Kilim

Antalya... the Miami of Turkey. It is a city full of palm trees, modern buildings (with the exception of the old city) and intrusive salesmen lining the streets.

The Alp Pasa hotel is in the center of Old City, Kaleiçi, and is set amongst the local homes, stray dogs and cats, and the "modern" bazaar. We did not leave the old city, except for the beach and getting lost at a random bus stop...

Our day in Antalya began taking a taxi to the beach and relaxing on a bed sleeping next to the crashing waves. Around 5:00 we headed back to the hotel, very relaxed and sunkissed. We showered and cleaned up and left the hotel for a stroll, wandering around and stumbling upon the city's most touristy bazaar. The salesmen were following us and trying to figure out what language we spoke by yelling off a series of memorized phrases until we responded. We were rather rude to most of them, just ignoring them or saying Hello without turning around. We did stop, however, at the sight of a Kilim hanging in the street. As we slowed down, the owner of the shop, who had been following us for a while, began to show us the rug. He took the Kilim down and we went into his shop to look around at some more. After talking with him for ten minutes, I bought one! Yeah! The one souvenir I really wanted from Turkey. After we made our purchase and haggled the price down to almost cost;), we sat and had tea with Ishtar and he invited us out for wine. Come to find out he was hoping to court Emily. This was interesting, because we had to avoid the conversation while "enjoying" our wine. Twice he said to me, "I like your friend very much" and he kept telling Emily how captivating her eyes are. He was very nice, however and a great person to buy Kilim from. The view at dinner was almost worth the torturing conversation.

Off to bed after a relaxing start to a stressful afternoon.

(On the way home two French men offered to buy us Corona, and we could not figure out what they were saying so we talked to them longer than we probably should have)

On a side note, we have been very surprised at how well people speak English here. It makes us feel a little more guilty for not trying to learn more Turkish.

Quote of the day (Pazartesi) "I can't think of anything better to do for five hours than walk." -Treanna

çok... tesekkurler ederim

After sleeping away a full day’s worth of time, we woke up full of energy and ready to shower. The first activity of the morning was our Chora Church tour through Backpacker’s Travel. We were greeted by a young Turkish tour guide who spoke English like an Australian. She cheerfully relayed the fact that she had locked her friend in her apartment this morning, not realizing she was still there. She was very friendly. Everyone else on our tour was a bit older, but very nice. There was a couple from South Africa and two men from the US.

The whole time we’ve been here, people have been guessing our nationality incorrectly. We’ve been taken for Dutch, Australian, Polish, and Kiwi, but have yet for anyone to guess American. The tour guide explained to us that this is because people automatically think two young girls travelling by themselves are not American. Most of the Americans that travel to Istanbul are old couples, and any young girls are usually from Australia.

Today was Istanbul Conquer Day, which celebrates the Turkish taking over Istanbul 700 years ago. The tour guide kept complaining about the road closures and traffic jams, and apologizing to us for the delays in the tour. Personally, I was excited that we might be able to see some type of celebration that tourists wouldn’t normally get to see. Excitedly, I asked her if this might be the case. Her response was, “No one in Istanbul actually celebrates, we just worry about the traffic jams.” She proceeded to recount the Istanbullu reactions upon hearing the announcement of Obama’s visit; rather than being excited about the president visiting their country, they all grumbled about what awful traffic it would cause. Sure enough, there was plenty of traffic and little celebration, other than a few red banners.

The first stop on the tour was the Fortress of the Seven Towers, or “the dungeon.” This used to be the entrance gates to Constantinople, and then later was converted into a dungeon for rebellious janissaries during the Ottoman era. Disobedient janissaries and foreign ambassadors were be-headed on a daily basis in the dungeon. The heads would be hung on the gates to the sultan’s palace, and the bodies would be dropped through a hole in the ground that led straight to the Sea of Marmara. We had the opportunity to stare down the hole while listening to the story.

The second stop was the Chora Church (pronounced Core-a), a Greek Orthodox church originally built in the 4^th century AD. The walls and ceilings were covered with mosaics depicting Jesus and Mary’s lives from birth through death. While listening to our guide tell the stories of each of Jesus’ miracles, I couldn’t help tearing up. The Chora is perhaps the oldest remaining church, and so the paintings are the closest we can come to knowing what Jesus really looked like. It was also nice to finally appreciate some sights from my own religion, after spending so much time in Muslim areas.

We then drove to the largest graveyard I’ve ever seen, on Pierre Loti hill. The graves, which take up an entire mountainside, are dated anywhere from the Byzantine era to modern-times. At the bottom of the hill is the Eyup Sultan Mosque, which contains the tomb of Mohammed’s best friend (Eyup Sultan), and is considered the most holy place in Turkey. The grave plots on Pierre Loti get more and more expensive the closer they are to this mosque. Apparently the Muslims are so infatuated with eternally lying near the resting place of the Eyup that they will pay more than the cost of a house for these plots of land.

I was fortunate enough to be able to go inside the mosque itself, which was small and sweaty and crowded. The most interesting part of the mosque was the people in the courtyard. There were dozens of young boys dressed in sultan outfits, taking pictures. It is Istanbullu tradition to bring your son to this mosque on the day he gets circumcised, which is what all the little sultans and their families were there celebrating. There was a giant tree in the courtyard which had grown around the fence, which was very cool to see as well.

Finally, we stopped at the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch, which is what the tour guide called “The Vatican of the Orthodox.” It was a beautiful church, and ironically when we arrived, there was a wedding taking place. Our tour guide walked us right on in though, and we watched the wedding. There were men singing beautiful, exotic-sounding Orthodox hymns. Although the church was decked out in golden filigree and chandeliers, the coolest part was a plain pillar in the corner. The pillar had been imported from Israel, and is believed to be the pillar that Jesus held while being whipped before carrying his cross. There were also the caskets of three famous women saints, which the Orthodox people would lean over and kiss as they walked by.

By this time in the day, the traffic was horrific, and our tour guide was going to be late for meeting her next tour. She ended up dropping us all off on main roads near our hotels, rather than actually take us back to the entrance. Of course then Treanna and I got lost and walked around for an extra hour in the hot, crowded bazaars, trying to ask for directions and not understanding the Turkish responses.

An adventurous American man on our tour was going on a week-long white-water rafting trip in Southeastern Turkey. He told us he had rafted in Nepal, Brazil, Peru, and Chile, but never in the US.

Adam, the boy from the bank at the airport, met us at our hotel in the afternoon. First we walked to the Hippodrome, then he suggested we see Taksim, which is “where everyone goes.” It was a huge fancy shopping area, which was just as crowded as Sultanahmet. Interestingly enough, our guidebook passed it off as a “leafy and exclusive suburb,” although it was more like a totally hoppin outdoor mall. The highlight of our shopping experience was walking into countless electronic stores trying to find a phone charger, since I somehow managed to leave mine at home.

As part of the European Capital of Culture award, Istanbul docks the International Tall Ship Regatta, with giant sailboats from different countries. We walked along the docks looking at the ships and watching the Omani and Indonesian sailors dance. On our way past the Bulgarian ship, a bunch of the sailors started jumping on the back hull of the ship so that it slapped down into the water and splashed a huge wave in our direction. We got completely soaked, and they thought it was hilarious.

We then ate dinner under the Galata bridge, watching the ships on the Bosphorus make their final tours for the evening. Treanna tried raki, a Turkish grape & anise-seed brandy which tastes similar to Hennessy. She seemed to enjoy it, though I thought it was disgusting.

Now we’re on our way to Antalya on a red-eye flight. Clearly sleeping was not a priority in the planning of this trip.

The city in the morning

Istanbul is not exactly a clean city. There is a lot of dirt in the air, and the humidity grows as the day progresses. We left the hotel and headed off to find the Hippodrome. We had printed off maps on google before leaving the country, and they are bound in Emily's handy notebook. Looking at the maps I determine that e need to head left and as we walk we waited for the last of the stores to open and decided to stop for coffee (for Emily) and breakfast. We went into one of the tens of bakeries we passed and asked for "iki" as I pointed to the pastry of choice and stumbled around asking for coffee. Even if we try to speak in Turkish, we must be saying something terribly wrong, because we are obviously hard to understand, luckily broken English and sign language have done the trick thus far.

We had a delicious pastry (Neviste!) and Emily ate, yes ate, some Turkish coffee. In her words it did the trick. Leaving the bakery we continued "left" only to get really mixed around, because none of the landmarks we were expecting were quite where they were suppose to be. The Mosque up on the left, did not get to us until two blocks after we expected it and after reviewing the map two miles later, we determined we went in the wrong direction. Apparently Mosques are a bad judge of location, because as we turn around and trek the four miles back in the other direction we stumble across a total of five gorgeous mosques. One we chose to stop and look at had a man praying out front on a designated rug situated facing the proper direction (East to Mecca). Fascinated at the rigidity of the motions and precise movement in prayer, I probably stared a few seconds too long.

We came across a man trying to sell tour guides and he offered up some free informations, graciously pointing out the blue mosque and the AyaSofia to us, however it turns out the information was not free, because we could not get him to stop trying to sell us his books and postcards even as we walked away, and eventually our non-desire to buy postcards caused him to drop his price from 5TL to 2, so Emily bought 12 postcards for around 1 USD and we were in peace again, and headed in the direction of the Blue Mosque! The pillars stuck out from behind the trees first and then the massive dome and eventually the perfectly structured garden. We were caught staring by another local man, probably in his early 30s who asked us if we were from Australia, second guess, New Zealand. Earlier in the day we had been guessed as Polish and later we would be guessed as German, but no one ever suspected us as American, probably due to our impeccable dress:). The man whose name leaves me, told us everything he could from a distance about the two massive Mosques on either side of us and as he started to explain the the Blue Mosque was currently open to the public, but the AyaSofia would not open for another hour, he decided we needed a free tour guide around the Blue Mosque, or Sulatanamette as it is called by the Turkish. He was so helpful, and we learned so much, from the Muslim rituals, to the best places to take pictures. He had done this before, and we knew why. The typical salesman, enticing the prey with hospitality. The final stop on his tour was his family run rug shop. We were greeted with tea from whom I assume was either his or his brother's wife. She never spoke to us or even smiled, but was very kind in a different manner hard to describe and served delicious apple tea. After hearing all about turkish rugs and choking on the $500 price tag attached to the smallest one, we left embarrassed that we could not afford to support such wonderful people who dedicated the time to show us around and were so hospitable... wait... ok, the feeling of humility was gone when we realized how much we had been suckered by great sales tactics, and yet we laughed that they would choose us (two young girls) to devote all that energy to, when in our heads it should be obvious that we probably do not have all the money in the world, but again, I attribute our carefully planned dress to making us look more mature I suppose (thank you mom).

We explored AyaSofia next and at a fee of 20TL, but the history here was amazing, a previous roman catholic church, mosque, and now museum, the juxtaposition of the two religions laying side by side in decor and architectural design was a sight seemingly impossible. Emily had a tour guide book that she read aloud as we walked through the halls mentioned in the text and the tour was great. So much information and free, thanks to the library:), everyone else paid extra for a tour guide who spoke their language, so we had to navigate around clusters of Germans, Japanese, and British families. It is always fun to hear so many languages in one place. Especially when marveling in the history of a building full of diverse backgrounds.

As we walked the streets we stumbled upon many great sights, parks, bazaars, and men slowing down to almost a stop to stare at us as we walked. I thank God for the busy streets and the sense of awareness he gave me today of my surroundings. However, at one point we had accidentally walked down a dead end street, and my heart began to race once I realized the expected outlet of the street was not there. Back tracking along the street feels like a dead giveaway that we were temporarily confused. We retreated as quickly as possible and decided to ask for directions. Good call, because once again, we were completely turned around. Something about how this city is built and I cannot keep my bearings straight.

It was only noon when we reached the Bosphorous cruise, but we could feel the pain of the last 38 hours creeping up on us. Emily's feet and my back were throbbing and we both were having the hardest time keeping our eyes open, but we made it through a two hour cruise and headed back to the hotel around 2:00 when we immediately fell asleep.

The city at night...

It's 9:00pm and I have woken from the "nap." However, it is dark and we are alone, and Emily is still not ready to wake up, so we decide it is a good idea to stick out the night in the hotel. The sound of the Mosque prayer and worship service belts over a loud speaker and the Priest singing the Karan is an eire but amazing sound around 9:30, people are busy and cars are rushing out for the evening. I get a call from Adam, our exchanger from he airport, and he offers to take us around tomorrow afternoon. The sounds of people shouting on the streets does not stop until midnight and I am able to get a few more hours of shut eye.

Rooftop Serenity

We arrived in Istanbul at 4am with very little sleep, I am not sure I was even able to close my eyes on the flight in, thankfully Emily received an hour or so of shut eye. Turkish airlines was great however, wonderful food, good hospitality and smiles everywhere.

I now sit on the rooftop of our hotel. It is dawn and we just arrived by hotel shuttle after exchanging money at the airport only to have our exchanger very interested in our stay and tell us we need to be extremely careful in Istanbul, and he tells us he would like to show us around while we are here.

I sit now on the roof and watch the city wake up. It is a gorgeous sight, the pier is laid out below us in a deep misty haze and there is a man who was the first to arrive at work on the block busily sewing away from a building window across the narrow one way cobble street. The hum of the sewing machine and the release of sea gulls flying over head are the only sounds of the city. The sun is rising casting a rosy haze over the water and the three story building surrounding us start to come to life. The man is joined by coworkers and the sewing machines take off as shops start to open their doors and we decide we best get going to see the city.

6 hours in London

We are on our way to Turkey and had a jolly good layover in London. We arrived after a red-eye flight, in which we were thankfully upgraded to Economy Plus (Yeah for leg room!). We did not get much sleep, however enough to last the 8-hour day ahead of us. After getting to Heathrow it was really easy to find the Express train (Tube) to Paddington Terminal in Westminster, London. Emily pulled out her “maniacal control freak” (as she puts it) booklet, which came in very handy at customs. We strained over the image of the ticket booth we were in search of only to end up asking an officer. He was very nice and told us we probably did not want to walk all the way to Trafalgar Square as our picture depicted, but we asked directions anyway and he pointed us down a street we had to ask twice the name of. We ended up finding a ticket booth within five blocks (about halfway to the one in our picture) and hopped on The Original Tour Bus 50 pounds later (about 80 USD agghhhh!). It was worth it though, because other than Buckingham Palace, which we forfeited in lieu of dinner, we were able to see most of the city in about three hours. For dinner, we went to a very authentic French restaurant…

Emily: At the restaurant, all the waiters were French. Upon being served French fries, we took the liberty of asking the waitress if they are actually French. She said they were British. The meal was fine, and at the end Emily told the waiter we had “eaten has much as we possibly could,” to which he replied, “that’s nice” in a snotty French voice. Treanna managed to leave a pristine impression of Americans by rudely leaving her fork on her plate (which intensely confused the bus boy, who must never have had to deal with such blasphemous etiquette). She also left a cucumber on the table, which had fallen into her bag from the previous flight.

We are boarding our flight to Turkey and look forward to what the next leg of our trip will hold. Hopefully some mild excitement, relaxation, and a lot of safe adventures.