Shopping

Ignoring the thousands of tourist shops that line the streets of Sultanahmet (the biggest touristy neighborhood of Istanbul), we've experienced three distinctive shopping arenas in the city. (Mom and Dad, don't worry, these experiences have been pretty much spending-free...). The first was the Grand Bazaar, which is basically a hive of teeny streets that some years ago were put under a huge roof-- probably for the purpose of guaranteeing no lost selling days during tourist season. Roughly speaking, there are different sections of the bazaar-- leather jacket streets, gold necklace streets-- but in reality brightly colored glass lamps and polyester 'pashminas' and faux-Abercrombie and Lacoste polo shirts have infiltrated almost everywhere. Probably the thing that pleased me most in the bazaar was the number of shopkeepers who spoke to us in French or Spanish or Italian instead of English-- I took this as a compliment on my outfit, but most likely it's just that there aren't that many Americans or Brits around. But I also enjoyed trying to call them out on some of their tricks-- which, when one person is selling a scarf for 6 lira and another is selling the same scarf for 20 lira, really isn't that hard. We did spend awhile in a closet-sized store selling Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kazakh jewelry and felt goods (including a felt bird we bought from Aid to Artisans in Hartford two years ago!), and there we had tea with the owner, who had bee in Turkey from Turkmenistan for a few years, and came away with a turqoise neckace for $6. Feeling rather victorious, we headed for home.

At the Spice Bazaar, a day later, our spending was not quite so controlled. This is the ultimate location for those ubiquitous childhood fantasies of being locked in a candy shop. Table after table is brimming with gooey, sugar-dusted Turkish Delight, baklava, dates, figs, dried kiwi, nuts, and spices. (I remember looking for saffron at Whole Foods and finding a square inch packet for about $20... here the saffron was mounded in a deep basket). We stocked up on snacks-- you need food, right?-- and kept ourselves going as we wandered the stalls by keeping globs of Turkish Delight in our mouths.

But I think my favorite market experience in Istabul was just perusing the wares set up every night on the ground at the ferry dock near the Galata Bridge. Here, tourists are not the target audience (a welcome change)-- rather, Turkish women, many of them in full coverings, toss around shoes and scarves and shirts, haggling with the vendors and creating massive bottlenecks for anyone just trying to walk through. Meanwhile, men walk around with boxes of 'designer' perfume, razor blades, lottery tickets, and anything else you might need for a night out on the town. Several sets of goods are sold by people who do not appear to be Turkish-- Kurdish, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, or Uzbek would be my guess-- and their wares often consist of fur-lined leather vests and coats and hats with ear flaps and pom-poms: not the first thing that comes to mind on a warm summer evening, but maybe people plan ahead. We made the walk through this crowd several evenings in a row, enjoying the frenetic energy of it all and, usually, letting the slow pace take us over for a little while.