Novruz = New Year = Happy Spring! [+ Etc.]

It's the biggest holiday in the region.  Alas, this year T and I will miss most of it, in favor of a big 6-0 trip for me to Lebanon and to France.  For four weeks leading up to the equinox people here and in Iran celebrate Novruz, an ancient Zoroastrian holiday. On each of the four Tuesday evenings--dedicated to water, fire, earth, wind--bonfires are made in each neighborhood and people jump over the fire.  Plates of traditional foods numbering seven, all items beginning with "S" are prepared. There is a festive spirit all month long, and despite the still cold temps, the cheery trays of wheat grass for sale at many small shops help to remind that Spring is indeed around the corner. It has been the coldest winter in 100 years here!

A and K, waiting for Spring

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wheat grass for sale

Novruz treats

Etc.

• Less than three months to Eurovision. Whole neighborhoods have been razed, people displaced, trees uprooted. Construction continues at a relentless pace, pretty much 24/7, not only at the newly-leveled route from downtown to the [new, in construction] arena but at various spots in town, including the iconic new "flame towers" on a hill  above the old city, a long, wide strip of well-established commerce between two metro stations stripped of life, and at a number of state institutions (e.g. national oil company, state puppet theater) where, presumably (behind elaborate scaffolding and screens) sandblasting or perhaps yet another new layer of veneer, is being added.  [Will this post earn me a visit from scary-looking men in black suits, waiting for me at my door one evening, as I heard happened to another foreign blogger??] At 7 pm busloads of migrant workers take off for the night--are there enough of them to do the highly ambitious level of work envisioned?  No doubt this is true of most cities hosting major events.  At least its not Rio, host of the 2014 World Cup, where apparently slave labor and prisoners are being used for their mad construction blitz.
• It's not the first time I've been on a rogue bus, the driver having decided he (always a "he") didn't like the look of the traffic ahead and decided on a different route. Usually this results in little time savings and, amazing to me, generally NO outburst from passengers who may be seriously inconvenienced. I am thankful I know my way around a bit now, so no panic at not knowing where we are going.
• In the "never in the U.S." department--an ad for prenatal vitamins called: NATALSID

Istanbul/Gallipoli weekend

You’ve got to love living in a place where you can hit Istanbul for the weekend… Well, it was a three day weekend and a bit extravagant at about $250 round trip for the 2 ½ hour flight, but…

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Turkey again, wow—third time in a year for us, and fourth time in Istanbul ever. We love Turkey, love traveling here. This time it is short—only two days, one for Istanbul and one to visit Gallipoli, scene of  the senseless slaughter of tens of thousands of Turks, Australians, New Zealanders, Brits and French during WW I.

It makes for a very long day trip from Istanbul.  On the way we stop at a rest area catering to tourists. Staff in the gift shop speak some English, German and Japanese.

The trip was particularly moving for our Australian friend Nicole

Poorly planned and coordinated, Gallipoli was ignored by politicians (notably Winston Churchill) in favor of the Western front, and plagued by bad luck as well.  The area has been made into a national park. It remains a symbol of the vain quest to overpower and control.

This lists the dead in one cemetery whose names were known; most there were buried anonymously

Tom showing a trench

Poignancies: statue to the Turkish soldier (see photo) who, after listening to the cries of a wounded British soldier, stuck in the no-man’s land between the trench lines, raised a white flag, ventured out, picked up the man and carried him to the enemy’s trenches.

 

Among our small tour group was a Japanese family.  Do they think of Hiroshima, I wonder? Nagasaki?

And another monument bears the words of Mustafa Kamal, who bravely led the Turkish troops and who later, as Ataturk, father of the country,  so generously praised both the dead from both sides of the conflict: 

“Those heroes that shed their blood
and lost their lives . . .. you are
now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the
Johnnies and the Mehmets
to us where they lie side by side here
in this country of ours. You . . the mothers,
who sent their sons from
faraway countries, wipe away your
tears. Your sons are now lying in
our bosom and are at peace.
After having lost their lives in this land,
They have become our sons as well.

Kemal Ataturk

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Then a day in Istanbul, showing our friends the sights of Sultanahmet. Here is Tom at Aya Sofia (left), which we never tire of seeing—an amazing house of worship, dedicated in 360 (no digit missing there) and with a ceiling/roof so high and broad that the architectural feat could not be repeated for 1000 years. 

And a glimpse of the Grand Bazaar.

 

 

And of the Blue Mosque. 
 

As we fly out, I am treated to a great view of the Bosphorus and ships lined up in the Sea of Marmara (having, presumably, passed by Gallipoli—through the Dardanelles—from the Aegean Sea) end waiting to go through.