Tag Archives: ” Istanbul

Istanbul I

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Wendy’s friends the GGGs (Grammar Guerrilla Girls) are handling the blog while we’re out of town, but on alternate days when scheduling permits, Jack and Wendy will post a few travelogues. Those looking for more Little Bookstore action should keep up with the GGGs on the blog’s regular days (M,W,F and Saturday) and those wanting to hear about the misadventures of bookslingers Jack and Wendy abroad, check in on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.

Jack and I arrived at Charlotte airport and found first thing that our flight to Chicago, thence to Frankfurt, thence to Istanbul, had been delayed. “We’re never going to make it to Frankfurt. This trip is a disaster,” said my dour Scots husband, five minutes into our trip–and then couldn’t understand why I burst out laughing.

“Harumph,” he added for good measure, and I doubled over, honking and snorting as a security guard gave me a stern look and all the other people at the gate A16 edged away from the lady having a fit.

We were in fact so early to the airport (another husband thing) that we asked to get on the flight before our delayed one–also delayed. The nice lady at the counter did just that, and we found ourselves in the privileged position of being EARLY to Chicago. Which of course meant we had time for a pizza: what else would one do?

Fat and sassy we waddled onto our overnight flight, and woke the next morning, cranky, in Frankfurt. If one doesn’t arrive cranky, Frankfurt airport will take care of this for you; the place is joyless, soulless, and just plain nasty (although the city is nice).

Arriving in Istanbul at 2 pm local time – about 7 in the morning back in Virginia–a long line at passport control provided ample people-watching opps. Our favorite was a group of small children, probably from Malaysia, all wearing caps proclaiming they were part of an international children’s program designed to get people from very different places together to meet each other, and maybe reduce the urges some people have to attention-seek by blowing things up.

As we watched, this little flock of hat-wearing goslings sailed in and out of the security tapes intended to hold people tightly in queues, weaving among exhausted passengers of every persuasion–who smiled benignly at the kids and each other as the wee’uns flew over their feet and around their luggage. Even the guard was grinning.

I’m proud to be part of a world where little hat-wearing children can unite such disparate, tired people into a group.

Finding we had accidentally booked ourselves into an exquisite and comfortable hotel, we took a travelers’ nap, then set out in search of amusement. That is how we found out that we dress funny; while the shopkeepers and restaurateurs up and down the winding Old City streets of the Gulhane district greeted passersby with amazing accuracy in the targets’ languages, every time Jack and I passed one, they would ask, “Excuse me, where you from?”

I’m not wearing white tennis shoes, and Jack’s Scottish sweater is over a Walmart flannel shirt. Heh. This could be fun.

Tune in Sunday for a description of the Topkapi Palace Harem and other strange but wondrous people-watching moments.

Meet Mark and Sally, Bookshop Sitters

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Mark and Sally Smith are watching the bookshop while Jack and I slip away for a holiday. They originally planned to come last October, when Little Bookstore was published and our original request for shopsitters went viral. In their Memphis house, Mark in the kitchen and Sally in the bedroom each heard on NPR’s Weekend Edition how we were looking for someone to mind the place while we went on book tour, and rendezvoused in the car on the way to church.

“Want to?” asked Mark.

“That would be so much fun,” Sally replied, and Mark fired off an email. Only, instead of sending it from Mark to Jack, he sent it from their Labrador, Red, to our Labrador, Zora.

Andrew at partyThat pretty much guaranteed we were gonna choose them, but it turned out the dates we needed clashed with some family commitments. So Andrew Whalen shopsat instead, and he was wonderful, and Mark and Sally said they’d get up with us next time.

Which is this week. Jack and I are flying to Istanbul for our 15th wedding anniversary, Christmas 2012 and 2013, combined birthdays and Valentine’s Day, plus celebration of Little Bookstore’s success. When we knew we wanted to go, we called Mark and Sally.

“You really want to?” Mark asked Sally, with his hand over the phone.

“In a heartbeat,” Sally said.

IMG_3644That’s how this couple rolls. Both lost their life partners several years ago, and Sally was volunteering as a docent at the Memphis Public Library, and attending a book club there, when Mark walked in.

“I don’t remember what book it was, I don’t remember what she said about it, I don’t remember a thing about that night except that Sally was sitting there taking up all my brain space,” he said.

He asked her out. Sally, primed ahead of time by friends, said, “I’ll drive myself and meet you there.”

15 months later, they formed a partnership. And they still go to book clubs. And out to dinner, but in one car.

They drove here Friday past to get their feet wet running the shop one whole day, before Jack and I abandon them to ValKyttie’s tender mercies and fly off. Since Sally has been staffing the Memphis Library’s secondhand books store for a few hours each week, and Mark never met a fuzzy creature he didn’t know how to charm, the place is in good hands. As Sally said, “I’ve always loved books, and I’ve always enjoyed people, so I kinda always thought I’d run a bookstore someday.”

And now she is. So come visit Sally and Mark if you’re in the area. They’ll stay through the last Saturday in April, then head back to Memphis because they have a hot ticket to attend the Annual Payroll Convention in Grapevine, Texas.

I know, but Mark says it’s wild fun. And we feel good knowing they’ll have no trouble computing sales tax.