Istanbul!

Is FREEZING! By the way. Walking out of 100 degree weather into freezing was a shocker, but sweater and scarf wearing plus shopping for these items was not the worst thing that could happen to me in Istanbul, which is the coolest city scene I’ve been in since I left Chicago this summer. One sad thing is, we were supposed to get a travel visa weeks ago if we wanted to travel further into Turkey out of Istanbul, and I did not because figured I’d have my hands full here in the city (which I do), but it means I don’t know what Turkey is like, I know what Istanbul is like, and it’s wonderful, but the rest of the country is I assume very different. Turkey borders Iraq and SAS is looking for a little more control just now but it is strange being unable to go down to Ephesus, if that is what was important to me, and we weren’t allow to have our passports (so we couldn’t go get our own travel visas) so I figured that also meant we couldn’t stay off the ship in Istanbul (though midweek it was rumored that drivers license and photocopy of passport will do, but I’d spent so much money and my friends didn’t want to.) But ! it really kind of sucks because I felt in the beginning like I wasn’t so much staying in Istanbul but taking field trips into it kind of, and I was trying so hard to stay out just one night and it fell through and I was so upset I almost cried!! !! because I am ridiculous and was all upset because I didn’t get my way? How completely ridiculous of me, but it’s just really disappointing to come back to the ship by 9pm and to then not go back out because it’s too much of a process and you just stay in and it feels like you’re not doing it to the fullest even though the whole day was go go go. The last few days though definitely looked up and I felt more immersed in the city, so, alls well that ends well.

I saw two movies in Istanbul, which is funny but actually I think that is where I learned my lesson for Turkey! In English with Turkish subtitles, I saw Superbad!! Which was really funny. And this other movie… I think called You’re my Woman or something like that, which was, I think way too strange to come out in the US, but it stared Paul Rudd and it was about CA and plastic surgery and stuff, cute, but both horrible films in terms of portraying our country! So my lesson is that there is a reason they don’t like us when it seems like Americans are only obsessed with sex and work and looks and our kids are only obsessed with getting drunk and sex and violence, and police officers are goof offs that get drunk, shoot their guns and arrest people or not when it’s convenient. If I’d of seen Superbad in America I’d of thought it was funny but seeing it in another country… it was funny but also kind of horrifying. We’re not portrayed well over here, which is why, 91% of Turkish people, A LARGER percentage than the people of unformed Palestine !! !! (think about that!) very much do not like America. Ah! So we definitely sometimes falsely represented ourselves (though not too often) and when we did we generally had a much easier time of things and got less ripped off. Though I always liked to say America when we were doing something good so that we could hopefully try and change some perceptions, but at the ballet when we couldn’t stop laughing, I definitely threw out some Australia.

Anyway, the funniest part of seeing the movies is that there is an intermission! Halfway through in the middle of a scene (middle of a sentence) the movie shuts off and the lights come on and everyone tries to get out past you while you are laughing hysterically and wondering if there is a fire somewhere or if the movie is broken or what! It was very funny. Also a good idea! Keeps people from getting up during the movie, chance to go to the bathroom, get some popcorn, I think we should adopt it back home!

I had a conversation with my Econ professor this morning -- we had a test and I was last to finish, it was pretty funny because he saw me trying to study in Global just before and he said he was pulling for me because he knew how hard I had prepared. he’s a cool guy and had a good laugh when I told him I had hoped to stay in a few nights in Turkey to study; we both agreed that it was more worth it to do all I could in Istanbul then to study. so! class isn’t going fabulously but I am learning a lot : ) -- for instance our post test conversation – how the Turkish people have been the nicest most friendly helpful kind people we have met yet, he thought even more so then the Japanese… and though I wasn’t sure I just now agree as well. He said they were unbelievably respectful of age, picturing Turks jumping out of bus seats for my lanky energetic alcoholic gray haired econ professor seems like a joke, but nice. They were awesome. They like to come up and talk to you just randomly, they don’t have an ulterior motive like money or stealing you away but I think it’s that they want to practice their English. . And everyone was so stylish and attractive! SO stylish, we definitely stuck out as tourists, which kind of sucked I wish we could have been stylish.

[here begins a very longs story]
On the fourth day I did a SAS trip, a hike though the mountains an hour and half outside of the city. This was great because it was a different kind of activity and let me see just a little bit the country (though on the bus back I was so tired I fell asleep). So the hike started out a little different then expected. As it had been freezing in the city, one could only assume a mountain hike would be quite cold, so after layering on clothes it for some reason was not cold, but hot. Our bus dropped us of in front of what must have been someone’s farm. We had 3 guides, 2 locals as trail blazers who knew no English and one interpreter in a leather jacket, who when things got rough admitted he had never done this before.

So we started walking up a path, and then we walked along a road for a mile or so and it was just not the beautiful Turkish mountain hike anyone pictured. On the road we were joined by a white dog, who became our companion! And as we were on the road it started to rain – not at all inconsistent with the rest of the week. And when it really started to rain is when it was decidedly the best place to begin to off road and get into the mud and wilderness. We walked through meadows and trees; it was really beautiful, felt kind of like Scotland maybe, I had to keep reminding myself I was in Turkey hiking, not just hiking. It was really great because leaves were turning yellow and red and there were actual sheep headers herding their sheep around. We were apparently doing 10 miles but I don’t believe it, I think we probably did about 4 or something, but it was long and maybe I’m underestimating myself.

So we ate our lunch down in the valley at what used to be a waterfall but now was just a lot of rocks. Here the weather did turn cold and it started to rain pretty hard again. We though we would turn back, as there was water below us and cliffs on either side, but no! apparently we were to push onward. It was really pretty scary but with the help of our guides and some nice hike experienced students all 35 of us shimmied over this slippery rock wall, up a section of wet rocks, over some fallen trees and across a log we had laid as a bridge over part of the water.

This situation was not made more comfortable by the fact that it was raining, one of our guides slipped while crossing, the dog was stuck and whining, and our English guide made an interesting joke about Al Qaeda that no one quite got. Our dog, we’ll call him Champion, did not want to get wet, and he somehow made it over this cliff as well, at one point he fell from the rock! But into some plants and was okay. Also at this time, by the way, I didn’t really like the dog and thought he was kind of dumb for not just heading back.

After we got past this I figured there would be a trail again, perhaps the water level was higher or lower than usual so our guides had to improvise this one section. I thought very much wrong because on the other side of this little lake... was more seemingly impassable rocks and cliffs. And so we went along like this, having miniature brushes with death. Every step thinking we would have no choice but to turn it around and go back through the dangers to the safe meadows and road. I frequently said “where’s that goddamn dog?” (which I believe language and attitude-wise is probably my mother’s fault) “he’s going to have to turn back now; there is no way that damn dog could get over this.” But he did! And I would be amazed but he had not yet won me over. Even when we all started to have wipe outs. One girl actually fell into the water! Luckily people had extra clothes for her.

I had a bad fall when we were crossing over a river. It was kind of like everyone for themselves on how you were going to cross it and I slipped, remember that the rain had made the rocks very slippery! But I fell hard straight down on my butt and hands and it made my head feel very jostled around. I had to do a quick foot maneuver to avoid sliding in, but here I am! Typing from the warm comfort of the ship.

So there we were, scraped up, bleeding a bit, some maybe with their pride a little hurt, that one girl drenched, all of us wet and dirty – and we came to what I can only call – the cliffs of insanity. And we stood there, at the base of an actual waterfall, while our guides looked for a way past it. And I looked up at one possible route and I said and meant, “I am not going up that way, if he says we have to go up that way I am not going to.” And Jackie said “I don’t think you’d have much of a choice.” But I was not going to do it, absolutely not, I’d have turned around, made a non English speaking guide go with me, and braved the injury traps we had already past because they would (probably) at worse only resulted in my injury and not in my death, as the scaling of this cliff very likely could have.

Luckily the guides found a slightly less shear route straight up the cliffs and slowly but surely all 35 of us rock climbed our way out of the valley to the top and only then did I look back down at where we had come from. I have pictures but whoa, that was pretty out there. While we were about to continue on – we had, contrary to what I had thought, not finally made it out alive, but were actually going back down into the valley (!), out of the woods popped Champion! And we all cheered! Myself included. Because that damn dog was a miracle worker and had somehow found a way over and past the cliffs of insanity. And after that I loved him. What a champion that dog!

After this there were a few other interesting passes, I stumbled a few more times, someone fell and Champion was concerned and ran over to make sure he was okay. Everyone pulled together and talked and helped others out. It was a really wonderful adventure. Jackie asked the guide how much longer and he mumbled a few words, of which she understood the word “tropical” so there was a language issue, obviously, or else meaning that we would get there when it was tropical, which would have been never because it was freezing. I did some deep thinking by making up great hiking and life metaphors in my head, for example think about – when hiking through life you have to keep your eyes where your feet are stepping to keep from falling but you can’t forget to look up and take in the view around you – and a million others that were reasonably inspirational if not cheesy. Maybe I’ll write a book? Though they were so easy I’m not sure someone else probably hasn’t already done it.

Haha, our hike finally concluded an hour and a half later than scheduled at a campground like area. Champion trotted along with us to the end and we were all sorry to say goodbye, but glad that we were still around to do so.

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After resting up a bit back at the ship, showers, hot chocolate, a peanut butter sandwich, and an episode of Sex and the City or two later, we headed back out into the rain and went to a soccer game ! or a football game, between two Turkish teams. And yes, it was nuts, and the people were so passionate, and cheering, and it was raining, and it was freezing and it was awesome. At this game I felt very much like I was back in high school at a football game, all bundled up, seeing your breath, and I was standing next to the boy I had a crush on and I was trying to be all funny and he’s so fun and funny! But seriously, what is my problem? You should think all this traveling would make me exponentially more mature and in some respects it has, but really I’ve been acting like a high schooler just as often. The ship is like a rumor mill and I have a crush I’m afraid to talk to and... etc. Ridiculous! And I’m still a horrible speller. What’s with that?

After the game I had my first doner, a kind of Turkish sandwich, it was good and it had been a good long hard day. We went out for a bit with some other SASers and had a good if not so cultural time, though I did have a few good conversations with locals.

*****
The last day we left the ship around 9 and after stopping at starbucks :) headed straight to Miniaturk!! !! !!! a place I had been looking forward to all week. It’s like a small amusement park that has 1.25 scale models of all the famous sites in Turkey. It was rainy and cold but very cool. it was my goal to get some good pictures of me pretending to crush things and I think I accomplished that... I haven’t been able to look at my pictures yet, but as I will now be in Croatia tomorrow I assume that will be some time today. After our adventure we went to Taxim – which was kind of a favorite area of ours, to do some last shopping. As I had lost mine in Vietnam, I bought some flats, cute silver and black, feel like good walking shoes. Bought some socks and underwear, like I’ve said, for the first time in my life I haven’t had enough underwear! (I haven’t done laundry since BEFORE INDIA! !! !!) yikes.

We got a good Turkish lunch, spent some time in an internet café, where approached by, met and chatted with a very attractive man, then Jess and I spent a good cold hour navigating ourselves back to the ship and spending the rest of our currency. We ate another good Turkish dinner (outside!) and I made some phone calls, which was wonderful. It was a great trip!

So I guess I started from the end, it’s a little more exciting then the beginning, which was just great to live but not so exciting to read about. If you made it through my hike story, then I guess congrats and please feel free to continue to read about my Istanbul adventures it you want to keep up to date on my day to day doings... :) haha, I wrote these next few paragraphs while we were in Turkey and it’s pretty fragmented so if you want just skip it!
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Well! so here I am in my bedroom on the ship, 3 days spent in Istanbul Turkey, 2 more to go. I’m traveling (field tripping, AMAZING field trips mind you, into Turkey!) with Jackie and Jess. The weather is wonderfully cool. we’ve been having a lot of fun, laughing a lot, doing a lot. :) we make an ok group. First day I was really sick, it happened in the middle of the night and I don’t know how because what I ate the last day in Egypt was nearly exactly what I ate the first day in Egypt (from the same place even) so my conclusion is that I got sick from ship food! And I was up all night and all that and feeling sick all day but! Brisk weather, lots of walking, I took some medicine; put it out of my head.

The two days before Turkey we looked through my book and planed an itinerary that fit everything we each wanted, the first day we thought we’d try and walk to our destination. So off we started. Istanbul is amazing because it’s parted by the Bosporus, which separates Turkey into Asia and Europe! And our ship is docked in the Golden Horn right in the middle of everything (another reason, as my friends point out, that makes a hotel a bad idea – it’s less convenient) – the sky line is little buildings and big mosques, beautiful – the ship is on the Europe side – and Europe it is! And it is wonderful.

So we walked! Trying to find a mosque we never made it to, instead we came across and headed into the Dolmabahce palace, like Versailles (as they said) but in Turkey and I would have to say a lot less ornate (though ornate) and with a lot of Japanese art – as I am now an expert on all things, I noticed a lot a lot of furniture and stuff in there from Japan. Haha. it was a cool place. And we weren’t planning on going just walked up to it, which makes it seem even better. I actually went into the bedroom and saw the bed that Ataturk died in. on a November 10th at 9:05 am years ago – a big holiday was going on while we were in Turkey! He is the biggest of the big in Turkish history, and he had a sweeetttt house. It was strange to think about. Museums/historical sites/old and/or important things… etc. in foreign countries are awesome because they are so low key. Here I was in Ataturk’s bedroom. A 5th century B.C. statue is outside near the café at a museum with 8 kids hanging from it – which I saw today, and was true until they saw my friend Jess – and then they were literally hanging on her (long blonde hair).

Next we headed to the military museum, which I would never in a million years have gone to, but Jess had to for a class. On the way we were side tracked at an amazing Turkish restaurant – very very good, anything they put on your table is not free, you eat it you pay for it (water, bread, 2 little appetizers they put right on your plate) we had an accidental 70 lira lunch (about 60+$) – but then the museum was hilarious! It was definitely the least happening place in Istanbul; there were maybe 6 people in the whole place. And in one little nook was a giant but thinish chain, pilled in a heap, and it was thee (lone e here when you read this) chain used to block the straight some 100 years ago during a battle. I just thought that was hilarious. And I don’t know it was just a really funny GIANT place filled with swords and guns and god knows what else and we watched a performance by guys dressed as old soldiers in old outfits with fake handlebar mustaches.

While Jess was trying to get her information I had a very strained awkward conversation with a museum guard with very little English in him. He was really nice but thought we were from England- we then accomplished communicating that Turkey had just killed Luxembourg in a soccer game, or something like that, and when he finally seemed to understand that we were actually Americans he said “American… terrorists… in the museum.” All with a lot of hand gestures and it was I guess kind of scary but really pretty funny. And Jackie says – the one thing we’re not supposed to talk about AT ALL. “what terrorism? … PKK?” and we are not supposed to talk about politics at all with Turkish people and the PKK is a terrorist group in Turkey and whew! it was interesting.

On our way out we saw a GAP ad and were instantly distracted because we were freezing and thought we could go buy winter jackets in a style and place we knew we would love – I am a GAP jacket kind of girl. So we searched around and that threw us off our whole day and we got preoccupied and our evening turned into shopping, though the GAP was never found and is in fact apparently not in Istanbul but in the surrounding area, who knew?!

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That night we got dressed up and went out to dinner for our friend Kate’s 21st birthday. We had a lot of communication issues with people and we ended up no where near the restaurant we wanted (an old prison converted into a restaurant!), so we ate at this ridiculous Mexican diner place with a car in the middle of it. It was good though because one food we have not had on the trip has been Mexican, and Nachos tasted goooood. After a little walking around a very cute area we headed back to the ship and went to bed.

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On the second day we got off the ship after having breakfast at about 9am, our plan for the day was to take a 6 hour Bosporus cruise down the Bosporus Straight to see the city from the water. By cruise I mean ferry but… it was cool, so first, as that didn’t leave until 10:30, we tried again to go to the mosque from yesterday, but our cab driver took us to the Blue mosque. Istanbul has these two GIANT beautiful old mosques sitting right next to each other, the Blue mosque and Haghia Sophia, originally a church, now a mosque. Our plan was to do these two mosques and their surrounding events in one big chunk the 3rd day, but to be productive we went into Haghia Sophia that morning and it was really cool, giant beautiful spiritual building, those are always cool. This one had some art galleries going on inside of it and I walked up this back area to the upstairs where you could look down on things and there was more art up there on display. I have been very much impressed with older people in these countries, similar (but less intense I suppose) to the great wall, there were older people trucking it right up these back ancient ramps inside the mosque.

You may have thought I’d of had enough of being on the water, but I guess you thought wrong!! The city from the Bosporus was really amazing. We sat outside and it was cold and windy but we looked at houses and palaces and castles along the shore. We got out in a very cute little town in the Asia part of Turkey. We hiked to the top of the town (not easy) where there was a fort and we took some beautiful pictures of us on top of the world in the middle of two continents. :) so that was lovely, we had some tea up there and then went back down, where we had various snacks, a waffle with chocolate and bananas, which is not really my thing but you know, delicious. I had Turkish ice cream!! !! and it has a thickening agent in it that allows it to stretch! So it’s like elastic ice cream!! wwooowww. Heaven I’ll tell you. By the way, all over Istanbul are bread and pretzel carts, there also was corn though I never tried it, we even came across a popcorn cart, which I very much enjoyed. Anyway, back on the Bosporus, we had a great time and laughed a lot warm inside the ferry on the way back to the main city.

After the ferry we headed strait to Taxim, where, as I have previously mentioned, we spent a lot of our time. It is a really cute trendy area with shopping and cafes and bars and restaurants and movie theaters and more shopping and… our purpose that night, opera, though we ended up seeing a ballet – which was not very good. But hilarious, there were dancing chickens and the leading man should definitely been wearing more than just tights and the second leading lady was actually a man and Jess got chased down and yelled at by a Turkish woman during intermission because her toilet was broken and wouldn’t flush so this woman was like “it’s dirty!” and made Jess go back to flush it over and over again but it was just toilet paper and it was broken. So! very funny evening and good beautiful day.

*** Day 3 !
We woke up very early, pre 8 am!! And were off the ship and at the blue mosque just as it was opening. A lot of things are seeming kind of routine these days after visiting other Arab countries, but there are a lot of little things that maybe I should tell you about, I don’t know like we have to take our shoes off before we go in anywhere like this. and… well. haha, more tidbits to come I guess! so at the blue mosque we met some Texans, which are probably the only Americans I saw in the entire country, except for the Navy boat docked next to us – which interestingly enough had no security to get on to, compared to our ship where a visitor has to be family and basically sign their lives away with passport numbers and social security etc, though SASers toured the Navy ship and took pictures with guns and had drinks with the boys! Haha, seriously. But really there were just not that many tourists in the city. We ran into one couple on two different days, and on the second we said “hi! How are you!” and the man was like “oh good, we are just walking.” Umm well my point is there was a translation issue amidst the friendliness, but it was really cute and nice. Small world I guess, we didn’t meet them in touristy places.

So after the blue mosque we walked around, saw the sights; went to the Cistern Basilica, unlike anywhere I’ve ever been, I don’t know what I was expecting but the name made it sound like a church, but it was like an underground lit up aqueduct water tank thing! With carved pillars and music and it was so beautiful and cool! and it was there underneath the city and it was really awesome. We went to two museums, the Islamic art museum because Jackie wanted to, and then the Archeology museum, because I wanted to. Piles of ancient things. Istanbul is ungodly old and there was art up to 5,000 years old in there. I took pictures of them.

We went to the Grand Bazaar which is this gigantic mallish like place with thousands of stalls and people and things to buy. And everywhere throughout the city is this blue eyeball glass bead (my friend bought jeans and it is even sew into them – twice!) and it is to ward off evil and stuff. I didn’t like it at first but after seeing it everywhere I got kind of attached and bought a magnet. I also made a very wonderful arty purchase. I got 3 angels made of dyed wool and I love them and they will sit in my house at Christmas time until I am an old lady, if I am so lucky. I also bought a bracelet that made me think of the Carrettas and 2 tiles that were pretty, all the mosques and stuff are filled with cool tiles. For the most part these vendors were millions of times better than vendors in other countries, so much less pushy and they had a reasonable bottom line, they weren’t going to try and chase you down or give you a poor me story. I got really overwhelmed though with the tiles because they were in a really narrow shop and the keeper stood between me and the door and I was the only one in there and he wanted a lot of money and asked me to kiss him and I felt panicked and didn’t really get the coolest tiles, I kind of was hoping for one or two that one day I could decorate a bathroom around but I suppose that’s being optimistic that I will be able to afford any place at all after this trip. :)

We didn’t spend as much time in the Bazaar as we had been told we would and had some time to spare, so we finally got to the mosque we had been trying to get to! This mosque with a supposedly beautiful view, it started with an S, like Sulejmon mosque… or something. And it had a beautiful view and was beautiful; we took some pictures and sat there for awhile and watched the sun set over the city.

We wanted to get to a good dinner and then to see this whirling dervish performance at 9pm but instead (and this is good because it was too cold for whirling dervishes and they canceled it) we had another okay Mexican dinner and went to see Superbad instead! Which as you know, learned me quite a lesson. haha… well I loved Istanbul and could definitely see my self studying there or working there for awhile because it was just such a wonderful city life, people hanging out in coffee shops and in cafes. I suppose I have that in Chicago, don’t I? but Istanbul was incredibly European and stylish and cool. I would love to go back if for no other reason then the chocolate! They had amazing chocolate, called ulker or something, I have a bunch of it stowed deep under my bead to hope-hope-hopefully make it home as presents to the people at Ameriprise. Aren’t I thoughtful? Haha we’ll see if mind succeeds over stomach, it’s really, really good.

Waaa I lost my flash drive in Turkey! Left plugged into a computer in Taxim, I must have been distracted by the cat sitting on the chair next to me or the guy trying to practice his English by getting my screen name. Well. okay and officially what I rode and saw in Egypt would have been called a dromedary, it has only one hump and is one of two types of camels, the other being a bactrain camel, SO, a dromedary is technically a type of camel but not by name… I guess… if you were concerned. I was really happy to get to talk to a bunch of my friends on the phone! That was a great way to end the trip. It seems like they miss me like I miss them though maybe not my Sarah’s because neither of them answered their phones. Well! sadly my time here is ending sooner rather than later :( only two countries to go! I can’t believe it. I have to seriously get down to being healthy before I see people I know again. haha :) my roommate received a giant box of Halloween candy in the post in Egypt, and everyone else got Halloween cards and stuff, I guess my family is too busy? Well soon I will be home and they will have to love me full time. ! !! !! !!! <3