Venice or Bust IX - Shopping in Europe

SANTORINI SHOP
I CAN'T BELIEVE I SHOPPED A WHOLE GREEK ISLAND!

VENICE - SHOP WINDOW BY NIGHT

SOPHIE'S SHOPPING CART

MY NANA SAYS, "YOU'RE NEVER TOO YOUNG TO SHOP."

SHOPPING IN EUROPE

Hey all you shoppers! I’m not one myself, but being married to one qualifies me as something of a connoisseur. Here’s a few tips from our recent European splurge.
Rule #1 – Forget the price. You’re going to spend more than you ever thought. Don’t worry be happy.

Dubrovnik, Croatia
On a nice, sunny day Dubrovnik is paradise for shoppers’ husbands. Perhaps because outdoor cafes, ocean views, and other diversions entice away all but the most determined shoppers. Whatever!
Dubrovnik manages to strike the right balance for both buyers and sellers. The merchants are friendly and definitely not ‘hard sell’. Bargaining is allowed but not mandatory. Saying a few words in Croatian creates a genuine bridge of good feeling.
Best buys – lavendar and Italian leather goods. The former grows wild on the Dalmatian Coast while the latter is about 1/3 less than you would pay in Venice. Embroidered linens are reasonable also.

Kusadasi, Turkey
The sons of Artemis are indeed hard bargainers. Rena digs her heels in when faced with the hard sell, so I really didn’t have much to fear. Nevertheless you must play the game. For those who hate to negotiate a lower price – Turkey is not for you!

The Turks really enjoy it. They have a great sense of fun and appreciate a good joke as much as a successful negotiation. Even if no deal is struck – there are no hard feelings. Bargaining is a mental gymnastic like arm-wrestling. It’s definitely my kind of shopping:
“How about a nice leather jacket for the mister?” Romeo asks Rena.
(He is trying to enlarge the deal while he and Rena haggle over a pocketbook.)
“No thanks, I’m a vegetarian,” I chip in.
Big laugh all around.
If you’re not a vegetarian and enjoy bargaining, do buy a leather jacket. You’ll get a good deal. I think carpets are for experts only. Have fun trying on weird outfits. Enjoy baklava and coffee. Laugh a lot.

Santorini, Greece
Shopper’s paradise. Bring lots of euros and spend all of them. We happened to hit the island at the beginning of October when tourists are waning and prices are dropping. We found some good bargains.
Unique items include jewelry made from the lava that buried Atlantis. Gold jewelry in Byzantine style is also great.
Santorini is where shopper Rena finally met her limit. She shopped till she couldn’t walk another step. (see photo). We were waiting for the bus back from Oia to Fira. Even a donkey ride would have looked good by then!

Corfu, Greece
Do something else. It’s hard to get enthusiastic about kumquat liqueur.

Venice, Italy
To experience the sheer beauty and poetry of shopping (if there really is such a thing) shop Venice by night. I may be wrong, but I think the brilliantly lighted shop windows of the Rialto may be among the wonders of the modern world.

Imagine yourself in Venice 9:30 PM.-- Piazzas by moonlight, the footfalls and laughter of passersby, the smell of canals and the sea, the sound of classical violins from strolling troubadours. No streetlights, no motors, no horns. Moonlit waters lap the pier where your gondola awaits.

Suddenly a lighted window ahead! A shop displays its bounty of baroque party masks.
Imagination transports you to the 18th century. You’re in a world made for lovers, footpads and thieves. Lighted palazzos, costume balls and Casanova. One would have to be without a romantic bone in one’s body not to be affected by shopping in Venice at night.

Rena and I give it 10 stars as one of the best shopping experiences ever. And we spent absolutely nothing. How marvelous!

Daktari

Venice or bust V -Say NO to Rugs - Oct 1, 2008

MARG AT HER LOOM

ROMEO MEETS JULIETTE

THE LOCAL MOSQUE

RENA TAKES THE VEIL!

SAY NO TO RUGS

Ahmed drives us to a rug shop, probably owned by a relative. The establishment is run by a large Turkish family. Today marks the end of Ramadan, a big Muslim holiday. For kids it means no school and lots of candy and chocolates. The men of the family greet each other with kisses on both cheeks. Everyone is dressed in their Holiday best and a big family feast is in preparation in the back.

“Looks like we have to stay for the timeshare sales pitch,” I murmur to Rena.

“It doesn’t cost anything to look,” Rena whispers back.

“Famous last words,” I think to myself.

Actually it turns out to be much more fascinating than your average timeshare hard-sell.
The family business is selling Turkish carpets to tourists. In the entryway, a woman sits weaving a woolen carpet. Margaret asks if she can help and the scarf-covered young lady graciously makes room at the loom. She shows Margaret how to tie a rug knot. If Margaret ties one knot every 7 seconds, 8 hours a day for 7 days a week, in just 8 weeks she will have a respectable 3’ by 5’ carpet to sell!

Each tribe has its own colors of wool and traditional patterns for making rugs. Out back in the showroom, we are treated to hot apple tea as carpet after beautiful carpet is unfurled on the floor in front of the four of us. It’s a private showing of marvelous textile artwork in silk as well as wool.

In the front room is a big basket of what looks like oval white Styrofoam balls. Ahmed’s cousin gives one to each of us.

“Shake it next to your ear,” he says.

We dutifully shake the ovoids and hear a soft rattling noise.

“That’s the larva of the silk moth,” says our host. “ This cocoon is made of one single strand of silk over a mile in length. It was spun in just one day by the silk worm that you hear rattling around inside.”

He proceeds to open the lid of a vat of water with silkworm cocoons floating on the surface.

“Here we boil the cocoons, which loosens the fiber and allows us to unravel the cocoons.”

He uses a small whisk to gather up three dozen loose ends of silk, each with a silkworm cocoon attached. These strands are twisted together and fixed to a small spinning wheel, like the one that Ghandi used to spin the homespun cloth he made famous during his campaign to free India from the British.

“Once this single thread is spun,” says our guide, “we gather 30 threads together and spin them again to make a yarn suitable for rug making.”

I do the math. “That’s 1000 silkworms to make just one skein of rug yarn,” I think to myself. The final step is to get the lady of the house to tie 600 tiny knots in a very intricate pattern and “voila!”– one square inch of fine silk carpet.

For a thousand years, the knowledge of how to make silk thread was a trade secret of the Emperor of China. The silk road ran 4000 miles from Cathay to Venice – just to provide silk fiber and fabric to the royalty of Europe. The end product is exquisite and virtually indestructible.

After the tour and the private display of fine carpets comes the inevitable hard sell. Somehow we manage to say NO to rugs. I’m ready to buy but Rena holds firm while I give the merchant a knowing eye and my trademark apologetic shrug. We wish the merchant a Happy Eid ul-Fitr (End of the Fast.) and depart the premises.

From our private glimpse behind the silk curtain, we descend by backroad to the bazaar at Kusadasi. John and Margaret begin endless negotiations to buy a pair of leather jackets while I wander off to find stamps and a letterbox to mail some postcards. When I return, Rena has been picked up by a nice young Turkish boy named ‘Romeo’. I’m not sure if Romeo wants his new ‘Juiliette’ to buy a pocketbook or to take him to America in her steamer trunk!

After taking a photo of Rena and her Romeo, we walk to the mosque and hear the muezzin’s call to prayer. We stop for baklava, crepes and coffee at a sidewalk cafe. Well- dressed men continue to kiss their brethren while kids collect candy from all the shopowners. Rena tries on an “I dream of Jeannie” veil – suitable for the serraglio. She’s quite fetching. “Eat your heart out, Romeo,” I whisper smugly to myself.

What a great day in Turkey! We limp back to the boat with our collection of tired feet, achy backs and lame legs to the Splendour of the Seas. I’m cheered by the prospect of a Motown floorshow in the ship’s theater followed by Latin dance night in the Top Hat lounge. It’s formal night again and I get to wear my tuxedo! I hope I find a fellow dancer to partner with me. That would be heaven indeed.
Happy Eid ul-Fitr, y’all.

DAKTARI

Venice Or Bust IV- Ephesus, Turkey -September 30, 2008

MANY-BREASTED ARTEMIS
RUINS AT EPHESUS

LIBRARY AND HADRIAN'S TEMPLE

WORSHIP IN THE RUINS

VENICE OR BUST IV
We’ve arrived in Turkey!
You gotta love a country whose money is called the yittle!
YTL stands for Yeni Turkeii Lira (New Turkish Lira) but we call it the yittle for short. It's worth just about $1 U.S. which is very convenient. A yittle here – a yittle there and soon your spending some serious loot.
We change our euros to yittles and head to town.

The town is Kusidasi (first syllable rhymes with tushy, second syllable rhymes with posse). Kusidasi is a pretty port city built in the last thirty years for the express purpose of separating tourists from their yittles. Unlike Dubrovnik, there is no old city.

To find a really old city we hire a cab to drive us to Ephesus – the capital of the ancient Roman province of Asia. Our new cabbie, Ahmet, is efficient but not as much fun as Nikola from Dubrovnik. First stop is a large stone statue of Mother Mary. Turkey is a Muslim country so Ahmet must figure all American tourists are dying to see a giant statue of Jesus' Mom. I guess he can tell from Rena's body language that we are not fans.

Our next stop is at the temple of the Goddess Artemis. In the Mother Goddess competition, Artemis wins hands down over the Virgin M. She pre-dates Mary by 3000 years for one thing. Artemis was originally the Persian Goddess Cybele. Then she became Artemis. Later, after the Roman conquest, Artemis was idenitified with the Roman Goddess Diana, the huntress.

Artemis' statue is my idea of what a real mother goddess oughta look like. She has curves in the all the right places plus at least 50 breasts. Now this is something even doctors don't see everyday!

A roadside vendor is selling replica statues of Artemis and I just have to buy one. I bargain for a while and we eventually settle on the Goddess Artemis Action figure upgrade – a bigger statue for the same price as the statue ordinaire. Total price is 4 yittles – that's less than 10 yittle cents per boobie! What a steal! After negotiations are concluded, I pause to offer a silent prayer to the Goddess and ask her many-breasted blessings for all pagans everywhere. Om Shanti, y'all.

Next, Ahmet takes us to visit Artemis' hometown of Ephesus. It's remarkably well preserved – buried by an earthquake in 614 C.E. Ephesus was the biggest city in Asia at the time – over 200,000 people. They've been excavating the ruins for 110 years and have uncovered less than 10% of the city. The stadium alone held 25,000 people!

I befriend a grizzled old black-and-white tomcat in the ancient forum. He's got nicked ears and a scarred nose but I can tell by his big purr and nuzzling neck that he's more a lover than a fighter.

A few ruins go a long way. I like the physician's house. A large boa constrictor marks the doc's office entrance and a statue shows this ancient healer was a woman. She was honored with a statue because she saved Ephesus from the plague.

We pay a yittle more money and go into the peristyle house. This is an ancient condo development on the slope above the city forum. Seven very wealthy families lived here. The site has been unearthed right down to the brightly colored fresco paintings on the walls, the marble columns of the central courtyards, and the mosaics on the floors. Even the clay jars that held food in the kitchen have been preserved.

Rena and I knock off early and clamber over a broken wall to sit in the sun and rest. A tiny hummingbird sips nectar from a flowering shrub. The landscape smells of warm sage and oregano baking in the afternoon sun. I close my eyes and inhale -- warm earth, blue sky and herbal scented air. This peaceful moment at the edge of the ruins will be my treasured memory of ancient Ephesus. "Thank you again Goddess Artemis," I pray silently. "I love your hometown."
DAKTARI