2012 In Review
2012 was the year that love won.
I'm writing this post in January 2014, but I plan to backdate it to January 2013. I wrote it so belatedly because the idea to write a year in review only came to me after 2013. Once I wrote that year's review post, I thought it would be fitting to write one for 2012. I think the distance will probably lend a slightly different tone to my recollections.
2012 was such a rich year that I created a memory book, similar to a scrapbook, and something I hadn't done in years.
I didn't start Packing Lust until June 2012, so I'll have to sum up the first five months of the year without the help of this blog. Due to some date mix-ups during the transfer of my blog from Weebly to Wordpress, I'm not sure which was my first official post in June. Was it this one about my pre-adventure giddiness?
But before we get into what I was blogging about, let's backtrack and cover those exciting first 5 months of 2012, when I married the love of my life, twice.
January
I started off the month with annual get together of some of my oldest college friends in Raleigh, North Carolina. We sat around in our PJ's, snacking, laughing, and lavishing each other with handmade gifts. Julie arranged a bridal gown shopping trip for me at a nearby boutique, and I had a great time trying on gowns that cost thousands of dollars. If I remember correctly, I had already purchased the gown that I would get married in for $50 from a discount shop called JR's. After wedding dress shopping, we ate cupcakes at The Cupcake Shop in downtown Raleigh.
February
I remember a day in February when Charming called me outside our apartment for help unloading the groceries. When I emerged, he pressed play on the music player in his car and blasted one of my favorite songs out the windows What a Wonderful Life/Somewhere over the Rainbow by IZ. He got out and started dancing with me, and the beautiful West Hollywood sky above took on a new beauty, the palms bursting like stars into the blue. I felt so grateful to be with him on a beautiful day in February. That memory reminds me of the romance of our engagement. He'd asked me to marry him during an early morning hike in November, 2011- completely surprising me with a proposal out in nature.
That day in February, it felt like we had finally won. We had won each other and we'd won our joy. When we started dating, some of my close friends and mentors had communicated their disappointment and disapproval, all because Charming and I don't share the same spiritual beliefs. The lack of support among some of my friends made me doubt the romance. All this difficulty was something I didn't expect or dream I would encounter at the same time as I was falling in love. Thankfully, we both had our family's support. I doubt we could have moved forward as smoothly as we did without that. I also had a few friends who were supportive the whole way through. And I made new friends who supported my interfaith relationship and the influence Charming had on me. And some of my Christian friends were growing in the same direction as I was - toward a more progressive, tolerant faith - and that helped tremendously, and still does. But the sifting process - trying to separate the helpful advice from the harmful advice - was exhausting. It felt like a test. Would I listen to my heart or did I believe my heart was "deceitful above all things," like some of my Christians friends would've quoted from Jeremiah 17:9? I knew that I could trust my heart on this matter. My Prince Charming is a good man, and his love is the greatest gift I have ever received. My heart was right.
That February night, we hosted a Valentine's Celebration of Love and Friendship. Our friends dressed in pink and red, and we gave away some of our possessions, lightening our load in preparation for living abroad. We laughed with our friends and celebrated our community in Los Angeles.
March
I felt completely spoiled in March. My mom and sister flew out to LA and treated me to an amazing spa day. My sister organized one heavenly bachelorette party.
April
We got married! I walked down the "aisle" - the dirt path to the cliff's edge where we got married - to that song we danced to in February. Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I wore the $50 dress I bought with my mom on the trip to JRs.
Charming and I were and are so thankful to our friends and family who attended both of our weddings and provided so much love on our celebration days.
In May my family threw us another wedding, one that was easier for all our East Coast friends and family to attend. It was a sparkling, rustic, elegant affair held in a reclaimed historic building that used to be a mule barn (that sounds odd, but I promise, it's beautiful.) The evening was travel-themed, with cake in the shape of a suitcase, and vintage style maps on the walls.
Later that month, I proudly watched as my brother graduated from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. President Obama shook his hand for a job well done!
And that brings us up to June! I moved to Palestine, following Charming who'd already been there for several weeks getting adjusted to his new job. June and July were adjustment months of figuring out how things worked in a third world country. We traveled up to Akko, and out to Taybeh in July, and I spent my birthday with Charming at a Dead Sea resort.
August
August brought a joyful trip to Tel Aviv, which was very welcome since it was a summer of adjustment blues. We also went to Egypt, where we saw our first Pyramids and I rode my first camel.
September was honeymoon month. Not that I was feeling travel deprived, but it was so nice to lounge around someplace that wasn't third world or a conflict zone. More than that, the sunsets! The seafood! The jumping off boats!
If you're wondering why Charming doesn't appear in these early Packing Lust photos, it was for his privacy. We lifted the ban on Charming's face appearing here in 2013.
In October, I traveled to England to visit my dear friend Caroline and to help her move from Norwich to London. Sadly, this was also the month when my Aunt Jenny was diagnosed with brain cancer.
In November, we rescued an adorable puppy we named Jelly Bean. She became a permanent member of our family. A short time later, another puppy showed up on our doorstep and I went through quite a lot to help her get Israeli puppyship so that she could have access to doggie rights like health care and the chip.
December
The last month of 2012 was very full. I took my first trips to Gaza City (I'm sorry - my Gaza post seems to have disappeared!) and Hebron, two cities in Palestine particularly ruptured by the occupation. We spent Christmas Eve at Manger Square in Bethlehem. Charming's birthday we celebrated in Tel Aviv.
Packing Advice
I managed to pack in plenty of my own packing angst, along with what hopefully amounted to some helpful guidance for other travelers.
Packing Solutions for Easy Jet's One Bag Rule
My Fashion Guidelines for Minimalist Packing
A Post about Minimalist Makeup
Underoos and Everything - My Complete List
A Decent Travel the World Indefinitely Working List
What I Learned
What a year! It was a rich, full, beautiful year of adventures. My big lesson this year was learning to really listen to my heart so that love can win. It's a lesson I'm still working on, a constant challenge I'm glad to embrace!
May love always win,
Sun and Snow
How I Spent My Holidays
And it wouldn't be the Middle East without a Santa playing soccer.
There is No Cure
With huge warm thanks,
Genevieve
Puppies and Soldiers
They might be able to sling guns and yell at elderly Palestinians all day, but when a puppy this cute was involved, it was a bit of a different story.
Usually I go in a car or taxi, but my taxi didn't have clearance to go through Qalandia. However, I was very motivated because this puppy had cried throughout two nights and I was worried he might be sick.
I waited and waited at the first of several prison-like turnstiles, where they have people walk through one by one, yelling, occasionally, through loudspeakers in Hebrew. I'm was holding the puppy in a box because I was afraid that he would poop or throw up in the taxi. It was cold and rainy, and the atmosphere at the checkpoint was filled with a mixture of fear and boredom. A young well-dressed woman translated for me and to asked the soldiers to open the handicap door so I could go through with my box, which was too big to pass through the turnstile. As she went through the tiny turnstile, which was only meant for one person at a time, an older man tried to squeeze in behind her. He had thick yellow fingernails and was playing with his cell phone, as if oblivious to what he was doing. What he was doing was pressing his body against that of the woman who had helped me. I watched as she turned around and spoke some harsh words in Arabic which had him backing up and apologizing for his obviously feigned non-attention.
Finally after several people who'd arrived after me had passed through the turnstile and a brief interrogation, I got to go through.
"What's in the box?" said the boy soldier, who looked like he was around 17. I opened it, and he said. "You are not allowed to bring dogs with you."
So I hold this tiny puppy...
The puppy shivered. The two teenagers tilted their heads, thenconsulted each other quietly. The boy turned to me.
"You can't technically bring a dog with you. But," he smiled, "If the puppy followed you across the border, then why would anyone care?"
I sighed with relief. "Put the puppy on the ground, take your box, and just call to her," he whispered quickly.
After they looked at my passport, I set the puppy down and he pranced right across the border with me.
This is the kind of thing that makes me happy, sad and angry. I'm happy because I had a human-canine moment with the guards. But the other emotions are because this event demonstrates the kind of inconvenience and arbitrariness that most people here experience constantly. The Israeli military is filled with teenagers because it's mandatory to give two years of service at that time. Few volunteer to be in the army. They have to. And they really are young... sometimes they seem like kids. They have dangerous, stressful jobs, and they don't know what they are doing. They really don't. At the vet, the manager said that if you simply have a letter saying, "this dog needs health care at this clinic," they let you bring the dog across without a problem.
The happy ending to this puppy story is that, after he spent some time playing with Jelly…
Trust in Palestine
I held up my red Trader Joe's bag and mimed putting produce in the bag. The shop owner nodded to affirm that I could use my cloth bag as a shopping basket at the produce store near the city center of Ramallah. After I'd filled my bag with Romaine lettuce, apples, passionfruit, pears, oranges, and a pineapple, I brought it to the back of the shop where the cashier stood. One by one, I set my selections on the counter, reaching deep into the bag to make sure that there was nothing left in there.
"Is your bag empty?" the cashier asked with a friendly smile.
"Yes. I think so." I picked up the bag from the bottom and flipped it over, shaking to make sure no fruits were hiding in the corners.
"No. Don't do that," the man said darkly and with a small cringe.
"Shaking the bag? Is it bad luck?" I asked.
"No… it's a mistake. You think I don't trust you."
"Oh, no, I said. "I shook it for me, for me to make sure there was nothing left. For me."
"Okay. If it's for you, it's okay."
Trust. It seems to be a delicate and tender subject here in Palestine. I've had more than one encounter like the above. Proof offered too bluntly, as if in a hurry to show that one can be trusted is embarrassing in this culture. Perhaps in the U.S., we too feel some sense of slight embarrassment if we ask for evidence that the bag is empty, that we aren't dealing with a shoplifter. Yet here there's a stronger sense of affront, perhaps to a thicker sense of honor, if someone provides too fast a proof of their own honestly. It's almost as if the other person is saying "Seriously, stop trying to prove yourself! I don't doubt your honestly. By thinking I doubt you, you are basically calling me a suspicious miser, and that is highly offensive."
In a similar vein, I've often paid for something with a bill that is too large. When I first arrived, if the change was tiny (1/2 shekel, or the equivalent of 13 cents) I might say "keep the change," only to be meet with a vehement "no, no" and to find the change thrust upon me.
The positive side of this cultural element is generously given trust. Yesterday morning I went down to a martial arts studio-gym that recently opened up not far from our apartment. They offer personal training and gym membership. I had emailed earlier about setting up a personal training appointment, but when I arrived, I discovered that the gym didn't take credit cards, which was the only payment method I brought. The manager of the gym, who had met me only once before, said "That's alright. You can pay next time. Shall we start with some cardio?"
As I relate this incident, another one comes to mind. A shop owner is telling me, "you can pay next time." Since I don't remember anything else about the incident, I'm not sure if I went back and paid him. I hope I did.
Although this extensive trust in customers seems to my American entrepreneurial mind like poor business practice, it does warm my heart to a culture that I haven't always felt warmly towards.
Another heart-warmer is walking around town with our new puppy, Jelly. I was afraid people would be fearful or antagonistic towards her, since it's not a culture that is big on dogs. Instead, some simply ignore her, and others are downright friendly. I took her on her first car trip since the one that brought her from the shelter to our apartment, and when we got out, a group of young men began whistling and making kissing sounds in our direction. Instead of my usual sense of annoyance at young men making kissing sounds at me, I thought "they are talking to Jelly," and they were.
They asked what her name was, and then called her name, "Jelly Jelly Jelly." I went and did my errand, and when I passed by them again, they said "Jelly Jelly Jelly!" They seemed totally absorbed in her charms, and not in my perceived charms, and I was grateful. It occurred to me that this dog is going to change my relationship to men in Palestine. She is my protector (she seems to bark at people who I'm afraid of and to be friendly to people I like) and she is also a friendly diplomat - a sort of buffer zone - who will ease gender relations for me. Yes, it also occurred to me that men here (some, always some, not all) treat dogs the same as they treat women...
But that is another blog post for another time.
Many of you have been worried about me and Prince Charming with the escalating violence here. Thanks for your care, and to those of you who have sent messages our way. We feel safe here, but we are taking precautions to stay away from protests. Charming has been working very hard, and his NGO has been an important voice for peace in the media lately. He's had a vital role in managing the emergency response, and I'm very proud of him. He's helped save lives and will help save many more. If things escalate much further, we may have to evacuate. But for now, we seem to be as safe as we were in Los Angeles.
Finally, for those of you who are excited about my book Minimalism for Grandparents: Decluttering for Health, Happiness, and Connection in the Golden Years, you can like the Facebook page here. I think that those of grandparent age, as well as youngsters, will get value out of it if they have an interest in living a simplified, meaningful life.
Peacefully yours,
Genevieve
Things We Yell From Cars
I was reading Half the Sky, the 2009 book about the state of women in the world earlier this year. When I read the part about maternal mortality, and exactly how preventable these deaths are and how many happen, I put the book down, squeezed me eyes shut, and said a silent prayer that some day, one day, I could do something to help the lonely women ostracized by their communities, curled up in their shacks, soaking in their own urine and feces and waiting - perhaps praying - to die.
Well, that day has come. I can do something small, which is to urge you to buy and watch the Half the Sky documentary DVD when it is released by Amazon on October 20th. Two respected journalists and authors - Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn - have selected oppression of women worldwide as the single most important issue of the 21st century. What's exciting is that the book and the documentary are so well done in terms of production quality and research that there's a lot of positive attention on this issue and I think we as a world can make amazing progress within our lifetimes.
Curious about some statistics?
Here you go:
- 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in the developing world.
- The U.S. ratio of maternal deaths is higher than 40 other countries, despite spending more per capita on maternal care than any other country.
- More than 1 million children a year are left motherless due to maternal mortality.
- 135 million girls living today have undergone female genital mutilation, greatly increasing their risk of maternal mortality.
Source: http://www.halftheskymovement.org/page/-/fastfacts.pdf
So you see that this isn't just an issue "abroad," but at home in the U.S. too. Maternal mortality is just one cause of many highlighted in the book - there are other issues we can help with, mostly by talking about them and being aware of them, although giving money helps to0 , as does writing letters.
When I was a little girl, and I'd complain about how "unfair" something was, my dad would smile and say "You know what? Life isn't fair. If it was, you'd probably be sitting on the ground in Africa with no legs because an old landmine blew them off."
In addition to being a man who can create an unsettling image with just a few words and a knowing smile, Dad was right. Life isn't fair. He'd seen enough as a doctor to know that. But I didn't really understand what he meant by what he said. How could I? I had never seen anyone who was very poor, injured, or oppressed.
Here, I've witnessed it for myself. I've seen children joyfully gathered around what gives them life - yellow dirty plastic jugs of clean-ish drinking water. I've see women who haven't had the opportunity, freedom, education, or diversity of experience to know they don't have to put up with polygamy or body shrouding. Perhaps saddest of all, I've seen men who don't have the blessing of free, spirited, educated, irrepressible women in their lives. Every day that I walk in Palestine, I see them, men on whose faces there's a story written about their hunger - their hunger for the other half of the sky. Of course there are many enlightened, egalitarian men here in the Middle East, and I'm thankful for them. They will teach their sons and daughters and continue the progress that is happening here.
I'm writing this blog because there's so much beyond where our eyes can touch, and I want to help others - and myself - see these far away things and wake up. I write about lust - wanderlust, lust for life, lust for a better world. Lust is not a bad or sinful thing, and there's no evil in the human heart - just reactions that either hurt or help people. All that's necessary to live a good life is to wake up (also known as learn, be present, be enlightened, be aware, be here) in this present moment and to form each action so that, whenever possible, we are helping ourselves and others- not hurting either party. In fact, people should party more. More parties, and less explosions, is my prescription for the Middle East and for humankind.
I was trying to party through the pain here this weekend. Charming and I were taking a trip to Tel Aviv to celebrate our six month wedding anniversary (I know, I can't believe it's been six months either). We were stuck in traffic on our way to an infamous checkpoint. I was driving, and decided, perhaps unwisely, that to express my frustration I was going to yell. I announced to my Prince that I was going to yell in the style of men who yell barely intelligible things to women from the safety and comfort of their cars. "Uooo Lips!" I yelled to one man in a car as he cut me off. "Uck my Deeee!" I yelled to another. Charming was rather entertained, and so was I. I continued, with an "OO you so beautiful!" to a man walking on the side of the road. I felt I had pushed it a little far. Yelling at cars was one thing, but yelling at some poor car-less soul breathing the traffic fumes? It was a little much. I stopped.
We arrived at the bottleneck that is Qalandia checkpoint. Very quickly, we realized the lane I was in was behind a massive bus. It would take forever for the soldiers to check every single passport in the slow and ponderous way they go about that task. So I tried to switch to the next lane over. I made eye contact with a car with two men in it. They motioned to the spot in front of them with a smile that seemed to say "Go head." I fluttered my eyelashes in thanks. As soon as there was a gap in front of them, they gunned it and took up the space, almost hitting my car. Undeterred, I tried the car behind them, making eye contact with the female driver of a white car packed full of veiled women. They gestured angrily, making it clear that I was not going to get into their lane. Well, at least they weren't effing with me like the last car.
I tried a few more times, until the cars behind me were getting angry at the space growing in front of me. I zoomed ahead, only to wait and wait while the soldiers made everyone on the bus ahead of us get off and walk through the checkpoint. Soon the white car full of women passed us. In my frustration, I stuck my hand, palm up, out of the window and yelled, "You are so beautiful!"
I couldn't help but smile as realized how silly I was acting - and how silly the moment was. I saw their faces go from bored and frustrated, to confused, to broadly smiling - even the grandmother in the back gave me the most twinkly and crinkly of grins.
Suddenly, they were all so very beautiful. They waved, and all of us were laughing together.
The pain and frustration of oppressed women - whether it's traffic that's oppressing them or the patriarchy - can shift. It can turn into something positive.
I'm really lucky to be married to someone who helps the less fortunate of the world in a very active, full-time way. However, he can only do that through the support of people who live comfortably far away and donate a little money to organizations like his. So there's no hierarchy of who is helping the world more - someone on the ground in Gaza, giving a tank of clean water to people trapped there, or someone who donates a few bucks a month to a high quality charity that helps out. If everyone on Earth would take one, small, tiny action, then we could solve all the problems described in Half the Sky.
What action do you want to take right now?
Probably you want to turn on a mindless TV show and eat chocolate, and try to forget about the poor women and children of the world. Me too. That's normal and fine, actually. Just donate your ten bucksbefore the chocolate fest, and you can feel good (extra special good) about the world while you watchModern Family.
One last note - if you liked this post and think it could inspire anyone, you can take the action of reposting it to your blog or facebook or twitter.
Thank you darling friend!
YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL.
My Writing Rules
I'm deep in the thickets of drafting my first bookMinimalism for Grandparents: Decluttering for Health, Happiness, and Connection During the Golden Years, and some of you may be wondering just how I manage to write with such prolificacy while also traveling the world. At least my writer friend Jared was. So for Jared and anyone else who may be wondering, the answer (besides that I'm lucky enough to be able to design my life this way) is that I'm easily bored and possibly just a touch ADD. Therefore, having multiple projects going at once is a must for me. I don't seem to be capable of working on one project until it's done and then picking up another one. In the same vein, I'm currently reading (hang on, let me count them) seven books. Probably more, but I stopped counting at seven since I thought it was a suitably impressive number. That's useful for me since whatever I'm reading tends to come out in pure form when I converse. If I was just reading one book, it could get tiring to hear about revolutionary Iran in the 80's over and over. With my brain in seven books, however, I can talk about how Nabokov appears to have been read by students at Tehran university who were not exactly fifty shades of Zionism which came during and after Audrey Hepburn's early film career. I often internally mourn that my brain is fond of boxes. However, I think this reading of unrelated subject matter fights my waffle-headed tendencies and helps me make creative new connections.
Back to my writing, which is as connected to my reading as Levi's are to blue thread. I've learned through the years that I need some sort of schedule for myself. Writing is solitary and there's no boss looking over my shoulder, making sure I've done pages for the day. I've experimented with many different tactics:
- Writing in the morning
- Writing at night
- Writing in the afternoon
- Writing every day
- Wearing a special hat to write
- Writing only when inspired late at night on caffeine
- Writing for eight hours a day on weekdays
- Writing on my lunch break at an office job
- Asking friends to ask me about my writing regularly
- Promising people completed scripts upon certain deadlines
- Writing carefully
- Writing heedlessly
- Setting yearly writing goals
- Setting monthly writing goals
- Scheduling out each day down to the minute
- Setting a timer and writing until it goes off
Whew. I've learned a few things in general about how to make myself write. For me, the earlier in the day that I write, the more likely I am to a) write that day and b) write more that day. Writing at the beginning of the day seems to set a tone of creative production for the whole day and to keep my muse happy and coming back for more.
The muse shows up unannounced and usually at the most inconvenient times. The best writing comes from the muse: what you can also think of as the holy spirit, or the creative subconscious. The ability to write when the muse shows up takes the same kind of discipline that waking up early - the moment your alarm goes off-- takes. It's hard and I rarely do it. But I'm glad when I do. The best feeling when writing, and when the best writing comes, is when the creative subconscious gets though in kind of a sly way. I'm relaxed, well fed, and not worried about the well-being of any of my loved ones. There's quiet around me - no music or conversation or fear of interruption. I'm not trying too hard; it's flow. Time passes without my awareness of how much has gone by.
However, most times, I'm trying hard. Because in an almost cruel reality, the muse is somehow summoned and nourished by my trying hard -- by thinking a lot about the writing and the topics. I can relate it to something I heard in an interview with actor James Franco. He prepares and prepares very hard, then when the cameras roll, he just relaxes and lets whatever comes out come out.
What has worked for me to get my writing done every day while still leaving time to experience where I am, is daily goals. Also, I have more time to write now than I did in LA. I have fewer friends here to hang out with, and I don't have another job to take any of my creative energy (as much as I liked faerie princess-ing).
After trying to schedule my days, I found out that one of my big values is freedom. I won't stick to a schedule because it can feel like a tyrant boss.
So I have simple two rules for myself:
- Write every day.
- Write for at least an hour, five days a week. Usually I end up writing for more than one hour, but it's kind of like telling yourself before a morning jog that you are just going to run for five minutes. Once you get out there, feel the wind in your nose and see the birds fluttering by, you'll be enjoying it and you'll probably run for the whole thirty minutes.
On top of my writing rules, at the beginning of the year I had a couple of big writing goals. One was to write six first drafts (feature-length scripts) this year. Another was to write and publish my first book. I have other smaller projects too, but those are in addition to my major goals.
So that I keep my projects straight and work on each project enough to complete my goals on time, I created one goal for each remaining work day of 2012. I did this a couple months ago, and this system is working for me so far. It allows me to focus on one project a day, to trust that they will all get done because I can see it on the schedule, and to not get bored because I can see ahead that I will get to work on a different project soon.
For example, here is what my first ten days looked like:
Day 1 Blogsville -- book project ask for help and weekend trip
Day 2 Character work on script #3.
Day 3 Plot work on script #3.
Day 4 Character work on script #3
Day 5 Research details for the script.
Day 6 Blogsville
Day 7 Outline #3 in Final Draft
Day 8 New script idea generating
Day 9 Outline #3 in Final Draft
Day 10 Go to script: Write 10 pages today on script #3.
It goes on until the end of the year...
I don't add a date to when I should be doing each goal because sometimes I move them around or work on a weekend or maybe I took a mental health day or a sick day. (I have a great boss who lets me take off whenever I want.) Life is bigger than writing. And that's the way I like it.
If you are trying to write (or paint, or whatever) and you are also working a full-time job or have some other major drain on your time, my only advice is to write first thing in the morning. I didn't have the willpower to do it regularly when I had a full-time job, but if I had one now, I'd find a way to make it work. I'd reward myself with ice cream of something, anything, but I would make it work.
If you are trying to write while traveling, the advice is the same. Bring a small laptop computer or a notebook, and do it early. You never know what the day will bring, and you have most control over you time and willpower in the morning.
I think each writer (or any person who wants to create something without an office and a boss) must experiment and figure out what works for him or her. Let me know if this helped you.
If you have felt for a long time that you want to write, that you have something to say, you are weakening the tender fabric of your soul with each day that you do not write.
Please leave any helpful tips that have worked for you in the area of self-motivated creative work in the comments below. I trust you guys to give me some good tips that will help me write more and better, and that will help anyone who reads this post.
Istanbul
Where There is No Such Thing as Typical.
That's what I loved about Istanbul. There's no such thing as typical there. For every woman wearing a headscarf there was one in a miniskirt. It is a diverse, stunning city that that feels as free and energetic and beautiful as Paris or New York.
The Grand Bazaar was immense, a place to enjoy getting lost in. I wasn't sure if I should look forward to going, as Cairo's huge, famous market was disappointingly full of items ordered from a factory in China. One vendor's goods looked much the same as the last. Everything needed dusting.
Charming had been to Istanbul before, so it was fun for us to revisit some of his favorite places to eat and people watch. We easily and quickly got used to the culture of sitting in a street café, sipping beer and watching the crowds roll, prance, crawl, meander, and sell their way by us.
We saw the majestic Hagia Sophia which today is a museum. It's been both a church and a mosque in it's time, and there were signs of both religions in the interior, which I thought was cool.
