Just wanted to let everyone know that I’m still alive and everything. I finished all my work and handed it in on time. After classes ended I went to Europe for a week (more to come on that once I return home) and now I’m in Israel for ten days. I’ll be doing work on my thesis and trying to harass random Israeli students into filling out my survey. My flight home is June 23 (really the night of June 22) so expect lots of updates after that point.
Update May 26, 2008
I just wanted to let everyone know after the dramatic ending to my last post that I’m doing okay. I’m still going crazy with the amount of work I have, but I’m enjoying the idea of it all ending. I still have about 50 pages left to write, a presentation, and 2 finals, but I’m hanging in there. This week will also mark the beginning of people going home. One of my really close friends is leaving this Thursday (as in 3 days from now), so that will be the beginning of a new sort of distraction from work. Luckily most of the rest of my friends aren’t leaving until after finals so I won’t even have to think about them going until way later.
Hope everyone is enjoying summer back home.
Mental Break in Eilat May 21, 2008
Last weekend three friends and I traveled down to Eilat for a little break. We planned this trip about 2 months ago and we’ve been looking forward to it for such a long time. Originally I was going to go to Petra (as two of my friends did) but I have so much work I didn’t go and did reading on the beach.
The trip started Thursday afternoon. Our bus was at 5pm, but because Bush was still in Jerusalem and we were worried about traffic we left way early in case there were crazy traffic jams. Of course it was the quickest ride we’ve ever taken. We decided everyone must have stayed home because they were so worried about the traffic caused by road closures due to Bush’s visit. Because we were so early we were able to do a little shopping at the bus station mall and eat at the Burger’s Bar there (delicious). The bus ride was supposed to be four hours and forty-five minutes. Despite making two stops, we got to Eilat in a little over four hours. Our bus driver was absolutely crazy, he was speeding and driving all over the road. Not to scare anyone.
After settling into the hostel we got ready for dinner and going out. After spending almost an hour getting ready (I mean we were four girls) we finally headed outside. As soon as we stepped out we discovered that it was actually raining. We were of course complaining and all of the Israelis were just glad for the rain. The downside was that we didn’t want to wander around to find a place to eat. Luckily there was a pizza store next door. One kind of cool thing is that I stayed in the exact same hostel three years ago when I was there with my high school. So the pizza store next door was actually one I had visited before, and I had a little bit of nostalgia. We then went back to the hostel and went to bed, ready for an early start the next day.
Because it was supposed to get to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit we wanted to leave for the beach early. Two of my friends headed out for Petra while the other two of us headed for the beach. We basically stopped in the first area of chairs on the beach. We noticed that they were playing loud trance music but sort of assumed that was going on all up and down the beach, so we were okay with it. The beach is really cool in Eilat because it’s really a cove which is divided between Israel and Jordan. So while sitting on the beach we could see the mountains of Jordan. It was really very beautiful.
It started to get really hot already by 11:30am, so we headed inside to the mall next to the beach. The air conditioning was amazingly refreshing, which everyone else seemed to have discover as well. We walked around for a bit and got lunch before heading outside again. Once we headed out at 1:30 it was really unbearably hot in the sun. So instead we sat in the shade for a while. Despite the loud music blaring I fell asleep instantly. At around 3 it was finally slightly less searingly hot, so we moved back into the sun. By that point the reason for the music was revealed. Apparently there was a huge gay and lesbian party on the beach around us, meaning everyone was dancing around the entire beach around all the beach chairs while incredibly drunk. It was kind of annoying and after an hour we were tired of the sun, and music, and people and went to walk along the promenade. There we did a little bit of window shopping in the tourist stores. We then went back to the hostel to shower and nap before going out for dinner.
After our naps my other two friends who had gone to Petra were back. It sounded like they had an amazing time, but I was still glad with my decision not to go. We went out for dinner along the promenade to this really great restaurant called Cafe Optimi. They had enormous salads that were really delicious. So much so, that one of my friends, whose birthday dinner was set to be Saturday night, said she wanted to return to the same restaurant. Afterwards we walked along the promenade again, this time being a bit ridiculous and trying on all of the really tacky clothing, hats, and jewelry. Finally we went home and changed to go out to a bar. It was incredibly annoying though because all of the good places were super crowded with birthright kids. It made us realize that we are a little tired of the huge American groups that travel around and are probably going to have reverse culture shock when we go home.
The next day, Saturday, we started early again and headed out to the beach. This time we went farther down the beach to a hotel beach. Here the crowd was a bit older so it was much more relaxed, plus all of the attendants were much more helpful with the beach chairs than on the other beach. After a couple hours of being out in the sun we decided we had to go in the water. It was so clear and it wasn’t too cold. The water was really salty though and we all had to shower on the beach before lying back down. Afterwards we stayed on the beach for a couple more hours. Then two of my friends went scuba diving and my other friend and I went shopping, for real this time. Because it was Shabbat only the clothing stores were really open, which was good because it kept me focused in my shopping. Also the best part was a cd store which has cds for $8-9. I went a bit crazy but it was totally worth it because I got a lot of great Israeli music.
As I mentioned before, we went out to dinner again at Cafe Optimi. I actually branched out and got a different dish from the night before which was equally amazing. We got a little sparkler in dessert and sang happy birthday to my friend even though it was really her birthday eve, and not her actual birthday. Afterwards we were going to go home and change to go out but instead we just went to a place near our hostel. There we officially celebrated my friend’s 21st birthday at midnight.
The next day we got up early again to take our 10am bus back to Jerusalem. This time we only stopped once but there was an Aroma coffeeshop there (my favorite place) so it was okay. We all slept after being so tired out from the heat and the sun. It was kind of nice to come back to Jerusalem where the high is only 80 degrees.
A note, I won’t really be doing any more travel until I go to Europe after my finals on June 5. I’ll be hiding out like a hermit in the library for the next few weeks while I work constantly to get all of my stuff done. Even though this is study abroad, professors seemed to have missed the memo saying work should be easy. I have 4 papers totally 75 pages, 4 presentations, and 2 finals. So making it through the next three weeks will be a ridiculous challenge.
Real Israel Experiences May 12, 2008
Last Tuesday was Israel’s Memorial Day, Yom Hazikaron. Because so many Israeli families have experienced losses this is a very meaningful commemoration. The holiday began Tuesday night with a siren at 8pm. My friends and I went to a ceremony at the kotel. We had seats on steps overlooking the kotel plaza and were able to see the ceremony very well. It was amazing to see so many people all in one place, thinking the same thoughts, and feeling the same sadness. The President of Israel, Shimon Peres, and the army chief of staff both spoke at the ceremony. It was nice that I have finally reached a point where I could understand most of what they were saying. Peres’ speech was particularly moving.
Wednesday morning we went to another ceremony, this time at Har Herzl, Israel’s military cemetery. The ceremony began with another sounding of the siren at 11am. This was another amazing experience, though very different from the first. The cemetery was absolutely full of Israelis, foreigners, and Israeli soldiers. Unfortunately we didn’t have a very good view of the actual ceremony, and because we could only hear the speeches through large speakers, we couldn’t really understand much of what was going on. One really neat thing was that before entering the cemetery there were flowers given out to be placed on the graves.
After the ceremony we headed back to the main gates to get a map and then tried to go see some of the graves. We made it to a reflecting pool which was very beautiful, though we didn’t quite understand its significance. We then moved to the area for soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War of 2006. The area was full of those paying their respects and it was difficult to find an empty grave on which to place our flowers.
Wednesday night was the beginning of Israel’s Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzmaut. My friends and I all headed down to Ben Yehuda Street and Zion Square for the celebrations. There were so many people out and they had closed down Jaffa Street for a huge concert. We spent a bunch of time out on the street and then some time in our friends’ apartment on Ben Yehuda. We stepped outside again to see the laser light show and the fireworks later that night. We then headed down Jaffa and met up with some more friends before going over to another area where they had set up Israeli dancing. It was cool to see so many people doing the same dances, though are group was more into the interpretative, made-up dances. It was a really fun experience.
Thursday was the continuation of Yom Ha’atzmaut. We headed out to a park for a barbecue. It took us a really long time to find the people we were meeting. They turned out to be in sort of a secret spot which was empty except for us and one other group. The barbecue was really, really fun, and we stayed out for about seven hours. Once the sun had begun to set it started to get a little chilly and we decided to go home. Somehow every single picture from the barbecue came out really well, probably because it was such a nice day and we were having so much fun. I’ve included just a couple though.
The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. Not much else happened until our class field trip on Sunday. We all met up outside the gate of the dorms at 6am to get picked up by our bus. Because there were only 15 of us total, we were on a minibus, which was fun but also meant that it was impossible to be far away from the annoying people. The purpose of our trip was to go to the Golan and see the strategic nature of Israel’s borders. To get to the Golan we had a pretty long bus ride through the desert between in the Jordan River Valley (between the West Bank and Jordan). The ride would have been relaxing if our Professor hadn’t decided to comment every 5 minutes in a soft voice which required a strain to listen.
Our first stop was a former British police station. It wasn’t very exciting and just showed where a battle had taken place and where kibbutzim were forced to move after the 1948 war. Our second stop was the Island of Peace. It was originally established as a place where Israeli and Jordanian children could play together, but after a shooting in the 1990s the project was abandoned. it was kind of cool though because we could see from that point Israeli and Jordanian flags only about 100m from each other. Our third stop was literally on the side of the road. We stopped right next to the first part of the security fence separating Israel and Jordan. Our professor told us that the fence wasn’t electric, instead it was electronic, and could sense if the fence was broken. Additionally soldiers drove by once a day to check for footprints next to the fence. But we were assured that he chose this place to stop because there were already so many other footprints at that point.
View of Island of Peace
View of Jordan from Israel
Minaret of Mosque which was originally Jordanian but is now technically in Israel
Bridge between Israel and Jordan destroyed in 1948
Our next stop was to a Kibbutz where there was a great overlook of the Kinneret. The point of the stop was to show how the Syrians before 1967 controlled land overlooking and Israeli strip of land on the eastern side of the sea. We could really see their houses very clearly, and it was easy to imagine that with sophisticated equipment it would be easy to target people in their homes. I’m also including a picture of Professor Medzini, doing his thing.
We next drove to a former Syrian bunker. Here we discussed again how prior to 1967 the Syrians could clearly target Israeli homes and fields from their lookout positions. It really showed the strategic nature of Israel’s decisions during the wars. It was also a great depiction of all that we had been learning in class.
We later went to another former Syrian lookout over Israel. Above us on a hill was a Syrian electronics post which was kept completely in tact when the Syrians left in 1967. However when they returned during the 1973 war they disabled all of the electronics. Below us was another view, this time of the disengagement zone in the Golan. From this point we were able to see the command center of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force.
Our next stop was the Golan Visitors Center. The center was more of a joke than anything. We were first forced to watch a movie which was a “wind, water, and fragrance experience.” We were definitely curious what that could mean. The video turned out to be a complete advertisement for visiting the Golan and wasn’t informative at all. The wind and water happened any time there was wind and water onscreen. They were a little over-excited with each of these, because we ended up getting pretty wet, and then pretty cold when the wind started to blow. The fragrance part was weird, and only came into play when there were flowers on the screen. We then headed to an audio-visual presentation centering on a large topographical map which was on the floor of the room. It seemed like the kind of thing where they just had some cool lighting effects and wanted to find an excuse to use them. At least this presentation was actually informative in terms of the history of the Golan.
Our final stop before lunch was the site of a major tank battle. It turned out that our bus driver had actually been in the battle which the memorial commemorated. Because of this after our professor gave some history of the battle and the area’s strategic importance, our driver told his own personal story. He was in one of three tanks going out to meet and take down Syrian tanks. He was in the actual tank which was “sacrificed” as a diversion for the other two tanks to destroy the Syrian tanks. He was fine in the end and just has some hearing problems. Before you think that he was such a great soldier, how sad that he’s now driving a bus, it’s not exactly the case. He was actually in the army for 30 years, until just four years ago. He was senior enough that he was actually the head of an entire army base. After that he retired to the tourism industry. He said it’s actually very relaxing compared to his job in the army.
For lunch we went to a restaurant next to the Banias Nature Reserve. The Banias is one of the sources of the Jordan River. It was a really gorgeous area, but since it was already 2pm at that point we skipped looking around and went straight to lunch. It was actually pretty cool because we all sat at one table in this little Lebanese restaurant. It was a little awkward because I ended up sitting across from my professor. We didn’t talk for most of the time, I talked with my friends instead, but we did speak a little about Cornell and my studies. Our final stop was at Metula, the northernmost point of Israel. The town actually sort of sticks out into Lebanese territory. By this point in the day it was actually gorgeous out, and it was really interesting to see how close Israel and Lebanese territories are. In fact Israelis are still farming some lands considered to be Lebanese. The town is in a valley surrounded by hills which were the places from which rockets were fired during the Second War in Lebanon in 2006. In the middle of the farmlands in the center of the valley we could see a narrow white strip. This was actually an airstrip when the land was under British control.
We then headed back in the bus to go home. Luckily we all slept most of the way home, and I was actually completely shocked when we stopped after driving for 2 hours for a little break. Then it was just one more hour in the bus and we were finally home. The trip lasted a full 13 hours and we were all completely exhausted, but it was a great trip. We really saw everything that we had been learning about in terms of disengagement agreements and peace treaty negotiations. Now it’s back to work until this weekend, when we’ll be traveling to Eilat and Petra.
Part 2: The Season Doesn’t Start Until Next Week May 10, 2008
Sunday morning we woke up early to take a ferry to the island of Aegina. We took the metro from our hostel to the port and then walked to the ferry offices. We were able to get tickets and seats on the ferry pretty soon after we arrived. The ride was only about an hour, and with the comfy couches we were sitting in it didn’t seem to be such a bad ride. The problems arose after we got off the ferry in Aegina. First of all we had to find a taxi to get to our hostel. Because it was Sunday the taxi stand was empty. Because we didn’t speak Greek people kept getting in front of us and taking all of the taxis that came. We finally got a taxi and managed to communicate where we were going. We were staying in Aghia Marina, which is on the southern side of the island (Aegina city is on the northern side). Our hostel was really nice and definitely would not have been as affordable in season. Soon after arriving we discovered that the season didn’t begin until Eastern Orthodox Easter, which was actually the next Sunday. Because of this the town was a little deserted and many restaurants weren’t fully stocked or weren’t even open.
Our first stop after dropping off our bags was lunch. We ate at a nice little place which had a great view of the marina. It still wasn’t the best weather, it was pretty hazy and overcast, but it was still a really pretty view. After lunch we headed to the beach. I read a lot (and even finished the book I had bought in the airport) and we all took beach naps. One of my friends and I stayed out for hours just talking and relaxing, until finally it was cold enough to force us back inside. After a brief nap we headed out to search for a good dinner option. We ended up at a little cafe, where the two old women who ran the place were a little overly friendly for us. On the other hand, the food that they did have was really great. I had greek salad (my favorite dish) and spanikopita. I have to say that I really like the American version of spanikopita better, which wasn’t usually the case with the food we ate in Greece.
The next day was much nicer and it was even a bit sunny. We went to see the main attraction on the island, the Temple of Aphaia. In order to get to the temple we had to take a bus. After figuring out where to buy tickets and using our limited Greek to buy them and figure out the schedule, we discovered that we had just missed the bus. So we had lunch and walked around the town a bit to kill time. The town was actually pretty cute.
After our walk we waited by the corner where the bus was supposed to stop. Luckily our directions were correct and the bus did stop. The bus ride was crazy and ridiculous. We were clutching the rails just to be able to stay in our seats. The fact that the road was curving up a mountain didn’t help to ease our nerves. We arrived at the temple and discovered that there was luckily a student price. The temple itself was pretty magnificent, but the views of the island were really gorgeous as well.
We then waited around until the bus returned and went back to Aghia Marina. We packed up our stuff and waited for the bus again to take us back to Aegina city. We arrived with several hours to spend before the first ferry back to Athens. My friend and I ended up sitting in a cafe with everyone’s stuff for a while in order to pass the time. Our other friend decided to walk around in an attempt to see the few attractions in the area. Finally we saw the ferry pulling up to the docks and we headed over. After staking out a couch area we took turns going up to the top of the boat. Again we were able to get gorgeous views of the island.
After the ferry ride we traveled by metro back to the hostel where we had last stayed in Athens. After checking my email I discovered that one of my friends studying in Athens for the semester was available to meet us for dinner. After setting our stuff down and relaxing for a bit we walked over to the Olympic stadium where we met him for dinner. Of course it didn’t turn out to be as long of a walk as we had thought. So on the way we stopped to take some night shots of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian’s Arch, and the stadium itself. Dinner was really great because we were served small portions of a lot of traditional Greek dishes which we had been a little afraid to try before.
The next day, Tuesday, we started off by visiting the flea market again. The first time we visited many of the antique stores had been closed, and I had really been looking forward to visiting them. After a good long time at the flea market I still hadn’t found anything I really loved. So after writing down a couple of addresses and noting the correct metro stop, I gave my friends the guidebook and headed off to a couple more stores on my own. Though I didn’t find anything I loved, I got to see a completely different part of the city. I also got to explore on my own which was a new experience. I had arranged to meet one of my friends at the National Archeological Museum to do some touring. So I headed over to the museum, navigating by stopping every ten feet to ask for directions again. We had arranged that I would wait on the steps of the museum. Of course because we didn’t have cell phones it was a bit of a risky plan, and though I waited a bit longer than expected, we were able to meet up okay. The only problem was that once we got inside we discovered the museum was closing at 3pm, and hour from when we met up, and we still hadn’t had lunch. (This was a very annoying discovery because everything from my guidebook, to my friend studying in Athens, to the museum pamphlet indicated we had until at least 7pm, though this time apparently only applies during the season). So we had to breakdown and grab a quick snack in the museum cafe. After which we did the speed walking tour of the museum. We made sure to hit what are considered the main points. Of course while we were in the museum speaking to each other in Hebrew we came across some Israelis. So we quickly walked away to a different exhibit so we could speak to each other again without getting mocked or approached by the Israelis. We saw some pretty cool stuff in the museum, including some really well preserved statues, the mask of Agamemnon, a Grecian skeleton, preserved spices, and paintings preserved from rooms.
After returning back to the hostel we spent the usual time napping and relaxing. We then had a somewhat early dinner and spent a little time doing last minute tourist shopping around our hostel. I then had to head over to the metro to go to the airport. I had the first flight out of the three of us. It was a little odd taking a 10:30pm train with all of my luggage, and when I arrived at the airport they still hadn’t opened my counter. So I spent some time looking around and checking my email. After getting my ticket and making it through passport control I did a little bit of duty-free shopping. I then waited around for my 2:20am flight back to Israel. After getting back to Tel Aviv I took a taxi back to Jerusalem and then napped from 6:30am to 11:30am. Afterwards I met up with my parents for the Passover portion over my spring break.
Part 1: Using Hebrew as a Secret Language May 5, 2008
I realize it’s taken me a long time to write this update on Greece. As I said before, the end of the semester has really been creeping up and I’ve been spending most of my time as a hermit in the library doing homework.
Our trip to Greece started out at 3:00 am on Friday when we got picked up by our taxi in Jerusalem. There were a lot of us going to Athens and we filled a ten person taxi. (But there were many more people there as well, it seemed almost everyone was at least stopping by Greece for spring break.) We got to the airport with plenty of time, and with barely any issues we got our boarding passes and headed through security. That of course left time for a little bit of duty free shopping before getting on the plane for a 7am flight. Luckily I slept for most of the flight because I was absolutely exhausted from being up all night in transport. The airport in Athens was very small. We got off the plane and took a bus from the tarmac to the terminal. The first exciting discovery upon landing in Greece was that they have Citibank atms (which I’ve been sorely missing while in Israel).
A nice thing about the airport was that the Athens metro goes to it. So we lugged our bags to the metro and took the 40 minute ride to the center of town. It was kind of a pain that we had to carry our bags from the metro to our hostel, but it turned out not to be too far. We had originally planned to do a lot of touring the first day, but we were all so tired from traveling (even though Athens is in the same time zone as Jerusalem) that we instead took naps in the hostel room. One of my friends and I finally got up and went to explore around our hostel and get some lunch. Our first discovery was Starbucks. Not to sounds like a ridiculous American, but I’ve really missed it, drip coffee just doesn’t exist in Israel. It turned out the lunch place we were interested in happened to be right next to the Starbucks. We couldn’t decide whether or not we wanted to eat there, which is when we remembered that we could finally use Hebrew again as a second language. When we’re in Israel we don’t really speak to each other in Hebrew, but we could once again discuss whether we wanted to eat somewhere or buy things without being harassed by shop owners.
Our first really touring stop was the Acropolis. It was a ridiculous hike to get up to the top, but we got lots of amazing views of Athens along the way. On the way up to the Acropolis there are also a lot of ruins or exhibits of ruins which were really cool. There were two theaters, one of which was really well preserved. The area was also really beautifully landscaped. It was clear how much Greece cared for the ruins and how important the ruins were to the Athens skyline.
When we finally got to the top of the Acropolis it was totally worth it. Even though most of the stuff was covered in scaffolding, it was really amazing to see everything up close. It was kind of cool to think that the Ancient Greeks had to hike up that same ridiculous hill that we did to worship at the same temples where we were standing. Again, we got some great shots of the city of Athens from the top. It was also really cool to see some of the ruins throughout the city from the top of the Acropolis, they were like open areas in an incredibly full city.
After some confusing map reading and finding directions, we finally found our way down the Acropolis to the ancient agora (marketplace). On the way we saw one of the few Byzantine churches still standing in Athens. It had some really beautiful artwork on the ceiling and walls. The agora didn’t turn out to be that exciting, and was just a bunch of pieces of stones lying around. There kept being signs that told what each pile of stones were, but really they all looked the same. Nearby was the stoa. This was completely preserved and you could really imagine it being filled with stores. The agora was also a museum, but we were just not interested in paying to see more ruins. We headed back through the ancient agora to the Temple of Hephaestus. The temple was really well preserved and you could see how amazing it would have been in it’s prime. One of things we discovered there was a turtle. We later continued to see turtles all over Athens. Each time we couldn’t help recollecting some awkward turtle moment.
After a quick afternoon snack in a cafe, we made our way to the Roman agora. This was a tiny bit better preserved than the ancient agora, but it still wasn’t super exciting. Two interesting things we noted were the Tower of the Winds, which was a scientific weather station with many Roman gadgets for predicting weather. Another was a mosque from the Middle Ages. Unfortunately we couldn’t go inside the mosque, but we were assured it was typical of mosques from that era. We then headed to the nearby flea market for some quick shopping before going home for a nap. Our hostel was in a very touristy area, and there were a lot of restaurants within a minute’s walking distance. Because of this we had a lot of choices for dinner. I got what was to become one of my favorite Greek meals, tomato and pepper stuffed with rice. I was also able to get stuffed grape leaves which were just way better than in America.
The next morning, Saturday, we headed over to the Parliament building to see the changing of the guard. We of course had just missed it, so we decided to kill time by doing everything else first and coming back later. We headed through the national gardens to the Zappeion, which used to be the house of the president and now appears to be a conference center. Next we headed over to the marble Olympic stadium from the first modern Olympics in 1896. The stadium was absolutely massive and it was really cool to see. Then it was on to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The Temple was absolutely enormous during Grecian times, and even what is left now is spectacularly large. There were a bunch of other ruins in the area, including temples to some other major deities and homes of priests. We also saw Hadrian’s Arch.
We then rushed back to Parliament to see the changing of the guard. The presidential guard (evzones) wear traditional military costumes which are amusing, to say the least. The ceremony took five or ten minutes and was amazingly well coordinated. Next it was on to the Benaki museum. The museum was luckily free for students (most things were only discounted). The museum had a really great collection, and I even liked it better than the National Archeological Museum. On the way back to our hotel we passed by a bunch of embassies and the Foreign Ministry, all of which was cool for me. We walked around a bit and walked through a very cool neighborhood near our hostel. The neighborhood is up on a hill and only narrow paths go between the homes. From their we had more great views of Athens. We then went back to our hostel for our afternoon nap. For dinner we decided we wanted to go somewhere with a nighttime view of the Acropolis. It took us a while to find a place that had the food we could eat and the view we wanted, but luckily we could discuss among ourselves in Hebrew.
Next up: Our trip to Aegina and return to Athens…
Updates soon April 27, 2008
Spring break has just been a complete whirlwind, and they aren’t easing us back into classes either. Stay posted for new updates on my trip to Greece and Passover with the family.
Part 3: The Real Istanbul April 10, 2008
Saturday morning we started off the day with the great hotel breakfast, a stop at the internet cafe, and then onto the metro towards Dolmabahce Palace. This palace was completed in the mid-1800s and the rulers lived there until the Turkish Republic was formed. This palace was built in the European style and was therefore a bit more exciting for us. Unfortunately you could only go on a guided tour, and by the end of the one and a half hours we were so ready to leave. The fun part was that they made us put on little plastic booties, to walk on the carpets they had put down so that we didn’t walk on the original parquet floors. Outside of the palace they also had a soldier standing guard who was not permitted to move. Of course we took the classic tourist picture with the guard. After we had taken our picture a second guard came up and had to wipe the sweat out of the first guards eyes, it was pretty cool to see.
We then walked back to the metro and took the tram to the old city to the point from which the ferries depart. We were going to catch a ferry to a town up the Golden Horn called Eyup. Of course when we finally figured out which dock it was it turned out we had just missed the ferry and would have to wait another hour. So instead of getting lunch in Eyup we tried to get lunch at the ferry docks. The only places of course, were a traditional Turkish treat which I had previously mocked in my guidebook. Fisherman will catch fish, then fry them up in their boats, and serve them in sandwiches. The sandwich was only 3 lira ($2.25) and it wasn’t too bad. The only problem was that all of this fish juice had somehow gotten on my hands and they smelled like fish for the rest of the day. At this point we also saw a lot of other vendors. Including one for what I can only assume is some sort of Turkish thing: beet juice with pickled cabbage and pickles. I saw a man drink a pickle, it was not appetizing.
We then went over to our ferry dock. The ferries pull up to the dock and don’t even tether in any way, you just walk up these metal steps on the dock and hop onto the ferry. The ferry ride was really nice because it gave us a chance of a different view of Istanbul. When we got off the ferry at Eyup we sort of realized we had wandered off the beaten path. Everyone around us was wearing religious garb (though some women were wearing pants) and there were no non-Turkish there. In addition, no one spoke English. Not even broken English. We really got to practice our pantomiming. On our way to the Eyup mosque, we passed through a real Turkish marketplace where Turks were actually shopping (not just tourists). They were selling religious books and movies, and also silk head scarves. The scarves were only 5 lira each, a real bargain, and we couldn’t help shopping again. The mosque itself was not that exciting. What was kind of cool was that we saw a wedding procession walking into another room of the mosque. The bride was wearing this really out-there polyester-looking wedding dress, which of course fully covered her body and included a head covering.
After we were going to walk to a church which the guidebook said some visitors considered the highlight of their trip to Istanbul. So when we discovered this meant about a 1 mile walk uphill along the side of a major road, we were okay because we figured it was going to be an awesome sight. One problem we faced in getting there was that the maps we had either didn’t have all the streets that existed, or showed street names when we couldn’t find any street signs, so it was sort of hard to navigate. We did finally reach the church, but it was not a highlight of our trip. It had a lot of very detailed mosaics which still remained, but it was not nearly on the same grand scale as say, the Aya Sofya. We then walked back to a ferry stop, through about a mile of twisting neighborhood streets. It was really neat to see the neighborhood and see what Istanbul looks like when it’s not being presented to tourists.
Of course when we arrived at the ferry dock we were told that the ferry was an hour away. The guy did however give us the numbers of several bus lines that would take us to where we wanted to be. So we waited for a bus and one came almost instantly. The lovely part about Istanbul busses is that they will apparently start driving away while you are standing on the steps at the front when the door is still open. Then of course the drive was so uneven we had a hard time holding on. We happened to miss our bus stop, but were eventually able to navigate back to the tram. Then it was back to our hotel for our afternoon naps.
Dinner wasn’t that great. We had looked around for somewhere to eat more towards the central area outside our hotel. Unfortunately we only found all of the really great places after we had eaten dinner. One of the streets near our hotel was this really cool pedestrian walkway shopping area with a lot of great restaurants and cafes. It was really crowded and a definite direction of traffic was established on each side of the walkway. It was kind of an adventure every time we wanted to cross to visit a store. A little personal highlight, I was able to have Starbucks coffee for the first time since being in Israel. Of course the menu was in Turkish so I ordered the only thing that was the same in both languages, a cafe mocha.
We also went to a cafe for dessert. We were very adventurous and each ordered something off the menu blindly. We also ordered Turkish coffee because, even though you can get it in Israel, we wanted to be able to say we’d gotten it in Turkey too. The desserts were absolutely delicious. We then walked around to get our souvenir bottles of Cola Turka, and souvenir metro tokens. We then made our way back to the hotel and went to bed. We had received a fax which told us to be ready the next morning to leave at 7am. Since breakfast normally started at 7 we thought we wouldn’t be able to eat anything. Of course when we got downstairs at 6:45 we found out there was breakfast. So we raced over to eat something, because we were nervous about missing the bus again. But everything went okay, we got to the airport, checked in, boarded the plane, and were back in Israel in no time.
Part 2: Ain’t Nobody’s Business but the Turks April 10, 2008
The first main event of our trip was going to the Aya Sofya. It was built as a church by Emperor Justinian, converted to a mosque after the Islamic conquest, and converted to a museum by order of Kemal Ataturk with the rise of the Turkish Republic. It was absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately many of the mosaics were plastered over while it was a mosque. Many have been recovered, but in other places paintings were done to mimic the mosaics. It was amazing just to imagine the splendor of the entire church in mosaics. One highlight according to the guidebook was the weeping column. Apparently it’s dedicated to some Christian saint, and those who stick their fingers in a hole of a plaque and remove them wet will have all their ailments healed. We saw a bunch of other people doing it, so we decided we had to as well.
After the Aya Sofya we headed across a promenade to the Blue Mosque. As we were entering we were told to hurry because it would be closing soon for the Friday noon prayer. The mosque was absolutely magnificent, but in a different way from the Aya Sofya. We had to take our shoes off of course, and were given plastic bags to carry them in.
After leaving we tried some of the traditional bread sold by street vendors. Street vendors are a pretty big thing in Istanbul, and many of their carts are bought through the city municipality. Chestnuts, corn, and bread were the main things to buy.
We then headed over to Topkapi Palace. It was used as the palace of the Ottoman Emperors through the mid-1850s. It wasn’t so exciting, to be quite honest. It was a very Turkish style building, with lots of little rooms and huge open courtyards. By this point we were also getting a little worn out and tired. But then we came across an exhibit called the Sacred Trust. The exhibit wasn’t advertised anywhere, not in the guidebook and not at the ticket booth. It was, however, the coolest part of the trip. Because the Ottoman Empire was in control of such a large part of the Islamic world, they amassed a large amount of Islamic treasures. We were able to see locks used on the Ka’ba in Mecca and one of the curtains which covered the Ka’ba. We also saw the sword of Muhammad and the first four Islamic caliphs. We were able to see a whole bunch of relics, including hairs from the beard of Muhammad, Muhammad’s tooth, the skull and arm bone of St. John the Baptist. Then there was also the cup of Abraham, the turban of Joseph, and a cast of Muhammad’s footprint from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It was pretty cool.
After the palace we headed over to a cafe near the Blue Mosque for lunch. Lunch wasn’t that exciting…but it was very cheap. We were able to hear the call to prayer from the Blue Mosque. (Though we can usually hear it when we’re in Jerusalem, it was just really cool to hear it from right next to the mosque.) We then headed over to the hippodrome. Of course we were standing in the place where we thought it was supposed to be, and all we saw were these 2 stone columns. Then I overheard a tour guide saying in English that the hippodrome had been destroyed. It’s really good we heard that because we probably would have kept looking for a while. The columns we saw were apparently what the horses raced around in the hippodrome. There was also a lot of pretty landscaping here, so we had fun.
Afterwards we walked to the grand bazaar. It was absolutely huge. There were just so many shops everywhere, and everything was really cheap. I couldn’t help myself and went a little crazy with the shopping. But where else am I going to find gorgeous silk pashminas for $7.50? After we’d had our fill of shopping we made our way to the Sulimaniye Mosque. On the way we saw the entrance to Istanbul University. It was much more magnificent than any university entrance I’ve seen in the US. On the grounds of the mosque is a building with tombs of important people. One of them was Suleyman the Magnificent (he rebuilt the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem at one point). The mosque itself wasn’t that exciting, and was rather plain after everything else we’d seen that morning.
Next we headed over to the spice bazaar. We were kind of hungry, and we noticed people were tasting the dried fruits to decide whether or not to buy them. So we went from stall to stall and sampled. In the end I bought some really delicious dried figs. We then headed back to our hotel for a good, long nap. After naptime we headed out to find dinner. We just walked up to each restaurant to check the menu for something to eat. We finally decided on one not too far from the hotel. We had been warned by my roommate about supposedly free food. So when they brought us a basket of bread, we tried to ask if it was free. Of course they didn’t speak English, so we ended up spending a lot of time making a mockery of ourselves to find out that it was indeed free. The same exact thing happened with the next basket of bread we got. It was great food. But when it came time to pay the waiter brought the check and just stood there. This was of course awkward because we were discussing how to split the check and how much to tip. Then we had to ask for change and that was a whole new discussion of pantomiming and broken English. We then headed back home and planned our next day.
Coming up next: Dolmabahce Palace, Eyup, and freshly-caught fish sandwiches…
Part 1: Is it Istanbul or Constantinople? April 9, 2008
This past weekend I went with one other friend to Istanbul. From the start we were remarkably relaxed on planning the trip. Which I know will be an absolute shock to most. We booked everything through the travel agent so we didn’t even have to plan flights or the hotel. Of course when I finally looked up reviews of the hotel online it was not good. Every single review was negative. So of course already the day before we were dreading going. Plus it was supposed to rain the entire weekend. The other problem was our group taxi to the airport. Apparently it’s best to call in advance, so the day of our flight I only just reached them at noon to get picked up at 2pm. Of course they told me 1:45pm. And then at 1:30pm I got a call from the driver saying he was here. My friend hadn’t even gotten home from class yet, so it was a tense time with a cranky driver. However once we got in the cab he was okay.
When we finally got to the airport it turned out our check-in desk was in this random little place away from the main desks. Then when we were going through the first security check my friend got pulled aside for extra questioning. Despite that and all of the Israelis cutting in front of us in line, we still got through to the waiting area with tons of time. We really did well and only shopped for duty free snacks for the plane. After dinner we went over to our gate. At that point we were looking through the guidebook and I called one of my roommates who had been to Istanbul a few months ago to ask a question. Of course we got way more info than we bargained for. She kept telling us all of these things that could go wrong. Like they kept getting food at restaurants they thought was free and then they had to pay so much at the end. Or they kept having to use squat toilets in public restrooms. This of course is in addition to us reading through the guidebook learning about lamb entrails on a stick sold on the side of the road. So we were really kind of apprehensive at this point.
Then gate people started coming up to people in the seats, waiting for boarding, and asked to see their boarding passes. Just completely random people, and she asked for their passport and boarding pass. So that was weird. Then all of a sudden people sort of started gathering around the gate. We didn’t know what was going on so we went to investigate. Low and behold it turned out we were boarding. There was no announcement, it was just kind of everyone for themselves. We found out that we were in the second to last row of the plane, but at least we were sitting next to each other with no third person. Of course as we walk all the way to the back of the plane we see food on almost every single seat, so again, we were not encouraged. The flight was pretty good. I would say the highlight was the food. It was a double decker cheese sandwich with some sort of weird mayo spread on each part. It was the first interesting food experience.
When we get to the airport we realize that we have to buy a visa. Luckily each of us had $20 because they would only accept dollars and euros to pay for the visas. Once we were through passport control we went to get my friend’s baggage that she had checked. Unfortunately, the sleeping bag she checked wasn’t there. In fact there were 15 missing pieces of luggage from our flight. Of course there was only one little office with one woman who didn’t really speak English. Because everybody else was Israeli they all pushed ahead and we ended up filling out our forms last. While doing that, a woman came in to check our names off a list for the bus that was supposed to take us to our hotel. However when we finished in the office we walked outside and found the bus driving away. We were not happy. We were stranded in a country where no one really speaks English. After trying to contact a lot of people and get a bunch of help, we ended up having to hire a car to take us the 65km to our hotel. The guy driving didn’t actually know where our hotel was. So once we were in the area, he kept pulling the car over, hopping out, and asking for directions. It was really funny because at this point we were super overtired and he didn’t speak English and of course we don’t speak Turkish.
Once we got to the hotel we saw that all of our fears were unfounded. It was absolutely gorgeous. The reception desk spoke English very well. And right after we handed over our hotel voucher, we got a room key, and turned around to see a bellhop already carrying our bags. He took us up to our room, opened the door, and put our bags down. The room was perfectly nice. The beds were a little uncomfortable but everything was clean (which was our biggest concern). After figuring out our plans for the next day, we went to bed. We were completely exhausted.
We got up early and went to the amazing breakfast at the hotel. It was so delicious and it gave us an opportunity to try some different Turkish breakfast foods. After we headed out to an internet cafe. There we sent an email to our travel agent, very angry about what had happened. Of course our concern at that point was how we would be getting back to the airport on Sunday because we had no info about the bus back. After finishing all of our emailing we headed over to the tram station nearby. We took an underground tunnel to the next station and then switched to an above-ground tram to get to the center of the old city.
We were following the basic outline of the guidebook’s 2 day tour of Istanbul. One thing it recommended was a cistern which we ruled out because it seemed pretty boring. But right when we got off the tram there was like a four foot high sign saying the basilica cistern so we decided to venture over. Of course we didn’t know exactly what were looking for. So we saw a pretty big stone structure behind the sign and assumed it was the cistern, but we weren’t quite sure. Then from the elevated position where this stone structure was, we saw a polished stone column in kind of a stone pool with a sign in front of it. So naturally we thought that this was actually the cistern sort of thing, but no. Then we saw a sign that said 40m to the cistern, but you had to pay, so after all of that we decided not to go in.
Next up: the Aya Sofya, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and exhibit on the Sacred Trust…
