Wonder of wonders, it's Istanbul!

Istanbul turned out to nothing like what I expected. My God! When you look up pandemonium in the dictionary, you'd absolutely have to find a picture of Istanbul. I've never, ever seen this many people in one place at one time in my whole life. It makes Disneyland look like the reading room at your local library. There is such a profusion of trains and buses and taxis and every other type of motor vehicle on the streets, you wonder how anyone gets anywhere. Naturally, since we're motoring around in a fifty or sixty-passenger bus, I'd swear that the driver was never going to get to pull out into traffic, let alone drive anywhere. But drive he did. We spent the morning visiting various mosques where you have to take off your shoes to enter and the Topkapi palace that served the last twenty-five sultans. The palace was built in the fifteen century and went through a succession remodelings up to the nineteenth century. The grounds are pretty neat, but Concetta and I had to beg off touring the three rooms they allow you access as there were just too many people trying to do the same thing at the same time.

The high point of today's tour was our lunch stop at a downtown four-star Istanbul Hotel where we were treated like royalty. White table cloths, bottomless wine glasses, dozens of salads and main course choices, and a dessert table that simply went on forever truly dazzled all of us. Though we had to hurry on to our next appointment, I would have been perfectly happy to spend the rest of the afternoon there chatting and sipping coffee.

Contrary to what I would have thought, Istanbul is incredibly popular with foreign tourists. For our afternoon's entertainment, we ventured into the covered bazaar, originally founded by Mehmet II in 1461. The bazaar turned out to be one giant sensory overload. There are 4,500 stalls in this bazaar selling everything from genuine fake watches, leather goods, and designer fashions, to the crafts of little old ladies selling hand-made, well, you name it. The bazaar is just an explosion of colors and sounds and smells in every direction you look. We walked down the main artery of the "Souke" only, but every few yards side arteries took off left and right that held the promise of equally fascinating things. I swear you could go into the bazaar and not re-emerge for hours. My only objection to venturing out into the tourist environment is that the Turkish vendors are very aggressive, much more so than in Greece. They're not particularly threatening. On the contrary, we've felt quite safe here in Turkey. The Turks appear to just love Americans and other tourists and have a smile ready for everyone.

As we near the end of the shipboard part of our vacation, a few thoughts on our experience are in order. Doing one of these academic cruises is both extremely rewarding and extremely frustrating. Using today's Istanbul trek as an example, we didn't get to experience any place thoroughly enough. That was true all the way along. Because of the amount of people that all the various tour groups are cranking through these archaeology sites and museums, the guides just move you through way too fast. Of course, since this type of activity tends to be pretty tiring, it can also be a plus if you don't spend too much time on your feet. But for the academic who wants to learn about the history and the culture of your destination, I'd have to suggest that you read about it way in advance. You won't have time to learn it on the fly. I would have to say that one of the marathon academic cruises is most valuable when taken as a way to acquaint one with what's available in a given area. But you have to come back at some point and spend some time in order to absorb all there is to absorb.

The biggest problem for me in taking these whirlwind tours is that I think the photography has suffered. I simply don't have time to study the area and come up with the most advantageous shot. Time after time I've fallen behind the group as I climb to the top of a nearby knoll to set up a shot. So far I haven't been left behind as the bus pulls out, but I know that I've probably missed some good shots in the process. Once again this year I brought the Nikon D70s with the 18mm-200mm lens. It's quite a bit heavier than your average point and shoot, but I like being able to use a polarizing filter for those bluer skies. The wide range zoom lens makes it easy to shoot from however far away I need to be. Hopefully, when we get to Italy and I start posting some of the photos, you'll find something you like that will encourage you to visit Greece and Turkey. They are really wonderful countries.

Well, I guess that's about all for now. I'm headed off to bed. Ciao, tutti.