Sunday Morning

I've been doing these Sunday vignettes occasionally, so here goes.

Delal and I crossed the water to Europe.  We had brunch in the fish market--a very fresh plate of fried hamsi--and then took a tour of the Jewish museum near Tunel.  It was a pretty interesting display of stuff--I saw the Torah for the first time, and the Holy of Holies where the Ark resides.  It also had a display on the Jews of Istanbul--apparently, my neighborhood used to be a Jewish one.  There's an old synagogue I jog by sometimes circled by walls and razor wire.


FRIED HAMSI!!!

Anyway, after all this was done we went to the seaside where a red faced old man had set up a tea stall.  We sat down at a plastic table and relaxed in the first sun we've seen in about two weeks.  The Golden Horn was blue.  The sky was blue.  Something Delal pointed out:  The scene before us was built on layers of stillness and movement.  The ferries were darting frantically past each other, rolling in the waves.  The Sultan's palace stuck out over the tree tops behind on the other side, looking the way it has looked for centuries.  A line of fisherman sat rigidly still along the water.  Between us and them, hundreds of pedestrians passed almost as quickly as the ferries.  A group of old men sat around a table, barely moving.  Occasionally raising a hand and circling it in the air to illustrate a point.  A fight broke out between some other men on the corner--one had apparently ran off with the other's shoes during prayers at a nearby mosque.  We sat and sipped tea and talked until it was time to cross the water back home.



Here is a tree at the Sultan's Palace....