Today, I checked out the exhibit at the ROM on Mesopotamia, where civilization all began. While objects are important, i just can't get into that "small" stuff. I prefer a good book.
(Overheard outside the museum:
Dude 1: it's, like, cool stuff that Indiana Jones collects.
Dude 2: Indiana Jones? You mean, like, artefacts?
Dude 1: yeah man, artefacts.
Dude 2: cool.
They didn't go in. Guess I'm not alone.)
A few years ago, shortly before the Arab uprisings, I travelled with a small group to Jordan and Egypt. Try as I might, I could not get into the books on the temples and such we were going to see, but I loved the books on Nasser and the revolution, the Belle Epoque that preceeded it, the recent kings of Jordan. While there, I enjoyed Cairo, the Nile cruise, the people, but enough with the temples already!
Now I'm going to Turkey -- with roughly the same group -- and I'm pretty sure this trip will better meet my tastes. A week in Istanbul with lots of time to see the modern city as well as the tourist musts -- but no ruins! And I can't imagine a better time to go, with the pushback against islamicism going on now. (An offshoot of the group has added a few days in Epheseus at the end, but I've seen all the roman ruins I care to see in my lifetime so I'm skipping it. )
By luck, the good folks of TIFF are presenting a week long series of contemporary Turkish films directed by women. I'll manage to see 3 or 4, and I'm very excited of the opportunity to see contemporary works just before I go. It feels like I'll have a 'language' in common with some of the people we'll meet there.
I guess I finally understand the type of travel that interests me. History, yes. Ruins, no.
(Overheard outside the museum:
Dude 1: it's, like, cool stuff that Indiana Jones collects.
Dude 2: Indiana Jones? You mean, like, artefacts?
Dude 1: yeah man, artefacts.
Dude 2: cool.
They didn't go in. Guess I'm not alone.)
A few years ago, shortly before the Arab uprisings, I travelled with a small group to Jordan and Egypt. Try as I might, I could not get into the books on the temples and such we were going to see, but I loved the books on Nasser and the revolution, the Belle Epoque that preceeded it, the recent kings of Jordan. While there, I enjoyed Cairo, the Nile cruise, the people, but enough with the temples already!
Now I'm going to Turkey -- with roughly the same group -- and I'm pretty sure this trip will better meet my tastes. A week in Istanbul with lots of time to see the modern city as well as the tourist musts -- but no ruins! And I can't imagine a better time to go, with the pushback against islamicism going on now. (An offshoot of the group has added a few days in Epheseus at the end, but I've seen all the roman ruins I care to see in my lifetime so I'm skipping it. )
By luck, the good folks of TIFF are presenting a week long series of contemporary Turkish films directed by women. I'll manage to see 3 or 4, and I'm very excited of the opportunity to see contemporary works just before I go. It feels like I'll have a 'language' in common with some of the people we'll meet there.
I guess I finally understand the type of travel that interests me. History, yes. Ruins, no.
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