They say the memories of having Turkish coffee together last for 40 years. Mine I'm sure will last longer...
I was in Istanbul at the beginning of this week for 2 days. Had gone there for work and was mostly in meetings during that time. But in the few hours that I got to experience the city, I've completely fallen in love with it.
My first experience from airport to Hotel, where the person from Turkish company took us through the city around, was of surprise and happiness. Surprise because the city was very much like Indian cities, crowded, traffic, modernization trying to make way between old city walls - a lot like a hybrid between Mumbai and Delhi. The aliveness of Mumbai merged with the roads and cars of Delhi. And happiness because in all this chaos ,I felt like home away from home.
My hotel room on the 14th floor gave the most awsome view I've ever seen of any city. Here's a pic of it.
After a day long meeting the next day, we went to a traditional turkish restaurant for dinner. The food itself was in multiple courses - cold starters, hot starters, main course, dessert and finally turkish coffee. All this spread over almost 3 hours. The atmosphere in the restaurant was unique with yellow lights and a group of men playing Turkish music with traditional instruments. That music was so full of life, it would make anyone dance. People sitting in restaurant were also singing along some of the Turkish songs. It was total merryment full of dancing and music. What a lovely Experience! One of the most special evenings of my life!The next day after the meeting, we had about 2 hours free before departure. The guys from turkish team then showed us the Blue Mosque and the Ayasofia. All these are located near each other, along with the Topkapi palace that we could not see.
The Blue mosque is called blue because the interiors are decorated mostly in the color blue. Its a big hall, with huge domes and brilliant architecture. The designs and patterns themselves might remind you of Mughal architecture.
The Ayasofia was originally a church - Hagia Sofia from the times of Constantine and was later converted into a mosque by the Ottomans. But what seperates Ayasofia from any other such place is that none of the religions destroyed the creations of the earlier one. So in Ayasofia you can see the mural depicted Mother Mary and Child Jesus painted on the walls above the Imam's stand below. This and the other murals in Ayasofia are mosiac work and the yellow mosiacs are actually gold. Over the centuries, a lot of it has been looted, plundered or got lost to nature. Currently rennovation work is going on to restore the glory. 
The beautiful architecture, flowers, music and food of Istanbul are totally messimerizing, but what reallly made me fall in love with the city was the heartiness of the people. Something that reminded me so much of India, - where they take a 'No' on dinner table as 'More', where they bargain with the shopkeeper to get a better deal for you, where they take you to a sweets shop to have the most special 'Baklawa', pack 2 kgs of it for you and are angry if you insist on paying, where they sing along heartily in restaurants even if they are strangers, where they try to make you comfortable in every sense, so that you take back only good memories of Istanbul. And good memories I have now, of the beautiful ancient city of Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul... I would call it the ageless city.
