Tuesday, June 10

Today we went to two more site projects.

After losing Kevin on the way to Aksaray tram stop (pretty far down the line) we finally met up0 with him and headed to Kariye Camii, a Byzantine church-turned mosque-turned museum via dolmus! YAY WE LOVE DOLMUS! This one was different from the last dolmus because it was a little bigger and more like a short bus than a large van.

Kariye Camii is beautiful - its like a little Hagia Sophia, and has some even more pristine and amazing mosaics. It's far smaller, which makes it a little easier to fathom than the huge Hagia Sophia. Whereas in Hagia Sophia I was amazed mainly by the architecture, at Kariye Camii, the mosaics are what grabbed my attention. Almost every wall (and ceiling) had a mosaic depicting the saints, Jesus' life, or Mary's life. The most interesting thing about Kariye Camii to me was the fact that the Virgin Mary's life was depicted so much, because there are no stories about her life apart from Jesus in the Bible. The stories of the mosaics came from lost books of the Bible.

After that, a taxi ride to Kalenderhane Camii. I had seen this mosque on Scavenger Hunt Day and loved it, so I was very excited to learn about it and go inside. Another Byzantine church turned mosque, Kalnderhane Camii had the same Byzantine structure of repeating domes and arches built with brick - beautiful. The outside was far more impressive to me than the inside, which had pink walls and red and green carpet - not the most aesthetically pleasing...

This was Zoe and Kelly's project, and they gave us a worksheet to color in different parts of the mosque. So here we were outside of a working mosque (the midday call to prayer started as we were sitting outside the mosque) coloring. I'm sure a few Turks were very confused.

Afterwards, it was time for lunch and then to figure out about the camera that Thomas had sent me - it was being held at customs for ransom. Unsuccessful, we headed back to the flat and then to Istiklal for dinner.