I've been feeling so lazy this weekend. I couldn't get myself to leave the house and do my shopping yesterday. So... I had to do it today. I did however, finish The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk and started another. I also made an attempt to learn Java Script, so know I know how to create several different, annoying and memory hogging features in web pages. I could have put this all in a scrolling message at the bottom of your browser!!! Or I could have made alert boxes pop up! Or I could have made the background color rotate until you had a siezure!!! Just be glad that I have a severe allergy to tackiness (and memory hogging features.) Why then, you may ask, am I learning Java Script? Umm.... so I can say that I know Java Script and possibly impress someone so much that they hire me..... Until that happens, buy stuff through my page so I get a percentage!

I just got back from Istiklal where I ate a yummy potato gözleme (a flat tortilla type of bread fried with spiced potatoes inside). Earlier , I took the ferry from Besiktas (see the logic, I could do my shopping on the way back!) to Üskudar in Asia. The guidebooks, if they say anything about Uskudar, describe it as a rather conservative community with lots of mosques. What really got my attention was the following passage in Strolling Through Istanbul:

"...turning right one finds at the end of this street a severely plain turbe built by Sinan for Haci Mehmet Pasha, who died in 1559. It stands on an octagonal terrace bristling with tombstones and overshadowed by a dying terebinth tree."

The ferry ride was just a short hop straight from one shore to the other. I got off the boat and walked along the water front. It is always good to go to a place on the water because if there isn't anything else to do at least one can walk along the water and admire the view. Üskudar has a good view of the Golden Horn and Dolmabahçe. Right off the coast there is a tower called Kiz Kulesi, the maidens tower. The story goes that a girl was locked up there by her father because of a prediction that she would die of a snake bite. Well, guess what happened. She died of a snake bite (and probably welcomed death since life meant being locked up in a damp, musty and rather small tower). The tower had scaffolding on it.... so here is another picture for my collection of scafold covered historical sites. I decided to go inland and look for Haci Mehmet Pasha's turbe and the dying terebinth. It was very easy. I found the right street, walked a little and then saw a little mosque looking building with an enclosed patch of ground that, judging from the gravestones which were now all leaning up against the wall, was once a graveyard. All this was overshadowed by a very alive and healthy, although covered by ivy, terebinth tree. At least I hope it is a terebinth tree... The leaves looked correct and the branches were suitable for playing Tarzan on, which was what Nancy told me her kids used to do. I walked on down the hill from the terebinth tree and came to a very large mosque, Ayazma Camii. I was surveying the walls when I noticed there were little birdhouses built into the stone. I don't know for certain if they were actually birdhouses but they sure looked like it. I walked back along the waterfront to the ferry dock and then walked up a very busy main street. This street went by a beautiful mosque, the Yeni Valide. There was an enclosed garden with a domed netted roof, lots of flowers and a grave. Apparently the mother of Ahmet III was burried there. What really fascinated me about this mosque was the graveyard. (Am I obsessed or what?) The wall of the graveyard had openings in it covered by a metal latices so the interior was visible from the street. It was full of flower bushes that were all in bloom. It was so beautiful and I really wanted to go inside but when I walked around it it was surrounded by walls. I think the only entrance was through the mosque itself. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, not able to get through the door into the rose garden. I walked onwards and up a hill full of typical stores: housewares, clothing, corner markets, pharmacies. I decided I had seen enough of Üskudar and headed back to the ferry dock. I noticed it was already 1:20 and I hadn't heard any calls to prayer. The Rough Guide says that the Iskele and Yeni Valide's muezzins "call and answer each other in a poignant refrain". I figured that I had missed this event while I was up the hill. Then I heard the muezzin in the Semsi Pasa camii start. He had a nice voice... it almost sounded like a woman's... I couldn' listen any closer because suddenly a cacophany of calls broke out as every muezzin in the region started. I counted 6 mosques with loudspeakers aimed at the water front. If there were any calls and responses going on they were drowned out. If this wasn't enough, the fish sandwich sellers and restaurant hosts were calling out too, "free tables!", "fresh fish!", "Have some!" I imagined Istanbul painted as a collage of noise: muezzins calling people to pray, salesmen calling people to buy, police calling with bullhorns out of their cars, Dolmus drivers calling out the names of their destination, Taksi drivers calling out that their taxis are available, the mad man of Istiklal coming up behind unsuspecting victims and shouting to frighten them, the music stores cranking everything from Ricky Martin to Loreena McKennit, the gas trucks driving up and down the streets playing their ice cream truck sounding "AyGaz!" recording....