| "While debates continue about when, if ever, Turkey will enter the European Union, Istanbul's cultural and culinary life is enjoying a European-inspired renaissance," writes Hayes.
Hayes shares his encounter with three Turkish women wearing T-shirts and jeans who study economics at Istanbul University. Noting that he met them in front of the Hagia Sophia Museum, Hayes remarks that they looked much like any other students in Europe.
Hayes wrote that the Hagia Sophia, shown on the magazine's front cover, aptly portrays Turkey's unique relation with the West, as Christian and Muslim symbols appear side by side on its walls.
He introduces the Istanbul Modern Art Museum, spread across 30,000 square meters, as "a cultural dividend brought by the official enthusiasm for the EU." He continues to say that this contemporary art gallery, opened in 2004, "occupies what has to be the most awe-inspiring site of any similar building in Europe."
Saying that many modern, famous restaurants have opened in Turkey in recent years, the article quotes the views of a German chef working in one of Istanbul's most fashionable restaurants. According to the German chef, there have been unbelievable changes in the past 10 years, yet the hospitality of the people has not changed and remains "unbelievable and totally genuine, I'd hate that to fade away, to see it become just an empty tradition like lederhosen in Bavaria.” |
