When I move to Istanbul, I think I'll move to the Galata neighborhood, in the heart of what's called the New District. It's "new" in relation to the Old Town area across the bridge, where the buildings - such as the Aya Sofya (or Hagia Sofia in Greek), an Orthodox-church-turned-mosque - date back to the sixth century, the heyday of old Constantinople. The Old Town is where the big-ticket attractions are - in addition to the Aya Sofya, there's also the Ottomans' enormous Blue Mosque, the dank Byzantine underground cistern, the labyrinthine (and heavily Disneyfied) Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar, the sprawling Topkapı Palace, and the 16th-century Suleymaniye Mosque (largely shuttered for renovations) - and it's where most of the non-Turkish people in the city congregate, most of them, in our experience, Germans. In addition to Germans, the Old Town is full of hawkers trying to entice you into their shops and restaurants with calls of "Hello, my friend!" and "Where are from?" and "Hello yes please!" It's where old men selling fruit from rolling carts will go to great lengths to ensure that you buy 5 lira (about $3.25) worth of fruit, no matter what it is you actually ask for - ask for two bananas, and they'll throw together a bundle of five bananas, four apricots, and a handful of tasteless little green plum things to bring the total price to five lira, and before you know what happened you've bought the whole batch and a little more besides. It's where cheesy restaurants encourage you to dress up like an Ottoman (fez, silly vest, pointy shoes), puff on a water pipe, recline on a bed of decadent pillows, and watch a group of bored belly dancers. It's where you can while away an afternoon haggling theatrically with aggressively mustached men selling mass-produced jewelry and backgammon boards.
Aya Sofya
Crowds at Topkapı Palace
Ottoman kitsch in the Old Town
Five-lira fruit seller
The Old Town is where people go to find a Turkey that probably never existed. All of these things are worth experiencing, and some - such as the Aya Sofya - are simply unmissable, but one quickly discovers that the real Istanbul is to be found elsewhere.
Mind you, the New District, where Galata is, can be pretty touristy as well (more so, certainly, than the Asian side of the city, across the Bosphorus, which remained largely unexplored by us apart from an evening jaunt to a fabulous restaurant called Çiya, where we had an assortment of dishes that were stunningly delicious but whose principal ingredients were, and remain, a complete mystery). Galata is dominated by the 14th-century Galata tower, built by the Genoese when this part of Constantinople was controlled by Italian merchants. It's a decidedly Western-facing piece of architecture, one that's crawling with tourists by day but ghostly and forlorn at night.
Galata Tower
The same is true of many of the smaller buildings in the neighborhood as well, which crowd together along narrow, cobblestoned lanes that twist their way up and down the steep hill on which the tower perches. By day there are music shops and sidewalk cafes and street vendors here. Not too far away is the once-grubby-now-trendy district of Beyoğlu, with its swanky nightclubs and cafes, and the crowded Istiklal Street, which resembles a European high street with its retail chains and street performers (think Grafton Street in Dublin, Monckebergstrasse in Hamburg, or Oxford Street in London).
Istiklal Street
But at night - ah, at night Galata is deserted and still, apart from some scurrying stray cats and perhaps the odd gaggle of wandering stray Germans. The dogs, also strays, nap at the foot of the tower, where a cellist might serenade a few lonely diners. The taxis that careen through the twisty lanes have disappeared, allowing you to wander the murky streets freely, like a phantom.
Galata at night
This, then, is where I'll live when I move to Istanbul. This was actually a subject of some considerable discussion between Kate and myself, when, on a Friday ferry cruise up the Bosphorus, we spotted many lovely seaside hamlets that would also be ideal places to relocate. We concluded, however, that these would be better for suited for retirement, after it becomes difficult to navigate the hills and cobbles (and dog poop) of Galata. So: Galata now, seaside hamlet later.
The Seaside Hamlet of Rumeli Kavaği
The thing is, I'm probably not going to be moving to Istanbul soon. See, first I have to move to Nashville and put in a few years doing this professor thing, during which time I'll be able to save up enough to relocate to Galata. I figure it'll take about 2-3 years, max.
In the meantime, I expect I'll survive in Nashville just fine, provided it has the following things that Istanbul also has:
1. Pudding shops. The kind that sell real pudding, mind you. Not the meat-and-innards kind they sell in Britain, but chocolate and vanilla and something called Noah's Ark, which has nuts and raisins and orange peels and stuff. We had pudding almost every day in Istanbul, and it was the most fun I've ever had. (Though I really wish I could write that sentence without the "almost.")
2. Cheap fish sandwiches underneath the bridge where the fish is caught. Under the Galata Bridge, which connects the Old and New districts, there are restaurants grilling and selling fish, in sandwich form, that has been caught by the men crowded atop the bridge with fishing poles and empty yogurt buckets. This tradition also needs to be present in Nashville.
3. Cheap ferry journeys (ca. $1) to Asia. This one is self explanatory.
4. Whirling Dervishes. I'd be content with whirling Pentecostals in Nashville, but they need to be wearing white flowing robes. Oversized WWJD sweatshirts are not acceptable substitutes.
5. Friendly men named Mustafa who will serve you tea and tell you the story of his family's shop while he overcharges you for an antique teapot.
6. Full-service intercity buses in which an attendant comes around with coffee, tea, juice, water, and snacks, and concludes (and/or begins) the journey by dumping handfuls of dripping, lemony hand santizer into your cupped hands, so that it overflows onto your trousers.
7. At least one mosque designed by the great Ottoman architect Sinan.
8. Coffee that is somewhere between liquid and solid and tastes a bit like waking up with a hangover.
9. Shops selling and displaying baklava and Turkish Delight of every color in the rainbow.
10. Ubiquitous portraits of the founder of the republic. This person should appear not only on every single denomination of the local currency, but also on gigantic flags draped over buildings and in framed portraits in the shops and cafes. He should also look a little like a 1930s movie star.
11. A cheerful, curious, enthusiastic, sensitive, patient, and gorgeous lady to explore the city with. She should also exhibit great enthusiasm for pudding.
If Nashville has just five or six of these things, it's going to be a lovely place to live. I already know it'll have at least one. Now to do get to work researching the rest.
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