Girls Meets Homeland

I fell asleep around 11:30 p.m., just shy of my 22nd birthday.
I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and stayed awake until 7:45 a.m.
Street cats meowed at each other, fighting over garbage.
Around 4:15, a drunk man was shouting.
At 5:15, all the city's mosques turned up the bass for a crazy echoing adhan (call to prayer), which I recorded and sent to lucky friends on Facebook Chat. How's that for modern technology?  Beyoglu, Istanbul straight to the Core of Northwestern's library.

After hearing about my living situation here with my quite bohemian aunt, an Azeri refugee journalist she's been harboring for a month, and all the cats and minerets, my friend Sammie concluded I'm living some exciting new dramedy known as "Girlsland" - 'Girls' meets 'Homeland.'

Though this Istanbullu life features far less nudity, all the anxieties and enthusiasm I have for growing up are reflected in this city.

I was treated to a birthday breakfast feast including honey-soaked chocolate baklava, sesame circle bread (aka Istanbagel), lox, three kinds of cheeses, capers, tomato, cucumber, and more.

We headed off to run a few errands before hitting the big touristy sites of the day: The Hagia Sophia, The Blue Mosque and the Basilica Cistern - all in the Sultanhmet area.

Tramming across the Bosphorus, the day was already a lot less miserable than yesterday. Sure, it was cloudy and cool - but not nearly as frigid and moist (two words that feel as bad as they linguistically sound).

The Hagia Sophia dates back to 537 AD. That makes this great Ottoman church turned museum 67.09 times my age and effectively about that many generations old. The structure has it all - brick arches of an original mosque, marble blocks taller than my body, gold mosaics of Jesus, grand gardens filled with sprouting flowers and eroding columns...

As a history geek fascinated by interfaith cultural things, the ambiguous "Is it a mosque, or a church?" question baffled me from the entrance through the whole second floor. I left marveled but also a bit bewildered.

We headed across the street and ducked underground into the Basilica Cistern. I translate that as 'holy water.' Super unclear as to why Justinian had it built and why tons of fish now live in this great shallow pooled cavern directly under the city's busiest blocks. Two Medusa statues and more square footage than the neighboring mammoth mosque/church, the Basilica Cistern is a site worth a look.

When we exited, a friendly local asked us if we were British, told me I looked Turkish, and then informed us our next stop, The Blue Mosque, would be closed for a half of an hour. My mom and I then meandered really slowly across the street to a plaza with an impressive obelisk (intercultural history nerd heaven), and then lined up to wait for the end of the midafternoon prayer.

Following a crush of tourists, we deshoed, bagged our boots, covered our heads and ducked into the again very impressive architectural feat.

The Blue Mosque is not totally blue. The carpet had a lot of red going on, in fact. A lecturer sat at the front inviting all to learn the wonders of Islam, but he was speaking Turkish, so I had no idea. I was wondering at Islam just by standing there, so I suppose I inadvertently accepted his invite. My camera had died, which gave me a solid chance to actually look at the sites through my eyes and not a lens.

After exiting the touristy site, Birthday Girl (that's me) declared despite the 10 degree drop, we would go to a neighboring marketplace. Luckily, on the way we saw a real live TURKEY which has nothing to do with Turkey, other than the fact the two entities were co-existing. My camera luckily breathed a brief breath to capture this special moment before claiming to die again.

My aunt made friends with this carpet seller in the market who asked her to translate an email from Turkish to English. Weird, because we sat in his shop for a subsequent 45 minutes drinking tea and examining his wares while he explained everything... in perfect English. Habib was a nice man who admitted to not enjoying his business, and the fact that the vast majority of his wares came from other nations. I appreciated the honesty in a marketplace culture of tacky and cheap schemes.

Eventually, my mom bought a silk-embroidered pillowcase with my approval. We passed on the 1600 lira (885 dollar) bedcover and the 2000 lira ($1100) entryway rug. My 3 lira magnet mosaic has more value to me than those would anyway.

We timed our exit perfectly to catch a dazzling sunset over the Bosphorus before heading home to crash and make dinner plans (birthdaybirthdaybirthday) with my aunt's global non-prof consultant nomad friend in town.

I picked one of the city's most shmancy restaurants for dinner - Leb-i-derya. This place claimed the best city views and the menu, things I actually wanted (not kale, my so-far main food group here) - right for a birthday abroad! We ordered all kinds of yummy treats - spiced yogurt and salsa soaked nachos, pistachio salmon, eggplant with cherry rice, sea bass walnut carpaccio and cheesy red pepper. Even the bread and water tasted awesome. I recounted memories of all my best college experiences, from Paris to Evanston, and toasted to all the goodness that's ahead in life.

Glittering lights showed off more than ten mosques on hilltops, and thanks to the Kurdish New Year, we got a glimpse of fireworks blasting, between a maze of roof satellite dishes.

So, 22? So far, so good.