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.