Princes’ Islands Peace
Too much time in the Middle East has frayed my nerves to the breaking point. Nine were killed in terrorist attacks yesterday. Two of those attacks were in Istanbul. On my way to Kabataş Ferry this morning, I heard a bang and dove to the concrete; a truck had driven over a bottle behind me. On a […]
Drinking While I Can
With ISIS clamoring at the Syrian border and President Erdoğan at war with the Kurdish population of what should no longer be his country, things in Turkey are going to get ugly quick; I plan to see a bit more of it before they do. As a sendoff, Ayşegül’s mother Funda prepared an incredible dinner: […]
Sultans of Swing
If I have one takeaway from today’s Bosphorus tour and yesterday’s visit to Topkapı Palace, it’s that the sultans had it good. First pick of all the meat and produce in the entire empire, a staff of thousands to wait on you, and a harem of concubines for when you get bored with your four […]
Indulging in Indulgence
It’s not just what Turkish people eat that surprises me (like tavukgöğsü, a chicken-based dessert), but how they eat. Here, as everywhere, social life revolves around food and booze (or, if you’re religious, just food), but unlike elsewhere, the social ritual of the Turkish meal is unbounded by time constraints. In New York City, you […]
Jams
While cab drivers are the scum of the earth, and Turkish cab drivers no exception, occasionally you meet a good one. On the way from my hostel in Beyoğlu to my friend Ayşegül’s house in Arnavutköy, my cab got stuck in one of the monstrous traffic jams for which Istanbul is notorious. The driver spoke […]
Defenses
The lifeblood of a great city is its mass transit system, be that train, bus, boat—or in Istanbul, all three. While landmarks have always been a favorite target of terrorists, there is something perhaps more insidious about those who would blast apart the very veins of a society. The past four days, I heeded official […]
Surviving the Souk
The souk (pronounced “shook”) is a facet of the Middle Eastern city. From these open-air markets one may purchase all the wealth of the land: fruits and teas, cloth and spices, and a limitless supply of useless crap. Tourist tchotchkes, the same asinine t-shirts one finds in every global destination (“I Don’t Need Google: My […]
Secular Sophia
The district of Istanbul that was once Constantinople, Fatih is home to innumerable cultural treasures. The Hagia Sophia, however, is the only cultural treasure I still remember from AP Global. Though the current edifice was built in 532 CE, the Hagia Sophia was the religious epicenter of the Byzantine Empire since 360 (discounting a brief […]
From Gezi to Syria
Who controls the guns controls the narrative, and in Turkey today, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan controls the guns. I’m in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, where two years ago protests against the Turkish President reached a fever pitch. In the US media, which searches desperately for metanarrative (often at the expense of truth), the tendency was to lump […]
Layover
It’s a familiar sensation, if different every time: stepping off a plane into a new air, breathing in the temperature, the humidity, the vegetation or the ocean salt. I spent the night in Heraklion, enjoying one of those 19-hour layovers for which Kayak is so dependable. With the euro on the downswing and the Greek […]
