Munich and Istanbul Trip
The next day we had simit and tea for breakfast (the kids were given free packets of Nutella, Marcus's first-ever taste of it, so they had simits with cheese and nutella--odd combination, but apparently Nutella goes with everything) at the end of our street, and then took a taxi to Minaturk, a bit out of the city center, but a worthwhile destination anyway.
First of all, Miniaturk had a big playground, and there were lots of kids around, on field trips with teachers. Marcus was unimpressed with the swings ("They're all like big baby swings!" he said disgustedly), but otherwise thrilled to run around. The day was sunny and warm, and we loved being outside and getting to walk around the scale models of the different tourist sites we'd seen, and some we hadn't, from Istanbul and the rest of Turkey. (Oddly, many of these "landmarks" were high schools--apparently the Turks are very proud of their high schools.)
There was a child-life-sized chess board where we played a long and slow game of checkers, and there was a motion-simulator film/ride of a helicopter ride through Istanbul and around all the landmarks--it was neat to see in 3-D what we'd just seen in real life yesterday and then seen in the models an hour earlier today. Samantha got nervous during the 3-D parts and leapt onto Robert's lap, saying, "I a little scary. I a little scary!" in a panicked voice.
The remote-control boats were a hit, as was the barcode-scanner audio guide feature. Marcus ran around with our ticket stubs activating the audio guides in English at the different models, while we listened and moved at a slower pace.
From Miniaturk we walked just a couple blocks up to a brand-new playground, possibly never before used, as the construction equipment was still on site and there were piles of extra materials laying about.
Marcus dubbed this the "exercise equipment playground" and I think that was a good name. It was gettng chillier at this point, and cloudy, but it was still at least 50.
Yes, look at me--American worry-wart parent! I couldn't help but be a tad amazed at this playground with no fences, no child-restraining gates, just ten feet from a fairly steep slope that sloped down another twenty feet to the waters of the Golden Horn.
Another few blocks beyond the playground was Santralistanbul University, which has an energy museum that was our destination. But the kids were hungry, so we ducked into a cafe on campus and tried to decide what to get to eat. Our choices seemed to be a steam table with generic-looking Turkish food--not bad, but not incredibly inspiring--and a made-to-order sandwich bar--even less inspiring. Then we noticed that one grad-student-looking fellow (the plaid shirted guy behind Marcus) was eating what looked like a giant bowl of melted cheese with bread. We asked what it was, and the manager and the student tried to explain and came up with "Cheese--popcorn--ha ha, no, not popcorn exactly, but cheese, and butter," so, on that note, we promptly ordered it. It turned out to be muhlama, a delicious Turkish cheese fondue, somewhat uncommon in restaurants, and it came with a free yogurt soup first and a mountain of bread (actually, nearly every meal we'd been eating in Istanbul came with a giant pile of bread), and all four of us loved it.
While we were eating the skies got dark and it got cooler and started to pour, so when we were finished we dashed across the courtyard and into the energy museum. What a neat place! It's a preserved old power station from the second decade of the twentieth century, and the equipment was either left entirely in place or else was cut in cross-section so you could see the wires and innards. Except for a few cats (of course), it was completely deserted. Free, fascinating, and all in all a satisfying stop!
Robert especially loved the control room, where he delighted in pushing buttons and switches that were a hundred years old. "They don't make switches like this anymore," he admired. The ground floor of the museum was a series of hands-on electricity exhibits of the type that Robert and Marcus love, so they walked around and played and puttered while Samantha napped and I wrote in our trip journal. When it was time to leave, we hopped in a cab and headed back to a restaurant near our hotel for excellent grilled meats.
Samantha loved the lamb chops, and the grill in the middle of the restaurant was functional and aromatic. Samantha also liked the grilled halved tomatoes--"That one Mommy's ladybug!" she'd yell, defending my "ladybug" (tomato with blistered skin) from Robert, which was fine by me.
After dinner, we walked past a number of kebob shops and baklava places and window-shopped food, before calling it a night.
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Created: 12/1/13. Last Modified: 12/4/13.