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October 28, 2004
From Constantinople to Istanbul
ISTANBUL, TURKEY: One of the best things about hanging out with Southern Europeans is that they keep very late hours. This is, of course, because the middle of the day is too hot to do anything. In fact, Beograd and Sarajevo are dead before 10AM, but humming at 10PM, with shops typically closed for four hours after noon. I am consistantly amazed to see banks open at 8PM. This all appears true in Istanbul as well. I spent this evening at the Hippodrome, a giant outdoor carnival. (Phinneas T. Barnum appropriated the name for his circus building.) This original Hippodrome, the centre of life in this city since the fourth century, is dead by day when the tourists are present, but at night it is choked with Turks living it up.
Hippodrome Observation 1: people here can't ride a mechanical bull. I've never seen such deep fear in the eyes of macho young Muslim males as when they climbed on that bull. Screw the tough visa rules and fingerprinting... let's put a mechanical bull at every passport control office and require visitors to ride it. Anyone who lasts 10 seconds, regardless of nationality, gets a 90-day visa. Knowing how to hold the cowboy hat properly whilst riding qualifies one for automatic citizenship. (These would certainly be Bush voters.)
Hippodrome Observation 2: Turkish carnivals seem far more enjoyable than American county fairs. I do miss the swine barn, but there is no white trash, or even slightly-off-white trash. The food is far better--kebabs, gyros, no-butter popcorn, baked potatoes, corn on the kebab (as it's called here), and even chestnuts roasting on an enclosed bed of embers. The lattermost smell absolutely wonderful, a smashingly rich aroma that also filled Sarajevo. Americans sing a lot about chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but I don't think many Americans ever experienced that smell. As you see from the list, the food is fairly healthy... no deep-fried candy bars or oil-soaked elephant ears here. I will again be in for a surprise when I return to the states, having seen so few fat people for 6 months. After a long day in the Paris office, the Europeans once gave me a hard time by playing "spot the American" from the back of Paris taxis. My European colleagues would point out every fat person and say, "that's an American." When the truly obese were seen, "that's definitely an American." Given that fat Parisians are as rare as optimistic Democrats, they were probably right. I was very worried when I moved to Europe that, with nutrition labels and low-fat options almost non-existant, I would be in for some rough eating. However, with Europeans' preference for natural foods and quality before quantity, eating right wasn't a problem.
In other news, I experienced my first earthquake, and less than 8 hours after arriving in Turkey! As I was doing good-ole sink-laundry, there was a spasm lasting about three seconds. It was a little bit freaky, but I suppose that if I had not been standing over a basin of water, I would not have felt the earth moving under my feet. I think I prefer the slow, predictable rocking of a skyscraper to the sudden spasms of a quake.
You may know that I keep a blacklist of companies I don't do business with. It includes Ramada Hotels (for assigning me a room occupied by a showering woman), restaurants that use hearts of palm (a rainforest product) and foie gras (produced extremely inhumanely), and Midway Airport (for being perhaps the worst in the world). Add FedEx. They have been holding the contents of my Belgian apartment in Memphis for 10 days now, all the while claiming it has Customs problems when it is really a FedEx problem. In the $5500 worth of stuff in my apartment in Belgium, I included three small bottles of alcohol somewhere among my shirts. Customs and the ATF have no problems with personal shipments like this, but FedEx does. FedEx even sent me an official US Customs form to allow Customs to seize the alcohol and allow me to seek "administrative relief" with Customs. But when I wrote on the form that only US Customs (and not FedEx) is allowed to seize the alcohol, FedEx finally admitted that it wasn't Customs objecting to my alcohol but FedEx, since they don't want to be accused of delivering to minors. Never mind that they picked up the shipment knowing it has alcohol and that I can easily prove my adultivity, as can the doorman at my apartment building. I don't buy many sovenirs when traveling, perhaps only one from each country I visit. When that souvenir is Norwegian vodka or a friend's company's gin, I don't want FedEx lying about why they "can't" deliver it.
Below in the pictures I've omitted the obviously tourist crap, because you can google it (try: "Aya Sofia") and see it just as easily, without battling the obnoxious crowds and paying the exhorbitant entry fees, which can top 20,000,000 lira. Instead, here are three pictures covering two hours on Kennedy Street.
- Turkey: Istanbul. Crowds of men gather to fish in the Bosporus, the narrow straight that links the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. The Bosporus was originally a dry valley. As sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age, the Mediterranean Sea flooded the Bosporus and into the Black Sea. The Black Sea, then a freshwater lake below sea-level, rose rapidly and flooded many villages. This may have been the catastrophic flood that inspired Judeo-Christian legend of Noah.
- Turkey: Istanbul. This is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen in all the world. The Bosporus is one of the world's busiest and narrowest shipping channels, and this picture of the San Lorenzo, a giant bulk hauler, speaks for itself.
- Turkey: Istanbul. Full moon tonight! By the way, you are looking at Asia. The picture was taken in Europe.
Posted by adrianjo at October 28, 2004 02:01 AM
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