The Floating Island

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Almost directly below our hilltop vantage point is a floating island, a large, rectangular, commercial platform anchored to the shale floor of the Bosphorous. This artificial island was constructed by an organization supporting a local, wealthy professional football team, Galatasaray (a compound word with five "A"s!). Galata* is a district of Istanbul on the north-eastern tip of the Golden Horn, originally a Genoese enclave. Saray is the Turkish word for "palace."
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The floating Galata Palace features four restaurants, a disco (with lights that flash so intensely that I worry for the epileptics), and an Olympic-sized swimming pool (empty in winter, illuminated with blue lights in summer; although I have seen people jogging around the decks, I have never seen anyone swimming in the pool). There must be all sorts of things I cannot see from my perch on the cliffs above. Maybe the Divine Ms. N. and I will make a visit before we move to Ulus (a district closer to the school) in July. All we have to do is make a reservation at one of the restaurants, walk down to the water, climb aboard one of the constantly circling shuttle boats, step aboard the Palace, announce our restaurant reservations (pretending to be tourists), then find unobtrusive reasons to go exploring. (I’m very good at doing this sort of thing very badly, but I apologize and blush well, and have yet to be arrested.) We’ll see ...
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Now that summer has arrived, the Galata Palace has become the host to frequent, annoyingly loud outdoor concerts. Hundreds of chairs are set up on the Asian side of the floating platform. A stage is constructed during the day and taken down the next morning (unless there is another cacophonausea event scheduled for the following evening). The stage, situated at the southern end of the platform, consists of three walls mounted with huge video screens that show ... what? Flashes of live performers? Videos from a simultaneous off-platform concert? I don’t care ...
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So many people attend these events that entrepreneurs consider it worth the expense to send out illuminated billboards aboard small motor boats. These craft feature brightly lit signs that scroll up and down with alternating advertisements. I cannot see what they are peddling, but it’s a good guess that chocolate is in there somewhere.
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*Being Christians, the citizens of Galata unsuccessfully tried to protect Constantinople during the siege of 1453 by stretching a heavy metal chain across the mouth of the Horn, preventing the Ottoman navy from entering this vital estuary. The chain worked for the simple reason that the Genoese ships, designed for deep waters and wind power, rose much higher above the water than the Turkish vessels. The Turkish boats had sails but depended more upon oar power (provided by slaves who were chained to their benches). So whenever the Turks approached the chain, the Genoese would rain down a hail of arrows on them that would thwart the attack. This tactic worked until Sultan Mehmet Fatih (Mehmet the Conqueror) ordered that the Turkish boats be hauled overland and refloated in the Golden Horn at its brackish western end. After that, Galata was doomed, the large sailing vessels trapped by their own chain. Pieces of the chain can still be found (and touched) at different museum sites around the city.