Each morning in Istanbul began with the solemn hymns of Muslim prayer drifting in from a nearby mosque. It was a peaceful, steady way to wake up in the darkness, moving from the bed to the shower to the suit, then down the elevator to breakfast and out the door into the chaos of metropolitan Turkey. It’s back to the professional world for me – the offices and coffee breaks, the ties and dry cleaners and hotel rooms, the meetings and the schedules and the rush, the rules and the routines – all to the backdrop of new faces and places.
As most suit-and-tie professions go, you donate your days and endlessly attempt to take back your nights. For a week my nights were christened by the streets to Taksim Square, history's glowing mosques lining the Bosporus, and Turkish music down the alleys that evoke the flying carpets and magic lamps of A Thousand and One Nights. After living in Qatar, it was delightful to be in a Muslim country that sits somewhere in the realm of modern thought, where couples kiss in the street and girls wear short skirts into bars.
I remember flying into Istanbul the first time for a connection, and thinking how good it would be to stop awhile. In another one of life's unpredictable progressions, at the narrow meeting place of two continents, standing on a quiet balcony with a Turkish girl at night, that little wish manifested into the tangible things around me.
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