Victory Day Yoga and a view of the Bosphorus

Today is Victory Day in Turkey and we have the day off from school. I took the opportunity to wake up early and go to a yoga class with a fellow international school teacher. The class is four stories up in a beautiful studio with windows overlooking the Bosphorus. Midway through the class, as I tried to stay standing in twist the Eagle Pose by focusing on the landscape beyond the window, I got lost in the scenery of passing ships and the shimmer of the water. For a second, I thought I was in San Francisco looking across to the East Bay.

San Francisco and Istanbul could be distant cousins, rivaling each other in beauty and curves, with hills steep enough to give the average pedestrian gluts of steel and a hint of superhero definition to their calves. Yes, they are definitely cut from similar cloths. Sure, they have their differences. One stays up all night and drinks her coffee from small cups, while the other sips world class wines and wraps things up a little earlier to get her beauty sleep. One is decorated with church steeples, while the other dons the domes and minarets of her many mosques. One is much, much older, but both are full of life. The list of similarities gets longer every day: cable cars, farmers’ markets, hip restaurants and galleries, thriving art scene… Today, I was happy to find out that both enjoy leisurely brunches on a day off. After yoga, we wound through Cihangir and settled down to a delicious breakfast- Istanbul’s version of Eggs Benedict called Cilbir: poached eggs on homemade bread covered in a yogurt garlic sauce (mmmmmm). I am feeling more and more at home.

Here is a recipe that I found for Cilbir online:
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/quick-weeknight-meals-2009/catherines-cilbir-turkish-poached-eggs-over-yogurt-quick-weeknight-meals-recipe-contest-2009-095920