Every stone and piece of glass in the Presidential Palace is from Romania. The square meterage of the building is second only to the Pentagon.

Like Turkey, Romania seems to dance with its mixed identity in a way that is at once intriguing and not quite sure of itself.

It has warmth and hospitality and many of its people have olive and latte colored skin. But to call it Mediterranean would be like calling Louisiana the Caribbean. It has a hearty, heavy diet that includes a spiceless polenta like substance, lots of potatoes and cabbage, and borscht. But to call it Slavic (or Hugarian) would be like calling Armenia Russia.  Its Transylvanian heartland has Saxon architecture dating from the 14^th century, complete with fortified churches to protect it (against Turkish invasions), but to call it German would be like applying the same label to Norwegians. In short, it’s a satellite orbiting around no one culture, despite lots of occupation in its history.

And yet it feels so damn EUROPEAN, just as Anatolia feels so ORIENTAL. Both regions are crossroads, where rolling, accessible landscapes trampled on by dozens of civilizations over the millennia, and now both are bearing the fruits of recent heavy investment in tourism.

The Black Church in Old Town Brasov at dusk, colors blazing and moon rising.

Located just an hour’s flight from Istanbul, Romania’s accessibility – thanks to budget flights on Pegasus Airlines from Sabiha Gokcen – makes it an ideal regional getaway. It reminds one why Istanbul is such an appropriate base for regional travel into southeast Europe. But Bucharest is not nor should be the end point of any trip to Romania lasting more than a couple days. There is stuff to do and see in Bucharest – the presidential palace and its ridiculous, tragic and opulent legacy of the Ceausescu reign, a building that is only dwarfed by the pentagon in square meters. There is the old town, small and filled with shops that locals actually go to. But Bucharest feels like a working capital not totally awakened (or succumbed to) to being a destination the same way Prague or Budapest are.

Two hours away, though, is Brasov. Brasov is a charming medium-sized Saxon city that – despite a hideous Hollywood-style “Brasov” sign on the mountainside — is a charming fairytale city nestled in a valley. Being there in early November, my traveling companion and I could marvel at the bright reds and yellows of the leaves on the trees of those hillsides.

But Being the kind of travelers we are, my friend and I made it a point to check out the local pub scene, not the foliage. Nights are cold in November and the tourists are largely gone, but we found a couple cozy bars to have a pint of Ursus, Silva, or some other local suds (none of which are exceptional). We bantered with the owner of one bar, a basement type joint owned by a motherly woman who spoke several languages and was about to retire to the countryside on account of high rents. We sampled Romania cuisine at Casa Romaneasca, where I dined on pressed chicken livers wrapped in bacon and covered in a creamy garlic sauce, ample fuel for the body’s furnace on a chilly evening (to avoid carrying a bowling ball in his stomach the rest of the evening, my friend had a hearty chicken soup with a salad of pickled red peppers).

At Rasnov Castle overlooking the Carpathian Plain

Two days in Brasov is probably enough, and more than half of one of those days was spent checking out the famous Bran castle of Dracula lore and the hilltop fort at Rasnov. Perched on a steep Carpathian hill, the last in the range before a breadboard-flat plain, the fort at Rasnov was a pleasant surprise, and it’s easy to see why the fort is so strategically necessary (as is the Bran castle, about 12 km down the road.)

The next day it was on to Sighisoara, another 3 hours by train and in the geographical heart of the country. Sighisoara is Brasov redux but with a more charming (if that’s possible) citadel on top of a hill with a 270-degree view of the surrounding town. The town is brimming with school kids, leading me to believe that people are either really bored or confident in Romania’s future to provide for its people. While staying in a cozy hostel/pension next to the citadel and adjacent Biserica din Deal (church on the Hill) built in the 14^th century, we managed to have a lot of walks past village houses with chickens feeding and mangy dogs barking.

Pedaling into the Transylvanian village of Vulkan (also a Turkish word meaning volcano)

On our second to last day in Romania, we rented bikes from a helpful tourist office in the center of town (after filling out countless forms), and went on a 40 km bike ride through the Transylvanian countryside, stopping at a church in the Gypsy village of Apold. In Apold we turned onto a dirt road and slowly plied our way up a gradual slope – past sheepherders and fields of stubble – through to an isolated hamlet (Volkan). There we went along a farm track barely visible up to a ridge, then down a hill back to the Sighisuara, but not after being chased by surly farm dogs as if we were 11-year old boys in some coming of age film set in the 1960’s rural America (old man Mr. McGoo’s dog is after ya, Nick…faster faster!). At first we bemoaned the gloomy weather of low clouds, but then we realized that it was fitting because we were in Transylvania after all, and warm sunshine and greenery would be too…well…sunny for a landscape with such a macabre reputation.

Pork, Polenta (mamaliga) and Peppers -- Romanian delights!

It was back to Bucharest on the 5-hour evening train (first class is worth it for the reclining chairs). We stayed in a hostel in a grand old communist era townhouse, which was run by a chatty eccentric Canadian woman and her Romanian-born teenage daughter. The only bummer was losing my camera, and Romania, as developed as it may have gotten, lacks lost and founds. After touring aforementioned presidential palace (which faces the Boulevard Unirii, which Ceausescu intentionally made 6 meters longer than the Champs Elysee), we did some last minute gift buying for my friends significant other before heading back to cozy and quick Otopeni Airport.

It was 5 days in a country that like Turkey seems to relish in its identity as a nation not quite sure of its identity, and like Turkey, 5-days only whet my appetite for more.

Mă întorc România!

(I’m coming back, Romania!)

Some of my 10-year-old "Turtles" after our scavenger hunt on the mountainside.

Teaching English at a Summer Camp at Uludag

(A faint chant starts in Turkish somewhere in the back of the dining area, with its views of the mountains below. It grows slowly louder, until all the dinner tables erupt into the climactic chorus:)

Gel-e-ce-gin

yil-diz-lar!

Yil-diz-lar!

The nostalgic chant reverberates through my head as I rejoin the hot, boring adult world back in Istanbul after spending two weeks with campers at “Camp Future Stars” (Gelecegin Yildizlari) up on Uludag, a sprawling, 2000-meter high ski resort area home to one of the finest kids’ summer camps in Turkey during its lazy summer offseason.

The first term of Future Stars features kids from ages 10 to 13. They are from more well-to-do families in Turkey, but they aren’t spoiled brats that I might have feared. I felt a genuine bond with them upon departure. My first experience teaching at a summer camp was a beautiful one, even if fraught with problems such as lack of supplies and miscommunications that didn’t seem to befit a summer camp of its stature.

Sunsest over the summit

The co-owner, Fahrettin, one of two brothers who started the camp in 1989, told me that there are approximately 100 “official” summer camps in Turkey that are affiliated with global summer camp organizations, but a lot more camps run by municipalities. Most of the 15,000 or so camps in the US seem to have a rustic, Puritanical, get-back-to-the roots mission, eschewing a lot of modern conveniences for outdoor activities, overnight camps and the like. On the other hand, camps in Europe and Russia apparently have more modern conveniences and are more like collective holidays than what we think of summer camps. Life at this Turkish camp is kind of a combination of the two. There were two disco nights and classrooms were in hotel rooms. There was one overnight camping trip, but it was approximately 200 meters up the mountainside next to a ski lift. But the food was a lot healthier than camps I had been to in the US: Lots of salad and yogurt, and classes took turns on “shift” serving meals and clearing dishes. And because of Fahrettin’s love of basketball, there was a lot of roundball action in addition to games like archery.

I was never a camp kid. I went to two summer camps in my youth, once to Camp Kaesta, in the Southern Oregon Cascades, when I was 9 years old, then to B’nai B’rith Camp, a Jewish youth camp on the Oregon Coast, when I was 11. The experience at Ka-esta was a week long, when I had a terrible paranoia about contracting Lyme’s disease, and when there was one torturous night of homesickness when I couldn’t be consoled. My campmates at the Jewish camp, meanwhile, had all been together since they were 8 years old and formed a tight clique which they made clear early on that I wouldn’t be a part of. I was made fun of by these spoiled, Seattle Mercer Island types with few allies to count on except for one overweight boy who was also a new camper that year.

Ski run at night

So it was mainly financial reasons that led me to raise my hand to be a teacher at Camp Future Stars (Gelecegin Yildizlari), but it was one of the best decisions I’ve made this past year. The fresh mountain air, the creativity from the kids in the classroom (space was out theme, so students created things like anthems, flags, aliens, etc). When the kids performed at the end – to show off their planets, flags, aliens, etc. – I felt like a nervous and proud father. And teary goodbye hugs as the kids boarded coach busses back to the city, I too felt pangs of sadness, for what seemed to be a long two weeks at first, turned out to be over in the blink of an eye.

I wasn’t a camp kid. But I am a camp grown up.

(Note: while the weather in Istanbul is sweltering in summer, hitting 30 degrees, and humid,  it never got above 22 while I was there, and often nights dipped down to 12 degrees. Sweaters and long jons are recommended anytime one visits Uludag)

We even have a sex tape scandal! Here are some link a dinks for more information:

Turkey at the ballot box: What is at stake? (Al Jazeera)

Ottoman Fantasies (Michael Totten blog interview with local American writer who has some pretty good and nuanced insight into Turkish foreign policy. It’s not about the election but a good primer)

Turkey: Sex Tape Scandal Impacting Upcoming Election (From Eurasianet — trust me the videos aren’t juicy at all. Don’t bother Googling)

"The Deal" episode

There is a classic Seinfeld episode where Jerry, not knowing what to get Elaine for her birthday, gives her cash.

Elaine: Cash?

Jerry: What do you think?

Elaine: You got me cash?

Jerry: Well this way I figure you can go out and get yourself whatever you want. No good?

Elaine: Who are you, my uncle?

Jerry: Well come on. That’s $182 right there. I don’t think that’s anything to sneeze at.

Elaine is furious. But I tend to side with Jerry — and so does Turkish wedding tradition. And at about 125 TL ($79) for a “ceyrek altin” at today’s exchange prices, that’s nothing to sneeze at if you are going to many weddings (I only went to two this season).

Indeed, gold coins are the main expected wedding gift in Turkey — hands down — or a large cash note if gold can’t be acquired.

I think it saves a lot of hassle, and ultimately yes, through the God-given decision making powers we process, we can skip the registry and get EXACTLY the kind of blender we want. Or perhaps it has something to do with the hospitality-oriented culture that the couple has to buy what they want without the benefit of a registry, and the guests have it easy.

"Solid Gold, baby"

On wedding day, after the nikah (wedding ceremony) the bride and groom stand like the Obamas hosting a state visit and friends and relatives come by in a procession – often quite long – to pin small gold coins on to the bride and groom. These coins are emblazoned with Ataturk on the good luck side and an Ottoman seal in Arabic script on the other. If a gold coin cannot be had, a 100 TL or euro note is perfectly acceptable substitute.

Afterwards, the couple is able to exchange their haul for common cash at one of the many kuyumculuks (jewelers) dotting the central areas of town, which often post set daily gold prices on digital displays, just as currency rates are. The stores’ buying price at last check was 123.03 TL ($77).

According to one student who married recently, despite the lofty price of gold these days, it often doesn’t offset the cost of the wedding, which can be lavish and long running affairs, but which vary greatly depending on the regional identity and level of traditionalism in the family.

The ones I went to were Western by comparison, one taking place at the lapping shores of the Bosphorus under the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, the other in the verdant greenery of Turkey’s finest urban park: Kültür Park in the city of Bursa (once the capital of the Ottoman empire and bearing a striking resemblance to northern California/southern Oregon in its flora and climate).  After the nikah, the party heads over to the düğün (reception) to whoop it up. There, older relatives – covered ladies and mustachioed gentlemen – nod their heads to the beat as the kids bounce to club music, Madonna, Brian Adams and what have you. This is something I love about Turkey, this cultural melding of old and new, and Turks are quite adept at balancing the two. Whether Turkey is “Islam Light” as seen by many in the Arab world, or conservative – this harmony of the generations is a time when I have never felt more proud to be living here.

( here are current gold prices in Turkey)

Pluck a sublime towel.

It’s not always easy to rate the best bathrooms in a city. You usually only get 50 percent of the story, of course – especially in Turkey – and everyone has different criteria. Do you value highly amenities like automatic sinks that allow you to not touch anything except the toilet seat and the door? Are you willing to overlook possible shoddy plumbing in favor of things like Italian marble, bidets, bronze sink knobs, etc?

Lo, I have found what I believe is the best lavatory in Istanbul hands down. It’s located at Zeyrekhane, which is in Unkapani, off Ataturk Blvd., up the hill 100 meters on the right side of the road as you are headed south toward the airport. Built by the Byzantines, the arch-filled dining area of Zeyrekhane and its courtyard were once part of the medrese of the Mulla Zeyrek Mosque. Today it is a refurbished fine dining establishment with amazing deserts. The restoration was carried out in 2007 by the Rahmi Koc Vakfi (foundation) along with the local municipality. I am not sure to what degree he still controls the restaurant, but the restaurant’s website is routed through the foundation.

Anyway, men’s rooms visitors are greeted by a large fez hanging from the door, refreshing in an officially fez-free society. Inside its salmon colored stone walls with abundant pencil and ink illustrations of Ottoman buildings. The flowers by the sink and mirror are comfortably effeminate in a Mediterranean way, as if to say, “Hey I am comfortable enough with my sexuality to proclaim my love of flowers in the bathroom!”

Wall-mounted fez greets the gentlemen

The decorations are not kitsch: it’s all tasteful blend of gentle bathroom decorum, surreal enough to get comfortably distracted from what you are doing, but not so in your face as to be reminded that someone who shouldn’t have been in charge was a bit too liberal or otherwise tasteless. There are ceramic plates with the star and the crescent, a tip to the hat of modern statehood in an otherwise Ottoman/Byzantine place.

Of course, the hane is why you are here, right? Ottoman cuisine is served breakfast and dinner, but the place is recommended as a sort of “high tea” place on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Sip demleme (Turkish) tea and stare at the giant gold-colored samovar, while eating the highly recommended susam sepeti icende bogurtlenli muhallebi (milk pudding cakes with blackberry served in a sesame basket). Fortunately, the place wasn’t converted into another iskender or high-class kebap house, a dime a dozen in the city.

The conversation seems to go like this:

Le pissuer

(Rich conservative restaurateur says: what should we serve at our awesomely renovated new place?)

(Rich buddy: I know! How about Iskender kebap, and maybe some Adana and Urfa kebap, too!)

(Restaurateur: Great idea! What would I do without you?!)

But Rahmi Koc is more worldly and in the billionaire class so he trampolines out of that nouveau-riche discussion, fortunately. The point for you is a pleasant stroll around the garden afterwards, with views of the towering Suleymaniye Mosque in the foreground and the Galata Tower on the other side of the Golden Horn. Enjoy.

And if you know of a “must pee” (bad-a bing!!) bathroom in Istanbul, let me know.

“No, no. Highly highly unlikely, anyway” my fake alter ego, with a Ph.D. and dozens of published works to his name, replies. “The cultures are quite distinct, and regular folks have seen more fruits of economic growth lately than the masses in countries like Egypt have – though it’s still not enough.”

I am polishing off a yogurtlu fistikli beyti kebap that was frozen and flown directly to me from Gaziantep, looking out the window from my Istanbul penthouse overlooking the Bosphorus. “I suppose it COULD be possible, but in reality Turkey is seen as a role model in terms of democracy, and, scanning the Net, I have yet to see any reports of such activity going on.”

As I take a hit from my cast-silver nargile and exhale fresh wet smoke of apple flavored tobacco, I continue.  “There is little censorship of the Net, except for that silly YouTube business that everyone – from the villager cleaning lady to the five-year-old spoiled kid from Bostanci – knows how to get around. The Turks have taken to social networking like olive oil on eggplant, and surely there would be more buzz on Facebook, etc. to this effect.” I get up and refill my tulip shaped teacup from Pasabahce with steeped tea made from fine Black Sea leaves.

But I pause. This is Turkey, after all, people work ridiculously long hours, minimum wage is roughly 500 a month, the military is highly respected but so is the regime, for now. How long could that last? The garbage is getting picked up more regularly; there are big infrastructure projects underway that the Ak Party rightfully or wrongfully takes credit for. So it’s going to be a while, I think to myself.

“Islam is creeping into daily lives, this could be a balm to soothe the masses so they create more robotic support in the long run and can finally achieve the dream of successfully portraying secularists as ‘aliens’, as Erdogan once called the liberal-minded Izmir populace.” I mumble under my breath as I saunter back into the ‘salon’.

“What?” asks the curious American.

“Oh, Nothing,” I sit back down.

So…will there be mass protests here? “Nah” I say. “Well, this baklava won’t eat itself, my friend. Afiyet olsun.”

—

A real international affairs scholar said Turkey is actually a model for these newly democratic countries.

And something a tid bit spooky: A Muslim Brotherhood leader visits Turkey.

Late afternoon sun drapes the 5000-meter plus Mt. Kazbek, towering above the village of Kazbegi.

I got up in the middle of the night needing to use the facilities. I was in the living room of a Georgian village home, and there were several beds in that living room containing my friends and travel companions to negotiate. I fumbled around past them – snores marking their spots in pitch blackness – made my way past the woodstove in the kitchen, nearly burning myself, opened the door and felt the rush of the south wind coming from the towering mountains we drove through the previous afternoon.  Dang, I thought, do I really have to go out in the freezing cold just to get to the bathroom? No bathroom inside? But then I looked up at the stars, beautiful, then the mountains draped in moonlight, stupendous, and made my way down the steps to a (heated!) bathroom. Yes, going outside to use the can was worth it: for this blissful, wee hour silence in the high Caucasus village of Kazbegi.

I spent five days in Georgia, and coincidentally so did several English teachers in Istanbul who also had a week-long holiday to celebrate, so we celebrated together for some of the time. After the first night in Tbilisi, we went to Kazbegi, three hours north of Tbilisi, courtesy of a Saudi gentleman who had a car and drove all the way up from his home country. Roadside shrines dotted the highest, pot-hole strewn passages of that road, while roadside churches hundreds of years old and even the occasional Soviet-era modern sculpture dotted the lower lands. Indeed, it was those lower lands reminded me

Inside the hilltop Tsiminda Sameba Monastery

of the mountains and valleys of my native southern Oregon, but what Oregon misses is the next level of stark, amazing peaks like Mount Kazbek, towering more than 5000 meters and within plain view of the village of Kazbegi.

Home stays are the main accommodation option in Kazbegi, as the whole country is still developing tourism potential. We were approached by a woman with a small child offering her home to stay in, hence the middle of the night trek through a living room festooned with all manner of Georgian figurines, crystal, books and warm folded blankets. The stay included some delicious breakfast, warm, calorie filled kachapoorie, cheesy fried bread, and eggs, jam, tea coffee and other familiar offerings. Kachapuri is indeed replete all over the land, as breakfast pre-dinner snack, lunch, whatever. It’s positively the heaviest dough-related concoction one can imagine, though I hear in western Georgia they put an egg on top. After breakfast four of us trekked up to Tsiminda Sameba Monastery, a 14^th-century structure perched overlooking the town at 2200 meters. Monks tended to gardens, we tended to our senses, ensuring we breathed as much mountain air as possible.

Sheep down the main highway

Heading back down the lowlands to Tbilisi for the night, we traded stories in the Honda with Saudi plates, getting weird looks from passersby at perhaps the first Saudi car to cruise the Russian Military Highway. The next day is was to the east and the tamer topography of wine country. Georgian wines come in many varieties, but each has a unique taste not found in an Albertson’s wine rack in the US, let alone at the bakkal in Turkey.  The three of us spent nearly a day in the village of Sighnahi, a pleasant small town perched on the edge of a ridge overlooking a valley. We got there by taxi, which ran us about 15 bucks total for a two hour journey (gotta love travel in Georgia). There weren’t as many wine tasting facilities in town as we thought – one really, serving a brand called Pheasant’s Tears – but the town was relaxing and felt like a small town in the Napa Valley might have about 40 years ago, plus Georgian babushkas of course.

My next two days were spent palling around Tbilisi alone, my friends having gone to Armenia for a couple days. Tbilisi is a mish mash of styles, but the overarching feel is central European, a sort of Prague of the Caucuses. But there are certainly other influences: towering churches and a pious populace that gives a Greek feel, a bathhouse in the center of town that is central Asian in architecture, towering Soviet era sculptures. But the town doesn’t have as much of a heavy Soviet feel as I thought, except for the metro and its ludicrously fast and unsafe escalators.

Looking north over the great Caucasus capital, from the Narikala Fortress.

And like European cities, there are no shortage of monuments, churches, a turn of the century synagogue, even an hourly clock tower parade show thingy reminiscent of Prague. I am not going to go into the history of all the awesome monuments, but do check out the fortress overlooking the city above the old quarter, then wander down a surprisingly well tended and diverse botanical garden with waterfalls below it.

Oh, and I can’t forget the half day trip to Gori and the Stalin Museum! For what visit to Georgia would be complete without it. The museum was oddly just what I expected, some crumbling Soviet-era palace devoted to the hometown boy who made it good. Sadly, not much balanced reporting on Stalin, and most of the museum is in Russian and Georgian. Lots of flattering newspaper clips blown up, a bizarre bust of the man surrounded by velvet. The usual. But who comes to Gori for an accurate portrayal of Stalin. Not me!

Not a day passed by in Georgia without feasting on Khinhali, splendid dumplings filled with minced meet. At about 30 cents apiece, they made for a refreshingly heavy change from the smaller portions found at Turkish restaurants.

Cola Stalin?

Cheap, stunningly beautiful, with hospitable folks that can go toe to toe with any Middle Eastern culture, Georgia is a prize that is on the cusp of being totally touristified. Catch it while you can, while you can stay in someone’s house because you have no other option.

The famous Van cat takes on a creepy, human-sized likeness and becomes the mascot. The stuff of kindergartner nightmares.

Howdy…it’s been a while since I rapped at y’all. Just wanted to remind all you basketball fans, baseketball fans, women in love with tall skinny dudes, etc., that the FIBA World Basketball Championships are coming to Turkey starting August 28. 

Now as most of you know I am from the US, and this is our sport. No more puppy dog team USA soccer hoping to upset the big boys. We better win it all or there is going to be hell to pay. It’s like soccer and Brazil, or handball and Puerto Rico, or steroid woman’s swimming and East Germany. When we play, we hopefully play for it all, for the motherland…I guess….or something.

*Sigh* No Kobe, No Dwayne, No Lebron (too busy seeing how much farther he can put his head up his own ass this summer). None of those dudes seem to care (have any of you noticed that they pulled those adds with “giant” Kobe superimposed over the ancient Istanbul skyline?)

I was playing Super Mario 1 at my cousin's house when Derrick Rose was born.

But hey…we have soft spoken Kevin Durant of the OKC Thunder. He isn’t an international household name yet but he should be. All he did last season was almost singlehandedly lead his team to the playoffs with 30 points per game and more than 7 rebounds. Then there is main man Chauncey Billups, a clutch veteran leader at guard who lead the toppling of the Shaq Kobe regime. Then there is Derrick Rose, an up and comer who has maybe fulfilled two-thirds of his potential so far at 20 points per game and 6 assists, born in 1988.

The games will be broadcasted locally on NTV , according to a guy handing out promotional flyers from a sponsor on the street. (I see that day passes can be purchased through Biletix for as little as 5 euro. But after signing up with Biletix, I was directed to an annoying screen that told me that there was no way I could get the tickets no, sorry, maybe it’s because of this, maybe because of that. We don’t know. Too good to be true.)

The official FIBA site is a good place to start research into teams, who is who, and youth teams you probably don’t care about unless you are a parent of a hoops prodigy. That flyer guy on the street’s employer, Beko (makers of household appliances), has a graphics-rich site in English with some seriously awkward wording. The site details venues and generally has a more local flair.

“Five Questions for Team USA” is a nice article outlining challenges for the homeboys. And it’s written by a Mannix (Chris of SI).Here we have info on the real homeboys. There are now FOUR Turkish players under contract in the NBA. Not bad for a country that started loving hoops 30 years ago thanks to “My White Shadow”. (It’s true!)

Maybe you will see me out there cheering them on!

Istanbul's Walden Pond

Being from Oregon and appreciating a walk in the forest is like living in Turkey and being a kebap afficianado. You are a connoisseur, poo pooing the inferior choices.

Istanbul will help remedy this malady of being a forest snob. It’s a concrete jungle that makes almost any horn-free setting blissful.

That said, Istanbul Province’s Belgrade Forest is a 5500-hectare area of protected forest of mostly middle aged hardwood trees north of the city, near Bahcekoy.  It was named after the Serbians who were resettled there when the Ottomans occupied their country in the 16th century. Suleyman the Magnificent appointed the settlers managers of the area’s water distribution system. (This article from Time Out has more on the history). The small lake in the middle of the forest supplied the city of its water for millennia, and the grand aqueduct and its archways that go over Ataturk Boulevard is the most visible remnant of this.

To get there, one needs only get on the 42T bus from Taksim to Bahcekoy and get off near the very end of the line. A good clue that you

Fungus among us

are getting close to the non-action is the forest research and management department offices of various Istanbul universities.

After crossing through the entrance gate (2 TL for peds), wander around a bit. It’s easy to lose your sense of direction in this steep, low hill country that is about two-thirds the way up the Bosphorus on the European side. The early summer has been unusually rainy. There was mud everywhere. Like clockwork, frogs jumped into the water at every puddle approached. The evapotranspiration from the heavy greenery made the area feel like a steamy, sub-tropical jungle in the southeastern US. You can almost see the auto exhaust fumes from the city being sucked up and turned into luscious oxygen.

Perhaps the best part was meditating in front of the small, aforementioned reservoir, where I gazed on purple wildflowers that are normally wilted by this time, and heard the breeze rustling the leaves, making a waterfall sound. Along many of the dirt roads I walked along were continuous stacks of firewood. I imagined that these were going to the various nargile joints as charcoal, or bakeries, or perhaps even to heat the homes of people in shantytowns.

While supplies last

Go there in the middle of the week. I went on a Monday and there was almost no one. This is the closest thing to a Walden Pond you can get.

Its purpose? To hold fake fruit of course!

As our bus from Istanbul passed a statue of colorful fruit in a bowl, it was clear Edirne wasn’t going to be an average mid-sized Turkish city. As I sat in a creaky stadium and watched oil-covered wrestlers of all shapes and sizes dueling in the long grass, it was clear Edirne is a unique world city as well.

Shortly after passing the giant bowl of produce, my travel companion and I split because she had to make her quad-annual border run in nearby Bulgaria – a bizarre yet familiar expat formality of crossing the border for 15 minutes to get a new visa for three months. But this wasn’t until we had the world famous Edirne ciger tava — fried liver. It consists of small pieces of the organ lightly fried in sunflower oil, which is abundant on the Thracian plain. We went to Niyazi Usta, recommended to us by a local shopkeeper as the best ciger joint in town. It didn’t disappoint. Served alongside oral bonfire-inducing red peppers, as well as salad and bread, those little nibblers of protein goodness have an intense, gamy  flavor that’s somewhat subdued by the slightly sweet oil. I made my friend, who is very picky about which meats she eats, try a piece. “Not bad,” she said to my surprise.

Afterwards, I pressed on to the outskirts of town to watch some dudes in leather pants get oiled up and roll around on the ground (it’s always how you spin it, right?), i.e. Yagli Gures, i.e. Turkish oil wrestling! Thinking it would just be a field and a parking lot, I was greeted with the Turkish equivalent of a county fair, only this centuries-old gathering had picnickers in every nook and cranny of the surrounding woods cracking sunflower seeds with boys practicing their wrestling moves, large rotisserie hens impaled by oversized stakes and sellers of acibadem (an almond-based Turkish cookie) walking around with their goods balanced on their heads. I thought I was leaving after hearing that prices to get in the stadium started at 30 bucks (I only had time for a short stay),but I managed to go around the back and snuck in a gate fronting the cheap seats.

A wrestler moves his arms up and down (left) either to evenly distribute the oil around his body, or just to warm up. Others duke it out.

Inside one can easily imagine what this competition looked like 649 years ago when the tradition began (it’s the longest continual sporting event in the world). Replace the creaky wooden stadium with tents and horses, and the collared shirts with Turkish robes and turbans, and you are back to a time when Turkish clans would meet from all corners of the empire. The loudspeaker boomed with names of wrestlers entering and leaving, much as someone long ago may have called out the names of athletes from tribes around Anatolia. “Mehmet Gucel…Tokat!”  “Serdar Koseoglu…Antalya!”

Not being much of a wrestling fan per se, I couldn’t really cheer when something dramatic happened. Dramatic things happened infrequently too (or maybe I don’t know what to look for) because the oil made truly grabbing one another about as easy as grabbing fish out of water dancing on a slippery boat. People get into it though. But I had to leave. I wish I could’ve stayed to watch the final, heavyweight match was to be broadcasted on national TV, but my border running friend returned from her distinctly unique yet usual errand and we sauntered off to check out Selimiye Camii on top of a hill in the heart of town.

The famous fried liver (right) next to peppers from Dante's inferno, salad and ayran.

Built in the 16^th century by the most famous Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan, Selimiye stands in the middle of a complex of a medrese, hospital, bath and market, though now mainly just a market filled with Edirne’s famous fake-fruit shaped soaps (hence the fruit statue). The patterns on its ceiling are breathtaking, and the complexity of the little nubs and cornices surrounding and below the dome are more intricate than those of other major Turkish mosques. Selimiye is my third favorite mosque behind the Ulu Camii in Bursa and Suleymaniye Camii in Istanbul (the latter of which should be fully restored by now!).

Another note about Edirne: perhaps because it is a frontier town less than 50 km from the Bulgarian and Greek borders, it seems like people are used to foreigners speaking Turkish. In most places, you are either totally fluent, or a total foreigner who knows maybe five words and how to count to ten. In Edirne, the pacing and intonation of the lighter skinned locals is more slow and clear.

Or maybe that’s just a reflection of the laid back, Balkan-esque farm life on the plain, where seeds are planted in the spring and

Selimiye Mosque

there is plenty of time to down raki in the evenings. Whatever it is, gazing out over the river and its ancient arched bridge toward a long, flat horizon, you can’t help but think what a taxi driver said to my friend on her border run: Edirne has got everything!