İ'm here!

Day 1 in İstanbul, check.

İ arrived late yesterday evening after a rather adventurous van ride from the airport (the hostel sent someone to pick me up, along with some people from two other area hotels). After finally clearing the legendary İstanbul traffic, the driver made his way into the historic Sultanahmet neighborhood, stopped in front of what looked to me more like a private house than a hotel or hostel, got out without a word and another (younger) guy climbed into the driver's seat! İn any case, we were off again through a seris of ancient, very very narrow windy cobblestone roads and somehow managed to find every single vehicle driving in the opposite direction. At one point there was a wall, a cab with one wheel already up on the curb, us, a parked car and another wall -- all with probably only an inch or two to spare in all! İ'm still amazed we made it through, though İ'm pretty sure the cab wasn't so lucky given the distinct smack we heard right after we passed. I wonder if that house had collision insurance...

İ made it up to run bright and early this morning. İ started out along the Marmara Sea and the plan was to make my way up either the Golden Horn or the Bosphorus. I decided on the latter and had just made my way across the rows of fishermen lining the Galata Bridge when... BOOM! Down İ go! Note to self: Next time İ try to bound down the steps off an already slippery bridge, attach suction cups to feet! İ fell smack on my butt and slipped down a good two or three steps before İ fınally stopped. Fortunately my feet & legs are all intact, though the same can't be said for my left hand -- my fore- and middle fingers are quite swollen from catching the fall and are already showing hints of a lovely shade of purple. Ugh. The fall notwithstanding, it was pretty cool to be running alongside these historic waterfronts with only the boats and the fishermen to keep me company, at least for the first half of the run. I crossed paths with three other runners but that was it.

İ spent the rest of the day wandering around the classic landmarks of Sultanahmet -- the Hagia Sofia, where İ took nearly a full roll's worth of pictures, Topkapi Palace, where İ took twice as many, and the Blue Mosque. I think my favorite part was the Harem in Topkapi, which really came to life as İ remembered a recent read, a historical fiction account of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent and his concubine-turned-wife Hurrem (who was also a master of intrigue in the palace, the first woman to take on significant political power in the Ottoman Empire). When İ was reading the book İ complained that it was about 200 pages too long, and though İ stand by that point İ will admit that it lent an extraordinary amount of depth to my visit. The Harem was extraordinarily beautiful and positively oozed of mystery and intrigue -- even without a trace of the hundreds of people it used to house.

And as a parting thought, Turkish people are every bit as hospitable as they are made out to be. İ was invited to not one, but two Ramadan dinners tonight (though the one İ'd planned to attend fell through, boo). As predicted, İ've been asked several times already if İ'm Turkish, though to their credit their next guess (Hispanic of some sort) is a lot more on target than İ usually get on the first try :-)