L2O2

This is the first place I’ve visited and wished for a recording device! The sounds keep being part of the picture and the memory of the sounds is quite vivid now, but I worry they will morph or disappear altogether. The sounds of ABBA being played 8 days out of 10 at breakfast I could lose happily though. The amazing sound of the 5 times daily call to prayer was not quite a cacophony (that is maybe reserved for the sounds in the bazaar) but with the hundreds of muezzin out of sync all over the city, it was almost a racket! But also haunting at times. I actually slept through the 5:30 am call, though Lawrie wasn’t so talented.

Automobile horns we don’t much use in Canada, but they do in Turkey. It sounds, to start with, as though there are many angry drivers, but if you watch and listen while near the streets, you can tell there is a lot more communication happening than anger. The streets are so narrow often vehicles would just honk to warn a pedestrian. Other times it was a request to move over or get out of the way, or even a warning that backing up was required. And of course there were the horns blaring when drivers were just plain annoyed at having to wait!

The feral cats yowling at night I could probably not be unhappy to lose. Sometimes they sounded hungry, and their sound was much more like a baby crying then, or so I guess! Other times it was ‘singing at the moon’ time and that was more funny than annoying.

People talking in at least five languages, vendors calling out their wares, the chatter of tires on cobblestone streets, “excuse me sir where are you from? Interested in a carpet?”, the deep fog horn, and a myriad of other sounds of a city of 13 million are all sounds we will remember, even without the recording. Istanbul is truly a megacity! And with that we will show you photos of our last wander around on the most glorious, and only blue sky day here.