Food

Anyone who has worked in the Litigation Department at MoFo Palo Alto for any length of time knows about Bryan's food preferences.  You therefore would not be surprised to hear that we've been eating lots of street food these past few days.  Let's just say that we have not been sampling too much of Istanbul's haute cuisine!  Today was a prime example.  

The highlight had to be our lunch at the famed meatball palace Meshur Filibe Koftecisi.  This was a kick-ass meal.  We had the only two items on the menu: the white beans, onions, and tomato starter, and the meatballs.  I never would have thought that beans, onions, and tomatoes would be so good.  Fantastic.  And the meatballs were amazing too.  Go here! 

These rice pudding and ice cream concoctions at a street-side dessert dive sure were not bad either:

We also discovered that McDonald's delivers in Istanbul.  How great is that?

Going back to yesterday, have you ever heard of kokorec?  Neither had I.  Turns out that grilled sheep intestines chopped with peppers and tomatoes can be quite tasty.  Trust me.  Bryan was right on this one.

I am not sure what tomorrow holds.  Those of you who know Bryan as a tree-hugging, Berkeley-educated, Birkenstock-wearing, granola-eating kind of guy might be mortified by what I witnessed today.  Bryan wants to take our food adventures to new levels of locavorism; he's also expressed a new-found interest in an eat-what-you-kill ethic.  There's just no easy way to say this, but I watched Bryan take some target practice today on the banks of the Sea of Marmara.    

I feel bad for anything that gets in his cross-hairs tomorrow.

Museum Day In Istanbul

Bryan and I went to two of Istanbul's most highly-regarded museums today: the Topkapi Palace and the Archeology Museum.  We shared the same reaction to both of them -- for us, these were snooze-fests!

Topkapi Palace:  To be fair, this is much much more than a museum.  It is a palace that has awesome and spacious grounds, a collection of buildings and museums, and a series of courtyards.  The grounds truly are beautiful.  But the museums left us flat.  The famous and bejeweled Topkapi dagger was kinda cool to look at, and the huge Spoonmaker's Diamond (the 5th largest diamond in the world) was sorta neat.  But overall the museums were boring.

One other interesting part of the palace is the Harem.  It is impossible to walk through these rooms without being moved by the unspeakable cruelty practiced by the sultans in connection with the thousands of women enslaved for purposes of the harem.  The same holds with respect to the eunuchs.

The Topkapi Palace is probably the 3rd most famous site in Istanbul, after only the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque.  If you go, don't spend more than an hour.  And prepare to sleep-walk through the museums.

It would be nice to picnic or read a book on the grounds of the Topkapi Palace.

Inside the Harem

 Archeology Museum:  This is really a matter of subjective taste.  If you are enthralled with archeology, you might love this museum.  Many people do.  But if you're not so into archeological finds from Anatolia, the Middle East, and Istanbul itself, this museum too might make you feel like you've taken 5 milligrams -- or 10 -- of ambien.

I will say that the building is neat.  It was designed by the French architect Alexander Vallaury, who also designed the SALT building I mentioned earlier today and the Pera Hotel I highlighted last week.  And, there is a splendid little outdoors cafe right outside the museum that is filled with ruins and statues, and that overlooks the enjoyable Gulhane Park.  The cafe is worth stop, for sure.

Made by my favorite architect with a huge footprint in Istanbul

Returning To My Roots: Our Visit To Taksim

It seemed like 2 years. although it was only 2 days.  After a 2-day absence from the epicenter know as Taksim Squre, Bryan and I went up to Taksim for a visit after our extremely full day of seeing some other sights.   It was great to be back.

Things were calm today.  After I introduced Bryan to some of the guys and gals, we strolled around and surveyed the scene.  As you maybe have seen on the news, the protesters at Taksim are giving the Turkish government the silent treatment.  Thousands of them are standing in rows outside of the park -- which remains roped off by police -- and are lined up in utter silence.  We spoke to some of them.  Some came by after work just to show their solidarity, even though they could not stand all day.  Others were there for much longer periods.  It is an overall very respectful crowd.

Here are some pictures of the "Standing Man" protests in Taksim Square.  And, because the stills don't convey the full effect of the silence, I've pasted in a video as well.  (The only sounds and movement are from journalists, not the protesters.)

Our front desk guy keeps us updated.  We'll get over there ASAP if there are any big changes.

Cruising The Bosphorus/SALT/Galata Tower

Another full, sunny, and scorching day in Istanbul.  Bryan and I got out of Sultanahmet and saw a ton.

Bosphorus Cruise:  The first stop was a half day (from 10:30 to around 4:00) cruise up and down the Bosphorus.  This was pretty damn good.  The Bosphorus is the strait that links the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, and that separates the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.  It is a waterway that has played a major part in world history, and that forms the lifeblood of Istanbul.

Several friends had recommended the Bosphorus Cruise, and Bryan and I agree that it is worth it.  You get a very scenic view of the European and Asian suburbs of Istanbul -- many of which are affluent and picturesque -- you get to see the Black Sea, and you get to stop on the Asian side (in the town of Anadolu Kavagi), before heading back down to Istanbul proper.  Our only helpful hint is to skip the audio guide.  It is distracting.  It'll prevent you from looking out the beautiful scenery.  And it just doesn't work well.  It's hard to follow what's going on, and the descriptions do not align with what you're seeing.  (Maybe I should have gotten the Italian guide -- it could be better than the English one!)

A good luck symbol that you see all over the Istanbul area

SALT Museum:  What is this thing?  Gosh, it's hard to describe.  This is not, first of all, a major site.  It's not.  But it's an eclectic, bizarre, and interesting venue that is an amazing contrast from most everything else you'll see in Istanbul.  If you have 30 minutes free and you're on the Beyoglu side of the Golden Horn, go see it.  Oh, did I mention it's air-conditioned and comfortable?

So, after you cross the Galata Bridge and are on the Beyoglu side of European Istanbul, you quickly approach a street that was the banking center of Istanbul (and Turkey) in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  This building was the head office of the Ottoman Bank.  It is all white marble with black and gray to offset the white.  It's a classic, elegant, fancy, bank-type building from the late 19th century, like you'd see in New York or Chicago or London.  But it's not the Ottoman Bank anymore.

SALT now has art space here.  It's one part museum of Turkish banking history, one part exhibit on Soviet architecture, one part quirky art research library, and other parts very cool cafe and hallways.  All in all, although I have no idea really why anyone would go here, it was one of my favorite buildings ever.  It's even air-conditioned and comfortable.

Galata Tower (Revisited):  I went here last Saturday.  But Bryan had not been here yet, and it's a place that offers maybe the best views of Istanbul's famed skyline.  Truthfully, my second visit here was way better than my first.  It was incredibly sunny today, while it was overcast on Saturday.  Plus, the views are so much better after you've taken in Sultanahmet, and have a real feel for the mosques of which you'll have such grand views.  I went up to the top of the Galata Tower a bit too early the first time.

Hitting Istanbul's Major Attractions

Bryan and I have spent the past day+ hitting many of the more headline sites in Istanbul.  There's a lot to see, but much of it is concentrated geographically within a pretty tight area.  You can accordingly move relatively fast.  No time for extended commentary here -- you're heartbroken to hear that, huh? -- so I'll give you some primarily pictorial highlights.

The Spice Market:  A feast for the senses -- at least the visual and olfactory senses.  BTW, Geri, if you're reading this, get some air freshener before Bryan gets home.  Let's just say he made a few purchases.....errrr, a few kilograms of purchases!

The bird and animal cages were my favorite part of the Spice Market.  Maybe not so good for the animals -- but interesting to see.

The Sunken Cistern:  This is great.  A relatively quick place to visit, and it's a good 20 degrees cooler than the rest of sweltering above-ground Istanbul.  This is an underground cistern that is buried beneath the heart of Sultanahmet.  It's massive.  Very dramatic too.  Part of From Russia With Love was filmed down here.  And, I won't give anything away about Inferno, but I'm sure you'll see Tom Hanks down here as Robert Langdon in a couple of years too.

Aya Sofya (Haghia Sophia):  This is the stunner.  This is at the top of everyones' Istanbul list.  I'd say it lives up to the billing.  It's an enormous structure.  Get this -- construction was completed in 537 and, for almost 1,000 years, it was the largest enclosed space in the world.  The world.  The Aya Sofya was a huge Byzantine church, and then it was a mosque.  It has both Christian and Muslim art and history.  You can't believe how immense it is.  My only criticism -- and this is mostly for Shannon -- is that I'm not in love with the color scheme they chose.  I guess not that many palettes were available in the 500s.

The Blue Mosque:  The other must-see monument is the Blue Mosque.  Part of the wonder is that the Blue Mosque is across a plaza from the Aya Sofya.  They are a wonderful combo.  The 6 minarets of the mosque make it instantly recognizable on the Istanbul skyline.  The mosque gets its name from the over 20,000 blue tiles that line the internal space.  The inside is nice too; but it's crowded.  I think I may have liked the inside of the Suleymaniye Mosque better because of this.  

 P.S.  Another great breakfast.  The hotel fare is not quite at the level of The House Cafe.  But it's good!

We're still figuring out when we can get over to the Taksim Square area......  Our front-desk guy on the night shift was a protester; he slept there for basically the past 2.5 weeks.  He is keeping us apprised on the events over yonder.