Grey Bear Creates an International Incident

So ... where to begin?

Let's begin with Ramadan which ended last Sunday. So, to celebrate, I took the two bipedal attendants to Athens for the long weekend - my god-bipedals were supposed to come too but they felt that leaving Italy for good and moving back home was more important than spending time with me, so it was just the three of us. I confess that in spite of all my world travelling, Greece is one place I had yet to visit so I was almost as excited as my bipedals were to be visiting the Land of Homer, Democracy, and Tzatzίki.

With some 5,000 years of history - the last 3,400 of which were actually recorded - there was a lot to do and see in 3 days so I'll probably have to write several blogs about our adventures (although I'll skip the bit about my female bipedal attendant's infected big toe - you're welcome!) and, unfortunately, misadventures.

Athens' crowning glory - literally - is the flat-topped rock of the Acropolis which looms over the city and upon which stands, among other buildings, the Parthenon: the temple devoted to the city's patron Athena, goddess of wisdom. Scholars believe that a settlement was there 5,000 years ago and that the first palace on the site may date to the Bronze Age, but the Acropolis, as we know it today, began to take its form in the 6th century bce.

Athens enjoyed a Golden Age in the 5th century and the buildings on the Acropolis were given a face-lift under the orders of the Athenian statesman and general Perikles. The most famous sculptor of the day, Phidias, and two architects were entrusted with the project and they tweaked and refurbished and rebuilt theatres, sanctuaries and temples to Nike (the goddess of victory, not sneakers), Artemis (the goddess of wild animals - her name may actually mean "bear"!), and Poseidon (the god of the sea) - to name but a few.

Of course, if you visit these days it feels like you just stepped into the 5th century - what with all the scaffolding enveloping the temples and the ongoing construction (well, reconstruction). The site has sustained a lot of damage over the years from the passing of time, earthquakes, a seige by the Venetians (the Italians again!) who also blew up an Ottoman (the Turks again!) munitions magazine, looting by you humans and, of course, pollution.

A Greek temple stood on the hill for almost a millenium, but over the years the Parthenon would eventually be converted into a series of churches (Byzantine and Roman) as well as a mosque under the conquering Turks, who added a minaret to the building - a minaret torn down when Greece won its independence from Turkey in 1832. For the last 100 years, parts of the Parthenon have sat inside a metal cocoon and visitors have been barred from entering any of the buildings since 1975.

Still, you can imagine my excitement! I'm not just a former international fashion model and freelance Goodwill Ambassador - I'm a bit of a history buff too. So very early Sunday morning, we made the climb up the side of the rock and my bipedals - as instructed - began to take some tasteful shots of me on the Acropolis. I know that by nature I'm rather photogenic, but such a historical and monumental backdrop (it was completed 2,441 years ago!) makes everyone look smashing - except for my female bipedal who, poor thing, is freakishly unphotogenic.

Anyway, just as we passed the east side of the Parthenon, we heard a shrill whistle blow and someone calling out to us. We stopped to see an awful little troll of a man (I know that's not nice but I'm still really mad!) running towards us. Showing us his badge, he identified himself as a secuity guard. He then proceeded to tell us that we had breached the rules of the site by taking photos - are you ready for this? - of a toy at an archaeological site. Me! - a toy!

A toy??!!

He said that we were being disrespectful towards the Acropolis.

Disrespectful??!!

He then made my female bipedal scroll through every photo she had taken that day and delete every picture of me snapped on the Acropolis. Every one! I was fuming! Had my female god-bipedal been there she would have kicked his ass! Then my female bipedal asked the guard where it said that she couldn't take photos of me, a former international fashion model and freelance Goodwill Ambassador - clearly this yob hadn't recognized me or had drunk too much ouzo the night before - and he told her that "it" (meaning "taking photos of toys") was clearly marked on all the signage.

I can tell you that I was so angry, I could've spit nails!

From that moment on, I swear we were followed about the site. Every time we heard a whistle - I mean, I'm glad that the guards take their jobs seriously and all but still ... - we froze in our tracks. And as far as disrespectful goes, we actually did see people take photos of little stuffed bears and monkeys and no one jumped down their throats! For crying out loud: I'm a fashion icon and a world renowned humanitarian and I get targeted?

So, needless to say, I have no photos of me on the Acropolis - only near it. I also checked all the signage on the way out of the site and there was no mention of taking photos of toys or anything of that nature - not that I'm a toy. As soon as we left the site I made a mad dash to a phone booth (my bipedals' crap Turkish phones didn't work in Greece) and called the Canadian Embassy. They were both outraged and appalled, and not a little embarrassed (for my sake) at how I was treated. And although they're launching an official investigation - and I suspect that the Canadian Ambassador in Athens will be recalled to Ottawa any moment now - I also decided to pay a visit to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give them a piece of my mind. You don't f@%# with a bear!! (Sorry for the profanity: I'm still pretty upset).

Not surprisingly, they wouldn't open their doors to me. I suspect they had already been tipped off. I made a point though to tell them (through the intercom at the gate) that they hadn't seen the last of me and that I hoped that the British Museum never returned the Elgin Marbles to Greece. I know that was awfully petty abd spiteful of me - and hardly acceptable behaviour for a freelance Goodwill Ambassador - but believe me: I was still seeing red.

I felt badly about this whole ugly affair because I was on the verge of allowing that awful little troll (sorry, not nice of me) to ruin our day and our time in Athens. This wasn't fair to my bipedals whose fault none of this (amazingly) was. So we continued on our way and stopped at a little café in the Pláka - the historical and picture-postcard-perfect neighbourhood of Athens with its narrow, labyrinthine streets - and had a cold glass of Mythos beer. It claims to be Greece's ambassador to the world, and after I'm finished with this country, it'll be the only ambassador Greece will still have - period!

Definitely Not Hibernating

I've just realized that it's been over a month since my last posting and many of you must think that I've begun my winter hibernation early. In fact, although most bears do hibernate - although usually not until October - I don't because, as a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I can't afford to take time away from my many pressing duties. Famines, earthquakes, genocide, Paris fashion week ... there just aren't enough hours in my days. Besides, to be honest, bears put on about 18 kilos of fat each week those months leading up to hibernation and I don't want to lose my fashion model figure!

Now just so you know, I haven't been sitting on my paws for the last month doing nothing. But we've had a very unfortunate and distressing technological snafu here at Grey Bear Inc. which has thrown a monkey wrench into my blogging. My male bipedal accidentally knocked over the external hard drive on which all of my travel photos were stored and actually broke the hard drive.

I know what you're thinking: you mean, it wasn't the female bipedal who destroyed the entire pictorial record of your travels?!!

Indeed it wasn't.

But having said that, it was her who had transferred the photos from her laptop over to the external and it was her who stupidly deleted the originals from her computer before she could make back-up copies onto another drive. So I suppose that, although it was the male who broke the external, had she made back-up copies, there would be no problem.

Yes, it was definitely her fault.

All this talk about computers and external drives and back-up copies makes my head spin. This is why I try to hire competent individuals so I don't have to worry about such trivial details - and what do I have to show for the last few years of travel and good deeds? - nothing! I bet this never happens to Angelina Jolie.

Anyway, I smell a couple of performance appraisals in the air.

The good news is that on Saturday afternoon - on the last day of Ramadan - I'm flying to Athens for a much needed long weekend. I have yet to decide if they're coming along but, with or without them, I'm certain that I'll have a wonderful time: baklava, ouzo and spanokapita - and there's even a funicular there & I love funiculars (except for the one in Istanbul - it sort of sucked). I just hope that I can pick up a pair of those pompommed shoes the Greek guards wear! - as my friend Frisco once said, "I be stylin'"

A Grey Bear in a Black Sea

I know I'm behind on my posts but it's just so hard to get good secretarial help these days and my bipedal attendants (especially the female one - the other one can't type at all) are either too busy or too tired ... well, let's just say that I'm typing this myself and as a former international fashion model and freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I have more pressing matters to attend to.

Anyway ...

... two weekends ago (see how behind I am?), I was invited to meet some friends of friends who live near the Black Sea and to visit some small villages in the area and, because I am such a generous employer, I brought my bipedal attendants along. The plan was to visit an American woman and her Turkish husband and possibly take a dip in the sea so we all piled into the car - driven by a driver who would have made my female god-bipedal's hair stand on end - and off we sped (literally) to the town of Kerpe along the Black Sea coast.

Just as an aside: the Black Sea wasn't always black - or Black with a capital B. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Black Sea was called the Inhospitable Sea because of the nasty "savages" who used to live there. Greek colonists in the south of Turkey moved in, making the area safe for sailors, so it became known as the "Hospitable Sea". The Scythians (those ancient Iranians who gave us the stirrup) called it the"Unlit Sea" but most seas are unlit, aren't they? Have you ever seen a "sea lamp" - apart from a lighthouse? Some suggest that the hydrogen sulphide in the water makes the sea black. I don't know: it looked awfully blue to me but the Turks called it black (or Black) too - the Karadeniz, the Black Sea - so who am I to judge? Although as a former international fashion model, the one thing I do know is colour.

Jason and the Argonauts sailed it and some scientists believe that this was the sea that Noah drifted across in his ark. The ancient Greeks once thought that the eastern edge of the Black Sea was the end of the world. Over the millennia, its shores were visited, inhabited and invaded by the Hittites, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Slavs, Crusaders, Venetians, Genovese, Ottomans and Russians - to name but a few.

Nowadays, it's an alternative tourist destination for İstanbullus with money but not enough time to go south to the Aegean. The climate is warm enough to grow tea, kiwi (that's me, above left in a kiwifruit tree), and figs. I had never seen a kiwi in its natural environment before, so that was neat. The pretty green leaves helped block out the uglier bits of human history indigenous to the area too.

As it turns out, our plans to visit our friends' friends were aborted without our knowledge - these people are the most untrustworthy travel planners I've ever met - and we ended up staying the whole afternoon at the beach which annoyed my female bipedal attendant because she didn't have her bathing suit with her. I confess that I actually felt sorry for her because the water was really nice (me, above right) and it probably wasn't much fun for her to sit on the beach and watch others swim in the sea. I chose to keep her company and not just because I'm a freelance Goodwill Ambassador.

I should add that the beach that we ended up at was our third that afternoon. The first main beach was really overcrowded and you could barely (!) see the water for all the tourists. The second, which was a beautiful deserted grotto-like inlet, was strewn with garbage and people-feces. I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or let out a big bear-growl. The beach where we ended up only had a couple dozen families - and most of them seemed like rather poor families on a budget holiday - and it was much more bearable(!) than the others.

I didn't bring bathing trunks but, of course, I can go bare (!) in the water. I confess that I found it strange that some of the women were swimming in bikinis while others were swimming in their head scarves and robes. As a former international fashion model, I can say that bathing suits are not only chic but are probably safer in the water than ballooning tents. I kept expecting a rogue wave to take these girls out to sea forever. What you humans do for your gods makes us bears howl!

I'm sorry to say that our outing wasn't as positive as I had expected. Compared to my friends, my bipedal attendants' ability to plan and execute a trip would make Arthur Frommer proud. And even though the coastline was very impressive - all rocky and majestic - I was very disappointed by the garbage left behind by visitors. I just couldn't not see it. Maybe some Turks need to see that old television commercial featuring the Native American shedding a tear at a dirty, littered US roadside. Then again, in a thousand years, their empty water bottles and cigarette packages will be "archaeological treasures" just like all the stuff left behind by the Hittites, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Slavs, Crusaders, Venetians, Genovese, Ottomans and Russians - to name but a few.

Palace Bear

This past weekend, I took the bipedals to Istanbul for a little R & R (the female one needed new lipstick - the vanity of some people) and we thought we would play tourist as well as shallow vapid shoppers. One of our stops was the 19th century Dolmabahçe Palace, the lavish less-is-not-more set of imperial buildings built by Sultan Abdülmecid to show the world that:

a) the Ottoman Empire wasn't sick and dying and almost bankrupt (which it was) and
b) wasn't all about orientalism like the Topkapı Palace (which was actually too bad but Topkapı is much prettier).

I was a little miffed because photos aren't allowed inside the palace because "everything is original". I mean really, that's why we have 'no flash' features on our cameras. I thought that was a little precious. Consequently, I have a blog with almost no photos. Not only that but you can't walk on the very worn (I must say) "pedestrian carpet" with your bare (!) shoes and have to wear pink plastic booties. My female bipedal attendant grumbled that the last time she had to wear plastic booties was in a mosque in Egypt and that was supposedly hallowed ground. I confess that for once, I have to agree with her.

You also can't wander throughout the palace on your own but must take a guided tour and, I must say, our guide was rather surly and only smiled at the end of our tour. If you can't even pretend to enjoy your job then it's time to get out.

Anyway, we all waited for about an hour in line which, in the end, was worth it because the Palace is quite lovely. It reminded me of Versailles (or maybe the Paris Opera) where we didn't have to wear pink plastic booties. I guess in the grand scheme of things, Sultan Abdülmecid was a lot more important than Louis XIII, XIV or XV.

Completed in 1853, and located overlooking the Bosphorus, the Dolmabahçe (its name means filled-in garden) is a mishmash of various European styles (with an emphasis on Rococo and a nod towards tacky) and has enough crystal (including the world's biggest chandelier at 4 tons and a Baccarat staircase) to give its cleaning staff migraines well into retirement. There were lots of seemingly gorgeous oil paintings but our guide didn't allow us the time to stop and admire them. Grrrr ....

After the last of the sultans was exiled in 1922, Atatürk used Dolmabahçe as a summer residence and for state receptions (the imperial hall can accommodate up to 2500 people), and it was here that he died in November 1938. This was pretty much the only point that our nasty little tour guide showed any animation at all. We all filed past the bed he died in and tried to feel as badly as she did about it.

Until recently, all the clocks in the palace were set and stopped at 9:05 - the moment that Atatürk died. I mean, really ...

But most disturbing are the 150-year old bear skins - used as rugs! - scattered about the palace. They were a gift to the Sultan from the Tsar of Russia, and if I had been there I would have given him a piece of my mind. Who uses bears for carpets? - in a country renown for their carpet-making industry? Bears?!!!

As we left the palace, the changing of the guard had just taken place and everybody was lining up to have their photo taken with the one honour guard. Several people in the crowd recognized me and begged that I pose with him - so I did. I normally don't like to be associated with symbols of violence - I am a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, after all - but sometimes it's just easier to say yes than no. Although it would have been easy for me to say no to those bear skin rugs ....

Grey Bear Potters About

Yesterday, I took my bipedals to Iznik, a sleepy little lakeside resort town which lies on the shores of Lake Iznik, south of Izmit. These days, Iznik is known for two things and both are connected with its past: its church councils and its tiles.

In 301 b.c., the town became Nicaea - although for centuries before that it'd had several other names - when a certain general Lysimachus seized the area from one of Alexander the Great's generals and named it after his own wife. She must have been a very nice wife - I mean, you don't see too many towns named after my female bipedal attendant.

Nicaea was an important political and commercial town during the Imperial (Roman) period but its claim to fame came with the First Ecumenical Council - which is a rather posh name for a conference of bishops - held there in 325. There would be many other councils (the second was held in Nicaea's Hagia Sophia or Aya Sofya Church) but it was the first one which decided (and told Christians) what they believed in.

It seems not everyone was on the same page. Apparently, there were a lot of different views about God and Jesus floating about at that time - like the rather logical (in this bear's opinion) idea that Jesus was not the same "person" as God and hadn't lived forever (i.e., existed before he was born). A certain priest named Arian just couldn't get his head around that one so the Men in the Big Hats got together and hammered something out that put an end to all of these so-called heresies.

The result was the Nicene creed, which Catholics and Anglicans still profess to this day; it begins with I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible ... I think "one bear" works better than "one God" although, of course, I believe in many bears. Bears are more pluralistic. Christians can be so dogmatic and, to be honest, just aren't as freethinking and fun as the rest of us. You'd never see a bear burning another bear at the stake for their beliefs.

Enough about religion. I mentioned in a previous blog that when the porcelain-loving Sultan Ahmet built the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, he insisted that its tiles come from Iznik. So let's fast-forward to the 17th century (bypassing the Seljuk Turks and the Christian crusaders) and we find Nicaea part of the Ottoman Empire. It's also become a centre for the ceramics industry, known as İznik Çini - Çin meaning China. I even had the chance to visit what's left of one of the city's master tile makers (above left). We had a really nice visit.

The industry would eventually move to Istanbul and so it pretty much died out in Iznik and the town became a farming community. Nowadays, there are still tile makers in the area and I found a particularly pretty shop and picked out a lovely old tile for my bipedals. Of course you-know-who wanted something bigger and better (you see why she doesn't have a town named after her?). I should've just given her a clump of mud!

Of course I just had to pick a studio where the girl working there - her name is Rachida - recognized me (above left). I wasn't too surprised: people in the arts are generally in the loop about these sorts of things. Still, it was something to be recognized in such a small town but, then again, my fans never cease to amaze me.

These days there aren't any hoity-toity church councils in Nicaea/Iznik but tourists come to visit its churches, mosques and museums, and to see its four imposing grand gates (that's me at the Istanbul Gate, below and the Lefke Gate, top-top right), its aqueduct, the massive ancient city walls, its pottery kilns and hammams. This is probably the former international fashion model in me speaking, but I was quite taken with the aesthetics of the town - even their bus kiosks and rubbish bins are decorated with its famous tiles. Such attention to detail always makes me happy.

There are also the ruins of a Roman theatre which made me very sad because it's become a dumping ground for garbage. It made me so mad (and sad) that I couldn't even have my photo taken there. The theatre was built by one of the most famous Romans of all time: Pliny the Younger - remembered today for his eyewitness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 - while he was governor of Bithynia (Nicaea was its capital). Today the amphitheatre is a public toilet. Just when I think your race has a chance, you guys go and blow it. Maybe you should start putting more faith in bears ...

A Grey Bear in a Blue Mosque

To continue with our theme of visiting every mosque in all of Istanbul - at least that's how it feels sometimes - I took my bipedal and god-bipedal attendants to the Blue Mosque (the BM) last week. Strictly speaking, I took my bipedals and god-bipedals to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque or the Sultanahmet Camii as it's known in Turkish, but to the rest of us it's that Big Blue One.

It may be the only Blue - so nicknamed for its interior blue tiles - Mosque in Turkey but it's not the only Blue Mosque in the world: there are at least 8 others in the world, from Afghanistan to Iran. I'll have to add those ones to my list unless my bipedal attendants get mosqued-out first.

So, today's history lesson: the building of the BM began 400 years ago under the watchful eye of Sultan Ahmet I who doesn't seem to be known for much other than his mosque (where he's also buried), staging a couple of disastrous wars, and for not strangling his kid brother when he came to the throne - as was the Ottoman custom. Later, when Ahmet's son became Sultan, he revived the custom, much to his brother's disappointment. In Turkey, it just didn't pay to be a younger brother.

Anyway, after losing one particularly important war with the Persians, Ahmet decided that if he built a really big mosque - which would conveniently also be his mausoleum - Allah would smile favourably on him.

I don't know if Allah smiled but his legal scholars certainly didn't because Ahmet had no spoils of war to pay for the mosque (having lost most if not all of his wars abroad), and he had to tap into the treasury for the funds - not just to pay for the BM's construction but to buy the private palaces on and near the site in order to raze them to the ground. And you know once word got out that the Sultan needed the land your home was built on, the price of real estate suddenly went up. Some things don't change too much: it's all about location, location, location.

Ahmet didn't seem to care too much about the grumblings of his scholars and, in 1609, he broke the sod on the site of an earlier Byzantine palace smack-dab across the street from the Hagia Sophia which, at that time, was the most sacred mosque in Constantinople and which Ahmet wanted to eclipse in grandeur. The BM's front doors would also open up to what was the social hub of the old city: the hippodrome, the ancient circus where horse and chariot races took place (and which the Venetians plundered in 1204). I just hope there were no bear fights there!

Built in 7 short years - during which only one architect was executed - the BM would include a nursery school, a market, a hospital, and a soup kitchen! Too bad Ahmet died shortly after it was completed (he was only 28 years old) but hopefully his widow Kösem - who became the de facto ruler and was one of the most powerful women in all of Ottoman history (at least until she was strangled) - got to enjoy it.

I mentioned earlier that the BM earned its nickname because of its blue tiles. There are over 20,000 handmade tiles in the BM and they all came from Iznik (ancient Nicaea) which was the ceramic capital of ancient Turkey. Just to give you an idea of how special these tiles were, recently an Iznik tile sold at Sotheby's for $600,000!

The Sultan made sure that all of the tiles used were Iznik tiles by fixing the price the potters could charge. Like his legal scholars, this didn't put much of a smile on the potters' faces because their tiles were normally quite pricey. They got even though by producing lesser quality tiles so that many of their colours have faded over time. I doubt that made Allah smile.

Besides its many domes, its Iznik tiles and its 200 stained glass windows (the originals were a gift from Venice - I bet they felt guilty for sacking the city 400 years earlier), the BM is recognizable for its 6 minarets. When news got out about the 6 minarets, Ahmet was criticized for being uppity: after all, the Ka'aba in Mecca - the holiest site in all of Islam - had 6 minarets too. Rather than appearing too presumptuous - or changing his plans - he paid for a 7th minaret at the mosque in Mecca.

Given that it's summer, we were lucky that there wasn't a line to get into the BM. We also took the precaution of wearing suitably modest clothing (no shorts and my female bipedal and god-bipedal had no exposed shoulders) because, as a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I'm sensitive to these kinds of things. It takes so little effort to keep this world spinning happily.

Of course, there were many less enlightened individuals in line wearing skimpy outfits but they were given scarves to cover up their bare legs and shoulders. My females were given scarves for their heads although I couldn't help but notice that they let them slip the moment they thought no one was looking. I think I'll have to have a stern talk with them. Although I have bare (bear!) arms and legs, I was recognized by the mosque's employees and the religious authorities graciously let me enter as I am: no bear scarves.

Afterwards, we sat in the park (above, left) which sits between the BM and the Hagia Sophia and took advantage of the watermelon sellers there to stave off the afternoon's +35 degree heat. Turks eat such healthy snacks! My female god-bipedal bought me some pistachios from Turkey and Iran as well - what bear doesn't love nuts?!

At sunset, people flock to this park to listen to the evening call to prayer and watch the mosque light up. Because I'm so easily recognized in Istanbul, I decided not to join the crowds for the evening prayers but enjoy the view of the BM from our hotel terrace. And what's more Turkish than having a cup of coffee in the shadow of one of the world's most beautiful mosques? - well, a piece of baklava would have been nice.

Happy Anniversary!!

Today is the 2nd anniversary of Grey Bear-ology! Thanks to everyone who follows my blog & here's to another 2 years of travelling (with my bipedals) and writing for you all. I'm going to go have a glass of champagne now - or rakı since I'm in Turkey.