Saturday, March 21, 2009

Not Constantinople

Yet again I feel I should apologize for the lag time between updates, but then I feel like I should also apologize for starting every entry with an apology... a conflicting situation. This time, as a means of averting the need for said apologies, I'll not make any promises about updating more often. We'll just have to see what happens. Also, its sandstorming outside, so my beach plans were thwarted... might as well update the blog.

Anywayyy.... Istanbul. Incredible. Just a forewarning, this entry is going to be really long. The whole thing came together at basically the last minute. It was time for another border run and my friend Kacey and I, after lusting over images and Lonely Planet descriptions of Istanbul, decided we were just going to do it-- after all, when will we have the opportunity to jump on a plane (for decently cheap) and gallivant foreign lands after this semester? Just after booking my flight Emmah, a friend from IU whom I had not seen since she left for France in August, skyped me trying, as usual, to convince me to meet her in Paris or Morocco or somewhere like that when I told her about my Istanbul plans. She, to my intense excitement, ended up booking a flight to Turkey as well! Being with two fellow history nerds in arguably one of the most historically significant and interesting cities in the world was something of a dream.

After a "brief stay" (aka one hour layover) in Qatar, I was finally in Istanbul, where Kacey and I met Emmah at the airport and headed for our accommodations. For being a budget hotel, the place was actually really nice, and in an AMAZING location, had we any sense of direction. We were walking distance from essentially everything we came to see, but still managed to take the scenic route everywhere, walking in infinite circles and encountering interesting characters at every turn.

That same night we decided to go native at the Turkish Baths. Again, we started off walking from probably less than a kilometer away but ended up so lost (in the rain and cold, might I add) that we ended up getting in a taxi, just to find the place. This was a big mistake. We got in the cab and started driving what felt like way too far away. After crossing the bridge that took us to the other side of Istanbul (aka EUROPE!) we realized that something was wrong. Oh, and this driver was definitely using a GPS, too. He said he'd lived in Istanbul all his life, but somehow I'm still not convinced. After finally convincing him we were on the wrong continent and he should turn around, he rear ended a van, resulting in what I can only assume was a heated five minute argument in rapid Turkish (in the middle of the busy road), followed by kissing, hugging and both drivers returning to their vehicles and cruising away. After a little more looping around, we were basically back where we started, and supposedly at the fabled Hamam (at this point its existence was in question, at least to me). After asking directions again we finally found it (our ever-capable driver had dropped us off a few blocks away) and embarked on our cross cultural adventure into the infamous bath.

We went to the Cemberlitas Hamam, which was built in 1584 by the famous Ottoman architect Sinan and is still used today. Talk about cultural differences-- maybe Americans are prudes (or I'm a prude), but I really cannot see anything like this flying back in the States. You walk in, strip down, wrap yourself in a thin sheet, which you promptly remove when you enter the bath, which is a huge, round, stone room with a domed ceiling that is kept hot, much like a wet sauna. In said room there are women of all shapes and sizes everywhere, laying stark naked like beached whales on an expanse of stone slab soaking in the heat and moisture. Old women, young women, children; levels of physical fitness and amounts of body hair from all across the spectrum. After laying in the heat for a while, one of said old topless women, a bath attendant (their work uniforms and birthday suits are one in the same), approaches you asking whether you'd like a massage. Another cultural difference-- in Turkey, a massage is not what we in America think of as a massage-- lotion, relaxing music and someone working out your knots. The Turkish massage is a large Turkish woman scrubbing your exposed naked body with water and soap and a scrubby mitt, covering you in bubbles and rinsing you off. This occurs in the same room described before, in front of all the other bathers. Definitely not what I was expecting, nor what I signed up for, but my skin did feel really smooth afterward and to be honest, I'd do it again given the opportunity. When in Rome (or Istanbul, rather...)...

Refreshed, so to speak, from our adventures in the Hamam the night before, we headed out to the Hagia Sophia, one of the major sites in Istanbul. Also known as the Church of the Holy Wisdom, it was built as a church in the 530's by Justinian during the Byzantine period and was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly 1000 years. It was converted into a mosque by the Ottomans in 1453. It is absolutely, completely, breathtakingly, insanely beautiful. It was so interesting, as well, to see images of the Virgin and Child and other Christian icons among Islamic calligraphy and pulpiture (I invented this word). There are also gorgeous gold and ceramic mosaics inside the church. The main dome of the Hagia Sophia is breathtakingly huge. I read that the Ottomans sought to rebuild a mosque with the same size dome, but it failed, so they converted the church to a mosque instead.



After the Hagia Sophia we walked across the street to the Basilica Cistern, or rather on top of it. It was built in the 6th century by Justinian I and is the largest of some several hundred cisterns that lie beneath Istanbul. If you've ever seen the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (I have not), its in there. It stored the water for various palaces in Istanbul throughout the reign of the Ottoman Empire. Today it is empty and just used as a tourist attraction (seeing as we have more advanced methods of storing water...), but is incredible to see. The columns and work in this place are astounding. There is still some water along the bottom, with (of course) huge and disgusting fish swimming in it. There are two columns in the back which have Medusa heads on the base. No one really knows why, or why they are placed upside-down and sideways, but they are believed to have come from an earlier Roman building. There's also a cafe in the cistern (really cute) and a stage on which they have concerts during the summer. Very very cool! The cistern is surrounded by 13 foot thick firebrick walls and is 470x210 feet. It can hold 2,800,000 cubic feet of water and is entirely underground. It is filled with 336 marble columns that are each 30 feet high-- thank you Wikipedia.

Next up on our agenda was the Blue Mosque, named for the blue tiles that adorn the inside of the mosque. It is the national mosque of Turkey and was built by Sultan Ahmed I in 1609. It is huge-- and by huge I mean has the capacity to hold 10,000 worshipers, and like many Islamic houses of worship, is insanely gorgeous. Check it out:

After the mosque we headed back to the hotel, where we decided we needed to get massages, since we hadn't received the kind we'd expected at the Turkish baths, and after all, we were on vacation. It was a real massage, but again we were encountered with the cultural differences revolving around nudity. They're not so big in Turkey on covering you with a sheet during a massage or avoiding massaging more...uh... personal areas of the body, they way they do in the States. Not to mention our masseur, Mehmet, kept talking to people who'd wander in and out of the massage "room" (a table in a large room, partitioned off by cloth dividers). We also did mud masks and roasted in the sauna. Despite being a departure from the expected (aka American), it was still enjoyable, and a good laugh.

Our next adventure was Sultana's-- a dinner show we booked through the concierge desk of the hotel. A bus picked us up and took us to Europe (I feel so cool saying that) for an evening of traditional Turkish foods ("like chicken, meat and vegetables", as the travel agent described it to us) and entertainment, which included belly dancers, traditional Turkish dance, an old man playing My Heart will Go On on a keyboard and some really ridiculous and really entertaining puppet dancers. I don't know how to explain them, so I've uploaded a video instead. It was two men dancing, the faces of the puppets are their stomachs and their arms are in the hats. Truly amazing:

The next day, we started off at Topkapi Palace, which served as the residence of the Ottoman Sultans, as well as the center of Ottoman administration for some 380 years. It was built in 1478 by Mehmet the Conqueror and was expanded by numerous Sultans over the centuries (I just wrote a paper on this...), so it looks different than most palaces, as it is made up of a number of separate structures, most two stories or shorter, and was built over the course of three centuries and remodeled multiple times. The coolest part of the palace was the treasury, which held insane Ottoman treasures, like an 86 karat diamond and really ridiculous crowns and thrones and knives. Of course, photography was prohibited in the treasury, so, sadly, I have no pictures of the goods to post. A definite best part of Topkapi palace was the Harem, which was huge and incredibly ornate, with huge domes, tons of stained glass, mosaic tiles and gorgeous wood and metalwork. The middle two pictures below are from the Harem.


On the grounds of the palace is also an archaeological museum. There were lots and lots of great sculptures, bones, etc., but I forgot all about them when I found the coolest thing ever ever ever ever....
A LIFESIZE REPLICA OF A TROJAN HORSE... THAT WE CLIMBED INSIDE!!! (though I'm not sure we were supposed to...)
Yes, I am aware that I'm a five-year-old. I'm okay with that.
CHECK IT OUT::::
AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! soooo great!
I'm not sure we were supposed to go inside, but no one was there to tell us not to, and the sign by it was completely in Turkish, so that was clearance enough for me. After climbing the ladder, chaos and immaturity ensued:

and continued...

But in all seriousness, there were some really amazing pieces in the museum. Below is the facade of a high relief sarcauphogus from the THIRD century!


This is quickly becoming an insanely long entry, and if you're still reading, I apologize for my tendency to be long winded. I'll try to get this show on the road.

On our way back from the museum we passed by one of the "interesting characters" I'd mentioned earlier-- a man standing on the street with a cart, a rooster and a bunny. The rooster, we learned, was actually not a rooster, but a fortune teller. Intrigued, we had our fortunes told. Basically, the old man had a tray of folded slips of paper, of which the rooster pecked one with his beak, the old man gave to the bunny to sniff, and then handed to you as your fortune. I actually really liked mine. It said something about making a lot of money, taking a much needed vacation and reuniting with old friends.


That night, we went to see Whirling Dervishes. AMAAAAZING! The ceremony was in the train station from where the Orient Express departed (over which I geeked out to the point of no return).


After the whirlers, we had dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking Istanbul and the Bosporous before going out for shisha and meeting more of said interesting characters. Its probably best to just leave it at that.

On our next and final day in Istanbul we went to the Grand Bazaar in the morning, which is really more or less like any other Middle Eastern souk, except the Wal-Mart version. Not in the sense that everything is generic or cheaper, but moreso because it is so MASSIVE. I probably spent way more money than I should have on who knows what, but it was fun to haggle and shop. The vendors in the bazaar seem to know every language under the sun, and use them to try to attract customers. The dictionary definition of a tourist trap. Vendors look at you, guess your ethnicity and then speak to you in the appropriate language. I threw quite a few of them for a loop, as I was addressed in Italian, Spanish and even Arabic more frequently than I was addressed in English. I don't come from any of those backgrounds, nor do (I think) I look any of those things (especially Arabic). Go figure.


Our last-but-not-least adventure in Istanbul was a cruise on the Bosporous, the strait that separates Europe and Asia. It was windy and freezing, but you only live once, and the experience of sipping tea while looking at two continents at the same time was completely unreal.
Europe, Asia, Europe again, Me! (with the Hagia Sophia in the background!!)

After our cruise we hightailed it back to the hotel juuuuust in time to make our car to the airport. Usually by the end of a vacation I'm good and ready to go home, but I truly was sad to leave Istanbul. We had done SO much in the four days we were there, but still didn't come close to seeing all there is to see. We barely even made it to the European side (except for the dinner show and the cruise, if that counts). I'd love to make it back someday and spend more time exploring. Truly truly truly an amazing unexpected gem of a place.

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