Istanbul or Constantinople?

(written Tues Feb 3rd)

Yep. We may truly be crazy people. Just got back from a weekend in Istanbul, Turkey that we booked, oh about 10 days before we left. I have no idea how to form my thoughts into any kind of a coherent story about this place. What a collision between Europe and the Middle East! (Which actually it truly is, since it’s the only city to sit both on the European and Asian continents.) Our days were filled with wandering through the bazaars, going into the historic mosques, putting our feet on Asian soil, eating Doner Kebabs, and truly taking in the major historical events that have happened here.

Things that astounded me:
The Muslim call to prayer five times a day. Wow, it’s loud and a little frankly a little frightening. (Why is a lot of religious music written in a minor key?) There are mosques literally every few blocks (guess they gotta be if you need to get there that often) and the call to worship echoed throughout the city from what seemed like warring mosques vying for your attention. Made my brain rattle a little.

Being blond in this area of the world just doesn’t happen. Kristi and I stood out like sore thumbs in the land of dark hair and head scarves.

The Haggia Sofia. Once Greek Orthodox church, then mosque, now museum. It contains golden mosaics of the apostles that had been plastered over to plain walls with Arabic writing from the Qur'an. Again, collision of Eastern and Western. I could have spent all day here.

The sheer population. We read somewhere between 12-19 million people live here. Holy cow! There were seriously buildings as far as the eye could see. Some of them beautiful, some falling apart…and both standing right next to each other. There was no rational that could explain this city. So interesting.

As much as I enjoyed seeing something so completely out of my frame of knowledge, a couple of things got in the way of truly loving this city. One being, we had to make a decision while we were there of where we were gonna move next (read Big News) and I felt very distracted. Another was that it was cold and rainy. Does everyone feel depressed in January? Think I needed a little sunshine. It truly is an intriguing city with great little alleys to get lost in and beautiful architecture to study. I did happen to read “Murder on the Orient Express” which Agatha Christie wrote while living in a hotel here. Great trip, but glad to be home.