More on Istanbul

I'll try to sum up our Istanbul experience, though if you watched the Today show last Thursday, we were pretty much 50 yards (or a day) ahead of Matt Lauer. I will continue to go through pictures and put them up, so keep checking.

We saw most of the "sights" and were blown away by many, but probably the most lasting impression is of the texture of the city in general. It's clichéd but we haven't spent any time in a place with the skyline dominated by minarets, where five times each day the streets echo with calls to prayer, where many women are wearing headscarves and many men beards, where two continents come together, where two empires dominated much of the world for nearly 1500 years. We also haven't stayed in an apartment with a view of the Bosphorus and Topkapi Palace, on top of a working factory. On an off note, I'm not sure we've ever been so frustrated with our kids as we were for a couple of days, partly I'm sure because we exhausted all of us by going non-stop each day until about 11pm, and partly because it was all four of us together non-stop for 9 days running.

But it was really really cool nonetheless, and we'd definitely like to spend more time there as well as in other parts of Turkey. The people we met, even in the touristy areas, were as superbly friendly as promised, and definitely a real highlight. For example, one afternoon we visited the Caferaga Medresseh, built in 1559 by the famed architect Sinan for the head black eunuch under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. It was beautifully restored and turned into a traditional-arts school in the 1980s. We stopped in for a drink and had lovely tea as well as a superb chai-like drink we hadn't had before called salep and some awesome fresh-baked cookies. Our host, Choshkun (who introduced himself to the kids as Josh) installed us in a lovely private tearoom which used to be a sleeping room for the school. We sat and warmed up - it was one of those grey & drizzly Paris spring days - and he came in and asked me to write the boys' names so he could give them something. He came back with stunning traditional calligraphy of each of them, a skill he said he'd learning along with paper-marbling at the art school. He then showed us around the classrooms, where we saw people painting miniatures, making jewelry, marbling paper, and sculpting pottery. After we watched a woman marble paper, she gave the boys the sheet, which we brought back with us. We also picked up a couple of other lovely things. We went another day, had tea, and picked up a couple more things, then on our last night in Istanbul ran into Choshkun on the street. Actually, he recognized the kids, and fawned over them a bit before heading on his way. It was a nice wrap-up that reminded us how fun it is for us to not just go someplace but to stay long enough to make connections like that.

We're taking it easy this weekend, although our "yay, Spring!" five-hour picnic last night on the Champ de Mars ended with the kids worn out (again) and us tired and buzzed. Tomorrow the kids are back to school and Betsy back to work, but this weekend they all get another break thanks to V-E day Thursday and Ascension on Monday.