Monday, April 1, 2013

Istanbul, Turkey

Tünaydın!

Good afternoon from the most beautiful city in the world. I’m basking in the spring sunshine at a little café in our lively neighborhood of Beyoğlu (on the European side of Istanbul at the foot of the Galata Tower) digging into a traditional lunch. The toasted nuts in the buttery rice pilaf are a pleasant surprise, and the yogurt, predictably, has just a tease of garlic but is chock-full of fresh dill (an herb that I hereby vow to overuse from this day forward). The sour meatball soup with chickpeas is my new favorite (which I stumbled upon recently when I swore off kebabs for a day), and it has just the right amount of zip after being doused with fresh lemon. Even the dolmas are yummy—my favorite version wrapped in grape leaves. Dolma literally means stuffed, so Turks refer to anything that is stuffed as a dolma, from eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes to city busses.

Jason and Spencer have been showing off their new-found talent for making dolmas, following their experience cooking at a local restaurant / cooking school earlier this week. The morning after their lesson, we took a ferry to the Asian side of the city (Kadikoy) to gather ingredients in the open-air market. Later, as Sera and I treated ourselves to a Turkish bath (hammam), the boys spent a few hours in the miniscule kitchenette of the flat we’ve rented for a week, madly concocting grape-leaf delicacies. Squeaky-clean, we returned to find a beautiful spread of the yummiest dolmas I’ve ever tasted. The boys made a few alterations to the traditional recipe they learned. (After all, if one clove of garlic is good how much better might an entire head be?) Jason just posted his version of the recipe here: http://www.thebigfieldtrip.com/recipes_turkey_dolmas.html

Next, he’ll be working on recipes for some of the meze we’ve fallen in love with. Meze are small appetizer plates similar to Spanish tapas (think purees of roasted red peppers or smoked eggplant, cheeses, olives, etc.) and are served at traditional Turkish taverns called meyhanes, which fill our neighborhood. Hungry locals lounge like Sultans on cushions on the floor or sprawl outside in street-side tables on warmer days, grabbing meze from waiters who wander with the selections of the day. Meze are traditionally washed down with boat-loads of rakı (a strong anise-flavored brandy), which is the required accompaniment. On our first night in Istanbul, Jason ordered a small bottle of rakı to share between the four of us. After Sera and Spencer decided that this was one local delicacy they didn’t need to partake in, Jason took one for the team and finished the bottle himself, once again saving face for all Americans (refer to chicken feet in Vietnam, snails in Spain, camel in Tunisia, dried squid in Thailand, etc). Full of new-found vigor, he then cajoled us into taking a quick stroll along the Bosporus (which of course, turned out to be another death march) after which we found ourselves at a hookah bar playing tavla (the Turkish tabletop version of backgammon) into the wee hours.

The next morning, nursing a bit of a headache and my first twinge of homesickness for the children, I ruminated on what a different experience it is to travel without kids. It does, of course, allow more freedom in so many ways (like being able to rakı-out all night long). But there’s something in addition to their companionship that is missing. When you travel with kids, they so often act as little social lubricators, making too much noise but also breaking down walls between you and the foreigners you’ve come to meet.

Jason, Spencer and Sera are off shopping today. I was relieved to have an appointment with a Turkish translator to use as an excuse to stay in our neighborhood for the afternoon. I realize, of course, that a certain amount of shopping is a required feature of any trip (since the children would not take kindly to our coming home empty-handed), but just the thought of going back to the Grand Bazaar gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’m not a very good shopper in the first place, and after factoring in the prerequisite haggling, some days I’m just not up to the task. I hereby make another vow: to never again take price tags for granted. What a relief it would be to see a price tag and pay the amount indicated without all the quibbling. Some days, when my mood and caffeine level are just right, the bazaar can be a fun challenge. Still, I’m happy to be sitting this one out.

The best antidote after a day of abuse at the bazaar is to reward oneself with a trip to the hammam for a steamy Turkish bath and massage. Turks use the term massage rather generously; perhaps a more fitting description would be to call it a fierce scrubbing. Either way, I find it refreshing as long as I go into it remembering that the goal is cleanliness, and that the experience will have very little to do with pampering. I learned this during our first trip to Istanbul. (See my travelogue from that adventure at http://www.thebigfieldtrip.com/travelogues_turkey_20091128.html) In hindsight, though, I should have warned Sera in advance since this was her first experiencer being slapped around by a naked Turkish woman armed with a goat-skin mitt and a pail of sudsy water. Still, she survived the experience and has recently begun speaking to me again, just in time to enjoy our last day here in Turkey.

I’m so grateful to have had the chance to return to Istanbul. During our first visit, I decided that this might just be the most beautiful city in the world. But when I reflected on it later, I always wondered whether the city was really as grand as I remembered, or whether perhaps my original bliss had been the result of the delirium we were experiencing after finally kicking the swine flu, which we had contracted in Bulgaria. Yesterday, however, my initial impression was validated. We sat on the rooftop terrace of our restaurant in Sultanahmet, the Old City, gaping at the view that stretched before us from the Sea of Marmara to the Golden Horn of the Bosporus. We were perfectly positioned between two of the world’s most spectacular houses of worship: the Hagia Sophia (inaugurated in the year 360 AD during the reign of Constantius II) and the Blue Mosque (finished in 1616 AD). As if we weren’t sufficiently blissed-out already, the afternoon call to prayer began, and rival muezzins (chanters) from the two towering edifices proceeded to engage in a magical duet over loudspeakers, like rival mc’s, filling our stunned silence.

That sealed the deal. Istanbul is hands-down the most beautiful city I’ve ever experienced. I’ll definitely be back.

Allahaısmarladık!

Angela