Friday, April 27, 2001 (Fini)

Travel writer Jeff Greenwald wrote that "Istanbul is the place where East meets West and explodes on contact." Unfortunately, I'm personally finding nary a spark—the most that can really be said, in my view, is that the transportation network here is fantastic. But, like the spectator gallery at the Puffy Combs trial, I'm out of order again . . .

In our final hours on Paros, we watch the sun go down from our dinner table, then trundle onto our overnight ferry. After a longish night on the deck, we arrive at dawn—and find Samos to look more like what I expected from these islands: forested (not rocky) hills, cobblestone streets, and a placid bay with sailboats. Nothing is yet open, so we sit quietly by the water doing nothing—a skill I seem to be improving day by day.

While a load of laundry runs (I was afraid to even take off the Magic Pants at this point, for fear they might take off and run away without me), I walk the back streets; and find the old Greek men here looking precisely like old Greek men are supposed to. After, Matt and I climb the hills that ring the harbor, levering ourselves out of the tourist conduit. We consider that, on these layovers here, we are basically doing what people aim to do on holiday, anyway: walk around, relax, get some food. In some ways, it's better—not even really supposed to be here, we don't feel bad about not getting to anything we fail to get to.

Back at sea level now and, looking at the inviting rocks, I realize this is my second and last opportunity to actually go into the water. While I pad around ankle-deep, Matt digs out my camera and catches me by surprise. Soon after, we find ourselves sailing under the Turkish flag, and leaving the Greek Islands behind. Onboard, we take up with a couple more Aussies—these two are just finishing 16 months working in London, and of course travelling around. I figure that 7 of the 11 people we've even talked to on this trip have been Aussies or Kiwis, which is par for the course. These guys are just everywhere.

Landing in Turkey, we find ourselves actually sucked all the way from the port, Kusadasi, straight to Istanbul, by the unerring and irresistable force of the Turkish bus system. First a pleasant but insistent cab driver assures us that it is definitely the bus station to which we want to go. We've just pulled our bags from his cab, when a bus driver says all of one word ("Izmir?") before loading our bags onto a bus, 15 feet away. 60 miles away in Izmir, we stand dazed in the Brodignagian bus station—for about ten seconds, before a guy at a counter hails us over and books us on a bus to Istanbul (which leaves in 12 minutes). Nine hours later, at the Istanbul bus station, a waiting shuttle zips us into town. Total planning and decision-making energy expended: none.

Once again, we arrive in the earliest of hours, and rouse a nice-but-dazed hotel keeper to check us in. We get a few hours of sleep and showers (we've been homeless for 2+ days!). Over coffee, I read in my Berlitz guide (which is no good, by the way) that Turkish may be distantly linguistically related to Finnish and Hungarian—the other two hardest languages I've ever tried to learn a word or two of. On our way out, the very nice cafe proprietor gently corrects my use of an incorrect "goodbye."

Touchdown!!! The Hagia Sophia is mine. Begun by Emperor Justinian in 532, this was for 1000 years the largest church in Christendom, before the Moslems repurposed it in the late 1500s. During that period, every time Constantinople was threatened, virtually the entire population would crowd inside and pray all night, before going to the ramparts. Unfortunately, at current, the exterior is pretty ratty/dingy, and the interior—not in the ballpark of most of the churches we've seen, to start with—is marred by huge towers of scaffolding.

We also tour the (smaller but prettier) Blue Mosque, just opposite; unfortunately, the interior here—also not a knockout to start with—is marred by big racks of electric lights, hanging by scores of wires from what should be a nice ceiling to look at. We then hit Topkapi Palace, which was home to the Sultans for 500 years. From a hill there, we look out at the Golden Horn, beyond to the Bosporus, and across to the other half of the city. (M: "Welcome to Asia.") Inside, the Palace has great piles of Chinese porcelain, silver artifacts, hairs from the Prophet's beard, and weapons—swords, axes, javelins, armor, flintlock rifles. I find the Sting lyric going in my head:

They say a city in the desert lies
The vanity of an ancient king
But the city lies in broken pieces
Where the winds howl and the vultures sing
These are the works of man
This is the sum of our ambition . . .

Continuing our tradition of intruding on other peoples' pilgrimages, it turns out we're here on ANZAC Day; which, we gather, is when hordes of Aussies pour in to celebrate the bond they've had with Turkey, ever since many, many of their young men died at Gallipoli in World War I. In a ticket line, I read the back of a shirt:

"Those heros that shed their blood
and lost their lives
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country
Therefore rest in peace
You, the mothers
Who sent their sons from faraway countries
wipe away your tears
After having lost their lives on this land
they have become our sons as well"
     - Ataturk, 1934

I found this more touching before I learned that it was the Turks who killed all those sons from faraway countries. (The Turks successfully fought off a larger British/ANZAC force.) I go out on a limb and guess that ANZAC stands for "Australia / New Zealand Allied Command." (Alex, the all-time acronym expansion champion, may yet correct me . . .) We chew on this odd phenomenon, along with our Turkish coffee, while the minarets echoingly call the faithful to prayer in the fading light . . .

Morning, and the Grand Bazzar is . . . a shopping mall.

I decide to give the Turkish Baths a miss and retire to a pub. Walking the streets, I cement my notion that Ataturk did his work (Westernization) well—I'm genuinely happy and proud for the Turks, but there seems not to be a lot of character left here, Eastern or otherwise. (Though, it's possible I've restricted my experience to a tourist ghetto . . .)

Tomorrow: I'm on a 10AM flight back to the States—and achingly looking forward to it. This is going to be my last big trip for some time; and as with my first big trip, I'm glad I've gone—and I'm especially glad to come back. Moreover, I'll be seeing the great majority of you reading this in the next few weeks—and am really, really looking forward to that. 8^) Thank you as well for reading along; as a special parting gift, here's a list of my personal top picks for these cities, should you one day find yourself in them. I've only made suggestions where I have strong recommendations (and could remember them . . .).

With fond best wishes as always,
Michael

	Wien	Budapest	Firenze	Siena	Roma	Brindisi	Athina	Santorini	Paros	Istanbul
Lodging		Old lady at station w/red sign		Hotel Duomo	Hotel Coronet		Hotel Carolina	Hotel Keti
Restaurant							Eden		Restaurant Aeoli
Gelato			Bar Vivoli		Tre Scalini	Last place before water
Coffee	Leopold's	Muvesz Kavehaz						Cafe Classico
Local Beer							Mythos	Mythos	Mythos
Neighborhood		Castle Hill	Oltrarno				Plaka
Spectacle	Rathaus after dark	Buda Palace after dark		Duomo	St. Peter's Basilica		Acropolis	In Fira, looking over the caldera
Museum	Upper Belvedere	National Gallery		Museo del Opera de Duomo
Cybercafe				Internet Train			Plaka Internet World

Top destination picks:
Budapest—soon (before it gets Prague'd)
Siena—in the low season (before April or after September)
Santorini—just when we went (April)