Byzantium

I've just woken up from a long nap in our hotel room in Istanbul. Stasha is still fast asleep but the hotel has wireless and I can still type on my iTouch even with a sleeping girl on my arm. Tim and Theo are still asleep in their room - I just checked - and we all slept through the afternoon call to prayer; either we've started to get used to it or we're just that tired.

 Since the start of the week it's been a whirlwind of planes, airports, buses, boats etc, and it isn't as though we were rested going into this; we left right after a series of dance, school, and judo events, culminating in the 15th anniversary Vesna performance and the two back-to-back school performances. We got on the road to Calgary the same afternoon and flew out to Frankfurt the next day; then on to Istanbul. 

 It almost goes without saying that going from Lethbridge to Istanbul is mindblowing, and to call it a city of contrasts is an understatement. Ruins of old Roman walls stand behind shiny billboards with cell phone ads; the construction of the tunnel under the Bosphorus lies adjacent to a medieval lighthouse, freighters churn through the water with dolphins leaping around them around the promontory of Topkapi Palace. Istanbul is so busy and populous, that at 14 million, it is half the population of Canada, and you could fit the entire population of Lethbridge into Istanbul's 24,000 cabs. 

 It is our first family holiday that doesn't involve visiting family in BC or road trips through Alberta and it's obviously a huge leap from that to a rooftop breakfast under the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofiya, overlooking the Marmara Sea. But the children are a perfect age to take on a trip like this, just the right stage of inquisitiveness and observation, and a degree of hardiness that allows them to tramp gamely over winding cobbled streets and worn marble sills. There's a line from Rose Macauley's Towers of Trebizond: "for Turks love children, even the girls" and even in the busy tourist district, it seems very family oriented.
Even without taking a zillion pictures, I am sure they will have plenty of memories.

It's the sunset call to prayer now; at some point we'll need to get up and forage for food. But for now it's peaceful dusk, everyone else is still asleep, and I feel very lucky to be here.