I drew my legs to my chest, chin resting on my knees, my back pressed to the cold stone wall. I wanted to melt into it, to disappear and be alone with the stone edifice, even if just for one short moment. To feel something, to be moved, to have this fleeting experience when an encounter with an emanation of beauty allows me to believe I am part of some greater good. And as a human, I am one of the creatures that can, sometimes, achieve magnificence.

But the Blue Mosque was filled with people. Curled by the cool wall, I stared up, as high as possible, at the ornamented ceiling. Anything to separate my gaze from the hundreds of other heads tilted upwards; anything to not see those outstretched hands with smartphones. I closed my eyes and tried not to hear the murmur of all those shallow, casual conversations covering the building, its history and all of us with the thick, sticky syrup of banality and tiresome repetition.

Before I even entered the Mosque, I waited for a good hour or so, queuing among groups of Chinese tourists, Indian families and European couples. I had spent that time staring at the scaffolding (the façade renovation is taking forever, and ticket prices somehow have not gone down, even though only half of