pics of Istanbul adventures!

old door in the haggia sophia, built in like 405 a.d...
ancient mosaic of jesus and co in the haggia sophia. this really tripped me out cuz the byzantines (christians) controlled constantinople from its inception in the late 300s to about the 1400s. then the ottomans took over. they were muslim. as they reappropriated the city to their needs, the ottomans turned this church into a mosque and plastered over the mosaics depicting jesus and mary and everyone from the christian mythology. in more recent years however, they discovered these murals, which had been plastered over, and they restored what was possible. this building is now a layered hybrid. christian mosaics here. islamic calligraphy and architecture there. i've never been in a building with such layered, rich history before. i also don't think i've ever been in a building that has been standing since 539a.d. before (it was rebuilt after a fire)
stained glass in the haggia sophia above the thing (i don't know what it is called) in a mosque, which points in the direction of mecca.

view from our room, with the sea of marmara in the background. we listen to the extremely loud foghorn disclaimers of container ships a half mile long as they come out of the "golden horn", the river that connects the sea of marmara and the mediterranean to the black sea to the north. it really drives home what a crossroads istanbul is, where asia meets europe.
this was in the Topkapi Palace, outside of the exhibit of religious relics from the Prophets that tripped me out so much. i wish i had done a better job of capturing the intricacy of the tilework
hand-painted Turkish tile and pottery. I'm coming back to Istanbul someday after I buy a house and I'm ready for some dinner plates.

for my mom's door collection. in the topkapi palace

this was the cafe/ hotel we read about and found. Fancy velvet furniture like my friends' grandparents had, growing up and about 1,000 10 watt lamps hanging from the ceiling clear across 3 rooms. It was pretty mood-altering. This is where we got the zucchini pancakes

Lo, and behold, the Zucchini pancakes!

A woman working on a turkish rug by hand in a rug shop. Said it would take one loom-worker over 16 months to make one full-sized rug. No wonder they are so expensive. And if they are made well and with quality materials, they only increase in value over time. Forget flipping houses. I'm going to start buying Turkish rugs as an investment.

This is down inside the basillica cistern. The Byzantines build this underground holding room for fresh water brought in on aqueducts. It was built right under the center of the city, like 1500 years ago. Never discovered by the Ottomans. It was not discovered until 1950 when a French archeologist noticed locals dipping buckets into holes in their floors and catching fish mysteriously swimming around underneath their houses. Its a gigantic complex with some 300 pillars supporting this huge underground pool with literally a city built on top of it. One thousand, five hundred years later and Bostonians can barely get the big dig right. Those are carp swimming around in the water in the foreground. They get big down there and have never seen the light of day.
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Thats my man. Street vendor juicing up fresh made, hand pressed pomegranate juice. Jesus, I hope they do this in Armenia. Because this stuff is ruby-liquid goodness.
Dessert one night in a little cafe. Flambeed bananas that were then wrapped in a crepe, cooked and then drizzled over with chocolate sauce. Man.

So this is a beautiful example of turkish coffee. Traditionally, it comes with a shot of water on the side. The coffee has the grounds in. Our first night, I had no idea what the water was for. My best guess is that I had heard that in the old West, when they made "cowboy coffee", they splashed some cold water on the top, to make the grounds sink to the bottom instead of floating around and having to drink them. So I tried that.
We later found out that no...the water on the side is to drink before the coffee, to cleanse your palate of food or another drink, so you can truly savor the flavor. Now thats classy. Let alone, this one came in a matching pair of hand-painted cup and saucer. I didn't like it at first, but it is in fact an acquired taste...which I think I have now acquired.

I always, no matter where I go, appreciate a dope stencil on the street.
In the new part, Beyoglu.

On the upper right, chocolate covered, pistachio encrusted baclava. All the rows below are the various forms and flavors of Turkish delight.


hMore forms of baclava in a storefront window. Turkish delight on the lower level.

Me and Caity outside of the Blue Mosque in the old city. Something beautiful when its all lit up at night.

Caity with the requisite head covering inside the inner courtyard of the Blue Mosque. Women must be covering their hair and can't show any leg above the knee and men have to be wearing pants, not shorts. We didn't get in. Visitors (non-Muslims) are not allowed to enter while prayer is in session, I think. We'll try again tomorrow.

This was the first time that I felt a little closer to maybe being in a 3rd world country (not a bad thing, just different). Walking down to the egyptian spice bazaar, the road just stopped and turned to a muddy track, with smaller and sketchier storefronts flanking it. When we got to the bottom of the hill, they were re-cobbling the road.

Mountains of spices in the spice bazaar. You smell it, coming in, from a few blocks away, cardamom and tumeric and peppercorns and clove and cinnamon.

Mounds of olives in the spice bazaar. There were also stands like this with nuts and dried fruits. I got a sackful of dried apricots. If I tasted apricots like these in the states, I would be grossed out after assuming that they were saturated in some artificial sweetener. Because no apricot, simply dried out, can possibly taste that good. But no, my friend. They taste just that good in the spice bazaar of Istanbul, Turkiye.