Europe

I can’t believe I forgot to post this with all of the Turkey posts!  But better late than never, so here is the lowdown on Turkey’s contribution to our wedding quilt.  We knew that we wanted to look for fabric in Istanbul’s famous Grand Bazaar.  You can read about the rest of our shopping trip here.

Even though Istanbul is known to have amazing textiles we had an epic quest trying to search for something that would be appropriate for use in a quilt.  In general the fabric we would like to find would be made of cotton or something similar, be a strong, thin fabric that isn’t stretchy, see through, or too coarse.  In the USA you can buy fabric specifically designed for quilting, but this is not the case in most other countries.

The first thing we found that would maybe have worked was a table runner.  We would have needed to cut it up and only wanted a small bit of it.  It was expensive though and we ultimately decided that we could probably do better.  It wasn’t easy though and even our final choice will be quite a challenge for my mom to put it into the quilt with so many other different types of fabric.

And here is our choice!

It is a pashmina made of cashmere.  We loved the pattern and the colors and it is incredibly soft.  Perhaps it can even be used in one big piece on the back of the quilt or it will just mean that there are little soft patches on the front!

The last time we were in Madrid we missed a few fun things to do, so this time we made sure to do them! The first is known as “Churros con Chocolate”, which as you can see is a delicious savory donut (which is not covered in sugar like in the US) and a pot of very thick hot chocolate, almost like a pudding. It is served for breakfast and is oh-so-delicious. (more…)

We had a very pretty flight from Istanbul to Barcelona, flying over Greece and Italy. The public transportation is really good in Barcelona, so we got the bus and then the metro to our hostel and pretty much crashed.

This was a good thing because I had to be up early the next morning for something I had been dreading…a trip to the dentist!  Before I left the US I had some trouble with a tooth.  There wasn’t time to get it taken care of and it only hurt very rarely, so I didn’t worry about it too much.  But as we traveled around Europe I was having pain pretty frequently.  I thought long and hard about where to go to the dentist and decided that Spain was the best choice – after all, I know some Spanish, the costs there are reasonable, and they even seem to have something of a medical tourism thing going on, which gave me confidence that they would do a good job.

It ended up being a pretty interesting experience.  The dental office I went to looked brand new and was lit a little like a nightclub.  At least, a nightclub with a bunch of dental stations.  The office staff spoke quite a lot of English and the dentist spoke a little.  They got right down to business and ended up giving me three fillings!  I was so happy to have this taken care of!

 

Another unusual thing about Istanbul is that it is actually on two continents! The Bosphorous River runs through the middle of the city and on one bank is Europe and on the other is Asia. We spent all of our touristy time on the European side since that is where most of the famous landmarks are, but when we went to the airport for our flight to Barcelona we crossed the Bosphorous and made it into Asia! It was really not that much different, and we weren’t there for long, but it brings our trip continent count up to 5!

In Istanbul, the remnants of the Ottoman Empire are everywhere. This is very readily apparent if you go to visit the Sultan’s Palace Museum in downtown Istanbul. There, they’ve opened most of the palace grounds and some of the interior buildings to give you a sense of what it was like to be king in Istanbul. There are also quite a few surprising relics stored inside.

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