Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Last weekend we had an absolutely wonderful (albeit freezing cold and rainy) trip to Istanbul, Turkey. It is a place that has been high on our list to visit since we got here, and we figured there was no better excuse to go than to celebrate our 8 year anniversary.

Jared actually planned the trip as a surprise for me (he surprised me a couple weeks before by hiding an Istanbul guidebook in one of my drawers in the bureau so that I found it one morning when I was getting dressed for work!) so we had a couple weeks to read up, plan what we wanted to do, and get excited.

And since we were going to celebrate our anniversary, Jared booked us a room at one of the nicest hotels in the city, the Four Seasons Istanbul, which has a perfect location in Sultanahmet and with a rooftop terrace overlooking the Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque. We took an early morning flight on FlyDubai (a budget airline in the region) and arrived by 11am (it's only a 4 hour flight) and then took a shuttle to our hotel. When we arrived to check in, they told us that they had upgraded our room to a deluxe King and then showed us to a gorgeous room with a view down into the hotel's beautiful courtyard. Just lovely!

Our Room!

The lovely bathroom.

Another view of the bathroom. What you can't see though is the flat-screen tv hanging on the wall of the bathroom. I am fervently against having a tv in my bedroom, however, a tv in the bathroom was fantastic. Catching up on the news while taking a shower was quite convenient!

View from our room into the hotel courtyard below.

Another view out the window. Just beautiful! I can only imagine how lovely it must be when it isn't 38 degrees and raining and windy.

As soon as we settled in, we decided to head out to explore and make the most of the time that we had (really only a day and a half with travel on either end). It was very windy and raining so we grabbed some apple tea (super yummy) from the hotel, borrowed some umbrellas and set out to explore Sultanahmet. Sultanahmet is located on a peninsula that is surrounded by water (the 'Golden Horn' River to the north, the Bosphorus on the east, and Sea of Marmara to the south). It is the historic neighborhood of Istanbul and seems to have the highest concentration of historical sights, which was lucky for us given the weather because most of the things we wanted to see were within walking distance of our hotel.

Our first stop was the famous "Blue Mosque." Even through the rain it is breathtaking.

Another view of the Blue Mosque with its 6 minarets (viewed as quite ostentatious). It caused a bit of a scandal when it was built, I guess, because it is the only mosque outside of Mecca to have 6 minarets.

A closer view. I definitely got a bit carried away with the Blue Mosque photos.

Blue Mosque self-take.

Unlike the UAE, Turkey is a secular state and they seem to be pretty flexible with allowing non-Muslim tourists to visit the mosques (the only time you aren't allowed is during prayer times, which seems completely reasonable). So we were able to visit the inside for free, with the only requirement being that we remove our shoes, which is required to enter any mosque.

Blue Mosque dome.

The beautiful stained glass.

Another view of the outside. After we finished exploring the inside, we decided to go find the nearby Hippodrome -- old chariot racetrack, basically a mini version of the Circus Maximus in Rome, but found it to be a mud pit under construction, so ended up just walking around the perimeter of the Blue Mosque (and therefore getting even more carried away with my camera).

A zoom shot of the Blue Mosque dome.

View from another angle.

Another self-take attempt. You can see us beginning to get colder and wetter the longer we were outside. When Jared was planning the trip, the average temperature for this time of year is supposed to be around the mid 50's. So we therefore packed what we would view to be 'spring' clothes that we'd wear back home (rain coats, jeans, long sleeve shirts, and ballet flats for shoes for me). And to be fair, that is pretty much the extent of the 'warm' clothes we have in Dubai anyway, since I left all my sweaters and sweatshirts home this past Christmas to make room in the suitcase for Christmas gifts. Well, when we arrived in Istanbul, we found the temperature to be around 20 degrees cooler than that, with pouring rain and heavy wind. Ill-prepared for the weather is a complete understatement. I only had lime green raincoats [yes, I own more than one] and Jared only had a red spring jacket/raincoat. As we were walking around Jared's first comment was, "Nope, we don't look like tourists wearing our pastel colored raincoats while everyone else is wearing black wool winter coats." Anyway, you get the idea.

A final self-take attempt and last photo of the Blue Mosque (I promise).

And directly across from the Blue Mosque is the ancient Aya Sofia church. Not nearly as pretty from the outside, but absolutely bursting with history.

Jared in front of the Aya Sofia. Not sure why he will smile for a picture for me when he's standing in the rain freezing his ass off, but won't on normal occasions.

Ruins of the second earlier Aya Sofia built by Theodosius II in 415. One of my favorite parts about Istanbul is the deep rich history. It reminded me a bit of Rome in that way with just layers upon layers of history. Of course, it would have probably meant more to me if I'd visited sometime during the 5 years I took Latin in middle and high school and could tell you all about Constantinople and all the different Roman Emperors. Ah well.

The main apse and semi-dome that you see when you walk in.

A closer picture of the semi-dome. I might have been as obsessed with the interior of the Aya Sofia as I was with the exterior of the Blue Mosque. I found it so fascinating though because I've never been anywhere that has such historical significance for both Christians and Muslims. From 537 to 1453 it was the greatest church in the Christian world, and was then converted to a mosque in 1453 when Mehmet the Conqueror took possession for Islam during the Conquest of Constantinople. What's amazing to me though, is that he left all of the Christian iconography. I've never been anywhere where Christian and Muslim iconography are side-by-side in the same building. Absolutely fascinating!

A zoomed view of the Madonna and Child mosaic in the apse. From the 9th century. Pretty unbelievable.

The famous free-standing main dome.

Beautiful copper ceiling tiles in one of the small archways.

Side view of the main apse from the Imperial Loge (ie, upstairs).

My attempt at being artsy. A photo toward the main apse through some of the Muslim-style grating.

Christ as Pantocrator mosaic.

Mosaic of Mary and the Christ Child with Emperor John Comnenus II on the left and Empress Eirene on the right.

Yet another mosaic with Christ in the middle and an emperor and empress on either side. Told you I got carried away. They are quite amazing though when you consider their age.

19th century Arabic medallions by master calligrapher Mustafa Izzet Efendi.

Ceiling of the Inner Narthex. Just beautiful.

Another view of the ceiling mosaics. I don't think I've been anywhere else that has such a crazy amount of mosaics (they apparently used 30 million gold mosaic tiles. Not sure who counted all those).

I think this was the point where Jared dragged me out because I was getting so carried away with my camera inside the Aya Sofia. What can I say. There is so little 'history' in the UAE that apparently I feel the need to get completely consumed when I go somewhere that has actual historic significance.

After we left the Aya Sofia, we decided to check out the Basilica Cistern, a subterrainian Byzantine cistern built by Justinian in 532. There is no other way to describe it than to just say that it is amazing and not really like anywhere else I've ever been.

The Basilica Cistern: It has 336 columns arranged in 12 rows, and once held 80,000 cubic meters of water delivered via 20km of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea. Pretty awesome technology for the time when you think about it.

And I guess the cistern was constructed using columns, capitals, and plinths from ruined buildings, so they are all unique and different.

One of the two famous Medusa-head columns.

The other Medusa-head. Slightly random and no one seems to know the history behind them.

Jared in the Basilica Cistern. They have raised platforms throughout the Cistern to walk around on because the whole floor is covered with about a foot and a half of water (hence, it is a cistern). You can also see tons of carp swimming around in the water. Kind of eerie.

And by this time, we were completely freezing our asses off (we had been walking around in the wind, rain, and cold for about 4-5 hours by then), so decided that we needed to go somewhere warmer, and where better to go than the Grand Bazaar! We were also absolutely starving by this point, not really having had lunch (I had grabbed an apple off of the lovely plate of fruit we found waiting for us in our hotel room, but that was it since breakfast at the airport). So we stopped on the street for some chicken shawarma which we inhaled while shivering at a table beside the shawarma stand, before continuing onward to the warmth of the Grand Bazaar.

One of the probably 50 entrances to the Kapali Carsi (Grand Bazaar).

Inside the Grand Bazaar. It felt like a warm safe haven after being out in the cold all day. It is also perhaps the coolest (and certainly largest) souq I have ever been in. We wandered around for an hour or so before deciding to check out one of the glass lantern shops as I'd had my eye on getting a lantern. The owner was a lovely man who immediately started talking to us about the NBA and a Turkish player who plays for the Boston Celtics (who knew the Turks were so into the NBA??). Needless to say, after our day in the cold I couldn't help but get a little carried away with my purchases...

After my brief shopping spree, we decided to head back to the hotel to defrost and relax for the rest of the evening. We had made a dinner booking at the nice restaurant in our hotel called "Seasons" which seemed like a good choice given the weather. I thawed my body by enjoying the lovely soaking tub and then we had a fantastic dinner at the hotel, where we were able to dress up a little but not have to venture back into the rain and cold. It seemed the best option. And the food did not disappoint. I started with a curry soup with chicken dumplings (yummy and unique), Jared started with the grilled octopus; and then I had homemade pumpkin and ox ravioli and Jared had the rack of lamb. It felt like the ultimate comfort food after our cold day.

We woke up bright and early the next morning to find the weather worse than the previous day (if that was possible). The temperature was cooler and the rain was harder. I decided to seriously rethink what I was going to wear if I was going to make it through a day of walking around Istanbul, and also decided to throw all dignity and fashion sense out the window. Layering seemed to be the key to avoiding hypothermia, so I put on my long-sleeve t-shirt with my zip-up hooded waffle sweatshirt (that I use as pajamas and would never be caught dead wearing outside the house, but desperate times call for desperate measures) on top. I decided that my inadequate footwear (ballet flats) was probably where I was losing a lot of my body heat, so decided that since all dignity was gone, I would need to wear a pair of Jared's brown work socks (pulled up to my knees) with my periwinkle blue ballet flats. I looked completely ridiculous, especially once I put on my limegreen hooded raincoat (on top of the already hooded sweatshirt hood, two hoods seemed better than one). So as bundled as we could possibly be, we set out.

Our first stop was the rooftop terrace of our hotel (to gauge just how bad the weather was -- conclusion: pretty damn bad), but oh the view is fantastic!

View of the Aya Sofia from the rooftop terrace. Why oh why did we not plan our trip in the summer, we just kept asking ourselves.

View down to the Bosphorus from the rooftop terrace. Really, it is an unbeatable view, which we sadly, could not enjoy for more than 1 minute without getting drenched and blown away. A pity.

Our first stop of the day was the Topkapi Palace, the opulent Sultan's palace, which housed the Sultan's from the 1453 Conquest of Constantinople onward to the 19th century.

It is truly an amazing palace, which I feel we couldn't adequately enjoy given the weather and that the real highlight is supposed to be the amazing gardens (what gardens? all we could see was drizzle).

Outside of one of the royal reception rooms.

Dome inside the royal reception room.

Another view inside the reception room. Lots of gold, as a palace should.

The seating area in the royal reception room. I loved all the beautiful painted tiles. So Turkish!

Jared with a view of the Palace interior. The Palace was made up of about 20 separate free-standing buildings (different structures served different purposes, reception rooms, library, kitchens, etc. with the actual private living quarters of the Sultan in the Harem, which you had to pay extra to visit, and therefore we passed because we were so cold by the time we'd seen the main parts that we were ready to leave).

Me in the Palace with some of the beautiful tiles behind. The whole palace was decorated in this style. Just lovely.

We probably spent the most time in the Palace in the treasury, which was actually awesome because it houses all of the elaborate jewelry and gifts the Sultans received from other rulers over the years, so had some amazing gold and precious stone jewelry (including the 5th largest diamond in the world, pretty stunning).

And we felt that we needed to go check out the terrace and gardens overlooking the Bosphorus before we left, because it just didn't feel right to miss out on it (although you can't exactly say the view of the Bosphorus across to the Asian part of Istanbul was anything to see given the weather). I'm sure the views are amazing when the weather is nice.

Another view down toward the Bosphorus and the old city walls.

View of the Palace terrace. I guess the upside of coming when it was such lousy weather is that there were no crowds to fight and we had basically full reign over all the sights we visited and didn't have to wait in any lines or basically be around big crowds at all.

The main palace gate. I took a quick photo as we were making a hasty exit to go back to our hotel and regroup/defrost.

After our only hour and a half out at the palace we were absolutely chilled to the bone and our spirits were a little dampened, because we didn't know how we could possibly continue to walk around all day with the weather. We headed back to get some apple tea and make a new plan. While our dinner the night before was delicious, one of our main objectives was to try Turkish food. So we discussed our options and decided that staying close to the hotel for dinner seemed the best idea, and that we would head to one of the restaurants we'd read about with good Turkish kebaps for lunch (and we would go via taxi). With our new plan in place we bundled up again and went out to find a taxi to take us to Taksim Square, from where it would be a short walk to the restaurant.

Taksim Square.

Istiklal Caddesi, the city's most famous pedestrian boulevard.

So we headed to lunch at Zubeyir Ocakbasi, right off Istiklal. We had read about Zubeyir in a few different places, and it seemed the perfect place to try authentic Turkish kebaps (kebabs) and mezze. We had read that it is ordinarily packed to the brim, but given that it was lunchtime, and that it was snowing sideways out, we weren't surprised that we were the only people there. We were seated right next to the copper-hooded indoor barbecue and we were able to watch as our vegetables and meat were grilled. We started with warm eggplant and pumpkin dips with fresh from the oven bread for mezze, and then I had the chicken kebaps (shish taouk) and Jared had the mixed grilled which included lamb and mutton, along with organ meat (no, thank you). He, of course, loved it. And it blew any Arabic kebabs we've had way out of the water. Absolutely delicious and hit the spot as a perfect comfort food for the occasion.

Turkish sweets... Mmmm.

Then after lunch we began walking down Istiklal, and only made it about 50 yards before these Turkish sweets beckoned us in for dessert (and it actually seemed like a good call as some sort of Pro-Communist rally was making its way down the Istiklal right behind us, so it seemed a good idea to get out of the way). The sweets were delicious, although Jared chastised me for taking a picture in a restaurant (something he considers to be a HUGE faux pas). Oh well.

After dessert we decided to try and walk all the way to the bottom of the Istiklal and then look for a taxi to take us back to the Grand Bazaar (we had more shopping to do!). Well, we walked to the bottom of the Istiklal and then some in search of a taxi, who drove us across the Golden Horn, but then dropped us off to fend for ourselves in finding the Grand Bazaar. So we ended up wondering around much longer than intended, but did catch some great views...

Random Istanbul shot, but it kind of epitomizes the city.

So by the time we finally found our way to the Grand Bazaar, we were once again ready to do some shopping. This time, we were in the market for ceramics, and got lost for an hour or so before settling on one ceramic shop where we ended up buying a beautiful 6-tile mosaic painting (I can't wait to get it framed!) and I managed to walk away with no less than 5 ceramic bowls (some are gifts though...)... Oops.

Another view in the Grand Bazaar. I think this was more in the antiques area.

A lantern shop. I just loved them!

Lanterns!

So after shopping, wandering around, and drinking apple tea in the Grand Bazaar we decided to head back to the hotel to relax with some Raki (Turkish Aniseed Brandy) and Effes (Turkish Beer) before heading back out to dinner. We justified this decision by saying that if we were paying to stay at such a nice hotel, we might as well enjoy it. So I napped while Jared watched Conan (we can't get him in Dubai, so had to make the most of it while we could). We had made dinner reservations at a restaurant close to the hotel called Balikci Sabahattin Restaurant which specialized in fresh fish (another mainstay in the Turkish diet, given all the water surrounding the city). What we didn't realize was that it was an exclusively fish restaurant. So we started with fried calamari, and then I had the sea bass (super fresh and grilled simply with just lemon) and Jared had the whole snapper. Mr. K. (Jared's dad) would have been in heaven. After dinner we headed back to the hotel lounge where Jared had another beer and I had a hot chocolate by the fire. We got to bed early and got a good night's sleep before having to take the shuttle to the airport early the next morning. It was an absolutely wonderful, and truly memorable trip to Istanbul. Now, I am just dying to go back in the warmer months! We'll see...

8 Years and DSF Parade

Saturday, February 19th, was mine and Jared's 8 year anniversary! The time has gone so fast that we sometimes have a hard time believing it has been that long. But then we just think about all that we have done in that time -- we started dating when I was a sophomore and Jared was a junior at Hobart, then subsequently both moved to Boston for law school and survived three bar exams together (first Jared took MA, then the following year I did, then the third year Jared took NY. I would not wish three summers in row of bar exams on anyone). We have done long distance on more occasions than I like to think about (while I lived in London and Rome, a year of me in NY and Jared in Boston, a year of him in Dubai and me in Boston) and have traveled the US and world together. When I think about it that way, it's been a long time! I mean, we could have a child in 3rd grade! (you know, if we were extremely irresponsible hardcore pro-life people). We have also been together longer than the vast majority of our friends who are in couples, and a good number of them are all engaged and/or married now.... So, given all of that, we thought we needed to adequately celebrate such an occasion. So, we decided a trip somewhere was in order, and will be heading to Istanbul next weekend for a proper celebration.

However, we couldn't let the day pass without any ado, so decided to go out to a nice dinner at our favorite steak restaurant in Dubai, Gary Rhodes' Twenty 10 at the Royal Meridian Hotel in the Dubai Marina. Before dinner though, we decided that we needed to hit up the Grand Finale Parade to the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) that they were holding on the Burj Boulevard in our neighborhood. Last year we went to the shopping festival parade that they hold every night of the shopping festival down by the Dubai Creek, and it was one of the most entertaining/trippy parades I've ever seen, so couldn't possibly let this one pass us by without checking it out. And truly this year's DSF parade did not disappoint. It was similarly a psychedelic-Alice in Wonderland experience, only this time there seemed to be an actual theme to accompany the seemingly random barrage of bird people and larger-than-life dancing shopping bags. I was only disappointed that my camera was putting up a fight with me and so all but three of my photos are far too blurry to share. The theme seemed to be "Around the World" and therefore there were different dancers and floats to represent all of the continents in the world (ie, African dancers, floats with North American icons like the Statue of Liberty, giant dancing Russian Matryoshkas (think "The Nutcracker"), and Chinese New Year-style dancing dragons and fish. Very entertaining, although my favorite part was still the random dancing bird people (see my Feb. '10 postings on the DSF Parade for a visual representation). I will share a couple pictures though just so you can get the idea...

The Clown Car float. A little freaky if you start thinking about Stephen King's movie "It"...

A random parade shot. This scene reminds me a bit of "Babes in Toyland" with the giant rainbow train.

Closer image of the train. I think it at least gives you an impression of the trippiness of this parade. Oh Dubai.

Then after the parade we headed to the Royal Meridian for dinner. We got there a little early, so decided to grab a drink at the Mexican restaurant at the hotel called 'Maya' which has a lovely outdoor terrace overlooking the water. A mojito and some chips and salsa later and we headed to 'Rhodes' Twenty 10' for dinner. Jared had called ahead to tell them it was our anniversary, so when they showed us to our table, it was decorated with rose petals and heart confetti, quite a sweet touch I thought. Then we had a fabulous dinner of crab salad (with quail eggs, surprisingly delicious) and lobster minestrone soup for starters (all the starters are meant to be shared), and then American steak(!) (a rib-eye for Jared and filet for me) with triple-fried frites and cheesy cauliflower. All pretty standard steakhouse fare, but what makes Twenty 10 in my opinion is the plethora of sauces/dips you can choose from to accompany your steak (which I once believed to be blasphemy, but I can now appreciate the goodness that a little Bearnaise can add, especially if used for dipping frites!). Jared chose whipped horseradish, and I of course chose the Bearnaise... Mmm. For dessert we split a sticky toffee pudding (probably the best food to come out of the UK besides fish and chips). Then, when we were just about finished they brought out a plate of beignets with "Happy Anniversary" written on the plate in chocolate. Another lovely touch which I thought couldn't be beat until they brought me out an absolutely gorgeous bouquet of roses and lilies, saying that it is the restaurant's tradition to give the woman a bouquet when couples come for their anniversary. Just lovely. I felt quite special carrying a bouquet through the hotel as we were going to get our car from the valet. A perfect and fitting way to celebrate 8 years.

Muscat, reprised.

This weekend we had a long weekend for the Prophet's (peace be upon him) Birthday, so we figured we'd take advantage and get out of town to Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman for a couple days. It's only about a 4 hour drive, and we had been before over Eid when we first moved here in September 2009, but we'd been wanting to get back and do some more exploring (when we went the first time it was so hot that we didn't do as much exploring as we'd have liked). So we left early Thursday morning (2/17) and got there by 11am.

Playing on one of the old watchtowers.

We roughly knew the layout of the city from our previous trip and it's also a pretty small place, so we kind of just drove around and explored a bit before heading back to find our hotel, which was just an older cheapo, but we figured for one night who cared (although it did turn out to be fairly interesting in that they seemed to have lost our booking -- at least the 12 year old Omani boys working the front desk couldn't seem to find it, and then we later discovered that the light in the hall of our room was a communal light that could be controlled by a switch outside our door, therefore was turned on on us 2-3 times in the middle of the night and Jared had to get up to turn it off, oh, and Jared killed a giant bug in the bathroom which he swears was a baby cockroach, but I digress). After we got checked in, we promptly decided that we didn't want to spend any more time in our hotel room than humanly possible, so immediately headed back out to explore.


Our first stop was some of the old forts and watchtowers that are prevalent all over the Muscat skyline. When the Portuguese colonized the country a couple hundred years ago they built TONS of forts, so they are everywhere and fun to explore... although I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to be up this particular watchtower given the 5 foot hole in the middle with a 40 foot drop to the rocky Gulf of Oman below. Oops.

Another view of the hole in the watchtower. It gives a good view of what your fate would be if you fell through... We were just perplexed as to how the cannon is still hanging there and hasn't fallen through.

Another view of the cannon.

More Muscat

View of the giant ornamental incense burner in Al-Riyam Park and a watchtower from our perch. Something about the incense burner looks very UFO to me...

We continued our exploration around the Mutrah (older) area of town and the Corniche. The more we travel in the region the more we can see that each country has their own distinct style of mosque, and I really think Oman's are my favorite. Beautiful colorful mosaic tile domes tend to be the style here, and I got a little bit carried away with my camera..
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Another mosque next to the Mutrah Souq. I love the contrast of the mosque with the mountains behind. Mountains and rocky cliffs are another prevalent sight in Muscat. The city is basically built into the mountains.

My attempt at an artistic shot of the minaret.

The Muscat Corniche.

View of the Corniche looking out toward the Sultan's yacht.

And once we got bored of exploring the corniche (and discovered that most of the forts are a lot more difficult to get close to and/or unable to be climbed), we got a little bored and decided to head down to the beach.

It was low-tide and there were tons of shells, so I had a blast collecting them. One of the best parts of Muscat is that all of the beaches are public beaches so you are free to just walk-on where ever, notwithstanding some very nice hotels with so-called 'private' beaches.

The weather was lovely, however, unfortunately, extremely windy so swimming at the beach would have been a bit chilly. We collected shells and walked around for a bit watching some men trying to fish in the low-tide pool using improvised fishing equipment. After we tired of that we found a little cafe right across the street from the beach and went for a little afternoon snack, or rather, sheesha for Jared, delicious fresh mint-lemon juice for me. Really relaxing and just nice to be out of town doing something different for a change.

We stuck around the cafe until the sun set and then headed back to the hotel to regroup before heading out to dinner at Mumtaz Mahal, which is supposed to be the best Indian restaurant in town and is also located on top of a big hill with great views down to the city. Our plans were thrown for a little bit of a loop, however, when we realized that the Muscat Festival was going on and that the restaurant was located right in the midst of it. So we got stuck in festival traffic trying to get to the restaurant to park our car. Luckily, the Klebanoff mantra of always leave excessively early for everything because early = on time and on time = late worked in our favor and we just made it in time for our dinner booking, although not without great frustration. Dinner was delicious though and because they didn't have my favorite Indian dish (chicken tikka masala, slightly boring I know, but it never lets me down) I ended up trying another yummy chicken green curry. A lovely and relaxing first day in Muscat.

View of Oman Dive Center's private beach and harbor.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and after having the sketchy hotel breakfast which included chicken hotdogs (actually a more common item than you would think on sketchy breakfast buffets over here, which we've experienced our fair share of) and chicken nuggets, checked out of the hotel to head to the beach.

Since we had already hit up the public beach the previous day we decided to try someplace new and instead headed out of town about 10 minutes to the Oman Dive Center. It took a little while to get there on hilly mountain roads, but it was well worth the drive because it turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!

Wide view of the Oman Dive Center beach with their super-long dock jutting out 100 meters or so into the harbor.

So we luxuriated at the beach for a couple hours, soaking up some sun and swimming in the harbor.

Jared, with a view of the Oman Dive Center's beach huts in the background. There were only about 6 or 7 of them, but we were questioning our decision to stay at the sketchy Safeer Hotel Suites when we could have stayed in a lovely beach hut here... Although we comforted ourselves with the presumption that they were undoubtedly fully booked since we only decided to come two days before.

View of one of the two private beaches around the Center that are only accessible via water. We swam to this one and watched some Omani boys playing soccer for awhile before swimming back.

View back to the Center from the end of the dock. I was a little camera happy because I just couldn't believe we had found this little gem, and only 4 hours away from Dubai!

Another view out into the harbor. The Shangri-La luxury hotel complex are the buildings out in the middle. Apparently quite posh and uber expensive.

Self-take.

Me with the Oman Dive Center behind.

Another self-take. I guess I did get a bit carried away...

Once we determined that we'd had enough sun and sand we decided to head back into Muscat for a bit more exploring. I was trying to capture the steep hilliness of the mountain road to the Dive Center in this photo (we were truly skeptical as to whether the Lancer could make it up one of the hills), but I don't think the photo does it justice.

On our way back into the city we found a beautiful overlook, so stopped for some more photos.

With the mountains and Muscat in the distance.

Closer view from the overlook.

Beautiful mountains.

Our last bit of exploring in Muscat brought us to Sultan Qaboos' Palace.

The Palace Gate.


Another view of the Palace grounds. Simply stunning. I was really struck by how green Muscat is. Everywhere you look it seems there are flowers and open green space. Much more so than Dubai, for sure.

Jared in the Palace colonnade.

View through one of the archways around the palace. I thought it pretty much epitomized the city.

An old fort on the edge of the Palace grounds.

Close-up of the fort.

After our romp around the Palace, we decided it was time to head back to Dubai so that we could attempt to get back before dark and have a relaxing evening at home. After this trip we've concluded that we just love Muscat and would definitely come back. Such a relaxing little getaway from Dubai to what feels like a very sleepy little city. My only disappointment was that I was hell-bent on buying a Middle Eastern dowry trunk that I've been wanting for awhile (one of those things that I feel that I just must buy while I'm here), but we didn't time our stops at the Mutrah Souq very well, and most all the stores were closed both times we stopped in. In the one shop I did look in, they offered me a 90 year old antique trunk from Zanzibar for 600 Omani Rials (aka roughly $2000 USD or 6000 AED, yikes). Obviously, I walked away trunkless... There's always next time...

V-Day

I just love Valentine's Day! I know it is one of the most hated and commercialized 'Hallmark' holidays there are, but for some reason I just love it. I think (other than the obvious enjoying flowers and chocolate), I really enjoy Valentine's Day because it is the anniversary of mine and Jared's first date (Feb. 14, 2003: Art Show at Houghton House [at HWS], followed by me performing in The Vagina Monologues [which Jared refused to attend out of principle, but his frat brothers did], and concluded with a Semi-Formal Dance at Kappa Sigma, oh the memories...). So the holiday always holds a special place in my heart. It has become our tradition to stay in and cook a nice dinner at home to celebrate, because, it's kind of like New Years Eve in that you are pretty much guaranteed an overpriced crap meal if you go out. And Jared's personal mission seems to be outdoing himself year after year in what he prepares. This year he did not disappoint...

Homemade Fried Calamari.

Who makes their own fried calamari? Jared does! Our first wonderful course, which may have just outdone the homemade pomme frites of last year. Delicious.

Beef Wellington with asparagus.

Then our main was Beef Wellington (ala Gordon Ramsay) with asparagus. Jared knows my true love in life (other than him, of course) is filet mignon, and that I would probably be extremely disappointed if he didn't make some semblance of beef tenderloin, so instead of just doing the stereotypical grilled steak, he stepped it up and made Ramsay's famous Wellington that we've both been wanting to try for some time. It is basically beef tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto and then covered in a layer of minced mushrooms mixed with pate and then all covered in puff pastry and baked. I never really thought you could improve upon filet, but this just may be the way. Super yummy!

Sex in a Pan.

And I was in charge of dessert, and being much less talented and industrious in the kitchen than Jared, I made this fairly easy recipe which consisted of a shortbread/pie crust-like layer on the bottom, followed by a cream cheese frosting layer, then a chocolate pudding layer, and then whipped cream on the top. It was quite good and the name seemed fitting for the holiday. A perfectly lovely Valentine's Day.

And on a side note, Valentine's Day at school was completely crazy with the most over the top Valentine's party and Valentine's I've ever seen. There were kids bringing Valentine's gift bags with stuffed animals for the others kids in the class (all 16 of them) as their "Valentine"... So much for punch-out valentine's from the drug store that I gave out when I was a kid. I received two stuffed animals, about 5 boxes of chocolates, a scented candle, and even a rose from one little girl. Crazy. It was fun though.

French Week at Galleries Lafayette

The Eiffel Tower of French Bread. Need I say more?