May 16^th, Istanbul

A sunset over the Golden Horn in Istanbul. Fatima is in the Süleymaniye mosque in Eminonü, a few steps from the famous Galata Bridge, and I enjoy watching the people walking in the last sun light for the day. Istanbul, the Venice of the East. Another mega city, this time 18 million residents. The city center though is walkable and we have had our walks today. Breakfast at the Galata bridge, watching the ships come and go and the city awaken (we had arrived in a night plane at 6am). The noon prayer at the Blue Mosque, where Fatima pulled me, my head covered quite authentically in my silk scarf, behind her to the women’s section. While she got in the row (you need an exact row for the prayer), I made myself comfortable at the window-sill, promised her to try to take some photos for her family at home and listened to the beautiful chanting of the muezzin (and also dozed off a few times). What a delicate tile work in that mosque. Since in Islam as well as in Judaism there are no pictures of God or Saints or anything Holy, the sacred rooms contain other art. In the mosques, it is so often tiles. Detailed works of flowers, structures, birds in delicate compositions of colors. After the service we left the mosque to go for picnic in the nearby park and saw the lines of tourists waiting for the way into the mosque. What a luck to travel with an insider!

 

 

 

In the evening we went for our fancy dinner:  you stand in line at the boats at the Bosporus next to the Galata bridge, pay 3 Dollars and get a sandwich with freshly grilled fish -the ambiente is included in the price. Yummi!

 

It is in Istanbul, that I notice Syrian refugees for the first time. Children in the streets. I would not know if they are Turkish street kids or Syrian, but Fatima knows and gets confirmation of Turkish people we talk to. She talks for a long time to a man, clearly not poor, in a café. His children made it to Germany, but he is here, waiting it out. The situation in Syria is grim. I recall the panic some people in Germany have about the flood of refugees. In fact, 150.000 refugees have made it into whole Europe, while 3 Million are in the neighboring countries (http://syrianrefugees.eu/?page_id=10); and as we know, neither of those are wealthy countries. It is a drama and heartbreaking to listen to.