JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I have not been on this schedule since the sixth grade. Alarm at 0600, breakfast at 0630, leave suitcase outside door at 0700, get in the bus at 0800. I’d skip breakfast but there’s no coffee pot in the hotel room. Or potable water. When you visit Turkey, remember that water is not free, even in restaurants.

Ephesus the ancient Greek, then Roman, then Byzantine, then Seljuk, then Ottoman city in Anatolia (Asia Minor) has two reigning tourist attractions, both female divinities.

The more recent one is the Virgin Mary, who is believed to have lived in this nondescript house on a hill. There are no records to support this claim: the BVM is supposed to have traveled to Asia Minor with the apostle John after Jesus’s death, but there was no forwarding address. This house reportedly matches the description provided by a German nun, who saw it in a vision. It is now a pilgrimage destination.

I suspect that Ephesus was the best candidate for the BVM’s address because for centuries before Christianity the city had been associated with another, much older female divinity—the Greek goddess Artemis who was merged with the Anatolian goddess Kybele to become the Lady of Ephesus, who is portrayed as a woman with many, many breasts (though some think they might be testicles).

This is all that remains of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: pieces of stone piled into a column in Selcuk. The original temple was burned down by one Herostratus, who wanted to be remembered for something, anything. This makes him the first fame whore on record. “Why didn’t Artemis protect her temple?” people asked. Tradition says the goddess of fertility was busy that day, helping a woman who was in labor. The child grew up to become Alexander the Great. The temple was rebuilt, the size of a football field. Later it was destroyed by a Christian mob.

The ruins of Ephesus give you some idea of its grandeur and sophistication. Its main avenue is lined with the remains of shops, you can see the pipes in the ground for the indoor plumbing, and there are holes in the street where large torches were planted at night.

The ancient city is still occupied, just not by people.

Cats make themselves at home in the great archaeological sites. These ones are better-groomed and behaved than the ones at the Colosseum in Rome.

I knew the Romans had public baths, but communal toilets? Can taking a dump really be a social activity? Outside of politics of course.

Scholars think this is an ad for a brothel. There’s a foot to tell patrons where to go, a woman and a heart indicating what they could get, and a bill (credit card?) reminding them that it wasn’t free.

This cat is going there.

(Insert bad joke about someone losing their head.)

The facade of the Library of Celsus. They read scrolls at the time, which made it easier to beat bad writers to death.

The 25,000-seat theatre built on the side of the mountain. “What’s on tonight?” “Oedipus Rex.” “Sophocles again? I’d rather gouge my eyes out.” Rimshot.

Outside the Sultanahmet is the Hippodrome, where they held horse and chariot races during the Byzantine period. (Think Ben-Hur, killer wheels optional.) Note the carvings on the base of the obelisk portraying the audience at the track.

Today the Hippodrome is a park occupied by vendors selling guidebooks and souvenirs. Do not look interested or even make accidental eye contact—you will end up buying something that you will leave on a table and then throw out when it is encrusted with dust.

“Hello,” said a vendor. I feigned deafness. “Hello!” he called out. I ignored him. “I’m not trying to sell you anything, I just want to ask you how you are,” he huffed. Aha, the guilt approach. I’m still not buying anything.

The 3,500-year-old Obelisk of Thutmose III the Egyptian pharaoh once stood in the Temple of Karnak in Luxor. Around the 4th century, the Emperor Theodosius took it back to Constantinople as imperial loot.

The Hippodrome also had four life-size bronze horses, the Quadriga, which is now in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. The Venetians took it home as war loot. They were supposed to be on their way to the Crusades in 1206, but they ended up sacking Constantinople instead. Very convenient, as Constantinople was their business competitor.

There are many Venetian treasures at the Louvre in Paris. Napoleon’s army took those home as war loot. You could think of history as a series of looting expeditions.

Hagia Sophia was an Eastern Orthodox cathedral during the Byzantine era, a Roman Catholic cathedral during the Latin era following the sack of Constantinople, and a mosque during the Ottoman era. In the 1930s it was secularized and turned into a museum. Turkey is 99 percent Muslim, but it is a secular state. It has no state religion.

Back to my neck exercises: the ceiling of the corridor leading to the main door of Hagia Sophia.

You’re looking up, but you get the sensation of falling.

The dome of Hagia Sophia is the fourth largest in the world, and the oldest. Consider the architectural challenge of building a massive dome 1650 years ago. (The TV series of Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth starring the lovely Eddie Redmayne as a builder in medieval England goes into some of those problems.)

Those figures under the dome are not angels. They were paintings of saints that were covered up when the church was turned into a mosque. The artists simply painted wings over the figures.

I think Yeats was referring to this mosaic in Sailing to Byzantium.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enameling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

* * * * *

Four hours later I’m at the airport in Izmir, boarding a tour bus to Kusadasi. We stop at Mosaik, a store that sells Turkish delight (local name: lokum) in different flavors, apple tea, spices, wine and olive oil products.

The effusive store owner has a foolproof sales tactic: the first taste is free.

Another local product recalling the area’s Greco-Roman history.

This cat was the welcome committee at the Tatlises Hotel in Kusadasi.

*Blasted wifi, the first draft disappeared.

Why am I posting pictures of breakfast? Because in regular life I don’t have breakfast; I wake up just before lunch. On this trip I need fuel. Right after breakfast I’m getting in the van with my luggage to visit three sites, then have lunch, then go to the airport to catch the 1500 flight to Izmir.

The new hotels in Istanbul are close to an old, run-down area of town which is undergoing redevelopment. Apparently rich people are buying up the land and constructing commercial complexes. Check back in in a few years.

En route to the Blue Mosque we passed the Pera Palace hotel, a regular stop for passengers of the old Orient Express. Agatha Christie stayed here and imagined bloody murders.

When I see people leaning over a bridge looking at the water, I automatically think a corpse has floated up. This is a much more pleasant scene: People fishing on a Sunday morning. They catch bonito, tuna, mackerel, bluefish and other migratory species. When the fish from the Black Sea migrate to the warmer Aegean, they have to crowd into the Bosphorus strait, where anglers are waiting.

First stop: the Blue Mosque, known to locals as the Sultanahmet. Tourists refer to it by the beautiful blue tiles inside the building. Built in the 17th century, the mosque is still in use; tourists are allowed when there are no services. Note the people massing in the courtyard and the cat strolling past them as if he owns the place.

Shoes are not allowed inside the mosque: you have to take them off at the threshold and carry them. I have to find a place to sit and unzip my snug, heavy boots then stuff them into a tiny plastic bag.

So I trudge inside in my socks, and this is what I see. My grumbling ceases immediately. From looking up at the walls and ceiling I develop a crick in my neck.

It’s like vertigo, except that you’re looking up. If I recall Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red correctly, figurative representation is not allowed; instead they have exquisite miniatures, mosaics, calligraphy.

In the spring the garden is resplendent with tulips. We think of tulips as Dutch, but they were first cultivated in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire. The bulbs arrived in Holland during the 16th century and tulip mania exploded.

Outside, my tour guide to the Hippodrome was waiting.

The Grand Bazaar, construction of which began in the 15th century, is vast and labyrinthine.

You’re looking at bracelets made of glass “evil eyes” to ward off bad luck, you step away for a moment to look at tiny boxes handmade from bone, when a man asks very politely what you’re looking for. You say, Nothing really, he produces these silver earrings and when he sees the gleam of covetousness in your eyes he says, Follow me, I know a store with beautiful earrings.

Your curiosity overrides your experiential knowledge that you have no internal GPS. You follow the seller—who looks like an extra from Argo where this bazaar stood in for the one in Tehran—leaving memory bread crumbs along your route.

You arrive at the vaunted store and make for the earrings, and the seller rolls down the metal awning, looking vaguely offended at your expression of alarm. He suspects you have seen Taken 2 and and says it’s for your convenience, so you can shop in peace. Which you proceed to do. A half hour later, with your bag heavier despite the new lightness of your wallet, you retrace your steps to the entrance, only to find that the bread crumbs of memory have vanished. Everything seems familiar, but isn’t.

The tiles of the Grand Bazaar are grouted with the desiccated bones of shoppers who never found their way out.

That’s what might have happened if the tour guide didn’t warn us that this could happen, and allow us just 30 minutes for browsing.

Restaurant cat.

Turkey itinerary, click to enlarge

Fulya the tour guide from Orion collected the tour group from Istanbul airport at 0530 and delivered us to our hotel in Taxim Square. En route she pointed out places of interest—a Roman aqueduct from the 4th century, the Sea of Marmara beyond those buildings, the wall of Constantinople, the Bosphorus strait, the Golden Horn—casually rattling off names from Byzantine and Ottoman history as if they were the people next door. Because they are the people next door.

In Turkey history isn’t dry textbook material; it’s a living presence. For instance they’re building a metro line under the Bosphorus, the strait that separates Asia from Europe. Fulya explained that 97 percent of Turkey is in Asia and 3 percent in Europe; the people who live on the Asian side take the very efficient ferry across the Bosphorus to go to work in the European part. So a metro line was designed. But while they were digging underwater, they discovered the remains of an ancient Roman harbor with 35 well-preserved shipwrecks, a major archaeological find. So construction of the metro was halted while archaeologists went through the site.

By 0615 I was in my room at Best Western Eresin Hotel in Taksim Square. It’s newly-renovated, efficient, rather narrow beds but comfortable, popular with tour groups.

By 0800 I was having second breakfast (the first had been served inflight at 3:30 in the morning) at the Terrace: coffee, borek, sausage, yogurt with honey and I don’t know what its Turkish name is, but in Indian restaurants it’s called gulab jamun.

By 0830 we were on the bus to Topkapi Palace, seat of the Ottoman Empire.

I’m about to pass out so I’ll explain these photos when I’m online next.

Destination: Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.

It’s been ages since I went on a trip. Fine, five months, but staying put makes me antsy. I start micromanaging my cats (You’ve been eating 5 percent less kibble, are you all right??) and watching entire seasons of TV series (Mad Men 5 in two days). Boredom sets in, and this is a dangerous state—one must snap out of it immediately, or it consumes your life. When you regain consciousness you realize that you just spent the last five years complaining of how bored you are. Mostly boredom makes me angry. Anger is productive, at least, but it’s exhausting.

I feel like Ishmael in Moby Dick:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

In my case, I get on a plane.

* * * * *

When the publicist asked me if I’d like to go to Turkey, I didn’t even have to think about it. Meteor Philippines and Turkish Airlines had organized the trip for travel agents; she was supposed to go but her schedule did not permit it. So they decided to invite someone who could write it up, and I want to thank the two people ahead of me who declined the invitation. Drinking glasses and dentures within a 5-mile radius shattered when I saw the travel taxes and tour guide tips I’d have to pay, but hey, it’s Byzantium-the Roman Empire-the Ottoman Empire-modern-day Istanbul.

Cue another bloodcurdling scream when I realized belatedly that I’d have to go to Hong Kong on my own to catch the flight to Istanbul. Fortunately I have Mabuhay Miles on PAL, and with the help of my brilliant contact Eya was able to book a ticket to Hong Kong on very short notice. 15,000 miles plus tax plus the rush fee, still a good deal.

But enough about my stress, on with the trip. As you have no doubt noticed, this is one of those travel accounts containing more information than anyone needs. By the time this journal is finished, you may think you’ve been to Turkey. I will post as often as the internet connection allows.

* * * * *

What we’re reading on this trip

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay – A funny account of a trip from Istanbul to Trebizond, through the backlands of Turkey, in the 1950s.
Lords of the Horizons by Jason Goodwin – A history of the Ottoman Empire
And Moby Dick read by Tilda Swinton, Benedict Cumberbatch et al on my iPod.

* * * * *

I hereby award myself a medal for not murdering something in the midst of what I can only describe, somewhat dramatically, as a clusterfuck.

There are manic-depressives, then there are people like me who are furious-euphorics. Furious because the best-laid plans are undermined by stupidity, and euphoric because I never run out of things to write about.

Turkey has nothing to do with it, I’m not even there yet. I’m sure Turkey will be spectacular. Nope, I’m in Hong Kong airport.

Later!