Istanbul

From China I flew to Istanbul to participate in Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ annual East Meets West Executive Conference, which this year focused on energy security. Daniel Yergin, CERA’s chief, recently published an article on this topic in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006), and paid particular attention to the important role that China and India are now playing in energy markets. My own presentation focused on China’s urbanization, and the implications for sustainable energy there. It was great to see a number of Penn/IFP alumni at the meeting, especially Rob LaCount and Chris Seiple, who now hold responsible positions within CERA in both the U.S. and Europe. Also, the Bosporus Strait cruise photo credit is due (with thanks!) to Yoshi Miyamoto, another Penn/IFP alumnus.

Roger cruising on Bosporus Strait

I took a bit of time to check out the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and Topkapi palace — and to have a Turkish coffee at the Pierre Loti Café, atop the Eyup Sultan cemetery, overlooking the Golden Horn. Loti, a romantic writer (the only French author other than Victor Hugo to receive a state funeral) wrote a 1870s novel about a tragic forbidden love affair with a woman in a Turkish harem, and the cemetery provides a poignant setting… given the novel’s outcome. (But my guide debunked the whole thing, saying that Loti was gay!) [Note: For those of you who might be interested, you can learn the real — and very fascinating! — story from Lesley Blanch’s Pierre Loti: Travels with the Legendary Romantic.] I also rented the 1964 movie Topkapi from Netflix upon returning home, about thieves going after a jewel-encrusted dagger in the palace’s treasury. Peter Ustinov won an Academy Award for his performance, and you’ll see a forerunner of Tom Cruise’s acrobatics in the Mission: Impossible series during the jewel heist. More interesting, however, are the city scenes of Istanbul from forty-plus years ago.