Istanbul

Driving through Istanbul at midnight the night of our arrival, we couldn't see very much. Finally, as we neared our hotel, the Blue Mosque came into view, glowing eerily in a white glow with birds circling around it, a hazy crescent moon in the background. In the morning, walking up to the rooftop of our hotel, I was stunned by the view. The two most famous monuments in Istanbul, the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya, emerge out of the surrounding landscape in epic proportions behind our hotel, with the sea of Marmara stretching endlessly in front of us. The other side of Istanbul is across from us, with landmasses in the distance and a rock formation that reminds me of Haystack Rock standing alone in the middle of the sea. The temperature would be stifling hot, were it not for the refreshing sea breezes that sweep over you wherever you are in the city. The wind is never too strong, just enough to cool you down. Ahh...

Istanbul has been difficult for my brain to capture, as I see elements of different countries and I unconsciously try to place Turkey among them. I'm trying to view Turkey as its own entity, but the brain always wants to categorize and compare. I see elements of India, Romania, Italy. The Turkish people are some of the nicest people I've ever encountered. I taught myself some basic Turkish phrases on livemocha.com and when I speak Turkish to people, they light up and are very surprised that I "know Turkish." It has really opened doors to talking with people, even though most people in Istanbul speak English, because they appreciate it so much. I know this because people always start a conversation about it- asking me how I learned it, testing my phrases, and helping me learn new ones. The Turkish I speak to people has received remarks of astonishment, as from what I've been told most tourists don't even try to say phrases like hello or thank you. When I first looked at Turkish it looked ridiculously hard, but it's actually completely phoenetic and predicable if you only learn a few odd letters.

I was talking to my dad on the phone on the rooftop terrace today, and I'd just finished telling him about the Turkish hospitality we've encountered when an old man from the next terrace waved me over and handed me a hot chay tea across the railing. "On the house!" he said, and I gratefully accepted. There was no motive for doing this, as it's quite obvious that I'm staying at this hotel, he just wanted to be friendly. Before I came to Istanbul I'd hear people joke that everyone wants to sell you a carpet, but I've found that stereotype to be completely untrue. We've only had one person ask us to visit their carpet store, and though outside every restaurant a man is waiting to welcome you in if possible, if you say no, they say, "have a nice day!" A striking difference from India seems to be the way you are expected to interact with waiters, hotel workers, etc. In India, ideas of caste and positions in society are very much still felt and it would be considered odd and awkward to strike up a conversation with most restaurant waiters or people providing services to you. In Turkey, the people I have met treat me as an equal, and conversation comes easily and naturally. One of my favorite new friends, Gurcel, is the breakfast server at my hotel. When I asked him if he was the owner of the hotel, he beamed and touched his heart, saying, "Does it matter? I feel like the owner of the hotel, because I love my job, so is it important if in reality I own it or I do not?"

At breakfast, I sat down with two of the hotel staff and we talked about Turkish politics. The national election is on June 12th, and both of my new friends (Rohat and Gurcel) are voting for different parties. There are about 50 parties, they said, and Gurcel is voting for the secular party while Rohat wants the Kurdish party to win. He is Kurdish, and says that while many Turks love Ataturk for having created a secular government, he was also extremely nationalistic, promoting Turkish identity at the expense of minorities. Though about 25% of Turks are Kurds, Kurdish is not an official language and people used to be thrown in jail for speaking it.* A Kurd can become president, but he has to deny his Kurdish identity to do so.* I'd heard that the Kurds want a separatist state, but Rohat said that not every Kurd does- many love Turkey and want to live there, like him, but he also does not want to deny his identity. He wants a new constitution that will fully accept Kurds.

* I have no internet while writing this post, so I haven't checked any of these statistics or facts. I apologize if any turn out to be a bit off, I can edit this later. I have only a few minutes of internet in which to copy and paste this into the blog!

Tonight we ate 5 lira ($3) wraps with chicken or beef grilled on a stick with lettuce, tomatoes and chilies that we bought from a man cooking out of his cart down the street. These were just as good as the restaurant food we've eaten! Mmm, Turkish food. Our stomachs have been a bit off, and we've been drinking bottled water, but we are also adjusting to the new cuisine. I think the pictures will speak for themselves, I'll do a separate food post later, but here was one delicious dinner:

Today we visited the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi palace, and planned our itinerary for the rest of the trip with the help of an amazing Turkish travel agent. As I wrote in the previous blog post, I thought that we'd only really be able to see Istanbul, Epheseus, a Greek island or two, and Athens and Delphi. This is because figuring out Turkish transportation seems really difficult (I've heard train and bus websites are most easily accessed in Turkish) and it can take a lot of time to get to each place. Well, this guy whipped out an INCREDIBLE itinerary for us. We are getting to see everything we would have wanted to see in Turkey, but didn't think we'd be able to. In addition to what I already described, over the next two and a half weeks, we will also get to:

*be awed by the faerie chimneys of Cappodocia and sleep in a cave hotel
*see gorgeous ruins in Olympos and sleep in tree houses on the beach
*go to the white calcite shelves, hotsprings and Roman pools of Pamukkale
*Stay one night each on the Greek islands of Samos, Mykonos, and Santorini
*A three day cruise from Olympos to Fethiye, stopping every two hours to swim, look at underwater ruins, & caves

It's an unbelievable amount of sight-seeing for the time that we have, but we are accomplishing this by taking a couple of night buses (Turkish buses are apparently extremely comfortable). All of the places I listed are on the map on the upper right hand corner of this blog.

at the Blue Mosque

At the harem at Topkapi Palace

I had many more photos I wanted to post, but the internet is very slow here and each one takes me 5 minutes to load. More later!

Love,
Molly