A few more experiences from Istanbul

Although I left Istanbul two weeks ago, I would like to take a moment to list some of the other highlights I experienced while there. First I must mention the great time I had while meeting up with my friend Mahmut Eksioglu. Mahmut grew up in Istanbul but spent 19 years in America working at various universities. Most recently, Mahmut was a professor at the University of Michigan where I met him through my cousins Jeff and Greg Mans. Mahmut moved back to Istanbul a year and a half ago which was wonderful for me as he was there to show me around his hometown.

Istanbul is unique in that it is a city that sprawls on two continents, Europe and Asia. Mahmut lives in Istanbul on the Asian side, something I was happy about But because it gave me a reason to set foot on Asia which I had never done before. Parts of Istanbul on the Asian side have rough stone streets and bustling sidewalk markets like the historic district of the European side. Other parts though are quite different with much more frequent use of cement on the streets and sidewalks, and multiplex apartment buildings going up everywhere. One street in particular, Bagdhat Avenue (named after the Iraqi city that the Turks conquered during the reign of the Ottoman Empire), really stood out in sharp contrast to some of the other neighborhoods I had been in due to its high concentration of American brand name clothing stores and restaurants. But besides the American stores (which as you can imagine I wasn’t too interested in going inside while in Istanbul), Bagdhat avenue is a really nice street with plenty of cafes and excellent marble and stonework everywhere. Additionally, I found Bagdhat avenue one of the best places to skateboard in Istanbul due to its smooth stone sidewalks that are wide for pedestrian traffic.

Sorry about that, I got a bit carried away describing a single street. I think I should turn to something more interesting like the two dinners that Mahmut’s sister cooked for us while I was staying with him over on the Asian side. These meals were truly incredible. And although it is still hard for me to believe, they actually are common place in her household because both times we went over there Mahmut gave her about half an hours notice that we were coming over to dinner. On both occasions, if two kinds of soup, salad, and then five or six traditional Turkish dishes weren’t enough to make me completely stuffed and content, then the desert plates, pistachios, and array of fruit we finished the meal with put me over the edge. The whole dinner experience would last for a few hours, the last couple of which were spent outside on the balcony chatting over the desert, pistachios, fruit, and many cups of delicious Turkish black tea. This tea, by the way, is certainly a fond memory for me of Turkey as most people there drink many many glasses a day, offering a glass any and every time you sit down.

While I was really lucky to hook up with Mahmut while I was in Istanbul, it was really too bad that I didn’t manage to get together with Lucienne Thys-Senocak, who also lives in Istanbul and is the niece of our neighbor’s Nina and Buck Thys. In a very unfortunate incident, I was going to meet Lucienne and boarded a bus that due to traffic caused by the Pink Floyd concert (which was going on that night), only moved the span of 100 meters in a full hour. By the time I wised up, abandoned the bus, and gave Lucienne a call, I was still 10 km away from our meeting place so I missed my chance to see her.

Although the Pink Floyd concert proved to be the instrument of my demise that night, a few nights earlier the Sting concert at the same venue on the Bosphorus Strait was the occasion that provided a memorable evening. I didn’t actually attend the Sting concert, but my friend Chevey from the Stone Hotel was going and invited me to join him and a bunch of his friends on a boat that would tour the Bosphorus for a while then drop them off at the concert. The Bosphorus Strait is an 18 km long channel that connects the Marmara and Black seas. It was pretty cool taking a boat ride through this scenic waterway that has provided for thousands of years the geographical justification for Istanbul’s awesome population and its status as an uber-important city of trade, merging cultures, and other such things. Apart from the scenery, the boat ride was perhaps equally enjoyable due to the fact that Yemek (the cook I think I mentioned in my last post), came along and prepared a wonderful meal which we enjoyed on the boat, and there was also plenty of Raki to go around. Raki is a traditional Turkish liquer that is drank with water and seemed to me to have a licorice flavor which I found out later is actually anise. It is quite different I think then the rakia which is drank in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Serbia, and is pretty similar to the Slivovitz schnapps which I have gotten the chance to try at home.

In any case, among many others, these were a few of the memorable experiences I enjoyed while in Istanbul.