels. I’ll stick to toilet paper, thanks.

Aude at the old harbour in Antalya

Aude at the old harbour in Antalya

Matthew at the old harbour in Antalya

Matthew at the old harbour in Antalya

Aude by the light of a lantern's glow...

Aude by the light of a lantern’s glow…

Our waiter, hard at work filleting the fish we'd ordered...

Our waiter, hard at work filleting the fish we’d ordered…

Matt relaxes over his dinner...

Matt relaxes over his dinner…

Matt isn't the only one who thinks the fish looks good...

Matt isn’t the only one who thinks the fish looks good…

Another beautiful day, most of which we spent at the beach. The beaches here are pebble, the waves are strong, and the water gets deep very quickly, so not great for swimming. It was probably our first and last visit to the beach until we get to Cesme, where the beaches are sand and the water is more shallow.

My animal magnetism seems to be working overtime. I’d barely sat down for lunch before one of the ‘hotel’ cats was sitting in my lap. We’ve dubbed him ‘President Cataturk’. And the cats here have obviously worked out that I’m a soft touch as they’re constantly begging at my table (and seemingly not others!)

We had another good dinner overlooking the harbour, Aude managing to charm the waiter so much that we left with flowers. I’m considering buying her a burka.

Matthew at the old harbour in Antalya

Matthew at the old harbour in Antalya

Aude at the old harbour in Antalya

Aude at the old harbour in Antalya

The view from our hotel room at the Sheraton Voyager Antalya

The view from our hotel room at the Sheraton Voyager Antalya

Aude ponders the world from atop a bridge at the hotel

Aude ponders the world from atop a bridge at the hotel

Turkish coffee!

Turkish coffee!

Turkish tea!

Turkish tea!

It’s a beautiful, bright morning in Antalya, Turkey, where we’ve spent the first few days of our honeymoon. After a few hair-raising moments in the rental car, I managed to find the hotel and dodge the worst of the Turkish drivers. The hotel, pool, beaches, and weather (30 degrees and sunny) are all perfect. We were met with champagne, flowers and the general honeymoon treatment.

The only thing raining on the parade is that I’ve managed to pick up a throat infection and have spent the morning at the doctor’s (for those of you who have never visited a doctor’s surgery in Turkey, it’s best to imagine something circa 1950s out of M*A*S*H – lot’s of hand-labelled glass bottles of disinfectant – it’s all a little scary, to be honest).

Aude has developed a pathological fear of the bees out here, which are the size of small birds, and has quickly abandoned her perfume.

Our biggest excitement seems to be the fact that no one believes that either of us live in England. Most assume we’re Turkish (helped, no doubt, by having spent a few weeks in the Mediterranean sun before we arrived), and those who don’t assume we’re Turkish guess Italian, Spanish, or German.

We had a nice meal last night overlooking the old harbour in Antalya – and had our first raki overlooking the port. No doubt we’ll be tired of kebabs by the end of two weeks here. The food has been universally excellent, but there’s a sameness to the cuisine here… We’ll see how we fare now that Ramadan has started – our dining choices may become more limited still.

We’ll be here for the next few days, then we’re off to the Aegean coast for five days there.

I set up this blog ages ago when I thought I was off to Malaysia for six months, but since then the answer to “Where’s Matthew” seems to have been “he’s at home” or “he’s someplace nice on vacation.” One by one, I’m having to hand back my airline platinum cards, exchanging them for gold, silver, and eventually, blue. I was beginning to enjoy the quiet life, the regular hours, and even the quiet time on my commute.

Now it seems that there’s been a real shift, driven by the increasingly global nature of the projects we’re taking on at work. Three weeks ago, I was in Paris meeting with a number of the partners there – any easy trip, via the Channel Tunnel, that had me home in time for dinner.

Two weeks ago it was a quick stop in Washington to spend the weekend visiting with my parents, then on to Chicago for a week-long training course – great fun, but I never even got to see the outside of the hotel.

Now it looks like I’m about to head off onto a project in Singapore, directly after the wedding. Just what every bride wants to hear – you return from honeymoon with your new husband, only to be told that he’ll be halfway around the world until Christmas.

After Christmas, it looks like I’m likely (as likely as it ever looks, this far from the date) to be working on a project with a hotel group across Europe, so I will be spending both my days and nights in hotels, and presumably, a lot of time on trains. Still – it stops me from getting bored, and there are still plenty of duty free opportunities worth having.

One by one, I’m building a new arsenal of premium metal cards, too – AA platinum here, UA gold there. I’m even making good progress on my Eurostar “Carte Blanche”…

Well, finally some progress on a number of fronts. After what seems like a lifetime of dealing with government departments, we have finally managed to gather together all of the documents we need to submit our wedding dossier in France. I’ve got certificates of just about everything, translated, stamped, and sealed by government agencies I didn’t know existed. I’ve even got a Certificate of Celibacy (which is basically a certificate that says “this certificate doesn’t exist in the UK” – come on, with the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe you don’t think we issue many of these, right?)

So arrived back from a couple of glorious days in Paris – beautiful sunshine and warm, clear skies (all of which I only gazed through the office windows) to be greeted by three days of rain for our three-day weekend in the UK. We had a lovely meal on Thursday night at L’Etoile, a horrendously-overpriced restaurant with a great view of the Arc de Triumphe. I caught the Friday night Eurostar back to Ashford and reminded myself again how civilised rail travel can be.

Three rainy days later and it was off to Amsterdam, this time via London City airport and the comfort of a VLM Fokker 50 turbo-prop. The weather was windy and the ride was bumpy – I fly a lot, and this was the sort of “I think I might throw up a little bit” kind of bumpy. I managed to land in Amsterdam vomit-free, but not before I’d managed to spill my half my Coke down my shirt. I like to do big first impressions when I arrive in a new town.

The Hotel Pulitzer was lovely – loads of old townhouses all knocked into one. Just as well, too, as I didn’t see the outside of the hotel much in the four days I was in Amsterdam. The course went really well (must have been down to the quality tutoring!) and, with the exception of a few Germans who wanted to be spoon-fed the methodologies, was received with rave reviews. I left on Friday night totally shattered and arrived at Schiphol to discover that my flight had been cancelled.

It was chaos at the airport – despite having a fully-flexible ticket, they couldn’t seem to load me onto another flight. My passport was being passed between the check-out counters like a hot potato. After thirty minutes of phone calls, they finally managed to get me onto a flight.

How the Dutch are the tallest people in the world is beyond me. The food was, without exception, crap. I hardly ate anything in four days. Breakfast was reasonable enough, but lunch consisted of sandwiches so stingy that even the English seem generous and thin, watery soup that would discourage even young Oliver Twist from begging for more.

Dinner was a choice of meats in gloop, surrounded by vegetables in gloop and served with potatoes in gloop. I don’t know what the Dutch name for our dishes was, but I suspect it was something like Meet en Gloop met Karrets en Gloop. Bear in mind we were staying in a 5-star hotel and eating at (supposedly) some of the best restaurants in Amsterdam. The monotony was only broken up by the unexpectedly pleasant starters – Smooked Feesh en Gloop.

Enough about Dutch cuisine. Back home on Friday night for a beautiful, sunny weekend in Canterbury. Mowed the lawn and caught up with errands on Saturday, then spent the afternoon in the park. Sunday we took the Corvette out for a spin to the Duck Inn, a lovely country pub, where we sat in the garden and had a lovely pigeon breast salad (“PoopenShijtenBuurdBoobs met kein Gloopsaus” in Dutch), then headed back to the park for a few beers and some sunbathing.

Off to my new client this morning, and a chance to do some real client work for a change. So far, so good – watch this space!

* Please note: the Dutch translations in this entry may not be entirely accurate. I don’t actually speak Dutch.