From the bridge at sunset, men throw lines towards small fish riding the tide out of the Black Sea, through the center of Istanbul and into the open Aegean. Some get caught on hooks and are carried straight upwards like a spider climbing its string, then get tossed into a white pail, which when full the fisherman carries down concrete stairs to where he can sell his heaving pail of silver slime and gasping gills to fine restaurants lining the lower level of the bridge.
We almost skipped this when I saw the entry price was $10, but Im glad we didnt. The Basilica Cistern is one of the most amazing things Ive ever seen.
Imagine entering a small, cement, single story building in the middle of downtown Manhattan, then walking down a long flight of stairs to the depth of the subway and coming into a single giant underground room the size of a professional football stadium. Thats how big the Basilica Cistern is.
I had no idea Istanbul was so clean and modern and so heavily traveled by westerners. If it werent for the magnificent mosques, hoards of delectable Middle Eastern food, bustling street markets, polite, yet classically eastern touts and sung Islamic prayer bursting city wide from loudspeakers five times a day, one might think they were in Paris or Rome. Like the fully western cities, Istanbul is loaded with fine dining, first-rate cafés, high class hotels and fashionable shopping. It has a meticulous city center, attractive cobblestone walkways and plenty high-priced religious dwellings and ancient ruins to gasp and awe at.
I try not to form opinions about a whole country, especially on a short visit, but my overwhelming experience was that people in Eastern European, especially Romania, were quite hard. By hard I mean tough - tough to talk to, tough to interact with, tough to get a smile out of.
Not every one of them of course. We met plenty of people who were friendly and outgoing; offering to help us with directions or give us information with a smile. But the large majority of interactions, most specifically with people in the customer and public service realm was a bit frustrating. Again, I dont like to form opinions.
Theres no highway that crosses into Bulgaria from Romania, just badly worn secondary roads. Where we crossed are a number of small toll booths to drive past. Most have pulled blinds and emit no light. Even if you drive by slowly, peer inside the dark booth and see no signs of life, do not be mistaken, there are people inside. And if you continue to drive past, a wide-eyed head, erect shoulders and flailing hands will suddenly eject themselves from the booth window like a jack in the box. You might even be lucky enough to have one who will blow a coachs whistle.
They all want to see your passport, to forcefully and theatrically push their thumb through each page, inspecting your previous travels, and then to again discharge their aggression in a frustrated and accentuated toss of your travel document onto the desk of their window, near enough to your waiting hand so that you might feel the air be pushed out of the way or even slightly, acutely targeted, be bumped by the thing.
Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life
by Gail Sheehy
The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary Edition
by Richard Dawkins
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