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| Very different |
Safety is paramount, and sometimes “use common sense” isn’t
strong enough, so we’re still waiting word on the recommendation on the
movement restrictions, and most people are thinking gloom and doom on it.
Really, we have nothing to base it on, but everyone assumes we’re going on some
kind of house arrest.
I’m trying to not buy into the pessimism, but I must say I
was really happy when by Friday at 5 p.m. we hadn’t heard anything. It gave everyone
another weekend to do whatever they wanted in Istanbul, and I hadn’t been to
the Grand Bazaar yet. So that’s what I did, along with four others. I had
nothing that I needed to get, but just in case, I wanted to see everything. It
really wasn’t possible in a single day, though. Too much to see.
It’s a lot like the Fes souk, really, except it’s indoors. It really is a Grand Bazaar, and it was nice to see more tourists out. This is just such a fantastic place and it's so sad to see touristy places devoid of people.
I
wanted to see lamps and carpets, and other were looking for leather jackets,
tiles and jewelry. No one went away empty-handed, for sure. Gosh, we weren’t
even five minutes in and someone bought a ring. It was a really cool ring, because
whatever stone it was showed differently in all kinds of light. It went from
green to purple to blue to red. It was quite amazing.
At one of the tile stores, someone bought multiple pairs of
earrings that were hand-painted on little baby tiles. Another went to the
leather guy, who makes custom leather jackets. One guy I work with likes them
so much he had two made, but I feel like I have enough jackets.
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| A little skinnier than I thought |
I wanted a lamp, but holy cow, they were hard to choose
from. Most were Turkish tile mosaic-ish but I got a more subtle one in brown
shades. It’s just a little desk lamp but once I got home I realized the light
bulb is a slightly different size than what I consider normal, so I don’t have a
bulb for it yet. They were much cheaper than I thought they’d be, and now I am
considering a hanging one to put in my eventual house. But that’s all pending
me being able to leave the house again. That might not happen any time soon.
So I, like everyone else, made the most of it. The other big
purchases I made were rugs, although I haven’t paid for them yet. I went to the
rug guy of a couple colleagues (everyone here has a rug guy) with the intent to
look at runners. I’d like one for my hall, although I am fully cognizant that
in my next assignment, I might not have a hall. That’s one thing to be wary of:
buying stuff for a particular spot in my current house. I need to keep in mind
to just buy what I love, no matter if I have a space for it now or not.
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| Need a bulb |
Of course, the downside to that theory is that at this
particular moment in time, my floor is crawling with rugs. I got two yesterday,
although for now I am only test-driving them. I looked at a whole bunch of
runners and didn’t completely fall in love with any of them but made a quick
call to take one home. Once there, I realized it’s a bit skinnier than I
thought it was and I do like it but so far don’t love it.
It is made from old saddlebags, as is the other one, which
is fatter but shorter. It’s a tad longer than the others I’ve bought here;
actually a kind of odd length – nine feet. The bigger one I liked immediately
but wasn’t sure about because, let’s face it, I already bought two rugs here
about that size and I am less than a year into my second tour. What if I go to
Pakistan next? I LOVE their patterns.
But the colors in this one were really cool, and pretty much
on the spur of the moment – I’d already eliminated it from the possibilities –
decided to take it home. And, even though it’s just sitting on the floor in a
random spot, it’s really grown on me. I like it more than the skinny one, even
though I had been looking for a runner. So now I have to figure out if I want
one or both, and where to put it or them while in Istanbul.
Such a terrible problem to have, I know.
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