Tughra

How can one man be so bloody incompetent?  Amazing, really.  Here are some very long-delayed shots from Istanbul.  They are various versions of a tughra, which is the distinctive signatures of Ottoman sultans.  They all have the same calligraphic standards.  The two circles on the left represent the two seas, the Mediterranean and the Black, that were dominated by the Ottomans sitting in Istanbul.  The three"flagpoles" at the top are supposed to represent independence, with the "flags" blowing from east to west - symbolic of Turkish expansion from the early centuries.  Not surprisingly the lines to the right represent swords and power.  The signatures are an art form in their own right, reaching their peak, as with most things Ottoman, during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent.

Quiet Prayer

Here's a nice shot from inside the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul.  It is a very beautiful mosque, which dates back to the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent (so it is not nearly as old as the Hagia Sophia).  What I like about it is the shot of the one peson who came in to pray in the middle of the day.  We tend to think of mosques as very busy places with hundreds if not thousands of worshippers praying at once in a very ritualized fashion, but here's the other side of the story. 

While I really should not have snapped his picture, I wanted to capture a bit of the serenity of the moment and share it with an audience which all too often has a very different view of Islam.

So I Got That Going For Me. Which Is Nice.

And a quick posting dating back to my visit to Istanbul in December. Even though they are eminently cheesy, I always like those opportunities to "insure" that you'll return to a city - like rubbing the pig's snout in Florence or the dog on the Charles Bridge in Prague. However, I did pass up the opportunity to drink from the River Nile to guarantee that I would return to Egypt, for the obvious reason. So, I guess that this post chronicles somethin akin to the Turkish equivalent, except that in this case it relates to curing any lingering illnesses. In a corner of the astonishing Hagia Sophia in Istanbul there is the Weeping Pillar. You stick your thumb in a well-worn hole in the pillar and attempt to turn it 360 degrees without losing contact. Now, if you do that and your thumb gets wet then whatever is ailing you will be cured. Fortunately, I did manage to successfully make the spin without losing contact - or dislocating my shoulder - and my thumb did end up moist. I don't know if my creaky hip or sleep apnea are necessarily cured, but it did wonders for my mental health because the memory of it still makes me smile.

Memories of Istanbul

There are a million things going on in my life at the moment that are dominating my time, but for some reason my mind keeps sliding back to Istanbul. It may just be that it was such an amazing experience, and I definitely can't wait to go back. Or it may just be that with its chaos and dirt and history and clouds and rain and crush of people, that it just felt like an authentic city. Not that Abu Dhabi isn't an authentic city, and I'm actually growing oddly fond of it, but it is so shiny and new that it often feels as if I'm living in an extended posh mall (or as a good friend of mine likes to opine, an airport lounge). I'd love to be wandering through the streets of Istanbul right now, and not simply in search of apple tea.

Apple Tea

Obviously, one of the best things about travel is the fascinating people you meet along the way, whether you're headed to Guymon, Oklahoma or Istanbul, Turkey. On my last night in Istanbul in December I wandered into a little shop hoping to knock off some Christmas shopping. The shopkeepers could not have been more friendly, and in classic Middle Eastern fashion offered me some tea while I shopped. I liked the apple tea so much that the wonderful woman who waited on me gave me a little gift basket featuring the tea and a couple glasses (even though it was not a shop that sold tea - she just brought it to me out of the back of the store). Sadly, in the confusion I didn't catch her name, but on my next trip there I'm going to try and track down the shop and return the favor with Vermont maple syrup.

A Cozy Meal in Istanbul

It is probably quite telling that I include so many posts about eating. Here's just a quick posting, mainly, I suspect, to distract me from grading final exams. Here are three pictures of a wonderful little meal that I had at the Cozy Cafe in Istanbul, right around the corner from the Hagia Sophia (about three doors down from Starbucks). It was such a great meal that I went there a couple times. Great food and wonderful, friendly service - everyone spoke impeccable English and could not have been friendlier. I just asked them, "what do you think I should eat?", and they took that as a personal challenge.

I especially liked the beans, which look really plain, but which were fantastic. Apparently it's a staple dish both in Turkey and in Greece. It was advertised as kidney beans, but I believe it was butter beans (as my good friend Kelly Thomas observed). It was just butter beans cooked in olive oil, garlic and thyme. Combine it with Efe, a nice Turkish beer, and you have a lovely meal.

Hagia Sophia

Like most men, I suppose, I rank things, which is different than making lists. Women make lists - men construct Top 10 lists. It probably relates to our fascination with sports, especially baseball, which are driven by standings. Following this logic, then, as participatory sports became more popular among young girls then women should have started constructing top 10 lists as well (but maybe this is actually all genetic). So ask any man a question like "What are you top five cars?" they would not hesitate for a moment, and could give you the list, and, more importantly, in order. It could be top five or ten cars in the world or that they had personally owned, but they would have a numerical list. It doesn't matter whether it is favorite professional athletes or teams or classes or best kisses, but they would have a list ready. Now, why am I starting a posting about Hagia Sophia with this odd preamble? As I walked into the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul I had one of those moments when you find yourself sitting there like a dope with your mouth hanging open - and this must have lasted around five minutes. I came back to the real world as if from a dream, and I also was delighted/horrified to discover that I was fighting back tears. The experience was that overwhelming. Now, it relates to the initial point because I had one of those realizations that I've been so remarkably fortunate to have seen so much of the world and to have had other moment like that. Then, of course, being a guy, I ruined it by thinking that I should really construct a list of the Top 10 most amazing, jaw-dropping, tears-inducing places I had ever visited.

Every so often I will scan through the over 450 posts that make up this silly little blog, and it's funny how many times I will write "if you ever visit ________, and every one should visit ________, then you should . . ." OK, if you ever visit Istanbul, and every one should visit Istanbul, you have to make a pilgrimmage to Hagia Sophia. Or, more appropriately, if you ever go to see the Hagia Sophia, and every one should see the Hagia Sophia, then you should see the rest of Istanbul. It is staggering to think that the building itself dates back to the 300s, and it reached the form we recognize around fifteen centuries ago during the time of Justinian, the greatest Byzantine emperor. For over a thousand years the dome, which ascends more than 180 feet in the air, was the largest dome in the world. It was a church for a thousand years, and then a mosque for around five hundred years (after the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453), and it has been a museum since 1935 (as part of the secular modernization that was so much a part of Ataturk's dream). I one time opined that you recognize true genius when two seemingly contradictory things happen at the same time - you become both bigger and smaller. You become bigger in that you share some profound truth that connects you to a larger intellectual or spiritual or creative universe - but you also become smaller in that you are dwarfed by the enormity of that vision/truth. Hagia Sophia was that - it lived up to its Greek name, "holy wisdom."

Istanbul

I've just returned to Abu Dhabi after an exhausting 34 hour flight from Vermont. I love living there, but it is so out of the way it is always a challenge to get there in any graceful fashion. Typically, I left at 11:30 on Thursday 5 January, and then endured a five hour layover in JFK, then a ten hour flight to Istanbul, then an eleven hour layover at the Istanbul airport (and I was just too tired to venture out so I just curled up in the quietest corner I could find and slept), and then a five hour flight down to Abu Dhabi - arriving at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday 7 January. The last two days have been devoted to trying to beat down the jet lag, which I think I've managed to do. The other reason why I didn't take the opportunity to leave the airport is that I carved off three days for myself in Istanbul on the way to Burlington. My travel agent, the long-suffering Rochelle, found a relatively inexpensive flight on Turkish Air with the requisite layover in Istanbul, and since I had never been there - and always dreamed of going there - I had her arrange for a three day stay. I loved it, and will have a lot more to say about it. I'll start off with an odd sign that I saw in the palace.