We've a Date in Constantinople

(Photos pending - sorry!)

...and they're waiting in Istanbul.

Turkey is great to share with friends - in April as well as on Thanksgiving.

The cast of loveable characters for our Turkish segment has doubled to include our dear friends "Wee Little" Anne Gregerson and F. Stephen Griffiths. Since our rendezvous in Sultanahmet, Istanbul, we've been having our fun and doing our best not to see the interior of a Turkish prison.

We've been enjoying a healthy bit of cuisine and nightlife with our new company - in parts of Istanbul, being an American traveler bears an odd celebrity status; the restaurant wait staff is attentive to the point of badgering:

"Where do you live in America?"
"Well, we're all moving to Chicago."
"Wow, I have family in New Jersey!" (Pause, expecting a response or hug, as if our lives are now intimately intertwined.)
"Okay, great. Well, we love it here in Istanbul. We're here for four nights."
"You need more time!"

That's probably true - in our first full day in the city we visited the fifteenth-century Topkopi palace and Blue Mosque, then spent the entire afternoon in the Grand Bazaar; while we enjoyed the rapid-fire sightseeing, it's it's best digested with some more intersperced strolls/sprawls in the squares, Turkish coffee, and apple tea.

The palace illustrated some of the more bizarre aspects of Otoman culture - we snapped a photo (coming soon) of the gents posing in the "circumcision pavillion" which is adjacent to the harem balcony where they sultan's concubines and their eunuch guardsmen overlooked a pol of jester dwarves playing in small boats. Yeah, that about sums it up.

The bazaar may be the most eclectic, colorful, and at times confusing market we've seen. Shop attendants shout:

"My friend, where are you from?"
"Hello, can I please show you something?"
"Can I please have a minute of your time? Just a minute?"

Anne and Steve seemed a bit conflicted at times; as much as Anne desired, she clearly couldn't dignify them all with a polite "sorry, my good sir, but we're just window shopping. Perchance on our next pass through this corridor, we'll peruse your wares," so this amiable Minnesotan had to politely smile and nod instead.

One lucky shopowner sang a different song: "May I show you how to spend your money on things you don't need?"

Anne laughed and quickly purchased a bracelet.

We sat down for supper in the Taxim district and looked hungrily over the apertif tray - hot "pide" bread, battered shrimp, babaganoug, stuffed grape leaves, brains, green salad... wait, brains?!?

We met our match and have finally drawn the line. So let it be known...

We eat everthing above this line:


Everything but Brains
----------------------
Brains


We do not eat brains. We did, however, appreciate the seafood service policy: pay less for more meat. They achieve this by serving the fish intact - you filet it and pick the meat out yourself.

Anne and Steve made us a small "Chicago packet" of maps, with their Wrigleyville pad plotted for our apartment shopping reference. We're pretty sure they want us to live slocally so we can cook them dinner. But they'll probably order cable, so we have our reasons, too.

Up next: Cappadocia, Central Turkey.