Aya Sofya – The Church of Holy Wisdom 
On the journey to Istanbul everything is pointing THIS way ‘on the road’ .
27 October 2006: After ak’s visit to the space ["built with the help of angels"], now neither a church or a mosque but a museum, I asked him what it was like.
– "it was fine", ak said, "but…". There was the look of disgust on his face, the same one he had shown me the day before when we walked into ‘danger’, and I had later defended the position of those who might have wanted to rob or kill us if we had persisted on that korkooloo yol – dangerous road under the old city walls heading towards the Sea of Marmara. – "… ripped out". He finally worked the words out of his jaws.
– "Eviscerated", I said
– "But what there was, the mosaics, were stunning", he added. It was our third day in the City and as we walked it was as if we were seeing Aya Sophia everywhere, one hundred or one thousand mosques, that to eyes – brought to this position of being a close observer – all seemed to be the same one space. Some I had entered, and I had already written in my Notebook – It has the character of Lostness. It is enormous in size.
mmj