Our last day in Adana!

Friday, May 23, 2014

Hello!

I do need to discuss last night’s dinner before I launch in to our very lazy day today!  Out about 6 to try and get an early dinner, as we didn’t have much lunch.  Took a cab from our hotel to the huge Hilton just across the river – lovely building, amazing lobby, very cool and calm. 

Not too many people in the lobby, but we were able to get two lovely glasses of dry white wine ordered, which we drank in sumptuous luxury looking over the Seyhan river and Hadrian’s bridge.  The Hilton has two restaurants – one is a combination Japanese Sushi/Chinese restaurant, of which R was very suspicious.  [Would you order suchi in Turkey? – R]  The other, called Spice Market, was much more general in menu and theme, so we decided to go there.

We were seated at a lovely table by the window – more of the Hadrian bridge view, of which I don’t think I could ever tire! 

Hilton's Spice Market Restaurant

Robert's red lentil soup

My Cesar Salad!

For starters, I ordered a Cesar salad (must have had something to do with Hadrian, I’m sure!) and R ordered red lentil soup, which came with homemade croutons.  Both were really excellent!  For mains, Robert ordered sea bass – and for once in Europe, he didn’t get EVERYTHING on the plate!  It had already been professionally boned, and the various unappetizing bits (head, tail, fins) were nowhere in sight!  Way to go!  I had a steak with demi-glace, rice and vegetables.  Mine was fine, but I think there was some confusion with medium-rare and medium-well…it was definitely overcooked, but still edible.   Two more glasses of a wonderful Turkish Semillon; wonderful meal!  Then taxi back to our hotel, getting here around 9 p.m.

Robert's sea bass -- without all the "pieces"

My filet of beef

We don’t normally tend to pick “American” style restaurants, but in this case, Adana is severely lacking in real restaurants!  They have plenty of open-to-the-street type doner places, or giro places, but with the weather being so hot, and the abundance of flies … we’re trying to be a tad more careful than normal.  Hopefully tomorrow, we will be heading back into the mountains and towards Cappadocia where the weather is supposed to be cooler.  Let’s hope! 

Up this morning about 6 a.m. but R had a Caltech project that needed his attention, so we didn’t get to breakfast until almost 9 a.m.  (I also took down a bit more laundry – we’ll be leaving Adana with almost totally clean clothes!!) Then, we headed out to the bazaar area just to look around.  To be honest, it is REALLY hot here [and, it’s humid, too; not like Tucson’s dry heat – R], and in the sun, it is very uncomfortable walking around!  I did pick up a few things – after the bazaar we went to what is considered here to be a “department store” – but looks really like 9 floors of different vendors, and then you take your things down to 0 floor and pay the central cashier.  We did have some fun on the kitchen and housewares floor!  (I am still kicking myself for not spending more time in Kutahya’s porcelain shops…)

Lunch was a quick sandwich and chips, and then back to the hotel to spend a lovely, cool and calm afternoon reading and napping.  As Robert says, this almost begins to feel like a real vacation!  Still not sure what we’ll do for dinner!  Clean clothes have now been returned, and await our repacking tomorrow morning.  

One other interesting thing – Apparently Friday mid-day is the highlight of the Muslim week, and as we were coming back to the hotel, we drove past a mosque which was doing its call to prayer.  There on the sidewalk and street, a huge group of men were on their prayer rugs, facing toward Mecca and praying.  

Robert has drawn my attention to the fact of honking cars and driving in Adana; a few things he felt should be pointed out.  First, driving here is like driving nowhere else we have been in Turkey.  The drivers are very “Italian” in their aggressiveness – it’s surprising what they’ll do to gain a car length or two!  And, as R points out, the three most important parts of an Adana car are [in order of decreasing importance]: 1) gas pedal; 2) HORN; 3) brakes.  The horns are really constant!  In fact, in some places it seems like the light hasn’t even changed yet, and someone is honking!  He hears it a lot more than I do; I just think of it as general outside noise, but it is interesting.  Also, it doesn’t matter if/how many lanes are painted on the streets – cars filling up every conceivable INCH of space will spread across the lanes and wait to get the jump on the lights!  SO much looking forward to driving out of town tomorrow!

So, on that note, I will close and post for the day!

More tomorrow, as we wend our way through Cappadocia and the fairy chimneys!!

m

xxx