More Notes on Istanbul

As we ride the rolling seas (urp) crossing the Dardanelles on the way to the Turkish Aegean ports of Kusadasi and Bodrum, a few more observations about Istanbul:

*Our breakfast buffet included the elements of a typical Turkish meal: many varieties of cheese, sheep's milk yogurt (salted, more savory than sweet), a huge array of olives (some with unusual stuffings such as orange peel and almonds), and chunks of honeycomb (I'm not entirely sure how they are to be eaten so I worked the honey loose and spat out the waxy comb. I didn't get odd looks from the waitstaff, so I guess that was OK).

*Our lunch on our day of touring the Old City was at the Pudding Shop (aka Lale Restaurant), an unremarkable place serving typical Turkish foods (stuffed zucchinis, stuffed peppers, kofte meatballs, doner kebab). But the proprietors will tell you that the Pudding Shop is "world-famous" because in articles in The New York Times and elsewhere over the years, it is hailed as the place where many a hippie would hitchhike a lift to Afghanistan or Nepal during the Seventies.

*As we sailed out of the Bosphorus into the Sea of Mamarra on Saturday evening, we saw a hundred or more container ships and other commercial craft lined up to enter the passage to the Black Sea. Apparently a serious crash in the recent past has led to strict limits on how many may pass at once. Given the huge volume of ships we saw in the Bosphorus, it's hard to imagine it any more crowded.

*A special moment on our first night in Istanbul: as we were leaving the hotel terrace, we spotted a perfect crescent moon hovering above Topkapi Palace.