Homage to Wafer Cookies

A loooooooooong time ago, during the summers when most days were "take your daughter to work" days, I tagged along with the R & R Tool and Die crew to watch as they worked on the wafer-making machines at the Holland-American Wafer Company.

An ancestor of the machinery I saw

At the end of the conveyor (but before the cookies were packaged), I got to try one (some?) of the new batch of cookies. I remember one time in particular that a Holland-American worker handed me a cookie to eat, and I must have looked pretty excited about it because it got a good laugh.

Not a staple at home

Since then, I doubt that I've had wafer cookies more than once or twice a decade... until... 

[cue dramatic music]

Hazelnut wafer cookies

How these gofret have stolen my heart! The ones I like best are filled with a tasty spread like Nutella. So, more often than not, I buy one package of these on the way home (to share with Alex, mind you!). They cost about 50 cents, soooo tempting. (I like to pretend that they are not millions of calories because they are just wafers, you know?) Simple pleasures...

Fun ex-pat blog by my friend from work

For her sharp observations and awesome bawdiness, I present my co-worker's blog, Istanbul's Stranger.

Transportation pioneers!

I may have to rename this blog to reflect its emphasis on getting around in Istanbul, but aside from teaching, transportation dominates my existence here. So, in October the Marmaray train connecting Europe and Asia through a tunnel under the Bosphorus was completed. For us, though, the closest Marmaray station wasn't particularly easy to get to, so we hadn't tried it yet. Yesterday, however, a long-awaited extension on the subway line that we use was opened--and it goes to the Marmaray train. Since we had plans to meet friends on the Asian side, we took advantage of this new connection (from Hacıosman to Yenikapı in Europe and then from Ayrılık Çeşme to Kadıköy in Asia.)

Click here for a bigger view of this map and more info

They hadn't recorded all of the automated announcements for the new stops, and one station wasn't even open yet. There's a bridge over the Golden Horn, which is the only above ground section, and we joined in the gawking out the windows with the rest of the passengers as we crossed over.
Of course, the governing party is gloating over this project, and hoping people dismiss protests against destruction of green space and government corruption as anti-progress. Also, the subway bridge over the Golden Horn is a special kind of ugly, which you can see in this recent post of the blog, The Istanbulian.
On the way home, though, we took the familiar two mini-buses and a taxi because the subway goes to sleep by midnight.

A very large-scale pissing contest

This was the view from the Koç University tower in August 2013. See the Black See in the distance?

I'll have to go back up the tower to get a similar shot, but can you see something poking up over the horizon?

 Well, look at that, these are the pylons for the third Bosphorus bridge--

right in the middle of the exclusive KU view!

That's how much the Prime Minister of Turkey dislikes the Koç family and it's fancy university...

Not funny / Funny?

Not funny

The toilet in our apartment was leaking; apparently, it had a crack. The KU building management workers arrived on Tuesday while Alex and I were out. In the process of replacing the toilet, they left behind the most disgusting and disheartening mess in the bathroom. I don't know how, but the tub was covered with debris and filth. I kid you not. There is a photo, but you don't want to see it. Oh, and the replacement toilet leaks too.

Funny?

I woke up from an intense anxiety dream at 3am last night. I dreamed I was one of the judges for a figure skating event at the Olympics. I freaked out because I realized that I had the wrong rubric! Only a teacher would have this dream and consider it a BAD THING. I woke up with a clenched jaw and a crick in my neck. Reeeeedunkulous.

Bayan şöfer: Lady (bus) driver!

What year is it? 2014, really? Well, let me tell you that the mere sight of a woman driving a city bus will make the passengers on the next bus over gawp, point, and exclaim for a good 10 minutes. On the ride from Sarıyer to the apartment complex, there are steep narrow roads that don't always accommodate two vehicles at the same time, especially if these two vehicles happen to be city buses. This time the driver of my bus had to back up several meters to let the other bus turn the corner and go uphill. As he did so, the passengers on my bus did their best Archie / Edith Bunker impressions... I wanted to laugh soooooo much. At least some people were making approving comments; it wasn't all shock and horror.
While there have been women in management and leadership roles in white collar work for decades, the gender divide in service and manual labor has only changed a little from what we saw in 1999. In 2008, I remember it was a jolt to see women working on the garbage trucks in Greece after spending the summer in Turkey. Alex has mentioned that there are women who work as security officers at the Archives, and that's true at the entrances to malls and museums as well. Still, that was the first time I've seen a woman driving a city bus here--may there be more!