1. İstanbul has had an excessive number of names: Byzantium, Constantinople, Kostantiniyye, and finally İstanbul, not to mention variants on those. The Vikings referred it as Miklagarðr (which simply means the Big City), and it's still called that in Iceland. It is 125 km in length from the westernmost part in Europe to the easternmost part in Asia. It claims to have been built on seven hills.
2. We decided to try lots of local things. The first one was sahlep, a hot drink made from orchid root and cinnamon, and this turned out to be utterly delicious. You can buy a steaming polystyrene-cup-full of it from street vendors for one lira (45p). Pleased with this success we had different flavours of toffee wound onto a stick; ayran (delicious yogurt drink); sherbert (far too sweet); strange meatballs; and we asked a rabbit to tell our fortune. The rabbit did this by being told our names and then nosing out from a tray a little slip of paper for each of us. Mine said "O! Owner of fortune: You're in straits nowdays but don't worry you will sort out everything and feel happy. It is seen generosity by someone." I feel quite good about that, especially the initial invocation and the final cryptic phrase. We also ordered odd things on menus to see what they were: I had a meal called "Christians of Istanbul", which turned out to be lamb and dried plums baked in pastry. It was very good, and terribly Byzantine, the sort of thing the Palaeologi probably ate before going off to slay some Bulgars. Fiona even went so far as to go to a hamam, though I discovered myself to be just too damn British and went to a bookshop instead. Alas: our new-experience lucky streak came to an end with the ill-advised order of some turnip juice. It was really remarkably foul, and I found it upsetting just to have it on the table while I ate my pide. So we lost heart and never tried the milk pudding flavoured with slightly burnt chicken breast, or boza, a hot alcoholic drink made from chickpeas.3. Fiona pointed out to me the lack of women in their twenties and thirties; and in the old city people on the streets were mostly men, and it seemed that the only other women about were with their husbands. Of course that's a pretty typical evening at high table; still it was a bit disconcerting.
4. We went down into the massive basilica cistern, which was completely lost until a sixteenth-century French archaeologist noticed that some people in the old city were catching fish through holes in their floors. It has huge arches and lots of reused masonry, including some big gorgon heads on their sides holding up pillars. The water isn't deep but is full of ancient carp. Fiona said that it would be the ideal place for a first date, because there's a cafe there lit by candles; I offer that in case anyone is looking for a first date location in Istanbul.
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