No you can't go back to Constantinople

I'm in Istanbul this week and so far I've been having a very good time. Based on my experiences in Belgium, I was expecting to sleep a lot and not see that much, but so far I think we've actually done quite well--I've seen the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern, the Archaeological Museum, the Topkapi Palace, and the Chora Museum, the latter of which was particularly fantastic. I'm staying with a friend on the Asia side, so we've been taking the ferry back and forth every day (she doesn't trust the Marmaray line) and it's been pretty grand all in all. I will definitely be back, and in the meantime, it's been kind of wild wandering around a city about which I've only read so far. This is what being in Rome was like when I first went there, except I don't have a map of Constantinopolis in my head the way I do Rome.* There's a lot more porphyry floating around than I would have expected from its rarity in the Western Empire--there's a joke there somewhere about πορφυρογενητος, but let it be. Tomorrow we're going to Taksim and the Galata Tower. Istanbul reminds me a little bit of Cuzco in that the jointures between civilizations are so blatantly displayed. It's all quite fascinating. And the food is good.

*Sort of. Long explanation redacted.