Istanbul sketch

By Marc Ethier

Gather Correspondent

Our last day in Istanbul and we have clouds, and rain, for the first time. We duck into a coffee shop and watch the storm through tall double-pane windows.

Black clouds and thunder. The steep cobblestone streets are alley-narrow and become slick in the soft rain. Grey water puddles outside the window, splashed by taxi wheels and the sandals of passersby.

Looking out the window at the bread sellers. Blue walls and orange windowpanes of a neighboring building. Strato-cumulus roiling overhead. The hours pass in the coffee joint, a comfortable woodpaneled lounge owned by an expat Albertan, listening to Neil Young, the Tragically Hip, the Beatles. “Oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go.”

The rain slackens, then picks up: the first in a week: a group of young women in bright headscarves running across the road, scurrying into a doorway laughing.

A brown-mottled cat slips under a garden gate and stalks between parked cars, hunting birds. Pigeons on solo missions, grey-cloaked ravens in the splay-leaved fig trees. Sparrows pecking at unripe oranges and fallen plums, messy mulberries.

The minarets of the Blue Mosque broadcast prayer from multiple megaphones. The rain slows, stops: the sun comes out: heat returns, blowing away the cool breeze in an oven gust.

The rain is gone quickly. The black clouds give way to blue skies.

We walk around town, around Istanbul, taking it in as if for the first time, though we’ve been here four days. As the prayer fades Turkish music from a nearby café fills the emptiness. Smell of cheese and bread and roasting meat. Sounds of traffic and commerce. Water sellers, two bottles for a lira.

A tour bus somehow navigates the tight corners of each intersection without swiping the parked cars that fill every conceivable space. And another, and another: the buses are endless. Faces behind tinted windows, air-conditioned faces, staring out.

A crumbling Roman battlement rears up to cut off the street. Carpet touts: “Excuse me, you want to look in my shop?” We stop for coffee: strong coffee, sweet tea. Back on our feet, we wander through the old city. It is clean and we fight the urge to be surprised.

A 5^th-century obelisk oddly bedecked with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Subterranean cisterns with Medusa-head columns, and schools of fat openmouthed carp in wishing pools. Opulent blue-tiled harems lit by stained-glass windows. Pearl-inlay wooden doors creaking on ancient hinges. Fountains, basins, courtyards, couches.

Emerald-handled daggers, golden bejeweled flasks, the top of John the Baptist’s skull and his right arm encased in gold, covered in cryptic inscriptions. A glimpse of bone.

Shimmering waves of the blue Bosphorus. Corinthian pillars holding no roofs. Lemon sodas on rooftop terraces. Cigarette smoke. Honey-soaked sweets. The sun sets in an orange blaze and every inch of the city seems to soak it up.

We descend into the broad boulevards of underground bazaars. Jali grillework behind blue, green and red stained glass creates a kaleidoscope effect with the slightest change of perspective. Shining varicolored ceramics. Rugs, rugs, rugs. Silver and gold. Antiques, faux antiques, watches, knives, canes, snuffboxes. Lighters and cigarette cases.

A firmament-like dome – like the evening sun – over the vast dark space of the Hagia Sophia. Koranic script on enormous circular wooden panels, suspended by chains high over the echoing space. Crosses and Madonnas peeking out from behind Mughal geometry. More stained glass. More foot-polished steps and hand-polished balustrades. Leaning columns – in 100 years they’re going to have a real structural problem, here.

Frescoes hidden in alcoves and no flash please, please no flash. And then, unexpectedly – a Green Man. Smirking mischievously, of course.

We leave by the night train. The smells and sounds and tastes fade. In the early morning we cross the border into Bulgaria on the Bosphor Express.

Marc and his wife, Lisa, sold their home outside Washington, D.C., quit their jobs and embarked on a yearlong world trip in September. They have visited Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia and India and will continue through Europe through September 2007. You can find all of the Global Nomad articles at www.twoheadedturtle.gather.com. Read more about their adventures at www.2headedturtle.com.

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