Text 4958, 66 rader
Skriven 2010-12-14 17:40:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 885
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After lunch, we piled back into the car, wandered through
the old city (including Sultanahmet, where we were staying),
and alit at Eyyub Mosque, apparently a great destination for
Muslims but mostly unknown by non-Islamic tourists; this,
with the tomb of Muhammad's friend Eyyub Sultan next door,
is, if I understand Ihsan rightly, the fourth most holy
place, the first three being Mecca, Jerusalem, and I forget.
On leaving, he showed us the nearby market (for locals, not
tourists, he said - Lilli bought a rather nice pashmina for
five bucks) and attempted to teach us the iconography of
Muslim tombstones. There was an awkward moment when he
asked about our religious beliefs and got more nonstandard
responses than he would have liked. Perhaps as punishment,
we made a detour to Yedilkule Zindanlari (7 Tower Prison),
where he made us climb a slightly vertiginous stair with no
rail to the battlements, which we walked, and then down a
set of quite steep outside stairs with rickety railing.
Some of us found an alternate inside spiral stone staircase
that seemed a little less exposed. Ihsan showed us various
low points, including the imprisonment places, as well as
the execution room where various captives, criminals, and
even the odd sultan or three had their lives terminated. I
think perhaps this was intended as a memento mori and a
spur away from secular humanism or something - certainly his
presentation was. If he hadn't persisted in playing the
lustful Turk I might have sort of felt sorry for him in his
earnest wish that we repent our ways; but as it was I think
I laughed a little too much inside.

There was this big old amphora in the courtyard with a
catalogue number painted on it. Nobody seemed to have a
plausible explanation for its being there.

We had pretty much covered the perimeter of the old city
wall through the day, and there was still a bit of time, so
we voted to go to the famed Spice Market, which was very
like urban food markets anywhere, only noisier, more
crowded, and more chaotic. I'm not sure if the visit was
worth it except for the being able to say we'd been there,
even though a couple of us bought a few things.

There was a huge traffic jam getting to the Park Hyatt
(the designated end point, where Lori, Stacey, and Yen
were staying), so Ihsan dropped the rest of us off where
the road to the Hyatt turned off so we could walk down
Ciragan Street to our friend Andreas's birthday party.
Greg wanted to freshen up at his hotel, so our slightly
diminished party headed to the Kempinski, where after an
airportlike magnetometer scan we were allowed to go to
the bar, where we met Andreas and his friends Rico and
Ralf and spent an unconscionable amount on drinks - two
Efes, a glass of Sarafin Merlot, a Coke, and a fruit
smoothie: E100. We were served peanuts, chickpeas,
and other fairly tasty munchies, though.

It was coming on time for dinner, and the rest of our party
had arrived, so we strolled over to the restaurant area, and
guess what, they couldn't find our reservation; after some
mutual confusion between the staff and us the lightbulb went
on - instead of the hotel restaurant, where the prices were
high but manageable, we were supposed to go to the grander
dining room, Tugra, in the palace itself.

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