Day Off

Another week, another (one) day off - what to do? Its not enough time to go anywhere, and mental exhaustion makes it hard to be creative about filling the day with fun (part of the brain is just asking for bed...)

So we got on the train again, because that doesn't require much thought, and Charlotte came with us to have a look at Olivium shopping centre. We didn't bother with accidentally getting off at the wrong station this time.

All the big shopping centres have some fun activity in the middle. (Galeria has an ice-skating rink, Carousel has a merry-go-round / carousel.) This one has a climbing wall.


Charlotte and I thought about it - but not for very long.

And then we wandered around the shops and looked at all the pretty things to buy.

But in the end we didn't buy anything except a couple of bits and pieces from a stationery store - gotta love stationery, don't you?

We had lunch - kumpir, stuffed baked potatoes, but not nearly as good as the ones at Ortakoy.
Walking back to the station we saw this simit-man, and just for once we had time to get out the camera (and he even slowed his pace a little to pose for us). We see a lot of people in the streets carrying bread in huge packs on their heads, or carrying trays of food as part of a take-away food service ('paket servis'), or dangling one of those lovely little trays full of tulip-shaped glass cups of çay (tea) - but its really hard to have a camera ready.


By mid-afternoon we were back at the apartment, all tuckered out, watching TV and playing scrabble.
A new teacher arrived today, from Australia, so we gathered at a local outdoors restaurant. He was dressed Oz-style in cropped cotton pants. Its "winter" here, so we haven't seen any bare legs for a while, but he wasn't feeling cold. The temperature today was up around 18 degrees, but when the sun goes down it can drop fast. Maybe it was just the jet-lag affecting him.


This particular restaurant offers nargile - like the hookah in Alice in Wonderland. You can choose which flavour of smoke you suck through the water pipe. Some of the teachers chose apple-flavour, and I have to admit it was a lot more pleasant than the usual stench of tobacco smoke.