Turkey!

That’s right, I’m in Istanbul, land of the Turks, birthplace of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and a cultural center for an empire that lasted centuries. It’s all part of this grant that I got from the International Center for Journalists for a project I’ll be doing in Morocco. For now, they’ve brought together journalists from America and the Muslim world for a conference called “Faith in the Media: Improving Coverage of Islam and Other Religions.” But more on that later.

I am incredibly jet-lagged. But I spent the day wandering the city and getting a feel for it. Basically, I got lost. Very lost.

I took a boat from the European side to the Asian side, and wandered the streets. I went up, up, up a huge hill until I didn’t know how to get down again. And there was nothing to see. I know that sounds ethnocentric and American, but I wasn’t in a touristic, cultural, or bustling area. All I could find were car repair shops and houses.

I finally found a road back to the Bosphorus Strait, which winded between a community and a military base. I was about thirty steps behind this young child for about half of a mile, and I swear he thought I was following him. He kept looking behind him to see if I was still there:

I also took this picture of the 1970s-era bridge that crosses the Bosphorus:

And, of course, this picture of the skyline of the old section of the city, with the New Mosque on the left and the Hagia Sophia and the Galata Bridge on the right. I haven’t been to see these yet, but in time.