Pass the Turkey, Please

Alright, so I wasn’t terribly surprised… I thought I’d like Istanbul, but I didn’t know just how much I would love it! My trip to Turkey was simply incredible. I spent most of the time with Kevin, but Meghan was able to meet us in Istanbul for a few days. Hanging out with Meg always makes me happy, so that helped make the trip even more amazing.

Kevin and I got up early to catch our flight to Istanbul… I basically got in from Paris, did laundry, went to bed, woke up the next morning, and got on a plane to Istanbul. Surprisingly, I wasn’t as tired as I thought I’d be. I still wasn’t pleased when our plane had screaming children running wild in the aisles, but at least a funny story came out of it – one of the flight attendants came up to Kevin and me and said, “Excuse me, do you have a baby?” There was an awkward pause before I said, “um, no.” He looked confused and then said, “my colleague told me you had a baby.” We assured him that we didn’t and he went away mumbling about how he didn’t know what we would’ve done with a baby anyway. Just to mess with him I gave him a crazed look as he walked by to check that we had our seatbelts on and asked him if he had seen my baby. =) It was a fun way to start the trip. Kevin and I named our firstborn son Firenze, in case you were wondering.

When we got in to the airport, we had arranged for someone from our hostel to pick us up (posh, I know). We ended up figuring out that this sign was meant for us. McOvenn is not quite the same as McQueen, hahaha.

When we checked into the hostel, the guy working the desk told us that he gave us a free upgrade to a better room from the second night on and then said, “high five!!” Of course we gave him one and soon after that we decided to name him “Joey” because he looked like Joey Fatone from NSync – no lie!

This is our first room – Kevin’s touching both sides of the room. He’s tall, but still… also, the reason I cut off his foot is because I was as far in the corner of the room as I could get. So yeah… teeny, haha. We were glad for the upgrade on the second night. At least there was free wifi – huzzah!

After we checked into the hostel, we decided to explore the city a bit. It took about 5 minutes to walk into town – our hostel had prime real estate.

This is the Haggia Sophia. It’s over 1500 years old (!!) and has been used both as a Christian church and a Mosque, but now it’s a museum.

The Blue Mosque is just across the street from the Haggia Sophia. It was very impressive from the outside. I like Byzantine architecture. =)

That night, we dinner at a restaurant called Cozy Pub. We ordered a meal to share because it looked good and was presented really well.

What a good decision! It was a delicious chicken and lamb dinner, cooked in a clay pot (look, he’s lighting it on fire!), marinated with vegetables, peppers, and great spices. I don’t know how to describe how wonderful it was, but the important part was that it was YUMMY. After the whole fire display, they crack the clay pot open and serve your dinner.

See? YUM. After dinner, we found an amazing dessert place (it became our favorite one… we went there nearly every night… hehe) and had dessert in the park between the Haggia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

What a great view! We sat in the park, watched the fountains, listened to the call to prayer (which was really cool and actually very pretty in a mystical sort of way), and ate our dessert.

Afterwards, we wandered back to the hostel and went upstairs to the common room/dining room for a drink. There was music playing and Joey and a few of the other staff were parading around the room, one guy with traditional Turkish costume and a sword, one with cymbals, and others using a hookah or a broom for a baton. It confirmed our suspicions that we booked the best hostel EVER. (In case anyone else is traveling to Istanbul, you should definitely stay at the Orient Hostel… definitely the best choice as far as hostels go).

The next morning, Kevin and I went on the roof of the hostel to figure out our plan for the rest of the trip – plus the roof had a great view of both the Haggia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. We wandered around the city center some more, had lunch, and went to the airport to pick Meghan up. I made a sign for Meghan that said “Rochesstraaaa,” just for fun and watched as she squinted among the pick up area for someone until she finally found me! Haha. It was great to see her again. I’m glad that we’ve been able to space out our visits really well so I didn’t have to go the majority of the semester without a Meghan fix. ;)

We spent much of the afternoon walking around the city and had dinner together. I had this great lamb-kebab stew (it’s the best way to describe it). Turkish food was wonderful, I never had a bad meal there! We also tried Turkish Delight for the first time (and it was delightful, of course). We didn’t do too much that day, just went to a bar and talked forever.

The room upgrade that night was great – our new room had nicer beds, plus a sitting area and its own bathroom! It was the best room I’ve ever had in a hostel. The next morning we found out that the shower only had cold water, but you can’t have everything in life. At least it was all ours. ;)

The following day, we went to the Grand Bazaar. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip… and the whole trip was so great, it’s really hard to narrow down.

This is the main entrance to the Bazaar. It’s a complete maze inside with stalls everywhere. Most shops sold lots of touristy things, but there were some specialty stalls that were nice. There were places that sold rugs, hand-painted ceramics, wooden backgammon and chess sets, crystals, scarves, decorated hookahs, beautiful lamps, and of course, cheap touristy junk. The atmosphere itself was the best part – very loud with shop owners standing at the front of their stalls trying to bargain with you, surrounded by all of the colorful shops. I bought a wooden backgammon set hand decorated with mother of pearl, a scarf, and a few trinkets.

I bought my scarf from this guy. One of the people working his stall quoted me 205 lira for it, but I laughed and negotiated two for 50 – one for me and one for Kevin. The owner knew we knew how it was done (all that at haggling Brick Lane helped!), so he let me borrow a hat and posed for a picture. =)

After the Grand Bazaar, the three of us grabbed a doner for lunch (think thinly sliced meat rolled up in a tortilla with peppers, onions, and a few other things – delicious! I’m glad they have those in London and will miss them once I get back to the states) and headed to the Spice Market. The Spice Market was great – as soon as you enter, you’re surrounded by hundreds of different spices, many in open bags piled on top of each other. The smell is wonderful and the whole market is incredibly colorful… it’s something that I feel like I could never begin to describe. Apart from spices, there are tons of different teas, many on display for you to smell as you walk by.

My favorites were the shops like this one that sold all sorts of different kinds of Turkish Delight. The bottom left of the picture is the kind of Turkish Delight that you normally see, but there are big columns of other kinds on the top left – most of which had pistachios. Yum! Meghan bought a kilo – yes, a whole kilo – of it for 12 lira! Best decision ever! We snacked at it for the rest of the trip and still didn’t finish. ;)

After the Spice Market, we went to visit our first Mosque. It was beautiful inside!! But more on mosques later. Next, we decided to walk along the walls of Topkapi Palace on the banks of the Bosphorus to get back to our hostel. The walk ended up being a bit longer than expected (the wall went on forever! haha), but traveling has made me a firm believer in the fact that you’ve never really experienced a city until you’ve gotten a little lost in it. And anyway, it gave me the opportunity to take in the great view.

This is Ataturk, Turkey’s first president. Turkish people have a kind of cultish love for him – his picture (complete with crazy eyebrows) is everywhere. It kind of reminded me of Stalin, but I thought that this statue (which has a beautiful view the Bosphorus) was nice and was just grand enough for such a revered man. But seriously, someone should’ve told him that his eyebrows are legitimately scary.

After we dropped off some of our stuff at the hostel, we went to the Basilica Cistern. It was made in 532 AD. You know, 1500 years ago. Over the centuries, people forgot about them and they were only rediscovered when people found wells beneath their homes and were even fishing from them.

They had cool lights so you could see all the columns. Ooooh. There were also two Medusa columns in the cistern. The people who built them used them to ward away evil, but no one knows why this one was upside down or why the other one was lying on its side. Walking around the cistern was a very cool experience, kind of like traveling back in time… except for the café downstairs and the shop at the exit. But other than that, time travel.

Next on the list was a visit to the Blue Mosque! I left out pictures of the first mosque we went to because this one was even more grand (although the first was still absolutely stunning… I took around 800 pictures, so I had to make lots of cuts).

Meghan and I posing in front of the Mosque, look how cute we are! Aww. =)

As soon as you walk in, you have to remind yourself not to block the entrance. The outside of the mosque was impressive in its own right, but the inside completely floored me. I really have no words to describe it… it was absolutely gorgeous. All of the walls and the domed ceilings were painted with such intricacy.

We weren’t allowed to visit much of the Mosque, but the parts that we were allowed to see were stunning.

There were always low-hanging chandeliers in the mosques that we went to, the Blue Mosque included. I loved the stained glass windows, too.

The three of us had dinner near the hostel after our visit to the Mosque. The waiter was very friendly and invited us to come back for drinks (to “make blah blah”… or talk) after 11 or so when business was slow. We ended up not taking him up on the offer and went back to the hostel to watch a free belly dancing show.

The next morning we had breakfast and went to the Haggia Sophia. There were church ruins immediately outside of it, but they couldn’t excavate more because doing so would destroying parts of the Haggia Sophia itself. The inside had a mix of décor, including Christian mosaics.

This shows part of the old decorations inside the building. There were a bunch of restoration projects underway. The tallest part of the domed ceiling had scaffolding right beneath it, but it was still incredible. What an amazing building, especially for its age!

This was my favorite part of the Haggia Sophia. The gold doesn’t come out that much in the photo, but it was wonderful. I also liked how the decorative Arabic script contrasted with the Christian frescoes above it (you can’t see it in the picture because I couldn’t fit it in, but there’s a 9^th century Virgin Mary and Child mosaic as well as a 9^th century Archangel Gabriel mosaic. To the right (also outside of the picture – sorry!) was the part of the mosque where the call to worship is held… I think it’s kind of like a pulpit.

I’m on the second floor of the Haggia Sophia in this picture… and you still can’t see the ceiling in the shot. I hope that gives you an idea of how expansive it was. It was just incredible!

Here’s a 12^th century mosaic of the Virgin Mary and child. Again, I found the fact that both religions used this as a house of worship very cool. I’m glad it’s been preserved as a museum, it would be such a shame to have either religion forced out of the building.

After we saw the Haggia Sophia, we went to Topkapi Palace.

Here’s the entrance to Topkapi Palace. There were lots of flowers and beautiful open areas inside of the Palace. I was surprised by Istanbul’s fondness of tulips.

This is inside the sultan’s harem. I really loved it… it was almost too ornate. The tiles on the walls were so colorful and were all hand painted. There were also wonderful rooms with lots of detailed stained glass. It was absolutely beautiful!

This was the Sultan's audience room. It was my favorite room in the harem and it made me think that it really wouldn’t have been too bad to live in a harem back in the day. Everything is provided for you, you’re surrounded by beautiful things, and if you become a favorite you get all sorts of power. Plus you’ve got no expenses, a stipend, and early retirement. ;)

The harem was only one part of the palace, though. There were many other parts, many of which we didn’t have time to see. I loved the large courtyards with flowers and sometimes a great view of the Bosphorus.

Here’s Kevin and I in one of those courtyards with the Bosphorus behind us… I love this picture!!

I’ll say one thing for Turkey – the men there are a bit more creative than other people when they hit on you. One of the guys working at the harem asked me if I was Spanish, then practically insisted that I was because of my “beautiful coloring.” I was flattered and can now check off being hit on in a harem from my list of things to do before I die. Hahaha.

A door in the palace. I’m not sure where it led, only that it was beautiful.

There were a bunch of museum-ey rooms in the palace, including one with old ceremonial clothes for the Sultans. The pants reminded me of a MC Hammer music video, haha. The treasury room was also wonderful – Turkey has a special fondness for emeralds. They were featured in crowns, ceremonial chairs and boxes, and rings among other things.

One of the rooms that made me very cynical was a room full of religious relics. They had Mohammed’s cloak, a few of his teeth, and some of his beard on display. I can believe that, but the palace also claimed to have Joseph’s turban (which was far too white… don’t you think it would’ve yellowed/disintegrated a lot?), Moses’ staff (suuuure), and a bowl used by Abraham. There’s no way in hell. But it was interesting, I’ll give it that.

That night, Kevin, Meghan and I went to a Turkish Bath. Kevin went to the guy’s section of it, but Meghan and I had a lovely time chatting and being pampered! It was a very naked process (haha), but I really loved it. =) It was kind of like a mini spa treatment. They gave us towels for the steam room, sat us down in the all marble room, and told us to use the warm taps of water. Then they took us to a separate room and gave us massages. After trekking around with a ton of luggage for a week and a half (I know, I lead such a difficult life), the massage was just wonderful.

After our baths, we had a very relaxing dinner next to our hostel at a restaurant with cushy reclining chairs. The dinner was wonderful (as usual – Turkish food is my new favorite!!), and it was nice to just relax and chat before bed.

The next day, the three of us took a cruise on the Bosphorus. It was Easter and we wanted to find a church to go to a service, but obviously our options were very limited. So we had Cadbury eggs instead!! (I brought them with me from London)

The boat took us to the part of Istanbul that is in Asia (it's the only city that spans two continents) and since it was right on the water, we decided to go to a fish place. The food was very fresh, haha. And very delicious! I freaked Meghan out by teasing her with the fish’s head. =)

After lunch we trekked up a huuuuge hill to go see a ruined castle. The view from up there was fantastic, so the long walk (with at least a 45 degree slope at some points) was worth it.

Meghan and I enjoying the view. We’re pretty much adorable, just sayin’.

The boat cruise was a bunch of fun and a nice relaxing way to spend most of the day. After the cruise, we decided to visit another mosque because it overlooked a lot of the city and was huge… so we figured that it’d be important.

We followed this sketchy sign. Turns out that it was right, but it does look a bit untrustworthy, don't you think? Anyway, it made me laugh so I took a picture. ;) The mosque was under a lot of construction, though, so we didn’t really get to see much. Oh well.

That night, we got tickets to a Whirling Dervish show! Whirling Dervishes are something that I’d heard about before, but I had no idea what it was all about. It turns out that the show is supposed to be very spiritual and symbolic.

They spin around while a band plays traditional music on really interesting instruments. It wasn’t my favorite part of the trip, but I enjoyed it and it was definitely something cultural that I’m glad I saw.

Kevin and I woke up early the next morning to catch a plane to Izmir for our extended trip to Ephesus and Pamukkale and Meghan returned to Prague for classes. Classes?? What are those? This is the best semester ever. =) Once we got to Selcuk, we joined a tour to Ephasus. The other people on the tour were very nice. There were a few other students and a very friendly Kiwi.

Ephesus was once a hub of commerce and we got to wander around the ruins, many of them 1^st century. While I was casually sitting on a 1st century column that had toppled over, it finally hit me how old everything was. It was really cool to be able to climb on everything. We were able to explore the sites on our own, but our tour guide also told us about everything.

The Ephesians liked to play dominoes.

We saw an old roman bath and some of the terra cotta piping they used to keep the steam rooms warm (they’d pipe in hot water beneath the floors). Another part of the ruins that was very well preserved were the public toilets, haha. Our tour guide told us that those wealthy enough to have servants would send them in to warm up the marble seats for them. Ew.

This is the library of Selcuk. This was the most impressive part of Ephesus in my opinion. There was a brothel across the street from it and an underground tunnel connecting the two. Men back in the day were still stealthy. "Hey honey, I’m going to the library today…"

After Ephesus, the tour took us to a bunch of different specialty factories. I’m sure it was just a typical tourist trap kind of thing, but I enjoyed a lot of it.

Our first stop after Ephesus was to a ceramics factory. We watched the master make a vase and when he asked for a volunteer, I was able to make something of my own! He let me take it home, but it didn’t survive the journey.

Later that afternoon we visited the site of one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. The tall pillar near the center of the picture is all that is left of the Temple of Artemis.

The next stop took us to the last house of the Virgin Mary. They have a lot of pretty solid reasons for believe that it was the last place she lived, so it was pretty cool to have visited it. The pope has even come to see it!

The other two factories we went to were a huge leather store and a rug store. The leather store put on a fashion show, which was pretty neat. They tried to sell us leather jackets, but Kevin and I just wandered around the store trying on the most expensive ones (my record was 23,000 euros… a full length fur coat). The rug store was actually pretty interesting. They told us how to tell a good rug from a bad rug and showed us how some of them were made.

Most of the rugs are made by women in nearby villages, but they had a few at the factory itself so we could see how they were made. This one is almost done – the owner told me that once she finished, they would open up a few bottles of champagne and celebrate… too bad the tour didn’t stay an extra half hour.

The next day we went to Pamukkale. It means "cotton castle" in Turkish, but the whiteness comes from calcium carbonate deposits. The water has a lot of minerals in it and there’s a pool of it that they claim has mild healing properties. Anyway, when the water flows down into the pools, it’s very pretty. =) I was glad it was such a lovely day – but it was very windy!

Anyone want to play Jenga? Pamukkale had its fair share of ruins. Kevin and I hiked around them for a while and even climbed into a few crypts to explore. Tons of fun!

Instead of paying the 23 lira to swim in the mineral water in a touristy restaurant/lounge area, we chose to wade in the pools and enjoy the lovely view of the city below. Anyway, now my feet feel much healthier. ;)

Pamukkale also had a very well preserved (/renovated) theatre. It was a bit of a hike to get up there, but it was definitely worth it. It had a great view of all of the ruins, plus the theatre itself was really cool.

That night we took an overnight bus back to Istanbul and then hopped on a plane back to London! What an absolutely fantastic trip!!

So I realize that that was a terribly long post. But hey, it covers a full 8 days! ;) And as a side note, it is officially over 1000 words longer than my longest paper this semester. Hahaha.