Arms and the man....

Let me say that first of all, cops are the same all over the world.

There are a lot of different people in Istanbul.  You hear a million languages when you walk down the street. 

 I am in Beyoğlu, not in the tourist area of Sultanahmet where all of the historical sites 

are.  People here refer to Sultanahmet as Old Istanbul.  So much of it is overrun with tour groups, huge air conditioned buses and people with the audio guides that it can be a little overwhelming.  But we are all here to see the same things, so I guess that makes it easier.  Sure I could be a snob and say I am an artist and I have a better view of things but who wants to hear that, in 30 different languages no less.

So let me get back to the cops, or the polis as they are known here.  Like the police at home they carry guns but unlike the police at home they carry assault weapons.  Out open.  In the streets.  It is very intimidating.  You add to the fact that there is a very close relationship between the police and the army - essentially, they are the same thing.  So they walk around like they own the place because they kind of do.  The army has taken over the country to restore democracy a couple of times.  You really don't want to mess with these guys.  So when they ask you a question, you answer.

So I got up pretty early yesterday with a bad case of shin splints from walking the entire city over.  I was a little occupied wondering if I had sold some paintings to give me some additional scratch for my trip, which I may have to cut short because of finances.  I also was having some buyer's remorse about a rug I had bought.  I thought I would go for a walk and clear my head a bit.  I got a coffee (Starbucks IS everywhere) and a simit from the seller on the street and walked to Taksim Square.  The photos show Taksim, the Opera House and the Monument to Ataturk.  This is where I had a seat and started to eat my breakfast.

These two cops come up to me and say hello, in Turkish and I answer in Turkish.  Then one demands to see my passport.  I tell him I left it at the hotel, I had just come out to get some breakfast.  He tells me I don't have a hotel.  I ask him what he means and he looks at my outfit and grunts at me.  Granted I am not at the height of fashion, but it is 8 a.m. I have my mouth full and he is asking me questions and I am covering my mouth so I don't spit food on him (and I SO desperately want to spit food on him) and he begins mocking my gesture.  So I say to him, "Look, my name is Professor Steve Locke, I'm eating breakfast, I left my passport in my room at the Grand Hotel de Londres." and I smile that grin that every black man learns when a white guy with a gun is giving him shit.  It worked of course.  It always does.  Then I went back to my hotel, changed, and got my passport and my faculty ID.  Of course I didn't see the cop again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah he's just doing his job and I should have had my passport and all that jazz.  All that is true but riddle me this: If he's just doing his job, why is he making fun of the way I talk?  Public servant or prick, you decide.

After this I was very happy about the rug I bought.  At least I wasn't frightening people with guns.

Cause I'm a wanderer....

This is the view crossing the Galata Bridge looking back at Sultanahment.  That is Aya Sofya on the right on the hill.

Today I walked for about 10 hours and I did not get tired until I put the key in the door of my room at the Grand Hotel de Londres.  It was amazing today.  I have never seen such a place and I have never ever seen such things.  You see these things in books, or in the collections of a museum, but to see them in context.  It completely boggled my mind.  I found it very hard to take photos today because I did not want to distance my self from what I was seeing.  I heard someone say, "Wow, that's a great photo," while he was looking at something.  I thought, does he even see it?  It is right in front of him. (In this case, the "it" is the mosaic of the Archangel Gabriel in the secondary dome of Aya Sofya.)  At that point I really tried not to think about documenting or preserving.  I just wanted to look with my eyes.

I developed this plan.  I would take the time to go through a situation twice. Once without taking my camera out and the second time I would allow myself to take as many photographs as I wanted.  

So many different things today.  The mosaics at Aya Sofya and the Kariye Museum were astounding in their visual power, even in their ruined state.  The massiveness of the Aya Sofya on the outside compared to the empty soaring space on the inside.  The building is like a huge balloon.  I will go back and see it again (and again).  You cannot imagine the airy feeling of the place.  And it is made of ROCKS; lots of them in the Byzantine fashion.  The tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent and the mosque that bears his name.  The courtyard of the Blue Mosque filled with people answering the call to prayer.  Eating on the street just like I do in New York because the food is so good and so cheap.  Tea everywhere and every language spoken all over the place.

I got very lost and I did not care.  I crossed from my neighborhood in Beyoğlu into what I thought was Sultanahmet and got promptly lost in Fatih.  So many full sized billboards of women in headscarves and fashionable clothing that covered their entire bodies.  It was amazing to go from that to the stylish and beautiful women in other parts of the city.  

Tomorrow I have no idea what is to come.  I am thinking of having a tour, but it was so much fun and thrilling to get lost here I may do it again tomorrow.  I think I will stay on this side of the Golden Horn tomorrow and see what my neighborhood has to offer.  Although, I do want to go see the Basilica Cistern tomorrow, since the Blue Mosque is closed.

Leaving the Hippodrome today, a carpet seller chatted me up.  I told him I am from America and he laughed and said that he could tell.  He wanted to know if this was my first time in Turkey and I told him yes it was but it won't be the last.  He said I had a very kind and happy face.  I thanked him and told him that while I would love to see the carpets he had, I unfortunately had no money.  "No money, no honey," he said.  And we laughed and parted.

I think this might explain the staring.  At dinner at an AMAZING kofte house a number of people where staring at me through the window.  The waiter even commented, "Do you know them?"  I told him no, but maybe they want to know me.  He laughed.  Living in America, I am always on my guard against people looking at me the wrong way.  Maybe now, far away from home, I can walk around with a smile on my face and people respond to it.  Go figure.

Troy...the book is a LOT better

Anything would be a let down after Epheseus, but man, Troy is really hard to take.  First off, there is a huge wooden horse inside of the entry gate to Troy.  It is filled with laughing school children running around it and climbing inside it.  Parents surround the thing to get a photo of their moppet inside the Trojan Horse.  If you were expecting something regal and solemn (like Epheseus) here you would be sorely disappointed.  It is a theme park grafted onto a major archeological site.  It does not sit will with the visitor at all.  The entry is like Homericland at Turkey Disney.  It is a strange thing.

The archeology of Troia is amazing.  There are at least nine cities on top of each other and each one is built on the remnants of the one before.  It is not easy to believe what you are seeing is important since most of it is dun colored stone.  But they do a good job of explaining what you are looking at and there are a lot of artist renderings of what the site looked like through the centuries.

Our tour ends tomorrow.  We were supposed to go to Gallipoli, but our time here coincides with Anzac Day, which is becoming a larger and larger show of Australian nationalism each year.  The hotel we were supposed to stay at is overbooked so we have ended up in a hotel 50 kilometers from the town of  Çanakkale.  We are supposed to leave here at 6 am to go back to Istanbul.

I have grown quite fond of my companions.  The children actually behaved themselves quite well overall.  It is hard because they are the only kids on the trip and their mother (who is strikingly beautiful, I forgot to mention) has her hands full with wrangling them.  She does a good job with them.  I forget sometimes how an education can be a hard thing for the teacher and the student.  As much as it hurts to be asked some questions, I know that it is better that they ask me than someone else.  They have a fierce intelligence these two kids.  They are fortunate to have the parents they have and the brains they have.  I hope they look after each other.

As much as I will miss them, I am looking forward to Istanbul alone.  I want to know about the city as much as I can.  I just want to look and look and look.  I find myself getting caught up in figuring out tours and all that stuff.  Tomorrow I am just going to get lost and see what I see.

My city of ruins....

Nothing prepares you for Epheseus.  

It really is a place that seethes with life.  Not just the thousands of camera-toting, sunblock-applying, child-chasing, photo-opping, cell phone-chatting humans around you.  You are really catapulted into the past.  You walk the same marble sidewalks as people thousands of years ago.  You are under the same hard cerulean sky.  Your eyes hurt from looking at so many beautiful things.  Every time you turn a corner something more incredible awaits you.  You think, "Well nothing can be better than this!" and then you turn the corner and see Trajan's Gate, or the Celsus Library, or the Agora Gate.  It is hard to believe that one can see so much and still remain standing.

Turkey is essentially an open air museum of culture from major periods.  It's truly astounding to be here and to see these things.  The thing of it is that there is a strong presence of the Republic here.  You go into Epheseus and the two things that greet you are the Turkish flag and a picture of Ataturk.  You realize that you are in an Islamic country (secular, true, but you do hear that call to prayer, don't you?), that is the custodian of places sacred to the Christian, Pagan and Antique.  The Turks are clear on this: every sign says that this place is being maintained by the Republic.  It is a really interesting way to diminish the power of what you are seeing.  Even our tour guide sort of made fun of us for coming all this way to see stones.  I said to him, "Omer of course you must think it is beautiful."  He smiled and said that they are just stones but "these stones, unlike the ones we will leave, tell of the history, the personality and the mythology of a people."  I wonder what people will think of the ruins of the Trump Taj Mahal?

We saw the House of the Virgin Mary today.  Strange being there.  I went through quickly and was going to make my way back to the bus.  Then I started to think about my Mother and how she would have loved to see the house and how happy it would have made her.  So I went back and got in line to see it again.  I was going to light a candle for her, but I felt very awkward and stupid buying one, as if I was trying to look like a pilgrim.  There was a Christian Turkish woman and her children and she was explaining things.  I sat in a chair in back on one side of the door.  On the other side was a friar (a Franciscan I think from the robe).  He looked at me and nodded and I sat on the straw seat of the chair.

I miss my mother desperately.  I wish I could have brought her with me on this trip instead of bringing her memory and half of her DNA.  I tried to say a prayer, but it all felt rote and stupid, like I was trying to prove that I could.  So I just sat there and thought about my Mother in the house of Jesus's mother and started to cry a little.  It never really leaves you, you know.  It just gets smaller and more intense, like a mushroom cloud inside of that tiny silver ball.  She would have really loved being there so it was the least I could do to sit there and be a little uncomfortable and miss her with my whole heart. 

I thought Aphrodite was a goddess of love....

Well, things came to a head between the Indians and the Italians today. 

One of the things that happens on these tours is that you go to a site (in this case, today it was Pamukkale, Hieropolis and Aphrodisias) and then you get driven to a "special presentation" where you are offered high quality goods at a reduced price.  I am not certain if this is true or not, but the stuff they are selling sure looks good.  I am also sure that the tour company probably has some sort of financial relationship with the places we are stopping.  You can see busloads of tourists going in and out of these places, led from their busses like some sort or poorly dressed multilingual marching band.

Keep in mind that we are near the Aegean Sea.  It is hot and close here.

After the ruins of Roman cities and the AMAZING travertine landscape (click the slideshow to see the pictures of the landscape) we were on the bus to a leather shop.  Turkey is known for its leather goods from lambskin and they really were lovely. They had a fashion show (music:  Remixes of "What a Feeling" and a few heavy bass Turkish pop songs) and the models were very professional stunningly beautiful.  Tall and olive skinned and very chiseled.  They really were lovely to watch.  I did notice that we were locked in the room for the fashion show and the only way out was to go through the store.

Also, keep in mind that I am traveling with people who have an advanced sense of entitlement.

In the shop and plied with the apple tea that is ubiquitous here, we got down to shopping.  I tried on some jackets and became convinced that I really need to do something about my weight starting now.  Nothing worse than a chubby guy in lambskin, Mother used to warn.  The Indian contingent was not buying the prices convinced that they could do better in Dehli.  The Italians were shopping like mad and having a lovely time.  The minute the Italians began buying the music in the store changed to Andrea Boccelli.  They really know how to please an audience.

In addition, keep in mind that these are people who will complain about a $2 bottle of water but will drop hundreds of Euros on a leather jacket.

We ended up waiting over a half an hour for the Italians to finish and that is when the two Indian men went mad.  They really got in Omer's face (the tour guide, not the driver) about it and started yelling at the Italians to get in the bus.  The Italians did there best "no speakeh anglaise" but everyone knows that they do so it was not playing in Bangalore at all.  Once a few of the Italian women sat down for coffee it was ON.  The older Indian gentlemen started yelling and saying "Why do they get to sit when me and my family are rushed back to a hot bus?"  

The Canadian behind me on the bus took odds on the Italians.  I took the Indians because they looked scrappy.  I think they wanted it more.

I had a ball really.

One thing I was not ready for here was the staring.  It is not very common to see American Black people in parts of the country and people have no qualms about staring.  It is really discomforting.  I was sort of ready to disappear here, to fade into the scenery as it were but that is so not happening.  The Turks are kinds and lovely people, don't get me wrong.  The minute I tell them I  am from Boston their eyes light up and they get very excited.  The staring though, it really freaks me out.

Today at lunch I had to tell the little boy that there are a whole bunch of things that are happening in the world of the adults that do not involve or concern him and that when he was a little older, he would see that the world does not revolve around him.  I think this was news to him.  It was certainly a revelation to his family.

No one asked me why I am single today.

It's a small world...

The driver of our tour bus (Omer, not to be confused with Omer, our tour guide) is one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen.  I don't know what he is doing driving a bus of tourists around Turkey.  He should be a movie star. He smokes, like most Turks and I guess he doesn't want anyone to know. He is hiding his cigarette behind his back.

I want to go on record as saying I will never do another group tour like this again.  If one more person asks me why I haven't met the right girl I really may lose my mind.  It's not like home where I can just tell someone I'm a fag and be done with it.  These people exist on a very delicate surface called "travel," so nothing real is discussed.  The other day everyone was talking about the wonder of grandparents and the love of children.  I wanted to set myself on fire.  I kept praying that no one would ask me about my family.  I didn't think I wanted to be that guy who tells the truth at a cocktail party when everyone has agreed to lie to each other.  I hate being that guy.

Because children are the most important people in the world, my group has indulged the two children in our group.  They were playing a game on the bus (during our 7 hour drive from Ürgüp to Pamukkale) that spewed the song "It's a Small World" all over the bus.  There was no escaping it, so I put on my noise canceling Skullcandy headphones and listened to Branca Parlic and the Cowboy Junkies first album.  It matched the Turkish landscape perfectly and gave me a reprieve from the family hour on the bus.

Here are some questions that have come up:

Do you have grandchildren?

Are you married?  Why not?

Don't you agree with the church that Hillary Clinton would be a terrible President?

Why is your hair like that?

Were YOU a slave?

Did you hear the one about the Polish guy who wanted a burial at sea?

Really, you cannot make this shit up. I am traveling with 8 people from India (two older couples and a family of four) a couple from north of Toronto, a really delightful couple from Australia (she's a teacher, go figure) and two women who are traveling together; one from Santa Fe and the other Puerto Rico.  These are the people on the english speaking tour.  The rest of the bus is about 16 people from Italy.  We are in the back with our guide Omer, who has really been a love.  When the polish joke was told, he quickly stood up and talked about how men along the Black Sea area were thought to have little intelligence and were often mocked in jokes.  He said that the people along the Black Sea say that "We are so smart that we make up those jokes about ourselves."  He really did cool things down a bit.

The drive today was very long,   The country is beautiful.  The sights are truly breathtaking.  At a caravanserai, we stopped for a bite to eat.  The building was incredible and housed an open and covered market with a mosque on the inside.  Then we went to Konya to see the museum dedicated to the Mevlana, the founder of the Whirling Dervishes.  We know him in the west as the Sufic poet Rumi.  It was really an amazing place to visit.  No photos were allowed in the museum.  There is an enormous green cone over the center of the building under which is Rumi's tomb.  The calligraphic carvings are exquisite and the place was packed with people who were praying, not just sightseeing.  I was very captivated.  So much so in fact that the tour guide had to come and collect me when everyone was already on the bus.  Again, I hate being that guy.

Tomorrow is hiking in the travertines and looking at the natural rock basin carved by the springs at Pammukale, then Roman ruins at Afrodisias and then on to Ephesus.  

The little girl asked me if I knew Hilary Duff today.    

Balloon inflation, Cappadocia

Anatolian Balloons took a group of us on a tour of the valley via hot air balloon.  It was really an incredible experience to see the caves and mountains of Cappadocia from the air.  It was the most comfortable air trip I have ever experienced, including the landing.  Afterwards, we got flying certificates and the men from the company gave us a toast with champagne or juice.  The video is the crew inflating be balloons while we are waiting for a ride.  

P.S.  After admiring the shirts of the crew, one of them gave me the shirt he was wearing.