Where did he touch you? Show us on the obelisk.

I finally put my big girl pants on and worked my way into Sultanahmet (old city of Istanbul) yesterday in order to see what the place had to offer. I started at the Grand Bazaar, thinking quietly that I had seen central markets in London, Oaxaca, Granada and Rabat and so this would be something like an amplified version of those. Not really, not at all, not even close. Sure, the main covered bazaar is a paltry 58 streets with a mere 1200 shops, but the bazaar district is a few square miles. So I lose myself, purposefully, and this time I don’t take my wallet. I begin to walk, boring quickly of the painted plates (this is actually a big problem for me, and I’m beginning to wonder if anyone out there can be said to be a connoisseur of painted plates, as they all seem to be identical) and move outside into the cascading streets that hock fake designer bags and enough clothing to fill every Filene’s Basement in the States. Everything seems to say “suck it, Mall of America.” I walk for maybe half an hour in the same direction and have yet to find a way out of the narrow streets when I happen upon the Spice Market. I buy half a kilo of Turkish delights, a ten dollar jar of honey (shoutout to my boy peter paul eagler) and some Turkish coffee grounds.

I was getting ill from all the commerce and was tired of being called out by venders who knew straight away that I was American (dazed expression, nervously calculated walking stride, orange shirt), so I bought a bottle of water and hiked to the Blue Mosque/Hagia Sofia area.  The latter site was 20Lira to enter with a queue outside the gate, so I decided to save it for another, cooler day. I saw the obelisk, stolen from Egypt, which served as the centerpiece for a now, regrettably, eradicated hippodrome. The blue mosque is huge, domed, spired and pompous from the outside, but is noticeably understated in the prayer area. I do like this about mosques, they have a degree of humility that, say, the Sistine chapel lacks. But humility doesn’t make for good sightseeing, so I went to the Topkapi Palace (a stranger had come up to me and given me a free ticket because I’m awesome), which was for a long time a kind of playground for arrogant and spendthrift sultans. As it turns out, nothing says baller baller like a bejeweled scimitar (one of these sultans reportedly stuffed a harem of 250 women in sacks and drowned them in the Bosphorus because they bored him). There was an 86 carat diamond there, about the size of a baby’s fist, no big deal. But nothing is above religion, and the most stunning pieces were qu’ran stands and water flasks (next to the baby’s fist diamond).  Then the view: golden horn, bosphorus, spires of other not-quite-as-big-but-still-freaking-huge-mosques.

I had walked a long way (I’m going to go ahead and put it around 10 miles on the day) and was craving a kebab. Picked an English-friendly place and was sorely disappointed (when it comes to food, only surly, mustached Turks from now on). Oh, and what’s the number one street food above bagel-ish breads, ice cream and Kebabs? That’s right, boiled and grilled sweet corn, because everyone in the world secretly wishes they were at an American State Fair.

I made Turkish coffee in the apartment. It’s good. Turkish delights are good too (especially the ones dusted with pistachio). I also found a gym, about 70 dollars a month, and not that great. I am very disappointed in Turkey’s failure to live up to my stereotype of it as the land of bodybuilding sultans. It is, however, the only current building with air conditioning to which I have access.

That will do, pig. Hope you are all well, wherever you are doing whatever with whomever. Hosca kalin.