Turkey Travel Diary, (still) Day 2: The Grand Bizarre
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.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 4th, 2013 at 04:58
It’s kind of pathetic that all these places you’re describing feel so familiar because I ran around and climbed through them in an Assassins’ Creed game.
March 4th, 2013 at 12:47
Beautiful!
March 4th, 2013 at 13:20
Hope you’re having a grand time at Turkey (or as Tito Boy Abunda would say — Churkey!).
The restaurant cat looks sooo adorable!
March 4th, 2013 at 14:42
Your entries and between-the-lines read like proposals to a movie, guidebook, historical fiction, and the odd homemade Youtube upload.
Love the pics and kitties!
March 4th, 2013 at 22:39
photos of the earrings please
March 4th, 2013 at 22:43
Jara: It means videogames are secretly educational!
Too bad the tour doesn’t include Troy.
March 4th, 2013 at 22:46
Chus: Mosaics! Mosaics!! Got you something. We must go to Greece.
March 4th, 2013 at 22:50
brewhuh23: There are lots of fat, fluffy cats, especially in the tourist sites. They answer to “swswswswsw” and “mingmingming”.
March 4th, 2013 at 22:51
UVDust: Thanks. Trying to avoid the “This is what I ate, this is what I bought” style of reporting.
March 4th, 2013 at 22:52
polaris: This didn’t happen! Bought a couple of bone boxes. Probably paid too much. Lots, lots, lots of earrings but haven’t committed yet.
March 5th, 2013 at 00:53
i read this entry to a turkish colleague and we were both smiling afterwards :)
question: after this trip, do you think you’ll want to come back?
March 5th, 2013 at 01:42
oriames: Yes! But with a more relaxed schedule.
March 5th, 2013 at 01:55
i wish you could experience a dinner at a turkish home. maybe in the next trip! :)
March 5th, 2013 at 08:49
Jessica — Awwww :)) Glad they’re touring you around.
And you know, ever since you started posting your breakfast, I started craving for yogurt and honey *drools*
March 6th, 2013 at 01:32
oriames: Is that an invitation? Yes, please.
March 6th, 2013 at 01:41
brewhuh23: Use unsweetened yogurt. The Pascual and Malacaman Farms brands in supermarkets are pretty good. If you’re lazy, you could order it at Cyma.
March 6th, 2013 at 04:05
yey :) i can cook but i was also thinking along the lines of getting us invited to turkish people’s homes :) they will feed us until we are afraid we’ll die of overeating. some of my friends’ moms are not satisfied until i tell them to stop feeding me. i always have some food being sneaked up on me even when we’re all just quietly watching tv.
we can probably get the same food outside but it’s the experience that matters :) although i agree with anthony bourdain: home-cooked food is always the best.
just in case you’re worried about this, the trick to this game is to always have some food on your plate arranged artfully so that it seems to be a lot. if you do this, the lady of the house will not proceed in heaping food upon your plate every time she sees it’s empty.