Istanbul, Oct 8

So you may have noticed an eerie quiet around these parts... I havent been online since the last post, for which youll have to excuse me (though İ didnt miss struggling with the Turkish keyboard... so youll have to excuse the typos and lapsed punctuatıon too.)

Anyway, here go the quick and dirty accounts of everything Ive been up to, hopefully in some sort of intelligible order.

On Monday I wrapped up Istanbul, Part 1. Im excited to embark on the next 10 days outside the city -- which is as bustling, full of life and energy as New York (and even more so Mexico City, of which it constantly reminds me), but consequentially also as maddening -- but İ also couldnt be happier to know that İll be returning for a few days at the end of my journey. A handful of days may be enough to get in the main sights and even an apple tea or two with the locals, but it isnt nearly enough to really get a sense for what is truly the nerve center of this country.

Anyway, İ took my first tour this morning. Im really not one for tours, and will be trying to keep them for a minimum throughout this trip because they drive me kind of crazy (and theyre also expensive!), but some things you really cant experience on your own. So I hopped into the empty van that picked me up from my hostel and which proceeded to drive me exactly 2 minutes to a bigger van that was actually shepherding the larger group around (see what I mean?). ANYWAY. The plan was to take a boat cruise up the legendary Bosphorus, the wide body of water that divides the European and Asian halves of İstanbul and figures so prominently in the life and legend of the city. İt was a slightly overcast morning, perfect for the leisurely ride up and down that gave me plenty of time to admire the centuries of changing architecture lining both coasts. İn his memoirs of the city, Nobel Prize-winner and native son Orhan Pamuk talks at length about "huzun" (I think thats how its spelled), which translates roughly as "melancholy" -- this pervasive sense throughout İstanbul, on every street corner, in every mosque, in houses and apartment buildings old and new, that this is a city that was once great, but then fell precipitously and now is trying to pick itself back up without having a clear sense of who it is now and who it wants to be. Today, İ could see it so perfectly. The lovely old wooden Ottoman houses lining the river on land that is now worth millions, some of them impeccably maintained (or restored) and others still crumbling from the years, and especially from the massive earthquake that hit here in 1999. The one shining 19th century palace converted into $7000 a night hotel suites (breakfast not included!), the other maintained by the Turkish government as a museum for the public to see and own. The bridges over the river choking on traffic, the commuter ferries bustling past a dozen or so of the 50,000 massive container ships that pass through every year, the 20th century apartment buildings with their colorful, clean but completely uninspired square façades. Truly fascinating.

After the tour was over, İ decided to brave the public transit system on my own for the first time to get to the Kariye Museum, an old Byzantine Church out of the way of most tourist haunts (but still a worthy destination). İ had planned on taking a cab but the guy at the hostel convinced me otherwise... WELL, let me tell you, its one thing to be able to ask for directions in Turkish, but quite another to understand the reply! Especially when youve mistakenly ended up one subway stop past your destination, outside the old city walls and beyond the reach of most English speakers. After a frenzied attempt at understanding with the gum- and nut- sellers outside the subway station, they finally just plopped me into a cab and sent me on my way. Fortunately the church, with its detailed and mostly well-preserved Middle Age frescoes and glittering mosaics depicting the lives of Mary (from childhood!) and Jesus, was totally worth the confusion (and occasional desperation) of getting there... and getting back! Because while I did manage to find my way back to the correct subway station without incident, it was a long walk through a less-than-nice and largely quiet neighborhood that İ didnt really appreciate having to make on my own. But İ made it, so thats all that matters :-)