Day 142 - Thanksgiving Day - Movie at the Mall - Hafiz Mustafa Cafe
Thursday, November 22, 2018.
We decided to take it super easy today. We were all tired from yesterday so I let everyone sleep in. We got up late, had a late breakfast and caught up on the blog which I haven't been able to publish due to the bad internet connection. We went to the movies to watch the latest Fantastic Beasts movie. I prepared a quick lunch of soup, cheese, and crackers so we could run to the movie theater. I asked Gregory to double check the time and I'm glad he did because, yes the movie was at 3:20 but dubbed in Turkish! Oops, that's me who checked the movie, so last minute he found the same movie playing in English in another theater.
We took a taxi to the Historia Shopping Mall. I felt like I was back in the US or maybe a fancy part of Mexico. The shopping mall was big and had a lot of American Brands like Guess, American Eagle and in the food court, there was Starbucks and McDonald's -- of course.
Gregory looked at the tickets he had bought. It's always an adventure, doing this in a country where you don't know the language or the customs. He paid 120TL, about $20, which seemed high, until we realized that we had also paid for popcorn and drinks for everyone! We had assigned seats and the theater was clean with very comfy chairs. I'm not a real fan of fantasy films, but it was an experience for us all.
After the movie, we couldn't make up our minds about what to do. It was the only 6:30pm, we had eaten a bag of popcorn each and we were not ready for dinner. We sat on the edge of a fountain, in front of Starbucks, trying to decide what to do. I offered the kids Starbucks but Daniel said no because Gregory had said no Starbucks during our trip. Daniel said he felt guilty. I told him not to worry and just get it. Finally, we decided to go back to Taksim square (near our place) to find a fun place for coffee and a sweet treat instead of dinner.
First, we found Espressolab, a modern, American-style cafe that Sunshine chose but there was no place to sit down and upstairs was the smoking area. We left. The second choice was a Turkish place where they made their own desserts including baklava. We stayed there and ordered different kinds of baklava. Afterward, it was still raining. Gregory wanted to walk but the rest of us wanted to go home, so we did.
I have to admit that I felt a little homesick and wanted to be somewhere else for Thanksgiving. I also wanted to have a family Thanksgiving but things worked differently. I guess what mattered was that we were together and that was enough to be thankful for. I still missed the pumpkin pie! [Gregory's note: what, you missed pumpkin pie after all that baklava? Wow. Oh, and happy Turkey day!]
We decided to take it super easy today. We were all tired from yesterday so I let everyone sleep in. We got up late, had a late breakfast and caught up on the blog which I haven't been able to publish due to the bad internet connection. We went to the movies to watch the latest Fantastic Beasts movie. I prepared a quick lunch of soup, cheese, and crackers so we could run to the movie theater. I asked Gregory to double check the time and I'm glad he did because, yes the movie was at 3:20 but dubbed in Turkish! Oops, that's me who checked the movie, so last minute he found the same movie playing in English in another theater.
We took a taxi to the Historia Shopping Mall. I felt like I was back in the US or maybe a fancy part of Mexico. The shopping mall was big and had a lot of American Brands like Guess, American Eagle and in the food court, there was Starbucks and McDonald's -- of course.
Gregory looked at the tickets he had bought. It's always an adventure, doing this in a country where you don't know the language or the customs. He paid 120TL, about $20, which seemed high, until we realized that we had also paid for popcorn and drinks for everyone! We had assigned seats and the theater was clean with very comfy chairs. I'm not a real fan of fantasy films, but it was an experience for us all.
After the movie, we couldn't make up our minds about what to do. It was the only 6:30pm, we had eaten a bag of popcorn each and we were not ready for dinner. We sat on the edge of a fountain, in front of Starbucks, trying to decide what to do. I offered the kids Starbucks but Daniel said no because Gregory had said no Starbucks during our trip. Daniel said he felt guilty. I told him not to worry and just get it. Finally, we decided to go back to Taksim square (near our place) to find a fun place for coffee and a sweet treat instead of dinner.
First, we found Espressolab, a modern, American-style cafe that Sunshine chose but there was no place to sit down and upstairs was the smoking area. We left. The second choice was a Turkish place where they made their own desserts including baklava. We stayed there and ordered different kinds of baklava. Afterward, it was still raining. Gregory wanted to walk but the rest of us wanted to go home, so we did.
I have to admit that I felt a little homesick and wanted to be somewhere else for Thanksgiving. I also wanted to have a family Thanksgiving but things worked differently. I guess what mattered was that we were together and that was enough to be thankful for. I still missed the pumpkin pie! [Gregory's note: what, you missed pumpkin pie after all that baklava? Wow. Oh, and happy Turkey day!]
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| Buying the tickets! |
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| Waiting for our movie to start |
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| Four-story shopping mall |
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| The coffee is more expensive than other coffee stores but way cheaper than California! |
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| Waiting for our treats! |
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| We see women with and without the hijab as you can see! |
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| Happy Thanksgiving from Turkey! |
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