The Rest of the Week of the 26th...

--Tuesday May 27--

Today was when we had a meeting with Murat Ozyuksel, a man who's done research into trains and has also done a nine-part documentary on trains in Turkiye. He is also a member of a rock band which we all thought was really cool. He brought the first part of the documentary and we watched it at the boys' flat. It was in Turkish so guess what happened? That's right. I translated the whole thing. A half hour documentary almost became an hour because I had to pause it so many times. It was okay, the music was very good, but the content didn't seem to me to be very related to what we were discussing in class and the fact that the movie was in Turkish and the fact that I had to pause the movie every couple seconds made it boring. But, we did it and got it over with. Then we went on the terrace and talked some more about what we had just seen.

The railroad is a very important invention for all of the world since it increased the speed of essentially everything. It changed the way people dressed and acted. Workers and raw materials could be transported faster; ideas got around quicker and most likely had a bigger effect; helped out the economy of some nations (mostly colonizing nations) while managing to ruin the economy of others. Basically the railroad created as many problems as it solved. Still, it was a very big and important invention that did help out most of the time.

After discussing trains and railroads and their implications, the Prof said that we could now ask him any questions we wanted to, and two important questions were asked: what do you think of the closing of the AK Party (ruling party of Turkiye right now) and what songs/musicians/artists would you recommend? His response to the political question was one that I thought was a good answer--he said that although he wasn't a big fan of AKP, the party had still been elected by the people and thus for the sake of democracy their status should be respected and this appeal to close the AKP is completely ridiculous. As for the musicians, he offered some groups, and one of them happen to be my favorite Turkish rock group, Mor ve Otesi.

We were going to have dinner at the Shields' house, so I stayed over at the girls' flat that night.

--Wednesday, May 28--

Wednesday was the day Clayton and I had agreed upon to go to Kariye Camii, which we had picked for our site presentation. What a day to pick though, because it was closed. But, we made the best of it and decided to walk around some and visit the many other mosques around the area. So the mosques we visited in about a span of 3 to 4 hours were: Kariye (which is now a museum and was thus closed), Fethiye (same deal as Kariye--pissed), Ismail Aga Camii, Yavuz Selim Camii and his tomb along with the tombs of the princes close by, Fatih Camii and the tomb of Fatih (Mehmed the Conqueror), Sehzadebasi Camii (my favorite mosque ever now), and Suleymaniye Camii along with the tombs of Suleyman the Magnificent and Hurrem Sultan also known as Roxalana. So that's...7 mosques and 4 tombs. Mehmed the Conqueror's tomb was the most beautiful one I've ever seen, it was quite impressive. And the reason why Sehzadebasi Camii is now my favorite is because it was as if the minute we walked into the courtyard, the world faded away and it was just me and the gardens and flowers. There was peace. It could be that its not a very commonly used mosque, but either way, I got such a nice feeling of peace inside when I walked in that I was simply mesmerized. We couldn't really get into Suleymaniye either because they're doing renovations on the mosque, but from the pictures presented in the little area where we could go in, it's bound to be very very impressive. Hopefully they'll be done soon and we'll be able to go in and take a look around.

After walking around, we went over to Sultanahmet to our meeting point. The morning we'd had off, but in the afternoon we were going to go to the Islamic and Turkish Art museum. So we went there. We were helped on our tour with Nazende, a very nice young lady. There were many beautiful miniatures and examples of calligraphy and rugs and everything, but what I liked the most was the Code of Laws written by Suleyman the Magnificent. Here's his signature, referred to as the "tura" in Turkish...
Once we got through with the museum, it was time for Turkish lessons at the Caferaga Medrese. This was actually the first day of Turkish lessons, and the first time we met our teacher, Hande. A very nice lady as well.

--Thursday, May 29--

Today we went to Sabanci University to meet Aylin Atikler Yurdacan, a teacher of English at said University. While meeting with her, we also met with her students, and after having an interesting discussion of customs in Turkiye and a bit of cultural exchange where we showed them pictures of our campus and North Carolina and tried really hard to come up with food that was specifically North Carolinian and also had Edward do a demonstration of Soulja Boy. That was the best part. After the class, we went to their cafeteria, which I fell in love with. The bathrooms in the cafeteria were clean too, on our scale of 5, it got a 5 in my opinion. After lunch, the kids took us on a tour around the campus, and I found it to be quite nice. When we went to their gym, they took us to the basketball court, and so here's a photo of us from there. I took the picture since they're used to me being a Turk but these guys were new Turks so we decided to give them a chance of being photographed...
We had a lot of fun with these guys, and their English was really good. The presentations they had prepared for us were amusing as well, and they were very hospitable during lunch, and overall they made us feel very welcome. I liked the campus and everything too, possibly because of the warmth of the students.

--Friday, May 30--

Friday morning we met up at the Caferaga Medrese and discussed some more readings. Specifically we tried to answer the question of why the Ottoman Empire ceases to exist. Some of the answers we came up with were:

-unable to enforce ideas because ideas weren't united
-wanting to keep both sultanate and caliphate but modernize them--not exactly possible, you can't have both, its always one or the other
-obvious answer: World War I and the division of the empire by and among the other powers
-another: no set idea of "Ottoman" which is why Ataturk was more successful in unifying the country--he dropped anything not considered "Turk"

After that discussion, we also wondered why the Ottomans had been on the wrong side of WWI, and the answer for that question seems to be the fact that the Ottomans were insecure about their own power, wanted to get involved in the war so as to have some backing, but also wanting to stay neutral. A combination of all these led to a German-Ottoman alliance with the Ottomans hanging on by a thread at the end of the war.

We also touched somewhat upon the Armenian issue. Prof. Shields said that the fact that the Armenians argue about an Armenian genocide and that this happened because they were Armenian is simply ludicrous because the Armenians did a lot of trade, and Turks, if nothing, knew to safe-guard a group that would allow them to have better economy. The Armenian loss of life could be more comparable to the Cherokees and the Trail of Tears instead of the Holocaust. It was also mentioned that its a really bad idea of the Turkish government to not allow access to archives. If they did, all these questions would be answered and there wouldn't be any room for insecurity or speculations.

Last of all, we talked about Ataturk. Father of the Turks. No matter what you think about him, he is a man to be respected. One of the questions considered during this discussion was the question of "How do you make a Turkish state/Turkishness/Turkish identity?" The answer we came up with was to replace Islam with patriotism. It was also decided that war definitely helps to bring people together and support each other, and the many wars going on around Ataturk's time helped him with his take-over and formation of the Republic of Turkiye. Prof Shields also mentioned some of the reforms that Ataturk had done such as changing the dress, getting rid of the caliphate and the sultanate, and, most drastic of all, changing the alphabet. Since Ataturk believed that anything Ottoman was backwards and thus not worthy of his new nation, he got rid of the old Arabic alphabet and effectively cut off current generations of Turks from their rich history. A horrible loss which I don't believe can be justified by anything. The answer of a call for democracy wouldn't work, because Ataturk's governing and government was anything but a democracy.

Friday was my cousin Arin's birthday, so my uncle and my grandparents and I went over to his and my aunt's house to celebrate. It was fun. My uncle bought a cake along the way, and my aunt had made tiramisu. Here's a picture of said sumptuous and beautiful dessert...

We had fun. My uncle had also organized for Arin's friends to come and surprise him, so I got to meet those guys and girls as well. Nice people. Good friends.

--Weekend of May 31, and June 1, 2008--

This was when I sent 7 Americans who know no Turkish to Bursa. A conversation between Amanda and Clayton probably puts the entire situation in a way I wouldn't have the ability to describe through words:

Amanda- "Yekta looks worried. I think she knows something we don't."

Clayton- "Yeah. The language."

As you can see...yeah. I was worried. However, if you check out their blogs, they all had an awesome time. Rhombus rooms, Bursa's hamams, Turkish hospitality, broken squatty potties, etc, they pretty much had a crash course in Bursa and Turkishness.

This was also the weekend when Emily went to Izmir to meet up with some family friends of hers. After relating the story of what happened with her, Amanda summed everything up by saying, "Emily was pampered, while we wished we had Pampers."

On Saturday I didn't do anything. It was a relaxed day. On Sunday however, I got up and in the afternoon I did a tour up the Bosphorus with some family friends. This was fun too because I hadn't seen these friends in a while and they have a daughter who is really, really cute. Here's a picture...

Like I said. Very cute. The tour up the Bosphorus was really fun; on the ferry they had someone doing commentary on the monuments and palaces and homes that we passed by, and after a certain point the guy talking would have live music come on and play songs about Istanbul. It was quite a nice experience. After the tour, I went up to the house of the family of the friend and was overwhelmed with Turkish hospitality. It got really funny when the woman of the house handed me a plate of dessert right as I was getting ready to go home. I sat down and ate all the dessert on the plate and then was allowed to leave the house. So much fun. :D

Monday again...A Palace, A Lira, and A Walk Around Europe...May 26, 2008

Today we went to Topkapi Palace. A very humble palace that probably wasn't put to so much home-use by Ottoman sultans since conquest and enlarging the empire required that they be away from the palace so much. Still, very impressive. We were shown around by a professor friend of our Prof, Leslie Peirce. She has done lots of studies on Topkapi Palace centered specifically around the harem (to the peeps reading this--you need to get out of the Orientalist perspective of the harem as a place of many women solely there for the sultan's procreation purpose. This is wrong. Harem means something protected--for example, there's a term in Turkish that goes "harem cekti" which means that one draws some type of protection around oneself. The walls surrounding Topkapi Palace are a very good example.) Here's a picture of a model of the entire palace...

Kind of confusing picture because of the reflection, but you get the idea. Here's a more detailed look at the structure itself...As you can see from the picture, the palace is basically divided into three courtyards with varying degrees of penetrability by outsiders (outsiders being ambassadors and vassals and citizens of the empire. Other armies were obviously repelled before they even got to the gate of the palace.) The first courtyard was where the citizens who had come to ask the sultan for favors would be checked over and their requests reviewed. If approved, they would be able to go into the second courtyard but no farther. The first courtyard was also where all the artisans and the stables were, so you can imagine for yourself the noise of the place along with the many beautiful artworks coming out from it. The second courtyard would be where the janisseries (soldiers loyal only to the sultan taken from different places among the empire; mostly the Balkan region but other places as well) would mass. There are numerous descriptions of how the janisseries could strike fear into the hearts of many, and no doubt they would have been extremely impressive for ambassadors that would come through on their way to meet and greet the sultan. Again, they too could only go so far as the second courtyard and no farther. Still, I'm loving the image of the janisseries massing and then standing stock-still, like not even breathing or blinking and this contingent of ambassadors walk by looking creeped out by these Turks that don't even breathe and who have very impressive looking weapons and whatnot :D Cracks me up every time :D

Before actually going into the second and third courtyards, we walked through the palace kitchens which are the rooms under the cone-shaped chimneys seen on the right in the photo above. That's the second courtyard, by the way. The building across from the palace kitchens is probably the most important part of the palace because that is essentially where the entire empire was ruled from. The tower that can be seen is actually the place where the Counsel of Ministers met. There was also a room in there with a grate where the sultan would sometimes come and look through unannounced so as to see if his counselors were doing their jobs correctly. Here's a picture of said grate...

After getting out of that room, we walked over and entered the third courtyard where only very specifically chosen people could enter. One of those chosen people was the Chief Black Eunuch, because he was the third most important man of the empire since he and his men would be guarding the things inside the third courtyard and also the harem area itself.

Now that I've mentioned the janisseries and the eunuchs, it would be a good idea to tell of how they are chosen. These two groups were made up of Christian boys who were taken from their families between the ages of 12 and 20. This process is referred to as "devsirme." Despite how horrible it sounds, this was actually a very advantageous process, because in some cases some of these boys would later on rise to very high positions in government, including becoming ministers on the counsel of the sultan. These boys were first off converted to Islam, and they were stripped of any loyalty other than to the sultan. They were also educated very well, and had very close ties to the sultan. And this only applied to Christian boys--some Muslim families are said to have given their sons to Christian families and make them pretend to be Christian in order to get into this system as well. Jews were exempt since they were engaged in trade and finance and thus provided a nice revenue for the empire.

Another thing to mention about the Ottoman empirical system is that there wasn't a very solid up-down hierarchy going on, it was more in or out. If you were in, you were favored and had many advantages. If you were out, you were out.

So, back to the eunuchs. The eunuchs were good boundary people and essentially there were two kinds--white eunuchs and black eunuchs. The white eunuchs would guard the area between the second and third courtyards, and the black eunuchs would guard the harem. The eunuchs were also extremely important because they would be the trainers, organizers, and teachers of the boys growing up through the devsirme system.

While walking around the inside of the palace, specifically in the third courtyard, there was a room full of many sacred icons of all religions which we got to visit. It was quite spectacular. The walls especially were very beautiful since they were filled with tiles with beautiful designs. I wish I could show pictures but cameras were banned in that room. This isn't to say the contents of the rooms weren't impressive, they were. We saw David's sword, Moses' cane, Muhammad's beard, keys and locks to the Ka'ba, bones of some saints, and swords of Muhammad, Ali, Osman, Omar, and Abu Bakr.

After taking a tour of that room and looking around some more in the third courtyard, we decided to go walk around the harem itself. The rooms were simply spectacular. Murphy's Law required of course that I run out of both memory and battery, but I had my trusty phone with me so I took some pictures with that.

The harem was very, very impressive. The walls were all lined up with beautiful tiles containing intricate designs; the rooms had domes and these domes also had intricate designs painted within them. The walls of the rooms were also painted with flowers and leaves in the most amazing manner possible. Within the harem, the Queen Mother's rooms dominated, and they were very impressive. For some of the rooms the windows were painted like windows in a church except these all had tulips on them...

Sorry that it's so blurry. But you get the idea. And this is a pretty good picture also because it shows the verses of the Qur'an or hadiths from the Prophet Muhammad that are written on the walls of the harem.

Something interesting to mention here is the fact that everyone on the imperial payroll was paid, and how much they got paid depended on the job they had. Meaning men and women were paid equally within their respective jobs. The devsirme system also applied to the women although they were more for in-palace work rather than used as janisseries. But still. I was surprised and impressed to learn that equality within the payroll reigned in the palace.

After we finished walking through the palace, the group sort of separated with all of us having the intention of getting food. Kristina, Amanda and I decided upon a restaurant that sold gozleme and other wonderful food as such, and each of us got a different kind of gozleme. I got potato. It was delicious. Kevin, Clayton, David, and Zoe were also with us, but the three guys got their classic, fulfilling-only-for-a-very-short-time, chicken doner for cheap, and Zoe eventually went to a Simit Saray to get her classic simit sandwich. Our gozlemes though, were deeeeelicious. We were pretty set on sitting and doing nothing for an hour or so but seeing as how we're such an energetic group, we couldn't sit still, and so we asked for the check. Here's where the "Lira" part of the title comes in. Amanda paid for us all because she wanted to break her 50 Lira, and when she gets her change, there's also a 1 lira in there. This, she accidentally drops on the ground and begins to frantically search for it, enlisting our help in the process. None of us were in a position to help out all that much since we were all rolling around on the floor laughing ourselves breathless, but the best part of the search for the 1 lira came when Amanda replied to Clayton's "dude it's just a lira" with "No, dude, it's not just a lira. That's a doner." After that, there was no way any of us were going to be able to keep a straight face and we just dropped from laughter. It was a fun afternoon in a restaurant. I'm pretty sure those waiters have seen some interesting things, but nothing probably came close to the weirdness of 6-7 Americans plus a Turk looking around for a lira.

After eating and getting our batteries re-charged, we headed off and did a walk around our part of Europe. It was fun. It was kind of hot but there was some wind so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. While walking around, we got to the Unkapani Bridge (I think) and while we were crossing over the bridge, one of the shoeshine people walking by dropped his brush and Clayton being the nice person he is picked it up and handed it to the guy. Which started off a very funny situation. The shoeshine guy started walking away but then turned around and called to Clayton and started shining his shoes...This was all wonderful and good, and the shoes got shined, and the rest of us and Clayton are just waiting there expecting the shining to be done for free, except right when he gets done, the guy says, "20 Lira." All of us were like yeah, no, and Clayton laughed and handed him a 5 lira and walked off. Here's a picture of Clayton getting ripped off by the shoeshine guy...After that, we eventually got home. I hung out at their flat for a while and then went on my own way home. An exhausting but very fulfilling day.

Friday--The 2 Awesome C's: Carpets and Calligraphy...May 23, 2008

Friday was a wonderful day. In the morning we went to Prof Shields' friend's carpetshop where we got quite the lesson on carpets and kilims and everything associated with them. It was really very informative and enjoyable. The friend's name is Hasan, and the shop's name is adnan & hasan, and they're located within the Kapali Carsi (Grand Bazaar--a very complex area full of wonderful stuff). There are three stores within 5 feet of each other, and its hassle-free shopping. Here's a picture of Hasan...A tall man with very good English. There wasn't exactly a structure to what he told us about rugs, but he worked off a map he had and kind of touched on how rugs are used in the different regions of Turkey; how they're made; what different kinds of knots there are; and the way colors are made. It was a lot of information, but it was fun. Apparently there are two different kinds of knots used to make Turkish rugs--the Persian knot, which is a single knot, and the Turkish knot, also known as the Gordion knot, which is a double knot. He specifically stressed the fact that neither was harder or prettier than the other, they were just different ways of making knots for rugs. Hasan also talked about the different kinds of rugs--there are your normal carpets, kilims, and their sub-categories. For example, for kilims, there are the sumak kind and the cicim kind. The sumak type is more labor intensive and weft-brocaded and either side would work although one side is still the better one. Cicim, however, definitely has a right or wrong side and the work is done simultaneously.

Hasan also talked about the way to price rugs. Specifically for kilims, this is how it goes from least pricey to most:
kilim < cicim < sumak < antique kilim
Obviously antique kilims and carpets are going to cost more than just a normal rug. Hasan mentioned that a good rug should outlast its owner, so if you have a rug and its dying, that means it probably wasn't all that wonderful a quality :D

He also showed us an example of a silk rug which costs a couple thousand lira, which is still pretty much a couple thousand dollars, but it was very beautiful. In most cases rugs, specifically silk ones, are priced by the number of knots per square inch, and this one had quite a lot of knots. Here's a picture of said silk rug...It's the white one that's folded back a bit. Hasan said that you actually seriously count the number of knots in one square inch to determine the price.

Hasan also talked about some of the designs commonly used on carpets and kilims. There was one design he mentioned, called "eli belinde" in Turkish which means "hands on hips," which is a very old design found first on cave walls. This design symbolizes motherhood and fertility. Here's a picture of a kilim with examples of this design...The colorful ones underneath the white, wave-like designs are the "eli belinde" design. Some of the other desings that he mentioned along with what they symbolized were as follows:

ram's head-->symbol of power scorpion tail-->protection

meandering brook-->life hourglass-->time

pomegranate-->abundance wheat-->sacred

tree of life-->reincarnation

Hasan talked some about colors, pricing, and also about the different ways of using rugs and how they can be shaped. For example, they can be shaped and knotted into pillows, saddlebags, grain sacks, cradles, bench covers and many other useful things. We had a very enjoyable time in his shop.

After our time with Hasan in his shop, we went to Caferaga Medrese to have a small lesson on calligraphy. Said lesson was given by Efdaluddin Kilic, a calligrapher of awesome abilities. He showed us his calligraphy materials and demonstrated how the art of calligrahy works. Calligraphy is an art form that goes from teacher to student, and it has a very specific form that must be kept up with. In order to demonstrate this specificity, he drew the letter "waw" which looks like a horizontal nine but not really and placed little squares using the calligraphic pen he had used while drawing the letter itself. Here's an example of that where you can also see the letter I was trying to but failed to describe...

After that he wrote all our names in a very beautiful form. I was kind of jealous of Emily because she got two different styles of her name. Here's a picture of Emily's happiness...

After our calligraphy lesson, we went off to go to the flats but before getting all that far from the Medrese, we stopped at an ice cream stand type dealio and got ice cream. It was very good ice cream and we had fun while trying to get the ice cream because the guy preparing the ice cream was a fun person who obvioulsy liked making people work to get their ice cream. In the end though, the ice cream was gotten and enjoyed immensely.

I got back home to my paternal grandparents' house and then went over to my maternal grandmother's house and spent the weekend and Friday night over at her house. We visited many people over the weekend and I got to spend some time with my grandmother, so I was happy. Sunday morning (May 25) we (being my grandmother and I) were invited to a breakfast by my grandmother's friend and so we went to that. Very nice breakfast. We went to a restaurant type place that had a never-ending and ever-supplied buffet which meant I ate till I was full twice-over. It was deeeelicious. I was happy. After that we visited my grandmother's aunt and then she dropped me off back at my paternal grandparents' place. It was a fun Friday, and a very fun weekend.

Thursday...May 22, 2008

Not much happened on Thursday. We were to meet up at the Caferaga Medrese at 1 o'clock, so I woke up later than usual. Which was fun :D

Thursday morning and afternoon were nice, spent at the Caferaga Medrese where we sat and talked about our readings and experiences and observations and everything. It was fun. Thursday evening, however, is an entirely different story. Even though I'm writing this blog post almost 2 weeks after that Thursday, I remember my feelings like it happened just a minute ago.

I went to Eyup. To Ummi Sinan Dergah. There was supposed to be a zikr there, and I was going to get to see a lot of people that I knew and it would all be in one place and so it would help me avoid a lot of phone traffic and kontor loss (kontor is like minutes in America, the more you talk the more kontor you lose, and you buy kontor so that you have minutes to talk). And I had the best evening and night of my life.

It's amazing how a tiny little place when used right can fit so many people. How the walls can echo your voice back at you even though everywhere is full to the brim with people and there's no space left for your voice to bounce back. How one man's singing, another's breathing, and especially one woman's energy can take you up and away...I miss that night. I wish it were possible to go back and relive the past. I wish especially to go back to that night. I honestly don't have the words to describe it. I don't have any idea what to call the feelings I had while listening and how I was when I left...I didn't want to leave...I'd found another home, and it had embraced me. I felt everyone important to me was there with me, even though they were thousands of miles away, with an ocean in between us. But that didn't matter. They were there, next to me, surrounding me, embracing me. I knew then that I would never be alone.

I guess that was one of those nights where you have to live it to understand it. I'm really happy that I was a part of the fortunate people who lived it, and hopefully I will be a part of those who continue to live it now.

After that wonderful evening that went well into the night, I was taken home by a friend of my father's and his wife and brother. Before going home however, we all went to a restaurant that does very good and clean iskembe corba. I was only able to handle a couple spoons of that, but it was really very good. But I think my chi or something was off-balance after the evening, so I wasn't all that up to eating something like iskembe. After the corba though we got kulbasti, which was very edible to me because it came with french fries and rice and veggies and whatnot, so I had a very nice time. After that, my dad's friend took me home, and I slept.

No pictures included in this post because none were taken. Of my evening at the Ummi Sinan Dergah, I didn't want to disrespect the reader by offering only a snapshot that doesn't tell you anything. My only prayer would be that you have an experience like this as well. Wonderful doesn't even begin to cover anything. Marvelous is the same. Mystic doesn't even get close. Simply put--that evening was. And is. And will continue to be.

The Wednesday...You'll understand soon why it's THE Wednesday...Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Because Wednesday was Scavenger Hunt Day. And we didn't leave one stone of Istanbul unturned.

Okay, that's a bit of exaggeration, but we came pretty close to it. Wednesday was a very fun day. We met at the bottom of the Galata Tower at a little teahouse, and there we separated into three groups, two of three people one of four people, and The Prof gave us all a sheet of paper that had everything we needed to do listed on it. That day was walking around day. We walked A LOT. And we went a lot of places and saw a lot of interesting things.

My group had it a bit easier so I feel kind of guilty--knowing Turkish helps a lot and I was always too lazy to not say anything which kept us from getting lost, which kind of made Zoe and Kevin not have the full experience of getting lost and not knowing the language and somehow managing to communicate anyways and getting directions to places. I did let them lead towards the end of the scavenger hunt, but for the most part, I kept asking for directions and whatnot. Still, it was fun, and we enjoyed walking around the city a lot.

Some of the things we had to do was to figure out how many Starbucks were on Istiklal, what patlican, enginar, cilek, elma, balik, balikci, simit, and simitci were (eggplant, artichoke, strawberry, apple, fish, fisherman, Turkish bagle essentially, Turkish bagleman), get a train schedule from Haydarpasa Train station (meaning cross over to Asia), eat ice cream on Asia, find the Sublime Porte (not so Sublime), take a picture of ourselves in front of three Mimar Sinan buildings (the greatest architect of all time, built many many mosques without using modern technology but his buildings still stand whereas the random modern buildings that get put up collapse at the first sign of an earthquake), take a picture of ourselves in front of Kasier Wilhelm's fountain, and much much more. We also had to go and visit at least two palaces in which Ottoman sultans had lived, but we only had enough energy to do one, which was the Topkapi Palace, and we got a picture of Dolmabahce Palace from the ferry.

It was a very hot day, so here's what I looked like when I decided that it would be better to look ridiculous than get heatstroke or whatever...

During our walk, we discovered Kalenderhane Camii, which actually used to be a church.

We were really proud to have found this place because it became apparent that it wasn't all that well-known. Its a really nice place, very similar to Aya Sofya, because its' walls are also covered in marble (with the exception of the ceiling), and it has a feeling of originally being a dark place, but now there are windows opened up all around it that let in the light. One minaret, of course, and only one dome, I think. A nice place. It was very peaceful. It's still actively used although there wasn't all that much action going on around it. It has the best acoustics I've ever heard though, that has to be mentioned. Right when we were walking out, a man went in and started to read the Qur'an, and I was spell-bound. It had to be one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard. Here's a black-and-white photo of the interior that Zoe took that has Kevin and I in it. I think its a pretty good shot so...

Copyright is all Zoe, May 21, 2008.

After doing all our walking, we went back to Istiklal Caddesi and our final mission was to find the Prof and William's apartment, and we had it easy with that one too. Kevin had gone there before when he came from America, so he knew the way.

By the way, I don't really want you to think that it wasn't hard and arduous for us--it was. We did a lot of walking and talking and energy spending. Its just that me knowing Turkish helped out a lot.

And guess what I did at the end of that day? Ate, took a shower, and shwoomed on to my wonderful beautiful waiting-for-me bed.

That Wonderful Second Day...Tuesday, May 20, 2008

On the second day of class, we went to Asia!!! Hah. You can't say you did that for all that many places in the world. It was going back home for me since I already live in Asia with my grandparents (in Uskudar specifically), but it was fun to go with the other peeps since they were all excited about the fact that they could say "So, I went to Asia today from Europe, what'd you do?" Going to Asia also meant that everyone got an akbil, which is actually "akilli bilet" which means "intelligent ticket" and let me tell you, it is very intelligent. I am quite honestly in love with my akbil. It has saved me many a hassle. Here's a picture of said beautiful device...

So after getting our akbils, we got on the ferry to go over to Kadikoy. On the way to Kadikoy we got to see a panorama of the mosques and Topkapi Palace on the Eminonu side of Europe, which was quite beautiful. Here's a picture of SultanAhmet Camii, Aya Sofya, and Topkapi Palace from when we were pretty close to the Kadikoy dock...

On the way to the Kadikoy dock, the ferry stopped at the Haydarpasa train station as well. Here's a photo; its not a very good one, but it's the best I have...

After getting off the ferry, we went to the weekly bazaar that was taking place in between the streets of Kadikoy pretty close to the dock. All of the colors, the smells, the yells of the people trying to sell their produce or wares or whatever, all of that was as familiar and as new an experience as anything. I felt right at home, but having ten other Americans who hadn't really seen anything like this made it seem like a novel experience.

We passed a fun day walking around the bazaar and the streets with all the vendors. The philosophy of the people selling clothes on the street seems to be to put up as many of their wares as possible in a very tiny amount of space, so it was as if we were walking through different forests. Forest of the Bikinis...Forest of the T-shirts...

Forest of the Socks...

There were also Forest of the Tennis Shoes and Forest of the Belts and Forest of the Jewelry (Necklaces, bracelets, etc) but I don't have any pictures of those, so it will be up to the imagination of the reader to think up an image of those.

After walking around in Kadikoy for a couple hours, I left my group and went over to SultanAhmet to meet up with Professor Omid Safi and Professor Rob Rozehnal and their group of Americans to go to Tumata. Tumata is Rahmi Oruc Guvenc's group and is dedicated to researching and preserving very early Turkish music. And when I say early I mean early. When we went up to the museum-like part of the office, it was full of instruments that I had never seen before, and Mr. Guvenc explained that some of the instruments had actually been extinct before and they had just found pictures of them in books and manuscripts and had built them in their own workshop. A very impressive place, quite honestly.

All of the walls were full of different instruments, although they were kind of arranged by type of instrument, so one wall was full of string instruments; half of one wall was full of flutes kind of like the ney but just normal flutes as well; in one corner there were rhythm instruments cascading down; and many more. The string instruments were also divided up by how they were played be they plucked or bowed. After thinking that the world music class I took last semester would only be good enough to get me the credit needed, I was pleasantly surprised to note that the class was coming in useful now because I could look around and point out the different instruments knowing their names and the places they came from.

My uncle had also come to the Tumata place and he played the bendir for a while, and when the playing and singing were finished, my uncle and I left. While walking towards the dock, we stopped over at a watch store and my uncle started to bargain for a watch. This was very amusing to me since it was almost 11 pm and here we were bargaining for a watch...It got even more amusing when my uncle lowered the price to almost half the original price, then called his friend to ask him what price he had gotten. After learning that the friend had gotten the same price elsewhere, my uncle told him to come to that watch store and take a look at the watch there. What got me laughing was when we walked out of the store, my uncle said that although the salesman had said that he wouldn't lower the price, the friend that would go later to haggle some more would be able to bring down the price to half of the half that my uncle had gotten it to.

While walking down to the dock, we stopped at Bolulu Hasan Usta's dessert place and all I can say is yummy. I had kaymakli ekmek kadayifi, which I am very sad that I did not take a picture of but I will be sure to do so soon and post that up. It was wonderful. Delicious. Sumptuous. I was in heaven. And the kaymak was really good. It took away from the extreme sugar of the ekmek kadayifi. The only weird thing was that the place didn't have tea. I think this is the one place in the entirety of Istanbul that is a dessert place but doesn't serve tea. And no, it isn't just because it was very late at night. I went back there a couple days later and got a krem karamel and when I asked for tea they said they didn't have it again. And when I'd gone it was around 11 am.

When we got to the dock and got on the ferry, I started laughing again when I noticed that the helper for the salesman in the watch store was sitting behind us on the ferry. After that, my uncle and I came home and I crashed into my bed, exhausted after all the walking around and the heat. But what a wonderful day.

And so the class begins...Monday, May 19, 2008

Class was technically supposed to start on Sunday, but not all people were in Turkiye yet, so that got postponed until Monday. And Monday suddenly became my favorite day because that was when the class finally got together (minus Edward who was having passport issues because his passport had gone through the laundry and looked weird and he probably wouldn't have been able to get into Turkiye, although that just seems backwards than how it would usually be since he was able to get through in America and UK but just not in Turkiye...new things happen too...).

We met up at the foot of the Galata Tower (where the guys' and girls' apartments are near) and went up the tower. Going into these types of places that get a lot of tourists makes me appreciate the fact I'm Turkish all over again because I always get to pay less :D In this case though, I was included in the tourist fare and the Burch Seminar paid for the tickets. So we went up to the top of the Galata Tower and had a very nice panoramic view of Istanbul, specifically the European side. Didn't get too much Asia, but it could be seen in the distance if one looked hard enough.

After walking around on the Galata Tower and taking photos of the city from that most wonderful and panoramic point, we went down the stairs and walked over to the Galata Bridge. Here's a view of the Bridge and from the Bridge from the left (meaning you are standing at Karakoy and looking towards Eminonu).




You can see all the fishermen, and also Yeni Camii. After crossing the bridge, we went over to the Yeni Camii which is actually in a complex. There's the mosque, and surrounding it is the Spice Bazaar, which actually came before the mosque in order to support the building of the mosque. It provided the revenue. Here's a close-up of the Yeni Camii...

We walked around in the Spice Bazaar, called the Misir (without the dots on the i's in Turkish) Carsisi (same here--no dots on the i's and squiggle on the first s). A very colorful and nice place, much like the Grand Bazaar but smaller and obviously more concentrated on spices although it did have a variety of other things. After walking around the Spice Bazaar, we met outside the front door to the Bazaar and went in to check out the mosque. Birds essentially surrounded the entire area around the mosque. Here's a photo of just one part of one wall of the mosque with birds...

Ignore the random Turkish guy in the middle of the picture.

We went in the mosque, and it was right around noon prayer time, so I asked if I could be excused and did my prayers with everybody else who was praying. It felt nice to be able to pray with a lot of other people after such a long time of not having the opportunity to do so. I enjoyed it. After praying, I went back to my group. We then decided to get up and go exploring. The original plan was to tag along with the Prof and William, but then we figured that we'd leave them alone and go exploring on our own, so that's what we did. And we happened to find a masoleum of some of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. 6 sultans were buried there along with their families. It was quite a big masoleum because it seriously did house the families as well as the sultans themselves--there were rows of little coffins for the children of the sultans who had died very early on in life. There were coffins for the wives of the sultans, and big coffins with a specific turban in front of the coffins for the sultans themselves. Also, the tilework and designs and windows in and around the masoleum were quite wonderful. Here's an example of the tilework on the inside...Here's a picture of the outside of the masoleum...And here's another, again of the outside...

After walking around the Spice Bazaar a little and the Yeni Camii, we went to Sultanahmet Mosque and to Mado aka the best dondurma (ice cream) you will ever find anywhere.

After all that, I went home and probably crashed onto my bed. Joking. I showered, ate, and THEN I crashed onto my bed. But oh, what a fun day. Little was it known that the next day would be even more interesting... :D