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…
