Years ago at film school in Orlando Florida I made a friend from Turkey. We have kept in touch ever since then by email every few months or so with random updates, which is great if you can do it. Facebook huge time waster that it is makes it easy to stay in touch with people but for it truly to be effective you have to talk to them too. So I've promised Mine that I would come and visit her for years now but I never had enough money for the plane ticket to Turkey. Now that I was in Europe it wasn't such a big deal so I had no more excuses. Istanbul is a breathtakingly beautiful city, as you enter you pass through series of ruins of 1500 year old walls that used to guard the city. The place itself is teeming with life, unlike any other place I have been it is as if the inhabitants live in complete symbiosis with the buildings and the streets. People live in every city, otherwise they wouldnt be cities but in Istanbul the people are the city ad the buildings and the streets and the trams and the boats have just as much character and allure as the people. The Bosphorus is the most alluring part, a huge waterway that connects the Mediterranean sea to the Black sea. Wide rippling and blue it is hypnotizing to look at. Ships pass all day and night, ferries and cargo ships sailboats and sometimes destroyers. Staring at the Bosporus and counting ships is a favorite pasttime of locals. The city is ancient and alive and eastern as well as western. There are many many beautiful mosques the most famous one being the Hagia Sofia which sits right next to a nearly as impressive blue mosque. The call to prayer is heard a few times a day and as each time I heard it I tried to quiet my mind and just take in the beauty around me.
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