Saturday July 19, 2010
Well my fellow adventurers, I have been in Turkey for a little over a week and I have much to report on my stay in Istanbul!
The trip out to Turkey was on ordeal I must admit. My Mom went with me to the airport and after much confusion in a very long line we found out that the plane to Paris was delayed by two hours which meant that I would miss my connecting flight. After receiving the information for my new connecting flight my Mom and I ate some food and off I went! The flight over was long but comfortable enough. Once in Paris I ran into more trouble. The first hurdle was finding my way around this enormous and “modern arty” (aka. Was unorganized and made no sense... sorry Agnes). The second hurdle was learning that the new connecting flight that the Air France attendant was suppose to put me on did not have me registered on the flight! I had a lot of running around to do to get me on that flight so I wasn’t stranded in Paris (and now that I am thinking about it, that wouldn’t have been such a hardship for most people would it?). Thankfully I met a wonderful woman on the terminal shuttle and we started talking. As it turned out she was actually a Sociology professor at McMaster and was one of the kindest people I have ever randomly met. She stayed with me through the whole mess of getting me registered on the plane and having my luggage sorted out and finding my way around that airport. She was fabulous and helped my stress levels enormously!
Now for another surprise, on the morning I was leaving for Istanbul my Dad decided he wanted to join me! He booked a last minute flight to Istanbul via Rome and left a couple hours before my plane was suppose to leave. I was a little anxious because with my flight delay my Dad would be sitting around waiting in the airport but he ended up taking a nice drive through the old city. Once my flight landed I made my way through customs and found my Dad and we made our way through the city to our hotel. I must say, drivers in Turkey are crazy!!! There are in fact lanes painted on the roads but no one uses them! People just swerve across lanes and cut people off at off/on ramps and the pedestrians are just as bad with their jumping in front of cars! Aside from the multiple near death driving experiences we got to the hotel (pictures on facebook) and washed up. We ended up having dinner and drinks on the rooftop bar which had an amazing view of the city and the Golden Horn. We also got to hear the Muslim prayers around 9pm-ish from the mosques and the city. I think there are speakers set up all around the city so that the call to prayer can be heard everywhere, and it is amazing to listen to.
Over the next 3 days my Dad and I had a thorough culturing in the Istanbul Old City. On Friday, Dad and I went to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Even though one of the buildings was closed the place was still enormous! We spent the whole morning perusing the many old things and saw some truly amazing things. My Dad’s favourite artefact was a very elaborate sarcophagus called Alexander’s Sarcophagus. Although Alexander wasn’t buried in it, he was carved all over the site of the sarcophagus and it was beautiful! I loved the models of the giant temples and the hall with artefacts from the different levels of Troy. There was a beautiful statue of a goddess figurine and a giant “Trojan Horse” for kids to play in. Agnes would have loved the painted plates in the Tiled Pavilion! :P
After that we walked to Topkapi Palace and bought tickets to the palace, the harem and audio tapes so we knew what everything was. I must say it was very expensive but it was totally worth it. This palace was outstanding! The palace complex was huge and it had the most amazing view of the sea. We got to see the hall of religious objects (including such things as beard hair from the prophet Mohammad in tiny little vials), and the harem with all the bedrooms, bathing rooms and audience/entertainment chambers. There were also a series of chambers that were the treasure rooms of the palace. The stuff in the treasury was AMAZING! The most famous objects which I couldn’t get pictures of were a jewel dagger with 3 giant green emeralds embedded in the handle and a monstrous diamond (85-ish carats) surrounded by more diamonds. They had thrones covered in gold cloth and pearls, gem studded jewellery and more sparkly things than I have ever seen. After the palace we walked outside of the old walls and saw the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia from a distance and then walked home along the touristy street.
On Saturday Dad and I went to the Grand Bazaar! This place was fantastic! The main bazaar is set up under an ancient arched structure and is home to over 4000 vendors. There was so much there, Dad and I spent about 4 hours roaming around and we still only covered a very tiny part of the bazaar. The main street is full of high end jewellery vendors. There were so many beautiful shiny things I didn’t know where to look! A couple really beautiful ruby earring sets caught my eye, although I didn’t dare ask the price! Apparently haggling is a must in the bazaar, we were advised that we shouldn’t pay anything more than 50% of what the vendors were asking. It ended up being a great thing that Dad was there with me because I am horrible at haggling and those guys would have eaten me alive! I ended up getting some souvenirs, a beautiful silk headscarf (plus two others) and some Turkish clothes. Dad was looking for a good deal on a Turkish coffee set (of course) and some gifts.
After the Bazaar we went to the fabulous and impressive Hagia Sophia. Agnes, you would have just died with how amazingly built this building is! It was first built as a Christian basilica and was burnt down twice and then the third one was converted into a mosque. It is now being restored and is classified as a museum, so there aren’t any Muslim prayer services held there anymore. We then had dinner at a restaurant called Medusa and we notices that all the tiled Medusa heads on the walls were upside-down. We figured out why they did this once we found our way into the underground cisterns. It was basically an underground manmade cave supported by giant columns that was used to store water in the roman period. At the very back of the cistern were two giant columns supported by two giant stones with carved Medusa heads on them. What makes them famous is that they were intentionally turned upside-down and as it turned out the restaurant was built on top of where the cistern was underground!
After that we went to the Blue Mosque, also another building that Agnes would have had a fit over! Dad and I had to dress “appropriately” before we went in so we had to remove our shoes and dad had to wrap a cover around his legs (because he was wearing shorts) and I had to put on a head scarf that covered both my head and my arms. While we were getting all this together the guard asked me if I could tell him what something was in English, so I said yes. He asked, “What does ‘What the hell is this?’ mean?” That means that some horrible tourist is walking up to the Blue Mosque and saying that out loud to the Muslim guards! This place was incredible! There we stained glass windows, tiled everything, huge marble columns and beautiful lights everywhere! I was imagining what the people who get to worship there at a daily basis feel, much like how it must be to worship at Notre Dame every Sunday. It must be truly fabulous!
When we left the Blue Mosque we walked onto the street towards the two obelisks and realised that we were walking on top of the place where the Hippodrome was, which we had been scouring our tourist maps for! Instead of covering up the racing stadium they ended up placing the modern road right on top of it with the obelisks right in the centre. It was pretty incredible because I actually learned about the serpent statue and the obelisks from school and I actually got to see them in person! I am so lucky to be able to have these opportunities to connect with the world and everything I have been learning about! Thank you! And for another gift from the universe we saw an astounding sunset over the Golden Horn while heading back to the hotel.
The next day we got up early to go for a Bosporus boat ride! Unfortunately I ate a questionable strawberry cream tart in the morning and was felling very sick for the whole boat ride. Still, we visited the Spice Market before getting on the boat which was extremely colourful. I ended up buying about $25 of Turkish delight which I am still munching on and took some pictures of heaping piles of spices and teas. The journey up and down the Bosporus was incredible despite the fact I was feeling sick. We saw riverside palaces, mosques, fortresses and government buildings on both the European and Asian side of Istanbul.
After I had a nap at the hotel and was feeling better we went to the historic Turkish Baths, which is my all time favourite thing I did in Istanbul! The baths are set up with one half of the building for women and one half for men. The baths themselves are a series of rooms (waiting rooms, steam room, bathing rooms, Jacuzzi room ect.) and all of them are heaven! I went into the women’s social room where there are couches and tables for sitting with friends and drinking. I was given my towel and a pair of swimming underwear and went upstairs to the second level to change. I then went through the steam room into the main bathing room. I couldn’t take any pictures but the whole room was made of marble and there were about 4 enclosed bathing rooms with 3 sinks each, and 4 sinks along the wall in the main room. In the middle of the room there was a giant raised marble slab where you get washed and where you can relax. When I sat down on it I noticed the marble was actually heated from below so it was very relaxing. I also noticed that because I did not bring a bathing suit I would have to be naked from the waist up, which was a learning experience and personal challenge all in itself because there were about 25 other women in there with me! Once I got over the bashfulness the awesomeness of the baths took over. My attendant called me over and I lay down on the edge of the marble slab for my bath. The bath was wonderful! I got watered down, scrubbed to get me squeaky clean, watered down again and then a bubble bath! Then you sit by one of the outside sinks and she washed me down and washed my hair. I was then pointed in the direction of the small pool and Jacuzzi they had in the next room so that I could just swim around and relax. After that I could stay in the bath for as long as I want so I used the enclosed rooms to wash down and I lay on the marble slab for a while. Afterwards I went and changed and then went up one more floor where the massage tables are and met my dad on the rooftop cafe for a post-this-is-heaven drink.
To finish off my last night in Istanbul we went shopping down the main street next to our hotel. We chanced upon this fantastic ceramic store where we could actually see the owner making a new piece. She took the time to explain the whole process of making Turkish pottery and what the historical significance is behind each design type. I bought some beautiful ceramic plates for my wall and some gifts and my dad bought the most fantastic decorative plate with a traditional Ottoman design. After this we went back to the hotel so that I could get up at 5am for my flight to Konya.
Aaaaand this enormous novel is the story of my trip to Istanbul!
