Reflections on Istanbul

The Blue Mosque, from the gardens of Hagia Sophia.

The many domes and arches inside.

Stained glass in the Blue Mosque.

Turks are reknowned for their national pride, and flags seemed to be everywhere.

Inside the Spice Bazaar

The nougat wheel

Nuts

It's difficult to add anything to what Betsy wrote about Istanbul. When we were eating dinner on the rooftop terrace of our hotel the second night of our stay, she asked me why Istanbul seemed different from Paris or London, two cities we had recently visited. And I wasn't really sure, but it certainly did seem different. Paris and London seemed more like something we did -- we went, we saw, we toured, we posed. Istanbul, on the other hand, was something we were a part of. There was no separation, no observer (us) and observed (the city). There was just an experience, in which we were lucky enough to participate.

The Blue Mosque was probably my favorite place in the city, both for its appearance, and for what it represents. The layers of domes seem to grow out of each other, perfectly framed by slender minarets that somehow give the place a regal look. Yet their purpose is entirely plebeian. The muzzein (singer) stands on the balcony of the minaret five times a day, and broadcasts his ezan to the whole city, inviting everyone to prayer. The muzzein is now often replaced by speakers and a recorded voice, but the effect is the same: an echoing chant that bounces between mosques, inevitably making you stop and reflect for a moment, regardless of what you are doing. The chant itself is haunting -- the first time I heard it, about two hours after we arrived, as we were walking around the mosque -- I got chills. It continued to be a powerful yet calming presence for the duration of our stay, even at 5:30 in the morning or 11:00 at night.

Another of my favorite areas was the Spice Bazaar, a thriving, vivid market that seemed to provide as many smiles and laughs as spices. The merchants knew exactly how to draw you in, and were all as friendly as can be. One of the most bizarre creations was the "nougat wheel," a tower of nut-filled nougats from which the merchants would cut you slices to sample.

Turkey is, of course, being courted by the EU, but my immediate impression was that it would be a shame for Turks to join the EU. It is a thriving culture with a rich history, a relatively stable political infrastructure, and so many traditions that stand outside the European experience, that it would seem a shame to see Turkey suffer the homogenization that must accompany such a move. Istanbul, at least, is a swarm of color and spontaneity, from the carpet merchants inviting you to tea, to the stuffed bazaars hawking everything from jewelry to decorated toenail clippers. There is no way to box Turkey -- you just have to live it. And if you go, you'll have no choice but to do so.

Istanbul: Joining the Swirl

The Hagia Sophia seen through a blooming tree

Fishermen on the Galata Bridge in front of the New Mosque

Ceramics for Sale below the Blue Mosque

A Pretzel vendor feeds the Pigeons at 7 am

Textiles for Sale at the Grand Bazaar

Hookahs at the Grand Bazaar

Interior Domes of the Blue Mosque

Cafe Scene

Cookies on Display

A Stall in the Egyptian Bazaar

Walnut Stuffed Figs

People washing before Prayer at the New Mosque

A Rug mid-weave

Istanbul is a swirl. It is the taste of pistachio produced in every texture - whipped with almond into a cookie cone, resting whole as the eggs in a pastry bird's nest, dripping with honey in a golden brown turnover. It is a kitten walking across a wall early in the morning. If it looked left it would see the pink dome of the Hagia Sophia; right, the grey domes of the Blue Mosque, but it is too focused on its next step to care.

It is the hotelier demanding to see which kind of apricots you have purchased, and nodding approvingly when he sees they are the dark Turkish ones. It is the men glued to every stand in the Egyptian Bazaar, swooping scoops of tea under your nose before you can blink, cutting off bites of nutty turron or turkish delight for you to try, exhibiting rust orange piles of saffron and green curry powders, trying to make you laugh by pointing out the walnut stuffed dates labeled "Turkish Viagra." It is the roast corn stands on every corner, the pretzel man feeding doves with his leftovers, older and younger men alike gathering around sunset for games of street backgammon, watching you go by vaguely, as if to say people come and go, but backgammon is forever.

It is the heat slowly melting your defences while you are not paying attention and joy in a steady breeze. It is alleys filled with a skittles rainbow of colored cushions, waiters beckoning you in to drink your Turkish tea or smoke your hookah at their establishment. It is mosque courtyards full of people in all levels of respectful dress - some washing hands and feet at ablution fountains before prayer, others covering bare shoulders and legs with blue drape skirts and inventing head scarves so they can go in cameras at the ready.

It is spires on every horizon, the call to prayer sliding out from the Muezzins as you lay in bed early in the morning and late into the evening, each caller's call echoing through the city and bouncing off the others in a kind of sacred discordant harmony. It is sour cherry jelly on your toast, pillowy flat bread on your chicken, and warm milk on your cocoa puffs. It is a young boy eager to sell you bottled water, the corners of his mouth rising up to meet his ears as you approach and commit to his sale. It is taking pictures in a bakery jammed with neatly arranged trays of a dozen kinds of cookies you've never seen, and being given one on the house out of pure sweetness. It is a white piece of Turkish delight with chocolate nuts on top, urged insistently on you by its vendor, that tastes like Peeps. Except you like it.

It is being more densely packed in a beautifully constructed air-conditioned tram than you ever thought possible, making physical contact with four other people at the same time as they connect to four others, and so on through perhaps three hundred people as you all race in a body down from the hills of the Mosques to the waters of the Bosphorus's Golden Horn. It is running your hand over rough woolen rugs, munching on sesame circles, and trying to learn to tie a scarf over your hair, then regretting your success as the sweat dribbles down your forehead. It is the lights of the Blue Mosque turning gradually on behind you as you write; flicking a green bug off your leg, and then turning to push aside the curtain and see freshly golden towers and domes behind you as a cool breeze floats into the rooftop bar where you sit.

It is new to my experience. As I eat, wander, talk to Brett, read, watch the Olympics, walk through the streets, sleep - the normal details of life - Istanbul swirls, mixing me in as part of itself for our few days here. Somehow I feel it would take more than a few hundred thousand visitors each day to affect its solidity. It is Istanbul, and its roots go far deeper than any little 21st century issues or personalities that might arise. More than any city I've ever visited, I imagine Istanbul, the city, as a living thing with its own ancient soul and its own dreams.

There is the last call to prayer of the night, curving down from the now light-flooded minarets behind me, mixing with the "romantic" Spanish music coming from the corner stereo of the rooftop bar. Millions across the city are taking out prayer rugs one last time, or pausing in their work to listen and connect with something larger. Goodnight Istanbul.

Jellyfish on a Mission

On our beach

Moonrise from our balcony, looking toward our neighbors

Our beach

View down to the beach from a break in the Food Stall Walkway

A Doner Kepap Stand (VERY popular, the burrito of the Black Sea)

We've provided this stall with substantial business over the last three days

At the top of the stairs down to the beach

Sunset

Notes from Sozopol:

Jellyfish, reminiscent of coffee can lids melting around the edges, sometimes find themselves in our swimming bay. When they realize their mistake, they skim across the surface, making for the open sea like E.T. going home. 

The Black Sea is not black. From the cliffs above Sozopol, it is the electric blue you come across only rarely in a set of eyes, those blue blue eyes that always makes you want to ask the bearer if they have color contacts. But of course you never will. From a floating position, looking across the sea in every direction, it is the boiled down green of algae on Minnesota river rocks in August. Finally, when you look down into it and see the shells peeking out through the sand ripples and the seaweed beds shelving off, you realize that the Black Sea is clear. 

I never realized before that a beach is a perfect place for a blow up kiddie pool. Until today, when I vicariously experienced the bliss of a toddler sitting in his pool, shovel in hand, sandy water swirling around him. He had his own little patch of sea and beach, all to himself within the snug confines of pink plastic, and he couldn't have been happier about it. 

Bulgarian nectarines are the best nectarines. Bar none. Though the family scattered under the beach umbrella in front of mine this afternoon seemed to be enjoying their bag of tomatoes, eaten like apples, I side with the many families I've seen carrying a sack of ripe nectarines down the stairs and across to their sun soaking posts. Nectarines really are the ideal beach snack.  

The Nativity Monastery, Shipka

The Golden Domes

Again, with Tree

Continuing the Betsy doing something silly somewhere beautiful series...

Stalls below the Monastery

Crossing into Shipka on the road to Veliko Tarnovo, the first things any driver with an eye for detail will notice are three distinct gleams of gold embedded in a forested mountain across the valley. Upon closer inspection, those golden gleams turn out to be the domes of a building preserved from another time. Visitors arrive to the Nativity Monastery, sweating slightly after a climb of perhaps one hundred twenty stairs, and find a deserted plaza encircling an almost bizarrely perfect church. Brett and I walked inside alone, as chant music played through invisible speakers and skinny slightly tilted candles joined light from stained glass windows to illuminate ornate altars, a tomb raised above the ground, thousands of Bulgarian words inscribed in gold upon the walls, and a mural of a sympathetic Jesus looking down from inside the highest dome. 

When we walked back outside, we discovered a smattering of business on the fringes of this unexpected and secret world. It wasn't completely deserted. A small cafe in one corner invited visitors to enjoy the view of the monastery over a bag of crisps. Signs led to a spotless bathroom in the middle of the woods, managed by a lady who charged fifty cents per visitor to enjoy its fastidiously kept up splendor. A stairway at the edge of the plaza led to a row of stands offering everything from postcards to painted icons. But these bits of the world did not encroach on the peace of the monastery, in part because they were clearly offset from it, keeping a respectful distance. They added a bit of modern personality - for who couldn't use a bag of crisps after that steep walk or a postcard to share this beauty with someone at home? 

Sozopol, no Back Door

View of Sozopol from our Balcony, Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria

Ever since Rick Steves introduced the concept of the "Back Door", people have been hunting for undiscovered spots throughout Europe. If the bed and breakfasts are empty and the village life seems to be untampered with, a picturesque town is ripe for a pitch that it's about to be the next hot spot. We stayed in one of these newly discovered hot spots last night: Veliko Tarnovo, the new Prague, the new Bucharest. And we loved it. But is it so bad to stay in discovered country? To join a happy crowd in a warm sea? To find a menu printed in English, doner kebab stands liberally sprinkling the streets, and horse-drawn carriages waiting alongside neatly organized fruit stands? I defy the travel writing world and say no. I like Sozopol, and I am not ashamed to join the throng. When we told Maria Assenova, the international papers manager (and much more) at our new school, that we were headed here she wall all pleased recognition. Is it so wrong to stay in a town that leads one's new Bulgarian acquaintance to nod approvingly with a knowing look in her eye?

The Selena Beach Hotel perches at the edge of the Southernmost beach in Sozopol. A well-trod path leads to a short staircase down to beach and sand heaven. Five leva buys a straw umbrella location for the day and a few more leva will supply roasted corn or drinks at the beach bar for the hungry and thirsty. Of course, fifty leva will buy you your own little living room on the beach, complete with white sofas, but why not just stay home if you are going to go that far?

An ideal schedule for a day in Sozopol goes something like this:

1. Wake up after a quiet night's sleep (which you appreciate much more if you've recently slept a few floors up from Sofia's resident dog population)

2. Eat breakfast at the meat-cheese-olive-gingerbread-watermelon-toast buffet

3. Watch the Olympics

4. Nap, read, swim. In any order you desire. Schedule to be repeated until hungry.

5. Eat lunch. Preferably to include fresh nectarines and raspberries from fruit stands.

6. Nap, read, swim (see note above).

And now, (ahem ahem), a review of the restaurant in our hotel. Impartial and expert food and service critic Betsy Potash reporting...

Amount of sauce on pizza: 0 Stars (ketchup available)

Amount of alcohol in mojito: 0 stars (ancient mint plant apparently substituted for alcohol and sugar, leaving unique taste previously experienced only in mint flavored italian soda and nightly hygiene rituals)

Similarity between pictures of food and food itself: 1 Star (usually they were the same substances, though arranged differently and in different quantities)

View from restaurant deck, including moonrise over neighboring hotel strewn with drying beach towels: Three Stars

Proximity to room: Three Stars

Possibility of procuring service: One Star (various methods such as hand waving, Bulgarian phrases, English phrases, eye contact, and walking inside to search for waiters produced limited success)

Total overall rating for the Selena Beach Hotel Restaurant: One quarter Star

I think we enjoyed making fun of the food together almost as much as we would have enjoyed good food, so it didn't matter much. And the knowledge that tomorrow we can repeat the above schedule has kept the overall mood in room 201 high. Sozopol may be a well-lit and inviting front door of Bulgaria and not some secret haunt, but that doesn't seem to stop all of us here from having a lot of fun...

Traditions old and...well...kind of embarrassing.

Betsy and I are taking full advantage of the delayed European school year by traveling around the region.  We were fortunate enough to buy a car from a departing faculty member, and have been using the opportunity to get a taste (quite literally) of the local culture.  Our first day of travel scrolled by dozens of fields of sunflowers, many just past their prime, drooping their heads because we missed them.  Farmers (or sometimes whole families) rode their donkey carts on the side of the road, and we took the liberty of stocking up at one of the many fresh fruit stands to which they no doubt delivered their goods.  We passed through old villages, homes adorned with trellises and plump bunches of grapes that were hard to resist.  Finally we stopped at Veliko Turnovo, the home of the tzar when Bulgaria had such a thing.  The next day we crossed the mountains on a winding road that took an hour and a half to navigate, drove by several EU-funded vineyards, and ended up at the Black Sea coast, an idyllic location that has the clearest non-chlorinated water I've ever swum in.  We also learned, incidentally, that all men in Bulgaria wear speedos.  And I mean ALL men.  It doesn't matter.  And all women in Bulgaria wear bikinis.  In two days of sunbathing, we haven't seen one single-piece swimsuit.  The exception is that several women wear what we've come to call the "unikini" -- topless beaches are alive and well here.  Amid all this, we just relax, trying to hone our Bulgarian.  The numerous times each day we can't convey what we want to has been plenty of impetus.  And then there are the times when we actually find words -- then we feel like Jason Lezak surprising the world.    

Sofia Scenes

Introducing our "апартамент"

We LOVE our new apartment. It is on the fourth floor of a neighborhood reinventing itself from communist gray cement to trendy modern pastels, both metaphorically and literally. In a little over a week, about twelve more new ACS faculty will move into the apartments around us, and we are looking forward to being the welcoming committee.