Charlize Theron Hungary for Geography Lesson

29 January, 2008 at 3:55 pm

Today Charlize Theron proves that you don’t have to qualify for Mensa to repeatedly star opposite Keanu Reeves. PageSix.com reports:

Oscar winner Charlize Theron, who has never been considered an airhead, made a serious geographical gaffe when she mixed up her Eastern European cities in a recent interview.

While promoting the UK release of In The Valley of Elah, the South African actress waxed poetic about her visit to the Turkish city of Budapest… except Budapest is in Hungary. She had meant to say Istanbul.

“We went to Turkey. When we got over there, we rented a car and we drove all the way to Budapest,” the 32-year-old told London’s Daily Mail of her spring 2006 trip with actor beau Stuart Townsend. That would have been one impressive drive, considering the capital of Turkey is about 660 miles from Budapest.

“By the time we got to Budapest it was like the Cannes Film Festival, I’d never seen anything like it,” she said. Charlize, that was the popular Istanbul International Film Festival you attended.

She also described visiting a Turkish bazaar where she purchased various local rugs. In one sighting, a tipster from A Socialite’s Life observed Charlize throwing down $380,000 on silk and traditional Turkish rugs at Istanbul’s historical Grand Bazaar.

“When we travel, it’s like backpacking,” she said of her desire to keep a low profile. “We don’t stay in fancy hotels. We like to go and be part of the culture.”

HOTEL HEGSAGONE

29 January, 2008 at 3:53 pm

HOTEL HEGSAGONE

Hotel Hegsagone is a 4 star hotel, located 60m from the sea and only 16km from Sabiha Gokcen Airport, in Gebze Kocaeli. Hotel Hegsagone has a total of 110 rooms of which 56 of them are deluxe, 4 suite and 4 non-smoking rooms. All rooms are equipped with direct phone, balcony, minibar, safe-deposit box, wireless internet, stallite TV, air condition and hair dryer.

Hotel has, TV room, complimentary wireless internet, business center, internet cafe, laundry room, iron, dry cleaning, 24 hours of room service, open car park is available for 24 hour and generator for public use.

You can enjoy the half olympic open swimming pool and kids’ pool, solarium, sauna, fitness center, pool tables and Fin Bath.

Culinary Institute to train Turkeys cooks

29 January, 2008 at 3:51 pm

The Istanbul Culinary Institution, located in a seven-storey building in the Tepebaşı district of Beyoğlu, will be a unique educational institution providing a 10-month training program for those who would like to become professional cooks

MÜGE AKGÜN
ISTANBUL - Referans

  Turkey now has its own culinary institute, alongside the French Culinary Institute (FCI) and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

     The Istanbul Culinary Institute (ICI) will be saluting Istanbul residents from its seven-storey building in the Tepebaşı district of Beyoğlu/Pera.

  The creator of the project, Hande Bozdoğan, completed her undergraduate education at the Department of Economics at Bogaziçi University, took a Masters program in the United States and began to take classes in restaurant management along with her graduate courses. She went on to attend cake-making classes at the CIA.

  After a brief experience working in the banking sector, Bozdoğan realized that only a job related to food culture and world cuisines would make her truly happy. She also attended cooking courses in the United Kingdom. In 1996 and back in Turkey, Bozdoğan opened a café in Istanbul’s Suadiye district. There she cooked homemade saucy food and delivered it to work places in the local vicinity. Bozdoğan moved on to work as the CEO of Dunkin Donuts in Turkey for three years.

Researching Turkey’s food culture

  In 2001, Bozdoğan thought she still had much to learn about cooking and therefore went to New York to study at the FCI. Since then, together with a photographer friend, Bozdoğan has traveled all around Turkey, researching Turkey’s food culture. In 2004, her book titled “Flavours of the Street, Turkey” won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award. 

  Following the book, Bozdoğan launched the Saros project, a preliminary work that would later contribute to the Istanbul Culinary Institute. Bozdoğan grew tomatoes in a summerhouse garden in Saros Bay, an inlet of the northern Aegean Sea located north of the Gallipolis Peninsula in northwestern Turkey, and has since developed the project into a 60 hectare garden providing fresh fruits and vegetables to the ICI.

  When it opens its doors, the ICI will be a unique educational institution providing a 10-month training program for those who would like to become professional cooks. Bozdoğan said:

   “Universally accepted cooking techniques do not actually vary much from country to country. For instance, the pastry of the Turks’ tulumba tatlısı (fried pastry with syrup) is cooked with the same technique as the French éclaire. Our main aim here, at our Institute, is to teach our students all cooking techniques in the world and provide them necessary academic formation that would enable them to adapt all those techniques to their own cuisine.” Hence the ICI has prepared a highly detailed course curriculum and will teach its students in-depth about Turkish cuisine while simultaneously opening windows to world cuisines.

   The ICI’s academic staff includes cooks from Mengen, a district of Bolu province in Turkey famous for its talented cooks, and also young chefs, who hold diplomas from abroad and enough caliber to apply universal cooking techniques. The ICI’s à la carte chef Gencer Üzümlü is a graduate of a culinary school in Australia and has worked in five star hotels. Ziver Usta, another respected name at the institute, is the Turkish cuisine chef, while Zeynep Moroğlu is the pastry chef.

  Bozdoğan said they decreased proportions of fat and salt during preliminary studies with the cooks before trainings and have even excluded margarines, a sine qua non for some dishes, from their kitchen. They have also revised cooking times for several meals.

Not only food culture but also wine culture

  The 10-month program is scheduled into two terms. The first five-month term includes introductory courses on both theory and praxis. In the second term, courses provide more detailed knowledge on a particular cuisine, an absolutely professional à la carte kitchen, which is also the kitchen of the restaurant at the ICI. That restaurant is the place where students will be practicing based on a system of daily shifts as if they really work at a restaurant kitchen. 

  At the ICI, students, in addition to practicing cooking, will also be experiencing the tempo and stress of working at a busy restaurant. They will also be responsible for the service. Bozdoğan said, “though customers do not realize it, the service of ordered meals should be at synchronized times and that is actually the most delicate part of service.”

   Three storeys of the seven-storey building are shared by ICI kitchens. The first kitchen floor is sponsored by Gaggenau and also functions as a classroom. There is also a student library on the same floor. Another floor used as kitchen will function during first term and evening courses. The bottom floor has been designed to be the kitchen of the ICI’s restaurant “Enstitü,” (Institute).

  Tea, coffee and pastries in the morning and package service food for lunch at noon will be the services at the basement. The ICI will also offer courses on wine as a part of food culture and research on wine accompaniments to Turkish meals is actively being carried out at the institute. Sponsoring the project is a wine production company called Kayra Şarapları (Kayra Wines), while the institute’s wine bar will include many Turkish brands. 

Support for students with scholarship

  The Istanbul Culinary Institute is sponsored by a number of relatively small companies rather than only one large company. This is because the institute wants to be an independent science center and does not want to be called by a name given to it by a big private sponsor. Bozdoğan said having more than one sponsor is also helpful in terms of providing more scholarships to greater number of students. The funding strategy will also enable higher quality education and materials.

  With space for 32 students for its yearly program, tuition per student is $12,000. The fee is relatively low when compared with other international culinary schools’ yearly tuition fees at around $30,000 – $40,000.

   Ten-week evening classes for amateurs will start in February 2008, and will cost YTL 1,500. Students enrolled on evening classes will be learning cooking and meat cutting techniques as well as how to use different knives, how to serve wines, and many other techniques based on both theory and praxis.

  The ICI has also signed a partnership agreement with the FCI – with the FCI’s bread making program director, Karen Bornarth, preparing the ICI bread and pastry curriculum. The ICI also sells, at the street level entrance, various kinds of specially cooked breads and other gourmet products. 

  Interestingly, the ICI expect something from their customers in return: feedback. Not only about their satisfaction with the meals and service, the ICI tutors and students also want to hear customers’ criticisms. In the first months following the institute’s opening, food prepared by kitchen chefs and their assistants will be served in breakfasts and lunches. Food delivery to workplaces around will start soon after. The institute’s restaurant will be opening next week and the first 10-month course will start in September.

Bulgarias Black Sea coast among top 5

29 January, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Bulgaria was fifth in a ranking of most preferred summer holiday destinations of German tourists, according to a study by Urlaub Perfekt magazine. The analysis was based on information provided by more than 1200 tourist agents, Dnevnik daily said.

German tourists preferred Bulgaria as a good family holiday destination.
Another factor was that the country offered affordable holiday opportunities. At the same time, however, Bulgaria lagged in providing good service to customers and in quality of hotels.

The research showed that the number of German tourists booking holidays in Bulgaria was growing, Dnevnik daily said.

The ranking was based on votes. Bulgaria won 255 votes, while the number one seaside destination, Spain, got 910 votes. Between Bulgaria and Spain ranked Turkey, Greece and Egypt.

According to Urlaub Perfekt, Bulgaria was a suitable destination for family tourism and as such, it was third after Turkey and Spain. Based on price-quality correlation, Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts were placed second after Turkish resorts. Based on individual tourists criteria Bulgaria was fifth.

Bulgaria was third in the list of destination about which the most complaints were received.

Escalated in Turkey

29 January, 2008 at 3:48 pm

On December 30, 2007, in the popular tourist resort of Antalya, Turkey, the police revealed and stopped a secret murder plot. The aim was to kill Ramazan Arkan, a priest working in The Church of Incil, in Antalya. The case resembles other attacks targeted against Christians in Turkey, where the hatred against Christians has escalated lately.

In a news feature, the Turkish TV channel HABERTÜRK reported that Turkish police in Antalya has revealed and thus prevented the planned assassination. A 22-year-old man was arrested for preparation of murder of the Orthodox priest Ramazan Arkan.

According to several Turkish newspapers, the suspect has, during interrogations, said that he has become inspired by the TV-series ”Valley of the Wolves”, a popular TV-series among Turkish ultranationalists. The series has also been released here in Sweden in a movie version on DVD. The police neither confirms nor denies these statements.

ESNA has earlier reported about an Italian, Catholic priest, who was stabbed in his stomach by a younger male in the port city of Izmir, in western Turkey. The priest, Adriano Franchini, survived the attack, and shortly thereafter the perpetrator, who had been influenced by different Internet sites which point out Christians as traitors, was arrested.

In April 2007, five university students in Malatya, eastern Turkey cut the throats off three Christians – a German citizen and two Turks – at a Bible publishing company. Before the killings, the three victims had been tortured for hours.

On February 5, 2006, the Catholic Italian priest Andrea Santoro was shot to death in his church by a 16-year-old boy, in the Turkish city of Trabzon at the Black Sea. The Agape church, which has reopened for divine service since 2003, in Samsun at the Black Sea, has been terrorized several times. The minister, Orhan Piçaklar, received several threats via e-mail and telephone. Despite several reports to the police, the threats have continued. The police, who on January 5th tapped the telephone conversation of a suspect, heard the 17-year old adolescent brag about how he would kill the minister of the Agape church, and become famous on TV. But the court handling the case saw no need for detaining the young man; he was released, but however prohibited to leave the country.

On hundreds of Internet sites, Christians are pointed out to be missionaries, and thus threats against national security. On TV-series, such as “Valley of the Wolves” (Kurtlar Vadisi), which is aired on ”Show TV” and ”Black Snake” (Kara Yilan), which is aired on tv-channel “A TV”, ultranationalist emotions are incited. All these actions make Christians feel unsafe in Turkey.

On January 19 2007, the Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, was murdered in broad daylight outside the premises of the newspaper Agos, in Constantinople (Istanbul). A few days after the murder, the 17-year old killer, Ogun Samast, was arrested.

The Turkish police, who treated the murderer like a national hero, proudly posed with a Turkish flag in their hands, in front of the cameras, and boasted about taking pictures with the killer.

On Ocotber 12, 2007, Arat Dink, son of the murdered Hrant Dink, and the responsible for the publication of the newspaper Agos, Serkis Seropyan, were sentenced to one year of conditional jail sentence for ”desecrating Turkishness”. The sentence is based on the very same paragraph that Hrant Dink was judged for, paragraph 301 in the Turkish penal code. Arat dink, who received several threats after the sentence, was forced to flee Turkey on the 6th of November 2007.

The European Union has for a long time protested against the fact that Turkey, a country applying for membership in the European Union, has failed protect the human rights and the religious freedom of the very small Christian minority. On the contrary – the development has been towards the opposite direction.

However, Turkey sees herself as a secular state with religious freedom. In the beginning of the 20th century, one third of the population in Turkey was Christian. As a consequence of Seyfo – the genocide against the Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks during World War I - with subsequent pogroms, barely 100,000 of the Christians remain out of a 75 million large population in Turkey.

TURKMENISTAN AZERBAIJAN DISPUTE

28 January, 2008 at 3:29 pm

Turkey’s assiduous efforts to turn itself into a regional energy transport hub and to secure its own energy supplies have led it to attempt to mediate a diplomatic dispute between two post-Soviet energy giants, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. At issue is the legal status of the Caspian Sea, an issue that remains unresolved 17 years after the collapse of the USSR, which left five bordering states (Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan) in place of two.

While massive new hydrocarbon developments have taken place in the Caspian riparian countries, deep-water drilling projects and undersea pipelines have been stymied due to the lack of a definitive treaty delineating the seabed and waters. If Ankara’s “good offices” can help amicably resolve the dispute, it could pay off handsomely for Turkey by both securing its position as a regional energy corridor while giving it first access to Caspian energy exports.

While Turkey has already secured the 1,092 mile-long Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Turkmenistan remains the Caspian’s last glittering “Wild East” energy frontier.

The ultimate prize is Turkmenistan’s vast natural gas deposits, estimated to range between 2.1 trillion and 7.0 trillion cubic meters, placing the deposits at the fourth- to fifth-largest in the world. While Azerbaijan is the sole ex-Soviet petro-state to free itself from dependence on Russia’s pipeline monopoly for export, Turkmenistan has been dangling its vast energy reserves in front of foreign oil companies, coyly implying that a sub-sea Caspian gas pipeline is a distinct possibility.

President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, who succeeded the late Saparmurat Niyazov in December 2006, has held Gazprom over a barrel to agree to pay $130 per 1,000 cubic meters for Turkmen gas for January-June 2008, a 100% jump from the price just 14 months ago, Ashgabat chafes under the knowledge that Gazprom, in turn, sells its gas to Europe for more than twice the price Turkmenistan receives, noting that Baku gets world market pricing for its hydrocarbon exports.

Turkey is also actively courting Kazakhstan, which is also held hostage by Moscow for its energy exports. Turkey’s Calik Enerji is a partner with Italy’s ENI, a major investor in Kazakhstan’s massive Kashagan offshore Caspian development. As Calik Enerji and ENI are behind the proposed Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline, proposed in 2004 as a conduit for Russian and Kazakh oil, the recent settlement of disputes over Kashagan’s development is seen as a potential major opportunity for Turkey to further its dreams as a major energy transit corridor (Milliyet, January 21).

Even though the final delineation of the Caspian remains a distant dream, an Azerbaijani-Turkmen undersea pipeline through their respective sectors would sidestep the diametrically opposed Russian and Iranian positions on the topic. Russia wants a division based on the Caspian shoreline, while Iran supports an equitable 20% division. Both share a common interest in blocking further U.S. expansion into the region, but the pair’s arbitrary energy policies toward Ankara have greatly alienated the Turkish government, whose diplomacy could unlock the West’s favored option for Turkmen gas exports, a subsea Trans-Caspian pipeline from Turkmenbashi to Baku.

Recent events have driven home to Ankara the capricious nature of its current energy arrangements with Moscow and Teheran. On December 31, citing technical difficulties, Turkmenistan halted its natural gas deliveries to Iran. Tehran promptly reduced its gas exports to Turkey by 75%, cutting supplies completely eight days later, forcing Ankara to use as much as a third of its stored fuel. Turkey then halted gas flows from Azerbaijan to Greece. Russia, Turkey’s other major gas supplier, played more pipeline hardball by also reducing gas exports.

Despite Turkey’s resentment over the arbitrary cutoff, the simple fact is that for the present Iran and Turkey need each other, Iran for Turkey’s domestic market, which thwarts Washington’s sanctions regime, while Turkey is dependent on foreign imports for almost 80% of its gas needs and 90% of its total energy requirements (Today’s Zaman, January 21). To secure its energy imports Turkey has been willing to endure Washington’s disapproval, most notably last July when Turkey signed a $3.5 billion contract with Iran to develop phases 22-24 of Iran’s offshore Caspian South Pars project, while potential pipeline projects include 2,200 miles of gas pipelines to transport up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Europe via Turkey. In a blunt rejoinder to Washington’s negative reaction, Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said, “At this point, the interests of our country are above everything. These efforts should by no means be considered a reaction, this is an action” (Kahyan, December 2). But the relationship is hardly smooth, with Turkish officials suspecting that the real reason for Iran’s decision to halt gas supplies to Turkey was Tehran’s frustration with Turkey over implementing the South Pars agreement.

Small signs seem to indicate that events are moving in Turkey’s favor; Turkmenistan is reopening its embassy in Azerbaijan as the two governments continue consultations on mutual debts, bilateral cooperation, and the legal status of the Caspian (Turan, January 18). Doubtless Turkmenistan is eying Azerbaijan’s oil boom, which last year gave Azerbaijan a $21 billion economy, currently expanding at more than triple the rate of China’s and an annual growth exceeding 30%.

For Turkey, strengthening its relationship with Azerbaijan and reaching out to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan is a win-win situation. Turkey would get back in Washington’s good graces while lessening its dependence on Iran and insulating itself from Russia’s greed while securing its own energy supplies and reaping hefty transit fees. For Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the Turkish initiative would allow both countries to retain more profit from their most valuable export at a time of record-high energy prices. In Ankara, doubtless many officials are remembering the old Turkish proverb, “Great patience is the key to joy.”

Rethinking Shanty Towns

28 January, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Rethinking Shanty Towns

Generally speaking, travelers tend to eschew slums in their urban itineraries. But Robert Neuwirth—a journalist who spent two years living in four squatter communities in Brazil, Kenya, India, and Turkey—considers these shanty towns vibrant neighborhoods worthy of exploration. After all, one in six people on the planet are considered squatters (that’s one billion people), an astounding number expected to triple by the year 2050. His adventures led an influential book on the topic, Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World, as well as a blog, Squatter City. IT’s Katie Knorovsky caught up with him recently to get his take on the rise of “poorism”—so-called “reality tours” that offer excursions through urban slums.

What role, if any, should squatter communities play in a responsible traveler’s itinerary?

That’s a difficult question. There’s a phenomenon that goes on in Rio’s Rocinha—normally the [tours] come through the community I lived in. They come through as if on safari—they come in literally on Jeeps. The people in the community are OK with it, but to me as an outsider it was sort of weird. It smacked of “look at the wild animals in their habitat.” There was kind of an element of unreality to it. But I do think it’s really important for travelers to understand that these communities exist and that the cities they go through are not just fancy bars and hotels. The desire [to learn about these communities] is really important.

So what would be a better way to learn about squatter communities?

You don’t really understand a community by driving through on a Jeep. If you go to Rio, you should be aware that in many cases the guy serving you breakfast at the hotel probably lives in a favela. If you start asking him questions, you might even get an invitation. That’s a more honest way to go into these areas, and the bulk of the money [for these types of tours] goes to the tour operator.

Or, just walk in, which takes a certain type of person. You have to be clear on where you’re going, and I guess you have to be a calm and confident person who knows what’s going on around them and doesn’t get fazed easily. I’m from New York, and I remember New York from the 70s and 80s. Crime was rampant. You developed this sixth sense—when I walk I can tell who’s walking behind me. But I don’t want to overplay the danger in these communities; 99.9 percent of the time they’re not dangerous at all.

How do the locals in these communities react when you walk through their neighborhood, and is it obvious you’re an outsider?

You can’t predict it. I’m a white guy with a shaved head, but many people would drive up and ask me directions. It’s weird, but I don’t understand it. They don’t immediately assume you’re an outsider. Be yourself; don’t try to dress like a Rio Cariocas kid if you’re not one; don’t try to become an African if you’re in Africa—it won’t work.

If you want to walk into Dharavi in Mumbai, you can. Kibera in Nairobi can be dangerous after dark (indeed, all of Nairobi is dangerous after dark); I wouldn’t go too far off the beaten track; I wouldn’t pretend you’re not going to be noticed. If you’re white, [people assume] you’re either a missionary or a donor. In Kibera, many people thought I was initially a priest; kids will follow you around shouting, hitting you up for money.

And how do you react to kids asking for money?

You don’t give. If you give to one, you have to give to all. Most of the time when kids say, “How are you?”—kids learn that phrase from their teachers at school—I would say, “Fine, how are you?” and repeated that a hundred times every day. But that’s what I did. You have to recognize that it’s not hostile behavior. It’s a subject of intense interest—total curiosity.

You talk about how safe these communities are for responsible outsiders. Does the same hold true for a woman?

A woman faces a whole different layer of presumptions. In certain ways, a woman may get a bit more respect—exaggerated respect. I can’t say for sure. If my girlfriend had been the one doing what I did, she would have had a completely different experience. Generally in the developing world, men socialize with men and women socialize with women. I was able to get a tiny bit of the women’s culture.

It wouldn’t be impossible [for a woman], but a different experience. As for tourism, the best way to see real bona fide regular things is to move around with a local.

How can travelers find locals who are willing to show them around?

It’s the six degrees of separation thing. Ask around. Over time, it really is six different e-mails or phone calls and you find someone. That was always my experience, that I was able to find someone. And that is the most effective way to truly get to know and see real life in any non-Western community.

Recently, your blog covered how governments in Mumbai and Istanbul have decided to demolish millions of squatter homes to make way for high rises. What impact does government-imposed redevelopment have on a city’s cultural richness?

These communities are very tightly knit neighborhoods. It’s like what happened in the U.S. when we ripped out neighborhoods and put up housing projects. We removed this sort of life on the street, when everyone sat out on the street and the kids played in the street because someone was there to watch over you. But when you live on the 27th floor of a high-rise, you can’t see your kids on the street. That level of street culture is broken.

Much of the commercial culture is broken. When they plan for these communities, instead of a jumbled mixed-use development, it’s all residential. What it does is you know longer have a store owner on your block; you no longer have the businesses that kept the neighborhood interesting. In that regard, it really breaks those community ties. It fosters a much more individual, private world. And that will, culturally, be a loss.

When you travel for leisure, how does your informed perspective affect your travel itineraries?

Perhaps I gravitate toward this naturally, but I’m always trying to find the off-the-beaten track. I don’t love just being in the same places that everyone else goes to. When I went to Miami, I went to South Beach, even stayed in a hotel there, but in between we rented bicycles, went to the Cuban neighborhoods, and rode around trying to see what the city was all about. It’s really important—bicycling, walking, taking the bus—these are good ways to know a city. Sitting in the back of a taxi, you have a tendency to let the taxi driver figure out where to go. That doesn’t clue you in to how a city works.

Photo: Chika Okafor

Hipster Hotel and Swingers Diner

28 January, 2008 at 3:26 pm

Los Angeles Travel: Hipster Hotel and Swingers Diner

• sually when my family travels to California we stay with my friends and family. But over the last winter break, my wife, son and I took an unexpected trip to California due to an illness in my family. Due to the short notice, we stayed in a motel rather than with friends. Which allows me to do a review for my readers who might travel to Los Angeles.

We flew in on Christmas day. Late. We got our luggage and rented our biodiesel Jetta and drove to our hotel.

I picked out hotel based only on proximity to my mother (who lives near the LA County Museum of Art and La Brea Tar Pits) and low cost. Looking through a bunch of hotels, mostly too expensive or too far from my mother (we could have gotten a GREAT deal on a room in Little Tokyo in a NICE hotel, but it was too far). But one was a perfect balance of cheap and close to where we needed to be in the Mid-Wlishire district: The Beverly-Laurel Moter Hotel on the corner of Beverly Blvd and Laurel.

When my wife looked into it, we got worried. It was billed as a “hipster” place where young, cool people stay and party all night. Well…we are not so young, not hipsters and have a three year old. I was worried that we would have trouble sleeping and would spoil the hipster image of the hotel. I mean a nerdy family with a three year old doesn’t exactly make for “cool.”

We got to the hotel about 11 PM. By the time we parked our biodiesel (next to a prius), checked in and put down our luggage, it was about 11:45. And we hadn’t had dinner.

On the ground floor of the Beverly-Laurel Motel is a diner called “Swingers.” It is open to something like 4 AM…and open again around 6 AM for breakfast.

As we entered the late night “Swingers” diner at nearly midnight on Christmas with our 3 year old, we did acheive a kind of coolness as the twenty something hipsters inhabiting the diner at that hour looked at us with some awe. I guess a nerdy, fourty-something couple with a three year old coming in at nearly midnight really is cool to your average twenty something. We got actual stares and you could practically hear them thinking, “Wow, what COOL parents!”

The Beverly-Laurel Motel is a cheap and very decent place to stay in Los Angeles. It is well placed near enough to almost everything without being too far from anything. Near great museums, Beverly Hills and Hollywood and not too far from Downtown, Westwood and the Airport, it is a good place to stay. Very basic but comfortable. Our room had two comfortable beds (doubles). Our 3 year old was absolutely amazed that he got a big bed to himself. It was one of the high points of his life to date to have a whole big bed to himself. Okay, he fell out twice during our stay, being used to a crib. The first time he barely woke up and I got him resettled and back asleep in no time. The second time he woke up and was upset, but not too badly. He’s ready for a bed of his own…

There is also a kitchenette that has a fridge, microwave and stove…and a random assortment of kitchen ware. No coffee maker. We brought some instant coffee and fair trade cocoa to make it palatable. We also had to steal a spoon from the diner (we returned it our last day) and had to buy mugs (which we left in the room for the next guests). But there were some pots and pans and dishes.

We all liked the motel. For a basic base of operations it was ideal for us and we’d do it again if we ever are in LA with no place to stay. And I recommend it for anyone on a budget.

Swingers diner was also a nice surprise. I think I can safely say it was the one of the best diners I have eaten at. We tended to eat there as our default, partiularly since our son decided we HAD to eat breakfast there. The one day we went elsewhere (to Loteria, a Mexican place at the Farmer’s Market that is supposed to have great breakfasts according to Zagat’s) he cried the whole way and it took us forever to get out of him that he was upset because we weren’t going to the diner for breakfast. We got him a bagel and promised him we’d go to the diner the next day and he calmed down.

The diner’s logo is an American flag heart that seems right from “Love American Style” (for those of you old enough to remember THAT). The earlybird special breakfast (served weekdays before 11 AM) is a steal. For about $4 you get 2 eggs with either 2 pankakes or a thick slice of challah-based french toast and either bacon or really good sausage. That was my default for breakfast, though I also tried the Hell’s Kitchen (organic eggs with pork sausage, corn, jalpenos, potatoes and toast) once and a jerk chicken omelete once (very moist, flavorful chicken…the flavors weren’t quite an ideal combination, I thought, but it was quite good anyway).

And the coffee wasn’t bad. Now in NYC I find the coffee at diners is abyssmal. You have to load it up with sugar and milk to make it even barely tolerable to force down to get the dregs of caffeine it might contain. The coffee at Swingers wasn’t great, but for a diner it was respectable. I was satisfied with the caffeine options.

We also had dinner there a few times. Good burgers, good onion rings and, if it is possible to say this without irony, perhaps the best tuna melt I have ever had. Yes…the tuna melt was done perfectly. It was the tuna melt perfected, for what it is worth. My expectations were low and I was happily suprised at the quality of the food.

Oddly, I was slightly disappointed in their hot turkey sandwich, which I would have considered safe at any diner. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it was far more typical than the rest of their food. Most of what we had I considered a solid notch or two above any other diner. The turkey sandwich (open face with gravy, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes) was more typical of diner fare. Still good, but not as surprisingly good as most of the food.

For the budget traveler to Los Angeles, I can recommend the Beverly-Laurel motor hotel and it’s partner, Swingers Diner, as your base camp. They are basic, but worth the price. If you can afford better, well go for it. But if you want to save some money but still be satisfied, I can recommend these.

Dinler Hotel

28 January, 2008 at 3:25 pm

Region : Kargicak Alanya
KARGICAK ALANYA/ANTALYA

Hotel Properties:

2 Restaurant(s) Indoor cap:400, Outdoor cap: 600, Breakfast Hall (total cap: 400), Snack Bar, Cafeteria. Lobby Bar, Pool Bar, Beach Bar, Disco Bar, Service Bar, Cuisines
3 Meeting Room(s) Total Cap: Max (sqm/pax):750/Min (sqm/pax):100/ Slide Projector, Barcovision, Overhead Projector, Flipchart
Medical Room , Internet , Market , Laundry Service , Power generator , Parking lot for
Outdoor Swimming Pool with children section, Indoor Swimming Pool Turkish Bath, Sauna, Fitness Center, Coiffeur, Garden , Playing Ground for Children ,TV Room, Disco, Dart, Mini Club

Room Properties:

172 Rooms, 344 Beds

Direct Dial Telephone , Bathroom , Hair Dryer , Minibar , Safety Box , Balcony , 24 hrs Room Service , Satellite TV , Music Broadcast , Split Air condition

Sports: Tennis Courts, Table Tennis, Billiards, Volleyball,Basketball, Professional Football Field, Animation all day long
Jogging, Diving School, Water Sports
Near City Center, Private Beach, On the Beach, Alanya

Bursa gets facelift with new market hall

28 January, 2008 at 3:23 pm

EBRU TUNCAY
ISTANBUL – Referans

  The Bursa Metropolitan Municipality is preparing to end the problems concerning its current market hall by opening a new one in May that will cost YTL 40 million and feature many facilities, including a hotel, banks, restaurants and sports areas.

   The municipality is taking the new market hall very seriously in order to foster the advantages of the city, which is the point where all roads going south from Istanbul pass. “This extraordinary market hall will strengthen Bursa’s identity. As the first such hall in Turkey, this project will mark Bursa’s name in gold,” said Bursa Metropolitan Mayor Hikmet Şahin. With its hygiene standards and control system, the market hall will be the first example of a large closed market hall in the country.

  The project attracted the attention of the foreign press thanks to its architecture, which resembles a stadium or a space base. Situated on the İzmir freeway, this market hall will aid the city’s aim to become the center of the region, said architect Tuncer Çakmaklı, who runs the project. Covering an area of 200,000 square meters, the hall has double the capacity of the previous market hall, which is situated in the city center, Çakmalı said. The new market hall has the facilities to provide services to all neighboring cities, said Çakmaklı.  “Covering a covered area of 44,400 square meters, it has shopping centers on an area of 22,000 square meters, broker shops on 20,000 square meters, and management, restaurants, offices and hotels covering 2,400 square meters.” Unloading areas, truck parking lots and green spaces will cover 158,600 square meters, Çakmaklı said.

  The hygiene controls and transaction systems will make use of all the latest technologies, preventing tax evasion, said Çakmaklı. A standard will be set in the new market hall particularly for products that will be carried to Europe. All steps from packing to transportation will be managed at the market hall, said Çakmaklı. “There is no other market hall providing these opportunities in terms of architecture,” said Çakmaklı adding that the Bursa market hall will be included in an international Shopping Mall book.