I enter the Spice Market, followed by the Lubricant Market

Do you want some saffron, henna, or a bag of pomegranate tea? An Aladdin-type glass lamp glowing like a dark jewel? A hammer or crowbar? A harem dancing girl outfit for your 2-year-old granddaughter? A live turkey? Meat-on-a-sword for lunch? Or how about a jugful of leeches for that nagging headache??

You can get it all-and more-down at the Spice Bazaar.

A smaller version of the tourist-laden Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar sits right along the main port on the Bosphorus River, and right behind a lovely old mosque called the New Mother Sultan Mosque. New is all in how you look at it of course – it was built in the 1600s. It overlooks the river in imposing grandeur, and over the centuries I suppose Mother has become used to the foreigners who tread her halls, for she allows them to come in for a visit-if they are quiet, respectful, take off their shoes, and cover up with a scarf. Kind of like more traditional Catholic churches, except for the shoe thing of course. While this mosque is not as impressively decorated as some of Istanbul's others, the open floor plan, the lovely red carpet with a geometric pattern that obviates the need for pews (worshippers line up sitting along the linear weave), enormous chandeliers, the tile work and stained glass windows, all do the required job of transporting human consciousness to that other place. What is it about God that has inspired so many artists and architects to devote their best work to trying-somehow-to explain the beauty we can’t see which lies beyond the beauty that we can. It must be a hardened soul indeed who can sit in one of these holy places-a cathedral, a mosque, a synagogue, or a bare-rock mountain where eternal flames leap up in the night - and not wonder about the power behind it all, and how He just happened to make the world so cool.

Apparently the pigeons are devoted too, although they appear to worship the little old men and women who hang

around the mosque steps, selling plates full of bird seed. You’ve never seen such crowds of pigeons, so glossy, fat and bold. Both children and adults delight in scattering their dinner, and of course the kids get the extra fun of running through the flighty crowd just as they reach the main course.

Of course the thousands of bingeing pigeons leave their own contribution to the press of crowds around the mosque-perhaps a practical consideration for the rule of taking off your shoes before you enter.

You can stroll from the mosque to the sea wall, and watch as passengers as tiny as ants creep aboard their Zeusian-size mega-cruise ships. The harbor is so immense that several can load side by side with plenty of room for the tankers that also ply the river. One of Tim’s business associates-who lives in Izmir-told him that thousands of cargo ships a year come up the river… so many that there are occasional incidents in which currents and vodka-drinking navigators conspire to draw a crooked course, with unfortunate results for the magnificent house that line the shores.

Behind the mosque it’s easy to find the Spice Market-also called the Egyptian Bazaar. The guidebook tells me that this is the older market, built about 350 years ago to promote the spice trade in the city. It has a large L-shaped covered component in which the spice traders have their booths-the front doors stacked with sacks of colored powder (green henna, yellow cumin, nut-brown coriander, mahogany cinnamon), pink, green, red and black peppercorns, intensely fragrant tea mixtures (dried rose buds, magenta pomegranate flowers, and warm-colored mixes of dried apples, orange peel, cloves and chips of cinnamon bark). Behind these you’ll find burlap sacks bursting with walnuts, pistachios, almonds, figs, dates, apricots and at least a dozen other delicious-looking dried fruits that have no American counterpart that I could identify. There are also the required tourist element shops there, though I got the feeling it was less so than the ultimate schlock of the Grand Bazaar, which is many time bigger and probably many times more tourist-laden.

Once I wandered out of the covered area, I found myself in a warren of tiny shopping alleys where the merchants were arranged by merchandise-knives and kitchen implements, party supplies, clothing, hardware, cheese and fishmongers-just like Wal-Mart but a lot more crowded, loud, smelly, and fun. In these streets you don’t see tourists-obviously they are much more in need of a glass bracelet with the blue-and-white Evil Eye charm or a ruby-red cut glass harem lamp than a new frying pan or some tulum- a salty hard cheese made from a mix of sheep and goat milk, which I bought and found goes great with the gigantic sticky sweet Medina dates.

The bird, pet, and garden markets also butt up against the covered spice section-and you’ll find the Turkish Petsmart. I saw lots of dogs and cats roaming around, getting a lot of attention from a lot of people, all looking very healthy and well-fed-nothing (the animals that is) like the scrawny curs you come across in Tunisia-or Mexico for that matter. The vendors here have bins of dog and cat food, chewy toys, squeaky toys, feathery toys, and lots of grooming tools and medicine for pets. And lots of birds-parakeets, finches, and lovebirds for little cages in the house, and poultry destined for another fate I suppose-but on offer were baby chicks, full-grown hens and roosters, guinea fowl, large turkeys, geese and ducks.

And enormous water jugs, full of 4-6 inch long leeches. Because they were being sold in the pet department, I first assumed that maybe they were some kind of food for the birds, but signs on the leeches at least had the word DOKTOR in them, which made me pause and think… could these be for medical human use?? I tried to approach a couple of salesmen, but the gender barrier combined with the language barrier was too strong to bridge. Finally, an old man who probably didn’t care if I was a woman or not, gestured to me that you put them all around your face and neck-for a headache maybe? He seemed to be saying they were wildly effective and hey-who am I to question? After all, so far “modern medicine” hasn’t done a whole lot to help me out in my situation. But still I left the leeches in their jug and moved on to the leeches trying to sell carpets.

After wandering a bit I entered a street filled with wispy clouds of meat-smelling charcoal smoke. I picked one at random after seeing in the window a huge assortment of metal swords threaded with meat and veggies. One that really struck my eye was an entire eggplant, chopped into sections separated by big chunks of marinated chicken. It looked delicious but too big, so I chose some meatballs interspersed with tomatoes. I sat down at one of the three tables inside, across from an old man who was eating a salad of chopped tomatoes, onion, cucumber, and sliced raw chiles. These peppers have been on every plate we’ve had here, grilled over an open flame. They look like a serrano but are -90% of the time- mild enough to eat like a bell pepper. Every once in a while one will snap my head back and I give it to Tim. I ordered a similar salad, doused it with lemon and salt the way I saw the old guy do, and then he instructed me to open one of the two glass condiment jars on the table-the one containing dried sumac powder, which gives a slightly tart-salty taste-and he warned me away from the dried chile powder in the other jar. The meat and tomatoes, conveniently removed from the inch-wide blade they cooked on, arrived at my table in the company of another lettuce and tomato salad, 2 more grilled chiles, and a big spoonful of tomato-flavored couscous. Of course it was too much food, especially when the proprietor noticed me enjoying the chiles and brought over a few more. The meatballs were delicious-very beefy and salty, with a tinge of cinnamon and cumin. As I was finishing, he cut up a big hard quince and passed out slices to me and everyone else in the place and I enjoyed its vague appley taste and astringent bite. The other customers, and the waitress, the grill guy all seemed delighted that I was enjoying it so much! The nice lady waitress (the only one I saw all day) brought me a tiny cup of tea and motioned to put 2 sugar cubes in it and it was hot, sweet and delicious. When I went to pay, it was just 9 Turkish lire-about $6 US.

After lunch I happened on the garden mart-dozens of vendors selling houseplants, fall bulbs, fruit trees, fertilizer, and even garden geegaws. The coolest thing was seeing the pyramids of bulbs-daffodils, narcissus, cyclamen, hyacinth-all those amazing flowers that have their ancient roots in this very part of the world-the Tarsus mountains, ancient Persia, and Greece, from whence they were brought to Europe by enterprising plant-nuts. All these flowers also have their own wonderful ancient myths to explain their creation –Hyacinth, the handsome youth who was a lover of Apollo, killed by a discus (either by accident or on purpose by a jealous wanna-be). Apollo was so distraught that he created the Hyacinth flower from the boy’s spilled blood-a flower that returns year after year to brighten the spring landscape. Send me a message if you want to hear about Narcissus and Cyclamen… otherwise I’ll spare you. I actually meant to spend only part of the day in the market, but I ended up wandering around there for hours. I returned to the hotel just in time to unload my spoils and get ready for the gala evening-the group that’s hosting Tim’s meeting chartered a yacht for an evening dinner cruise. We got all dressed up and boarded the busses-and learned why Istanbul’s traffic is legendary. It took us an hour to go about 3 miles. When we finally boarded the boat, we climbed to the top deck for drinks-I had just taken an extra pain pill for the headache and as soon as I stepped aboard I thought “Oh crap-I am actually going to faint and fall completely on my face in front of all these oil executives.” The world was literally swooping all around me. I had a huge panic attack and tottered over to grab hold of the bar (by that I mean rickety table covered with glasses of wine). Tim must have seen my alarm because he took my arm and said-hey it’s the boat. You’re OK. As soon as I realized that it WAS the world swaying, and not me, I felt a little more secure. But the high heels, narcotic headache pills, wine, and rocking boat conspired to make a very unsettling evening. Hey guess what? Tim is like a little celebrity among these guys. Unlike my meetings, where most of the doctors and researchers are either loathe to speak with me just rather disinterested, the guys at this meeting were actually saying things like “Tim SULLIVAN! I really want to meet him!” And wow was Tim doing a great job. It was almost a shock to see him dressed up in his nice suit-when his usual workday clothing is shorts and a ratty T-shirt (or underwear, depending on the weather or the time of day). He was witty and charming and a great listener and looked-dare I say it-rather suave in his suit and tie, handing out business cards and shaking hands. It was a wonderful evening but after 4 hours of floating, eating, and drinking-we were ready for bed. The traffic had let up considerably and 45 minutes-and one vodka and cherry juice later-I was snoring.