Grey Bear-ology

A White Tower with a Black & Red History

2009-12-17T09:58:00.035+01:00

It's almost Christmas (and sadly, no Advent calendar for me this year, as those about me don't seem to appreciate me as they once did) and I still have so much to tell you about Thessaloníki that I barely (bearly!) know where to start. But today is a rather drizzly, dreary, grey day (not that grey is a dreary colour) in Izmit, so I think I'll brighten it up with something white: like Thessaloníki's famous landmark, the Lefkos Pyrgos - or the White Tower.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the city was once part of the Ottoman Empire, and the tower - originally known as "the Lion's Tower" or "the Fortress of Kalamaría" (which sounds a little bit like a stronghold for squid) - was built by the Turks some time after 1430. The Ottomans - and not the Venetians like it was once thought - probably erected it on the spot of an earlier Byzantine tower.

The White Tower was originally a fort, and then it became a garrison, a particularly infamous and nasty prison, a communications centre during WWI, and a meteorological lab. For many many years, the tower was part of the old city walls, and separated the Jewish quarter of the city from the Muslim and Jewish cemeteries.

In 1826, Mahmud II ordered a massacre of the Janissaries there and because of all the bloodshed, it became known as "the Red Tower" and even "the Tower of Blood." The Janissaries were a class of elite non-Muslim warriors - the very first standing Ottoman army - who served one of these royal institutions: as palace bodyguards, in the military, or in the religious or the scribal sectors. Originally, the Janissaries were comprised of prisoners of war. In the devşirme practice, which began in the 14th century, every 4 or 5 years or so boys were "harvested" from conquered Christian (Jewish boys were exempt) nations - in other words, they were forceably taken from their families, made to convert to Islam, and trained to serve the Sultan. Muslims considered this a very great honour (some Muslims tried unsuccessfully to sneak into the Janissary corps), but I don't think the parents of these boys felt the same way.

Eventually though, the Janissaries became almost universally hated within the Ottoman Empire because they had become very powerful and had a habit of killing any sultan who tried to reform or disband them. In 1826 when they saw that Mahmud II was forming a private army and hiring European mercenaries with very big guns, they rebelled. Out-gunned, it is believed that 10,000 Janissaries were killed on the first day alone. The Turks have called this "the Auspicious Incident" or "Fortunate Event". I don't think the Janissaries felt the same way.

Our tower went from red to white when, in 1890, a Jewish prisoner was given the option of painting it in exchange for his freedom. Needless to say, he got himself a paint brush! At least someone had the common sense to cover up the blood.

In any case, the White Tower isn't very white anymore - well symbolically it's still white - but it really is quite pretty.

There's one more black spot in the history of the White Tower. In the early 1990s, a nationalist organization in the now independent and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia created a "souvenir" bank note on which was featured the White Tower. The Greeks were outraged! They (the nationalists) even suggested that the government adopt the design for its legal currency. The Greeks were outraged some more! Eventually the government vetoed the idea but souvenir copies of the bank notes were printed and distributed, which only fueled the fires of animosity in the Balkans. Honestly, you people. I think you just look for ways to annoy each other.

Now though, it's an award-winning museum (it was restored in 1985 for the city's 2300th anniversary!) in which you climb climb climb - with (free!) audio guide in hand - up up up the spiralling staircase to the top of the tower, stopping at each floor to read about and see the history of Thessaloníki. And once you get to the top - what a view! In some ways the seafront promenade (below) reminds me of Málaga - which just makes me miss Málaga all the more. And have I mentioned that I'll be in Málaga in 8 days?!! Until then, I'll have to bear in mind (bear!) all the positive bits of Thessaloníki - the wonderful people, the ouzo, and the yummy pastries - and try not to think of its darker days, caused by you humans.

GB "the Great"

2009-12-08T11:08:00.036+01:00

It seems so long since I've last blogged - five weeks in fact! - and I want to thank all of my followers who have been thoughtfully emailing me every day, asking if I'm okay. I'm fine, thanks, but unfortunately, my bipedal attendants have been too "occupied" of late (self-absorbed, if you ask me) to accompany me on any junkets, so I've been at home, thinking up ways to promote world peace and flipping through fashion magazines and counting the days until Christmas without the benefit of an advent calendar.

Then, two things happened! The first was one of Islam's biggest holiday/celebrations known, in Turkey, as bayramı. I don't want to talk too much about that because a lot of animals die during bayramı, and it's a very sad time for all of us ... but it did give my bipedals five days of holiday. The second was that the place where my bipedals work lost my female's work visa application and, on top of this, her residence visa was set to expire in mid-November, so she had to leave the country and re-enter with a new tourist visa. My male bipedal and I decided to accompany her - during bayramı, so we could also miss all of the awful awfulness - back to Greece! We took an overnight train with spiffy sleeping compartments (below, right) and the trip took over 13 hours from Istanbul. It was wonderful because as soon as we crossed the border into Greece we could see houses decorated with Christmas lights!

This time though we didn't go to Athens but to the country's second largest city Thessaloníki in the northern, Macedonian part of the country (see me, top) which lies on the Thermaic Gulf - a part of the Aegean Sea. Historically, the whole connection with Macedonia is a little complicated - like everything seems to be in this part of the world - and it shouldn't be confused with the Republic of Macedonia, which Greece doesn't even recognize. *sigh* You humans.

Anyway, I did and saw a lot of neat things in Thessaloníki but I'll have to blog about them later - otherwise, this will be a very very long-winded blog. For today, let me just talk about Thessaloníki's history and that guy and his horse.

So, if you look to the bottom-left, you'll see me with the city's best known son - Alexander the Great - although technically he was really born just outside of Thessaloníki in the city of Pella ... close enough as far as Thessaloníki is concerned. His blue-eyed horse Bucephalus (or "Ox-Head" - apparently he had a big head) is one of the most famous horses in history. We don't know where he was born, but we do know that no one could break the horse ... until Alexander came on the scene and tamed him. Bucephalus carried Alexander into many, many battles and was eventually killed in 326 in what is now Pakistan, where he is buried. There are some stories about Alexander having an "unnatural" affection for his horse, but I don't want to think about that. You humans!

Thessaloníki itself was founded by King Cassander in 315 b.c.e., who named it after his wife who was also Alexander's half-sister. Her name came from the Macedonians military victory there: nike in Greek means "victory" so if you always wear Nike shoes, you'll be victorious. At least it's a nicer name than "Ox-Head".

Aristotle (photo, bottom-right) was Alexander's tutor, who himself had been a student of Plato or Play Dough as my female bipedal always calls him. It's so easy to mock what you don't understand, isn't it? Aristotle, who was born about 50 km. east of Thessaloníki, gave lessons to Alexander, as well as two other future kings. His advice to Alexander was to be a "leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians" and to care for the Greeks as members of his family and the barbarians as animals or plants. It seems that the boy listened.

At the age of 20 - after the assassination of his father, Philip (he wasn't as "Great") - Alexander became King of Macedonia. He embarked on a programme of world domination, and at its height, his kingdom stretched from Greece, across Syria, Babylonia and Persia to India, and south to Egypt, and he took the title "King of Kings" - which is a little much in my opinion.

Over the years there were mutinies and plots to overthrow him, but he pretty much managed to stay on top of things. In June of 323, after a night of drinking, he died at the age of 32. Scholars have suggested everything from poison, malaria, typhoid fever, pancreatitis - and even West Nile Virus - to explain his early death. What we do know is that his body was a mess with battle wounds after years of fighting and he was also a heavy drinker. His health had also declined after the untimely death of his best and closest "friend" Hephaestion (more stories about "unnatural affection") - whom Alexander requested become deified, but whom the oracles gave permission to be worshipped as a divine hero. Honestly, you people ....

Anyway, the Kingdom of Macedonia would eventually be destroyed, with Thessaloníki becoming a city of the Roman Republic and taking the name Salonica. By the 6th century it would be the second most important city in the Byzantine world, after Constantinople. When Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Thessaloníki fell too, but it (and the area around it) became known as the Kingdom of Thessalonica and the largest fief of the Latin Empire. The city was recovered by the Byzantines and then, in 1423, sold - sold! - to the Venetians. Why are the Venetians always involved in my stories?

A few years later the Ottomans captured Thessaloníki, brutally killing and enslaving about a fifth of the population. Those Ottomans ... But the city actually did do well under them, becoming known as Selânik, and had a mixed population of Muslims, Christians and Jews. In fact, to off-balance the large Christian population there, the Ottomans invited the Jews expelled from Spain under Isabel and Ferdinand (isn't it weird how my travels seem to be all interconnected?) to settle there, and, for some 200 years, Selânik/Thessaloníki (called "the Mother of Israel") came to have the largest Jewish population in the world. Until the Nazis stormed in. In 1943, 11,000 Jews were sent to labour camps and another 50,000 were sent to the gas chambers. I don't even know what to say ...

At the turn of the last century, Greece started to throw off the Ottoman Empire and in 1912, the Ottomans surrendered the city to the Greek army without a fight. In 1917, much (but not all) of the historical city was destroyed by a fire which left almost a quarter of the population homeless. And then, while Greece tried to find its identity as a sovereign nation, the Nazis invaded and occupied the city until the end of 1944.

*Sigh* Your human history makes me so sad sometimes. All the wars and killing - and gas chambers? What were you people thinking? You never see bears acting like this! At least Thessaloníki has rebounded and has embraced all of its past, mucking it all together like Play Dough(!) into a vibrant, cosmospolitan city with lots of UNESCO world heritage sites. I wish I were there right now. In fact, I wish I were having an ouzo and munching on pickled peppers (below, photo) right now. Maybe I was a little long-winded after all, but like the guy on his horse, Thessaloníki sure was great.

Shaken Not Stirred

2009-10-27T17:05:00.012+01:00

After all my years of trotting about the globe, it never fails to amaze me how much we still have to learn about each other. At least, that's a bear's philosophy - I'm not sure how you humans work into the equation. Anyhow, whenever I used to think of Greek beverages, drinks like ouzo and retsina always jumped to my mind first. Until I visited Greece ...

And although I'm not suggesting that thousands of litres and litres of ouzo and retsina aren't drunk in Greece every day - because I'm sure they are - I was surprised to find that, for the past several decades, Greece has become a Frappé Nation. Maybe it should be renamed Frappé-opolis.

Like all great ideas, the frappé began as a very happy, if not frothy, accident. In 1957, at an international trade fair in Thessaloniki (in northern Greece), a Nestlé food rep couldn’t find hot water to make his coffee. He improvised and used cold water instead, giving birth to the caffeine-packed frappé - now a staple in the Greek diet.

Nowadays, everybody seems to have a frappé in hand as they walk down the street, and those who don't, are sitting in a sidewalk café drinking one. My male bipedal started drinking them almost the second we arrived in Athens - sort of a "when in Rome thing". Except we were in Athens. Anyway, my female turned her nose up at them until she tasted one and, rather than buying one herself, just kept taking mammoth sips from everyone else's.

That's me above with one of mine. That frappé was particularly delicious: it was on the rooftop café of the brand-new Acropolis Museum, which overlooks the Acropolis where I was banned for being a toy!. It was such a costly museum to build that the city is charging only 1 euro for admission as a special thank-you. Isn't that nice of them? And they make awesome frappés.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a recipe with you if you want to make your own frappé at home. Of course, there are some minor differences between recipes but this one pretty much nails it:

Grey Bear's Authentic Greek Frappé

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons instant coffee (locals still favour Nescafé)
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
Cold water
30 ml evaporated milk or regular milk (this is optional but I don't think it would be a frappé without milk.)

Assembling GB's Authentic Greek Frappé

1) Place coffee, sugar, and 60 ml cold water in a shaker, jar or drink mixer (anything with a lid).

2) Cover and shake well for 30 seconds or, if using a standing or hand-held drink mixer, process 10 seconds to produce a thick, light-brown foam.

3) Place a few ice cubes in a tall glass.

4) Slowly pour all of the coffee foam into the glass.

5) Add milk, if desired (you really should), according to your taste.

6) Fill with cold water until the foam reaches the top of the glass.

7) Add a tall, bendy straw (this is mandatory!)

8) Serve with glass of cold water on the side (because this is Europe).

9) Slurp & enjoy!

Yum! Doesn't that sound delicious? - and I just saved you the cost of a plane ticket ... but I hope you do go ... and remember to ask for a frappé! And until then, I'll try to rustle up some recipes for ouzo and retsina - oh! and γεια μας - and in case that's just Greek to you: cheers!

Shoppers, Gods, Emperors & A Bear (Oh My!)

2009-10-14T14:17:00.025+02:00

I've received tens of thousands of e-mails from my readers asking for an update on the international incident I nearly caused - or rather, nearly caused by that little troll of a guard at the Acropolis. First of all, thank you for your concern and just to put your minds at rest, the city of Athens has officially apologized, all ambassadors are back at their respective posts, and that little troll of a guard has been reassigned as the city's dog poop cleaner. With all the stray dogs in Athens, he'll be a very busy troll - I mean, man.

My being banned from the Acropolis was extremely upsetting, but to give my bipedal attendants their due, that didn't deter them from snapping photos of me at Athens' other historic sites. Of course, having said that, the guards at the other sites weren't as zealous as that troll but we had to keep a sharp eye out, just in case.

After the debacle at the Parthenon, we descended the Acropolis and continued on our way to the Agora - which just means "market". From 3,000 b.c.e., this was the heart of the ancient city as both a place to shop as well as a meeting spot for merchants, gossips, and politicians. This was where citizens could ostracize (from the Greek word ostraka, or potsherds) their rivals, tyrants & people who looked at them the wrong way. You simply scratched a name on a potsherd and popped it into a big urn. If 5,999 other Athenians agreed with you, the unlucky fellow was exiled for 10 years with no chance of appeal. This was an important feature of that crazy new fad called democracy.

I didn't have to worry about being ostracized because that had been already taken care of at the Parthenon.

You can see me (above, left) in the stoa (Greek for "covered walkways"), a columned colonnade under which shops and stalls stood, and which offered protection from the elements to potential shoppers. Its modern-day equivalent would be an outdoor shopping plaza. In fact, my female bipedal thought she'd be able to do some shopping here. Her ignorance astounds me some time - besides, how many fridge magnets does one person need?

Not far from the Agora stands the Hephaisteion (above, right) - probably the best preserved Greek temple in all of Greece (although it was a Greek Orthodox church for some 1200 years). It was built in the 5th century b.c.e. to honour Hephaistos, the crippled blacksmith of the gods, and a god himself. You may know him by his Roman name Vulcan (as in our word volcano: think of his fiery furnace).

Hephaistos, besides being lame, was not very attractive and there are lots of myths about his being spurned by Greece's goddesses, including Athena herself. He was said to be so ugly that when he was born, his mother Hera was so appalled at what she had given birth to that she hurled him from Mount Olympus - and it took nine days & nights for him to reach the ground.

I bet he never sent her a card on Mother's Day.

He did eventually find a bride: the goddess of love Aphrodite (or Venus, in the Roman version). Zeus arranged the marriage so that the other gods would stop squabbling over Aphrodite. I don't think she was too pleased with the match but I doubt she was very faithful either. My female bipedal attendant tells me that there beautiful women have to bear (bear!) many trials and tribulations - although I don't know how she would know that.

It was from Hephaistos that Prometheus stole a spark of fire - thus bringing fire to humankind - and it was he who fashioned Achilles' armour (although he forgot about the heel) and who created the box which ended up in Pandora's curious hands.

We decided to push our luck with the city's antiquities guards a little further - always keeping our eyes open - and stopped for a photo at Hadrian's Arch (bottom, right). This huge gateway bears (bears!) an inscription which states that Athens is the city of the Emperor Hadrian - the fellow that built the big wall in the north of England - but beyond that we don't know what his actual involvement was.

Hadrian was born in the 1st century and died in the 2nd: he was a Stoic, an Epicurean, Emperor of Rome, and later a god. And a Capricorn. He was born in the city of Italica which lies just outside of Seville in Spain - which gave birth to another Roman Emperor: Trajan. I love Seville. *Sigh* - I miss Spain.

Among all of his positive and not-so positive exploits (Hadrian deified his lover after his untimely drowning), battles (he quashed the 2nd Jewish Revolt), accomplishments (he banned circumcision, saying it was barbaric) and travels (he spent more than half his reign outside of Italy), it is believed that Hadrian popularized the beard among Romans (until then it was a Greek thing). As a former international fashion model, I know how easy it is to start a trend. In the autumn of '98, everyone (and I mean everyone) was wearing grey flannel! - but the truth is, he had lots of warts and scars on his face which he tried to hide with his beard.

Anyway, all that we have in Athens is his arch while there's an entire gate belonging to Hadrian in Antalya, here in Turkey. I guess that bears (bears!) visiting too. I wonder what the guards are like there ... hopefully I won't be ostracized from Antalya. As it is, I think I'll have to wait 10 years before I can return to Athens. No wait! - I forgot! That little troll of an antiquities guard is scooping up dog turds as I, or rather my bipedal types this. What goes around, comes around ... or maybe in his case, shit rolls downhill.

Grey Bear of Troy

2009-10-05T14:24:00.039+02:00

You'd think that I'd be used to it by now: every time I visit a cemetery with my bipedals, we get hopelessly lost and we can never seem to find the graves of who we're looking for. We once spent 4 hours in Paris' Père Lachaise Cemetery looking for the grave of Jane Avril - the famous can-can dancer - immortalized by painter Toulouse-Lautrec. Do you think we ever found it? No! I mean, why can't "some people" do their homework and try preparing a little? Isn't that what I pay them for?

So it really shouldn't have come as any surprise that, when we were in Athens - spending some quality time with The Dearly Departed in the Próto Nekrotafío, the city's historic cemetery - we should a) get hopelessly lost and b) be unable to find the grave of the one individual I wanted to see: Heinrich Schliemann.

For those a little rusty on their history, Schliemann was a 19th century businessman and indigo (as in the colour - I prefer grey to blue but I do look dashing in indigo) dye merchant and banker and maverick archaeologist and all-round rogue from Germany who, as a child announced - or so he later claimed - that he would one day discover the city of Troy. And did. At that time, most scholars believed that Troy - home to the Trojan War as recounted by Homer in the Iliad - was nothing but a myth. Schliemann, however, was obsessed about its existence.

Born dirt poor, he climbed up the financial food chain in Europe and later moved to California in 1851 where he opened a bank and amassed a huge fortune during the state's gold boom - both through banking and through private speculation. I'm not sure if that's considered insider trading or not - I have a head for fashion and humanitarian causes so I hire professionals to worry about money. Shortly after this, he left the USA for Russia where he made even more money through military contracts during the Crimean War. By the time he was 36, he was able to retire quite comfortably - unlike my bipedal attendants who still barely have a pot to piss in.

He travelled about the world - he could speak 13 languages - and even infiltrated the holy city of Mecca disguised as a Bedouin tribesman. He then decided to find Troy and, divorcing his wife in absentia (what a swell guy) and inspired by the work of a British archaeologist who was working in Turkey, he moved to Hisarlik in the northwest of Anatolia. Hisarlik - modern Çanakkale - is only a few hours from Izmit but we haven't been able to make the pilgrimage yet because the bus system here leaves a bit to be desired. Except for the cookies and tea you get on board - they're yummy.

Schliemann decided he needed someone to help with with the "modern" Greek part of things (although he was in Turkey) and so he advertised for a wife in an Athenian newspaper. Sophia, a 17-year old relative of the Archbishop of Athens was suggested to him, and the two married. Their children would be named Andromache and Agamemnon - just to give you an idea of how obsessed he was with all things Ancient Greek.

With his huge personal fortune backing him, he started digging and didn't stop for eight years. Within 2 years, he struck gold - jewellery, cauldrons, vases, shields - with the so-called "Priam's Treasure", referring to Homer's King of Troy, who in fact lived several hundred years later than the date of the gold. But calling it Priam's Treasure must have sold a lot of newspapers and tickets to his forthcoming lecture circuits.

He had his wife's photo taken with some of the gold, erroneously dubbing it "the Jewels of Helen" - as in Helen of Troy. As a former international fashion model, I have to say that less is definitely more and she should have fired her personal fashion consultant. Such gaudiness! So tacky! Anyway, the Turkish government went ballistic and sued him for a share of the gold. They revoked his license and Schliemann skipped out of Turkey, smuggling everything out with him in order to "safeguard" the treasure from corrupt Turkish officers.

That comment didn't endear him much to the Turkish authorities.

He then popped up in Greece, where he started digging again. In Mycenae, he unearthed the (again) so-called "Funerary Mask of Agamemnon" belonging to - you guessed it - Agamemnon, the cuckolded husband of Helen of Troy. Unfortunately, Schliemann's dating of the find was way off again but, like Priam's Treasure, the name has stuck. I saw the mask and some of Schliemann's other finds in the Archaeological Museum of Athens but they wouldn't let me have my photo taken there either (Athens' guards are so testy and I'm still in the throes of my last international incident, I decided to let that one go).

Itching to get back to Turkey - perhaps he liked Turkish baklava more than Greek baklava - Schliemann traded some of the gold from Priam's Treasure with the Ottoman government for an excavation permit. Some of this gold is in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum but the rest was scooped up by the Imperial Museum of Berlin. The treasure was moved to an underground bunker during WWII (it was below the zoo!) but was stolen by the Red Army in 1945 and brought to the USSR (those German bears must have been napping).

For years the Soviet Union claimed to know nothing about the treasure but 16 years ago it turned up in Moscow's Pushkin Museum. Germany wants the gold back - and probably Turkey does too - but Russia wants to keep the hoard as reparation for the looting of museums and general destruction caused by the Nazis. You humans: you'll just never play nicely, will you?

Anyway, back to Schliemann. In 1890 he developed a serious infection in both ears and travelled to Germany to seek medical attention. After surgery, he disregarded his doctor's advice and decided to return to Athens. On the way, he stopped off in Italy to visit Pompeii, and on Christmas Day, while in Naples, he fell into a coma and died the next day. Friends sent his body to the Próto Nekrotafío in Athens where it (or he?) was interred in the Mother-of-all-Mausoleums which, if you scroll back up, you can see looks like a Greek temple. The frieze which encircles the outside shows Schliemann leading the excavations at Mycenae. Schliemann would have liked that, although he probably would have asked for another monument recording his excavations at Troy.

I would add that his mausoleum is the biggest grave in the entire cemetery and sits (or looms) just by the front gate - you really can't miss it - but unfortunately we entered through the back gate and it took us 3 hours to find it. But we - or rather I - saw it perched on a rise of ground, towering over the other lowly graves! Like Troy, his monument wasn't a myth and I can prove it - and that was cause for having a cold pint of the appropriately named Mythos beer.

I think it might be time to go back to Paris and look for Jane Avril's grave. Or to ancient Troy - at least you'll all know the story now!

Grey Bear Creates an International Incident

2009-09-24T09:08:00.050+02:00

So ... where to begin?

Let's begin with Ramadan which ended last Sunday. So, to celebrate, I took the two bipedal attendants to Athens for the long weekend - my god-bipedals were supposed to come too but they felt that leaving Italy for good and moving back home was more important than spending time with me, so it was just the three of us. I confess that in spite of all my world travelling, Greece is one place I had yet to visit so I was almost as excited as my bipedals were to be visiting the Land of Homer, Democracy, and Tzatzίki.

With some 5,000 years of history - the last 3,400 of which were actually recorded - there was a lot to do and see in 3 days so I'll probably have to write several blogs about our adventures (although I'll skip the bit about my female bipedal attendant's infected big toe - you're welcome!) and, unfortunately, misadventures.

Athens' crowning glory - literally - is the flat-topped rock of the Acropolis which looms over the city and upon which stands, among other buildings, the Parthenon: the temple devoted to the city's patron Athena, goddess of wisdom. Scholars believe that a settlement was there 5,000 years ago and that the first palace on the site may date to the Bronze Age, but the Acropolis, as we know it today, began to take its form in the 6th century bce.

Athens enjoyed a Golden Age in the 5th century and the buildings on the Acropolis were given a face-lift under the orders of the Athenian statesman and general Perikles. The most famous sculptor of the day, Phidias, and two architects were entrusted with the project and they tweaked and refurbished and rebuilt theatres, sanctuaries and temples to Nike (the goddess of victory, not sneakers), Artemis (the goddess of wild animals - her name may actually mean "bear"!), and Poseidon (the god of the sea) - to name but a few.

Of course, if you visit these days it feels like you just stepped into the 5th century - what with all the scaffolding enveloping the temples and the ongoing construction (well, reconstruction). The site has sustained a lot of damage over the years from the passing of time, earthquakes, a seige by the Venetians (the Italians again!) who also blew up an Ottoman (the Turks again!) munitions magazine, looting by you humans and, of course, pollution.

A Greek temple stood on the hill for almost a millenium, but over the years the Parthenon would eventually be converted into a series of churches (Byzantine and Roman) as well as a mosque under the conquering Turks, who added a minaret to the building - a minaret torn down when Greece won its independence from Turkey in 1832. For the last 100 years, parts of the Parthenon have sat inside a metal cocoon and visitors have been barred from entering any of the buildings since 1975.

Still, you can imagine my excitement! I'm not just a former international fashion model and freelance Goodwill Ambassador - I'm a bit of a history buff too. So very early Sunday morning, we made the climb up the side of the rock and my bipedals - as instructed - began to take some tasteful shots of me on the Acropolis. I know that by nature I'm rather photogenic, but such a historical and monumental backdrop (it was completed 2,441 years ago!) makes everyone look smashing - except for my female bipedal who, poor thing, is freakishly unphotogenic.

Anyway, just as we passed the east side of the Parthenon, we heard a shrill whistle blow and someone calling out to us. We stopped to see an awful little troll of a man (I know that's not nice but I'm still really mad!) running towards us. Showing us his badge, he identified himself as a secuity guard. He then proceeded to tell us that we had breached the rules of the site by taking photos - are you ready for this? - of a toy at an archaeological site. Me! - a toy!

A toy??!!

He said that we were being disrespectful towards the Acropolis.

Disrespectful??!!

He then made my female bipedal scroll through every photo she had taken that day and delete every picture of me snapped on the Acropolis. Every one! I was fuming! Had my female god-bipedal been there she would have kicked his ass! Then my female bipedal asked the guard where it said that she couldn't take photos of me, a former international fashion model and freelance Goodwill Ambassador - clearly this yob hadn't recognized me or had drunk too much ouzo the night before - and he told her that "it" (meaning "taking photos of toys") was clearly marked on all the signage.

I can tell you that I was so angry, I could've spit nails!

From that moment on, I swear we were followed about the site. Every time we heard a whistle - I mean, I'm glad that the guards take their jobs seriously and all but still ... - we froze in our tracks. And as far as disrespectful goes, we actually did see people take photos of little stuffed bears and monkeys and no one jumped down their throats! For crying out loud: I'm a fashion icon and a world renowned humanitarian and I get targeted?

So, needless to say, I have no photos of me on the Acropolis - only near it. I also checked all the signage on the way out of the site and there was no mention of taking photos of toys or anything of that nature - not that I'm a toy. As soon as we left the site I made a mad dash to a phone booth (my bipedals' crap Turkish phones didn't work in Greece) and called the Canadian Embassy. They were both outraged and appalled, and not a little embarrassed (for my sake) at how I was treated. And although they're launching an official investigation - and I suspect that the Canadian Ambassador in Athens will be recalled to Ottawa any moment now - I also decided to pay a visit to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give them a piece of my mind. You don't f@%# with a bear!! (Sorry for the profanity: I'm still pretty upset).

Not surprisingly, they wouldn't open their doors to me. I suspect they had already been tipped off. I made a point though to tell them (through the intercom at the gate) that they hadn't seen the last of me and that I hoped that the British Museum never returned the Elgin Marbles to Greece. I know that was awfully petty abd spiteful of me - and hardly acceptable behaviour for a freelance Goodwill Ambassador - but believe me: I was still seeing red.

I felt badly about this whole ugly affair because I was on the verge of allowing that awful little troll (sorry, not nice of me) to ruin our day and our time in Athens. This wasn't fair to my bipedals whose fault none of this (amazingly) was. So we continued on our way and stopped at a little café in the Pláka - the historical and picture-postcard-perfect neighbourhood of Athens with its narrow, labyrinthine streets - and had a cold glass of Mythos beer. It claims to be Greece's ambassador to the world, and after I'm finished with this country, it'll be the only ambassador Greece will still have - period!

Definitely Not Hibernating

2009-09-15T11:48:00.014+02:00

I've just realized that it's been over a month since my last posting and many of you must think that I've begun my winter hibernation early. In fact, although most bears do hibernate - although usually not until October - I don't because, as a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I can't afford to take time away from my many pressing duties. Famines, earthquakes, genocide, Paris fashion week ... there just aren't enough hours in my days. Besides, to be honest, bears put on about 18 kilos of fat each week those months leading up to hibernation and I don't want to lose my fashion model figure!

Now just so you know, I haven't been sitting on my paws for the last month doing nothing. But we've had a very unfortunate and distressing technological snafu here at Grey Bear Inc. which has thrown a monkey wrench into my blogging. My male bipedal accidentally knocked over the external hard drive on which all of my travel photos were stored and actually broke the hard drive.

I know what you're thinking: you mean, it wasn't the female bipedal who destroyed the entire pictorial record of your travels?!!

Indeed it wasn't.

But having said that, it was her who had transferred the photos from her laptop over to the external and it was her who stupidly deleted the originals from her computer before she could make back-up copies onto another drive. So I suppose that, although it was the male who broke the external, had she made back-up copies, there would be no problem.

Yes, it was definitely her fault.

All this talk about computers and external drives and back-up copies makes my head spin. This is why I try to hire competent individuals so I don't have to worry about such trivial details - and what do I have to show for the last few years of travel and good deeds? - nothing! I bet this never happens to Angelina Jolie.

Anyway, I smell a couple of performance appraisals in the air.

The good news is that on Saturday afternoon - on the last day of Ramadan - I'm flying to Athens for a much needed long weekend. I have yet to decide if they're coming along but, with or without them, I'm certain that I'll have a wonderful time: baklava, ouzo and spanokapita - and there's even a funicular there & I love funiculars (except for the one in Istanbul - it sort of sucked). I just hope that I can pick up a pair of those pompommed shoes the Greek guards wear! - as my friend Frisco once said, "I be stylin'"

A Grey Bear in a Black Sea

2009-08-11T20:54:00.017+02:00

I know I'm behind on my posts but it's just so hard to get good secretarial help these days and my bipedal attendants (especially the female one - the other one can't type at all) are either too busy or too tired ... well, let's just say that I'm typing this myself and as a former international fashion model and freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I have more pressing matters to attend to.

Anyway ...

... two weekends ago (see how behind I am?), I was invited to meet some friends of friends who live near the Black Sea and to visit some small villages in the area and, because I am such a generous employer, I brought my bipedal attendants along. The plan was to visit an American woman and her Turkish husband and possibly take a dip in the sea so we all piled into the car - driven by a driver who would have made my female god-bipedal's hair stand on end - and off we sped (literally) to the town of Kerpe along the Black Sea coast.

Just as an aside: the Black Sea wasn't always black - or Black with a capital B. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Black Sea was called the Inhospitable Sea because of the nasty "savages" who used to live there. Greek colonists in the south of Turkey moved in, making the area safe for sailors, so it became known as the "Hospitable Sea". The Scythians (those ancient Iranians who gave us the stirrup) called it the"Unlit Sea" but most seas are unlit, aren't they? Have you ever seen a "sea lamp" - apart from a lighthouse? Some suggest that the hydrogen sulphide in the water makes the sea black. I don't know: it looked awfully blue to me but the Turks called it black (or Black) too - the Karadeniz, the Black Sea - so who am I to judge? Although as a former international fashion model, the one thing I do know is colour.

Jason and the Argonauts sailed it and some scientists believe that this was the sea that Noah drifted across in his ark. The ancient Greeks once thought that the eastern edge of the Black Sea was the end of the world. Over the millennia, its shores were visited, inhabited and invaded by the Hittites, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Slavs, Crusaders, Venetians, Genovese, Ottomans and Russians - to name but a few.

Nowadays, it's an alternative tourist destination for İstanbullus with money but not enough time to go south to the Aegean. The climate is warm enough to grow tea, kiwi (that's me, above left in a kiwifruit tree), and figs. I had never seen a kiwi in its natural environment before, so that was neat. The pretty green leaves helped block out the uglier bits of human history indigenous to the area too.

As it turns out, our plans to visit our friends' friends were aborted without our knowledge - these people are the most untrustworthy travel planners I've ever met - and we ended up staying the whole afternoon at the beach which annoyed my female bipedal attendant because she didn't have her bathing suit with her. I confess that I actually felt sorry for her because the water was really nice (me, above right) and it probably wasn't much fun for her to sit on the beach and watch others swim in the sea. I chose to keep her company and not just because I'm a freelance Goodwill Ambassador.

I should add that the beach that we ended up at was our third that afternoon. The first main beach was really overcrowded and you could barely (!) see the water for all the tourists. The second, which was a beautiful deserted grotto-like inlet, was strewn with garbage and people-feces. I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or let out a big bear-growl. The beach where we ended up only had a couple dozen families - and most of them seemed like rather poor families on a budget holiday - and it was much more bearable(!) than the others.

I didn't bring bathing trunks but, of course, I can go bare (!) in the water. I confess that I found it strange that some of the women were swimming in bikinis while others were swimming in their head scarves and robes. As a former international fashion model, I can say that bathing suits are not only chic but are probably safer in the water than ballooning tents. I kept expecting a rogue wave to take these girls out to sea forever. What you humans do for your gods makes us bears howl!

I'm sorry to say that our outing wasn't as positive as I had expected. Compared to my friends, my bipedal attendants' ability to plan and execute a trip would make Arthur Frommer proud. And even though the coastline was very impressive - all rocky and majestic - I was very disappointed by the garbage left behind by visitors. I just couldn't not see it. Maybe some Turks need to see that old television commercial featuring the Native American shedding a tear at a dirty, littered US roadside. Then again, in a thousand years, their empty water bottles and cigarette packages will be "archaeological treasures" just like all the stuff left behind by the Hittites, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Slavs, Crusaders, Venetians, Genovese, Ottomans and Russians - to name but a few.

Palace Bear

2009-07-28T16:19:00.019+02:00

This past weekend, I took the bipedals to Istanbul for a little R & R (the female one needed new lipstick - the vanity of some people) and we thought we would play tourist as well as shallow vapid shoppers. One of our stops was the 19th century Dolmabahçe Palace, the lavish less-is-not-more set of imperial buildings built by Sultan Abdülmecid to show the world that:

a) the Ottoman Empire wasn't sick and dying and almost bankrupt (which it was) and
b) wasn't all about orientalism like the Topkapı Palace (which was actually too bad but Topkapı is much prettier).

I was a little miffed because photos aren't allowed inside the palace because "everything is original". I mean really, that's why we have 'no flash' features on our cameras. I thought that was a little precious. Consequently, I have a blog with almost no photos. Not only that but you can't walk on the very worn (I must say) "pedestrian carpet" with your bare (!) shoes and have to wear pink plastic booties. My female bipedal attendant grumbled that the last time she had to wear plastic booties was in a mosque in Egypt and that was supposedly hallowed ground. I confess that for once, I have to agree with her.

You also can't wander throughout the palace on your own but must take a guided tour and, I must say, our guide was rather surly and only smiled at the end of our tour. If you can't even pretend to enjoy your job then it's time to get out.

Anyway, we all waited for about an hour in line which, in the end, was worth it because the Palace is quite lovely. It reminded me of Versailles (or maybe the Paris Opera) where we didn't have to wear pink plastic booties. I guess in the grand scheme of things, Sultan Abdülmecid was a lot more important than Louis XIII, XIV or XV.

Completed in 1853, and located overlooking the Bosphorus, the Dolmabahçe (its name means filled-in garden) is a mishmash of various European styles (with an emphasis on Rococo and a nod towards tacky) and has enough crystal (including the world's biggest chandelier at 4 tons and a Baccarat staircase) to give its cleaning staff migraines well into retirement. There were lots of seemingly gorgeous oil paintings but our guide didn't allow us the time to stop and admire them. Grrrr ....

After the last of the sultans was exiled in 1922, Atatürk used Dolmabahçe as a summer residence and for state receptions (the imperial hall can accommodate up to 2500 people), and it was here that he died in November 1938. This was pretty much the only point that our nasty little tour guide showed any animation at all. We all filed past the bed he died in and tried to feel as badly as she did about it.

Until recently, all the clocks in the palace were set and stopped at 9:05 - the moment that Atatürk died. I mean, really ...

But most disturbing are the 150-year old bear skins - used as rugs! - scattered about the palace. They were a gift to the Sultan from the Tsar of Russia, and if I had been there I would have given him a piece of my mind. Who uses bears for carpets? - in a country renown for their carpet-making industry? Bears?!!!

As we left the palace, the changing of the guard had just taken place and everybody was lining up to have their photo taken with the one honour guard. Several people in the crowd recognized me and begged that I pose with him - so I did. I normally don't like to be associated with symbols of violence - I am a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, after all - but sometimes it's just easier to say yes than no. Although it would have been easy for me to say no to those bear skin rugs ....

Grey Bear Potters About

2009-07-13T10:09:00.081+02:00

Yesterday, I took my bipedals to Iznik, a sleepy little lakeside resort town which lies on the shores of Lake Iznik, south of Izmit. These days, Iznik is known for two things and both are connected with its past: its church councils and its tiles.

In 301 b.c., the town became Nicaea - although for centuries before that it'd had several other names - when a certain general Lysimachus seized the area from one of Alexander the Great's generals and named it after his own wife. She must have been a very nice wife - I mean, you don't see too many towns named after my female bipedal attendant.

Nicaea was an important political and commercial town during the Imperial (Roman) period but its claim to fame came with the First Ecumenical Council - which is a rather posh name for a conference of bishops - held there in 325. There would be many other councils (the second was held in Nicaea's Hagia Sophia or Aya Sofya Church) but it was the first one which decided (and told Christians) what they believed in.

It seems not everyone was on the same page. Apparently, there were a lot of different views about God and Jesus floating about at that time - like the rather logical (in this bear's opinion) idea that Jesus was not the same "person" as God and hadn't lived forever (i.e., existed before he was born). A certain priest named Arian just couldn't get his head around that one so the Men in the Big Hats got together and hammered something out that put an end to all of these so-called heresies.

The result was the Nicene creed, which Catholics and Anglicans still profess to this day; it begins with I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible ... I think "one bear" works better than "one God" although, of course, I believe in many bears. Bears are more pluralistic. Christians can be so dogmatic and, to be honest, just aren't as freethinking and fun as the rest of us. You'd never see a bear burning another bear at the stake for their beliefs.

Enough about religion. I mentioned in a previous blog that when the porcelain-loving Sultan Ahmet built the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, he insisted that its tiles come from Iznik. So let's fast-forward to the 17th century (bypassing the Seljuk Turks and the Christian crusaders) and we find Nicaea part of the Ottoman Empire. It's also become a centre for the ceramics industry, known as İznik Çini - Çin meaning China. I even had the chance to visit what's left of one of the city's master tile makers (above left). We had a really nice visit.

The industry would eventually move to Istanbul and so it pretty much died out in Iznik and the town became a farming community. Nowadays, there are still tile makers in the area and I found a particularly pretty shop and picked out a lovely old tile for my bipedals. Of course you-know-who wanted something bigger and better (you see why she doesn't have a town named after her?). I should've just given her a clump of mud!

Of course I just had to pick a studio where the girl working there - her name is Rachida - recognized me (above left). I wasn't too surprised: people in the arts are generally in the loop about these sorts of things. Still, it was something to be recognized in such a small town but, then again, my fans never cease to amaze me.

These days there aren't any hoity-toity church councils in Nicaea/Iznik but tourists come to visit its churches, mosques and museums, and to see its four imposing grand gates (that's me at the Istanbul Gate, below and the Lefke Gate, top-top right), its aqueduct, the massive ancient city walls, its pottery kilns and hammams. This is probably the former international fashion model in me speaking, but I was quite taken with the aesthetics of the town - even their bus kiosks and rubbish bins are decorated with its famous tiles. Such attention to detail always makes me happy.

There are also the ruins of a Roman theatre which made me very sad because it's become a dumping ground for garbage. It made me so mad (and sad) that I couldn't even have my photo taken there. The theatre was built by one of the most famous Romans of all time: Pliny the Younger - remembered today for his eyewitness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 - while he was governor of Bithynia (Nicaea was its capital). Today the amphitheatre is a public toilet. Just when I think your race has a chance, you guys go and blow it. Maybe you should start putting more faith in bears ...

A Grey Bear in a Blue Mosque

2009-07-06T08:49:00.045+02:00

To continue with our theme of visiting every mosque in all of Istanbul - at least that's how it feels sometimes - I took my bipedal and god-bipedal attendants to the Blue Mosque (the BM) last week. Strictly speaking, I took my bipedals and god-bipedals to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque or the Sultanahmet Camii as it's known in Turkish, but to the rest of us it's that Big Blue One.

It may be the only Blue - so nicknamed for its interior blue tiles - Mosque in Turkey but it's not the only Blue Mosque in the world: there are at least 8 others in the world, from Afghanistan to Iran. I'll have to add those ones to my list unless my bipedal attendants get mosqued-out first.

So, today's history lesson: the building of the BM began 400 years ago under the watchful eye of Sultan Ahmet I who doesn't seem to be known for much other than his mosque (where he's also buried), staging a couple of disastrous wars, and for not strangling his kid brother when he came to the throne - as was the Ottoman custom. Later, when Ahmet's son became Sultan, he revived the custom, much to his brother's disappointment. In Turkey, it just didn't pay to be a younger brother.

Anyway, after losing one particularly important war with the Persians, Ahmet decided that if he built a really big mosque - which would conveniently also be his mausoleum - Allah would smile favourably on him.

I don't know if Allah smiled but his legal scholars certainly didn't because Ahmet had no spoils of war to pay for the mosque (having lost most if not all of his wars abroad), and he had to tap into the treasury for the funds - not just to pay for the BM's construction but to buy the private palaces on and near the site in order to raze them to the ground. And you know once word got out that the Sultan needed the land your home was built on, the price of real estate suddenly went up. Some things don't change too much: it's all about location, location, location.

Ahmet didn't seem to care too much about the grumblings of his scholars and, in 1609, he broke the sod on the site of an earlier Byzantine palace smack-dab across the street from the Hagia Sophia which, at that time, was the most sacred mosque in Constantinople and which Ahmet wanted to eclipse in grandeur. The BM's front doors would also open up to what was the social hub of the old city: the hippodrome, the ancient circus where horse and chariot races took place (and which the Venetians plundered in 1204). I just hope there were no bear fights there!

Built in 7 short years - during which only one architect was executed - the BM would include a nursery school, a market, a hospital, and a soup kitchen! Too bad Ahmet died shortly after it was completed (he was only 28 years old) but hopefully his widow Kösem - who became the de facto ruler and was one of the most powerful women in all of Ottoman history (at least until she was strangled) - got to enjoy it.

I mentioned earlier that the BM earned its nickname because of its blue tiles. There are over 20,000 handmade tiles in the BM and they all came from Iznik (ancient Nicaea) which was the ceramic capital of ancient Turkey. Just to give you an idea of how special these tiles were, recently an Iznik tile sold at Sotheby's for $600,000!

The Sultan made sure that all of the tiles used were Iznik tiles by fixing the price the potters could charge. Like his legal scholars, this didn't put much of a smile on the potters' faces because their tiles were normally quite pricey. They got even though by producing lesser quality tiles so that many of their colours have faded over time. I doubt that made Allah smile.

Besides its many domes, its Iznik tiles and its 200 stained glass windows (the originals were a gift from Venice - I bet they felt guilty for sacking the city 400 years earlier), the BM is recognizable for its 6 minarets. When news got out about the 6 minarets, Ahmet was criticized for being uppity: after all, the Ka'aba in Mecca - the holiest site in all of Islam - had 6 minarets too. Rather than appearing too presumptuous - or changing his plans - he paid for a 7th minaret at the mosque in Mecca.

Given that it's summer, we were lucky that there wasn't a line to get into the BM. We also took the precaution of wearing suitably modest clothing (no shorts and my female bipedal and god-bipedal had no exposed shoulders) because, as a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I'm sensitive to these kinds of things. It takes so little effort to keep this world spinning happily.

Of course, there were many less enlightened individuals in line wearing skimpy outfits but they were given scarves to cover up their bare legs and shoulders. My females were given scarves for their heads although I couldn't help but notice that they let them slip the moment they thought no one was looking. I think I'll have to have a stern talk with them. Although I have bare (bear!) arms and legs, I was recognized by the mosque's employees and the religious authorities graciously let me enter as I am: no bear scarves.

Afterwards, we sat in the park (above, left) which sits between the BM and the Hagia Sophia and took advantage of the watermelon sellers there to stave off the afternoon's +35 degree heat. Turks eat such healthy snacks! My female god-bipedal bought me some pistachios from Turkey and Iran as well - what bear doesn't love nuts?!

At sunset, people flock to this park to listen to the evening call to prayer and watch the mosque light up. Because I'm so easily recognized in Istanbul, I decided not to join the crowds for the evening prayers but enjoy the view of the BM from our hotel terrace. And what's more Turkish than having a cup of coffee in the shadow of one of the world's most beautiful mosques? - well, a piece of baklava would have been nice.

Happy Anniversary!!

2009-06-29T15:17:00.008+02:00

Today is the 2nd anniversary of Grey Bear-ology! Thanks to everyone who follows my blog & here's to another 2 years of travelling (with my bipedals) and writing for you all. I'm going to go have a glass of champagne now - or rakı since I'm in Turkey.

A GB Riddle: When is a Church Not a Church?

2009-06-29T11:38:00.062+02:00

... when it is a mosque.
And when is a mosque not a mosque?
... when it is a museum.

This past week, my god-bipedal attendants came all the way from Rovigo (that's in Italy) just to visit me - and possibly spend some time with my bipedal attendants - so I took everyone for a Grey Bear Guided Tour of Istanbul™ . I know that I keep repeating myself (bears often ramble) but there's just so much to see that I'll confine my comments today to the Ayasofya - which non-Turks know as the Hagia Sophia - Museum.

The Hagia Sophia sits atop the old city of Istanbul - known as Sultanahmet - like a big pink bullfrog. In fact, many of the mosques in Turkey remind me of bullfrogs but most of them are green or white. Like real frogs. Anyway, it has a commanding position and can be seen as you enter the city from the Bosphorus - which is hardly a coincidence. It was built to impress.

Anyway, the Hagia Sophia (or HS from now on) started life out as a church (actually, a cathedral) - its 4 minarets notwithstanding. It sits on the site of an earlier 4th c church (burnt down during riots) built by the son of Constantine the Great and a second 5th c church (burnt down during riots).

A month after the last church went up in smoke (532), Emperor Justinian ordered two geometry professors-cum-engineers (architects worked under engineers back then) and 10,000 workers to construct a bigger, better church - the third and final one, known as the Ἁγία Σοφία or "Holy Wisdom" - which they did in a record 5 years. Hopefully Justinian had the holy wisdom to keep torch-carrying rabble away from his church.

The HS would be religious centre of the Eastern Orthodox faith and the grandest - Justinian claims to have outdone Solomon's temple with his church - and the largest cathedral in the world for almost a 1000 years and was only nudged from the top of the list by Seville's cathedral in 1520 - one of my all-time favourite churches in one of my all-time favourite cities. Its dome was the biggest in the world until the 15th c when Brunelleschi built the duomo of Florence's Cathedral. What was it with Italians and Istanbul??

Now, to go back to my riddle. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and its leader, Sultan Mehmet II, decided to change it into a mosque. He had a lot of work in front of him: he had to add a mihrab and minber - necessary things in a mosque - and rip out those inconvenient Christian bells, altars, icons, and religious vessels. He also defaced, destroyed or whitewashed over the mosaics. Today you aren't allowed to use flash when photographing the mosaics. Of course, some people do - like you Mr. 60-year old Philistine with the Canon digital camera and the bright red pants. You know who you are.

Earlier in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, marauding Crusaders stripped the church of many of its golden mosaics and carted them back to Venice (more Italians!). The crusade was organized and led by 90-year old and blind-as-a-bat Enrico Dandolo, the 39th Doge of Venice. He was buried in the HS but the grave marker you see (above, right) was added by some Italians in the 19th c. He's not really there: Sultan Mehmet II made sure of that when he seized the church.

Anyway, back to the HS. What strikes the visitor today are the golden mosaics (some as early as the 9th c), its sheer size (the Statue of Liberty's torch would scrape the top of the dome), and the eerie light within the church (thanks to its many windows and the porous brick the builders used which comes from the island of Rhodes). Eight giant leather-wrapped wooden medallions (top left) with Arabic calligraphy still hang from the upper gallery - there used to be more - bearing the names of Allah, the Prophet Mohammed, his grandchildren, and various caliphs.

You can also find the Column of Saint Gregory (bottom right) who was a 3rd century miracle worker. His column was believed to sweat holy water and this water could cure miracles. If you put your thumb (or paw) into the hole, turn it 360-degrees, and it comes out damp, your prayers will be answered. My paw wasn't damp - and neither was my female god-bipedal attendant's - so I guess we shouldn't quit our day jobs yet.

Below left, you can see one of two amazingly huge 2nd c marble jars which the sultan "borrowed" from the ancient city of Pergamon (in Turkey). On the side is a tap to provide drinking water for its worshippers. The urns were carved out of a single piece of marble. I wouldn't have wanted to be one of the water-bearers who had to fill those up every day!

Now, to go back to my riddle again. When is a mosque not a mosque? When it becomes a museum. The HS was a working mosque until 1934, when Atatürk removed the prayer rugs, started scrapping away at the whitewashed mosaics, took down some of the medallions and secularized the HS, turning it into the Ayasofya Museum.

I really hope my god-bipedals enjoyed their visit to the HS. Living in Italy, they got "churched-out" a long time ago and are fast on their way to being "mosqued-out" in Turkey. And I feel badly that I got recognized while we were there. It can be so embarrassing. There are still so many fans left over from my international fashion model days and admirers of my work as a freelance Goodwill Ambassador ... they even set up a phone for me with a direct line to take important calls from world leaders (Mahmud Ahmedinejad has yet to return my call) during my visit. I know that Atatürk wanted the HS to be modern and all that, but I bet he didn't have a bear-phone in mind.

Grey Bear Over Galata

2009-06-08T19:49:00.028+02:00

I recently chatted about the day trip my bipedal attendants and I took to Istanbul (formerly Constantinople and Byzantium) last week but I didn't say that we officially started our walking tour of the New City - not that the New City is all that new - only after travelling there by bus, ferry, tram and Istanbul's little one-stop funicular. It's quite different from Lisbon's funiculars and I admit that I was a little disappointed that we were below the city the whole time. I find that underground photos often disappoint.

Anyway, we walked from one end of Taksim Square (the heart of the New City) down down down towards the Golden Horn. On our list - among other things - was the Galata Tower near the Golden Horn. The tower was originally built by the Genoese and the city would eventually be taken by the Venetians and because I spent many wonderful weeks in Northern Italy this winter, I thought that a visit to Galata would bring things full circle. And I have one more little coincidence: Istanbul (formerly Constantinople and Byzantium) was built on seven hills just like Rome! Isn't life neat that way?

During the Middle Ages, this part of Byzantium (soon to be Constantinople and then Istanbul) was controlled by the Genoese - in fact, Genoa controlled a lot of the Mediterranean world at that time. They built the tower - all 205 feet of it - in 1348 as part of their fortress at Galata which sat menacingly across from the Byzantine part of the city, separated by the Golden Horn. In case you didn't know, the Golden Horn is the inlet of the Bosphorus which divides the city of Istanbul (formerly Constantinople and Byzantium). It has nothing to do with musical instruments or rhinoceros (or rhinoceroses or rhinocerotes) like some people thought.

It was through the Golden Horn that the Venetians (more Italians!) were able to enter Constantinople (formerly Byzantium and soon to be Istanbul) during the Fourth Crusade and laid seige to the city.

Of course the Italians think that the name Galata comes from an Italian word and Greeks think it comes from a Greek word and you people squabble about so many unimportant things. The tower - the tallest structure in Byzantium in its day - was originally called Christea Turris (Tower of Christ) but eventually it became known as the Genoese Tower. I don't know if Christ was annoyed by that at all - I mean, he has enough churches named after him ...

Over the years, it's weathered earthquakes, fires, and attacks by you humans. In 1875, its conical roof-cap was blown off during a fierce storm! It's been rebuilt many, many times and has been a fire tower, military barracks, a dungeon (prisoners of war waited their turn there before becoming galley slaves on the Golden Horn), an astronomical observatory, and even a test site for a human-powered "airplane".

It seems that around 1630, a certain Hezarfen Çelebi was so taken with Leonardo da Vinci's (another Italian!) flight plans that he built his very own wings. According to eyewitnesses, he leapt from the tower and hang-glided for several miles across to the Asian side of Istanbul - or Constantinople. No one knows what happened to him: some say he received a sack of gold for his efforts while others believed that Muslim clerics banished him to North Africa.

By the way, Hezarfen's brother Lagari is said to have used gunpowder to propel himself in a rocket in 1633. I think the Çelebi brothers were smoking something besides tobacco in their narghiles.

Of course nowadays, people don't take flight from the top of the tower but there is a viewing deck from where you can enjoy stunning views of Istanbul (formerly Constantinople and Byzantium). Generally I find sites in the city very affordable but the entrance fee to the tower was a bit steep (no pun intended). As I said, we went for personal reasons (the Italian connection) but you would do just as well sitting at the nearby Spanish restaurant (like we did afterwards) and admiring the tower with a glass of sangria in one hand and a tortilla (or a beer) in the other. Cheers!

The GB Express

2009-06-04T16:50:00.041+02:00

It was gloriously hot and sunny yesterday so I took my bipedal attendants into Istanbul to do some (more) sightseeing. Istanbul is a huge city - its population is well over 12 million - and because it's over 8,000 years old and there's so much to see, it'll take many, many trips for us to just scratch its surface. (Which means that there'll be many, many posts on Istanbul.)

Because my bipedals - and you know I mean the female one - hasn't been whining too much lately, I thought I'd give her a special treat by taking her to the Sirkeci Gari (gari = train station) which once served as the eastern terminus for the exotic Oriental Express. I knew that while she was growing up, her father - whom sadly I knew only briefly - used to buy her an Agatha Christie novel every Friday during his weekly scouring of second-hand bookstores. Or at least he did until she had collected and read every one of them. Compassion comes naturally to me which is why I was chosen to be a Freelance Goodwill Ambassador.

Anyway, as I said, the Sirkeci Gari is - or was - the ending point for the famed Orient Express. Built in 1873, it served the route which runs along the shoreline of the Sea of Marmara, bordering the lower garden walls of the Topkapı Palace. Builders needed special permission from Sultan Abdülaziz to run a railway line so close to his palace but he granted it because he believed that the Sirkeci Station would only be temporary.

It was temporary but only just - 15 years later, a new building, designed in the so-called European Orientalist style, was erected on the same site. It was considered quite "modern" for the time with gas lighting and heat during the winter. I don't know how Sultan Abdülaziz would have felt about a permanent station being built at Sirkeci but we know that he had a fondness for trains (it was he who had established the first Ottoman railroad system) ... and for women as well (he had seven wives & thirty-six legitimate children). But he had died by this time - probably from exhaustion.

So ... Belgian businessman Georges Nagelmackers, the founder of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, conceived the idea of an easterly train and, in 1882, took a select group of friends on the inaugural 2,000 kilometre trip from Paris to Vienna. The first Istanbul-bound voyage of the Orient Express left Paris' Gare de l'Est the following year on October 4, 1883 while an orchestra played Mozart's Turkish March. The train passed through France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and finally ended in Sirkeci, covering just over 3,000 kilometres. The whole trip took 80 hours or about 3 days.

There were other routes - one went south to Athens - but none captured the imagination like the Istanbul-bound routes. Passengers were actually advised to carry guns with them for protection as they left the "safety" of Western Europe! Both World War I & II halted service of the Orient Express and a treaty had to be drawn up just to allow the train to pass through Austria.

The Orient Express' heyday was in the 1930's when it was the train of choice for royalty, diplomats and the bourgeoisie. Its name became synonymous with glamour & luxury: both for the comfort of its sleeping cars but also for its excellent cuisine and champagne. Its direct route ended in May 1977 and the train instead stopped short at Bucharest. Now what's left of the Orient Express runs between Strasbourg (France) and Vienna.

As a former international fashion model, I can say that, had I been around, I would have given my eye teeth (yes, bears have canines!) to have ridden the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul. Many famous writers placed their characters on this easterly train: Ian Fleming's James Bond was there, as were characters created by Graham Green and even Bram Stoker.

But none can rival Agatha Christie's contribution to immortalizing the mystique of this train. In fact, she wrote Murder on the Orient Express in 1934 while she was staying in Istanbul.

Today, Sirkeci Gari accommodates European-bound trains and even if it may no longer be part of the Orient Express route, you can still sit and enjoy a meal (or a drink!) at its terminal restaurant. Once a meeting place for journalists, writers and bigwigs, you can at least feel the presence of these bygone days under the watchful eyes of Agatha herself. I'm not sure I enjoyed the Celine Dion music videos projected on a large screen outside on the platform, and the menu's "hot beginnings" (appetizers?) gave me pause, but still, if I closed my eyes I could almost hear Hercule Poirot's "little grey cells" at work.

Like the Istanbul station of the Orient Express, I'll bring this post to a terminus by saying that the hotel Agatha wrote Murder on the Orient Express in - the Hotel Pera Palace - is currently being refurbished - but when it's finished, I'm definitely going to check in for the night. I'll be in room 411. And if the bipedals are good, then maybe I'll take them too!

Bear Among the Ruins

2009-05-24T17:25:00.017+02:00

I feel sorry for Izmit - and I know that it must sound strange (feeling sorry for a city) but as far as much of the world is concerned, apart from the 1999 earthquake, Izmit doesn't really exist. But I know it exists but maybe that's because I am, by nature, a very compassionate bear (it's pretty much a prerequisite if you want to be a Freelance Goodwill Ambassador). And I'm also currently living in Izmit.

Today, I took the bipedals for a little outing to Izmit's Archaeological and Ethnography Museum which is down by the railway station. In fact, they've incorporated the grounds of the old train station into an open-air museum for most of the marble artefacts. Of course, if you google the museum, you probably won't find anything, or if you do, it will actually be for the Archaeological Museum in Izmir not Izmit in the south of Turkey. Poor Izmit.

It's important to remember how important Izmit once was in the ancient world. I know I talked a bit about this in a previous post but it bears (!) repeating. Izmit was founded over 2720 years ago and was called Astacus or possible Olbia (how scholars confuse those two names is beyond me) and eventually was rebuilt and renamed Nicomedia. One of the most famous philosophers of the Roman period, Arrian, was born here. His writings on Alexander the Great (not born here) are still the most widely read account of the young warrior-god.

In 244, the Emperor Diocletian made Nicomedia the capital of his eastern Roman Empire. Although a reformer, he is probably best remembered for his savage persecution of Christians. He believed that his palace in Nicomedia had been set on fire by them (with the help of a few eunuchs) and although the ensuing investigation found no evidence of this, heads quickly started to roll. Literally. And bodies flayed and boiled alive over an open flame. Some 3,000 Christians were killed and many more tortured and imprisoned. And people think bears are dangerous!

But ultimately, Diocletian was unsuccessful: within 21 years, the Emperor Constantine (who would later die just outside Nicomedia) made Christianity his religion of choice. Diocletian was the first Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate and spent his retirement pottering about in his vegetable garden in modern-day Croatia. Not such a bad end, all in all.

Anyway, this is my long-winded way of saying that with so much Greek and Roman history - and I didn't even mention the Ottomans (the people not the foot stools) - there are lots of bits of statuary (some headless, some with other parts cut off!), mosaics (although nothing to rival Ravenna's tiles), columns & fountains (see above right) in Izmit. Or at least in Izmit's Archaeological & Ethnography Museum.

Of course, it was awfully nice of the guard not to charge us the usual 3 lira ($2 Cdn) entrance fee and I suspect that he did so because he recognized me and not because - as my female bipedal attendant suggested - it's Sunday and perhaps museums are free. I mean really. She's just miffed because I caught her in a lie: she and my male bipedal attendant skipped off to Istanbul the other day and not only did they not take me but they told me they were going out to buy a carton of milk. For 12 hours? Do I look like I was born yesterday? - although, I admit that using a light moisturizer and sunblock takes years off my face.

I doubt this posting will put Izmit - or Astacus/Olbia/Nicomedia and Kocaeli (rhymes with 'toe jelly') as it is also known - on the tourist map but even if it gets to outshine sunny Izmir for one minute, then my job is done. At least for today.

A Bear & His Bong

2009-05-10T12:18:00.024+02:00

On Thursday I finally gave in to my bipedal attendants' constant grumbling about the poor quality of the waterpipes in Izmit's tea shops and bought one for the house. Honestly, I hadn't heard this much whining since our days in Bratislava.

Anyway, I popped by a narghile shop in town and picked out one with a lovely blue jar - of course, my female bipedal wanted a green one but this particular blue one had a beautiful golden fish design on it and that reminded me of my two friends, Ken & Gerard the Goldfish, who died 3 years ago. Apparently those niceties were quite lost on her.

Now, the important thing about buying a waterpipe is selecting one with a proper "body". The body is comprised of the long hollow tube with a gasket and grommets, through which the smoke from the burning tobacco is drawn from the clay bowl on top and then back out through the hose. Uninitiated narghile puffers often mistakenly buy a cheaper body - saving money is good, no? - but then quality is sacrificed. A less expensive body is made out of some tinny alloy that you can bend with your hands (of course, as a bear, I can crush almost anything in my paws) while its pricier counterpart is made out of brass. As a former international fashion model, I know that you get what you pay for - and let's face it, you want your narghile to last more than a week, right?

I confess that I wasn't very impressed with the narghile merchant's packing abilities (see photo, above left), especially considering that the box was custom designed to hold a narghile properly. He was a little tape-happy. Maybe he was just anxious for us to leave his shop - my female bipedal was making a lot of noise about not getting a green waterpipe.

The same way that I'm known as GB or Grey Bear, the waterpipe goes by many different names too: in India it's a hookah, in Iran it's a ghelyoon, in Egypt it's a shisha, while here in Turkey it's a narghile. They were probably invented thousands of years ago in a much simpler form - the Iranian word ghelyonn actually means "coconut" which is probably a clue to its original material - in either India or Persia. Some people even think they were invented in America - I mean, really! America? Anyway, our first honest-to-goodness reference to the waterpipe is from the royal court of the Mughal (Muslim/Persian) Emperor Akbar the Great, almost 500 years ago in India. In fact, it's because of the later British presence in India under the Raj that most of the English-speaking world knows the pipe as the hookah. India had a huge impact on the English language: the British also introduced the Hindi words bungalow, pyjamas, jungle and shampoo into English, but that's for another blog.

In some parts of the world, the water hose is covered with silk or cloth, but the narghiles here have what looks like a bit of Turkish carpet on it. You can see from the photo (below, right) our groovy blue, yellow & white "carpet" on the hose. Turkish narghiles also differ from others because the wooden part of the hose, which supports the mouthpiece, is actually quite big. I feel like I'm conducting an orchestra when I had a puff.

Speaking of puffing, the best shisha tobacco in the world - bears don't do drugs - is Egyptian ma'sal (honey-molasses tobacco) but I've been told that it's illegal in Turkey. I was able to find Egyptian apple tobacco in Istanbul which is pretty good - not as heady as ma'sal but better than the local stuff. I'm going to keep looking though because as anyone will tell you, anything is possible in Turkey.

I probably didn't need to buy a narghile - apart from putting an end to my bipedals' griping, of course - because I don't really need anything to help me relax. I admit that, as a Freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I do find myself in the middle of a lot of stressful situations. I'm actually here in Turkey trying to talk some sense into the Turks about their decades-long occupation of Northern Cyprus - and of course, to enjoy the baklava! In any case, we bears don't get all stressed-out the way you humans do: we meditate, practice yoga, hibernate and enjoy a nice glass of sherry from time to time.

That doesn't mean that I won't enjoy our narghile. But knowing my bipedals, I'm going to have to draw up some sort of timetable and make them stick to it. I don't want to name names, but some people just don't share very well. And as everyone knows (or should know), smoking a waterpipe is supposed to be a social experience.

I hope I don't regret this ...

GB Travels 1st Class

2009-05-01T16:08:00.012+02:00

I haven't been doing too much lately - although the Istanbul Jazz Festival isn't far away - but I wanted to say something about the bus we take when we do go to Istanbul.

First of all, Efe Tur is our bus line of choice although it's possible that it's the only bus which connects Izmit and Istanbul. Honestly, I'm not really up on my buses but I do know what I like.

What I like about Efe Tur is its attention to detail - but maybe that's just the former International Fashion Model in me speaking. But what separates a good bus ride from a great bus ride is the little things - just like a matching purse and the right shoes make a great ensemble.

Once an Efe Tour bus is on the road, our bus attendant brings us a bottle of toilet water and a towel with which we may refresh ourselves. On our most recent trip, the 'fragrance' was lemon and based on the expression on the gentleman in the seat in front of me - who had applied it quite liberally to his face - it was a few top notes short of Yves St. Laurent. I usually pass on communal cologne as I like to wear a nice musky scent designed for me exclusively by - well, I don't want to name drop. Naturally my female bipedal attendant made some usual snarky remark about it (although I had to agree with her) but at least my male bipedal attendant's sinuses cleared up.

Next, we are given a choice of coffee or tea. Because it is instant coffee with dehydrated creamer, I usually opt for the tea. What's the point in being in Turkey if you have to drink instant? The tea isn't Turkish either - it's Lipton's - but I can live with that. I do wish they'd fill the cups up higher but I suppose that full cups of hot tea and coffee would be a safety hazard on a fast-moving vehicle.

After everyone has their hot beverage, the bus attendant brings us a platter with a selection of packaged cookies (or bisküvi - just like the French pronunciation), crackers and muffins - which my female bipedal attendant lovingly refers to as chem-cakes, possibly in reference to the 317 ingredients which go into the making of one of these. I usually opt for a chocolate creme-filled bisküvi.

After all of this, we are offered a foil-covered plastic glass of water. Finally the attendant brings the driver his own cup of tea. Really, the only thing missing is an after-dinner mint, but I don't know if they eat those here.

Considering that Istanbul is - depending on the traffic - only an hour or so away, this is excellent service. At least in this bear's opinion. Especially when you bear (!) in mind that the cost for the trip is 10 lira - less than 5 euros. I mean, it's not like travelling on the Concorde, but I get recognized less on an Efe Tur bus than I ever did flying from London to New York. And sometimes you just want to enjoy the ride with a nice cup of tea and a chocolate cream-filled bisküvi without having to sign autographs and pose for photos.

Taboo Bear

2009-04-14T15:26:00.027+02:00

Are you sitting down? - we finally made it to Istanbul! Seven weeks we've been in Turkey, and what with false starts, bad weather and "insufficient" funds, I finally managed to organize a day trip for my bipedal attendants. Being that Istanbul is the largest city in Europe, there are thousands of things to see, so for today, I'm going to talk about our visit to the city's historic Topkapı Palace - but more specifically, the Royal Harem.

Now, what with all my years as an International Fashion Model, sharing changing rooms (and sometimes curling irons) with the world's Super Models (Naomi was such a pill ...), I'm pretty comfortable in restricted women's quarters and - since everyone recognizes me immediately - it wasn't too difficult for me to get permission to enter the harem.

The harem at Topkapı Palace, which dates from the end of the 16th century, was the home of the Ottoman Empire's Sultans' mother, wives, concubines - concubines, not porcupines like I first thought - children and their servants.

Among the various buildings and corridors and hallways are nestled at least 100 rooms. I couldn't visit all of them but I was able to peek in a few, although my bipedals let me know in no uncertain terms that I was inconveniencing them. Jealousy just doesn't become those two.

The women were guarded by eunuchs - castrated (ouch!) male slaves - and most of their rooms opened up onto the courtyard (right) - which is now known as the Courtyard of the Eunuchs. They were answerable to the Chief Harem Eunuch, who also controlled the princes. The princes' apartments were known as "the cage" - in fact, the harem itself was called "the golden cage" - and they stayed there until they were released to become sultans or executed. It was common for a new sultan to execute his brothers in order to eliminate any and all rivals from the throne. That's a dysfunctional family for you ... talk about putting the fun in dysfunctional!

The largest and best situated of all the apartments (upper left) in the harem belonged to the sultan's mother. Her apartments included a dining room, audience & receptions rooms, a music room, prayer room and bedroom.

Of course, no Turkish bathroom would be complete without a toilet - naturally a Turkish one - and a sumptuous bath of gold and marble. We bears love a nice hot bubbly bath. The Queen Mother had a double bath and consisted of a caldarium (for a hot soak) tepidarium (for a warm soak) and frigidarium (for a soak worthy of a polar bear). Her bathtub was even protected by a golden lattice-work screen to protect her from murders! What a swell Mother's Day gift that must have been.

Interestingly, the word harem comes into English from the Turkish word harem (duh!) which comes into Turkish from the Arabic ḥaram. The word ḥaram was eventually used to refer to the women's quarters but it originally means "forbidden". It's the same word that's used to describe forbidden things in Islam, like pork and lizards. Why would anyone want to eat a lizard anyway? Or a pig for that matter?

I feel badly that for hundreds and hundreds of years, women were hidden behind walls - even beautiful walls like the ones in the Royal Harem - for most of their lives. Poor women! But in a small way, I think I know how they must have felt. A few years ago, a cleric from the Islamic University of Islam said:

"Oh believers! verily is the cotton of the teddy bear haram [forbidden]. Enjoin yourselves to keep your names clean from its defilement. Let he or she who associates a teddy bear with Allah or His Prophet be subject to the lash, one each for the days of Ramadan."

A teddy bear! A bear! Honestly - sometimes I just don't understand you people at all.

GB to a "T"

2009-04-05T13:47:00.022+02:00

I'm trying to be an understanding bear - and I think I am quite understanding by nature - but the truth is, we've been in Turkey for 6 weeks now and we've done nothing "Turkish" - except eat baklava (which was excellent, by the way) and hang up our evil eye amulets. I finally put my paw down and told my bipedal attendants that even if we can't all go to Istanbul for another few weeks, we can still explore life in Turkey - here in Izmit.

And nothing says "Turkish" more than tea and water pipes. Except for maybe baklava and coffee. And maybe carpets and evil eye amulets. Oh well ...

In any case, yesterday afternoon we went to a small tea shop in town and sipped çay served in tiny glasses with cubes of beetroot sugar and smoked a narghile.

Many people equate coffee with Turkey and so prevalent was coffee in Turkish culture that their word for breakfast - kahvaltı - means "before coffee". In fact, until recent times, Turks drank more coffee than tea, but these days, tea is the drink of choice. After World War I, it became very expensive to import coffee into Turkey, so, because it's grown here, our friend Atatürk encouraged Turks to drink tea instead. I guess they listened because Turks drink more tea than any other people in the world - over 2.5 kilos of the stuff per capita a year. Not surprisingly, they sell a lot of teeth whitening products here too!

Turks use small clear glasses to show off the colour of the tea, which is something, as a former international fashion model, I completely understand. Never underestimate the importance of colour.

We also ordered a water pipe - or a narghile as they are known here - because socially, tea and water pipes go together like bears and honey. I've had water pipes before but this was my first one in Turkey. The pipe itself was quite pretty - a lovely green coloured glass - and the fabric which covered the hose was just like a Turkish carpet. (Again, that's the former international fashion model in me talking!)

Each pipe comes with its own hermetically sealed plastic mouthpiece (see above photo, right) because you can never be too safe when it comes to your health. I can only imagine what germs my female bipedal attendant picked up sharing water pipes with strangers in the back alleys of Egypt. It's amazing she didn't contract TB or something. Anyway, I'm making her keep a spare mouthpiece in her purse these days. I swear, it's like living with a child sometimes!

Anyway ... too be completely honest, I was a bit disappointed with my narghile. I confess that I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to my water pipes - or more accurately, to the tobacco in my water pipes - and maybe it's because I'm a bear but I prefer a plain ma'sal or honeyed tobacco like they use in Egypt. The flavoured "blends": cappuccino, banana, pineapple - are not for true connoisseurs. Honestly: banana tobacco??

And to make it worse, there was no tobacco in it! What's the point? Apparently, it's becoming common now to burn a tobacco-free fruit concentrate - a fruit roll-up for adults - which has no nicotine. It tastes good - I guess - and is guilt free. On the other hand, there's none of the euphoria of smoking a real water pipe. You humans! Must you always try to "fix" what's not broken?

You can still find real water pipe tobacco in Turkey, but you have to know where to go and how to ask for it. Clearly, this was beyond the abilities of my bipedal attendants yesterday afternoon so I'm going to sign them up for Turkish lessons. I mean, what's the point of having attendants if they can't even manage a simple thing like ordering a water pipe correctly?

GB Keeps an Eye on Things

2009-03-28T14:17:00.027+01:00

Yesterday my bipedal attendants & I moved into our very first Turkish flat - and since this is a Turkish flat (we are in Turkey after all), I decided that we should do as the Romans (or Turks) do and protect ourselves from any & all forms of negativity. Not surprisingly, as a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I strongly advocate Good rather than Evil. So while they were unpacking their suitcases and unwrapping glasses stolen from every bar and bodega in Spain, I spent the afternoon making sure that our home would be safe against any evil thoughts.

(Not that too many people ever envy my bipedal attendants but sometimes, I get some very odd fan mail from my international fashion modelling days. Thank goodness I don't have any enemies - as for my my bipedal attendants ...)

Anyway, the unofficial symbol of Turkey is the nazar boncuğu, or evil eye amulet. The amulet is usually made from blue glass and has concentric circles or droplets of blue (or black), white and light blue (or sometimes yellow). At the risk of sounding vain, they set off my grey flannel quite nicely.

I am not exaggerating (bears never exaggerate) when I say that in Turkey, there are evil eye symbols everywhere. Adults and babies wear evil eye amulets; you can find nazar boncuğu's on the sides of airplanes, boats, horses, donkeys & mules, cell phones, cash registers, and shopping bags. Amulets are affixed to the outside door lintels of apartments and tucked into the corners of thresholds.

The symbol has its origins in ancient mythology and spans many different periods and cultures, from ancient Egypt to Rome to Bangladesh. That's a lot of negative energy! You don't see bears needing evil eye amulets. Depending on who you ask or where you are, people will tell you that the amulet is used to bounce the malevolent gaze of cursing evil wishers back to the evil wisher, while others believe that the envy of others can unintentionally direct evil to the person (or donkey) envied. In both cases, the amulet diverts the negativity - whether it's deliberate or not - away from anyone wearing a nazar boncuğu.

So how did I make our home more Turkish as well as more safe? I started with the door to our apartment (above right). I was relieved to see that the people who own our flat already had protected the door knocker on the front door with a tiny nazar boncuğu. One less amulet for me to buy!

We already had one amulet. Miss K, one of my bipedal attendants' friends (yes they have friends), had brought them one from a trip to Turkey a few years ago, so I was quick to hang that one up (top left). The flat is so big though (apartments tend to be bear-size) that I felt it needed a bit more - or should I say that my bipedals needed more protection? - so I stuck up an adhesive version of the evil eye on the window of our balcony door.

Lastly, just to ensure that the day gets off on the right foot (or paw), I found these nazar boncuğu coffee mugs at a neighbourhood store, and although the coffee inside the mugs isn't typically Turkish, at least what was on the outside was! After all, the best part of waking up should be knowing that no one is going to cast the evil eye on you and ruin your day!

Hopefully, the amulets I hung around the house yesterday will keep everyone safe. When we were in Morocco, we hung a khamsa-hand (the hand representing the hand of Fatima, the Prophet Mohammed's daughter) - which is supposed to keep evil away - on our apartment door. Unfortunately, someone stole our amulet! How brazen is that? I don't know if Fatima stopped protecting us or not, but I bet the khamsa-hand thief earned a whole lot of bad karma. Don't you humans ever think of the consequences of what you do??

At a Boy! Atatürk! At-a-Bear!

2009-03-08T14:21:00.021+01:00

It's been a while since I last posted but I've been cooped up indoors because it's rained almost every day since we arrived in Turkey. I know that I'm sweet and all, but I don't melt like sugar in the rain, but nooooooo, my bipedal attendants wouldn't take me anywhere. Now that they're working again, they're going to be impossible to live with!

Anyway, today the clouds held off - just barely (!) - and they took me into work with them, so I finally got my first peek at Izmit, our new adopted home.

Izmit is about 45 minutes south of Istanbul (not Constantinople) and is the capital of Kocaeli Province. It was in the spotlight 10 years ago when a horrible earthquake devastated the city, killing 20,000 people. I don't know if any bears were killed. I hope not.

The city was founded in 712 b.c. but was later destroyed. In 264 b.c, it was rebuilt by Nicomedes I of Bithynia and took the highly original name of Nicomedia. It became a hugely important city in northwestern Asia - even Hannibal (the guy with the elephants) visited, although he would later commit suicide in a nearby town. You could hardly blame Izmit for that.

From 286 until 324, Nicomedia was the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire and was even Constantine the Great's capital until Byzantium (or Constantinople or Istanbul) stole the crown. In fact, it is said that there are more ancient Roman and Greek ruins in Turkey than in all of Italy and Greece. I haven't seen anything very ancient in Izmit (there are supposed to be a few ruins) although the earthquake of '99 may have had something to do with that.

Turkey's most famous son is Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) and although I'm only using my bear intuition here (yes, we bears have intuition too), I bet every town in Turkey has a monument to him. He's like the George Washington of Turkey. He was an officer in the army, a statesman, founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first president. He was the modernizing force behind the country (in 1935 Turkey had 18 female members of Parliament!) and introduced, among other things, surnames (like 'Bear' for me) and he replaced the Arabic script (which Turkish had been written in) with the Roman alphabet but with lots of little dots and squiggles.

Constitutionally, Turkey is not an Islamic country - say the way Morocco is - and it was Atatürk who ensured that it remain secular. So rather than being a Muslim country, it's a country with a lot of Muslims - about 99% of the population. I guess I won't be seeing too many churches for a long time (although I think Italy cured me of that) but the mosques here sort of look like Italian duomos - except they have a minaret - and sometimes several - attached to them.

Unfortunately, because my bipedal attendants were "tired" and the weather wasn't looking too good, we didn't have a chance to see very much in downtown Izmit. We did manage to pop into a café for a Turkish coffee though, and while we were there, we all had a plate of baklava - maybe Turkey's greatest gift to the world - after the waterpipe.

I always thought that baklava (phyllo pastry stuffed with chopped nuts and honey or syrup) was a Greek confection but according to every Turk my bipedal attendants have spoken with, the Greeks definitely stole the recipe from the Turks. Although many groups claim the title, it does seem that it was created during the Ottoman (Ottoman! - that's the clue from my last post!) period (1299–1923). Baklava, as we know it today, was certainly a product of the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.

Did you notice the "i" in Topkapı? That's one of Atatürk's funny new letters and is pronounced like the "e" in the.

Anyway, the baklava was amazing! Like I've said before, I thank the Bear Gods that we bears don't have to watch our waistlines because each serving had four humongous slices of pastry. My male bipedal attendant ate all of his and half of my female's while I managed to eat all of mine. I was a little disappointed with the coffee though. My first coffee in Turkey and all they had was Nescafé. That's not as bad as my bipedal attendants though - they come all the way to Turkey and what's the first cup of coffee they have? - a coffee from Starbucks! Some people! Philistines!

Where am I?

2009-02-24T18:21:00.018+01:00

I've been housebound for the last few days - my bipedal attendants have promised to take me on an outing tomorrow, although I'm not holding my breath - but the nifty thing is that we now have a new adopted home. Of course, I miss my god-bipedal attendants back in Italy a lot but maybe they - and even my female bipedal attendant's mother - will come visit me here:

Did you guess where I am? I thought it was a pretty good clue. If not, maybe this will help you (although it's not 100% accurate, but pretty close). Remember to turn your speakers up!

Arrive-bear-ci Italia!

2009-02-22T19:11:00.016+01:00

Friday was our last full day in Italy

and I wanted to leave the country with a bang - and what better way than to dress up and visit Venice's Carnevale! Of course, as a former international fashion model and current Freelance Goodwill Ambassador, everyone wanted me to pose with them for a photo op so it took me ages to navigate my way to and around San Marco's. I really can't blame them, I suppose - I did have a pretty spiffy mask.

If you remember, last month my female god bipedal attendant had spent hours scouring Venice for just the right bear-size mask (now I know how Goldilocks felt looking for that perfect bowl of porridge), and after a lot of misses, we found one that fit and set off my brown eyes. I confess that it was a little heavy and I needed a Bayer (bear!) aspirin by the end of the day but, at the risk of sounding vain, I think it quite becomes me. Too bad my female bipedal attendant was too lazy - I mean, busy for someone unemployed - to sew me a proper. Then again, I've seen her with a needle and thread. Not a pretty sight.

Anyway, Carnevale or Carnival as we would say, is the two week festival which ends at midnight on Shrove Tuesday, the night before Ash Wednesday - the first day of the dreary month of Lent. Lots of masks, costumes, revelry and to the best of my knowledge, only one bear.

The origin of the word itself is disputed amongst People with Big Brains, although pretty much everyone agrees that the "carne" part refers to the Latin word for meat. The expression may refer to the cart used in a procession for the ancient god Apollo, or it may come from the phrase carne levare ("to remove meat") since Christians couldn't eat meat during Lent.

Two other theories suggest that it means farewell ("vale") to meat (as in chopped sirloin) or farewell to the flesh (as in the lovely ladies' cleavage you see, above right photo), giving Carnival a much racier tone. Personally, I like the idea of it being a celebration of wild debauchery - parts of carnival definitely date back to the lusty Saturnalia and Bacchanalia festivals in pagan times - but I suspect it was a way of saying bye-bye to beef. You Christians suck the fun out of everything.

Anyway, the first recorded Carnival in Venice was back in 1268. At that time, people were allowed to wear their masks as early as the Feast of St. Stephen (December 26th) but they had to be removed by midnight on Shrove Tuesday. There were lots of other times of the year people could wear masks (adding up to almost 6 months in total), so Venice's mask makers (mascherari) were very busy, becoming quite powerful and eventually had their own guild, a spiffy statute of their own, and formed their own laws. I don't know what the laws were about: maybe how many sequins you could sew on a mask.

Traditionally, the mascherari made their masks from leather or from papier-mâché and were often relatively simple in design. Now they are fashioned mainly from gesso (a mixture made from calcium carbonate) and are very ornate.

There are different classes of masks: the bauta, the moretta and the larva. The heavily gilded bauta covers the entire face and has no mouth, although mascherari will make a shorter version to allow its wearer to talk, eat & sip a cocktail or two without having to remove the mask. Often criminals and star-struck lovers used this style of mask because it offered the wearer so much anonymity.

The moretta was worn primarily by gentlewomen when they visited convents. It was made from black velvet - a stunning combination on any woman (oops! - that's the former international fashion model in me again) - and often had a veil attached to it. It was held on by biting onto a small bit or button at the back of the mask with the teeth. What we do for fashion! Some people think that women were forced to wear them by their husbands because they talked too much - the thought of which drives my female bipedal attendant to distraction.

By the 18th century, it was common for ladies and gentleman to use bauta and moretta masks to conceal their identities as they lost the family fortune in Venice's gambling houses or sipped coffee in its coffee houses! How risqué, no?

The larva (Latin for "ghost") is usually white (see the top photo in today's post) and usually worn with a tricorn hat and black cape - this ensemble is quintessentially Venetian. The mask itself is made out of waxed cloth and are very comfortable, and like the bauta, perfect for eating and drinking. And flirting. Personally, the larva mask gives me the creeps.

My mask is a variation of the Scaramouche mask - based on the famous Spanish captain by the same name. Scaramouche beat an entire army of Turks and then carried back the beard of the Sultan as a trophy. I wish I had had a cape, high boots and a sword to go with my mask. I think I may enrol my female bipedal attendant in some sewing classes at the Learning Annex whenever we get home.

Beginning in the 14th century, rival intercity gangs were encouraged to fight each other - usually over one of the city's many bridges. The games - often involving fists and canes - commemorated various events in Venice's history or celebrated Venetian virtues (I guess Venetian virtues involved fists and canes). They had names like the Dance of the Moor and Decapitating of the Bull and the Machine of the Flames. I bet that Moor wasn't just "dancing". Why are you humans so violent?

With so much going on - I always seemed to be at the centre of attention - and what with all those cameras and flashes going off, I had to take a short break and refresh myself with a bellini. The bellini is Venice's own cocktail - although they take credit for the spritz (or spreeeeeeeeeeessss) as well.

It was created some time between 1934 and 1948 by Giuseppe Cipriani, the founder of Harry's Bar in Venice. It got its name because the pinkish colour reminded Cipriani of the colour of a saint's toga in a painting by the artist Bellini - who was also a Venetian. I don't know if the saint was Venetian though - I'd have to check into his "virtues". With the likes of Hemingway, Orson Welles & Lewis Sinclair all clinking glasses in Harry's Bar, the drink would eventually be introduced to the world. And the rest they say is history.

The cocktail itself is made from Proseco (Italian sparkling wine) and white peach purée (traditionally the peaches should be marinated in wine first) and its signature pink colour is the happy result of a splash of rasp(bear)berry or cherry juice. Like everything else in Italy

, there are lots of regional variations of the drink. Mine though was particularly lovely even if I did cheat and get it from a bottle.

With all the fun associated with Carnival, it's bizarre to think that when the fun-loving Austrians took control of Venice in 1798, the festival fell into decline. In fact, it would take almost 200 years - in the late 70's) to resurrect and revitalize Carnevale. The fact that the equally fun-loving Fascists outlawed it in the 1930's probably didn't help too much.

I decided to end the day by taking my bipedal attendants and god bipedal attendants to the Hard Rock Cafe which just opened in Venice. We went 2 weeks ago, but the restaurant had yet to open - something about the proper people not being available to make the necessary inspections. Sounds like a lot of palms waiting to be greased if you ask me.

Anyway, the people at the gift shop, which of course was open, said that the restaurant should be open by Carnevale. And of course, it wasn't. But I did get to meet two of my biggest groupies who insisted on having a photo taken with me. I don't think it'll be framed and displayed in the restaurant (if it ever opens!) because I'm a lowly Freelance Goodwill Ambassador - not a rock star. In any case, on that note, I'll bid a fond arrivederci to Italy

and send big bear hugs to my god bipedal attendants who were so gracious to me and even put up with my whining, freeloading bipedal attendants.

Arrive-bear-ci!

Leaning Towards Pisa

2009-02-19T11:31:00.034+01:00

With the clock ticking down to our departure on Saturday, I asked my male god-bipedal attendant to take us on a little road trip to Pisa yesterday. Bears are exceptionally fond of road trips although that particular trait is seldom touched upon in zoological textbooks or main stream media. So off to Tuscany we went …

Straddling the Arno River, Pisa was put on the map by the ancient Romans – although its settlement goes much father back in time - and was once a great naval power, at times rivaling both Genoa and Venice for maritime supremacy. Its coming-up-in-the-world began in the 800’s when it rose to the challenge of marauding Saracen pirates and ended about 400 years later with a crushing military defeat headed by the Genoans.

Although the city would completely fall to Florence, thanks to the Medici, it became a centre for the arts and lofty thoughts. Galileo was born here (and even conducted an experiment or two off of that tower which leans) as was tenor Andrea Bocelli, although Bocelli’s success didn’t have too much to do with the Medicis, having been born half a millennium later and all.

In its heyday, Pisa had controlling interests and enjoyed special privileges in Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Cairo, Alexandra and Constantinople. At one point, Pisa controlled Corsica and Sicily – the sacking of which paid for all those pretty buildings – including the one which leans - in its Piazza dei Miracoli, the Square of Miracles.

The Leaning Tower (or Torre pendente di Pisa) of Pisa just might be Italy’s most iconic landmark – although Romans might disagree with that. Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Big Ben, the U.S. has the Statue of Liberty, and Italy has this off-kilter counterpart. The tower, which is really a bell-tower or campanile for the Cathedral (yes, it’s another duomo), pretty much started leaning from Day One back on August 9th, 1173. Three tiers into it, it was leaning. Over time and a lot of shifting soil or substrate (I’m putting on my geological hat here), the Tower found itself inclining at a rate of one millimetre a year.

Back when you humans were killing each other in the 20^th century (World War II to be exact, because I know there are many other incidents for you to draw upon), the Nazis used the Tower as an observation post. The allies appointed a U.S. sergeant who had the option of launching a military strike against it. He ultimately chose not to destroy it. I hope someone gave him a medal.

In 1990, the Tower was closed so that a group of Big Brains could finally figure out how to stop the leaning - they did, with the result that the Tower leaned 40 centimetres less. It was reopened in 2001. My bipedal attendants and I and another 37 people – entry is restricted to 40 bears and people at a time – climbed 296 very slippery and wonky stairs to reach the top, some 55.86 metres from the ground. The views were spectacular and almost as entertaining as watching my female bipedal attendant have a meltdown on the top. Granted, the Tower’s top isn’t level (the Tower leans, you know) and the guard rails are awfully low, but still I thought she made too big a deal of it. She can be such a baby.

Of course, everyone has to have their photo taken of them “supporting” the Leaning Tower. I normally don’t indulge in that kind of thing but I was immediately recognized (Italians know me more from my international fashion model days than my humanitarian work as a Freelance Goodwill Ambassador - Italians!) and, well, it’s just so hard to say no sometimes. Although you should always say no to drugs.

There’s a lot more I could talk about Pisa; after all, Pisa is much more than its Tower – but it’s the Leaning Tower that busloads of people come to see every year.

I’ll just finish by saying that in 2001, engineers stated that the Tower would remain stable for another 300 years. In 2008, after tweaking 70 metric tons of soil, engineers revised that to another 200 years. It’s not that I don’t trust all those Big Brains who worked on the Tower, but I’m glad that I saw it in 2009. Generally, I like to lean on the side of caution.