I stumbled over a dip in the sidewalk, tumbled over my own black boots in the peripheral glance of a polite Turkish man in a Captain’s hat. He didn’t want to look, but my gasp and my subsequent horrified laughter drew his full sympathetic stare. My humiliated giggles refused to stop, but echoed up the streets toward the mosque.  He walked on and I wandered away with my shoulders close to my ears.

Up the hill, I passed the rear door of a tour bus just as a crowd of Germans disembarked–we mingled against my will. My “Entschuldigung”s went unheeded as the crowd shuffled toward the entrance to the Basilica of St. John. I freed myself and ducked past a man who stood outside his café calling, “Saft, kahve, lecker lecker lecker.”

Too rattled to continue any aimless sightseeing, I…