Time to get some wheels

So, Thursday afternoon saw us on a trip over the Bosphorus to the Asian side of Istanbul to go and visit a car showroom. We have made the decision to buy a set of wheels and have gone for a Suzuki Grand Vitara.

Should have it some time this coming week and I will post a pic when we get it!

Can't wait.

The Basilica Cistern

Eldest son and his girlfriend have descended on us for a holiday - our first visitors in Istanbul. They arrived yesterday and today we took them out to do the tourist bit. Eldest son wanted to see the Basilica Cistern.

I will be honest and say that I didn't know about this but was keen to see it when I heard about it (interestingly I can't find any reference to it in the Rough Guide to Istanbul; might be wrong but I haven't found it and it isn't mentioned in the index).

Anyway, regular readers of this blog will know of my fondness for available light photography and the basilica proved to be an ideal place to practice. Here are some of the results

The place is fantastic and well worth a visit next time you are in Istanbul.

Whilst I was in the area with my wide angle lens and in the mood for available light photography I went back to the New Mosque at Eminonu to take these:




I think the roof of this mosque is absolutely spectacular. And I love the way the lights have all starred in the photograph below - I promise you I didn't use a starburst filter for that effect either.

The Princes' Islands

On Thursday the school organised a trip for all the new staff (yours truly included) to the Princes' Islands. These are located in the Sea of Marmaris about 15 km south of Istanbul. The incredible thing about these islands is that there is no motorised transport allowed on any of them! They are havens of peace and tranquility!

We took a nice slow ferry from Karikoy and relaxed for the 90 minute crossing.

Eventually we arrived at our destination Buyukada where we took a phaeton (that is the name they used but I have always known them as landaus, but anyway, a horse and carriage) up the hill to our hotel. This was the only part of the two day trip that I didn't particularly like and that was because our phaeton driver was rather obnoxious to both his passengers and to his horses. I don't like to see horses being mistreated and this guy was rather too free and easy with his whip for my liking! Hence no photo of the phaeton.





The hotel was a lovely if somewhat rustic place perched on top of the island and from the top we had great views of the next island in the chain, Heybeliada.





Our time there was delightful, very restful with good company and good wine and good food and a beautiful sunset.





The next day we walked back to the port (a very pleasant stroll down hill that took about three-quarters of an hour) and caught the ferry back to Istanbul.

On the way back I took a series of photographs of the Asian side cityscape and stitched them together to make this panoramic view.





The ferry calls in at Kadikoy on the Asian side on the way back and I managed to get a couple of photos of some famous sights of Istanbul. The first one is the Aya Sofia which is well over one thousand years old and for most of that time was the largest enclosed space in the world. The second is the Sultanahmet Camii, better known to the world at large as the Blue Mosque.








All in all we had a delightful couple of days. On Monday work starts in earnest!

Another Tourist Day

So, after an early start this morning, we decided to head back into town again. So it was back on public transport for us. Dolmus into Sariyer, then we got the wrong bus from Sariyer - wrong in that it didn't go where we expected it to! What the hell. Where its route ends there will be a little bus station so we will try to get where we want from there. I guess it took us about two to two and a half hours to get where we wanted rather than an hour. By that time we were extremely hot and sweaty!

Anyway, we went to Eminonu to have a look at the Egyptian Bazaar - lots of ceramics, lots of Turkish Delight and lots of spice stalls. Lots of people as well. Saturday is not the best day to be doing this sort of thing - especially in the hottest and most humid summer anyone in Istanbul has ever known!

After the spice bazaar we visited here:

It is wonderful that the "New Mosque" in Eminonu should have been built between 1597 and 1663!

This is a beautiful mosque and visitors are allowed inside. This is a walled court yard containing the ablution fountain outside the main mosque.





The mosque is as beautiful inside as it is outside. It quiet and it is peaceful and the faithful at their prayers are very patient with us tourists, even allowing us to use flash photography in there.





Above is a view of the beautifully decorated multi-domed roof of the New Mosque and below is an interior view.





Well, there is only so much culture a person can take in one day so, after visiting the New Mosque we made our way over to the very flash Kanyon shopping centre and finally got home at about 10 past 5 in the afternoon... Knackered!!!

Baggins in his new home

He might be a pain when it comes to finding dry food that he will actually eat, but he is still a beautiful cat.

Here Comes the Sun

I woke up early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. At about 20 mins past 6 I decided to get up. This is the sight that greeted me when I looked out of the window:

Beautiful! How could it possibly be anything but a great day after this?

Bloody Fussy Moggies

To say that Baggins is a discerning eater is to somewhat understate the case!

Baggins will eat dry food and he will eat wet food. In terms of wet food he likes Miaow Mix (well one of the flavours of it anyway) and he will deign to eat certain other brands at a push.

In terms of dry food he will eat Friskies.

That is it. Friskies. Nothing else.

But they don't sell Friskies in Turkey.

We have tried all sorts - Whiskas (that was always going to be a loser, Baggins won't eat any manner of Whiskas), Kit-E-Kat (tried one piece), La Cat (winning by miles, he has eaten maybe 3 pieces in the last few days), some expensive stuff from the Vet (not interested), Eukaneuba (didn't even bother to sniff it)

So far, in the 9 days we have been here we have spent about 50 US dollars on dry cat food in an attempt to get him to eat - result, nothing.

And the trouble is, if he eats exclusively wet cat food he starts throwing up.

What to do!

Bloody Fussy Moggies!

Istanbul Touristy Stuff

So Mrs Istanbilly and I arrived in our new home on the evening of the 2nd of August. I've been into school a few times - they are constructing a new building and I need to make sure all is well. I've had a tour of the construction site.

We've been to a couple of shopping centres and spent more than we would want to!

On Saturday we decided that we should do some exploring and some of the touristy stuff. Now, Istanbul seems to have a fantastic public transport system! Dolmuses (really a shared taxi that has a specific route but more like mini-buses that will stop anywhere on their route for passengers to get on or off - quite an experience), an extensive bus network, a metro, trams, funicular railways and ferries! And remarkably cheap! Apart from the ferries we made pretty good use of the rest of it on our day out.

We decided to head for the centre of the city, so we took a dolmus from Zekeriyakoy to Sariyer and then a bus to Taksim. At Taksim we caught the antique tram down to the bottom of Istiklal Caddesi.

I love these little antique trams, and I suspect that they are one of the most photographed vehicles in the world (those of you who want to be picky please note that I said one of.) In a shop on Istiklal Caddesi I saw a great photo of one of them in the snow - I shall look forward to seeing that in January or February for myself.


When we got off the tram we walked about 250 metres down hill to Galata Tower.



Built in 1348, the tower dominates the skyline and has a great view over the Golden Horn. There is a panoramic view balcony around the top and also a restaurant at the top. I am pretty sure that the lifts up to the top were not part of the original feature but they are a lot easier than struggling up a long and winding staircase in the current Istanbul heat and humidity.


The bridge is the Galata Bridge linking Karakoy with Eminonu. The trams use this bridge as do many fishermen.


Here we are looking up the Golden Horn to the Ataturk Bridge


Andthis is the view over the rooftops of Istanbul looking towards the Bosphorous

As you can see in the photographs the day was very hazy, presumably caused by the high humidity. I shall look forward to going there again when the weather has become considerably cooler to see if I can get clearer pictures.

After the tower we went down the hill to the Golden Horn and caught an ultra-modern tram at Karikoy to the Grand Bazaar.


This is Kalpakcilar Basi Cad looking towards the Beyazit Gate,one of the main thoroughfares aroundthe edge of the Grand Bazaar,


And this is one of the smaller side streets off Kalpakcilar Basi Cad.

Visiting the Grand Bazaar on a Saturday was possibly not the best move, next time we will try for a mid-week visit. After the Bazaar we caught a tram back to the other side and a funicular from Kabitas back up to Taksim.

Once in Taksim we took a walk down Istiklal Caddesi and, in the Balik Pazari, managed to find a butcher who sells pork! So it was pork chops for tea on Sunday.

Back to Taksim for the bus to Sariyer, then the dolmus to Zekeriyakoy and home, hot, sweaty and exhausted. But, all in all, a very pleasant and successful trip.

How long...

would be considered reasonable for an ISP to provide an internet connection???? Personally I think 7 days is outrageous at the end of the first decade of the 3rd millenium! But that is how long ttnet took. Shame on you ttnet - your work is not up to standard, especially as it only took my next door neighbour 2 days.

The Desolation of Qatar

On the 1st of August I left Greece on the start of my journey to Istanbul - not a difficult journey you may well think. I had to go via Doha! I had to pick Baggins up from the kennels in Qatar and fly with him to Istanbul. It seems that there is an odd piece of legislation here to the effect that, if Baggins arrives on the same flight as me there is no problem in bringing him into the country. If he arrives on a different flight than me then the red tape for bringing him in becomes horrendous! It was easier to make sure that he arrived with me.

So I flew to Doha and stayed overnight with Amanda and Dave - many many thanks to them. On the way to the airport on the 2nd (ready to fly out) I decided to take a photo of Qatar, just to remind me...



The city of Doha was like other Middle Eastern cities - busy with tall buildings and shopping malls and a nice Corniche. But I didn't live in Doha, I lived 40 kilometres up the road at Al Khor. The picture shows the desolation of Qatar - I saw this view every day. The 2nd of August was a particularly beautiful day, had it been a normal day the sky would have been brown as well!

I am so happy to be out of there!

Freedom!

Passport Control have very kindly let me out of Qatar. I am at the airport and my flight goes in an hour and a half.

Athens, and then Skopelos, here I come.

I'm free and out of Sandland at last!

A Step Closer

Baggins went on his holidays this morning. Steve from Pampered Pets came to collect him, he is in kennels until the morning of 2 August. I fly back to Qatar on 1 August, stay overnight and then fly with Baggins to our new life in Istanbul on the 2nd of August.

I always feel guilty when I have to send him to the kennels - and it is always me that has to do it, Mrs Istanbilly gets away with it every time - its the same when he has to go to the vet, I'm always the bad person who has to take him! It's no wonder that he prefers her to me, is it!

Any way, this is my last full day, the last few bits of washing are in the machine, the suitcase is more or less packed and I'm pretty much ready to go. Just a bit more passing of time to put up with.

Oh well, back to the Facebook Scrabble I think.

Comment Moderation

Unfortunately I have had to put comment moderation on the blog as the last post I put on attracted a comment linking me to a pornography site.

Thanks whoever you are but I'll pass.

Passing Time

I am sat in my classroom with a cup of tea whilst writing this. In about half an hour the boys have an awards assembly and then we hand out their reports. They finish at lunchtime, I finish at lunchtime. And then, for some reason which totally defeats me I have to come into school tomorrow morning from 7:30 to 12:00 noon to do... what? I have done everything I have to do, my work here is finished and I am just waiting to leave. I've had my final payment, I've cleared from the school, I just have to pass the time.

I think I might spend the morning playing Scrabble on Facebook.

The Whole of the Ball

The law clearly states that the whole of the ball must cross the whole of the line.


Clearly it didn't!

Not that the non-goal is an excuse - we didn't have a great World Cup, did we. It might have made a difference if we had got it to 2 - 2, but who knows.

Sepp Blatter, now you really will have to bring in goal line technology - your gamble failed.

By the way, I hope ESPN won't mind too much but i nicked the photo from them - this is the url of the original:

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2010/0627/soc_a_nongoal_288.jpg

And yes, OK, I admit it, I might havePhotoshopped it a bit!

Getting Ready to Go

Mrs. Istanbilly leaves Qatar tomorrow for the last time. She is off to Skopelos for the summer. She has been a busy bee today - she is not only packing her bags, but packing the household effects up ready for shipping to Istanbul. She is doing that because I am so unreliable (her word not mine) that I can't be trusted to do a proper job of it!

Anyway, what I can do is show you a couple of pix of the where we are going to live when we get to Istanbul:

Above is the front view of our house, it is a nice place, brand new, two bedrooms, not overly big, but big enough for us. This is the side of the house:





We have two balconies - one looks over the tennis courts which are in the process of being built and this is the view from the other:





I have to say that this is a view that I can happily live with - at the moment I have a view of the villas on the opposite side of the street about 15 metres away! And if they weren't there I would have a view of Qatar which, for the most part, is brown!





This is the pool which is shared by about 10 or so houses. Provided there aren't too many kids that could be quite pleasant!

I think we have found ourselves quite a nice place to live and it is only a couple of kilometres from the school. In fact, we can see the school from the balcony, but it is difficult to spot in the photo above as the walls of the school are green and it blends in with the scenery.

The next two weeks are going to be pretty drab with Mrs. I not around, but I will be joining her in Skopelos soon. I leave Qatar on the 2nd of July, spend that night in Athens and will arrive in Skopelos at about 2 in the afternoon of the 3rd of July. I am looking forward to the holiday but I am looking forward to getting started in Istanbul as well.

Roll on the 2nd of July!

A World Cup oddity

Here I am in a country which broadcasts virtually every English Premier League match, complete with English commentary, live and yet I am left in World Cup limboland!

It ain't on the tele! Apparently I can pay 80 USD to Al Jazeera and get the World Cup complete with Arabic commentary but the channel for which I buy the top of the range bouquet (or perhaps bucket) doesn't have it, with commentary in any language!

Ah well, I guess none of the teams from the Gulf managed to get through, eh?! And doesn't it show!

And before you advise me to go to the local pub to watch it, Al Khor doesn't have any local pubs... come to think of it it doesn't have any pubs at all - local or otherwise! The nearest bar is in a 5 star hotel about 60 kilometres away.

Tired of the rat race?

Why not take a few minutes to visit a newcomer to the blogosphere and take a look at an alternative lifestyle.

Check out Hay Bale Happiness for a different slice of expat life.

Another photo from Istanbul

The place we were staying in was an apartment that had been rented for someone else who, for one reason or another, felt unable to use the apartment. As apartments go it was pretty impractical and we will certainly not be living there when we get to Istanbul. But the views ...

Istanbul

So, I promised you some photos of our trip to Istanbul. Now you have to understand that this was not a tourist trip - so no Blue mosque or Haji Sophia or Topkapi Palace. This was strictly business.

We were staying in a little apartment in a suburb called Kirecburnu, which is really more of a village than a suburb. Anyway, this was the view that we had to put up with:

Back in the Sand

Well, my two week visit to my new school is over and I am now back in Qatar for the remainder of the school year. I have got exams to write and I will have to mark them once my kids have done them, but other than that I have to get ready to leave Qatar for good on the 2nd of July.

First step is getting a police clearance - just so that my new school will have it in writing that I have been a good boy during my time here. Then Mrs I and I have to get our Qatari residence visas cancelled. Our flights are all paid for, so the only other thing to sort out is the bank account - not the easiest of jobs! But I am sure we will manage.

The biggest job is sorting Baggins out (you remember Baggins, the cat who is worth more than I am). We have booked him into kennels for the summer and we hope to be able to take fly him out to Istanbul shortly after the 1st of August.

Mrs I leaves on or about the 19th of June for Skopelos and I will be following her two weeks later on the 2nd of July. We will have just about a month in our island home and then we are off to Istanbul on the 1st of August.

We have rented a lovely little house there and I will put some pix up as soon as I get the time to download them from my camera.

Ready to Go

It is Friday morning at 9:40.

We are packed!

We are ready to go!

Just got to wait until 11 am and then we are off to Istanbul - I'm going for two weeks to visit my new school, Mrs I is going for one week and she will be house hunting!

Unfortunately Mrs I can't stay for the entire two weeks, she has to have a minor (we hope) eye operation on Monday the 31st of May, so she is going to fly back next Saturday. Now, you may be tempted to say that it is a bit ungallant of me not to come back at the same time as her, but my new employers wanted me to have a two week handover and if I put it off until later it will mean leaving my current school early - which has some pretty large consequences! We both think that it is best for me to stay for the extra week.

Anyway, camera is ready, battery is charged, I shall put some views up when I get back.

A change of name (again)

So, I was thinking, I am not going to be in Qatar any longer - what is the point of remaining as qatarbilly and what can my new name be???

I thought of ByzantiumBilly or ConstantinopleBilly, but they just didn't have the right ring.

Then I hit on it,

from now on my web personal will be:

Istanbilly

Sounds good to me!

Good News

It has been a long time since I have blogged. I just haven't been able to drum up the enthusiasm as I waited for some good news to blog about!

As you may (or indeed may not) know, for the last 18 months I have been looking for a job as Head of Secondary (or something similar) at an international school that preferably comes without a desert attached to it.

During my search I have become quite the international jet setter! Since January of last year I have been to:

London (on three separate occasions, the longest trip being 3 days), Bangkok, Hong Kong, Lisbon, Dubai, Munich, Bratislava, Vienna, Qatar (twice) and Istanbul for interviews and I have had telephone interviews with schools in Casablanca, Rio de Janeiro, Addis Ababa, Bahrain and Budapest.

I have come second more times than I like to think about! I have psyched myself up for interviews and then crashed and burned when I got the 'regret to inform you...very strong field' email. I got three in one week back at the end of February/beginning of March - that was not a particularly good time. Lots of encouragement from people like Carol, Dave, Amanda and, especially, Harry Deelman from Search Associates who sent me a very long and very upbeat and encouraging email, has all helped to keep me writing new applications. And, of course, Mrs QB has stood by me and been excited at the prospect of going here or there to live and has hidden her disappointment when it didn't happen - she has even been checking the Times Educational Supplement every week for me saying things like "What about Abuja?", "Ascension Island sounds nice", "Have you thought of this one in Manilla?" etc

Well, I have finally come first!

On Thursday I traveled to Istanbul and on Friday was appointed Director of Secondary at the British International School of Istanbul. BISI is a very happy school which has grown strong following a sometimes turbulent past. It is perched on the top of a hill overlooking the village of Zekeriakoy which is at the northern end of the Bosphoros on the European side and the school has views of the Black Sea. The whole area is a huge forest and you literally cannot see the wood for the trees!!! Having been starved of forest views like this whilst in the Middle East for the last 13 years, the massive amount of greenery makes your eyes ache!! In the spring the whole area is a riot of flowers - Turkey exported tulips to Amsterdam!, in the autumn it must be the golds, reds and browns of New England because all the trees I saw were deciduous and, apparently, in winter the view is white!

Mrs QB and I will be going to Istanbul next Sunday for two weeks so that I can do something of a handover with the current Director prior to me starting properly in the middle of August. We are both looking forward to spending a bit of time there and I will be taking my camera and so will put some photo's on facebook and on my blog (which I will be starting up again now that I have something interesting to put on there!

You cannot believe how many times in the last 18 months I have wanted to write this email. Well, it is finally written and knowing that I do not have to take a Thursday off work to fly to Copenhagen (or wherever) for a weekend, leaving in the early hours of Thursday and getting back in the early hours of Sunday and then being in work on Sunday morning (for those not in the Middle East, our weekend is Friday Saturday) at 7am, is an enormous relief.

By the way, talking of weekends - for the first time for 13 years I will be going back to Saturday and Sunday as the weekend - that is going to be weird!!!

Well, folks, that is the news I have been waiting for so long to tell you. Mrs QB and I shall now sit back and wait for the requests to visit us in Istanbul to come pouring in. Get your dates in quickly 'cos I think there may be a rush!!!

Wide angle photography

You may remember that my colleagues from my last school very kindly bought me a wide angle lens as a leaving present when I moved on from there. I spent some of my time over the summer playing with it to see what kind of results I got. I told you that I would be showing you some for the bad shots I managed to take along with some of the not quite so bad ones.

I think that some of the indoor shots that I took were quite reasonable, but I have noticed that the lens produces shots which are considerably darker than any other of my lenses and that vignetting (a darkness around the edge of the photograph) is a constant problem with it.

I have come up with a couple more problems as you can see below:

When I took the night shot of a medium sized oleander I thought the wide angle would be perfect because I could be quite close to the plant but still get it completely in the frame. What I hadn't expected was the effect of the flash. I have used the built-in flash on my camera and you can see that this has cast the shadow of the lens on the side of the photograph. Of course I held the camera vertically, had I held it horizontally the shadow would have been on the bottom. Clearly the built-in flash is not going to work with the wide angle lens - but this is perhaps not a bad thing as I have already started dropping hints to Mrs QB about the possibility of a separate flash gun as Christmas present!





This one wasn't a mistake, I knew what I was doing when I took the photo. I wanted to have this amount of distortion. The corner of the pool is actually a right angle and I think this amount of distortion is quite amazing, though my framing is not as good as perhaps it should be. I did take a somewhat unflattering photo of Mrs QB but I would not dare put it on here! It was a photo of some yachts with Mrs QB stood on the harbour wall looking at them. Mrs QB is at the edge of the photograph and is subject to a similar amount of distortion as the swimming pool. I have learned that being close to your subject but putting them at the side of a photograph is a recipe for a disaster!





I don't often take photographs of people and I very rarely put them on here, but the photo of Captain Jack and Sarah (as before, names changed) demonstrates a good use of the wide angle lens - you get shedloads of depth of field, huge amounts of landscape and at the same time can get quite close to your subject without distortation (as long as you put them in the centre of the photograph!).