"I'm sexy and I know it"

Ok, so it's an odd title for a post about Istanbul, but the taxi driver decided to play this on the way to the airport - just after he offered me a cigarette.  He didn't speak any English so I'm not sure if he understood the words of the song.  We did have an interesting conversation in which I tried to interpret what he was asking.  I ended up telling him that I was Australian, because he just looked confused when I said I was from New Zealand.  Harry Killim (or something) was his grinning response.  Thanks to my evening playing backgammon with a Turkish man the night before, I knew that ol' Harry is an Aussie who plays soccer for one of the best local teams.

I'm eating an outrageously expensive burger king sundae so that I have a place to sit while I wait for check in to open.  The nice coffee place didn't have any seats left and the restaurant looked way too posh for my backpack.  I'm quite sad to leave Turkey - there is so much that I haven't seen, especially in Istanbul. 

I should have seem more.  I had time to see more, but I just wanted to chill out and relax in my last couple of days in Istanbul.  I did go to Topkapi Palace on Thursday morning with Jennifer once the rest of the tour had arrived back from their bus trip and we'd all said our goodbyes.  Topkapi Palace is huge and there is lots to see.  It is, however, overrun with tourists to the point that I was feeling very closed in (Frances would have hated it).   We paid the extra 15 lira and saw the Harem.  The heirarchy amongst a group of women who were essentially slaves is interesting  - all determined by whether the Sultan wants to have sex with you and whether you get pregnant with a son.  Still, I think the eunuchs had it worse.

Part of the display is the holy relics including Moses' cane, David's sword, John the Baptist's arm (in gold/brass/?? casing).  All of the prophets down to Mohammed.  Then there is the treasury full of lots and lots of bling and quite a few thrones.  The mass of people was really starting to get to me by then so I did a very quick circuit peeking over people's shoulders and not really reading what anything was.  Wandering around the gardens and the tile and fresco filled rooms was nice, but I could easily have given the whole palace a miss.  There was way too many people and I have enjoyed some of the other museums and sights I've seem on my trip far more.

Jennifer and Edwin were also staying an extra night so I caught up with them at the Mikla bar which has a fantastic view across the city (thanks to the recommendation from the Aussie lawyers) and very expensive drinks.  We then had dinner at a very nice restaurant right beside the Galata tower and I finally go to try the turkish ravioli.

I had planned a cruise on the Bosphorous the next day but I just couldn't find any enthusiasm so I browsed through the shops near where I'm staying and then toddled off to see the Istanbul Modern art gallery.  After spending weeks seeing old stuff, the gallery was a refreshing change.  A couple of the works stood out:
- the gallery has a library and books speared with wire form a fake ceiling - I'm gonna steal that one I think.
- as you enter, there are five tv screens showing some green variously shaped widgets moving to a repeating descending tonal beeping.  As you walk through the rest of the gallery, you can still hear the beeping
- there are a lot of video arts.  One that is most impressive is a picture of a building with while curtains blowing out the windows all the way along.  With the accompanying music it is quite peaceful and restful - until the very end when it goes dark and you hear explosions and see their flash.  The description (which I read after) tells that it was secretly filmed by the artist in 2005 when her Beirut hotel was under UN protection due to the fighting. 
- they had a temporary exhibition about urban walls in which artists have replicated/ taken inspiration from graffiti and other things that appear on the walls of city streets.  The pieces are collected from around the world and were done at different times.

I managed to squeeze in a shopping trip at the Grand Bazaar before my final evening in Istanbul, which was a dinner tour that I had been given free when I booked the Turkey tour.  I arrived at Intrepid office and discovered I was the only one doing the tour.  Salih, a 23 your old just recently graduated from his tour guide degree, was my guide for the evening and we headed off to have dinner with a family.  The family are kurdish from eastern turkey and there had just recently been some terrorism activity there.  Talking to Salih, who has just had a friend killed in an attack, it seems an impossibly complicated situation where one brother will 'go into the mountains' and join the terrorists while another brother will be in the army.  Many of the kurdish people know some of the terrorists as well as some of the people they are killing. The dinner itself and the family were very nice, but it is an odd situation when you don't speak the same language and Salih translated everything and you have very little in common to talk about.  I enjoyed the second part of the evening much more when we went to a cafe, drank tea and played backgammon.  A hookah pipe was included, but I declined and stuck with tea.