Istanbul in brief

The first weekend of this month, I flew to Istanbul to meet KC for a long weekend. Admittedly, I had the easier end of the bargain - a two-hour flight followed by a one-hour time difference. But I swear, Istanbul was his idea! We'd always wanted to go (I've been wanting to see the Hagia Sophia since I learned how to pronounce it), and, well, we thought it'd be cheaper than Europe.

Boy, were we wrong about THAT. And a couple of other things too.

Istanbul in early April is cold, windy, and rainy. Apparently everyone but us knew that. Now we (and you) know it too. Plan accordingly. I was honestly shocked at how cold it was - apparently I'd conflated Istanbul and Cairo. It's about 85 degrees here right now at noon. We did have one nice sunny day, but otherwise, it was icky.

The exchange rate when we got to Istanbul was 1.3 YTL to the USD. I think YTL is "yomething Turkish lira" but we just called them Yertles (yes, it's turtles all the way down). The rate sounds reasonable, but one morning we bought a coffee for 7 YTL. It was stunning. We were in Beyoglu, which is admittedly very chic, but not divorced from economic reality the way Sultanahmet is. KC almost had an aneurysm, and I had to force myself to enjoy the coffee. To price compare, we walked into a Starbucks, where a large cup of coffee cost 6.50 YTL. You know something's seriously wrong when Starbucks is the economical choice.

Enough complaining about money and weather! Once we actually got our feet under us and figured out what the hell was going on, we had a great time. Istanbul has an astounding amount to see, and it's all accessible by their fantastic public transport system. We didn't take a single taxi all weekend, not even between the airport and our flat in Beyoglu. Every day we crossed the bridge at least once, either on foot or by the tram, to get from Beyoglu to Sultanahmet.

We figured out that we could afford to eat lunch if on our way into Sultanahmet, we stopped by the docks and bought fish sandwiches off the fishermen. Deeeeelicious - just dead fish grilled with lemon and salt, then topped with raw onions, parsley, and the occasional tomato. Pretty messy to eat while walking across the bridge, but at 2.50 YTL, the best thing we could've imagined.



I think we hit most of the major tourist sites: the Hagia Sophia (scaffolded floor to dome, but still stunning), the Blue Mosque (first picture above), the covered bazaar (lame after you've been to Cairo - our bazaaris here would eat those guys for breakfast), the spice bazaar (called the Egyptian bazaar, for some reason - surely not for the haggling), the Topkapi palace (fabulous and filled with some perplexing exhibits), the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of the Ancient Orient (which had absolutely astounding pieces, like the Code of Hammurabi and the Treaty of Kadesh, in cuineform, shoved into tiny displays). We went to the Sulimaniye Mosque, which had been billed to us as the greatest work of Ottoman architecture in the world - and it was closed for restoration!

I think I was most surprised by our day at the Kariye Muzesi, a Byzantine church way out near the outer city walls that's been converted into a stunning museum. We managed to get on the right bus out there, but we missed our stop, got dropped outside the city walls, then navigated our way back in and to the church. This museum (formerly the Chora church) is adorned with simply stunning mosaics, some of which are in fantastic condition, all things (like the Iconoclasts and various invaders) considered. My boss had given us a guidebook (from 1996, funnily) that had descriptions of every single one of the about 200 mosaics in the church, including translations of the inscriptions. And yes, we looked at every single one. They're arranged in a order that tells several stories, but their physical location doesn't necessarily reflect the intellectual order of the thing, so we spent the day traipsing in and out of the inner narthex, the outer narthex, and the chapel.



As if the mosaics weren't enough, the end of the outer narthex is decorated with a series of luminous frescoes that have been compared in quality with the Giottos in Florence. Fortunately for us (unfortunately for our necks), the trusty guidebook also had descriptions and translations of every single fresco in the church! So it was back to the inner narthex, the outer narthex, and the chapel for our brave adventurers. It was an exhausting day physically and intellectually, but I've never seen anything quite like that museum.


At the recommendation of some friends here, we stayed in Beyoglu, which is the neighborhood across the Golden Horn from Sultanahmet. I'm very glad we did that. Beyoglu is being rapidly gentrified, which means at night it's chock full of young people hitting the many restaurants, cafes, stores, and bars all up and down the main drag. It's also stacked on the steep hill that rises from the Golden Horn, and it felt like we spent most of our day schlepping up and down that hill. When it was running we took the Tunnel, supposedly the second-oldest public underground system in the world after London. The Tunnel has precisely two stops: the bottom of the hill, and the top of the hill. Good enough for me.


That's all for me for now, I think. I'm waiting for the doorbell to ring - one of my dearest friends and her fiance are here to visit for a week. I'm sure I'll have lots more pictures to share in the upcoming days. As Homer would say, "SPRING BREAK!!! WOO-HOO!!"