Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, June 15, 2007

We had to return the car today, but there was no way I was going to drive in this city. I called the rental agency and they sent someone over to pick it up. When he checked the car, he asked where the license plate was. He said he would have to charge me 60 YTL for the plate. I told him it was their fault that it is lost. If they had given me the car and failed to put oil in the engine and it had broken down or if they had failed to tighten the bolts on the wheels and the wheel had fallen off, it would be no different. Finally, he said they would be charging it to my charge card regardless of my protests.

When we had dispensed with the car, we set out for the train station, where we visited the tourist office to get a map, and where we bought our tickets for the overnight train to Thessaloniki for our departure the following Monday night. Our plan was to see a few sights today, but we were foiled. We walked to the Topkapi palace to see how the Sultans lived; you just can't see 500 rooms in a couple of hours.

First we strolled through the gardens, which are now public parks. Huge sycamore trees shaded the paths, and purple hydrangias were everywhere. Walking from courtyard to courtyard and pavillion to pavillion with our mouths hanging open, we could barely imagine the luxury in which these pashas lived. While the Europeans were inventing perfume to cover up the smells of their bodies, the pashas were bathing 2 and 3 times a day in their luxurious bath rooms. Well, “rooms” were actually bath wings. The bathing facilities took up multiple rooms.

The kitchens were very interesting. The palace staff cooked for the thousands that lived at court, and also from time to time for the returning soldiers. The story goes that the soldiers were paid 4 times a year, and offered dinner at the same time. If they were satisfied with their wages, then they ate their dinners with gusto. If they were dissatisfied, they might not eat anything, depending on the depth of their dissatisfaction. Thus, the hierarchy would know what the state of morale was, and whether they needed to negotiate new terms with the army commanders.

Then we visited the harem, where the Sultan and his – shall we call it – extended family lived. Hundreds of additional rooms, swimming pools, bathing facilities, bed rooms, guard rooms, drawing rooms, concert halls, and on and on.

It took us something like 4 hours to make it through the palace, after which we collapsed in a park for an hour to rest our weary bodies. We left for the train station by streetcar in time to grab a light dinner at one of the sidewalk restaurants that are around all such European rail stations. It must have been rush hour, since all the streetcars were packed to the point that people were pressed against the door. We finished just in time to get our tickets to see the whirling Dervish show.

The Dervishes are mystical members of the Sufi sect of Islam. They enter a trance and dance, twirling in pirouets, literally for hours at a time. The show we saw gave them time to whirl for no more than 30 minutes. How impressive that was!

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, to try again for the gazillionth time to reach the relatives we had hoped to see in Istanbul. While waiting for the train to leave the station, one of them finally returned our call and Rosi made arrangements to see them the next day at 3:30. Back at the hotel we still couldn't reach anyone in the Mizrahi family.

We were determined to rest up for tomorrow, when we had a full morning planned in the Grand Bazaar.