Life in this fair city

So I'm using one of my few nonwork Internet opportunities to catch up a tiny bit on this; in theory I should be getting at-home internet any day now, at which point my blogging will expand prodigiously I'm sure.
Autumn in Istanbul is kind of a more temperate autumn in Boston, minus the trees changing color and plus about 10 or 20 degrees, depending. People are still out at all the outdoor dining spots, picnicking in median strips and all the other various outdoor activities I'd normally associate with summer. The one thing folks've stopped doing is jumping into the water to cool off, which, given the pollution in the Bosporous, is probably a very good thing.
In the weeks since I got back from the States I've had several visitors, catsat at my home and the neighbors', collected a fairly impressive amount of Expat Treasure (the contents of my fridge at the moment is roughly: bacon, rum, vanilla beans, caviar, more bacon [different kind], duty-free wines -- and the peanut butter, chocolate chips and wild rice are hanging out in my cupboards) and figured out where the Brits of Istanbul have their pub quiz nights (my newly adopted team won, in part because I knew that the lady who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel with her dog dies of suffocation when her dog pressed its nose against the airhole so tightly it blocked the airflow to the rest of the barrel. Important things like this, that's what my brain's full of...).
My landlord visited for a few days, which was good as it was a chance for him to see what I'd done with the place so far and an opportunity to get some work done around the place, as he was home during the day and could supervise contractors. I came home to new hallway lighting and no more wires protruding from various walls. The cat was pretty upset about that latter improvement.
Somewhat more exciting was my other visitor this month: my friend flew in from Switzerland to run in the Istanbul Marathon, which starts in Asia, goes across the Bosporus Bridge, along the Bosporus, up the Golden Horn, and ends at the Hippodrome, directly behind the Blue Mosque. A pretty interesting course, for sure; also the one day a year the bridge is open to pedestrian traffic. We toured the main sites on Saturday, hitting up the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, Eyup Camii and the Besiktas DVD markets as well as the marathon expo before heading to my Favorite Restaurant in Istanbul for manti. As I don't, as a habit, run, the marathon expo was entirely new to me -- marathoners get some pretty decent swag. The booths were a strange combination of more athletic gear than I have ever seen in Turkey before and random other products, like the Gumussuyu traditional goods association. They had walnuts in molasses, it was kind of but not actually similar to fruit leather, but thicker.
On Sunday, we headed up to Sultanahmet under intermittent rain to catch a marathon bus to the starting line. Having only seen the Boston Marathon before this, the Istanbul marathoners looked a little less...overtly athletic, I guess, in general. Once we got to the starting line, people were milling about as some guy with a bullhorn and a speaker system yelled really excitedly about the Culture Minister, who apparently was there observing the start. I actually started with the marathon runners, just to run across the bridge, and ran about 5 kilometers before grabbing a cab to the finish line to meet up with Kevin. He "just" ran the 15k, so we were able to see the marathon winners run in, complete with motorcycle escort, which was pretty cool.
After the marathon, we ended up walking along the marathon route by the Maramara Sea, which is ordinarily a four-lane roadway but was closed to traffic til mid-afternoon so much calmer. We ended up at Topkapi, which was overwhelming as always but also gorgeous as always, before taking a ferry up the Golden Horn to the Koc Museum, where we speed-walked through before heading over to Istiklal. I don't know how many kilometers we walked, but it was a pretty darn respectable amount.
I really do enjoy exploring this city with newcomers to the country -- I think the experience of seeing Istanbul with a fresh perspective reminds me of just why this city is such an awesome place to live and be in. Plus, I'm a tour guide at heart, and any chance I can get to natter on about the Topkapi palace social hierarchy is something I leap on.
This week has been, it seems, mainly catching up and planning ahead, as I've got another visitor, an old friend in town, my long-term catsittee is leaving, and potentially a quick weekend hop out of the country or two in the next six weeks. In between preparing and planning for all that, I found time to make it to an expat meetup, where I caught up with a few acquaintances and met some new folks in town. It's really fascinating how many expats are in this city, and for how many reasons. I don't know if this Istanbul life is glamorous, but it certainly keeps me on my toes.
And with that, I'm off for now,
-R

 

So I'll inshallah get a more descriptive post up soon, but this weekend I ran across the Bosporus Bridge from Asia to Europe as part of the Istanbul Intercontinental Marathon. I didn't run the marathon, I peaced out about 5 km in, but I did get to run across the bridge, which was all kinds of cool.