Well, I’m not actually sailing to Byzantium. That was a poem by Yeats, and the seat of the Empire has been dust for more than a thousand years. In the meantime, Byzantium became Constantinople and then Istanbul. So, I may not be sailing to Byzantium, but I will be in Turkey for Thanksgiving.
And sailing?
Actually, I’m sitting in seat 38a on Air France flight 8058, an Airbus A330. The plane will be taking off in thirty minutes, and will arrive in Paris’ Charles DeGaulle Airport on Sunday morning. I have a window seat. I love window seats. I mean I really love them. Aside from being able to look out the window, something that won’t do me a lot of good since we’ll be flying through the night, I don’t have to worry about the person in the next seat inconveniencing me when they need to use the bathroom. Instead I get to inconvenience them.
Window seats rock!
That was seventeen hours ago.
I’m sitting down in a wonderful Istanbul family restaurant called…drum roll, please…Family Restaurant. Family Restaurant is on a little cobblestone street that angles downhill toward the Sea of Marmara. This section of the street is lined with bars and restaurants. Most have tables in front. Nearly all have metal or wooden stands out front that house the restaurants menus. Each page of every menu is sealed in plastic. Hey, it could rain. And every restaurant has either a Russian or Turkish guy who stands out to rope in the crowds. But it’s a chilly night and there aren’t a lot of people to rope.
This street reminds me a lot of Winter Street in Boston or one of those other old stone streets that connect the venerable Boston Common with the not-so-venerable Downtown Crossing. However, this part of Istanbul doesn’t have a shopping eyesore on the level of Downtown Crossing. What it does have is the Sea of Marmara to the south, the Grand Bazaar to the East, and the Hagia Sofia to the north.
The Hagia Sofia (pronounced Aya Sofia) is seriously venerable in the same way that St Peter’s, Notre Dame and the Grand Mosque are venerable…you know, old with style…kind of like John Gielgud or Katherine Hepburn. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora built it during the sixth century, a few hundred years after Rome was sacked and the Church was moved east. Justinian was sort of the last man standing after his fathers and uncles were done stabbing each other in the back, quite literally. He fell madly in love with Theodora who had been a dancer/prostitute before she became the consort of a local general. Justinian married her, made her empress, and was smart enough to realize that she was a lot smarter than he was. Theodora was a Monophysite, a persecuted Christian sect that believed that Jesus had only one nature. So, when she became empress, life became a lot easier for monophysites. It was kind of like the Biblical story of Esther, if Esther had been a prostitute. Anyway, in addition to a certain amount of religious tolerance, Justinian and Theodora are responsible for a lot of amazing architecture. When it was first built as the seat of the Eastern Church, it was called Santa Sofia. When the Ottoman Turks drove the Christian infidels out in 1453, it became a mosque. Now it’s only a museum. A seriously big museum. Notre Dame would fit under its roof, and I believe it’s also bigger than St Peter’s.
But anyway…
I was getting hungry walking up and down the cobblestones, reading menus and talking to guys who were offering pretty much the same food, though they were offering it in different accents. It was 6pm and I was getting ready to walk back down the hill to Family Restaurant when this incredibly beautiful sound came rolling across the brick and cobblestone.
It was the hazan from the Blue Mosque giving the evening Call To Prayer. I just stopped and listened. And then I heard the voice of the hazan from another mosque. It was as if they were singing a round, like row-row-row your boat, with each hazan singing the same song as the other, oblivious to the other's presence. And then a third hazan’s voice came from the east, joined by a fourth.
So, I was standing in the middle of these bars and restaurants as the Call To Prayer came echoing to me from four different directions. To really comprehend this experience, imagine standing outside your favorite bar or restaurant, and having Ave Maria the Kol Nidre or whatever beautiful music from the faith of your choice reverberating around you from every direction. Or if religion doesn’t grab you, try to recall the moment in The Shawshank Redemption when Tim Robbins floods the prison yard with opera music. The heavenly imposing itself on the mundane.
Once the song ended, I walked back down the hill to Family Restaurant. I decided to check it out because Emrah, the Turkish gentleman who flagged me down (nearly tackled me), told me that the food was not only authentically Turkish, but his best friend’s mother was the cook. Emrah said, "She’s a real Turkish mother. She’s very short."
How could I turn that down?
I told him I would eat at Family Restaurant under one condition. I wanted to meet the cook. Emrah smiled and retreated to the kitchen.
He returned a few minutes later with a round, grandmotherly looking woman in a blue and white scarf. Her name is Senguil (pronounced San-Jool), and she is the mother of Emrah’s buddy, Kanan. How do I know that she’s really Kanan’s mom? Well, while Emrah was introducing me to his buddy’s mom, Kanan knocked over a water glass. At that point Senguil extended her stubby 4’11” frame and got into Kanan’s face in a big way. Aren’t mom’s great? Especially the short ones.
Emrah went over the menu with me, and I ultimately chose the sac kavurma, an authentic Turkish dish of lamb sautéed with onions, garlic, green peppers and tomatoes. I added a half-liter of Efes beer (the Turkish version of Budweiser) to wash it down. I asked Emrah if it was any good. He told me that everyone in Turkey drinks it. Well, that sold me.
And so, I waited for my food.
My flight to Istanbul was pretty uneventful. One Ambien and two glasses of wine, and then I was off to la-la land for the transatlantic flight. I changed planes at DeGaulle Airport in Paris, and then slept most of the way to Istanbul. As the plane approached Istanbul, I began to chat with Sybil, a Turkish woman who was traveling with her eight-year-old son. Little bastard had the window seat, while I was stuck on the aisle.
Sybil asked me why I was visiting Istanbul. I told her that I couldn’t decide between Europe and Asia, and decided to split the difference. She loved that response. Turns out she works for the Turkish Cultural Affairs Office in Boston, and they’ve been looking for an idea for a new campaign. She asked if she could use my idea. I said, Sure why not? But I told her I wanted my cut if they make some good money off it. So, keep an eye out for an that say something along the lines of, "Still Hungary? Too much Greece? Can’t afford the new China? Well, there’s nothing as heartwarming as a great big hunk of Turkey."
As Sybil and I parted ways, she suggested that I take a cab. She said the cab to my hotel would only run me about $12. That would have been the smart choice. Instead, I decided to take the metro. I successfully switched trains and got off at the Sultanahmet stop, not far from my hotel. It was a fun ride. People asked where I was from. I said, The United States. They looked puzzled for a second and then came to life.
'America! Barack Obama!'
Actually, they said it more like, "Barackobama!" A one-word cheer. Barackobama! And they cheered, "Barackaboma!" for the quarter mile from the Grand Bazaar stop to the Sultanahmet stop. Ten of them shook my hand as I left the train.
For those of you who missed out on my European journal, I have to tell you that I do not consider any visit to any city even remotely enjoyable unless I happen to get lost…preferably in the dark. It wasn’t dark when I got off the metro, but two hours later when I was still wandering around the crooked, winding…unmarked streets, it was getting plenty dark. A cab driver offered to take me the short distance to my hotel for a mere 10 YTL (Turkish Lira), or $6.50. Sold! He drove me for a quarter mile and then stopped. He said he couldn’t go any further because there was a problem. The problem was that he wanted more money. In one of my few bright moves of the day, I hadn’t given him anything yet. He wanted 20 YTL for the ride. I told him no. He held his ground. I took my bag. And I was walking again, presumably in the general direction of where I thought my hotel might be.
As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a wandering Armenian church group. Funny, how they're always there when you need them. The one English-speaking person in their group told me that they were visiting Istanbul’s seven churches, which have something to do with Revelation or the apocalypse, or something else that would have seemed a lot more fun than trying to find my hotel. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the area well. He asked whether if I was American or Canadian. When I said, American, the whole group lit up and started cheering. "Obama! Obama!" And when I left, they said, "God bless you on your search" and "God Bless Barack Obama!"
Funny how things change. Prior to my European trip, I thought of having a t-shirt made up that said, "Don’t blame me! I didn’t vote for the son of a bitch!" in French. Suddenly, it seems that it’s cool to be an America, at least in Istanbul.
Finally, I ran into Mario. Wonderful, wonderful Mario, who pointed me in the general direction of my hotel. Mario owns a shop that sells silver and carpets. He told me to come back to his store. He said, "I’ll give you a good deal. I won’t rape you on the price." So, while suppressing the 749 Turkish prison jokes that were dancing through my head, I thanked Mario and said I would most definitely come back.
I found my hotel. The room is small and I have a twin bed, but it will do.
And now, my food has arrived. The sac kavurma has been placed on my table in a covered, brass bowl. Kanan adjusted the flame underneath it and let it cook for five minutes. And the sac kavurma? It was great.
Funny thing is that I almost went to the restaurant across the street. From a distance, it looked like the sign said, House of Zeligman. Turns out it really said, House of Zeugma. I think I need new glasses. Meanwhile, two 75-ish Scottish grandmothers are in the corner of Family Resaurant, getting boozy over a bottle of wine. They’re giggling while telling stories about how they’ve been leaving their mark all over Europe.
And on that note…
That’s all for today. I’m eight hours ahead of you, and it’s time for bed.
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