Raves and Rants

So how did I decide on Istanbul? Did I recklessly pick a city on the map to discover, hardly. 😏. I had to go for a wedding in India. Normally I would do just that, trip to homeland and back but this time I decided to be adventurous? Foolish? At that time I was being foolishly adventurous, and every family , I believe, needs to travel together and go through stuff together to be close, is what I thought. This was before. Now as they say hind sight is 20/20. Here's what I think, traveling with kids is always unexpected, yet it must be done, just so they can be resilient, and learn to be a little out of their comfort zone. I got a great deal on tickets to Greece and decided to go to Istanbul from there, on my way back from India. Yeah I said that.  I didn't just say it, rinsed and repeated it to my bewildered other half and kids. 'Coz Going to India wasn't enough, going to Greece wasn't cutting it,  I needed to schedule another trip in the three weeks of winter br

Did I tell you? I am  an Austenerd. I love Jane Austen. Cliche  I know, but my favorite book is not surprisingly "Pride and Prejudice" but "Persuasion". Is Mark Darcy my favorite Hero of all times, umm, no. why the blog post silly? 'coz I went to the library and saw this right next to the free stuff. free stuff at the library I'm pretty sure millennials dont know what this is. These are Video Cassettes and you need a VCR to play this. If you don't know what a VCR is, you might not even know Colin Firth's portrayal of Darcy. BBC adaptation of the book came way before the Keira Knightly version. Colin Firth in my mind is Mark Darcy. No One, (Sorry Matthew MacFadden!) can/or ever will be a better Darcy than Mr. Firth.  Why then am I taking a picture and not grabbing this amazing deal(its free!), 'coz I don't own a VCR. I used to, a long time ago. As I'm enlightened every day by my 8 yr old. I'm OLD. Her: Did you build

I work downtown. Not exciting, downtown,but kinda down-in the crappy-dumps downtown. So I wanderlust, a lot. I try most days to not pretend to notice the same hobos outside the dunkin donuts harassing me for "Spare Change".There are no fancy boutiques or window shopping. Maybe no window but door shopping? The mannequin is outside the window, in case you didn't notice with the dress taped to the door and window. And this particular store is a sell it all store, you can buy lotto tickets, cigarettes, gum, groceries, and the latest fashion displayed. If this isn't your scene then there is a deli, and DMV, and a lots of street corners of people talking about something that has nothing to do with anything in the current affairs. So this is where I am, a lot, not in the streets, but in this vicinity of downtown. So exciting, YAY! As if.😆 Hence the title Istanbul Blues. 'Coz I have 'em, now, and everyday. Like a lovesick teenager, I miss the city, the vib

So I've been travelling, a lot in the past few weeks. More on that later. But I have to share with y'll my cruise to wat felt like a forever purgatory in smoke hell. So you're in Istanbul, and want to see the city by night, you can like a fool, or me, think that that is indeed a good idea. 'Coz in a foreign country things always go as you anticipate, right? Umm.. that would be "Yok Hayir", in turkish, google it, you may or may not be surprised by the meaning. But in this context lets try and understand exactly wat my expectations are versus the reality. My Expectation: I'm expecting a family friendly atmosphere, with nice commentary in the back about the historical landmarks we pass by. I'm expecting a table service for dinner, and nice food. Nice relaxing cruise, etc. Wat I Get: Are you ready for this, 'coz? I wasnt. It was a long drawn out episode of "Shahs of Sunset", except it was the worst episode that dragged inev