Monday, August 19, 2013

And we landed in Istanbul

Which is far too wonderful for how little we’ve been told about how it should be top ten on anyone’s bucket list of places to visit (are those still a thing?).

We got off the plane with a ten hour layover ahead of us and plans to take the Turkish Airlines-provided tour of the city and lunch.  After quite a bit of wandering around (it seemed like every line would lead through a security check with no guarantee we were getting where we wanted to be, or that we could come back) and five very kind, very patient members of airport staff maintaining that, tour or no, if we wanted to enter into their country, we would, in fact, need a visa, we made it to the Starbucks (hey, we’re still Americans) on the other side of the immigration check (incidentally, thanks to our confusion, we were able to direct three other families to the lines they needed to be in).  We got our bearings, only to learn we’d just missed the tour, but we met up with a few other returning volunteers and set out to explore on our own.

We took the tram to the Grand Bazaar.  The city we saw fly by us was clean, warm, bright, an intriguing mix of pastel skyscrapers and the pregnant domes of neighborhood mosques.  Nobody stared at us.  No one seemed to find the group of us, obvious tourists, the least bit interesting – we reveled in our anonymity.  The Grand Bazaar was both of those things, and it was easy to imagine the city centuries ago as a center of world trade, culture, education.  We saw only a small bit of what was there, but we easily could have spent the entire day exploring if we weren’t all so hungry by that point.  We came out of the Bazaar and crossed the street, considering the pictures of meals posted outside of various eateries, when an older man introduced himself in flawless English as the owner of the tea shop across the street.  He placed our food orders for us in Turkish and then led us back to a little sun dappled avenue, shaded by grape vines, lined by low tables, peopled by old men engaged in an older dice game while sipping hot tea.  We were sure we’d stumbled into some antechamber of paradise.

The proprietor brought us all hot tea in small curved glasses and moments later, our food was delivered from across the street.  We could not have been more content than in those moments, but when the meal was done, we wanted to make sure we saw more of the city in our dwindling hours there.

And we were rewarded for our effort.  We walked to the Sultanahmet (Blue) Mosque (which really is blue), and directly across a wide park, the Hagia Sophia.  With its towering minarets and nine enormous domes, the mosque is an impressive building just to look at, more impressive when you consider it’s four hundred years old; but inside is where you really experience the majesty of it.  We were asked to remove our shoes and checked to be sure we were appropriately dressed (no exposed legs or shoulders for women or men; but there are robes and wraps available so everyone can go in).  Our voices dropped to whispers instinctively when we walked in.  Our eyes were immediately drawn up by the at times ornate, and at times perfect simplicity of the dominantly blue tile work.  The main dome swooping gracefully overhead felt protective.  Blue, our impromptu guide told us, is the color of good fortune.  This, we felt, standing there in socks and borrowed wraps, was reverent, was worshipful, and put one in mind of the majesty of the Divine.  We couldn’t think of a church that could compare.

Due to time, we were unfortunately not able to go inside the Hagia Sophia, but we promised ourselves, “next time.”  Yet, having always wanted to visit, and never (not really) expecting to get there, standing in front of the ancient basilica dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of God and modern day repository of culture and knowledge was a privilege.

From there, our clock was running out, but we and our fellow sojourners squeezed in a toast, after climbing up, and up, and up (and up again!) to the terrace at the top of a restaurant (the waiter smiling to himself the whole way… he knew what he was giving us), where we sat in a perfect, warm breeze and sipped some of the local brew, and took in a view of the Blue Mosque to our right and the Hagia Sophia to our left, and beyond that, the Sea of Marmara, and beyond that… oh, only Asia.