Somewhere at the crossroads …

one finds the Wanderlust Cafe. A meeting place, a place of respite, a place to have some exotic tea or a stiff drink, eat fruits and simple food, a place to stow your pack in a safe corner, or lay out a few trade goods for sale. Listen to foreign tongues, write or sketch in your journal, argue philosophy, send postcards and file dispatches, or just sit and dream. Send some emails (though we can't guarantee the internet is working, shrug).

There's spies and smugglers and adventurers and artists and all other sorts of low-lifes. Fortunetellers. Bards. Poets. Pilgrims. Gods and goddesses in disguise. One never knows.

Where is it? Along the Silk Road, off the Barbary Coast, on a Greek island somewhere near Delphi or Shangri-La. Hard to find, hard to miss. Under the shade of a centuries-old mango tree. Adorned by long-limbed descendants of Egyptian temple cats. A place to tie up the camels and the horses and dust off your fedora. Swap some stories, or some lies. Hatch a conspiracy. Dance if you wish. Scream if you need to. Love if you dare.

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Tea in the Grand Bazaar

A small cafe. A quiet oasis in the midst of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.
For an instant in time, all the wonderful chaotic energies of the surrounding labyrinth have been focused into one perfect glass of apple tea.
– with love for the journey.
Photo by Lou Ann Granger, Istanbul, September 2009

Excavating Intentions

I sift through memories and longings and try to discern my intentions for Turkey.
What do I hope to see and do and feel?  Not enough time to fully explore and discover.  I try to send my spirit ahead on this journey so that it will be waiting for me when I arrive.
Leander swimming the Hellespont, [...]

Return to Byzantium

My heart sings as I contemplate a return.  Istanbul or Constantinople or Byzantium,  this beautiful city straddling the Bosphorus at the crossroads between Europe and Asia has called to me for many years.
Such an aura of mystery and intrigue, a blending of exotic and known.  At this gateway to the unknown, I come again, and [...]