Cisterns and Simit

Merhaba from Istanbul! I'm still in a semi-zombie state due to waking up at 3am four days ago and staying up until 5am two days ago. I am way too old for those kinds of circadian shenanigans. That has not stopped from me from making pretty valiant sightseeing efforts here nor from really liking Istanbul so far. So scenic! So historic! So stylish! So clean! This is the cleanest city of 15 million I've seen, and I abhor litter bugs so I strongly approve of the civic spirit of tidiness.

No sky in Cairo

I've spent the last three days in Cairo, and I think I might hate it.  To be fair to Cairo, I did take a brief red-eye here, and isn't that the worst kind of red-eye?  You really need at least 6 hours to get a semblance of a decent night's rest.  But I have been getting terrible headaches ever since I arrived, and my first day here summoned up a migraine that put me to bed at 7:30pm.  There is no sky here. 

The Red City

Were you wondering where the gabby gadabout had gone?  I met up with Claire, one of my dearest friends from college, and so there was less time for writing to start with.  But Claire has a Mac and Google hasn't been loading on Macs in Morocco for the last few days. I certainly could have gone to a cyber and reported on all the fun I've been having, but spending time in a cyber when Claire and I could be hanging out didn't appeal.  My last dispatch was from Essaouira, and my last night there was lovely.

Keyboqrds qre tricky

Upon the advice of my friend, Claire, and the not-explicit advice of my guidebook, I blew off Casablanca, but where to go?  The distances in Morocco are enormous, but it has a very good network of trains and buses.  So I could get to anywhere but it might be late and dark, and that did not appeal.  So I chose Rabat, Moroccos capital (pardon the spelling and punctuation - Arabic keyboards are tricky - it took four of us to find the exclamation point!).  And I am glad I did because Rabat is very manageable, especially compared to Fes, my current location.

Rainy Roma

I've spent the last two days in Rome and will be heading to Florence later today.  I took a too long, too late nap yesterday, so I've been awake since 5:30 and decided I might as well be productive and update here.  But I left my camera in my room so no pictures for now.  I've been staying in Trastavere, one of Rome's oldest neighborhoods across the river - all cobblestones and teeny-tiny alleys and piazzas. 

If you ever want Rome without the crowds, come in February!  Now it might be drizzly, gray and cold, but it won't be crowded.  My only waits have been for restaurants, and those have been worth waiting for.  I "did" Rome many years ago, so I decided to just wander instead of sightsee.  And aside from my using a payphone at a hospital to call my credit card company (yes, payphones in Italy are just as crap as those in the US) to get the hold taken off my account, things have been very easy.  Except for the Trenitalia site, which has the unfortunate tendency to accept only about 20% of US credit cards.  So I'll buy my ticket to Florence at the train station.  But those are easy problems.

Let's get to the important stuff - food!  How could I have lived this long and not have had sweet dried cherry tomatoes?  And dried lime slices too?  I picked up those at Campo de Fiori, and then I popped around the corner to get a couple of pignole, those delicious amoretti-like cookies topped with pine nuts.  Last night, I had pizza at Da Poeta, which is tucked away on a small alley here in Trastavere.  The patataccia pizza with potatoes, mozzarella, and sausage was very good and will be my lunch today on the train.  But the calzone stuffed with nutella and ricotta I had for dessert!  If I could do it over again, I would probably skip the pizza and get the grande (large) calzone instead of the piccolo (small).  It was fantastic. 

I did do a few other things aside from eating - the aforementioned wandering, a church or three, a museum, and the Pantheon again, which is technically a Catholic church now, but it just doesn't feel that way to me.

It's now a respectable hour for me to make noise in my room, so I'll sign off.  But I want to thank everyone who has wished me well on this trip.  It was a hectic month prior to departure, and in the last few days, I was veering between completing my to-do list and getting weepy at the enormity of this.  Extra thanks go to those lucky folks who got to deal with teary Monica! 

PS - snow is predicted for Florence today and tomorrow.  Now I'm really glad I have boots.