My first impression of Turkey was scale.
Istanbul Airport seemed almost impossibly large. Corridors stretched into the distance, the parking structure was equally imposing, and before we had even properly arrived, I found myself wondering whether there was a bigger airport anywhere in the world.
Outside, the theme continued.
The roads were wide and remarkably clean. The bridges were enormous. Everything seemed somehow supersized.
It took nearly an hour to reach our hotel, the Orient Occident, and Istanbul gradually revealed itself through the car window. Traffic everywhere—not quite Lagos traffic, perhaps, but enough cars to make the comparison inevitable. The streets were alive with pedestrians. The air was hot and muggy, almost tropical.
And then came a sound that immediately reminded me that I was somewhere different.
The call to prayer.
It rose above the traffic and the noise of the city, broadcast from loudspeakers, ancient words carried over a thoroughly modern metropolis.
That juxtaposition may be my earliest impression of Istanbul: the old and the new apparently having no difficulty occupying the same space.
Even our hotel tells that story.
The building is about 120 years old, although it became a hotel only recently. Before the restoration, its spaces housed an assortment of small businesses: a curtain shop, tiny stores tucked between columns, someone who apparently made and sold spoons, another shop devoted to remote controls and repairs for radios and electrical devices.
I smiled listening to the story.
A luxury hotel today. A spoon maker yesterday.
Perhaps that is Istanbul.
We haven’t really seen anything yet. Somewhere beyond our hotel are Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar and the Bosphorus. Tomorrow we begin discovering them.
But first impressions matter.
And on this first evening in Turkey, Istanbul already felt enormous, crowded, warm, ancient and modern all at once.
By dinner, it seemed only appropriate to try something Turkish.
When I wondered aloud what I should drink, I decided against the familiar and ordered rakı.
It arrived clear. Then water was added and, almost magically, the drink turned cloudy white before my eyes. I was fascinated. The resulting color, I discovered, is sometimes described as aslan sütü—“lion’s milk.”
The fascination lasted longer than my enthusiasm for the taste.
Anise.
Very definitely anise.
Perhaps a little too much anise for me. I was glad I tried it, but I suspect rakı and I may remain acquaintances rather than become close friends.
After dinner, I stepped outside with my camera.
And there was Istanbul again—this time illuminated against the night. Across the dark waters of the Bosphorus, one of those enormous bridges I had noticed on the drive from the airport was now transformed, its lights suspended between two continents and the city climbing the hills beyond it.
I took a couple of photographs.
It seemed an appropriate way to end my first evening in Turkey.
I had arrived thinking about scale—the enormous airport, the bridges, the roads, the traffic and the crowds. But by nightfall, Istanbul had begun revealing itself through smaller things: the call to prayer floating above the streets, stories hidden inside a 120-year-old building, a glass of rakı changing color when touched by water, and a bridge glowing across the Bosphorus.
Perhaps first impressions aren’t conclusions at all.
They are invitations.
And Istanbul has five more days to make its case.
Simply O
