Two Continents, One Weekend

Last Thursday began my adventure to Istanbul, Turkey! Once again I flew out of Heathrow airport, which is very easily accessible by tube. Adding to the ease was that I was traveling with the school therefore they had organized all of our tickets and accommodations and we simply had to show up.

The flight to Turkey was about 4 hours, my longest since I have been here, but the free meal and wine on our British Airways flight made it anything but strenuous. I was lucky enough to sit next to another kid from Syracuse on the flight, he is a skier and a photographer, and needless to say we had more than 4 hours worth of conversation material.

When we landed in Istanbul it really didn’t look too different from London. This may be because I live in quite an ethnic neighborhood of London therefore seeing signs in multiple languages doesn’t look strange to me, but it is also because the initial areas we were in were very “westernized”.

From the airport we took a bus to our hotel, after a bit of mayhem, Kelsey, Suzanne and I went to our flat for the weekend. At first we were upset that we would have to stay in a room that was not actually in the hotel. We quickly got over it after venturing from our private flat to the beautiful terrace above seeing the view. It was even better the next morning…

We woke up early Friday to prepare for what would be a long day of sightseeing. After a hearty breakfast (with apricots of course, my new staple food) we followed Forbes, a professor from SU London who was our guide for the weekend, to Topkapi Palace. This beautiful palace was the primary residence for the Ottoman Sultans from 1465 to 1853. It was quite extensive to say the least. From the first and most public courtyard all the way to the Sultan’s private marble bathroom, we saw it all. The architecture was beautiful and the details in the tiles (that were EVERYWHERE) were so impressive.

I also really liked this shot, it looks out onto the last courtyard from one of the Sultan’s personal living rooms. There were decorative screens like this on so many of the windows; I took about a million pictures of stars, per usual.

We went for tea and coffee for a quick break while sightseeing in the palace, like I said before its huge, you could easily spend 5 hours there and not see it all. From our coffee spot we got our first glimpses of the Asian continent. It was a beautiful day, the sun on our faces felt so nice after quite a cloudy week in Londontown.

After lunch along Divan Yolu we met back up with the group. Forbes was ever so kind and had baklava waiting for us while he gave us some historical background of the Byzantine’s. Ms. Robins (a teacher from my high school) would be so proud to know that I was able to answer almost all of the questions he raised. I knew I told AP World for a reason… We then made our way to the Hagia Sophia (or Ayasofya in Turkish). Ayasofya was used as three different churches, converted into a mosque and is now strictly used as museum.

There are remains from all of its different uses and they are still renovating to try and find some old mosaics that were covered up as a result of its transformation into a mosque. They were ordered to be plastered over after Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, also before the age of preservation tourists would come to visit the Ayasofya and chip off a piece of the mosaic to prove they were there, explaining the lack of tiles remaining in the picture below…

After the Ayasofya Forbes told us to follow him for a “surprise”. We queued outside a fairly standard building but then entered into something far from standard. The surprise was the Basilica Cistern. The cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie under Istanbul. It is amazing that something built solely to hold water, not really to be seen is still so gorgeous. The arches are so intricate and it is truly mind blowing to picture it being completely filled with water. And of course the dramatic red lighting they have added makes it look like a Harry Potter haven.

We were utterly exhausted by this point but still had one more Forbes speech before heading back to the hotel. We stopped along the Hippodrome when he explained the three structures that are still remaining, he also talked about how it was once a circus as well as the sporting and social center of Constantinople.

From there we very happily made our way back to the hotel and crashed into our beds. After a comatose half an hour we made our way up to the terrace of the hotel. While we watched the sun set we heard from a British woman who recently moved to Istanbul and a Turkish teenager.

Though it evolved into a political debate between the two of them, which was not Forbes intention, it was very interesting to hear about the beautiful city we had spent all day exploring from people who actually lived there. From there we got a cab (well more of a party bus for the 17 of us) down to the Galata Bridge for dinner. Eating dinner underneath the bridge was quite interesting but it did give us a really cool view.

We decided on a seafood restaurant after the host told us he would give us a special “student” price. Though we waited about an hour for our food and he asked me to marry him about 8 times during the course of the meal, it was actually a really good dinner. I ate a whole fish. Literally my meal was just a cooked fish on a plate, bones and all. But after a moment of hesitation, I did it and actually enjoyed it!

From there we stopped briefly at a hookah bar and then made our way home. Once again we were exhausted and did not have any trouble falling right asleep. The next morning we woke up feeling like we had already been in Istanbul for a week, not just two nights.

We headed to breakfast early and again prepared ourselves for a long day of sightseeing. We followed our trusty Forbes to the local mosque to start off the day. This was the mosque where we had been hearing the mega phoned Islamic “calls to worship” five times a day, everyday since we arrived.

It was so beautiful and intricately decorated. It seemed crazy to me that this was just a small local mosque. These two local boys were running around outside while Forbes was talking to us and loved showing off for their audience.

From there we walked to the Grand Bazaar. Though we did have a brief history lesson before we were let loose, the Bazaar was a much needed break from strictly sightseeing. The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world. It has about 60 covered streets and over a thousand shops. As a result it is wicked crowded and quite stuffy, but amazing none the less. This picture is down one of the “side streets”.

There were so many different goods everywhere. A whole leather section, a ton of places to get pottery, amazing jewelry and of course scarves everywhere! Though things were not as cheap as we were led to believe we did all walk away with some bargains!

After we thoroughly explored the bazaar and were quite satisfied with our purchases we made our way to a café for lunch. I had the most amazing tomato and lentil soup, and have been trying to recreate it ever since. From there Kelsey, Suzanne and I headed back to the hotel. After an unplanned tour of the city we finally arrived to the hotel with enough time to just sit down before having to leave again…

We headed back down towards the river to meet the rest of the group for our ferry ride to Asia. It was a perfect night and the sun was about to set. Forbes in his infinite wisdom had planned the timing of the ferry perfectly so the sun set while we were crossing the Bosphorus to Asia. It was beautiful…

Not only did he plan around the sunset but he also brought snacks! We munched on goodies from the spice Bazaar ranging from dried figs and apricots to almonds and a Turkish taffy like treat.

Once we set foot in Asia we had the option to stay and explore the area or just head back on the ferry with Forbes. Three of my friends and I decided to stay and explore a bit. It wasn’t terribly different from the other side of the city, just a bit less developed. The most interesting thing we saw was this guy on a motorcycle who trained his dog to ride on the back of it, while wearing sunglasses of course, we were quite amused…

Once we docked in Europe we hopped in a cab to meet Kelsey and Suzanne in “Narnia” our joke of the weekend. After an interesting cab ride, we made our way through the very busy streets…

To the even more crowded street of Nevizade. This was a wicked cool spot packed with restaurants and pubs. After a good meal we hailed a cab and made our way home along the very crowded and very windy streets of Istanbul. As our cab driver pumped the bass on his surround sound we came within inches of hitting many many pedestrians as well as a pack of wild dogs. By the way the one downfall of Istanbul, in my opinion of course, is the abundance of cats, they are like rats in the city, that is rats that are absolutely everywhere, roaming free and fed by the locals.

Finally after having to stop and talk to other cab drivers (who thankfully spoke English) we made it home. We were once again exhausted but couldn’t resist spending the last hours of our last night on our beautiful terrace. It was so beautiful and peaceful up there!

Sunday morning we packed up and checked out of the hotel, thankful that we packed lightly so we had more than enough room for all of our purchases! After checking out we left for the Great Palace Mosaic Museum. I was once again so impressed; the mosaics were so beautiful and so detailed. Below is an extreme close up of one of my favorites. The eye is so detailed, I love it.

From there we went to the Sultan Ahmet (Blue) Mosque. This Mosque is open to the public and is free, therefore quite crowded with cruise ships and lots and lots of Americans, not my favorite scene.

But it was a beautiful mosque and worth dealing with the crowds. This is my friend Alex and I with our headscarves on out of respect for the Islamic religion as well as their culture.

We then had the option of shopping some more or going to the Museum of Turkish & Islamic Art. Since I had (very proudly) managed to spend the exact amount of Liras I had left the night before, I opted for the museum visit and am very happy I did. It was a very cool museum with lots of cool artifacts and Turkish rugs of course. This was one of my favorites…

Upon exiting the museum we had a perfect view of the mosque...

We all met at the Hotel Ayasofya, boarded the bus and waved goodbye to our home for the weekend. We couldn’t stop talking about how it felt as though we had been there for a week, not just a weekend. Forbes filled us in on a bit more history as we passed the Theodosian Walls on our way to the Church of St. Saviour in Chora.

This picture is a bit blurry but gives you a good feel for how beautiful and extensive the mosaics in this church were. It was breathtaking. We then headed to the restaurant next door called Asitane for our group lunch. There we dined on traditional Ottoman cuisine. It was very interesting but I really enjoyed it, the adventurous eater in me had quite a field day! It was also nice to not worry about trying to order the least expensive dish on the menu as Syracuse was picking up the bill!

After we were uncomfortably full of Turkish cuisine, we snapped a quick group photo and reluctantly boarded the bus to the airport.

Everyone loaded up on their last purchases of Turkish delight and we then made our way onto our plane. I was very much looking forward to a four-hour nap on the way home but couldn’t sleep a wink. We were all harnessing our inner child and couldn’t sit still, none the less sleep on the plane. The flight attendants were quite annoyed as Alex conferenced with Brian and I from the aisle. Once we landed in Heathrow all we wanted to do was get home and shout Merhaba (hello in Turkish) to our roommates.

I couldn’t (and still cant) believe we were only there for a weekend. It was such an amazing trip and I couldn’t be happier that I decided to go. I was actually talking to one of my new friends from University of London yesterday about his travels to Turkey and it made me want to go back already! I would love to really explore and learn more about their culture!

Hope all is well with everyone and I will report on my fun filled week in London very soon!

İyi Geceler (good night in Turkish)

Kelli