When you blink your eyes...

On Saturday, I finally catch up a bit with some sleep. However, the rooms were hot and blankets way to thick. With the windows open and our close proximity to the minarets of the Blue Mosque, the Adhan call at 6am definitely helps you wake up a bit earlier than expected. I didn't actually know it was called an Adhan, I looked it up on Wikipedia just now. But it commonly has happened every where we've been so far. I actually really like the sound of the chanting from the speakers for some reason. The speakers are kind of lo-fi sounding, and the chanting sounds very emphatic. Sometimes it makes me think of the vocals from the songs of the rock band Lightning Bolt. If I would not have gone to Turkey I would have gone to see them play in Brooklyn actually during the same time.

Just before getting on the flight on Thursday I had sent an email to the travel agent that we get a guide for the Saturday in Istanbul. The time there was very short and I was hoping he could help us get more out of what we were seeing and maybe cover more ground. He was very knowledgeable and reminded me of my friend Muzaffer from New York, also from Istanbul. His name was Selahattin Erman and he was 66 years old. He said he had been a guide in Istanbul since he got out of school as a kid. He started out a bit slow for some of my traveling partners but once he started explaining the details of the Hagia Sophia and Topkopi Palace the information he provided proved to be pretty informative. The area our hotel was in Sultanahhumet was very convenient to see several of the main initial attractions of Istanbul. As the time in Istanbul went along I realized how vast the city was and knew I would never be able to get a grasp of what it was all about within the few short days I was there.

Hagia Sophia was the first stop and probably the one I enjoyed the most. The way it showed the clash of histories between Christianity and Islam in such grand detail was fascinating. It was quite beautiful on its own but the backstory behind it all as well as how modern Istanbul stopped using it as a Mosque and allow anyone to come visit says a lot about Turkey in comparison to other Islamic countries. This has a lot to do with the fact that Turkey does not have a state religion like most (maybe all) other Islamic countries.

The next stop was the Basilica Cistern. It was pretty interesting, worth a quick look in. Its where the water would end up from the aqueducts around the city. The interesting parts to look at are the way all the columns inside that supporting the ceilings are from the many different places that the Byzantine Empire had conqured at the time, around 6AD. Also, pretty cool that it was used in From Russia With Love in 1963.

The third and final stop we had the guide explain to us was Topkapi Palace. Overall, worth a trip in. A bit dry at times, also I was still a bit low on sleep but It shed some light on several points about how the Sultan setup worked. I was fascinated by the fact that the Sultans were actually not of Turkish descent, but usually from other places around the Empire.

Our guide, Selahattin explaining something to my friend Justin walking around Topkapi Palace.