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.