Blue mosque

Forget whatever I might have said about the Jumeirah mosque. Istanbul's Blue Mosque is the most beautiful building I've ever seen.

My first view, walking out of my hotel:



I had no idea those minarets were attached to anything so spectacular. My second view, the next day:



I was awestruck.









Inside the courtyard:











A group of Japanese tourists were doing some strange kabuki shit with their hands.



Let's go inside.











A man prays…



…and a child plays:



Later that night, I went back and watched the birds swoop from spire to spire. They spiraled up and down along the minarets, like the ladies I once saw gliding up and down a double-helical staircase at a castle in France. The birds put me in mind, for some reason, of the streamers that coiled and danced around the maypole at the Renaissance Fair when I was little.

Hagia Sophia

Picture it: Constantinople, 537 A.D. The hot new thang was a little religion called Christianity. Rome was out. The Byzantines were in. Constantinople was sizzlin', baby, and it was time to flaunt it, oh yeah!! It was time to build the greatest church in the world!!

Fast-forward a thousand years. Now the saucy young upstart on the scene – a sort of 50 Cent for the 15th century – was Islam. The Muslims were hot, baby, they were so money and they didn't even know it! They captured Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul, and it was nobody's business but the Turks', and the rest was musical history.

When they cruised on in to Istanbul, the first thing the Muslims did was convert the Greatest Church in the World into the Greatest Mosque in the World. And so it remained until the Turks made it into a museum in 1934.

Now, as you might expect, the Greatest Church/Mosque/Museum in the World is a bit of an architectural mishmash. It's also pretty run-down. Mark Twain called it "the rustiest old barn in heathendom," mocking all my attempts at colorful description with his total brilliance and proving one more time why he is considered the greatest American writer, and not I.*

So here are a couple views of Hagia Sophia that make it look like a mosque:





And here it looks like a church, complete with flying buttresses:



And here it looks like a battered old factory that will soon be converted into trendy lofts or an Urban Outfitters showroom:



And here is a picture of a tree:



I didn't really understand Mark Twain's "rusty barn" comment until I stepped inside the old barn. Birds swooped back and forth between the eaves. Dusky sunlight poured down in shafts through tiny, high-up windows. Horses nibbled lazily on hay piled behind the altar. Just kidding about that last one. But seriously, it's exactly like a rusty old barn, and though I haven't traveled through all of heathendom, I doubt you could find a rustier barn. Twain's comment is dazzlingly, annoyingly perfect! Damn you Mark Twain, you freaking genius!





With all the Arabic writing everywhere, it's easy to forget the thousand years Hagia Sophia spent as the Greatest Church in the World. But then you run across this:



And with all this religious imagery, it's easy to forget the seventy years Hagia Sophia has spent as the Greatest Museum in the World. But then you run across this – the most Touristy American Guy in the World:



You can't see it in the picture, but he was also wearing sandals and knee-high white socks.

* I'm not even well-read enough to have found this quote on my own. I read it in the Turkey guidebook. And honestly, I'm not even cultured enough to buy my own guidebooks. They must be donated and loaned to me. Thank you Kathleen, Andrew, Melissa and Tiffany!

Turkey

My last act in the Middle East was to see a different face of it.

I always knew that the Gulf region, where I'd been living, was not representative of the greater Middle East. Culturally speaking, the Gulf (UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait) differs from the Mediterranean region (Jordan, Syria, Israel) as much as Texas differs from Canada. Throw in Iran, Egypt, Turkey – Iraq – …each a culture unto itself, and you've got yourself quite a little rainbow.

But I didn't really understand this on a gut level until I visited Turkey. Leaving the desert and all the madness of my job and stepping into Istanbul, with its trees, cool air, and kind people, was like… it was like… I can't think of a good analogy… well, it was just absolutely f#©&ing great, and we'll leave it at that.


This is the view from near my hotel. It's the Bosphorus Strait, bisecting Istanbul, slicing the city neatly between Europe in the west and Asia in the east, winding northwards into the Black Sea towards Russia and southwards into the Turkish Sea of Marmara, out again through the Dardanelles into the Aegean Sea, and onwards to the Mediterranean.

(Interesting side note: Western Istanbul is, indeed, in Europe, while the bigger eastern part of the city is in Asia. The two are connected by several bridges, one of which was recently closed down so that Serena Williams could use it to volley tennis balls with some Turkish player. Bang, into Europe; smack, back to Asia; pretty clever, isn't it? When I heard that story, I realized that one of the sub-themes of my travels has been tennis in strange places.)


Another view. You can see the Yenikapı ferryboat harbor.

Istanbul's "Old Town" is a hilly neighborhood called Sultanahmet. It could not be more lively or beautiful. My first morning there, a brilliant sunny gorgeous day, I was walking down the street near two schoolgirls, about 11 years old or so, in their cute little uniforms. Out of nowhere, they turned to me and said, "Hello!"

I thought they were trying to sell me something. I mumbled a reply.

"What's your name?" one said brightly. I told her.

"Well, have a great day, Eric!" the other one said, and they both smiled big lovely smiles as they walked away down a little side street. I was dumbfounded at first. Then I was dizzy happy.


This guy was actually watering the sidewalk. They all were doing that. I don't know why, but who am I to complain? If it ain't broke, etc.



Turkish sweets are world-famous, and justifiably so. Little confectionaries were on every streetcorner. One place had a particularly interesting little treat – figs stuffed with walnuts and sugar. It was called…


No word yet on whether it works as well as the real stuff.

Now here's an innovation that could really take off in America.


These guys are professional Juice Dudes, and together they form the Juice Brigade. They whip out little cups and squirt juice into them from hoses connected to the giant Juice Tubs they carry on their backs. Is it quality Juice, you ask? I don't know.

Near my hotel was a giant oval-shaped walking park. The oval shape, it turns out, dates back to the park's history as a Roman chariot racetrack. Smack in the middle of the oval were two Egyptian obelisks, thousands of years old, covered with hieroglyphs. All that history in one place was exhilarating for me, having just come from Dubai, where buildings from the 1990s are considered old, and a big old clunky tower from the 70s could pass for an ancient relic.




Plus, they're just so damn pretty.

Photo survey - win big prizes!

Sorry for the slow pace of posting over the last few days. I used up all my "overset" (my saved-up stuff) and now I actually have to produce more. Oh, the great burdens of publishing.

Don't worry, I've got lots more coming this week.

In the meantime, please do me a favor? I'm doing a survey, for my own personal experience. Please browse through the archives and tell me which was your favorite photo. Email me; you've got the address.

This is not a purely selfish request. THERE ARE REWARDS INVOLVED FOR TIMELY RESPONSE TO THIS SURVEY!!!