Middle Ages-Free Since 1453

The best thing I ever did was forget to bring money to the train station.  If I had purchased my ticket right away, I wouldn’t have noticed this awesome poster that informed me that the 557^th Anniversary of the final fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 was on May 29.  This is a pretty big deal for me.  This should be a bigger deal for everyone.  Not only did this finally bring an official end to the tiresome Middle Ages, but it also became a rallying point for Christendom, and, to a degree, sewed the seeds for the concept of Europe and ultimately the European Union. (Because they are still trying to keep Turkey out.  See what I did there?  See?)

This either is, or isn't, part of the area that the Kerkaporta is located in, which is where the Turks either did, or didn't, enter Constantinople.

I resolved to remain in the Sublime Porte for another couple of days so that I could go to the Kerkaporta at the appointed hour, and reflect on how intense the whole scene must have been.  So you can imagine how I felt when I climbed up to one of the towers and saw a bunch of Turkish youth drinking rum and coke (or possibly just coke.  Oh, but I think they had marijuana too, so I'm totally cleared for moralising) on this the day of the most recent sacking of Constantinople.  While avoiding boisterous youth is something that I work very hard at albeit unsuccessfully, I actually found these particular Young Turks to be quite pleasant.  Certainly compared to the ones attending the Turkish nationalist rally at a nearby soccer stadium (I also attended, and admired large pictures of Kemal Ataturk and Suleiman II or Mahmud 2 or whoever). 

It probably would have been nice of me to rotate these before I uploaded them.

The Turks victorious.

In order to fully appreciate the willing and unwavering submission to Oriental culture by going to a Starbucks to aid me in my walk to find the Kerkaporta. In front of me were two groups of women—all tourists.  The first group spent forever explaining to the hopelessly unprepared barista what they wanted and were quite particular and argumentative and demanding.  The next woman starting angrily shouting at the barista and then stormed out disgusted.  I then approached the counter, and very gently, in Simple English and with delicate tact, explained the steps necessary to complete my drink order: that I would like a full cup of ice with two shots of espresso, more ice, then 1 pump of vanilla and filled to the top with cold water.  It’s not an iced Americano, by the way.   While I think he appreciated my tact, he still probably cursed, and curses daily, the grave of the mess officer or whoever was in charge of victuals and logistics during the Vienna Campaign and accidentally left behind that bag of coffee beans at the gates, introducing the drink to Western Civilisation and ultimately negatively affecting him today. 

I'm not sure you can say things like this. 

Aside from this I drank a couple of teas (at least one of them was apple.  Have you had apple tea?!  I don't know if there is actually a difference between it and that apple cider packets you can buy at any grocery store in Canada but it's really good), listened to a drunk Turkish man tell me that Georgia was the best place to be due to all the things one could buy for minimal American dollars, and watched Turkey come in second place to Germany in Eurovision.  Yep, we've come a long way from hammering at the gates of Vienna. 

Wily and unpredictable youth at the Kerkaporta.

In any case, this is how I commemorated the final collapse (or at the very least, one of the final collapses. One might even go as far as to use "penultimate" in this instance) of the Roman Empire in sunny, blustery, hazy Constantinople.  I'm not sure there is any other way because these are the sorts of unprecedented paradigm-shifting fin-du-mondes that only happen once every half-millenia or so that it should really be about individual self-expression.  And lounging in a series of Oriental cafes complaining about the heat, reflecting about how the Turks nearly swallowed Western Civilisation whole, and reading literature by and about people who have sat in Oriental cafes in the past complaining about the heat and worrying about how the Turks are going to swallow Western Civilisation whole is self expression par-excellence if and when you’re me.