Day 2: The Light and the Sound

My eyes closed, my teeth clenched, my hands--holding a small, ornate yet simple-appearing saucer and cup of the first Turkish coffee I'd ever tried--flew up as my body recoiled.  It was involuntary. The light and the sound seemingly flashed and cracked in unison. It reverberated through the marble steps I was sitting on and throughout my body. A car alarm went off. A concerned woman wrapped in a towel in an apartment overhead tried to open her window and to see what the damage was. She looked at us as if we were crazy. 

"Good thing I go to bathroom this morning!" our new friend said as he laughed. "That was right there", and he pointed nearly straight up above where we sat. "Don't worry though, the roof here made of rubber--we are safe."  Surprisingly, I'd spilled very little of my coffee, which was good since what I did spill landed on one of the two pairs of pants I'd brought for our trip.  As the lightning occurred faster and faster in succession and the rain came harder, our new friend said "come inside and save yourselves."  

He had genuinely saved our asses. I'd woken up at 4:44 am to the chanting of the imam, Becca had woken up shortly thereafter and neither of us wanted to wait until 9 am to have a breakfast through our hostel where we were not sure if it'd be traditional fare. We'd read in our guidebook that a couple of decent sounding breakfast joints opened up at 7:30 am, so we got around and headed out into the cobbled streets to find them.  No one in our hostel was up. The two guys in the front lobby who had seemingly been attached to the two couches in that area with their eyes glued to either the television or their phones, groggily acknowledged us as we tried to get out quickly and quietly without waking them.

No one in the city was up either. At least, not in the Sultanahmet neighborhood.  We wondered aloud if the breakfast places would in fact be open when we arrived. Then it began to drizzle. Then it began to rain. We were not dressed for this. Then it began to pour. Fuck. We were near the Aya Sofya museum, but it did not open until 9 am.

We began to move more quickly through the streets as our clothes soaked through. Then the lightning followed by thunder started. As we ran to find respite, a voice called out: "My friends, you will come here and join us."   Our faces apparently showed that we'd been poked and prodded by restaurant, cafe and carpet store owners vying for our patronage one too many times already on our young trip. "I am serious, we want nothing from you--only to offer you our hospitality and shelter from the storm." We'd soaked through at this point and the lightning and the rain was only growing more intense, so it wasn't as though we had more than one choice.

Our new friend said his name too quickly for us to comprehend, but he is the son of a Georgian woman and a Turkish man who married a New Zealander and ultimately moved to New Zealand--away from Istanbul--to raise his family. He still has a hand in running his family's carpet shop, though, and he returns to Istanbul for that reason.

We sat for a long time on the marble steps outside an apartment building that neighbored his shop, drinking Turkish coffee and getting to know each other, before the lightning and rain intensified and we went inside to continue our conversations.  He was an extremely well-traveled man with many stories. 

Of course, one rule we'd set for ourselves in coming to Turkey in this political climate was to not talk politics. His first question upon taking our conversation inside was "How do you like your United States president?"

After a long and rousing conversation that was at times enlightening (hearing about the real struggles Turkey is in the midst of with tourists roundly looking elsewhere, including him setting the record straight regarding the true story behind Midnight Express) and, at times, less so ("What three things did the Romans give the world? Orgies, alcoholism and bulimia!", he said laughing. "And the Greeks? Philosophy, sheep-shagging, and homosexuality!")--the rain abated long enough for us to get into the Aya Sofya.  We got a card with the address to our new friend's store and he asked us to return soon for another coffee. Then we headed out to brave the elements.

To call the Aya Sofya a cool, old building does not do it justice in the greater context of it, but that's what I saw as I struggled to grasp the full extent of just how old it is and it's true historical significance. That's Becca's gig and we were in her wheelhouse on that excursion. It was cool, though. And old.

Since we'd never made it to breakfast, we were starving. We recognized the name of the Tarihi Sultanahmet Kodtecisi (a meatball restaurant) from our guidebook so we ducked in there.  One thing in particular stood out--the meatballs. The rest on the limited menu was fairly pedestrian.  We were two of only three people eating in this restaurant staffed by approximately ten employees.

From lunch, we made our way to the Blue Mosque.  It was not a time of prayer, so we were admitted entrance upon removing our shoes and Becca covering her head and arms with provided shawls. On the way in, we were hassled by an attractive and charismatic young Turk who was offering us a "how-to" on entering the mosque for an agreement to visit his carpet store. We balked. He then tried to make me a wager that--"If I tell you where you got your shoes, you buy carpet from my store". I'd gotten these particular shoes at Goodwill, so I figured he'd never guess that, but I figured there was a trick in there so I balked some more. Finally, he softened up the wager to a visit to his store and we reluctantly agreed. "You got your shoes on your feet", he said delightedly.

The Blue Mosque is beautiful. Large (but not the largest in the city) and visually stimulating throughout.  It is impressive.  Once Becca was all covered up I couldn't figure out which woman she was in the crowd, though. So that made things a little more fun and interesting--when I'd look upward with my mouth gaping open--then bring my attention back down to Earth and I couldn't tell my wife from any other woman in the mosque.

Of course, the Young Turk was waiting for us upon exiting the mosque and we reluctantly followed him--despite what we'd been told by Our New Friend earlier in the day--"don't go anywhere with those people" (referring to overzealous shop owners).  After winding through back alleys, we came to his carpet shop. He introduced us to his soft spoken uncle, who asked us to sit and offered us apple tea. The apple tea--akin to hot cider--was delicious, although I was too uncomfortable to take more than two sips. Many of the Young Turk's questions had been prying and he'd "guessed" in the beginning--supposedly based on my looks--that I was from Oregon. Between that and being pressured into following him through back alleys to the store, by the time we were sitting with his uncle, I was near my "eating shit" threshold. I was soon standing and I'd stopped drinking the apple tea and--although the uncle was very pleasant and knowledgeable about carpets--I told him with the most pleasant presentation I could muster that we weren't interested and we left.

We went back to the hostel to change into clothes better able to combat the rain and because I'd realized we'd left the window open prior to the massive storm coming down like the wrath of God (or Allah) that morning.  

Once back, we confirmed that our room had taken on water--but it was only the corner of the mattress which had soaked through.  We then made the mistake of laying down on said mattress with the intent of maybe taking a half-hour power nap. Four hours later, I was threatening to eat Becca's first born child if she didn't wake up and get out of bed so we could salvage what was left of the day. She did. We did.

We set out in the hopes of walking from the heart of the Sultanahmet neighborhood where we'd been staying to the "New European" part of Istanbul. After puzzling through the streets, reluctant to pull out maps for fear of having a shopkeeper's antennae rise up and hone in on us--we eventually made it through the ancient city wall surrounding Old Istanbul or "Constantinople" as learned-folk like Becca might call it.  Nerds. 

Anyway, a pedestrian/train suspension bridge took us over the Golden Horn and the water and we were then in the Beyoglu/Galata/Karakoy neighborhoods for much of the rest of the night. It felt good to get out of Sultanahmet.  The Old Europe part is where the tourists stay and thus the good food is hard to find. Worse yet the people and businesses there--who need tourists to survive and thrive, with the slim pickin's these days available to them in that regard--had frankly worn on us.

Beyoglu and Istiklal Caddesi breathed new life into us. Istiklal was just a massive street, full of people, and everything was there and happening. As we walked past a McDonalds, a legless blind man was chanting and pounding on a tambourine in his wheelchair.  The throngs of people moved along this street slowly, taking it all in. Cars--save for the police--didn't bother braving the masses. Street performers, police car horns, chanting, yelling, laughter, music blaring from clubs, dialogue emanating from theaters--it was a cacophony. It was also largely impossible for shopkeepers and others to penetrate the mass of people or communicate with any particular person effectively.  We basked in the chaos providing us anonymity. 

Eventually we ducked out onto a side street when we'd found a restaurant we were interested in trying from the guidebook--Hayvore.  As we approached, the man from the restaurant did not attempt to coax us inside. He said only "good evening". Him playing hard to get made it even clearer to us that this is what we wanted. And when we got it, it was worth it. It was a lokantas-style place. The mezes, our options, were ready made and we needed only to point and nod. It was all delicious--mainly vegetables soaked in oil and smothered in spices--but the eggplant stuffed with spiced beef, rice and veggies was otherworldly delicious.

By the time dinner was over, it was well past 10 pm. We made our way back through the chaos once again, stopping for Ottoman ice cream and getting wowed by the tricksters with their long spoons, whipping the ice cream and the cone around with ease as they'd tease us into trying to grab our dessert, only to rip it back from our clutches. The pistachio flavor was divine.

We walked to the tram at Karakoy and fumbled our way through buying a card designed for locals, lessening the cost of public transportation.  On the tram back to Sultanahmet a feeling washed over us. Like we'd been in Istanbul much longer than 1 day and 4 hours--like we "got" it. We began to feel beyond comfortable.

Back in Sultanahmet, we wanted a drink to cap the night off, so we turned to the guidebook and it highlighted a hotel/cafe/bar called Kybele as a nice place for a drink. As we sat, the owner offered us sheesha to smoke, depending on where we sat. We inquired if we could smoke inside. He then walked us upstairs to an open air indoor library on the rooftop that was as decorated and whimsical as the rest of the place--donning endless multicolored light fixtures and beautiful antique furniture everywhere.  There we sat and smoked from the hookah and drank Efes beer and chatted. Eventually, the tobacco gave us both headaches because we're novices, but our smiles still held as we walked every step of the way home with no need for a map.