Istanbul (not Constantinople)

Note: I had planned to write this post a while back, but thought that writing about Turkey (the country) so close to Thanksgiving might tempt me to make a few corny jokes. Sometimes I can't help myself, it's in my blood. So, I waited. Now LSB is pestering me, so it is time...

 

The final stop on my 4-day, London-Paris-Brussels-Istanbul trip was here, a megacity that straddles East and West. There is a curious geography at play here, as the city itself is subdivided by several bodies of water—the Golden Horn, Bosporus Strait, and Sea of Marmara—and sits on two continents, part in Asia and part in Europe.  I was excited, as I've always wanted to visit Turkey and I really like maps. 

There are also less tangible divisions: religious and secular, traditional and modern, Eastern and Western, beautiful and kind of annoying. It is a city of incredible architecture, delicious food, mosques that used to be churches that used to be mosques, modern, European-style shopping districts, ancient subterranean cisterns, spice markets and bazaars, carpet-sellers, hustlers, and palaces once lived in by sultans (you know, the guys with eunuchs and harems). It's a complicated place.

The section of the city known as Sultanahmet sits on a peninsula--the Golden Horn on one side, the Sea of Marmara on the other, and the pointy part reaching out and touching the beginning/end of the Bosporus. This is the “old town,” and clustered in close proximity are an incredible amount of postcard-worthy sites--you could sit directly in front of the Aya Sophia and look across a small park at the Blue Mosque.  Both are almost indescribably impressive, yet there they are, only a stone's throw away from each other, dueling domes and minarets.   

As this is where most of the tourists congregate (i.e. me), this is also where most of the people who prey on tourists hang out. Wandering from mosque to mosque, there is a continuous flow of approaching hustlers (“hello sir, where you from?”) looking for an easy money-making opportunity from the bewildered guide-book clutching masses (yes, I was one of them). I was offered food, carpets, shoe shines, directions, and tours; and while walking around a quiet corner I was even badgered by a barber who shouted out to me—in the midst of giving someone else a trim—and offered to cut my hair. Okay, I was in need of a haircut, but this seemed to be extreme.

 

On my second day in town, after my morning coffee, sour cherry juice, and assortment of fresh cheeses, I strolled to a little park on a hill between mosques and sat down on bench to observe The Hustle. I kept my map in my pocket in an effort to blend in as best I could (I wouldn't say that I actually look Turkish, but I wore my best scowl) and sat for several pleasant, hassle-free minutes, watching the hordes of American, British, German, and Spanish victims get picked off like it was some kind of bizarre video game (“I take you to the Blue Mosque, it is much better” “Deutsch? English? American?” “Hello, do you find Istanbul beautiful?” “Please, sir, I show you the best carpets.” “Spice Market? Grand Bazaar? I take you.”).

Contemplating my next move, I discretely (so I thought) slipped the small, folded map out of my pocket and noticed, at the edge of my peripheral vision, a man seated on a nearby bench twitch. I put the map away, stood, walked down the hill and noticed him beginning his gradual and angled approach, matching my stride and not looking at me until he was right beside me: “Excuse me sir, are you looking for the cistern?” 

Once I got used to the hassle of the hustle (to be honest, it was actually kind of entertaining), I found Istanbul enjoyable. I drank raki and enjoyed nargile (apple and mint) with a colleague. I had a proper tea service on a high hill on the tip of the peninsula overlooking the confluence of the three bodies of water. I took a boat trip up the Bosporus and wandered down İstiklâl Caddesi in Beyoğlu —a pedestrian thoroughfare that apparently 3 million people walk down each day. It was crowded and a bit overwhelming, so we enjoyed a Turkish beer from a balcony overlooking the masses below.

At the airport upon my departure, I was serenaded by a full Turkish band in the middle of the terminal.  It was at that moment that I realized that I won the game.  I never did buy a carpet.   

Frohe Weihnachten!

What do you give someone who has everything?

Pickle-in-a-can

You can buy one in Berlin.

A Pleasant Evening with Klaus & Werner

Warning: Explicit Language

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes

Maybe it was an unconscious backlash to my previous delightful movie experience or maybe it was just residual curiousity from a documentary that I saw on IFC several years ago, but while LSB was out schmoozing with ambassadors and the Special Representative to North Korea, I took the opportunity to rent Aguirre: The Wrath of God.

First, some background. I've always been interested in the combative, symbiotic, love/hate relationship between the German director Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, his nemisis and frequent star of many of his earlier films. I guess that makes me kind of weird, but perhaps this quote will explain my fascination:

Herzog is a miserable, hateful, malevolent, avaricious, money-hungry, nasty, sadistic, treacherous, cowardly creep...he should be thrown alive to the crocodiles! An anaconda should strangle him slowly! A poisonous spider should sting him and paralyze his lungs! The most venomous serpent should bite him and make his brain explode! No panther claws should rip open his throat--that would be much too good for him! Huge red ants should piss into his lying eyes and gobble up his balls and his guts! He should catch the plague! Syphilis! Yellow fever! Leprosy! It's no use; the more I wish him the most gruesome deaths, the more he haunts me.

- Klaus Kinski (on Werner Herzog)

Aguirre was made by Germans, with mostly German actors, about Spanish conquistadors in 16th Century Peru. It follows the story of Aguirre, who leads a expedition up a river in order to find El Dorado and goes increasingly insane in the process. Think Heart of Darkness in the context of Spanish exploitation of South America, in German (with English subtitles). It begins with a bunch of men carrying a cannon over a mountain and ends with loads of hyper little monkeys on a raft. In the middle, people are hit with arrows, decapitated by other (German) Spaniards, eaten by indigenous Peruvians, and avoid starvation by eating the algae growing on the bottom of their raft. If that doesn't interest you enough to go out and rent it, perhaps this trailer or following quotes from the film will:

"That man is a head taller than me. That may change..."

- Aguirre (prior to the above-mentioned beheading)

"Whoever even thinks about deserting will be cut into 198 pieces
and then trampled upon until you can paint the walls with him"

- Aguirre (in an effort to inspire his men)


"If I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees...
the birds will drop dead from the trees."

- Aguirre (just prior to proclaiming himself "The Wrath of God")

Yeah, the movie was pretty awesome.

Rubles, Russians, and Grocery Lists

February Survival Kit

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"Drink a glass of wine after your soup

and you steal a ruble from the doctor."

- Russian Proverb*

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*According to Tuesday, October 17th on our 2006 Wine Lover's Page-A-Day Calendar

Happy Golden Days of Yore

Santa is my nightlight

December got away from me somehow. So, here I am now, feet firmly planted in January, taking a quick glance over my shoulder at the blur of a holiday season in Boston and Upstate New York.

So it begins...

...and a Merry Christmas to you, Comrade Lenin

Our shiny, new hatchblack, was all covered in snow

...said the Pops, emphatically.

My NoCo shopping paradise

Happy New Year, America.

A poolside iguana and a train through Bohemia

This is a life I could get used to: wake up in the late morning, drink my coffee on a balcony overlooking a pool surrounded by palm trees and the ocean just beyond, wander around plantation ruins in the afternoon, sip rum punch in the shade of the sea grape trees on a soft sand beach…

Rum punch under the sea grape trees

I used to think that vacation was about adventure and challenge: figuring out the train schedules in a small, gritty city in Poland; lugging a backpack through a crowded street market to see the 27th most significant church in Central Europe; struggling over a menu offering "fried frog things" and other creatively translated fare, and eventually coming home with a new stamp in my passport and sense of accomplishment.

The East (not the Caribbean)

I've been there, I've seen famous cultural things, I've eaten strange food (and may/may not have gotten sick from it), and learned how to say "may I have a beer, please" in other languages. I'm somehow a better person—more knowledgeable, or worldly even.

Church of some importance

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But, I'm tired and need a vacation.

Lately, this structured wanderlust, while still alive and kicking, has ebbed slightly, allowing me to experience vacation in a different way--the way my wife prefers it: on a beach, looking out at the water, with a rum drink in hand.

Our latest vacation, billed as Honeymoon, Part II, was a late April escape from Boston to St. John, USVI. I had never really been to the Caribbean before—with the exception of a short business trip to San Juan, PR a few years back—and was anxious to experience a new island, in another ocean (Honeymoon, Part I was in Kaua'i). There was a significant period of my life (ages 9-17) when a trip to a tropical island would have been my greatest dream. I used to be oddly fascinated with lizards, fish and other tropical creatures—the result of a childhood raised on too much Jacques Cousteau and too many PBS nature shows, I guess. At that time, the closest I got to living this life was a few vacations to Cape Cod and the North Carolina coast.

A poolside iguana in St. John

Over time, and after the gradual realization that a career in marine biology was not exactly what I thought it was, this interest faded a bit. I discovered Jack Kerouac and Milan Kundera, visited Europe and fell in love with backpacks, trains, and (briefly) hostels. I learned to subsist almost entirely on baguettes, cheese, and cheap wine. As I longed to push further East--colder, darker, bleaker--my interest in becoming Pierre Cousteau and owning a huge pet iguana was repressed. To me, a vacation on a tropical island was like a cruise that didn't go anywhere. Where are the Soviet-style block apartments? What do you mean you can't get there by train? Why is everybody smiling? That blue sky is unnatural!

As I get older, I'm learning to reconcile my leisure life as lizard-loving snorkeler with my inexplicable fascination with Eastern Europe. A trip to Berlin a few years ago helped provide an improbable fusion: at some point after the fall of the Wall, East Berliners, dumped loads of sand along the Spree River and created several beach bars on the banks--complete with deck chairs, thatched roof bars, and reggae music.

Lounging with my feet in the sand and a cold drink in my hand in the heart of gritty Berlin, all was well with the world...