Back in the Q

October 6, 2008 | Filed Under Main |

Too short
Too short
Too short

Not the flying, of course. With the layover on the trip there and missing my flight out of Doha on the way back, the trips came to somewhere around 24 hours.

But the city is special and I had the best time. On Saturday, I did go over to the Asian side. Took a short ferry ride across the Bosphorus to Üsküdar and just bopped around for a while. I had no plans except to be there, so I just walked around, bought some bread and some honey and came back. On the way back, we passed the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, which is right on the water. So I trekked over the Galata Bridge to the museum. There were signs everywhere for a Dali exhibit and I assumed it would be there. I was wrong but the museum was excellent! Turkey produced some fine artists, including a very talented crop of surrealists and abstract painters form the 40s through the 70s. There were also great mixed media pieces, some wild video installations and a whole photography section (with some non-Turkish artists like Cindy Sherman represented). Spent a few hours there, went home to change and spent the night back on Istikal Caddesi. (Did I tell you how you get to Taksim Square? You walk straight up hill – like almost vertically straight up hill. And coming down is straight down hill. Don’t know how cars do it, let alone middle-aged men.)

Sunday morning, I went out into the park on last time. The usual phalanx of tourist groups had already begun, taking turns at the statues and learning history in various languages from their guides (this time, there was actually an American group). The last bit of fun was riding in a little shuttle van as it scurried up and down through the barely passable, intensely winding streets picking up airport passengers from the beehive of hotels around me. That thing should be a ride at Disney…

So – I sit here drinking my Turkish apple tea… and remember I didn’t get in until four this morning and still went to work. ‘Nite.

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2 comments so far
  1. Phyllis October 7, 2008 6:44 pm

    Kerry called me last night and told me aobut your trip. My dad spent time Istanbul in the early 50’s, and he always told us how much he liked it. And he noted as well that the bread was excellent!

  2. mburma October 7, 2008 10:45 pm

    And the tomatoes! AND I ate more grilled eggplant then ever before in my life.