This trip to Istanbul was actually a BUISNESS trip, as I was meeting with a potential customer for my company. I am NOT the normal customer service person, but Belgium was close enough to “in the neighborhood,” that they decided to send me. They sent me and not other Daniel, because other Daniel is actually a lot better at the “installation” part of the job.
I won’t bore you (or break confidentiality) by posting any pictures of my visit to their laboratory, but after the business of the morning had concluded, they took me out to lunch, and you are DEFINITELY getting pictures of that.
We started with a selection of appetizers – dips, bread, salads sausage. All of this was just as amazing as it looks. And then – the meats:
I want to emphasize that my hosts were absolutely generous throughout all of this – they were constantly loading more food onto my plate, and making sure I was trying all of the interesting bits. The hospitality really was incredible – if you have a chance to be taken to lunch in Turkey by locals, do it. I was lucky enough to be taken out TWICE. (See tomorrow’s post for more details.)
Finally, dessert:
Filo pastry, honey, and pistachios, so a lot in common with baklava, but thinner and more subtle. Also strong tea and sherbet, which in this case means cherry juice with lemon and mint. A fitting end to a staggering meal.
After lunch, I was returned to my hotel to type up my notes, but then I had the afternoon free to go see more stuff. So stuff I saw!
In particular, I wanted to go visit the Grand Bazaar. After the prior day’s experience at the Spice, or Egyptian, Bazaar, I wasn’t optimistic about the actual stores, but I very much wanted to see the architecture.
On the way there, I snapped this picture of the entrance to the Istanbul University.
Quite an imposing entrance, that. Definitely fancier than anything at MY undergrad. The first part of the bazaar I explored was a street with booksellers, and that was lovely – quiet, shady, and with some amazing Arabic calligraphy on display.
The booksellers’ street was located slightly apart from the rest of the bazaar. As I approached the MAIN building, I was suddenly surrounded by fake handbags, fake perfume, and a surprising number of people trying to sell me socks, of all things. THIS was about what I was expecting.
Still, the architecture of the main bazaar, once you got past the sock merchants, really was spectacular. These corridors went on forever.
But after exploring the whole building, I wasn’t even REMOTELY interested in buying anything. Instead, I wandered off in search of a nearby geocache. After I got to the coordinates, I read the description, which said something like “This geocache is near one of the most famous mosques in all of Istanbul.”
Wait, what? Never mind the plastic tube in the hole in the wall – I want to see that.
This is the Süleymaniye Mosque, the one I could see from my hotel room. In addition to being spectacular on the inside (and far less crowded than the Blue Mosque), it also boasts an amazing view over the Golden Horn.
I exited the mosque by the back streets around the university, and had a nice walk through a student neighborhood. Hard to believe these quieter streets with people drinking coffee and studying were only a few blocks from the batshittery of the bazaar.
Not having a better plan, I just kept walking all the way down to my transfer station on the metro, which was easily another half an hour in the Istanbul heat. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was absolutely exhausted, but somehow still full from lunch, so I had a nice appetizer plate in the hotel restaurant and called it a day.
