Text 5151, 77 rader
Skriven 2010-12-22 07:07:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: roman & islamic 911
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The day started out moist, as the previous one had ended.
Gradually the rains abated, and it was just a little misty
and squishy when it was time to walk to Yerebatan Cistern
(the famous underground reservoir built by Trajan or
somesuch megalomaniac emperor) to meet our friends at 10.

We got there a bit early and wandered around, thereby
getting to endure two impassioned appeals from the carpet
seller nearest the attraction.

The cistern is really enjoyable: atmospherically lit, just a
little spooky; and, as it was made quickly out of salvaged
materials, a sort of Janson in the flesh, with variations on
Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns everywhere to look at.
Two of the columns in one corner got pediments of recycled
Medusa heads, one upside-down, the other sideways. Amusing.
It also smells like a swimming pool, which, I suppose, is
due to the fact that it would otherwise smell like a sewer.

We walked our people to the Topkapi Palace grounds and left
them off around 11; being a little peckish, we tried to find
the place we'd had breakfast before - it was closed on
Sunday, though, so we spent a while looking at menus. We
chose Faros, a hotel restaurant right on the main drag,
which the map that I just happen to have beside me tells me
is called Hudavendigar Caddesi. Reasons: it had been open
for breakfast, which meant that the kitchen had probably
already been fired up; it was crowded, albeit with tourists;
and the menu had things on it that I found intriguing.

Being the culinary adventurer, Lilli ordered a cheese omelet.
It looked as if all the other women in the place also did -
next to us there was a 6-top of reasonably cute ladies of
various ages, the proprietor flirting nonstop with the whole
table during their meal, which was six cheese omelets, and
there were other sightings of same in the rather busy room.

I had mince and kidneys in tomato sauce, apparently a famed
Turkish dish and not at all cheap, kidneys not being held in
the same bad odor, har har, as they are in the west. It took
a long time for the food to come out, and I envisioned
someone in the kitchen washing pee out of the little organs
and cursing at the strange Asian tourist ordering kidneys
for breakfast instead of the much easier and more profitable
cheese omelet.

The omelet came out more omeletlike than others we had
encountered in this un-omelettish country and was pronounced
good. For my dish, the mince (beef I think) was gristly,
which I don't mind (what's mince for but to use up the more
dubious parts of a critter), but the kidneys (lamb) had not
been cored, a problem I'd encountered at fancier places but
that still is wrong wrong wrong. These came in a simple but
good tomato puree, sided with excellent mash that seemed to
be half butter and some wet zucchini under the monicker of
"boiled vegetables."

On our first walk through the Topkapi park, we'd noticed
the (then closed) Museum of Islam and Science; this day it
was open, so we went in. Most impressive in scope, but the
exhibits consisted of very artful reconstructions and
replicas of Arab-invented measuring, surveying, astronomic,
and calculating instruments; models of ingenious engines of
war and peace from ballistas to steam turbines; and plenty
of laboratory glassware. You do know what chemists do in a
situation where they don't know what else to do? They make
a rude retort. There was a lot of stuff, which we barely
had time to look at; but the stuff wasn't original, which
should not make a difference but somehow does. To marvel at
an elaborate mechanism and read that it's a model the
original of which is in the Louvre or the British or
somewhere in Hungary or Iran just causes a little feeling
of disappointment.

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