I am writing to you this week as a different and changed person. I'm not entirely sure what happened in Turkey but I can feel I am a little bit different of a person with a new perspective on people and other cultures. In other words Turkey was AWESOME and I can't wait to get back. The first part of my week doesn't really matter because I am so pumped to tell you all about my time in Turkey.
So a little background info... Turkey is situated on two continents: Europe and Asia, but it is still one country. In Turkey they speak Turkish (which sounds like a mix of a bunch of germanic/arabic languages), they are famous for doners or kebabs and baklava (which was fabulous). Ankara is the capitol of Turkey but Istanbul is the capitol of tourism in Turkey. Turkey started out as the Ottoman Empire under the rule of many sultans but in 1922 Ataturk changed the country into a republic, which is how it has remained ever since. Turkey is not an official member of the EU, but holds many EU like member privileges and I suspect Turkey's involvement with the Cyprus dispute to be a leading reason as to why the EU doesn't want Turkey as a full member. Enough boring history, now the good stuff.
So we left by plane Tuesday night at 11:00 pm from the Marseille airport and took an over night 3 hour flight from France to Istanbul, Turkey. I didn't sleep much on the flight because the lady behind wouldn't let me recline my seat back a while 2 inches and she kept kicking and pulling on my seat to readjust herself. So I watched the in flight video of the map showing where we have flown from to where we are headed, for hours... When we finally arrived we had originally planned to take a taxi or bus to our hostel, but do to some lack of planning our hostel was a good hour from the airport and where all the main tourist attractions were so that would have cost a lot of lira. By the way, Turkish currency is the lira, and both the dollar and the euro have a higher value over the lira, so that worked in my favor. We ended up splitting a shuttle van that took us from the airport straight to the front door of our hostel. It was about a 2 hour ride due to traffic, so needless to say we all slept most of the way. When we arrived at hour hostel the hostel own, a young Turkish girl showed us our rooms and the bathrooms and the common area for all the residents to share. Our hostel was originally a hammam, and within the last couple of years the Turkish girl's family has renovated the upper floors to travelers to stay, but the lower two floors still operate as a hammam. A hammam is a Turkish bath, where attendants scrub you and you can sit in spas and pools of water and just relax. Our room in the hostel had 4 sets of bunks beds, so just enough for all 7 of us. There were two bathrooms, not in the best of shape, but they worked. The common area had a dining room table, couches and a tv for everyone to share. Once we got all settled in and unpacked the hostel owner and her cousin showed us to the bus stop and how to take the buses to the main part of Istanbul, where all the tourist attractions are located. We stayed in Taksim square area and each day we traveled by a 15 minute bus ride to Sultanahmet. The bus price varied based on whether you gave the bus driver exact change or not in which he would set his own price, and since we were obviously foreigners we got gipped and paid a little more each time. Granted this isn't too much compared to how much we were spending on the bus rides based on the conversion to euros and dollars.
The first thing we did was visit the palace topkapi. Many sultans ruled over Turkey from this palace and there were a lot of islamic artifacts in the museums of the palace. It was interesting to compare this type of palace to that of Versailles, which I visited with my mother during her trip in France. This palace was a lot more open and devoted to nature and gardens. There was a lot of arabic calligraphy on the walls, but I unfortunately could not read it.
Next we went to a little Turkish cafe and ordered traditional Turkish desserts, I shared a strawberry tart with my friend Cari (ya I know it's more French than Turkish but it was good). After the dessert stop we went to our first mosque. The blue mosque. Turkey is predominantly muslim, but there are a few catholic churches scattered throughout the country. It was breath taking to see the minnerettes (the towers where the call of from is announced from) and the domes of the mosques spread all throughout the city. At one point I noticed that I could see roughly 9 mosques just from where I was standing. It was so neat to hear the call of prayer 5 times a day and know that everyone of the muslim faith has directed their attention and thoughts to their prayers and they take just a couple of minutes out of their day 5 times a day to reflect on their religion and their god: Allah. Just as the catholic church uses church bells to announce the beginning of mass on Sunday, the muslim faith uses minerettes to announce the call to prayer. Now, only men are allowed to pray in public and in mosques. Women are allowed to pray just not in public places where men can see them, and they are allowed to be in a mosque just not at the front of the mosque and not when men are there praying. It is also required to remove your shoes and for women to wear a head scarf while in the mosque, no matter your faith or belief system. The blue mosque was incredible. I had always wanted to visit a mosque just to see what it was like compared to a church and experience and different type of culture, but this mosque blew away my expectations. I don't even really want to try to describe it, for fear of not saying enough so I'll just post pictures.
Next we went to the Cistern. The Cistern is an underground water system, where water drips from the ceiling and collects in a giant pool where fish swim around. I'm not entirely sure on the original purpose of the cistern, but it was erie yet magical to be there. There are giant pillars, all perfectly lined up from the front to the back of the cistern, and a walk way for tourists to explore the underground water system. There is a red glow that fills the cistern and makes you feel like you might be in hell, but at the same time there is classical music playing from the speakers in the ceiling and the water dropping from above is very soothing. There are two head at the back of the cistern. The two heads of Medusa. One head is upside down and the other is sideways, and legend has it that when the Turks were constructing the cistern they wanted to use the heads of Medusa to ward off bad spirits and didn't place to the two heads in the same position for fear of a curse from Medusa. Sounds like a bunch of bologna to me, but it's still pretty cool that people were able to come up with these tales and actually believe them.
That night for dinner we ate kebabs (again) from a little stand in Taksim square. We were all so tired we headed back to the hostel early to get a full nights rest for tomorrow.
The next morning we found a starbucks (I know so unoriginal) and headed off for the bus stop to make our way back over to Sultanahmet. At the bus stop we asked a young woman for directions to get to the red mosque. We were hoping the young woman spoke Turkish and either english or french well enough to help us out, but it ended up she only spoke english and french well and no Turkish. She quickly became a dear friend to us and traveled with us most of the day. Her name is Nesrene and she is from Rabat, Morocco where she is a school teacher, and has been saving up money for many years to come visit Turkey. She was traveling alone so of course we invited her to travel around with us for the remainder of her stay. She touched my life in such a special way and taught me so many new things, not facts or things you'd learn in school but instead she showed me how important it is to be open to other people and that you need love in all elements of life to be happy and that people of different faiths and backgrounds can co-exist and appreciate one another. I told my friend Lyndsy that this woman has a beautiful mind. Not in the sense of a mathmatical and scienctific mind like the movie, but her words and perspective are so beautiful, and she shared all this with me. The red mosque was originally a catholic church and was later taken over to be a mosque, but there are still small remains of the catholic faith in mosaics and decorations on the walls right next to arabic calligraphy of all the prophets names. It was so impacting to see these two religions co-exist so peacefully in this church, where in my country these two religions want nothing to do with each other. Nesrene made a good point that it's not the religion of one's faith that defines a person it's their mind and their heart and we don't take enough time to look past our initial judgments based on concrete facts of a person to truly get to know them for who they are in their heart and in their mind, not in their faith. It was so moving to stand in a mosque that was once a catholic church and for me to be baptised in the catholic church have a muslim woman give me an arabic lesson. Those are memories I will never forget.
After the red mosque our group split up for the day and I went to the bazaars with half of the group. The bazaars were an experience. I thought souvenir shop owners in Paris were bad, ha! the vendors in the bazaars were yelling to you from every direction to come look at their stuff, come buy their stuff. So in the bazaars people sell hand made goods and typical tourist loot that was made in a factory. It is customary to either ask the price of an item and then tell them what you are willing to pay (hardly ever should you pay the original asking price because the vendors mark all their stuff up to make a profit, and they want to haggle with you, it's their job), or you can just tell them what you're willing to pay for an item right off the bat and see how low you can work them. I was able to make a couple pretty good deals and bought some pretty nice souvenirs for family and friends back home. At one vendor I was interested in an item but the vendors asking price was much too high for me and I told him what I was willing to pay (which is always lower than your actual price so you can be flexible and work your way up to you base price), but this vendor wouldn't go down to my price so I walked away and he kept calling prices to me each time going lower and lower and once he called my price I went back and bought my item. That is how the game is played. The bazaar is HUGE! There are allies and tunnels and halls going in every direction and everyone is selling something different. I am convinced you can't see it all in one day. Not that I could spend a whole day putting up with haggling and having vendors call out to you like vultures finding prey. They'd try to lure you in with sweet talk, "Hey angel, hi pretty lady, or Sexy girl come look at my scarves". I couldn't take that for very long.
After the bazaars we went to an outdoor Turkish cafe and ordered traditional turkish teas and sat around talking and relaxing and sharing stories from the bazaar. After the tea break we walked around the city for a little bit and decided to eat find a restaurant for dinner. We ran into two Canadian men from Quebec, so we were able to communicate with French, and they gave us a recommendation for a restaurant to eat that night. We all ordered the menu, which included an appetizer, entree and drink off the menu for a set price of 29 lira (so about 15 euro), yes a splurge on dinner but in the long run it was a big savings compared to if we had ordered each of these items without the special deal. I had fried calamari, lamb stew and a traditional Turkish beer called Efes. It was all soooooo good! Some of the dishes came out on fire so the servers did a little presentation with the fire and breaking plates. Maybe a turkish I don't know, but it was cool! After dinner we had to take the tram and then the metro home because the buses had stopped running for the day. In France you get a little ticket to pass through the metro system, but in Turkey you get little tokens, I thought that was pretty cool.
The next day we all got up and started out with starbucks again, and then went to find the calligraphy museum in the emanenou neighborhood. We got pretty lost and asked the locals for directions, but no one had even heard of it or give us an inkling of where to go. After about an hour of searching we decided to give up and went to another mosque. This mosque is said to be the biggest mosque in all of Istanbul. I thought the red mosque was bigger, but what ever. We met a very nice security guard there who offered to take our picture and then wanted to take a picture with us and have us email it to him. He even offered to show us the upper level of the mosque if we come back at 9pm once the mosque was closed. We never made if back.
Next we decided to go to the spice bazaar or also known as the Egyptian bazaar. I liked this bazaar a lot more. The vendors were a lot nicer and prices were better. I bought a giant box of turkish delights (a traditional turkish candy) to bring home for everyone to try and these jasmine tea flowers that you put into water and they bloom and you have jasmine tea. Cathy and I both really wanted these bright glass globe lamps and we found a store that had a giant selection (almost too much). We spent I think 30 minutes talking to a vendor trying to make a deal, but in the end we decided the quality wasn't good enough for the price and I was overwhelmed with the selection of colors I couldn't pick just one and didn't feel comfortable paying that much for something I wasn't completely set on. But it was a fun experience. I did feel bad for the vendor and our friends that waited for us, but o well life goes on.
Some of the girls decided to go to a hammam for a traditional turkish bath, but I didn't feel like spending the money on that. I returned back to the hostel with my friend Cari and we re-watched an episode of the tv show the Bachelorette that was filmed in Turkey. It was neat to pick out the places we had visited thus far and where parts of the show was filmed. That night for dinner I went to Pizza Hut with my friends Cari and Kevin. It was so nice to taste american food again, granted it wasn't the exact same, it was close enough.
The next day we got up and I went to another coffee shop with my friend Lyndsy and then bought two pasteries from a street vendor. They were very filling and cheap. Today we took a boat ride along the Bosphorus straight and got a good view of both the European and Asian sides of Turkey. We got off the boat on the Asian side and found an outdoor cafe for lunch. I ate a Baltic flavored beef wrap (it was just ok), and then we went to a 4 story cafe with a terrace and ate desserts. I had baklava and ice cream. I didn't know that my baklava would come with ice cream so I ordered a separate dish of it and ended up with 4 scoops of ice cream. It was a lot to eat, but it was VERY good. We got back on the boat and made our way back to the European side. The Asian side of Turkey is actually very different from the European side. There was a lot more grass and nature, where as the European side seems to have houses stacked on mosques and concrete everywhere. We decided to walk back to the hostel rather than try to figure out the bus, which ended up taking an hour to walk back (in the rain).
That night we went out to a club/bar that was recommended to us by a friend of a friend that is studying abroad in Turkey. They played very old American music and turks like to dance. Wildly. I went back home soon after arriving, I was much too tired to put up with that.
The next day we all slept in a little and went to see the Galata tower. It had a fabulous 360 degree view of all of Turkey. It was very cold and windy, but well worth the climb to the top.
Next we went to another palace. The Domachi palace, where many more sultans lived and this is where Ataturk lived up until he died. The entrance fee was only 1 lira to enter which was a big mark down compared to the 10-20 lira we had been paying for everything else. It was beginning to rain and the palace is set right on the water so it was very cold and windy. Cari and I decided to skip the small garden and go straight inside for the tour. We ended up meeting a two nice couples from Canada that had their own personal english tour guide and invited us to join them on the tour free of charge. They were so nice, and we got a wonderful tour with all kinds of info about the palace and the history of the sultans. In the last room was a giant chandelier, the biggest chandelier in the world. We were not allowed to take photos, but if you can just imagine the size of this chandelier, increase that by 10 sizes. It was huge!! This palace looked more like that of Versailles with all the gold and lavish decorations. A little over the top and tacky for me.
We had to hurry back to the hostel to back up and catch our shuttle bus back to the airport for our over night flight home. Some of us tried to fit in one last jaunt for souvenirs, but the bus came early so we had to run through the streets of Taksim square to catch the bus to the airport. This time the trip only took 30 minutes to go from our hostel to the airport and we had calculated for 2 hours. So we had plenty of time to sit around and wait for check-in, almost 4 hours to be exact. Once well got checked in with our boarding passes we found our terminal, boarded the plane and flew back to France. I was sad to leave Turkey. The trip was a whirlwind and we did a lot so I hope sometime in my lifetime I can go back and spend more time there.
When we arrive in Marseille the shuttle buses from the airport to Aix were not running for another 4 hours so we slept in the airport till 5:30 and caught the bus home. I had class later that day but was able to get 6 hours of sleep. The rest of my week pales in comparison to the adventures I had in Turkey so I won't bore you with that this time around, maybe next time.
