I got here two weeks before George Bush did, long enough to savor a half-dozen tiny fincan cups of tea in one of the narrow, cobblestone alleyways without having to stare at a machine gun. But that was about to change. As the NATO summit neared, machine guns sprouted everywhere.

NATO! Bush! Get outta here! -- political posters in Istanbul

The walls were already plastered with posters bearing instructions to send Mr. Bush back where he came from. "NATO, Bush, Defol!" "Get outta here!" The city, or at least a significant part of it, wasn't going to welcome the American president and his allies.

I slept on a rooftop, and it overlooked the Aya Sofia mosque. An imam woke me at 5:30 a.m., singing from what seemed to be the deepest corners of his soul. It was time to do things before the weather got too hot.

I was told to start in Taksim, the neighborhood with some of the busiest and nicest shopping areas and cafés. Also in Taksim was the British Consulate, sitting in scaffolding behind walls of concrete-filled barrels and more machine guns. It was quieter than elsewhere, as if people were afraid that someone was going to bomb it again.

Istiklal Caddesi, the main street in Taksim, Istanbul

"Every window you see here is new," said my guide, Dylan, a New Zealander, who had done what many tourists do: He had come here for a week -- a year ago. He instantly fell in love with the city and its people and never left. When explosions ripped apart a British-based bank and part of the consulate in November 2003, killing 26 and wounding hundreds, he felt the same shock the locals felt.

That same week, a pair of bombs had exploded at two synagogues here, killing another 23 people. By the time I got to Istanbul, dozens of Turkish militants, allegedly funded by al Qaeda, were already being tried for their suspected role in the attacks.

We hiked up to one of the neighboring office buildings. Celûl Aksoy, a tanner with a studio overlooking the Embassy, invited us in with the usual hospitality of Turks.

Dylan Ward, my New Zealander guide who came to Istanbul for a few weeks -- and never left.

"There, where you see that crater, was where the bomb went off," he explained, leaning out of the sixth-floor window. "My windows broke into smithereens, and I was smashed against the wall. I needed two months to recover. I lost 78 fully finished bags, and three full sheets of fine leather."

Aksoy was lucky to be alive, said Onur Akinci, a 20-year-old artist who had been nearby as well. "It was like an earthquake," he said, pantomiming. By the time we met, the balmy Mediterranean night had descended on Istanbul, and the young crowded the terraces of Nevezade, where we sat, by far the most popular hangout in town. The Nevezade was covered in glass last November.

"Terrorism is like a wild animal. Aimless." said Akinci. "Terrorists were born blind, and they will die blind. They don't achieve anything."

Fishing off the Galata Bridge in Istanbul is a pastime as well as a livelihood.

But Americans are also blind, he said. "They don't see other points of view."

When Turkey refused to let the United States attack Iraq from within the country, people here were jubilant. America wanted Turkey to risk setting the roof ablaze over its own head, Akinci said, and the parliament in Ankara had the guts to say no.

I walked back to my rooftop bed, and almost felt reassured when the imam woke me up again the next day. This is not the West, I thought, as I sat looking into the dawn over Istanbul. These people may be generally sympathetic to the West, but only as long as we remain sympathetic to them.

Galatasaray University overlooks the Bosporus.

"We know that integrating westward is the only way to reach economic and political stability," said Alber Nahum, a political philosopher at Galatasaray University, "but we can't forget that our Eastern neighbors are, to say the least, suspicious of our Western friends."

Seen from Turkey, he added, Europe is a small peninsula on the Asian continent -- and America is very far away. To have these powers dictate what Turkey should do infuriates people here.

We were sitting on a university terrace overlooking the Bosporus Strait. Nahum pointed to a large building a few hundred yards down the strait. "Bush will come and stay in that hotel. Thousands will protest."

In the distance, the Istanbul Bridge stretched between Europe and Asia like a grey version of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. It reminded me of San Francisco and all the marches there against the war in Iraq. But now it was time to move on. I headed to Sirkeci Station, where I would board a train, the modern-day heir to the Orient Express.

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printable version of "EUROPE: The Re-Orient Express"