Tuesday/Wednesday

at the Oriental Express restaurant inside Sirekeci Station with a cup of Turkish coffe

So I've been a little slack about posting...sorry avid readers, I know I have kept you in suspense and you are desperate for an update!

Tuesday

Today was a very nice, relaxing day. Slept in, caught up on blogging, uploading pictures, etc., and then in the afternoon we met with Professor Murat Ozyuksel from Istanbul University to discuss the industrialization of Istanbul, especially the effect of trains on Turkey and its peoples. We watched a short film on the subject, which ended up being about 2 1/2 times as long because Yekta had to stop and translate about every thirty seconds! Poor Yekta - simultaneous translation is a doozy! Not that I would know. I was seriously amazed at her skills - her translation was poetic and not choppy at all - a future profession perhaps?

Then we headed up to the terrace and got into a discussion about Turkish politics. It was very heartening to hear a Turk so freely speak about his distaste for government censorship and his hope for a truly deomcratic Turkey. Two of the major issues regarding this censorship are 1) the government blocking YouTube, and 2) the government allowing women in university to wear headscarves. This is a very multi-faceted issue, as the current government has both lifted a law that many would consider a violation of human rights by allowing women to wear headscarves and violated human rights by blocking YouTube.

Prof. Shields left us to help William finish cooking dinner, and about an hour later we headed up Istiklal to their flat. We had some delicious fajitas and then decided to teach the profs how to play Catchphrase - it was so fun/funny! I'm sure we will play again...


Wednesday

inside Sirekeci Station

Today we didn't have to meet again until 1:45, so Emily and I went to our place for our oral history project. Our project is on Sirekeci Train Station, which is where the Oriental Express first pulled into Istanbul. After poking around, which included making our way into the station managers private quarters, we ate lunch at the Orient Express Restaurant, which opened its doors in 1890. I had something called "imam bayildi," which means "the imam has fainted." It's basically stuffed eggplant, served chilled, and it was delicious.

the private quarters
imam bayildi

After lunch, we started making our way to the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. On the way, we bumped into this awesome art gallery, and one of the artists was a covered woman, which means that she wears the traditional Muslim headscarf and the conservative dress. Her artwork was amazing; here are some pictures of it. If only I had 100 euro to blow...

the sign outside the door

one of my favorite pieces

another one, of whirling dervishes

I absolutely LOVED the museum, and although I do like art museums a lot, I have never been so enthralled by one.

the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art

I think this is due to the fact that most of the art within the museum is functional - carpets,
prayer rugs, jewelry, Koran calligraphy, etc.

the Koran, decorated with calligraphy

Also, it helped that we had amazing guide, Art historian Nazende Yilmaz from Mimar Sinan University, who answered all my questions along the way. We have been seeing tulips all over the city and in artwork, and Clayton told me that it was because Sultan Ahmed III loved tulips. I felt that there was some other story there, so I asked our guide and she told me that tulips, contrary to popular belief actually originated in Turkey and not in Holland. Even the Turks had forgotten this by the time reign of Sultan Ahmed III in the 18th century, and he decided that in order to make Turkey seem more Western he would import tulips back to Turkey. Also, much of the reason that it is used in Islamic art is due to symbolism - the letters in the Turkish word for tulip, lale, can be rearranged to spell "Allah" (kind of, I guess its more of a phonetic thing.) So, the tulip in Turkish art represents Allah. Similarly, the rose symbolizes the prophet Muhammed and the carnation is Ali. There are tulip images all throughout Istanbul - even statue-like tulips, like the donkeys and elephants painted by local artists of DC. There are a bunch in Taksim and some in front of Yeni Camii - I'll take pictures and try to post them soon.

in the Museum

Then Kelly, Emily, and I went to go get a snack of dondurma ( ice cream) and then sat waiting for the rest of our group to get to our meeting point. While we were waiting, a large Asian family walked near us, and one of the older men randomly wanted to take a few pictures with us. A little weird; we couldn't quite figure out why he wanted to...
So after our awesome tour, we headed to our classroom for a Turkish lesson with Hande. It was so much fun and informative, punctuated with hilarious moments which our group recognized with much laughter. Seems to be a common theme with us, something that I'm sure will be appreciated throughout the trip.

Turkish lesson at the medrese with Turkish tea

After that, we took the Tunel, the second-oldest subway line in the world (next to the London Underground), up to Istiklal, saw a man bum a free ride by hopping on the back (it becomes above ground once it reaches Istiklal) and walked down to our flat. Then some dinner and back to Istiklal for some Efes and people-watching. Some interesting characters - a belching man, crazy woman yelling at a wall, and two friendly polis carrying semi-automatics and walking around Taksim Square.

Çok Success!

Today we met in front of Topkapi Palace to explore Ottoman history firsthand. Edward won the “Where’s William” game, spotting William from about 50 yards away. Topkapi Palace was the residence of Ottoman sultans from the 1460’s until the mid-nineteenth century, and has loads of interesting stories, relics, and buildings. Prof. Shields had enlisted the help of Leslie Pierce to enlighten us about Topkapi Palace and its history, especially the history of the harems. And what a rich and interesting history it has. Topkapi Palace, in the tradition of Ottoman palaces, moves inwards to more and more private sections. There are three concentric circles in Topkapi Palace, with the outer being the most public. The outer circle was reserved for palace workers, especially artisans commissioned by the Sultan. According to Ms. Pierce, it was a dirty, messy place. What we noticed was the large amounts of stray cats wandering around. Edward made the apt observation that “cats in Turkey are like squirrels at UNC.” Wise words, Edward. We then moved on to the middle circle, where the kitchens were. There was a beautiful collection of Chinese porcelains and also celadon, which Ms. Pierce told us carried a legend about its green color changing when holding poisoned food. Another building had a beautiful collection of Ottoman sultans’ clothing, and we wondered at their massive size, especially the enormous length of the sleeves. Yekta inferred that the size of their clothing was used to demonstrate their immense power, but we forgot to ask Ms. Pierce about it. Then we went to the place where the Divan, or the Council of Ministers, met. There, the Sultan had a golden grate where he watched from above. Talk about power symbolism…

After that, it was on to the third and most inner circle and my favorite part of the day. We entered into the Sultan’s Privy Chambers, where many relics are kept. I told that to Thomas and he thought that it meant that the Sultan kept relics in his bathroom! What a goof. We were in this line, ad I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and then came to this unimpressive mount in the wall. In it was a sword, and I glanced down at the plaque, wondering what it was. You know David, from David and Goliath? Yeah, it was his sword. My jaw dropped about down to the floor. The prof had not warned us about how awesome these relics were going to be! What an amazing surprise. Emily saw the next relic, took my David’s sword and raised me one. You know Moses, who parted the Red Sea? Saw the rod he parted it with. The relics just kept getting more and more amazing. Next came Joseph’s turban, dating back to 15-14^th century BC. (FYI, David’s sword dated to 10^th century BC and Moses’ rod to 13^th century BC.) Then we saw the saucepan of Abraham, who had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham… This one dated all the way back to 19^th-20^th century BC. Some other relics we saw included the encased arm of John the Baptist, parts of his skull, a footprint of Muhammad impressed into some sort of material, and pieces of Muhammad’s beard. It was interesting to me that in the room of the relics of Muhammad, the people were not overtly emotional. I remembered the man who looked as if he had been crying in the mausoleum of the sultans and wondered why people were not more emotionally charged seeing pieces of their prophet’s beard. Another amazing aspect of this room was the live reading of the Koran by a Muslim imam (priest) that was being projected over the loudspeakers into every room. It gave a mystical and kind of chilling air to the experience, but in a good and spine-tingling way. Oh, and no pictures were allowed, so if you want to see these awesome relics, I guess you will have to travel to Turkey! But after reading my blog, all of you should want to anyways.

After that, it was on to the harem. We had read Ms. Pierce’s article on the harem the night before, so we were ready to see it in action (well, kind of in action). It was also in the third circle, and was the most private place in the palace besides the Sultan’s quarters. The history of the harem is quite fascinating, but I will not get into it deeply here. As a brief overview, the harem was the place where the Sultan kept his concubines, but it had not always been within the palace walls. Before Suleyman built quarters for his concubines, especially for his favorite concubine which he kind of made into his queen (a no-no for sultans), the concubines had been housed in the old palace within the city. The harem, although suffering from misconceived notions from Westerners who have Hollywood-ized it, seemed more private and mystical than I had imagined. It was guarded by eunuchs, but even they could only go a certain distance into the Harem Proper to deliver the food to the concubines. Talk about isolation. The harem itself was absolutely breathtaking, completely covered in blue and green tiles, from wall-to-wall. The rest of the harem was also lavishly decorated, with red velvet divans and gorgeous chandeliers. Amanda captured the essence of the harem when she said, “What did the concubines say to each other, ‘Meet me in the tiled room, you know the really awesome one?’ Yeah, that narrows it down…”

Our stomachs were fairly empty at that point, so we decided to head out of Topkapi in search of kumpir, or baked potatoes with about every topping in the world. Another Amanda comment to aptly describe our hunger: “I’m like eating my own cokorec (intestines).” The normal cokorec that we eat is lamb intestines, with plenty of spices and on ekmek (bread). We did not find a kumpir place before our hunger won out, so we ended up getting a delicious meal of gozleme which is kind of like a crepe. Amanda and I wandered around afterwards, buying some Turkish delight after the nice man behind the counter gave us about 5000 samples.

I must insert here one of the mysteries of Turkey: how their economy works. I kid you not, they have avenues of specific items for sale. For instance, we live near Hardware Lane. As in, there are stores who sell only sink faucets. And about 80% of their wares are outside. My favorite example of this is the button store. Two stores, very near each other who sell only buttons. Thousands upon thousands of buttons. So last night, Amanda and I were talking about how we needed a bathmat and joked that we should go to the bathmat store. Well, we found it today. Not only did we find the bathmat store (who literally only sold bathmats), but we also found a Tarheel bathmat! We were greatly enthused. Amanda showed him the Tarheel pin on her bag to explain our enthusiasm, but clearly he did not understand because he just looked at us like were idiots and said, “Yes, foot…”

Dinner was an exciting event. We are finally regulars! We went to dinner at the pilav place on the corner of our street, and some people got doneri at the place next door. I decided to try something that I had seen some people get at the restaurant before- it looked like patties of lentils mixed with spices. I learned the word for it and tried to order (the owner, who I am inexplicably obsessed with but not in a creepy way, speaks ZERO English) but wanted the patties on a plate instead of in a wrap. Apparently the word “portion” means portion for a family of eight, because I ordered a half portion and ended up with about 14 lentil patties the size of the chicken strips at Chick-Fil-A. After serving me my enormous dinner and right after Edward commented that they had forgotten to get me a pita, the owner came out with a pita about the size of my body. Everyone, including the employees and the other patrons were cracking up at me. I had to literally fold my pita like a blanket in order to get it to fit on the table.

So the part about us being regulars- after a while, an employee at the doner place next to the pilav place came out with a tray of teas and gave us each one! We are officially regulars, especially after I awkwardly in Turkish introduced myself to Mehmet, the owner of the pilav place. Another hilarious thing – Zoe has been ordering pastries at the doner place completely wrong. There is this phrase that goes around the trays of pastries that says “Afiyet Olsun” which Zoe has taken to mean the name of the pastries, so every time she orders, she has been pointing to the pastries and saying, “Afiyet olsun” as if she is naming the type of pastry she wants. Apparently “afiyet olsun” is the Turkish equivalent of “bon appetite.” Oh, Zoe, come back down to Earth.

Flugtag!

So Saturday is nothing worth writing home about, literally. It was a day of rest and as Emily put it, it was a day for "recharging our batteries." Still a little jet-lagged plus some late nights and long days put us in need of a day of just hanging around our flat.

Sunday we met William at 10:00 to ride the ferry from Karakoy to Kadikoy on the Asian side in order to go to the Red Bull Flugtag. This magical event happens in several cities around the world, and we got to go to the one in Istanbul! How cool. Basically, Flugtag consists of about twenty teams (at least for this event) who attempt to construct the zaniest, weirdest flying contraptions they can think of and proceed to fly them off a ramp and into the water. They are judged on distance, creativity and showmanship, but mainly on the latter two because none of the ones that we saw "flew" (more like half-glided) more than about 15 feet. Most of them just fell off of the ramp into the Bosphorous, many falling apart as soon as they went off the ramp! One in the shape of chai (tea) in a Turkish tea glass even fell apart on the runway! Somehow though (Turkish nationalism, perhaps?), it received very high marks...

The day was VERY hot and was made even hotter by the thousands of people trying to get a good view of these crazy contraptions (we happened to snag a good spot!), so after a bit we decided to head back to the ferry to return to Europe. Some Turks also thought it was hot, and made hats out of newspapers! The weirdest part was that after one guy did it, like 4 others followed suit! Here are a few of those crazy Turks.
Although we had taken a bus to the event, no one felt like waiting forever for a crowded bus that would probably sit in traffic forever, so we decided to walk. It was quite hike, but the company (as always) was wonderful, and we saw some interesting things, like this Luis Vuitton Vespa scooter! Crazy Turks. I desperately needed some nourishment by the time we made our way back to Kadikoy, so Edward and I stooped for some lahmacun, which is sort of like very thin-crust pizza with tomato sauce, lamb, and spices. DE-licious! Then it was onto the ferry and back to Europe. That night, searching for food that would actually fill us up (doner doesn't go that far, and neither does 1 lira worth of rice pilav and chickpeas!) we found a little kebap restaurant off of Istiklal. It was awesome, and after a filling and delish meal of eskender, shaved lamb in a tomato sauce with buttery, flaky bread underneath, we vowed to return to that restaurant for more fellowship and food.

Then it was back to the flat for completing our reading on harems for our trip to Topkapi Palace tomorrow. We got a little sidetracked though and began a looong discussion about Dubai and its crazy tourism. For those of you not well-versed in the subject, please look up on it! Dubai is building "Dubailand," a theme park 30 times the size of Disney World! I love all the people on the trip - we always get into such good discussions, and I am learning so much from them!

Sorry I don't have many pictures, but my standard zoom was not good enough to capture the flying contraptions! Please check out Edward or Clayton's blog for better pics! (They are linked on the side)

"Where's William?"

Hello All!

Each day I fall more and more in love with Istanbul and feel more and more comfortable here. Today was another awesome day (are you guys getting tired of my enthusiasm yet?) where we met William at the Beyazit tram stop. We love playing "Where's William?" every day to seek out the spot for our class activities. It's such a game! We arrive at these spots with thousands of people milling about, wondering how we will ever find our professor, and after only about 3-5 minutes, we spot William. We are always so overjoyed to find him, kind of like finding the prize in a cereal box, like, "Oh there you are!" but he never seems surprised to see us. Then he's like, "Come, I will lead you to your meeting space." And then we find Prof. Shields, waiting and ready to enlighten us in some new way about Istanbul.

So today we went into the Kapalicarsi, or Covered Bazaar, to meet with one of Prof. Shields old friends who has been in the rug/carpet business for many years. Mr. Asan told us about the different symbols in Nomadic kilim, or tapestries, and some other things about carpet buying and selling. After a lunch break, we met at our normal classroom space, the Sinan medrese turned cafe.

Except this time, we went to a calligraphy classroom where we met with Efdaluddin Kilic, a renowned calligrapher. He told us about the art of calligraphy, and it is so amazing how intensely they care about their art. To me, it seemed like more of a way of life than an art form. Mr. Kilic's meticulous articulation reflected his careful attention to detail in his calligraphy. He told us about some traditions of calligraphers, like how they keep all their shavings of their calligraphy pens (they are wooden sticks of bamboo), some burying them in a box "as if they were a living organism," and some requesting to be washed with the shavings when they die. Mr. Kilic has been studying calligraphy for about 25 years, and it definitely shows in his work. His characters are perfect; he showed us the way to determine if the character would be "accepted" as a true calligraphy character, and all of his proportions were perfect every time, no matter if he made them big or small. Then he wrote all of our names in Arabic calligraphy (see picture for my name in Arabic calligraphy!). I was amazed by the art of calligraphy. It requires such immense skill, dedication, and passion. I admire works of meticulousness, things that are beautiful in their rigidity. It sort of reminds me of the religion of Islam and the many rules that Muslims must follow in order to be faithful.

Afterwards, William took us our for some dondurma (ice cream). We happened upon one of the many street ice cream vendors. They are more like performers. This one took his extra-long ice cream scoop (or was it an extra-long spatula, Carv?) and did some crazy things with it, like taking our cones away from us, and he even smashed William's ice cream cone into his face! After that delish dondurma, we headed back to the flat for relaxing and cooking dinner.

Amanda and I headed to the grocery store for some cheese and found another reason why, in Amanda's words, "Turkey is a joke." Well, first let me get into the first few reasons. 1) they have a gas truck that sounds like an ice cream truck as it blares its ditty of "Aygaaaaz" throughout the streets. 2) they water the streets with watering cans (this also qualifies as one of Turkey's mysteries.) and 3) nearly all their cheese is goat cheese despite its wrappers with pictures of cows on it. Go figure. There are plenty more, but I've forgotten them and will try to remember and include them in future posts!

After a wonderful dinner on the terrace, we met up with Murat and his friends for our first night out in Istanbul! We went onto Istiklal, sort of the Times Square of Istanbul, to find a bar. Murat led us to this semi-sketchy bar called "The Darkness," and we sat outside to enjoy some Efes and people-watching. Afterwards, we headed to our first Istanbul club, which happened to be a techno club. Joy. There, we proceeded to do the hokey pokey all night with a bunch of Turks. I mean, not really, but seriously Turks do not dance in the same way that Americans, or any Europeans, I think, dance. Someone showed them the "energy ball" dance, and they wanted to do that about every 3 minutes. It was fun though, and I think next time we will try some different clubs with some different styles of dancing...

I think I found my niche!

Today I finally feel like I have a handle on the city. I think it may have something to do with the scavenger hunt yesterday, or maybe it just comes from being in the city for a few days. We got up late-ish this morning, and all caught up on our blogs and ate our usual breakfast of ekmek (bread) and Nutella. And cherries today too! The fruit here is AWESOME - especially the cherries and apricots. Then we rode the tram, using our akbil of course, to the front of Hagia Sofia. There we met William, who led us to our classroom. This classroom doesn't even come close to comparing to any classroom at UNC - not even the Global Center. It is an old medrese built by the architect Sinan (remember him from the scavenger hunt?) in 1559 during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. How appropriate that it is here where we learn about Turkish history. Now, the medrese boasts several classrooms/exhibitions rooms that are used to teach, make and sell traditional Turkish handicrafts.

The owner of the school took us on a tour, and we got to see some marbling in process - it was amazing. They put blobs of paint in a tray of water, flicked their paintbrush in it a few times, and somehow transferred it onto the page as a beautiful work of art. They also taught calligraphy, ceramic/tile painting, gand music. This place felt like an oasis of the real city - after doing a lot of "touristy" things (which are very necessary as intro to the city) I am ready to become a real Istanbullu. Clearly, seeing the "must-sees" are necessary, but it was such a treat today to be in such a historic yet untouristy place. Or at least I thought it was untouristy.

We got some Turkish chai (tea) and some lunch and started our discussion of the reading material. My classmates are so informed! Not that I ever doubted their intelligence, but I was very impressed today. I feel a little bit behind - I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who is not a History, PWAD (for non UNC students, thats Peace, War and Defense) or International Studies major here. I feel like everyone has a background in history and international studies that I don't necessarily have. But I'm sure that it'll all work out (right, Carver?)

After our intense and intellectual discussion, we wandered out into the city in search of baklava and Turkish coffee. On the way out, we saw three kittens curled up in two different pots with trees in them! Two kittens were snuggling in a pot, and one was by itself. After a small photo shoot with the kittens, the men outside this Nomadic art restoration place began talking to us. We asked him a good place for baklava and he pointed us in the right direction. I don't think I will ever cease to be amazed by the hospitality of the Turkish people. At the dessert shop, we got a sampling of three different types of baklava and I tried some Turkish coffee. The baklava and the coffee were so delicious! The coffee is so thick because they make it with the grounds - when I got to the end of it, the grounds were all in my teeth. Gross! Amanda said it was like "instant British teeth." Emily caught it on film and you can check it out on Facebook, if you dare...

After some dinner from Simit Sarayi, a chain restaurant that sells different types of simit, we headed up on our terrace, where we met up with our Turkish friends from the third floor. It is so fun to try to communicate with them - they are far better at English than we are at Turkish, but we are getting better by trying to talk to them. We just found out that we can actually get YouTube here! The Turkish government banned the site because of some Greek videos insulting Turkey. But these Turkish guys found a proxy sever that allows them to get around that ban and they just showed us how to do it! How exciting. Since our plans for going out with them fell through last night, we decided to definitely do it tomorrow night.

PSA : Update/Background Info

Dear Friends,

I think I have done a poor job explaining this program and what we're doing here. I kind of got behind in my posts, so I just skipped over all of that stuff. Ok, so this is a Burch Field Research Seminar, which is a little different from a lot of other study abroad programs in that we do not actually study at a university here. A professor from UNC, Sarah Shields, and her husband, William, have taken a group of 10 UNC students to research and study the history of Turkey and examine cultural identity. We live in an awesome flat and the boys live right next door. Here are some pictures of it. The first is the entrance/our kitchen table, the second is our kitchen, and the third is my bedroom. And as an update, Edward made it to Istanbul! He arrived on Monday night with many stories from London. Also, PLEASE take a look at my other Turkey pictures - you can see a link on the right hand side of the blog. I've done a poor job updating that too - as you can see we are pretty busy here! But, I'm trying to keep up with it. I take about 100-300 pictures a day (or at least have been for the past few days) so it takes a good amount of time just to get them on my computer, much less edit and post them on the Internet! Anyways, you can also check out my other cohorts' blogs, whose links are on the right hand side also (along with Catherine Coley's). Anyways, just thought I should give you a little update.

Scavenger Hunt!!!

Today we met with Prof. Shields at our usual teahouse for our SCAVENGER HUNT! In Istanbul. Way cooler than normal scavenger hunts. My team, aka TEAM AWESOME consisted of David, Kelly, Emily, and me. Our list had a bunch of things on it, but they were clues and not just directions, so we had to figure them out. For example, one of the clues was “Bring back photos of yourselves in front of three Sinan buildings.” To accomplish this task, we had to first figure out who Sinan was! Well, I did at least. My group already knew. Sinan (1490 – 1588) was a janissary and learned about construction to become one of the great Ottoman architects. Another one of the instructions was “photograph a vendor of fresh orange juice.” That’s the one we did first and I got a delicious glass of blood orange juice right outside of Galata Tower near our flat. After that we took pictures of vegetables and bread (all which were listed in Turkish as clues), greatly confusing the vegetable vendor who I’m sure was hoping we would actually buy some of his vegetables rather than just photograph them. Crazy Americans, he probably thought. Then we went over the Galata Bridge into the Sultanahamet district to photograph some of the historic sites on our list. We went through the tunnel that goes under the main road, which is another hopping marketplace. There we found the answer another one of our clues – the colors to all the football teams of Turkey. After getting to Sultanahmet our first stop was Topkapi Palace, home to Ottoman sultans. There were a bunch of school groups there, and all of the kids were shouting “Hello!” “Take a picture!” So we did. This girl on the right was posing like a supermodel! I wonder where she learned that from. After that we traveled up to the Sublime Port, which was the gateway that led to the Grand Vizier’s office during the Ottoman Empire. Cool, but a little underwhelming. Next we attempted to find Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Fountain which was a huge challenge. Apparently, Istanbullus do not know it very well, because we got several perplexed looks when we asked about it. David finally found it and was ecstatic. (see picture below). It was incredibly hot, so David and I splashed some water on ourselves. There, we met another school group, probably about 4^th or 5^th grade, and they started with the inevitable “Hello!” trying out their English on us. One boy asked us our names and I told him mine, he gave me his (which due to more than a little genetic inheritance from Mom, I promptly forgot) and then I decided to pull out some of my Turkish and said to him, “Memnun oldum,” which means “Nice to meet you.” He apparently was impressed, because then he began saying to me, “Beautiful, Kristina. I love you, Kristina!” and continued as he was walking away, his friends snapping pictures. And that is how I met my Turkish lover (sorry Thomas!).

Then we went to try to find an Ottoman palace, which actually turned out to be a Byzantine palace. As we were intensely discussing how to find it, one of the guys who tries to get you to eat at their restaurant approached us and told us that we could see the palace from the restaurant’s terrace! Perf! We went up there and located the palace, or what was left of it. Then we ran into a nice little market and photographed some artichokes. The Turkish word for artichoke is “enginar,” and I was saying to David when a Turk overhear dme. Apparently there is a Turkish word that means “hello” that is close to enginar because he tried to instruct me in its pronunciation and then said, “Or you can just say merhaba.” I told him I was actually looking for artichokes not trying to say hello.

After that we headed up to Suleymaniiye to check out Sinan’s skills on a grander scale than the two minarets and his smaller mosque. Suleymaniiye is having work done on the minarets, so we didn’t end up going inside but we did walk through the cemetery outside which was pretty neat. I’m not exactly sure who was buried there, but it was pretty and serene. We tried to go from there to Sinan’s other mosque near the Spice Bazaar and Yeni Camii, but we pretty much failed, getting fairly lost. This was our team’s low point. We were hot, hungry, and tired, and the hill we were climbing was never-ending. We finally asked some friendly Turks and they instructed us to take a tram. We did, found the mosque, and then hopped on the ferry to head over to Asia to finish up the hunt. The first port we stopped at housed the train station that we needed a train schedule for as part of the hunt, so we grabbed one and then decided to get on a train to get to Kadikoy. We thought it would be a tram-like thing, but it was a real honest to goodness train that I think would have taken us to Syria (36 hours away). As the train was pulling away, A simitci (simit seller) began running along the side, trying to hop on the train. A few of his simit crates slid off of the train, and a few fell onto the train. He picked up the ones that had fallen on the train floor and put them back on his selling table! One of the Turks on the train yelled at him for it. We arrived at what we thought was our stop and had NO IDEA WHERE WE WERE. We walked outside and felt very dejected because we were pretty sure we were completely lost in Asia. Then Kelly said, “Wait, isn’t that where the market was yesterday?” Sure enough, she was right! We walked up the street and immediately found a place for Efes. We REALLY needed it. There we saw the famous goose that lives on that street! I asked out waiter (who spoke no English) if the goose would bite (solely through body language) and he said no, so I decided to go try to pet it. There was another Turk watching the goose, and I also asked him through body language and he gave me an emphatic YES! So I decided not to pet the goose.

When we got back to our flat, it was time to go to Prof. Shield’s flat for dinner and stories from the day. Getting to her flat was a journey in and of itself but we arrived and were fed a delicious and well-deserved dinner with cake from Mado, a delectable dessert restaurant. Then we went back to our flat to hang out with our Turkish friends from the third floor, Murat, Ugur, and Eugel. We had our first taste of raki, which is the Turkish national liquor. It’s flavored with anise, so it tastes like black licorice which is gross. But it looks really cool – it’s a clear liquid that turns milky white when you add water to it, which is how it is served. A really interesting thing happened which sort of explains what Turkish culture is like. During the night call to prayer, the three Turks stopped drinking and said, “Heziz Allah.” Interesting, because drinking at all is forbidden according to the laws of Islam. I think religion is a sort of “pick and choose” thing here, because although the country is 97% Muslim, you can see things like a store displaying fashionable traditional Muslim clothing and see a store selling skimpy bikinis in the same block. I can’t figure it out – maybe I will be able to by the end of this program!

Tuesday, May 20 : Asia

So today I traveled to a different continent! We met Prof. Shields on the terrace this morning and then walked down to the waterfront (of the Golden Horn) and got our okbil. Okbil, which is short for "intelligent card" are kind of like flex passes - they allow you to use public transportation in Turkey. Except they look really cool - they are plastic with a magnetic circle on them and they come in all different colors (mine is orange). Then we got to use our okbil and got on the ferry at Karakoy to go to Kadikoy on the Asian side. No, that is not a typo - the place we leave from is two letters different from the place we are trying to get to. Just in case it wasn't confusing enough, the Turkish 'r' is pronounced similar to the 'd.' Thanks.

The ferry ride was awesome. It was cool to see all the monuments from a completely different angle. The waters of the Bosphorous, although I'm told they are dirty from the huge amounts of ships that sit in its waters waiting to go through the strait, is beautiful, almost Caribbean. They are chock-full of jellyfish too! They served Turkish tea on the ferry and it was only 0.5 lira, which is about 42 cents.

The Asian side of Istanbul is very different from the European side, at least to me. It's more urban, less touristy, and A LOT more crowded. We went up this street that was sort of like an open air market street - it had fishmongers, pastry shops, vegetable sellers, doner, and other little cafes. In one of the dessert shops they had these little geese that I think were made out of meringues - I wonder if it had anything to do with the goose that apparently lives on the street. One of the fishmongers had a large bucket with little baitfish in it and one of the many stray Istanbul cats was sitting stock-still, looking at the fish with more than a little interest. I'm still sad I didn't get a picture. It's so interesting to me that literally everything is sold in a market-like atmosphere - even cat food was being sold per scoop out of huge bags in some of the stands.

Then we went to a HUGE market that is only there on Tuesdays and Fridays. We really had to fight our way through the crowd - there were so many people in such a small walking area. The first part we walked through was selling mainly clothing and shoes - REALLY CHEAP. Then we got to the food market, which was much less crowded and what I really wanted to buy. There were so many vegetable and fruit vendors, and they were all pretty much selling the same things - cherries, erik (sour green plums), apricots, strawberries, apples, some sort of berry-looking things, peas still in the pod, cucumbers, tomatoes, artichoke hearts floating in some sort of liquid (water?), and a lot of other fruits and vegetables that I can't remember. I bought some garlic and tomatoes for cooking tonight and then we went to a cafe and had an Efes. Now I can say that I had a beer in Asia! a vendor who was selling shoes and sunglasses

toasting to Asia with Efes

After riding the ferry back over to Europe, I started cooking up some friste - pasta with lentils, tomatoes, garlic and red peppers. The boys decorated our terrace with a whole bunch of candles that we had collectively between the two flats - who knew they were so artistic/romantic? They also brought up a bottle of "wine" that was left in their flat. It turned out to be cooking wine - blech. Lets just say that Edward mixed it with Coke by accident but then declared that it actually tasted better. The friste was ok, but not great - I'm sure I will whip up some better dishes while we're here! We had so much fun at dinner, though, that I think we will continue to have a lot of group meals up there. Although we missed Yekta - she was with her grandparents over in Asia. Tomorrow - a scavenger hunt!