Well, today wasn't the greatest of the days of this vacation… I'm writing this entry while the family is sitting in the kids' room watching the most boring introduction to a movie in the world: Free Zone. Natalie Portman cries for at least the first five minutes. The next ten or so minutes are seen through the rearview mirror. That will count as the first fail, though anachronistically.
We began the day by going to the Selimiye Mosque. Outside of the mosque is a little bazaar. Edirne is known for its soaps-shaped-like-fruits. They're actually pretty cool. Mom bought a bunch for like 10 lira or something. Edirne is very much cheaper than Istanbul.
The mosque is another one by Sinan, and it's considered his finest. It is really beautiful. I think I still like the Sokollu the best, though.
Outside the mosque again, we ran into our first Turkish gypsies (or Roma, I guess). They basically attacked us with little cups full of bird seed for the pigeons. I asked in Turkish how much they wanted for the little cups, and the mother signed "nothing", while the little girl told me one lira. Anna took a cup and started feeding the birds. I said "no thanks" many times, but the little skankbomb then shoved a cup in my hand. I figured whatever if it's only one lira. While we were leaving, the father kept asking for five lira from Dad, even though Dad had already paid the girl. The gypsies ended up getting two lira from us. Ugh, fail number two.
After that we went to "Hello Pizza" for lunch. For five lira I got a large-ish meal of "şnitzel", noodles with yogurt sauce (I thought it was cheese sauce), some kind of spicy couscous and French fries (pomfrit, from French pommes frites 'fried apples [of the earth]). For dessert we went next door to "Dondurmaci" (which means "ice cream maker"). Mom and Anna got baklava (well, Anna first got some profiteroles, but didn't like it). Dad got this strange drink that is called something like balaban, which tasted like lemon pudding. I asked for ice cream (as in, what the shop was named after), but they said they were out (Dondurma yok). Fail. We all kind of shared. I liked none of them. Another fail.
mullets! There are more mullets here than in Istanbul. Generally, this city is fairly provincial, very few people speak any English, there's a bunch of graffitied walls, everything is a lot cheaper, etc.
There's neither much to do nor to see here, so we decided to go to another movie. I checked online and found out that 2012 was playing nearby and it was "with Turkish subtitles". We went in and I purchased our tickets using my vast knowledge of Turkish numbers. We went in, sat down, and five minutes into the movie realized it was dubbed into Turkish. We left. Yet another fail.
Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and Christmas music have all been re-appropriated in Turkey as symbols of the New Year. In Istanbul, the New Year (Yeni Yıl) is a big deal. When we asked a young man at our hotel yesterday whether anything special happens here in Edirne, he responded without a second's hesitation: "No." Oh boy, I'm excited now for tomorrow!
Oh, and I almost forgot: upon entering the mosque, two Roma women came up to us, forcing bags on us. You have to take off your shoes before entering mosques, and the bags are to keep your shoes in while walking through the building. None of the Roma respond to my question kaç para? ("how much?"), but eventually they said 1 lira a piece. Dad only had a 10 lira note and asked for change. The woman tried to run off with it, when a man who works in the mosque came up and started yelling at the women. They eventually returned all ten lira. I carried my shoes in the ratty, crusty old bag, but everyone else threw theirs away. That's the failure I'll leave you with for the day.
