Let's Go, Jane!

I didn’t know what to expect from Istanbul, and to be honest, I was a bit intimidated going there by myself. My first impression was that it is visually stunning. It is a feast for the eyes, with colorful displays of spices and textiles and Turkish delight everywhere you look. There are majestic domed buildings built hundreds of years ago, some as churches that were later converted to mosques. My walking tour guide explained that if you see a dome with at least one minaret, it’s a mosque. The domes with chimneys on top are bathhouses, and the ones with nothing are tombs. 

The city is also massive. With 16 million people living within the city limits, Istanbul is twice the size of New York City. Between residents and tourists, everywhere you go there are huge crowds of people. The big city energy is palpable. I set a new daily record of 26,000 steps wandering the streets one day. There’s something interesting around every corner. It’s the largest city I’ve ever been to, but amazingly it’s not even in the top ten largest cities in the world. I’ll be visiting Tokyo in November, which tops that list with an astounding 37 million residents. Istanbul is unique in that the city spans two continents, Europe and Asia. It is split in two by the Bosphorus Straight, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and on to the Mediterranean Sea. 

“If one had but a single glance to give the world one should gaze on Istanbul.”
– Alphose De Lamartine

To the delight of my older son, who is responsible for the fact that my camera roll is full of pictures of street cats, Istanbul has by far the most cats, and the healthiest street cats of any city I’ve seen. There were so many cats roaming around that you would see them stepping out of a shop, or sleeping on the seat next to you in a restaurant. I saw one curled up on the turnstile going into the metro, and another sitting on a scooter. There were coin-operated cat food dispensers in some parks. My tour guide explained that if they have a clipped ear that means they’ve been spayed or neutered, which most had.

Like many things in Istanbul, daily life took a little adjustment—from the currency and the tap water to the constant surprises around every corner. This was the first country I’ve been to on this trip where I couldn’t drink the water. For the most part, that was fine. There was a water filter in the common area of the hostel so I could keep my bottle full. It was also the first country that didn’t use Euros. The conversion rate for Turkish Lira to dollars is 40 to 1. I am so bad at doing mental math. One time I looked at a museum entrance fee and thought, $6, how reasonable, only to be hit with a $60 charge. Which would have been fine, except I only had two hours to spend there before I had to be somewhere else. Another time I went to take out $25 from the ATM and accidentally took out $250. I had to use cash for everything after that just to use it up, and still ended up exchanging the last of it for Euros. 

Beyond its cats and domes, Istanbul’s food scene was unforgettable. I started each day with a traditional Turkish breakfast served by the hostel ($25 a night, including breakfast!). In addition to my usual free walking tour of the oldest parts of the city, I signed up for a food walking tour on the Asian side of the city. It was technically my first time on the continent, but I look forward to exploring Asia for real in November and December. The food walking tour was fantastic and we tried all sorts of delicacies, including kokoretsi, which is made from lamb or goat intestines wrapped around seasoned offal. We tried mussels packed with rice, wet burgers, manti (dumplings), fish wraps and Turkish ice cream. Everything was absolutely delicious.

After days of walking and eating, I treated myself to a Turkish bathhouse or Hammam. It was one of my favorite things that I did while I was there. Following a sauna and steam room, I was scrubbed, first with a kese mitt and then with a salt scrub, then massaged with lavender foam, all while lying on a heated marble slab. The woman then washed my hair, rinsed and dried me. Such luxury. I got caught in a warm rain storm on the walk back to the hostel. It was such a relaxing day. Another favorite experience was visiting the Basilica Cistern, built in the 6th century to collect and store drinking water underground. It was impossible to take a bad photo there, although I suspect the tourists using flash cameras somehow managed. 

There were cultural differences too—some expected, others surprising. This was my first time visiting a majority Muslim country. It was interesting seeing women in burkas going about their day. I saw one woman with nothing showing but her eyes, with a child strapped to her chest in one of those baby bjorn carriers. I saw women in hijabs out for a cigarette break. Speaking of cigarettes, Turkish men smoke a lot. My cab driver joked “who smokes more than a Turkish man? Maybe two Italian men.” He thinks the smoking vice is because they can’t drink. Lastly, I found the five-times-a-day call to prayer to be beautiful and soulful. One morning I woke before 6 am and lay in bed listening to the call as it traveled from mosque to mosque.

Istanbul overwhelmed me in all the best ways—alive, unpredictable, endlessly fascinating. I will definitely be back, as one week was barely enough to scratch the surface of this amazing city.