Travels with The Rayman

Dear readers, we are now proud owners of two Turkish carpets which we bought this p.m., our last day in Istanbul. What got into us? A good sales guy and real desire to have a couple of area rugs that we really think we will enjoy. So there you have it. Actually there is more to the story. Stay tuned.

The experience may have been worth the price. This nice fellow we met on the street had a carpet shop on a side street near the Koptaki Palace which we were going to visit. His carpet shop was 7 stories high and was filled with old tribal head gear and a massive amount of carpets. We had done the carpet buying thing a few days earlier so we had learned quite a bit about prices and quality of rugs from that experience. But that is all we knew. We also knew what we liked so finding something that would meet our need… not too large as we don’t know where the heck we’re going to end up after the sale of our house…was important to the process. Of course, the sales guy was certain that these sizes would fit anywhere. So we ended up with a runner and a rectangular carpet…oh, here are the pictures. What do you think?

 

 

 

So, here we are up in the air on the way to Cappadocia. I’ve had a 4 hour sleep night, very little to eat and I’m sitting on a plane with lots of head scarves. The flight attendants don’t wear them. The young girls don’t wear them. The men don’t wear them…but pert near everyone else has one on.

I was able to get free wi-fi at the airport after a bit of trying. That was good. Power stations are in short supply and I only have 39% of my battery left. The flight is a short one. Only an hour. We saw some snowcapped mountains but snapping pictures of them would have required me to climb on top of the nice young man next to me and I’m afraid he might give me a karate chop to the solarplexis so I decided to let that photo op go.

Last night the family got together again and after eating, the Rayman and I went to the hotel next door to peer off their rooftop patio to see the fading sky and the lit up mosques and landmarks. Extremely exotic and hypnotic all at the same time. Here’s some pictures. Please note the airplanes in the sky.

 
The Blue Mosque at evening time.

 
Our flight was to leave at 7 a.m. We left at 10:00 a.m. Will miss half the tour of day one. This will require some letter writing and stern talk with the tour operators. Had I not checked the flight status last nite, they would have retrieved us from our apartment at 4 a.m. But because i did check at 11 p.m. last night, I called the company and got the pick up time changed from 4 a.m to 6 a.m.

The fellow is speaking over the plane system and I have no idea what he is saying even when it’s in english. His accent is way thick. Hoping it’s not something like, “Ladies and gentlemen, we just make an unexpected landing. One engine fell off.” Oh, well. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Judging from the fact that no one seems alarmed, I have just kept on blogging.

Istanbul as a reflection here, is beautiful. The mosques, churches, frescos, mosaics, cisterns…the list goes on and on are ancient and beautiful. The people are friendly and helpful. It’s a must-see place if you want to visit a secular muslim country with a rich history. As I said in one of my earlier blogs, it is a city of contradictions.

Just took a peak out the window. Looks like Bonneville Salt Flats or the Great Salt Lake below us. A large expanse of white. But I digress.

Istanbul is built on many hills around the Strait and beyond. It really reminds us of San Francisco in some fashion. Quite beautiful even with the lack of building codes. Most of the old structures have been fitted with braces as columns are leaning. The ayasofya was almost scary in that regard. Huge marble columns on one side lean like the tower of Pisa. Only they are massive support beams inside the structure. Oh, my. I would not be surprised to see them close it one day to either fix it or condemn it. But, what do I know. Just an impression I came away with by a cursory observation.

So, I’m skipping ahead to the end of the day. It’s 2136 in military time and I’m tucked in and ready for some well deserved sleep. In the past few hours this is what has happened. When we arrived at the Kayseri airport, our guide met us and he did not speak a word of english. Because our tour was late, he drove like a crazy man to get us together with the group we were to have been with. He drove in the middle of the road whenever he could. He passed with free abandon. The sights were a blur. I was too busy watching this maniac race toward the finish line. We were to hook up with the group near Cappadocia. As we screeched in to a plaza full of people, he stepped on the brake and we were there. At that point we joined the group and we were placed in the back of a van that held about 16 people. Maybe 2 seats were empty. The van was stifling hot. Much hotter than outside but in their infinite wisdom, the Mercedes people designed this particular van with the inability to open a window. OMG. It was so hot. Our own private sauna.

This van transported us to lunch and then to an underground network of caves. They were incredible. The ceilings were very low and I managed to knock my head on the ceiling 5 times. And it hurt. The people that lived in the region took it upon themselves to carve caves in the for protection. They hid in the caves from enemies. The stone is soft as it is sandstone. Soft unless you hit your head on it, that is. And it goes down, down, down. We only saw 1/10 of one underground city of seventeen. Here’s a link to the right so you can read about it if interested. And here’s some pictures.

 

 

Notice the tall guy in the back. These caves were, well, low-ceilinged.

 
Delighted to be there. It was very cool in temperature. Almost scary.

 
Actually, some people had a place in the tour where they could bail if it was too…well, too. And many in our group did. Rayman and I soldiered on. It was way to interesting…unbelievable to forgo.

After we emerged from the caves, the tour van stopped at a jewelry shop. That’s one of my pet peeves. I don’t like to pay a lot of money to be hustled. So, we ran through that and jumped across the road to where the real interest lay. Here’s some pictures of Pigeon Canyon so named because there were fruit trees planted in the valley and they bred pigeons for a source of fertilizer. The orchards are gone but the birds remain. We saw one white pigeon mate with another while there…no sense of modesty at all.

We then boarded the steaming hot van to travel to a castle. Here it is.

 

Some chap decided to add interest to the scene and make a little money but placing a camel at the site for picture taking purposes. That is where I took a picture of these camel toes. The castle was a “stagecoach” stop for caravans of camels and people making some sort of trek. Impressive.

 

 

 

 

 
Then the hot van delivered us to our hotel. What a dive. We were both hopping mad because we had paid a sizable sum for this tour and 1. we had missed 25% of it and 2. the van was hot 3. the bathroom had mold everywhere and the room was a dump. Oh, an aside. The call to prayer just started. It sounds really good in this land of mystery. The acoustics are great. When one mosque starts the call, the others join in one by one. It’s sort of like row, row, row your boat except the voices aren’t harmonizing and the words are all different. Still, it is very impressive.

But I digress. So, I wrote the company an email with my complaints and demands. No sooner had I sent it from the lobby of this place, the phone rang and it was for me. Negotiations ensued and we ended up in the suite of this place with not one bit of mold, a private tour all day tomorrow, and upgraded hotels for the rest of our tour. And…after suffering buyers remorse on the carpets, I received an email from the carpet sales guy who threw in another rug free gratis for our trouble because he was answering an email I sent him. I complained about his modus operandi in some many words. Well…we were both so happy at the outcomes of my letter writing campaign, that we found a restaurant and preceded to drink and eat ourselves into a state of euphoria given the surrounding views. Here’s some pictures
Our first room above.
Our second room, same cave hotel. From the outside below.
See the people up there?

 

Rayman at the gate of a cave hotel.

Cappadocia is a designated World Heritage Site. There is nothing on earth like it. Or maybe there is….I just haven’t seen it. And it is fabulous. There I go again.

So, it is time to retire in my bed of silk sheets, with the Rayman, and pleasant thoughts of this unusual land. Tomorrow is another day in our Turkish trip and it promises to be a long one culminating in late flights, rides from Izmir to Kad….and a check in at an upgraded room around 0130. That’s 1:30 a.m. I’m exhausted but so high on scenery that I’ll just soldier on with the Rayman to see what’s next here in the land of mystery.

Today after we returned from our carpet buying/Palace touring experience, Kristen burst into our apartment and said, “I really screwed up. I bought the wrong detergent. It was bleach. I’ve ruined my new dress.” OMG. Luckily for us, about the only clothes I had washed were whites and lights. Susie washed one levi shirt of the Rayman’s with their dark clothes today but it came through okay, possibly a bit lighter. So, I was really, really lucky. Not knowing the amount of detergent and because I thought it smelled, well, a little bleachish, I only used about 3 tbsp. of liquid thinking the detergent might include bleach. Many ways to have an adventure…who knew it would involve laundry detergent.

We leave at 4 a.m. tomorrow for our Cappadocia tour.

It’s Saturday morning in Istanbul and has happened everyday since we have arrived, we have been awakened by the seagulls that hang out in our hood. There is actually a seagull nursery on the roof of the building attached to our building. That building doesn’t have as many floors as ours so we get, if you will pardon the pun, a bird’s eye view of the nursery. The thing is, though, is that these seagulls (probably not the accurate name…gull is probably the accurate name) don’t sound like gulls, they sound like monkeys. It’s like living in a rain forest in Africa. Every morning the monkeys talk, or so it seems. And they are loud to the point that they will wake us up whereas the call to prayer an hour before dawn is a distant memory…we sleep right through that.

But I digress. Yesterday we went to the Grand Bazaar. It was so not like what I was expecting. I pictured it more like the spice market. The Grand Bazaar was founded in the first century. And it is a building of grand design and proportion. Fabulous in a word. And huge. And beautiful. Below is a shot of the ceiling. Really, Herrod’s has stiff competition. I actually liked this better because of all the guys trying to hustle you into their stores. Annoying and at the same time fun. I am at a loss to explain it.

 

 

 

 

 

I made of point of announcing before our pilgrimage to the Grand Bazaar that I did not intend to buy anything. This is because there currently is a problem taking place back at the old homestead. In jumping through the hoops of a home sale, it was discovered that our water heater had 1. failed and 2. was leaking. And who discovered this? The buyer’s home inspector. OMG. The bad news was we needed a new water heater and the leaking was causing the carpet to be wet in the hall. The good news was they found it before the water heater moved from the leak phase to the all out flood phase. And the worst part was that we were not there to deal with it. Nancy of Ridgecrest and her sister, Ginger, of Georgia who were there dog sitting Beau…were left in a situation of boiling water to wash dishes. They couldn’t even shower.

Meanwhile, back at the Grand Bazaar, we were there to look at carpets for a friend of Kristen’s (Susie’s daughter) but before we even found the carpet store ( an aside, this is the carpet store that my cousin bought her carpets at a few years ago so there is a relationship with this carpet store owner), I had managed to buy a carpet bag, read soft sided purse. So much for my resolve on not buying anything. It probably wasn’t 10 minutes into the Grand Bazaar that I made my purchase.
Here is the Rayman in the carpet store. When we arrived at the store, tea was offered, a lovely tradition. Carpeted stools were furnished. Conversation ensued. And then the viewing of the carpets began. A symphony of motion. Carpets unfurled. Carpets folded and reversed as they look different from each end. Carpets folded and tossed aside. Sometime the carpets came from the room we were in. Sometimes the carpets were carried in to the store from undisclosed locations. Perhaps the second store nearby? Carpets were measured. Carpets were compared to one another and to a picture of a carpet Kristen’s friend had bought previously that resided on Kristen’s iPhone. Ah, shopping in the digital age for old Turkish carpets. It was quite an education as the carpet store owner really knew his stuff. Carpets hale from regions and tribes and the good ones are made with color from vegetable dye. Then there was the weave. It became apparent to us that you need a trusted source to invest in these magnificent carpets.

When it was decided that more rugs were needed from the warehouse and a trip back to the Grand Bazaar was required tomorrow, the rug store owner whipped out a rug I had mentioned that I liked. And the sales pitch was on. After much hemming and hawing…we decided to have him hold it and let us sleep on it.

We then left the rug store, of which there seemed to be hundreds, and I bought some souvenirs for the doggie sitters and we had an opportunity to see a hookah smoking establishment.

 
Also snapped this picture of the watermelon vendor…when he wasn’t looking. Didn’t want to upset him…in case he didn’t like people photographing him. You never know.

 

 
Then it was back to the apartment for a family get together and some completely interrupted sleep….interrupted by concern and worry of what was happening to our water heater situation.

The new water heater had to be drained and removed, it seems, in order to RIP OUT PART OF THE WALL. OMG. Meanwhile, Nancy and Ginger and Beau had gone to Bakersfield to see a country singer performance that had been on the books for some time. No one was home. Our realtor was handling things. And we were in the dark. How much would all this cost? When would it be done? Which wall? Our minds were racing. Hands were being rung while fans were drying the carpet that we did own at home.

So…that was our bazaar and bizarre day in Istanbul.

Post script. We decided against the carpet. Another thing to move. Our color scheme would require a change. The dog might chew on it. Too many issues. So we are still in possession of $900 that we would have spent for the beautiful Turkish carpet.

Yesterday I hit the wall. Between heat and jet lag and trying to keep up with Ali (a very fast walker)…I was ready to do nothing, nada, zip. What nothing looks likes is first sliding out of the apartment down to the Starbucks, the nicest I’ve ever seen. Here’s the Rayman and Larry headed toward Starbucks.

 

 
We then went back to the apartment and did nothing in particular until early afternoon (3 pm) when we went to a Byzantine church from the 11th century and looked at the incredible mosaics. Here are a few pictures I snapped.

 

 

Here’s a picture of a mosaic man and below it us a close up of the foot in the same mosaic.

 

 

 

 

Information about the church
http://www.choramuseum.com/articles/thomas-whittemore-has-been-chipping-away-plaster-walls-off-for-14-years/

On the way in I took this picture of the outside because it was so architecturally interesting. See below. And then after the viewing we had to wait for a ride to grandma’s house and while waiting I struck up a conversation with a man sitting by the cab pick-up point and I asked him if I could take a picture of him having determined that he spoke english when I bent down to rub a leaf of a plant that looked like basil…but wasn’t…and he then told me it was a flowering plant that would bloom in a month of two from now. The picture follows.

 

 

 

 

 

We were invited to grandma’s for tea. I expected tea and crumpets but it was a full blown meal. Pictures of the event follow. It was quite lovely and the only thing I ate all day except for the gelato cone that I had for lunch. The stuffed bells were fabulous as was all the food. She made a fava bean molded dish that was excellent.

 
And here we are gathered round.

 

 

 
After our meal, we sat around and shared with each other some of the pictures we took. Her home is in the basement of a building which actually is a good place on a hot summer day. She has two windows looking out at sideway level and I decided to try to capture a picture of someone walking by…I have to be honest, a muslim woman in all black. Never could get it right but I did get a shot which I share here.

 
On our way to events, I took these pictures of the wedding dress stores. The particular street had dozens and dozens of these stores. Ironic. Perhaps the muslim women are allowed to get all gussied up for their wedding as it is the last time their skin will be seen except for hands and face and an occasional foot. Don’t know. Just saying.

 
The rides to and fro were amazing. I felt like I was in a car chase scene. In Istanbul the car drivers play a game with the pedestrians and pedestrians play a game with the car drivers. It is called, “let’s see how close I can come to you without killing you outright”. And the car driver goes as fast as possible tooting the horn to warn of impending death or crashes with other vehicles. On the way back Ray was on one side of the backseat, I on the other and Susie in the middle. That’s when she decided to look up on her iPhone the song, “Stuck in the Middle with You” and we sang it out loud with the volume up and windows down…too much fun…as we zipped toward our destination. The Turks who saw us seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. And I snapped these pictures. Oh, and no, we only had tea and Turkish coffee with lunch.
The Rayman and the Roman aqueduct. Below is a big sign on the bridge.

 

 
For the evening, everyone converged at a hotel rooftop restaurant and bar for a drink and a view. I stayed back and worked on my blog. End of a very relaxing day. Cooler too. A breeze picked up and we were all relieved. And it’s cooler today also.

Well, we’re off to the Grand Bazaar. This should net some fine stories!!

It’s hotter than hades here. And I just can’t get over these women running around with long double-breasted coats, scarves on their heads, clothes underneath. It is really unbelievable that these women put up with this tradition. I’m sorry to say this but from my perspective, this is nuts. As with all religions, it seems to be about men controlling women. And it seems particularly cruel since the muslims live in all the hot spots. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia…the whole Arabian peninsula. They don’t live in Alaska and the Antartica. And of course, they live in hot, hot, hot Turkey.

Okay. So I have a question. How do the Turkish women use a Turkish toilet? I have to admit that I have never tried to use a toilet that requires you to squat. So that makes me a neophyte. Today necessity required that I do so but I didn’t’ know what to do. Do you face forward? Backward? Sideways is out of the question but that’s about the only thing I was sure of re: the W.C. of this variety so I just let my imagination run wild. I was wearing a levi skirt that is about knee high…thank goodness. However, what do I do with my underwear? Just saying. After trying different positions, I settled on a plan that required me to take one leg out of my undies and do the best I could. The question of whether I peed on myself remains unsettled. Oh. And then it came time to “dry” myself. What? No toilet paper. How was that suppose to work? Not very well was the answer to that question. And I certainly will not bore you details now. Enough humiliation for now. Suffice it to say, I’m glad I went but I was completely not glad the way I went. But this led me to wondering how the the Turkish women do this? Let’s see. Undies, long pants, robe or coat…and sandals in some cases. It boggles the mind. I know what I am going to do when I get internet access again. I’m going to google “how to use a Turkish toilet” and “how do muslim women use a Turkish toilet”. I need to know.

Having said this… we’ve been here for days now and this is the first time I’ve seen this “arrangement”. And I was forced to use it because we were on a ferry that took us from the Golden Horn to the Bosphorus Strait to the edge of the Black Sea…a captive audience if you will. And on that cruise, I figured out how I would make money in Turkey. Cushions. Yes, cushions. It turns out that the coolest spot on a ferry is the outside and the only seating available on the side of the ferry on the outside is made of wooden planks. Wooden planks are very uncomfortable on your derrière. Therefore, if i could start a company that rented cushions, I’d make a fortune. Because really, my derriere is still sore tonight. And I did a fair amount of standing up for the 2 hour-each way cruise up the Bosphorus Strait. And people would love me for thinking of this elegant solution. Of course, the ferry company might prohibit me from doing this because…well, they could do it. Palms would have to be greased. Asses kissed perhaps. I’d have to donate to politicians campaigns. Oh, heck. Forget it already. I think I’ll just suggest the ferry company rent cushions for their customers’ comfort. After all, I am retired.

The ferry may have been the only place that was “cool’ today because of the breeze generated by the moving ferry. It was about 90 today with high humidity and I understand this will continue for the rest of our stay. Glad I left my fur at home. And when we travel to Cappadocia, it will be in the interior of Turkey. I may have to stay in my cave hotel for the duration as I am told caves stay cool.

The end of the line brought us to a small village that was made up entirely of tourist traps…food and trinket traps. We were held captive there until the ferry started back…about 2 1/2 hours. I’m happy to report that the one toilet I used at the restaurant was modern and clean and did not involve squatting. It’s the little things in life. We spent the time eating, drinking, looking for a nonexistent park, eating some more and drinking some more because that is the only way we could get near the water. Six steps away from the water and air got hot and the breeze was no where to be enjoyed. At the end of our time there, we jumped backed on the ferry and cruised back. The cruise itself was instructive because the Bosphorus Strait cuts Istanbul into two parts. One part of the city is on the European continent and the other half of istanbul is on the Asian continent. The only city on earth that straddles two continents. And since all peoples of the world like to live near the ocean, this city of about 10 million people is comprised of dense neighborhoods with common wall residences. It is very densely packed. Zero lot lines would be a luxury.

 
Here’ some pictures. Above is our neighborhood from the water. Below is old and new.

 

A mosque and skyscraper. Below is an old fortress the Ottomans.

 
Ali and moi at the restaurant and a boy jumping from the bridge into questionable water…lots of debris and jellyfish that don’t sting.

On the patio this a.m. we discussed living in Istanbul. There are few codes..building codes, traffic laws as two examples. Boys can jump off bridges with impunity. Air quality and water quality are not good. Here is a government that doesn’t have a lot of “intrusion”…perhaps what the conservatives of our country want. This doesn’t seem like a good idea to us…as a group on the patio. Give rules, regulations, oversight to any of us on the patio. It seems prudent. Drowning our government in a bathtub doesn’t seem like such a good idea as we stare out at the neighborhood before us. Just saying.

So, it is off to grandma’s for tea this p.m. And to a church with fabulous mosaics. Hope we don’t roast to death while doing this…another hot day is forecasted.

We have just visited your city for day and we have a few observations for you to consider.

We aren’t in wheelchairs and it’s a good thing. How would we get up and down the subway stairs? Escalators are few and far between. Elevators are an endangered species. Really, retrofitting is way behind. People with disabilities are having a very difficult time with their mobility on the subway.

Secondly, we want to thank the city you represent. The people were wonderful which left us scratching our head. Rude New Yorkers? Where? Several men in booths came to our assistance when we were dazed and confused in the subways. Young people offered to help schlep our big suitcase on more than one occasion. People happily gave us directions when were bewildered. We were wished well wherever we went. People were kind and considerate. We loved the New Yorkers and you, Mayor, should be proud of our citizens.
It occurred to us that if your people would turn off a few lights money could be saved. And we wondered when we saw this sign…do people refuse to visit or work in offices without fire sprinklers? What law caused this notice and why? Must be an interesting back story.

On Sundays we think it would be helpful to have more trains running on the AirTrain around JFK airport. We were crushed on our car and it was hard to get on and harder to escape. A few more cars would have made it easier on all concerned. Having said that, my dear reader must be wondering why we were even on the AirTrain. When we checked out from the hotel, I asked the Rayman what the plan was for getting to the airport. “Subway”, he reported. “Really?”, I asked. “The lady said the bus was very slow, I’ve redistributed the weight in the bags for easier handling and I think we’ll just take the subway.” Well, I must report my shock and dismay. As reported in the Tau of Pooh, if you just Pooh things…it becomes easier, less stressful. And so that is how we ended up on the AirTrain.

The subways were clean, sort of. I was taken back by the big rat that scampered down the platform this a.m. That was a bit off-putting. I did not notice graffiti. That was a bit of a surprise. With hundreds of miles of track and multiple layers of tracks, that is no small undertaking. All the fare machines worked. Our biggest problem was not the signage…it was our own confusion as to where we going. Uptown, midtown, downtown…in relation to what? And wasn’t the Statue of Liberty in Hudson River? or was the museum in Central Park?

So, thank you Mayor. You and your city have done yourselves proud. I think we’ll return…that is we will be returning in a couple of weeks for 4 days. This time in Brooklyn.

Oh, one other thing. There should be a law that a cab driver in NYC can take a fare to New Jersey, say Newark airport. As it was explained to us, the two states’ cabbies can’t cross state lines without a hugh ball of red tape which made the hotel desk attendant to remark, “That’s why I always avoid Newark. It’s actually closer than JFK, but getting there by cab is more expensive and requires two cabs, not one.” Seems to me they should call a truce and get over it all ready. Can’t we all just get along? Think of the poor tourists. Fix this problem and travelers would be happier as would the locals, I’m sure. Heck, the euro is a shining example of cross border cooperation. Opps. On second thought.

So, Mayor, we plan to tell all our friends to visit NYC. It’s very big, full of people but they are wonderful people.

Well. This has been quite the week in our household. Two rounds of golf with the crazy babes (an annual trip) out of town, home, accepted an offer on the sale of our house, greeted Nancy, the dog sitter from Ridgecrest, and her sister, Ginger, from Georgia, finished my packing and left for Turkey yesterday as promised. Never a dull moment. If the house deal goes thru, we must be out by July 31. EEEKKKKK. But can’t we all count on things like this. Murphy’s Law, it’s known as.

We are wedged between monster buildings just around the corner from The New York Stock Exchange. A 7 story hotel among high-rise buildings. It’s location has advantages and disadvantages. The city gives off a constant hum as though a group of giant generators lay just below the cement…think turbines at Hoover Dam. It’s amazing in it’s consistency. The only noise that attracts attention are the occasional wale of a police sirens, an occasional rowdy yell of an inhabitant down below. Closing my eyes I imagine the surf of the Pacific roaring. And it was that sound that lulled me into a deep sleep midday in midtown. My body was upside down with the time change and lack of sleep yesterday. Oh, I did manage to sleep an ambien-induced sleep practically sitting straight up in the cattle car of the fuselage of coach class of our Delta 757. I barely remember the take off and struggled to wake up for the landing. A restless leg kept waking me up but the ambien, she was strong and kept putting me back under once the twitching stopped. The Rayman thus struggled with a half awake traveling princess off the airplane at JFK and into the sweet arms of terminal 1. We had managed to carry on one bag with wheels, a backpack, a rolling computer/everything but the kitchen sink type carry-on. We checked one big orange rolling suitcase which we now had to find. But a Peet’s coffee cried out and we stopped to get our caffeine fix which then required carrying cups and thus became a big pain in the arse.

Overlay on top of this scene the knowledge that it would cost us $52 by taxi, $17 by bus, and $7.50 by subway to get to our hotel, I pleaded with Ray to take the subway. He relented and things were going swimmingly well until we got lost and didn’t know whether to take the train on the left or ride side to reach our destination. Rayman was becoming agitated. And then we discovered that there was no elevator to lift us up to ground level which meant he had to pull up two suitcases and while doing so lost control of one of them (the heavy one), and it went tumbling down the stairs back to the platform. It is very interesting to see a seemingly calm man erupt so quickly into poisonous four-letter word spewing man. Something about hearing the words “”me, I’ll never do this again, I’m too damn old for this”… knitted together in one long sentence with a snarling face that tells me to shut up and act cheerful. After that passed, Rayman retrieved the fallen luggage and we went on our way and eventually found ourselves out of the subway and onto the quiet calm of the City…quiet except for his huffing and puffing. The was hardly anyone there. Saturday morning is a great time to be in uptown, or is it downtown? I’m not sure. But all the 1% had left town for the weekend and we had it almost to ourselves. Except for the filming crew for the new Walter Mitty movie starring Ben Stiller (Ben Stiller, really? Walter Mitty? I’m not convinced that he was the best guy for that role. Wasn’t Walter a hen-pecked type shoveling through life without enthusiasm?) Walter would never had a tirade in the subways, would he? No. So…the Rayman wasn’t a good casting choice either. But I digress.

The film crew was shooting car scenes with old cars. I wanted in the worst way to jump out unexpectedly into the street in the hopes of being captured in digital form securing my fame for posterity…but I was afraid of the unintended consequences on the Rayman as he was still in recovery mode. Silently we both stood watching the cars go forward, the director yelling, “Cut”. The cars backing up to their previous spot. My. These guys are meticulous.

It was too early to get into our room, but the lady behind the desk let us store our bags and out we went to find a bite to eat. This led us to Wall Street where I took some pictures which I shall add later because I FORGOT THE CAMERA CONNECTOR CABLE. and now have to go out and find one to buy. Which I will and add the pictures later…say tomorrow. In the meantime, we were standing in front of the American icon for the the rich, the NYSE, and I noticed a big brownish red doberman. That got a conversation started with the dog owner. “Does he live in an apartment?”, I asked. “Yes, I live in this building right here.”, he announced as he gestured his head toward the building behind and above us directly across from the NYSE. (How much could that cost, I wondered.) “Do you have doggie parks?”, I inquired. “Yes, but we frown on doggie parks. They are not clean. We prefer just walking our dog.”, he replied. “How about a beach?”, I continued. “Yes, there are beaches, but that’s not ideal. We owners let it be known that we don’t like dogs on the beach and so it is frowned on.” , he further explained. Blaise or Blaze was the female dog’s name. I wonder how it all works for the metro dog. Then he told us he will be taking the dog to Newport Beach on Thursday for some beach time. This dog knew how to pick it’s owner assuming she liked the travel. $150 each way please for the canine ticket. “oh, I’ve been flying her since she was a puppy so she’s used to traveling.” OMG. The 1% really know how to live. Below is a pic of a NYC dog park complete with fake tree and a real water feature.

 

 
While looking for a place to eat, we came across a bunch of vintage police cars as well as the General Lee. Guess they were there for the movie. You would find more car aficionados looking at vintage cars in Morro Bay than were there in Manhattan. NYers apparently aren’t into that sort of thing. The General Lee is pictured below along with an old vintage police car with interesting roof gear.

 

 

 

A nap ensued. Practically passed out but I only had one bloody Mary with my eggy quesadilla thingie I had for breakfast at a covered table in the alley behind our hotel. Not bad. Slept like a baby and so did the Rayman. He’d had a traumatic afternoon. After counting sheep, we showered, dressed and headed back to the subway. It was time to see Times Square. At this point the author must pause the forward button to do some reflection. Oh, a picture of me at brunch.

 

 
We were two of maybe five white people on the subway. The subway subterranean way of transport is supported by the fares of people of color. The white people are all above ground haling taxis, jumping into limos, boarding buses leaving people of color underground. It smacks of a caste system. Having said that, everyone we engaged with was helpful and pleasant. We were relieved not to have suitcases in tow. Free at last. So we rode the subway to 42nd Street, Times Square. What a place. A lot like Las Vegas without the legalized gambling. Wall to wall people doing silly things, taking pictures. In a way it was depressing. One big commercial ad. The signs were enormous. Read wasted electricity. The shops were gouache. Bubba’s Shrimp, Olive Garden, M&M’s. Give me Champs Elysees any day. I guess it is quintessentially all-American. But I found it over-the-top-commercial. The other reflection is that the GOP politicians don’t ride subways. First. They are white. Second, if they did ride they would discover all the invisibles who might vote in the future. Their GOP party of above grounders’ days are numbered if they keep going the way they are going. And it seems to me that that is why the GOP is doing everything they can to 1.) support the 1%. 2) suppress the voting rights of poor people and people of color 3) get all the laws change that give them all the advantages…because the people may rise up in the future and they will need all the anti-people rights laws they can get. It also occurred to me down under the earth that perhaps Lincoln was wrong. Perhaps he and the country should have let the south succeed. The south really controls the U.S. government today. The speaker of the House is from Ohio which isn’t too south, but the Speaker of the Senate is from the South. Both Bushes were from the south. The previous speakers of the House hailed from Georgia (Newt) and Alabama (Lott). LBJ was from the south. Carter was from the south. Clinton, south. Sam Rayburn from Texas was from the south. And when they weren’t in the majority… they were the minority leaders. The southern way of governing has been contaminating the whole direction of this country for years and years. And I do find many leaders from the south uneducated, mean spirited, hypocritical, religious in a bad way. They fight against equal rights. They did it then. They are doing it now. They rail against the “government” while they benefit from more tax dollars going to their states thereby being supported by the northern states. They influence our text books (creationism/anti science), they fight a woman’s right to choose. They are dead wrong on most issues and yet those merry band of mean spirited guys wield much more power than they should… given the population. It therefore means that their backward ways keep this country from progressing. And they do it while representing a lot less people than the say New York or California. So, I think we should invite them to leave. I’m tired of my CA taxes going to Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas et al. Invitation to leave the union has a nice ring to it. Having said all that, don’t fact check everything. I may have a detail wrong here and there. But on the whole, I think I’m right. But I digress.

Back up on the street there are hop-on-hop-off buses and we were going to take one but the sales guy was just all transmit, no receive and we ended up saying thanks but no thanks. Then there was the guy that had two tickets he wanted to sell because his friend was sick and didn’t want to go. Right. We passed on that offer. It smelled funny. The camera cord was missing and so I was on a mission to find a camera store. Finally, after blocks of walking a camera store appeared. The guy sold me a device that would solve my problems. Then about an hour later, it occurred to me that the cord might be in my camera carrier. About that time Rayman said, “After spending all that money on that camera gadget, I don’t want to hear anything from you about how expensive the cab is if I want to ride in the cab.” Silence was forthcoming. I got the drift.

Finally, we took the subway from Times Square to Grand Central to see the architecture and eat. We crawled into the Oyster Bar restaurant and had a wonderful meal of fresh fish and veggies. Oh, and a bottle of wine. And that’s when things got really interesting. We actually, sat down, relaxed and had a meaningful conversation. The Rayman explained to me how annoyed he was with the suitcase/subway/only $7.50 fare. Apparently, I was still in a fog of sorts. Think of it as an ambien hangover. While I was semi dazed and confused, he was struggling with the two bags while climbing the stairs and a woman grabbed the bottom of one of the bags and said, “Here, I’m going to help you with this.” “Dianna, the Rayman, explained, “I’m too damn old for this. I’m not 40 anymore and it is just too hard. I lift and strain things. You lift and strain things, think France. Then the back goes and that really puts a damper on vacation. I don’t want to do it that way anymore.” We lifted our wine glasses and toasted our new agreement. From now on, no more penny pinching when it comes to transporting heavy things. This maybe very good timing. Moving requires lifting heavy things…hiring that out…priceless. I think the move just got easier. Subway art and the Rayman, Times Square and moi followed by a view from our table at the Oyster Bar Restaurant.

 

 

 
The rest of the evening was lovely and on the way back to Wall Street on the subway, we met a couple (he offered me a seat which I accepted and I offered him one when it opened up next to me) from Istanbul. We are on the same flight tomorrow. Ain’t life great?

As a postscript, I did have the camera cord after all…I am now missing the battery charger. Son-of-a-biscuit.