4:00 AM "Call to Prayer"

As the Lonely Planet guidebook states: "The call to prayer quickly becomes the soundtrack for any Middle East adventure." Lindsay and I had our first experience with a call to prayer when we first arrived in Istanbul, Turkey. We arrived in Istanbul around 6:00 pm and after a few hours of wandering we retired to our cute little hotel in old town right near "The Blue Mosque." That night we slept with the window open to take advantage of the cool breeze that was coming off the bosphorus. This was a great idea until a cat came through the window in the middle of the night and jumped on my bed almost giving me a heart attack..:) After getting over the cat incident we fell back asleep but were woken up at 4:00 am to the sound of a man singing in Arabic as loud as he could into a speaker system; it was the first "call to prayer" of the morning. For those who have never experienced a call to prayer it is quite fascinating. At various times throughout the day the Mosques will have someone go to a microphone and sing a religious song that is blasted through loud speakers throughout the entire city or village. The songs, although loud, are quite beautiful and really give you the feeling that you are in a place so far removed from anything you consider "familiar." This 4:00 am call to prayer in Istanbul was the perfect "welcome" for me and Lindsay and sitting in our little hotel listening to it in awe will be a memory we will always cherish.