Istanbul, Turkey

Turkish cab riding, the new extreme sport. Don’t believe me? Try it. Pitch yourself in the front seat, strap in, hold on…and pray. Though I don’t think it’s limited to cabs, this suicidal blinded in one eye trust me I’m too tired to care sport comically called “driving,” because everyone here drives as if there’s a fire somewhere and peds are…well…silly. Or stupid. Hemingway said there were only three sports (mountain climbing, bull fighting, and auto racing [not Nascar of course, Formula 1]), all the rest were games. He obviously never tried to cross the street in Istanbul.

In all of this madness, the harranguing of carpet peddlers, the restaurant hawkers refusing to allow you to eat anywhere but there, the feral cats, the children smiling saying, “money, money, money,” there is in this city much beauty, many surprising gems, history beyond belief.

Take for instance the famous “blue mosque.” Famous? You ask. Understood. Once you come to Istanbul you will quickly learn it is famous. It is one of the places you will visit, guaranteed. This one is only 400 years old. You see, it was built by a sultan of the Turkish Empire who wanted to outdo the neighboring Aya Sofya (the picture in this post). The Aya Sofya was first dedicated in 537 CE by Emperor Justinian and was the Byzantine Empire’s greatest place of worship worthy of coronation of several Byzantine emperors. Christendom rallied from this church until the Conquest in 1453. Istanbul used to be Constantinople, the Roman Empire’s new capital following the decline of the western portion of Rome’s rule. And so it was that the Roman Empire ruled from this city until 1453 when the Turks came in and sacked the place (not before the 4th crusade, but that’s getting too involved isn’t it?), changed the color of the drapes, gave it a new name. Anyhoo, getting back to the original thread, the Aya Sofya was turned into a mosque after the Turks took over (now it’s a museum thanks to Ataturk) and the “blue mosque” was built by Sultan Ahmet I to outdo the Aya Sofya.

There are so many things to say about the history here, and we won’t bore you with it. Just know this, our hotel room (located in old Istanbul, which was Constantinople) looks out over the Sea of Marmara, the mouth of the Bosphorus, and old city walls that protected Constantinople from invaders for centuries; we can see the Asian side of Istanbul (no not Chinatown, there isn't one, the half of Istanbul that is on the Asian continent) while we stay on the European side; you cannot go anywhere here without being within earshot of the Imams singing over mosque loudspeakers calling Muslims to prayer 5 times a day (starting at 5 a.m.); and we had Turkish tea in an underground Roman cistern, the largest of its kind, that held water for the city (built in like 300 CE or something) pumped from aqueducts that ran from the Black sea. Did I mention the Egyptian obelisk built in 1430 BCE brought here by the Romans from Cairo as decoration for their Hippodrome chariot races here? Sorry. Just wait ‘til we get to Troy!

Other photos: bread man, us inside palace, inside blue mosque, Diana dancing in street, international man of intrigue, inside Aya Sofya, Aya Sofya mosaic

*note: The pics inside the Aya Sofya cannot illustrate the sheer impossibility that the entire ceiling of this place was covered in mosaics consisting of tiles the size of Chiclets.

Check out all our photos at http://www.flickr.com/gp/10412955@N03/1Qf7s0