Out on the town

With the help of a few fellow Oles here on Term in the Middle East, I spent all day yesterday gallivanting about town.  We started in the Old City where we wound our way through the maze of the Grand Bazaar. It was like nothing I have ever seen in that it was so fabulously kitsch that it is indescribable.  Imagine if you will the offspring of the Mall of America, a flee market, the State Fair, and a tacky yard sale.  Around each bend is a district to be discovered.  There is an antique book district, a leather district, an antique district, a purse district, a gold district, a silver district, and the list could go on and on.  Eventually we made it out of the Bazaar and into a little street cafe where several blonde haired totally "inconspicuous"  St Olaf people invited us to the Istanbul Modern Art Museum.  

So back across the Bosporus and onto a very packed tram where the cultural preference for not wearing deodorant was more than slightly obvious.  The Museum was in a very cool converted warehouse on the water.  And it was free.  So all and all it made for pretty cool experience.  

We made our way up to Taksim square where it seems all of the Turks under 30 descend as the sun sets.  In a very busy restaurant we had dinner and wonderfully sticky sweet baklava with petite cups of Turkish tea.   After dinner we found ourselves swept up in the sea of chic 20 something Mediterranean people walking up and down Taksim and ended our day with drinks on a rooftop bar that had the perfect ambience of dim lighting, wreaths of cigarette smoke that would have been tacky state side but here seem somehow cool and fashion forward, and a breathtaking view of this city that stretches forever in every direction.  

 

Peace & Love