Istanbul - days 1 and 2

We arrived in Istanbul Monday afternoon. Here are a few observations so far:

Our tour guide: Liz is a very well-traveled 22 year old who graduated from the University of Minnesota and moved to Istanbul in May. She loves living here and seems pretty happy to show us around, even if Brian used to be her geography teacher. The boyfriend she met during a semester in Morocco was here teaching English before she came and found them an apartment that was built long before anyone used the word 'studio'. When we walked in the building, an old couple was fighting loudly on the first floor and the wooden stairs were soft underfoot, but the apartment itself has a new floor and some nice windows, even if it currently has no hot water. The cuteness of Liz's tiny kitten alone (and I don't even like cats) would make it worth coming home.

Our neighborhood: We chose a hotel in an area that is close to Liz's place and near the center of town. We are near the busy transit hub of Taksim and the bustling Istiklal street. Istikal is full of shops and restaurants and it's the place to walk around if you are stylish and out for the evening.

The food: On Monday we ate the best falafels and hummus I'd ever tasted. The street food of choice here is roasted chestnuts, cooked on little carts until they pop and the yellowy insides poke out. There are also men with carts selling orange or pomegranate juice that they will squeeze in front of you, corn-on-the-cob stands, and people selling bread rings with sesame seeds on them. Doner is everywhere, as are kebabs and a salty yogurt drink called Aryan.

The sights: Yesterday we walked from our hotel to the old city and in many circuitous patterns finding our way around. We saw the Aya Sofia from the outside - originally built as a church in the 6th century and later turned into a mosque, now a museum. Across the way is the Blue Mosque, built a thousand years later in the 1600s. We did go in the Blue Mosque - it was free. In order to go in, women are supposed to cover their heads and their legs. If you are wearing a skirt, they have small blue sheets to wrap around your waist. Everyone needs to remove shoes, and you get a plastic bag to carry them in as you walk around. The mosque was beautiful inside - all painted tiles and mosaics and stained glass. It made a church from the same era seem dark and clunky. Then we began a quest for the Basilica Cistern, which involved asking directions (unsuccessfully) from a chestnut vendor and (successfully) from a tour guide. The cistern is a huge underground reservoir built in the 500s from the with ornate greek columns, and fish swimming in the water below. During our quest to find it, we got to hear to competing calls to prayer from the muezzins in mosques on either side of the square. I am not sure who won, but those guys can sing. Finally, Liz took me up in the Galati Tower to see all of Istanbul laid out below us. It reaches on and on, over hillsides and up to the horizon. There are something like 13 million people living here.

I like this city. It's crowded but clean, and full of small winding lanes on hillsides. The skyline is defined by mosque rather than skyscrapers, though they have those too. People are stylish and diverse, and they cross the street by walking out in the middle of it until cars stop. It doesn't have the chaotic, harrassed feeling of Cairo but is more relaxed and feels cultured somehow. Today we are planning to take a boat ride on the Bosporous and then see where the rest of the day takes us. I would bet it takes us up and down some hills, past some tea shops and junk shops and fancy boutiques. Where else? I'll let you know tomorrow.