Okay, but first Alex has to spend countless--count 'em, countless--hours trying to arrange our trip to Istanbul, with all sorts of confusions and changes and complications. We decide that flying is the only way to go, given our time constraints and desire to spend as much time in Istanbul as possible. So, as my students scatter to the four winds for our autumn quarter break, to Paris and Rome and Brindisi and Edinburgh and Seoul, we head for the place Greeks consider their lost capital, a country full of Byzantine churches converted to mosques, a country eerily like and unlike Greece, a city that reminds me a lot of Athens but with subtle and powerful differences, a kind of Bizarro-Athens (for you Superman fans out there): Istanbul, Turkey.
All that effort by Alex resulted in a fabulous apartment a couple of blocks from the Blue Mosque with a view of the Marmora Sea. I kept taking pictures out this window, sometimes because the bad weather was keeping us in, sometimes because I simply loved the view.
The second picture is from our room--I took all kinds of pictures out that window, in all kinds of light and weather. (I bet you'll see another one soon.) The bottom picture was taken from a cafe in the sultan's park at the northwest end of the Old Quarter, beyond the Palace. After we'd been walking all around the first afternoon, checking out the sights but not going in anywhere, we ended up at this spot, and as we sat there looking over the Bosporus and the Golden Horn, I was thoroughly happy. Istanbul is a place that has always been defined by the sea, and I just couldn't get over all the traffic. I thought Piraeus was busy, but this three-armed stretch of water was simply crawling with ships and boats. I took that bottom picture because I thought I counted at least seven different ship-vectors in this one frame, including ferries going from various shores to various other shores, freighters moving up and down the Bosporus, and fishing boats heading hither and thither (but mostly right in the middle of things) in search of the abundant fish that everyone here seems entirely comfortable with eating, despite all the ships (I accidentally typed "shits" there--hmm.... I must be thinking about what the ships are putting into the water) and whatever flows into this corner of the sea from a city of 20 million people. The name of an art show at the Istanbul Modern captured it nicely: "Held Together by Water." And yes, you read me correctly: 20 million. Twice the entire population of Greece, just as a for-instance comparison. All of that population centered on the water, on the same ancient whale-road between the Aegean and the Black Sea through which the Athenians moved the grain upon which they built their empire 2500 years ago and the olive oil and pottery by which they paid for that grain. For all our time spent in the Old Quarter, touristifying upon the history of Byzantium-Constantinople-Istanbul (and I left off the earlier names), the modern city was everywhere in front of us and around us and as dazzling as any mosaic or tiled dome.
But the tiled domes were amazing. First the Hagia Sophia, once a church, then a mosque, now a compromise of a museum, but showing its complicated history in the disconcerting mix of Christian and Muslim iconography.
The first picture is for scale, an overview to give you some idea of the space in which we wandered for an hour, and in which the early Christians and not-so-much-later Muslims indulged in their worship. The Blue Mosque was built to out-stupendify this place, even though the Hagia Sophia had already been co-opted and turned into a mosque, but one-upping this place was no small ambition. Because of the openness and the incongruities of the Muslim decorations, this place was as impressive to me as the cathedrals in Sevilla and Leon. The second picture above is the Christian emperor's modest effort to have himself and his empress included as BFF's of the Holy Family, but at least now we know what they looked like, or what they wanted us to think they looked like. The third picture is to help you picture our challenge in wrapping our minds around the concept of Arabic-language stained glass. The altar cat was included at Annabel's insistence. Believe it or not, there are more cats in Istanbul than in Paros or Athens. They seem to have free passage
[Excuse me, I heard a scream from the bedroom, and went running. Had to kill a cockroach. Took some time. Spilled some water on Alex's bedside table in the process. But everything's okay now. I'm back.
Oh, and the power went out on our block and the neighboring one this evening, for at least half an hour. Made me feel oddly at home. That said, a darkened Athens neighborhood is quite a bit different from a darkened Fairbanks neighborhood.
Where were we?]
everywhere. Annabel is entranced and entertained and never tires of seeing cats, and more cats, and MORE cats. I'm a little tired of them. (But that didn't keep me from making a fool of myself to the non-English-speaking waiter on our last night in Istanbul, after the busboy threw out the leftovers Annabel had wrapped up for her favorite cat by our hotel. I'll let Annabel act out this story for you, next time she sees you.)
After the church, the mosque. They're close together, the latter built, as I said, in very deliberate competition with the thirteeth-century pride of the Christian world. Here's a view of the mosque from the window of the church. Oh, and while I'm at it, another shot inside the church.
Did I mention the bad weather? It's only mildly bad at this point, spitting rain off and on, and chilly. Later it was truly awful. But you can see some of the sky in the first picture.
If you look closely at the floor in the center-bottom of the second picture, you'll see a chunk of rock that fell from the reconstruction work going on outside the top window, bounced on the scaffolding, bounced through the open panes in that top window, and dropped towards the head of an unsuspecting tourist. I think I was the only person to realize what was happening, and yelled something stupid, like "Heads up!" at which he completely failed to protect his head in any way or to move from the spot he was on. Luckily the stone missed him by a couple of feet. I think the security guard in the bottom picture may have said something afterwards to the workers. But perhaps not. I guess it's in God's hands, one god or another.
Actually, come to think of it, in this case it's the same god, just different prophets. I'm still a little obsessed with my theories about Greeks being pagans at heart. Have I explained those theories to you yet? In any event, the Turks are very much Muslims. Perhaps you can tell from the first picture below why they call this particular place of worship "the Blue Mosque."
It's all a bit dim from the poor weather, and of course no flash allowed, and of course no shoes and us infidels restricted to certain parts, but it was still a very impressive experience.
But perhaps I need to go keep my slightly creeped-out wife company now, and continue this tomorrow. Don't you think that would be a good idea? I'll leave you with a very dark picture of Annabel and me. the three of us had the glassed-in terrace to ourselves, with an amazing view, and when the call to prayer began, both from the Blue Mosque there in the background and two other smaller and closer mosques, and they cut the music in the restaurant, it was a very moving experience. Don't be fooled by Annabel's irreverent pose--this was taken just before we were struck silent by the amplified voices of the cantors taking their turns at letting people know it was once again time to be thinking about God.
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