48 Hours in Istanbul

All I can say is if you have only 48 hours to spend in Istanbul, this is one nice way to do it. Hosted, wined, dined and entertained, not to mention meeting the most amazing people and getting to talk global health and politics. If only Mr TBTAM could have come along…

Day 1

My driver takes me on a brief tour (see previous post for more photos). From our conversation, it is clear that Istanbul is thriving. He and his family emigrated here from West Germany for work, as did most of his friends and fellow workers.

Istanbul is an intriguing mix of the new and the ancient, and mosques are everywhere. I only wish I could have seen more. But, this was a trip for business and not pleasure, so on to business…

That evening, after I had spend several hours working on my presentation, I meet my fellow conference speakers, most of whom hail from the European Society for Arts and Sciences, and from places such as Zagreb, Greece, Spain, Turkey and Qatar. We are all taken on a boat ride on the Bosphorus to a private mansion home on the Istanbul’s Asian side

where our hostess presented us with a wonderful dinner and a tour of her home’s 18th century Turkish Bath and Ottoman art collection. We were also entertained with traditional Turkish music and dancing of the whirling dervish.

There were TV cameras there, giving me a hint that this group hosting us was not an unimportant one in Turkey…

Coming back to my hotel room at the Conrad Hilton, I opened the bag of gifts from our hostess, and found a large sachet of lavender for my pillow, along with a beautiful painted plate and other mementos of Turkey. The hotel has turned down my bed, and left the slippers on the floor thus. (Can anyone tell me why they do this with the slippers?)

Day 2

Next day was the conference of the Turkish Business Women’s Association (TIKAD), held at a the restored Ciragan Palace on the Bosphorus. The Palace, once home to Sultans, was destroyed by a fire in 1910 and restored a decade ago to serve as a hotel and conference center.

The conference itself was extremely interesting, and focused on issues related to maternal health worldwide. I met some amazing amazing individuals who are personally working to reduce maternal and infant mortality in Turkey and the rest of the developing world.

The highlight of the conference was a visit from the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (that’s him above, and below with his wife and Bosnian artist Mersad Berber, whose work was on display at the conference).

Despite the recent threats of military action in northern Iraq, the Prime Minister repeatedly spoke the language of peace. Call me naive, but I found him believable. He stated his disappointment that Turkey, having one foot in the West and the other in the East, was not tapped to play mediator before we went into Iraq. He spoke of his commitment to continued improvement of Turkey’s infrastructure and the goal of a modern Turkey with membership in the EU.

I wish Erdogan had stayed to hear Denis Aribogan, the president of Bahçeşehir University, speak passionately about terrorism in the modern age. Aribogen argued persuasively that terrorism is a modern political construct that paints opposing parties as bogeymen, and uses the media to instill fear in the populace, ultimately leading to military solutions that kill more people than terrorism itself. Aribogen told me that she is speaking at the U of Virginia in March, and I encourage you to go hear her if you can.

The conference closed with another lovely dinner and a private concert by a prominent Turkish pianist and composer.

What about the food?

Of course, no post would be complete if I did not mention the food. What can I say? It was so varied, so delicious, so beautifully presented. Mr TBTAM, you will be happy to learn that I even found an eggplant dish to love – Mashed Aubergines. (Recipe to follow in another post.)

Postscript

Unfortunately, I am now forced to mention the rather bad case of gastroenteritis which presented itself to me on the plane ride home, which I am still battling today, and which I think nicely sums up my experience of modern Turkey.

Because you can better the economy, build skyscrapers, modernize the roads, grow the workforce, expand the Internet and hold glorious conferences in beautiful restored palaces.

But unfortunately, you still can’t drink the water.