OUR HOTEL is clean, the room tight but pleasant. There is a small round table where you can sit and write and gaze at the city from the top of one of its seven hills. You can hear the dawn call to prayer echoing from dozens of loudspeakers, catch the orange morning light as it warms the stone facades below, see the Bosphorus glistening in the distance.
        The staff, so bulky and swarthy it's ridiculous to call them bellboys, bustle about in their bright red shiny-button uniforms. The outfits remind us of Pee-Wee Herman's bellboy drag in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." Under our breath, we crack each other up, muttering "paging P.W. Herman" each time we enter or exit the lobby.

A mind-altering breakfast comes with the room. It's served in a top-of-the-towers communal dining area, with large windows offering astounding views in all four directions. Turkey's status as the hub of the world is reflected in its breakfast buffet. There's a European breakfast (meats, cheeses), an American breakfast (eggs, hash browns), a Turkish breakfast (fresh yogurt, fresh fruits, fresh grains, honey oozing from a honeycomb). There are incredible breads in a variety of ethnic styles: sesame rope bread, dark breads, muffins, croissants, danish. There's tea and turkish coffee. There's American pop flowing from the ceiling speakers: James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Sinatra, the Bee Gees.
        Following these multicultural marathons, we head out across a pan-ethnic cityscape of beepers and pagers and tiny French cars, of business suits and leather jackets and bedouin dress. We pass the curiously named Hotel Cartoon, we glide across bridges, we look out at banners for Ataturk and IBM. Most days we end up in Sultanahmet and spend the golden daylight hours holed up in Roman cisterns, Byzantine churches, and covered bazaars. Every alley, even the narrowest, is a whole city unto itself.