We began in Taksim Square, a bustling town center resembling Times Square on the Europe side. Standing at the heart of Taksim, I was surrounded by noise, activity and flesh. The concept of personal space isn't the same here, with people brushing me frequently, unaware of American guidelines.
From this perch, I can see in the distance, across the blue Bosphorus, minarets rising above their mosques. The syllable stress and lilts of Turkish made me feel off-balanced, slightly dizzy.The bleats of taxi horns grounded me somewhat until the muezzin started his call to prayer and transported me far away again. Then I realized that faraway place was directly beneath my feet.
We combed the side streets of the Beyoglu area filled with teahouses, tiny stores, trash blowing across the way, and people everywhere I looked.
One would be hard-pressed to stereotype Istanbul residents, at least physically. They looked European, deeply Arab or Muslim, poor and dejected or American middle-class and business-like and, most of them, much tanner than I.
We wound up in a covered alley, packed with café tables and people occupying them, squished together as much as humanly possible. The din of the voices made conversation difficult, but Aydin paid little notice, ordering several dishes of mezes, or appetizers.
Turkish Tea
As in many Middle Eastern countries, tea is like water and I was anxious to try the Turkish version. So at Aydin's command, a small glass on a saucer was placed in front of me, enough for two shots. I downed the first one, wincing from the unexpected bitter taste.
Ah! Perhaps you'd like acik cay?
What's that?
Acik cay. Say ah-chick chai. It means light tea.
Ah-chick chai.
Close enough. Order.
Aye-tic thai.
Aydin laughed in my face, but somehow another magically appeared.
Much better. As the week wore on, I never tired of the Turkish cuisine, the strong garlic, the abundant use of eggplant, the sesame seeds or the paprika…or felt the slightest bit nauseated from the different flavors and seasonings.
But I was having trouble with, well, comprehension.
Perhaps it was the jet lag setting in, but at the end of each day, I would collapse on the bed, staring at the ceiling and try to put into context some of the shocking visual contrasts: a four-lane highway that dives under a Roman aqueduct; the grime of the city and the blue Bosphorus that runs through its sections; highrise technology corridor and stone streets. My senses were overloaded the entire time I was there.
One day, we wandered into one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city called Zeyrek located in the Muslim quarter of Fatih. The wooden houses looked threadbare, as if the slightest wind would knock them over. The streets were nothing but dust, the few cars that traveled through them on their last leg.
It was obvious the residents of the neighborhood could feel the pinch of the recent economic crisis. Not many seemed to be working.
But idle time also didn't seem an enemy. The teahouse in the center of town was full, conversation was plentiful, and children gathered in the streets, laughing and playing on their way home from school.
Children in Turkey are completely accessible to strangers. I marveled at how Aydin would stop in the middle of the street and play ball with a group of boys or pick up a three-year-old girl and swing her around.
Parents or older siblings would look out their windows or occasionally come out the door to ask us if the children were disturbing us, or getting in our way.
The small video camera I could hold in one hand was a kid magnet. I couldn't walk down the street, much less get decent video, without a crowd of five-year-olds or teenage boys dancing around me, hands flying, faces crowding up to the lens, asking me questions I couldn't understand.
We stopped and talked to one young man, about 13 years old. We asked him about his dreams for the future.
He was hopeful of continuing his studies beyond high school. We asked if he'd like to make a lot of money, maybe a million dollars. He scrunched his face and, through Aydin's translation, told us he could never take such an amount knowing that his friends and family would have so little. He would give it away.
We wandered into a small, dimly lit tailoring shop, where an elderly father and middle-aged son politely smiled and offered us a seat on a cushioned sofa with long tears in the plastic.
They were working away repairing a jogging suit. Business was bad. They used to repair suits, but now took any old odd job they could get.
They told us what the neighborhood used to be like. Apparently it was once a thriving place. Nevertheless, they offered us tea.
I perked up with acik cay—still the only Turkish I mastered—when they asked me what I wanted. They grinned and ordered from the shop next door, refusing to take our money.
We stayed and sipped, talking about the generations of the family who worked in the tailoring business and even heard from the youngest member, an eight-year-old, and his visions of becoming a famous soccer player.
At the sound of the call, the old man excused himself to pray. We took our cue, thanking them for their time and hospitality.
At the end of the week Alex wanted to revisit Zeyrek and I went along hoping to visit the shop. We went back and entered with little fanfare, as if I was walking into the house of an old friend.
The men looked up, smiled and beckoned us to sit. The younger tailor looked at me and said, acik cay? We stayed over an hour hearing about business that week. I was content, sitting on that ripped cushion, listening to a language I didn't understand feeling perfectly at home.
Maybe this is part of the reason why, in lieu of any earthquake, Istanbul will endure and even thrive, despite economics, over time.
The world will continue to visit Istanbul, and the city will open its arms and offer it tea.
Carol Kaufmann is a journalist with National Geographic magazine and is responsible for liaison between the magazine and National Geographic Television. A feature story on Istanbul will air in the United States on National Geographic Today August 7. An article on the city will be published in National Geographic next year.
National Geographic Today, 7 pm. ET/PT in the United States, is a daily news magazine available only on the National Geographic Channel. Click here to request it.
