"Crucible of cultures
Web Posted: 08/18/2006 02:57 PM CDT
Tracy Barnett
Express-News Travel Editor
ISTANBUL — I awoke at 4:30 to the otherworldly call to prayer, mingled with the cry of seagulls. I drifted in and out of a strange sleep for a while before rising and climbing the spiral staircase to the terrace for my last view of the Blue Mosque and the Bosphorus, touched by the first light of morning. I drank it in with my eyes, tried to engrave every curve of its perfect form in my mind.
A month after my return home, those delicate minarets are still etched in my memory. Sometimes I wonder: Was it all a dream? Then I touch the amulet around my neck, the one that asks Allah's protection, and it comes flooding back, with a pang. I had fallen in love, just as I knew I would."
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