Istanbul in Photos

I envied the other guests at my Airbnb lodging who had a full week to explore Istanbul, whereas I had just a few days during which I seriously mismanaged my time. Some diversions (i.e. seeing The xx perform at an outdoor concert with my hosts and other guests) were completely worth it while others (i.e. attempting to ship things home on my last day and finding that all post and Fedex offices were mysteriously closed), not so much. But taking a glass half-full approach, this means I'll have a lot to do when I return, which I hope is soon because Istanbul is one of my favorite cities on the trip so far.

1. Lights for sale at the Grand Bazar.

2. The Basilica Cistern. It reminded me of the underground lake in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince but instead of dead bodies floating beneath the surface there were carp, some of which were curiously large. (What do they eat? Each other? Unfortunate tourists that fall in?) It was a strange atmosphere - a damp semidarkness punctuated by blinding camera flashes and ominous classical music playing from hidden speakers. 

3. Inside the Blue Mosque.

4. The Hagia Sophia - one of many filming locations for The Fall. I got frustrated trying to capture its grandeur and splendor on my camera, so ended up making many laps around both the lower and upper levels just to take it all in. 

5. View from Galata Tower. Tried to be up there around sunset but my timing was way off. 

Stories We Tell: The Museum of Innocence

It's true that you meet all kinds of people when you travel solo, but the downside is that you have precious few moments to spend with them - a few hours, generally, or maybe days if your itineraries overlap. Every time I check into a new hostel it's like freshman orientation all over again; that earnest anxiety to figure out whom, amongst all these strangers, will become your new best friend; the fast-track friendships as you condense days/months worth of getting-to-know-you into whatever time you have. Because I am generally shy and socially awkward, I find this type of bonding challenging and peculiar.

I've gotten better at making new friends (I think), but for the most part it feels like a giant exercise in storytelling. The problem with only knowing someone for a short while is that it's hard to make it past all the introductory stuff. For that reason, I've told my story - about living in Paris, becoming a chef, and traveling around the world - countless times in multiple languages. I've gotten better at telling it, but I'm tired of hearing myself on repeat. I think this can sometimes make me seem antisocial and reticent, but honestly I'd much rather hear about you than talk about me.

***

As an interactive companion to his novel The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk refurbished a townhouse not far from Istanbul's Galata Tower to open an attraction of the same name based on the premise that, over the course of his life, the protagonist collected items relating to a forbidden relationship with a distant cousin. This might seem like a vaguely egotistical move for an author, but in an age when people constantly lament the slow, painful death of the written word, we need writers who can innovate beyond the page. And besides, once you've won a Nobel prize for literature, you're entitled to do whatever you want.  

If you bring your copy of the novel you get in for free after they stamp the ticket printed in chapter 85 when, I presume, the character opens his museum (I haven't read that far yet). I showed them the iBook version on my phone; they stamped my journal. 

The three floors of the museum are an intense labor of love. Through the lens of the novel, each object (organized by chapter into different displays) relates back to that elusive woman in a kind of creepy but mostly romantic way - the handbag he bought from her store when they first met; a matchbox from a restaurant they frequented; a dainty spoon that once touched her lips. But when you think about how much the author put into the project, it's even more impressive.  Up in the penthouse, sketches for various vitrines hang next to portions of the original manuscript, all of which are dated. The Museum of Innocence, both the literary and physical iterations, have been a long time in the making.  

Although the story centers on fictional characters, because the novel is set in the past the museum is filled with all kinds of vintage paraphernalia that together create a vivid snapshot of what Istanbul must have  looked, felt, and sounded like in the 1970s and '80s. The last display is an attic bedroom where, the sign reads, Pamuk sat and listened to the protagonist's account.

Wait a minute, you think. This can't possibly all be real. 

But, then, does it really matter? That's what a good story does to you; provides an immersion so complete that the distinction between fiction and reality fade away. 

Tales From Turkey

I always keep a journal and pen with me while traveling to jot down anything interesting - people, quotes, cocktails, etc. Later on the post-worthy fragments are expanded upon and edited, but some just remain scrawled half-pages or less. These narrative scraps are the sorts of things that I would normally tweet about or text message to my best friends at home if I weren't trying to minimize my data usage. But enough strange things happened within my first not-even 24 hours in Istanbul that I thought it was worth compiling. Below, a few would-be-phone-blast vignettes.

So this just happened...

I.

About halfway through the flight from Casablanca to Istanbul, an announcement came on from the flight crew. No, it wasn't to please fasten your seatbelts and remain in your seats, but rather that the sun had set and it was time to break the fast. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity as people spilled out into the aisle, overhead bins were opened, and cartons of milk, bottles of juice, loaves of bread and plastic containers of food materialized everywhere. And dried dates, always dried dates. A very literal feeding frenzy ensued. 

I was aware that travelers are exempt from fasting during Ramadan, but from the looks of it no one had decided to take advantage of the special circumstances. Up in the cockpit, I wondered, were the flight attendants serving the pilots banana milkshakes and bowls of harira?

The meal lasted a mere twenty minutes, before everything was quietly (okay, not so quietly where I sat in row sixteen because the family around me was traveling with three children) packed away and the lights dimmed once more. Like the secret Dîner en blanc**, you'd never know what had just happened moments earlier.

II.

I stopped for a pity meal (the kind that results from you being too tired and hungry to put up a fight when a host shoves a menu in your face) near the grand bazar and seated myself on the terrace facing a tree. Since I don't particularly like to stare at bark, the only thing to do other than sit there twiddling my thumbs was to look left and right. In the course of doing so, I accidentally made eye contact with a waiter at the restaurant next door, who happened to be extremely good-looking. After about the fourth time our gazes met, I began to feel awkward because I knew he thought I was staring at him. How?

Like any demure lady of the 21st century, I pulled my phone out to give myself a distraction (read: draft a text message about how awkward the current situation was), and the next thing I knew he was coming over to chat me up. He was on the verge of getting my phone number too (or rather the number of a boy I know from university and don't particularly care for), when he was called back to his post.  

I ate my meal staring determinedly at my plate, then paid and exited quickly when he wasn't looking. Lesson learned: never remove the Ray-Bans.

III.

I had it in mind that I wanted to get more piercings and that, between Morocco and India, Istanbul would be the place to do it. Google had shown me several options in the laid back, cafe-filled neighborhood Kadikoy on the Asian side of the city, so I picked the one that had an English version of the website, thinking that someone there ought to speak my native language.

When I arrived however, it became evident that the sole employee did not speak English. I tried explaining what I wanted, and in the end settled for changing out a stud for a captive bead ring, figuring that needles and a high risk of miscommunication don't really mix well. As I was sitting in the chair a teenaged boy came in with his family. The piercer used him to translate that I had a little infection while his younger brother stared at me.

At least the new earring was half the cost it would have been in the states. 

IV.

My current bedroom has an automatic air freshener attached near the point where the wall meets the ceiling. Every time it emits that saccharine artificial smell it sounds like a chihuahua farting. 

**Since I've already been skydiving, a top item on my bucket list is to attend one of these invite-only dinners. Hint, hint. Wink, wink.