Shopping Malls and Rumi

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is of course a very famous shopping bazaar. It is beautifully set in a  a maze of covered streets and is always mysterious and romantic to stroll around. Not all  buildings have to be old to be beautiful though and yesterday I went to Istinye Park. The name is a misnomer because it is not actually a park but a very luxurious and beautiful shopping centre. I was very lucky to go (as it is not on the metro nor on The Bosphorus) because a very kind woman called Lale, who is a relative of two other very kind women I know from Switzerland,  took me along.We actually first  met (briefly) on Wednesday after I had spent a horrible hour traipsing down a highway the wrong way because Google maps told me to and Google was very, very wrong. I was trying to find an art gallery where Lale's mother-in-law was having an art exhibition. Of course by the time I arrived there, nearly in tears because I had got so horribly lost, I had to go again but we arranged to meet on  Friday instead. The artist by the way is called Naile Akinci and I have to say she has painted some wonderfully evocative pictures of Istanbul. I liked them very much.
Anyway as mentioned we arranged to go to the shopping centre and it really was quite beautifully done. We wandered around and then had tea and cakes at a very nice little cake shop. It was nice to sit somewhere with someone and talk. At one point we ended up talking about Rumi and Shams ( as you do when you are in Turkey) and she told me how she knows one of Rumi's descendants. How interesting. She said maybe later in the year we could even go to Konya and meet her. Just the idea sounds romantic even if it never happens.

“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come.” RUMI