Turkey Trot

Yes. That is the iconic Hagia Sophia in the photo.

Or perhaps I should call this post "Türkiye Tröt" because, as with it being Istanbul and not Constantinople, it's Türkiye, not Turkey. So you can't back to Turkey because if you got a date in Turkey she'll be waiting for you in Türkiye (pronounced tur-KEE-yuh), to paraphrase the old song. Why did Turkey get the works? Turns out it just isn't nobody's business but the Turks. They did it, apparently, because of the association with the bird. Apparently Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had one too many dried out, over-cooked, improperly basted turkeys over the years for Thanksgiving and he ordered severing all naming ties between Ben Franklin's favorite bird (he wanted it to the national symbol for this country and the country straddling the continents of Europe and Asia at the Eastern Mediterranean.

Any why this talk of Türkiye and Turkeys?  It's where I am.

Despite the lights of night making the above building take on a pinkish glow, that is the famous Blue Mosque. It's one of the preeminent tourist attractions in Istanbul (not Constantinople) and it's a short distant from where I am staying on this leg of my current travel journey.

Turkey is in the books as my 47th country visited. And here's the proof.

It was a long day of travel to get to the other side of the world, despite only one change of planes. JFK, for example, was a nightmare, with absolutely no signage in the JetBlue terminal telling me where I was supposed to go to get my connecting flight on Turkish Airlines. And I had to exit the airport and re-enter through a different TSA line, where I had to get a new boarding pass, and the new boarding pass was not market pre-check which meant I had to get my laptop and three-ounces of less toiletries out of my carry-on. It was a complete nightmare of first world problems. 

But given my state of travel fatigue, I only had enough time to walk the general neighborhood where I am staying.

And this is where I'm staying: the Magnaura Palace Hotel. It's a "boutique" hotel, just 18 rooms, which I selected because it is in a historic neighborhood, close to some of the signature sights in Istanbul (not Constantinople) (the joke hasn't gotten old yet but I fear it will very soon), which would make walking the streets after dark a fun way to end the day.

And here it is: the historic Cankurtaran neighborhood, in the Sultanahmet area, in the Fatih area, of European Istanbul.

This part of the historic area is more "atmospheric" than "historic," in my estimation, although nearby Hagia Sophia (pronounced, and this surprised me, HIGH-ah so-FEE-ah) is a millennium and a half old.

And here's the Blue Mosque again:

And here's the Blue Mosque again again:

This time with the little food stall selling street corn. Which I did not know was a "thing" in Istanbul, although it only may be a thing at this particularly pedestrian intersection near the Blue Mosque.

More Istanbul After Dark:

And so it was time to get back to the Magnaura Palace and call the day "a day," even though with the 10-hour time zone adjustment, was really only a half of a day.

And here's the view from the room.

The room is a first floor room which means, in Europe, it's on the second floor. That's the way they do things over heere. It's as if being in another country is like being in another country.