Ahoy! There are chocolate chips!

Istanbul’s got a lot. Great history, amazing tourist stuff (which I can’t do right now), the Bosporus, fantastic food, lots of hills, traffic, street dogs … the list goes on and on.

One thing it doesn’t have is chocolate chip cookies. There’s plenty of sweet stuff, don’t get me wrong. And it’s good stuff: baklava, dondurma, asure, tavukgogsu and beyond.

But sometimes you miss plain old chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, there are some cookies in Istanbul. When I take the metro, there’s some ad that shows constantly of this chocolate-and-vanilla cookie that has a drippy chocolate center. It looks good, but it’s not a chocolate chip cookie. My favorite cookie here is this awesome thing that is basically a round Twix bar. It’s so much like a Twix bar that it also comes shaped like a bar, and also in mini-cookie form. It’s fantastic, a great treat and I love to have one after dinner,  straight out of the freezer.

But it’s not a chocolate chip cookie. It’s an American thing, and I miss it.

Yes, like any good baker, I have a pack of chocolate chips on hand. It’d be un-American if I didn’t. And of course, it’s a bag of Nestle chocolate chips, complete with the Toll House recipe on it.

Reading Wikipedia, and I suppose I knew this somewhere in my brain, chocolate chip cookies were invented by chefs at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Mass. That’s why there’s the recipe on all Nestle chocolate chip packs, although you should really double the vanilla (and use real vanilla) for amazing cookies.

There are just no amazing chocolate chip cookies in Turkey. There are American foods you can get here, but the only American brand cookie I can find is Oreo. Don’t get me wrong, Oreos are great, but they do not contain chocolate chips.  Chocolate chips are necessary for a truly American cookie.

Last week, I baked cookies for a couple of upcoming parties. As I said I have the one bag of chocolate chips, but these cookies were to be for parties, meaning I would not be eating the bulk of them. So I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my one bag of chocolate chips to make cookies this time around. I went with sugar cookies. It’s a reliable recipe, and probably some interesting chemistry lesson: how does sugar, flour, butter-flavor Crisco, an egg, a little baking soda and some vanilla (not in the recipe, but, again, real vanilla makes EVERYTHING better) manage to taste so good?

But it’d be better with chocolate chips.

So, when I did the store run to Ankara yesterday –the monthly run to re-stock the consulate’s little American goods store – and found myself smack in the middle of an all-American grocery store, I went a little nuts when I found Chips Ahoy! cookies on clearance.

On the run, I stock on the few items I can’t find here but miss. I can live without them, but, hey, given the opportunity, why not, right? So I had three cases of root beer and four jars of alfredo sauce (in both cases, enough to last to the end of my tour), plus a bag of Cheetoes, Whoppers, Moon Pies, and Breyers mint chocolate chip ice cream. I buy healthy in Istanbul. The American run is decidedly not healthy.

When I saw the Chips Ahoy, I immediately grabbed a bag. (Incidentally, I HATE their repackaging. They used to have two little sleeves of cookies in each bag, but now it’s all plastic and “resealable,” which never works, and is a bigger waste of natural resources than anything.) They had maybe seven. They were $1.25. I’ve no idea why they were marked down.

I tossed one into my cart, then pulled out another, which amused the health food/guru who’d accompanied me. Then I figured what the heck and added a third pack.

Now, back in Istanbul, I regret not throwing in those other four packs. Chips Ahoy for $1.25!

I’m going to be so sick, but it’s going to be worth it.

Got through the milestone

For months now, I’ve had July 15 circled on my calendar. It’s been a rough tour so far, and that whole Fourth thing consumed my work world for months. I figured if I could make it through that, then have a weekend to recover, I’d be fine the following weekend.

When I set the date in my mind so long ago, I had no idea we’d have the S visit two days after the Fourth party – necessitating a mental break – and did not put together that July 15 would be the first anniversary of the coup attempt. For me, it was just the week after the party.

And it turned out to be a busy week. I finally started therapy on my shoulder, which I wrenched sometime in the winter. (I only remember this because I’d hurt it picking up a jacket.) I’d had the MRI in April, but still hadn’t carved out time to get back for the results. The paper results all said “no tear,” “normal,” and the like, so I knew I didn’t need surgery. And I was busy.

Monday was out, as that was the S wheels-up day, but I had to go Tuesday through Friday to the physical therapist. And as that in itself isn’t a time-suck, the commute there is brutal. The walk to the bus stop, then the bus to the metro and then, after five stops on the metro, a 10-minute walk to the hospital.

And all that for some guy to put ice and a shocker thing on my arm for 18 minutes, then to watch me do little stretches for about 10 and then more ice for 10 more. And then reverse the commute, head straight to work (uphill after the last bus, of course), work through lunch and then stay late to make up the time. Sigh.

And so far, I’ve still seen no progress. It’s irritating that, after having the MRI in April, I was told to not do any over-the-shoulder exercises, but that’s exactly what I’ve been assigned to do. Sigh.

It feels a lot like the other one did after surgery. And when the therapist or doctor tells me to do something with my good shoulder, I’m not really sure which one he or she is talking about. I guess the good news in all this is my right shoulder, the post-surgery one, is back to as good as it’s going to get.

The left one is just killing me, but I really am working it. I have to go back in tomorrow for another checkup, but I told them I just can’t get out there every day. The commute just sucks it out of me.

I feel like at this rate, I am never going to get back into the “normal work” swing. (I put that in quotes because I really don’t feel at any point this has been a normal assignment.) Last week I had the therapy four days, and this week, my boss it out at a training. I suppose it’s never normal, or the new normal, or whatever other cool catchphrase you’d like to enter.

But after all the Fourth of July planning, I’m ready to do some real planning – for me. I’m a year into this tour, which means I’m kind of overdue for my R&;R. Theoretically, this comes in the middle of the tour, but since I’m in management and it’s also the season when people come and go, I really am busy through August, so I’m looking at September.

The jury is still out on where to go, though.  I’d penciled in three places I’d be interested in spending about a week (the Baltics, Croatia or the Maldives) but am still waffling.  I ruled out Croatia already because I decided to do it on a long weekend instead. Right now, the Maldives – with a side trip to Sri Lanka – lead the charge.

It’s another milestone, and I’m looking forward to that one, too.

Just another manic Monday

My party is over! Our Fourth of July party was a huge success last week. We had over a thousand people at the Fairmont hotel, and I was on my feet for seven hours working setup, check in and takedown. I did get to mix and mingle for about an hour, and met a nice Texan who is here doing basketball camps for little kids.

I also popped in for the toast at our donor reception and met some folks from Little Caesars. Since I worked in Detroit, that meant something to me. I talked to them for awhile told them I where I’d worked and talked about Mr. Ilitch’s contributions to Detroit and his love of the city, the Red Wings and the Tigers (though not necessarily in that order). The man did so much for Detroit, and for those there, the whole pizza pizza thing was an afterthought. It was interesting to meet people who had no idea of his works outside Little Caesars.

Anyway, I got home from that at midnight and was up the next day for final preparations of an “S” visit – the Secretary of State was to be in town Sunday and Monday to pick up an award from the World Petroleum Conference in Istanbul.

This was the first time I’ve worked such a visit and oh my, the prep work that goes into it. Since I was planning the Fourth, I was spared of this but man, watching my colleagues kick it into gear. My friend Meltem pretty much organized the hotel logistics, and that’s a lot of rooms.

I did work the event, but I feel I had the easy part – baggage. Of all the moving parts going on with unconfirmed meetings and such, the two things we knew – when he’d come and when he’d go – were pretty much set. So I felt I got off easy, and would sign up for that gig anytime.

It was time-consuming, though. The stint requires you to get to the airport in plenty of time (coming and going) and stand on the sweltering hot tarmac until the plans arrives, then waiting on the formalities to be over and the motorcade to leave and then gathering the bags and taking them to the hotel. Upon return, you have to go to the hotel, collect and tag the stuff, then take to the airport in plenty of time. But the kicker is even though you’re done, you have to wait on the plane to leave just in case there’s some kind of delay that entails people to stay overnight.

So the fun part about that is, when you’re out on the tarmac and one of your colleagues, the TSA guy,  asks if he can look inside, you get to go too. So yeah, I did the geeky photo thing outside the plane, but I also did it inside, too.

Really, knowing nothing about planes (I got a quickie – won’t say crash – course from the TSA guy, who’s quite the guru) it mostly looked like a total business class flight but with computers instead of video screens. There was also the S office, with a regular looking desk and a little sofa across from it. You better believe I sat on the sofa and got a picture.

Three Stanley Cups and I never played superfan and drank out of it, held it or took a picture of myself with it but I was all over that plane. Hey, it’s mine – I’m a taxpayer!

And in it all, I did have a brief moment to attend the meet and greet. S – Rex Tillerson – came off as very informed and gracious and said he’d made a vow to “shake the hand of every State Department employee,” and then proceeded to do so with everyone in the crowded room. Very classy.

But it was quite a relief to have a safe “wheels up” and have the ordeal over. Now, it’s back to regular work, only I’ve been planning that Fourth party for so long that I don’t really remember what regular work is.

Loved Ljubljana, SLOVEenia

Took advantage of a long weekend to head to Ljubljana for a couple days, returning on Tuesday. If I haven’t extolled the virtues of Istanbul Ataturk Airport this month, allow me to do so – I love that I can fly so many places nonstop and for about $100 per hour in the air.

Dragon Bridge

Slovenia was under two hours away, and I would have taken advantage of the flight time to watch a movie had my in-flight movie thingie worked, but it didn’t. I was in an emergency exit row – had all the legroom in the world – and therefore my screen was a popup kind instead of in the seatback in front of me. I could not pull the darn thing up. The person sitting across the aisle, who had to have thought I was an idiot, kept trying to show me, but I couldn’t get it to work. I asked a flight attendant and he struggled, then he brought the lead flight attendant, who couldn’t work it, either. That thing was stuck.

So I didn’t catch up on my movies, which was a slight bummer. I’d seen the start of “The Accountant” last flight but wherever that was – Helsinki, I guess – didn’t have entertainment on the way back. But if that’s the worst thing about any given air travel day, I’ll take it.

The worst on this was the fact I had to wake up at 3 a.m. to get to the airport but I muddled through it all right.

Anyhoo, I picked Slovenia at random. I bought some kind of package deal months ago on Expedia and did almost no research before going. I certainly had no clue the First Lady was from there. All I did was book a side trip, which turned out to be wonderfully successful, through Slovenia Explorer.

Ljubljana is a fairly small – OK, really small – city in a fairly small – OK, really small – country. If I heard the tour guide correctly, it’s only 256 kilometers across; you could bike it in two days. OK, maybe not YOU, but some people could.) I figured I’d do the city for two days and do a side trip to the big country sites one day. And as it turned out, I had plenty of time left over, which was good.

I ate well, but not here

First, the side trips: I went to Lake Bled, which is the picturesque lake with an island (complete with nunnery that has 99 steps leading up to it) and castle overlooking it. The waters were so clear I could see big fish swimming!

We took the little boat to the island and putzed around for about half an hour. The place was LOADED with Asian tourists, like 3-4 boats of them. After living in a crowded Asian city and visiting many, many others over the course of two years, I am over throngs of Asian tourists. At the nunnery, I tried really hard to steer away from the many groups.

We went up to the castle after the boat ride back, and the views were phenomenal. I also bought a cool little cross made of iron, which almost didn’t make it back. The three ends on it (it’s a stand) are all pointed, and you better believe airport security took a second look at that, but they let me through. I had wondered about it and made sure to pack it with the other souvenirs so they’d know it wasn’t some weapon for a vampire hunt.

The weather on the whole trip was love/hate. The first day (more on that later) was incredibly hot, and Lake Bled day had torrential rain. My little day trip group was spared the worst, because the skies opened after we’d visited the castle and were sitting outside at a café eating little crème cakes, for which Bled is known for. We’d finished and were chatting when the waiter came and hustled us into the café and the skies absolutely opened. We made our way to the van, and I could see lightning strike the castle we’d just visited. It was really awe-inspiring, honestly.

Boat ride on Lake Bled

So, in the downpour, we headed to our afternoon destination: the Predjama Castle and Postojna Caves. The castle is built into a cave, though not the Postojna one. That one was HUGE. I’m no spelunker, but I’ve been in a few touristy caves, though nothing like this. The deal was, you got on an electric train and it took you for a 10-minute, 5-kilometer ride through the cave, so it was really deep. Then you got out and walked through another kilometer of it, and it was simply beautiful. And, knowing that Slovenia is a little bit of a seismic area, kind of gave me the creeps being underground.

The castle was pretty big, too, and had never been inhabited by royalty. I don’t remember the guy’s name, but a wealthy man lived there and the townspeople hated him because he was wealthy. One day – and this delighted the 8-year-old on the tour – he went into the bathroom (an outside room of the castle) and an employee stuck a candle in the window. That sent some kind of signal to the townspeople, who then launched cannonballs at the bathroom, killing the guy as he took a dump.

The kid on the tour just loved it. He went on and on about it, which made the adults pretty much laugh, too.

My kind of bouquet

We had good weather for the castle, and when we were in the cave, it poured again but since we were underground we didn’t notice or care.

The day before, the weather about killed me. My flight landed before 9 a.m. and I had expected to catch the bus into town, getting there about 10. But I found out the bus only went every two hours and wasn’t going to leave the airport until 10, so I took a shuttle to the hotel, landing me in the city about two hours before I’d planned. After dumping my bag at the hotel and grapping a map, I set into the city, well before 10 a.m.

It was flipping hot. I think it topped out at 91 degrees, which isn’t bad if you’re in air conditioning, but Europe doesn’t do air conditioning. I tried to stay hydrated but wasn’t sure if the water was OK to drink (it is; it’s straight from the Alps). I was wandering around and realized I was starting to get sick from the heat.

So I found a place to sit and eat – I was famished – and had a great grilled salmon and some kind of garlic-spinach-potato goulish-ish side dish. (It was listed as “side dish” on the menu.) That came from a food stall at this amazing outdoor market and oddly, although it was pretty cheap compared to what I’ve seen in my travels lately, wound up as the most expensive meal I ate.

Predjama Castle

By 2 p.m., I was full and had pounded lots of water but had a vice going on in my brain, so I headed back to the hotel, about a 15-minute walk away. After checking in, which took forever because of some high-maintenance tourists before me, I crashed in the room and discovered the whole no-air conditioning thing. Considering my state, this was not good. I opened a window – which was kind of odd because I was on a ground floor and there was no screen; it was basically another door. There was also construction going on outside, so I could hear their conversation.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty miserable and just wanted to catch a nap to make the migraine go away. I took an emergency migraine pill but it was too late. The nausea went away after I tossed my cookies -- and the goulish-ish side dish – and I eventually managed to fall asleep, or at least nap enough to make it go away. By 8 p.m. I was fine, and I went back into town, where I discovered the whole little market area morphs into a lively entertainment zone of sorts in the evenings. Lots of street performers and throngs of people, which is pretty amazing considering the country only has 2m people and the city about 225k.

All I did, which is all I ever do, was wander around and take pictures. There’s a river running through the city, so that made me happy – I just love water and boats. Plus, they had an awesome garden that I hit the last day. It was the end of rose season but the hyacinths were in full bloom.

I'm a sucker for boats, water and flowers. 

Since the river winds through the city, there are bridges everywhere, like every block. They all have names and personalities, too. I did the free city tour the last day and there was much on the main architect of the city, who designed the bridges to be wide town square-like areas with art on them to encourage milling about instead of just crossing.

The most photographed one is the Dragon Bridge. There are 20 dragons on the bridge, and I think I took 5-6 pictures of them myself, in as many different lighting ways as I could.

Dragons are big there because one lives in the castle, which overlooks the city. I heard the legend a couple of times, but didn’t really grasp it all. Something about Jason and his Argonauts; they had to take the Argo apart and carry it over a mountain, running into a dragon along the way, or something like that.

I tried to absorb some of the history, as I know barely anything about the breaking up of Yugoslavia. It seems the Slovenians miss Yugoslavia, for the most part, but their role in the breakup was peaceful. Something about Serbs – there weren’t a lot of them – and questionable borders. Slovenia has really distinct borders – two rivers, a sea and the Alps, so there really wasn’t much of a question as to what Slovenia would be, so the breakup was quick and peaceful.

But it was kind of odd to me, to talk to the tour guide about it. I’ve never studied the breakup of the USSR – it wasn’t in my high school textbooks because it hadn’t happened yet – and it was odd to hear it from a firsthand witness. He was born in one country and now lived in another, although he hadn’t moved. That’s a weird concept for me to grasp.