It’s hard to summarize the entire two weeks of vacation and travel I just experienced while watching the clock to make sure I get 8 hours of sleep for tomorrow’s day of teaching. Yes, like so many before me, I am having the greatest of difficulties forcing my mind out of the holiday mindset and back into my work. Surely recounting the story of my travels wouldn’t make that any easier, but some of my readers might be curious about what I’ve been up to while ignoring my blog lately – I’m making excuses to prematurely reminisce; it’s common knowledge I have very few readers. A much more convincing excuse: I should write as much as I can while the memories are still fresh. I should have kept a travel log – I brought one along and everything – but there was no time, and when there was time there was either no energy or song lyrics that took priority. So here we go:
The set up:
Courtney in the Hagia Sophia
Courtney traveled with me throughout my semester holiday. She got here a couple days before it started and left with a half-day to go. She lives in Portland now and works as a nanny-waitress, both jobs that allowed her a couple weeks off in February for travel. In all honesty she was the one who did most of the research for this trip. I’m not one for guidebooks – in Milan I didn’t even buy myself a map, just wandered around the 5-million-person city until I found the cathedral. I read about what I saw afterwards (I saw the Shroud of Turin without even realizing it) while Courtney reads up as much as she can beforehand. I have a rough idea of what I want to see, she is ore specific. It turned out to make a great match, and she’s going to turn up in a lot of the pictures.
Courtney and me in a hot air balloon in Kapadokya
Istanbul – January 29-31
Istanbul is a gigantic city – something like 15 million people – and we didn’t have nearly enough time to see all we wanted to, and even if we did we wouldn’t have had the energy to be tourists that long. Istanbul was my domain. We saw sights I had seen once or even twice before, and I got to really show off that I lived in the city, complete with speaking Turkish here and there. In fact it was kind of a lonely feeling. I didn’t feel American because I was living in Turkey, trying to speak the native language whenever I could, but I certainly wasn’t Turkish either.
Hagia Sophia, outside at sunset
Our first stop was the Hagia Sophia, the ancient Byzantine church-made-mosque-made-museum. It’s one of the top tourist sites in Istanbul, located right across from and in eyesight of the famous Blue Mosque as a bonus. Honestly, the last time I’d seen the Hagia Sophia I’d been a) too cold, and b) too interested in my new Turkish friends to really enjoy being there. Courtney’s excitement about the place was very helpful to me. She’s a very spiritual person, and that perspective helped me understand the amazing conjunction of faiths in the building, both Muslim and Christian. She especially liked how low the chandeliers were, making the atmosphere more intimate than the gigantic construction might suggest from the outside.
Inside the Hagia Sophia
We ate dinner (Oh, man, food! How can I possibly mention everything??) on the Galata bridge, a very expensive place to eat because of its being so touristy and because it only sells fish, but we cheated the system by ordering Balık Ekmek, or fish sandwiches, which are actually a delicacy. Too cheap to be listed on the menu, though. Our wine cost almost double the meal. Success!
Inside the Hagia Sophia
One day Courtney dropped her wallet in the touristy area and a Turkish man picked it up and chased her down to return it, everything left inside. It was a touching moment of kindness – my friend Can said that’s a typical Turkish thing to do, actually. Turkish hospitality really is something, isn’t it? Almost makes up for when her wallet was stolen during one of her last days here.
Bosporus
One of our days in Istanbul was devoted to a boat ride up the Bosporus to the northernmost point of Istanbul where we could see the Black Sea for the first time in either of our lives. As I’ve mentioned before, the Bosporus fills me with an amount of satisfaction, and whenever I’m about to see it I feel inexplicably giddy. On this trip we were about 30 seconds from being left behind, which was almost too nerve-racking to overcome. Almost.
Maiden's Tower on the Bosporus
We stopped in the northernmost neighborhood (whose name I forget) for a few hours, just enough time to have (another) Balık Ekmek and hike up to the castle above the village. It was closed to visitors sadly – one of the hazards of traveling off-season is that lots of attractions are under renovation – but we could still see the black sea as well as the fortress’s outside, which was fine with both of us. As an added treat a local shepherd led his sheep to graze at the fortress’s feet, which was both adorable and photogenic (like me, Courtney is totally into photography – together we took about 1,250 pictures each throughout the trip). One of the sheep dogs led us down the hill and back to the harbor, and after about 10 minutes of being led by him we dubbed him “guide dog.” Thus began the tradition of animals loving Courtney that would follow us throughout the journey.
Cortney with Guide Dog
Sheep grazing at the foot of the fortress
Courtney taking a picture of the Black Sea
Sheep grazing at the foot of the fortress
We had dinner with my friends a couple times. Once in Beşiktaş at a place called Café Pi, I tried an eggplant (patlıcan) dolma that was out of this world, which we would try again in Selçuk under the name “Imam’s Favorite.” The woman at the table across from us had a flaming liquor, then smoked the trapped fumes, thus allowing all of us as much of the experience as we were willing to pay for, so we didn’t have to try it ourselves (those kinds of things look so cool on the menu, don’t they?).
Me in the Archeology Museum
We also went into the Underground Cistern and the Archeology museum, but I’ve mentioned those a couple times before and nothing really new came up this time. I do love the Underground Cistern, though, and it’s still my favorite thing in Istanbul next to the Bosporus. In the Archeology Museum I noticed a huge pot labeled “Küp,” with the translation, “Large Jar.” One of the most helpful labels I’ve ever seen.
Thus began the tradition of searching out all the large jars I could find wherever we went, for the rest of the trip.
Me next to the large jar
The mysterious sideways head of Medusa in the Underground Cistern
The Underground Cistern
All in all, Istanbul did not make for the most interesting part of my holiday, partly because of the lonely feeling it gave me, partly because I’d seen it all already, partly because I had to get used to being a tourist again. The hi-light was definitely the Bosporus boat trip. That body of water is magical.
Coming up next: Selçuk and Efes. Stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments