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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u2026but before\nthe jeans, you should see how many selfies I’ll take, judging by how\n“untraveled” I am this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don’t\nknow Istanbul the way I know London or Paris, Rome or Florence, so don’t expect\nme to be a proper guide. I’ve only been here twice\nbefore. Once in 2004, for a very short time, the second time in 2013,\nfor another short stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now,\nfor nearly four days, I enjoyed a pandemic Istanbul, this being\nis one of the few, the very few destinations in Europe where, as\na Romanian, you can travel without any restrictions. (By the\ntime I left, only Turkey and Sweden were still on this list.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Divided\nby the Bosphorus Strait on two continents, which makes it unique, Istanbul\nis a city with a larger population than that of Romania! (I searched and found\na figure of about 20 million of people!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Going downtown,\nfrom the airport, I can see the urban agglomeration, hundreds\nof blocks very close each other on the hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Istanbul in\na fascinating place, with a history that would take you some\ntime to go through. Only when I say “Byzantium”,\n“Constantinople”, the capital of three empires, do I realize how\nmuch there is to know and how little I really know. I know\nabout Istanbul less than those who watched the\nseries “The Magnificent Suleyman”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one word?\u00a0Crowded!\u00a0Yes, even with this pandemic,\u00a0it seems\u00a0to\u00a0me\u00a0a bustling city, not one that is\u00a0kept\u00a0at home.\u00a0It can’t even compare to\u00a0Paris<\/a>\u00a0in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In more words? Mosques, palaces, sun,\nstrong spices smells, teas, sweets, colors, good food, seagulls,\nslick merchants and… Hagi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, and\nmany flags. Very many! At the windows of houses, on hills, on ships,\nin shops… I also have one, right on the balcony of the hotel\nroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nbalcony is the only place with social distancing, otherwise, there’s no chance for\nthis… The streets are full of people, there are queues at\nthe mosques, there are lots of people in the restaurants. (Okay, it\nis not like in normal times, as the souvenir shops are quite empty\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n “A\nlot of Russians, Ukrainians and Arabs” \u2013 a salesman tells\nme. “Very few Europeans.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitely,\nI can confirm the presence of Russians all over the place. The\nTurkish merchants try to attract us too speaking in Russian, which amused\nus at first, but after some time started to annoy us. We can no\nlonger make fun of this and I keep saying, gritting my teeth:\n“We are not Russians!” Can’t they mistake us for Japanese\npeople? J))<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking\nof nations, I have a dilemma: we met a lot of Turks wherever we went. Man,\nwhere are the handsome men from the Turkish soap operas??? Well, I saw\nin all the movies broadcast by the Romanian channels some terribly handsome\nactors, really! Where are they, as I have been looking everywhere for\nthem\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nwas optimistic that if I ran into a handsome Turk on the\nstreet, we would clearly become friends! As we have\nmany words of Turkish origin in Romanian\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’d meet at sunset, he would bring me a bouquet of\u00a0tulips = lalele\u00a0<\/em>(I\u00a0did not know\u00a0that\u00a0this word comes from Turkish!).\u00a0We would go to a dinner for two, we’d start with\u00a0some melted\u00a0cheese = cascaval<\/em>, then\u00a0some\u00a0broth = ciorb\u00e3<\/em>,\u00a0a\u00a0ciulama\u00a0<\/em>(a dish with meat and a white sauce) or some\u00a0sarmale <\/em>(stuffed cabbages), followed by some\u00a0halva<\/em>.\u00a0I would give rachiu <\/em>(an alcoholic beverage) my first try, to get some courage, then I would have invited him on the\u00a0divan <\/em>(sofa), I would have prepared some sexy cearsaf<\/em> (bed sheets) and the zambile<\/em>\u00a0(hyacinth) from the vase\u00a0would enchant us with their scent, he would be removing his salvari <\/em>(large trousers),\u00a0I would take off the ilic <\/em>(vest),\u00a0he would take of the ciorapi <\/em>(socks),\u00a0<\/em>me, the\u2026 etc. etc\u00a0and we would make a great chef<\/em> (party)! <\/p>\n\n\n\n And…\u00a0this is it,\u00a0here the\u00a0telenovela\u00a0stops, as\u00a0on the subject\u00a0I only have words like: “ageamiu, lichea, siret, tembel, zevzec”<\/em>\u00a0(a greenhorn, a villain, sly, sluggish, thick-headed) and I’ll only make a du\u015fman<\/em> (enemy) of the man before I get to make him a friend…<\/p>\n\n\n\n I stayed in the very center of the city, in the\u00a0Sultanahmet\u00a0<\/strong>neighborhood,\u00a0in the Fatih\u00a0<\/strong>district.\u00a0In that area you are just two steps away from Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and\u00a0the\u00a0Topkapi\u00a0Palace, to name just 3 of the most important tourist attractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it\nwas a piece of cake for me to be an interested and\nenthusiastic tourist. But, to my surprise, I also had\ndisappointments. I get there immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I visited\nit as a museum <\/strong>a few years ago, today I can see it\nas a mosque.<\/strong>..<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hagia\nSophia is near the Topkapi Palace and has been here\nsince the 6th century! For almost a millennium it has been the\nlargest church in the world! When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in\n1453, they turned it into a mosque, modifying it and covering all its Christian paintings with Islamic symbols. In 1934, Atat\u00fcrk,\nthe first president of Turkey, decided to turn it into a museum open\nto the public. That’s how I saw it. Marveling at the murals of\nsaints discovered behind the plaster or the Christian mosaics upstairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nyear I saw on the news that it was decided to return Hagia Sophia\nto its mosque status, but I did not think things would happen so fast!<\/p>\n\n\n\n First\nchange: free entry J. Before, you had to pay for the ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then…\nYou have to take off your shoes at the door. You put your shoes nicely in\nthe rack in the hallway and you enter Hagia Sophia, stepping not on the\nmarble, as before, but on the thick carpet placed over it,\nthe carpet on which you want to lie down immediately to rest your\nbones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone\nwears masks. And we, the women, have to cover our heads. Each of us\nwith what we have. If you don’t have anything, you cannot go in\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n An\nuncle disturbs the silence of the mosque with a vacuum cleaner he handles with\ntalent. It’s the time of the evening cleaning, as it seems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I look\nup, I look left and right, wanting to find what I knew from last time: the\nChristian paintings that could be seen under the wall paint. Pieces of\nsaints, of the Mother of God, of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No sign\nof them! And you don’t even have access to the first floor, because there\nI knew for sure that there are some more visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My God… I\nleave a bit upset. And of course, I look in my archives\nfor photos from 2013, when I got to see Hagia\nSophia as a museum. The photos taken somewhat from the same\nangles, seven years ones from the others, help me to solve the enigma:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look\nwhere the Mother of God is, up and in the back! And look how she is\ncovered now with some white scarves!!! I had not noticed these scarves during\nmy present visit!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found\neven clearer pictures:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Phew, it\nis good that they found this solution with the scarves and they\nhave not covered them completely!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably\nthe same thing happened upstairs. I do not know\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Towards\nthe exit, I became upset once again: I have not found the “column\nof desires”. <\/strong>It was a stone column in\nwhich there was a hole. They say that if you\ncan rotate 360 degrees your hand with the thumb stuck\nin that hole in the wall, then your wish is fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was huge\nfun to try the complete the rotation without breaking your finger hihi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nmanaged to do it in 2013, after many mathematics calculations, after\na physics, anatomy and aerodynamics analysis made while I\nwaited in line, because it was always a queue there J.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There I\nfound out about the legend according to which Sultan Bayezid entered riding\na horse inside Hagia Sophia, stumbled and, falling, he leaned on\nthis wall, right here. This was a legend that I could not find anywhere\nelse. But it is nice, isn’t it?…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay,\nback to 2020. So now I couldn’t find the place. So, no wishes this\nyear. So\u2026 I left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the\nexit, I remembered the enthusiasm of the\nTurks with “Hagi, Hagi”. Beyond their appreciation for\nwhat the famous football player and coach Hagi did while he had a contract\nhere, their admiration was also due to his name. As in\nHagia Sophia = Saint Sophia. Cool, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A\nstone’s throw from Hagia Sophia is the Blue Mosque, built over 1,000 years away\nfrom the first. Sultanahmet Mosque is its real name, as it had\nbeen built for the sultan Ahmed I, in the 17th century. But it is\nknown as the “blue mosque” because of the ceramic tiles inside,\nover 20,000 of them! (And I was complaining that I have to buy tiles\nfor 2 sqm of bathroom\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\ntwo mosques are connected by gardens where, if you have plenty\nof time, you can sit and read, nibble something or you can feed the doves. Or\nyou can listen to the way they synchronize the two calls to prayer\nmade by the Muslim priests from Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. I\nhave no idea what they say, but the way they combine is fascinating! It’s\nlike a dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nISTANBUL\nDURING THE PANDEMIC<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWHAT\nTO VISIT IN ISTANBUL<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
HAGIA\nSOPHIA<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTHE BLUE\nMOSQUE<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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