A weird yet wonderful feeling

When I was eleven years old I read a novel about Istanbul, Hagia Sophia and the cruises along the Bosphorus. At that time, it seemed to me an exotic faraway place, but one sunny afternoon in March of 2011, I passed by the gates of Hagia Sophia's and looked out over the rooftop terrace of my hostel to the Bosphorus.
I had flown from a freezing humid Brussels, after having spent the night (though one could not call that sleeping) at the airport and I was tired, dirty and hungry. Getting to my hostel was arduous, trams full of people speaking very little English. But the very moment I got off at Sultanahmet stop, the warm air of spring and the square full of people talking and laughing changed my mood in a second.
I started to walk, with my backpack and my guide, clueless as to where to go. It was around 2 p.m., the sky was blue, birds were flying low, drinking water from the huge fountain between Hagia Sophia and The Blue Mosque. Everyone was enjoying the sun and the weather, sitting on patches of grass, eating kebabs and drinking çay, an aromatic tea.
I had already changed my plans: in no way was I going to lose precious time taking a nap, those fifteen minutes communicated to me that I was in a wonderful and magical place, with thousands of years of history, amazing cultural offers, loads of colors and mysterious smells and flavors.
Later, walking along the avenue, I doubted whether to sit in a cafe or not, given that I was a woman alone and it seemed to be full of local men who were paying too much attention to me. I felt uncomfortable, but then realized these questions: “Where are you from?” “Why are you alone?” “Where is your husband?” were just their curious ways of attracting tourists, polite with a permanent smile. Instead, I decided to enter to a bookstore, where I spent almost an hour, talking to the owner and drinking the tea he offered me.
Leaving the store, an Orhan Pamuk book in hand, the sun beginning to fall and the subtle lights of dusk reined the street. It was then that I heard it for the first time: the call to pray, coming from every mosque. It sounded like the whole city shot out in song, Arabic words expressing the greatness of God, asking people to come to the mosque in adoration. Songs rose from the street, the sidewalk, the colorful crystal of the tea glasses, the aromatic spices on the stores, creating that weird yet wonderful sensation that we have all felt just a couple of times in our lives: I'm in the right place, I thought.