Caught by the Turks

Which do you prefer to do?

When traveling someplace new, do you prefer to learn everything you can about a place beforehand - I'm talking not only guide books, but also novels, movies, memoirs, journalism, phrase books, food blogs, think-tank research papers, etc. - so that you can appreciate what you see when you see it, or do you prefer to approach a place with few preconceptions, to do a bit of practical research and then let yourself be surprised by the rest?

I used to do the latter quite frequently - when Jon and I took our rail tour of Europe back in college we were armed with little more than a large "Europe 1997" guide book and a vague notion of what the German word for "thanks" is - but in recent years I've been moving more toward the former. Partly this is because I have more time, disposable income, and access to information (the internet has grown substantially since 1997) than I did when I first started traveling, but I also suspect that I'm slightly less death-defying than I was in my youth, slightly more cautious. I like to know what I'm getting into before I head somewhere unknown. But I also don't want to miss anything, especially if I'm going somewhere that I may never visit again, and I trust others to tell me what to see and think and feel more than I trust myself. This may or may not be a good thing.

So, for instance: Kate and I are going to Istanbul soon. On, like, Monday. We found a cheap flight (traveling is so cheap right now - if you have a little time and still have a job, go play around on Kayak and see for yourself) and we'd never been there before, so that was reason enough. Pretty spontaneous, huh? Maybe even impulsive?

Not so fast: since we got the tickets about a month ago we've been burying ourselves in all things Turkey - and when I say "we" I really mean "I", since, although Kate's been doing her share of research and preparation, she's been exercising a level of restraint that has been completely inaccessible to your humble blogger. This is because, as she says, she doesn't want her experience to be too heavily mediated by others and would like to approach the city on her own terms, but it's also (probably) because she actually has a job, and therefore has other things to keep her occupied. As much as I admire her reasoning, however, I appear to be operating under no such constraints. And it's becoming a bit of a problem.

Here's a sampling of what I've read, in whole or in part, in preparation for this trip:

Guide Books
Rick Steves' Istanbul - this is a bit chatty and hand-holdy, the target audience (apparently) being the sorts of loud, obnoxious American tourists who need to be reminded every few pages to be more respectful and culturally sensitive than they are likely to be. We bought it because it has lengthy descriptions of major tourist attractions whose signage is unlikely to be in English.

Fodors Turkey - a standard guidebook with lots of information about places outside of Istanbul, in case we decide to escape the city.

Lonely Planet Istanbul (tiny edition) - Lonely Planets are best for their food/drink/shopping recommendations, less-good for their info on cultural/historical/sightseeing matters, and this one appears to be no exception. Which is perfectly fine.

Lonely Planet Turkish Phrasebook - Kate's been looking through this one more than I. Turkish is hard! And they've got lots of dots and squiggles on their letters! This I expect will be most confusing for me.

Non-Guide Books (already read)
Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book - a novel by Turkey's most famous modern novelist that evokes a dreamlike Istanbul heavy with snow and melancholy, a novel (and a city) not for the faint of heart or the short of attention span.

Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul - a memoir by Turkey's most famous modern novelist that evokes a dreamlike Istanbul heavy with snow and melancholy, etc.

Scott Malcolmson, Borderlands - a work of journalism by an American traveling through Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Uzbekistan immediately after the fall of communism, just as new (or long-dormant) ethnic nationalisms are beginning to arise.

Non-Guide Books (not-yet read)
Mary Lee Settle, Turkish Reflections: A Biography of a Place - terrible title, but I found it used, and it looks like a potentially interesting description of Turkey by an outsider who's spent a lot of time in the country.

Francis Yeats-Brown, Caught by the Turks - great title, by a soldier who was captured by the Ottomans during WWI. Came across this one while doing research about India - Yeats-Brown also spent lots of time in the Indian army and wrote about his experiences, most famously, in Lives of a Bengal Lancer.

Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul - a novel examining, I think, the legacy of the Armenian genocide for a couple of Turkish families. Kate read it, but I haven't.

Films
"Across the Bridge" - a documentary about contemporary music in Istanbul, hosted by a very unintentionally comic German musician.

"Takva: A Man's Fear of God" - about a simple, holy man who is forced to confront the modern world and doesn't handle it too well.

"Head-On" - (haven't-yet-watched) about Turkish immigrants in Germany.

"The Edge of Heaven" - ditto

Websites
Too many to list, but here's a sampling:

James Fallows on whirling dervishes, in The Atlantic (from Joey).

The NYT's Frugal Traveler goes to Turkey.

Ottoman Empire T-Shirts (we are so going here!)

Istanbul Eats (food blog)

Cafe Fernando (another food blog)

Hurriyet, one of Turkey's major newspapers (in English!).

Analysis and reporting on contemporary Turkish politics at Opendemocracy.net.

Turkey's Dark Side, a paper by the European Security Initiative on the underside of Turkish democracy.

And so on...

By this point, I've read/seen so much about the place that I kind of feel like I don't even need to go there. But I will, and it'll be great, and I predict that there will still be one or two things that'll surprise me. I may not have gotten the balance between ignorance and preparation completely right this time, but that's okay. A new city is a new city, and if you don't know somebody there who's local and can show you around, you've got to rely on your own wits and instincts - and there's nothing wrong with honing those wits and instincts with lots and lots (and lots) of research.