Monday, May 19

This morning was our first day of the program. We met at a teahouse at the base of Galata Tower at 10:30 and Prof. Shields treated us to a cup of Turkish tea, which they call chai. They serve it in this little fluted glass with two cubes of sugar and a little tea spoon - I haven't decided whether I'm a two-cuber or a one-cuber yet. The tea is pretty bitter, but with the sugar it soooo good. Turks drink it all the time here - you can get tea pretty much anywhere. After that we went up Galata Tower and got some really cool views of Istanbul. The tower itself, which is my landmark in finding our flat, is historically very interesting. It was built in 328 AD, which is during the Byzantine times, but was rebuilt by the Genoese in 1348 (it was destroyed during the Crusades). One really interesting fact about the Tower - during the rule of Sultan Murat IV (1612-1640), Hazarfen Ahmet Celebi actually flew from the tower to Uskudar using artificial wings. This really amazed me - Uskudar is on the Asian side of Istanbul whereas the Tower is on the European side. That means that Celebi jumped off of the Tower, flew over the Bosphorous, actually landed on the other side and didn't die. That's innovation.

After the Tower, we went over the Golden Horn and to Spice Bazaar, which was built in 1664 in order to fund the building of Yeni Cami (The New Mosque). Don't be fooled by its name - not only spices are sold here. There were basically four different types of shops that were repeated over and over again - the scarf/pashmina shop, the spice/Turkish delight shop, the painted tile and ceramic store, and a few hanging glass lamps stores (my favorite!). Whenever you passed by a vendor they would say "Yes, please!" Which I guess means "Yes, please come into my store." They would also say other things to try to get us to come in - mainly because we were clearly tourists, and apparently clearly Americans. Most of them would yell, "I speak English!" There were also several doner restaurants and we got a chicken doner for a lira fifty and took it outside (the market is inside) to eat. There we saw this old man who was selling leeches. I was intrigued and decided to take over my Turkish phrasebook and talk to him. Unfortunately, he spoke English so I didn't get to practice my Turkish. He was selling them for medicinal purposes - mainly eczema, he said. It was very interesting.

Then we went into Yeni Cami, which was sooo cool. When we got into the courtyard, the call to prayer began and many Istanbullus came to say their second prayer of the day. In the Muslim faith, there are five calls to prayer - one at first light, one at true noon, one in between noon and sunset, one at sunset, and one two hours after sunset. I have heard all of them except for the one at sunrise - but I am going to make myself hear that one before I leave!

After the call to prayer ended, we donned our headscarves, took off our shoes, and entered into the mosque. It was beautiful, serene, and intriguing to see how another religion practices their faith. I can see how the Muslim faith is attractive to some people - the calls to prayer are haunting and evocative, and there is a strange and foreign beauty to the rigidity of their worship ritual. After going to Yeni Cami, Prof. Shields and William (her husband) went to go visit one of their carpet-maker friends and the rest of us were left to our own devices. We decided to go into the mausoleum where six sultans were entombed. It had the same protocol as the mosques (headscarves on, shoes off) and seemed to be almost as holy. I even saw one man who looked like he was crying. Turkish people somewhat deify their rulers - take Ataturk, for instance, whoe likeness hangs on the wall of nearly every shop. After the sultan's mausoleum, we headed over to the Blue Mosque, and we went inside this time. The Blue Mosque is named so because of the beautiful blue tiles that cover the inside. We just sat inside for a while, people-watching and enjoying the incredible majesty of this huge mosque. We had to come in a tourists' entrance, and some other women coming in from that entrance weren't even wearing headscarves - I saw some plunging necklines too. It's weird because when we were going through the entrance, one of the employees (the Blue Mosque is so big/famous that it requires bouncers) made me fix my scarf to cover my shoulders because my short-sleeved shirt had ridden up my arms a bit.

When we were walking back to the flat over Galata Bridge, one of the restaurant maitre'ds who try to get you to come into the restaurant as you walk by actually managed to suck Clayton in and we promised to go back for dinner after he promised that this restaurant was "where all the locals went." It wasn't, and let's just say we will NOT be regulars there. But I did drink my first Efes, the Turkish beer, there. And David pulled a major(ok, not that major) cultural faux pas by not putting his napkin underneath his plate like the waiters had done for the girls, and then insisting on taking napkins from a nearby table for us, claiming that the waiters hadn't given us napkins. We went back to the flat and got ready for going to a whole new continent tomorrow - Asia!

Clayton and I arrived at our flat at around 1 AM after a short bus and cab ride from Ataturk Airport. We drove down Istiklal, one of the main roads in Istanbul, and it was busy even that late! We even saw some children playing on playgrounds during our bus ride.

They were all pretty young, and I was surprised to see them out so late. Our flat is so cool - there are 3 bedrooms, one with two double beds and two with we one big bed. I share a bedroom with Emily - it is very small but with a lot of storage space. Our flat is on the fifth floor, which is 95 steps! That along with the hill that we have to walk up to get to the building itself make for a serious glut workout. We have AMAZING views - to the left is a picture taken looking to the left out of our flat window, and one to the right that was taken looking to the right. We also have a rooftop terrace which has even more awesome views of Istanbul. (see picture below for a picture taken from the terrace!)


We all slept in until around ten or eleven – which would be three or four in the morning US time. Emily got in around 12:30 after dragging her 70 lb suitcase all around Istanbul. She said she smelled pretty bad, so she changed and then we all headed out to get our first meal in Istanbul. We wandered up near Galata Tower (about a 3-5 minute walk from our flat) and found a nice looking restaurant. Clayton, eager to try his Turkish, strolled up to one of the waiters and said “Merhaba!” which means hello. Apparently Clayton is a believable Turk, because the waiter launched into a string of Turkish that no one had any hope of understanding. The waiter, noticing Clayton’s perplexed look, finally asked in English, “What language do you speak? English? We speak that then.” After that minor mishap, he served us a delicious lunch of dolmas (grape leaves stuffed with rice and some other things), chicken, some sort of lentil/bean patties, and lamb. He also served us a small taste of this juice made from kiwi, mint, and parsley that was very different but delicious. After lunch we decided to familiarize ourselves with our neighborhood, Beyoglu, and walked around for about two hours. I felt like such a tourist – I know my mouth was hanging open for our entire walk. We saw a huge crowd of people around something and we went over to investigate. It turned out to be three or four guys dressed as American Indians – interesting considering they were probably Peruvian according to Prof. Shields. They were singing, playing music, and dancing and even Istanbullus (people who live in Istanbul) were watching, so I felt less like a tourist. After that, we just wandered around the city, and found some really cool places, like this alleyway. There are some really cool stores in our neighborhood, a lot of music stores that sell some interesting instruments. This was a store that sold an eclectic mix of things, apparently including a cat! There are tons of stray cats and dogs all over Istanbul - they not only lay on the sidewalk but also in the middle of the street. People seem completely unfazed by this and just walk around like it's no big deal at all.

That night we decided to walk on the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn (an estuary that runs through Istanbul) to Sultanahmet, the old part of Istanbul where all the tourist attractions are, including Hagia Sophia, The Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace. It's a fairly touristy area, but we found a good spot for doner (a huge chunk of meat cooked on a stick that they cut off in little pieces and put on a sandwich) that was fairly un-touristy. Then we walked to Hagia Sophia (closed on Mondays because all museums are closed on Mondays in Istanbul) and then to the Blue Mosque, or Sultanahmet. We sat in the entrance to the courtyard, taking pictures of the mosque with the moon around it, and all of a sudden the call to prayer began to play from the minarets within the mosque. Since Hagia Sofia is right across from it and there are many other mosques nearby, we could hear all the calls to prayer from each mosque and also see all the Istanbullus coming in to pray. After getting fairly lost and wandering around the completely closed down Sultanahmet neighborhood (far different from our hopping Beyoglu neighborhood with busy Istiklal running through it) we finally made it back to our flat.
This is actually Yeni Cami, which we did not visit today but we walked by because it is right past Galata Bridge.

The Prison and the Pea

Deportation. Topper. Turkish prison. Mashed peas. There are no better words to explain my London Heathrow Airport experience. Originating in Dulles, we had an uneventful flight into London. Once we arrived, however, our trip took a more exciting, and also more stressful turn. We decided to travel into the city, deeming our seven and a half hour layover a long enough time period for the two-hour roundtrip trek. Little did we know we would soon be blocked in our efforts to explore London by a mundane and unimpressive household appliance: the washing machine. Edward, one of our travelmates, had unfortunately allowed his passport to undergo a trip of its own in the spin cycle. It must have been on “machine wash heavy” because his passport looked as if it had endured Vietnam. It was as weathered as the Harker’s Islander shrimpers, and with just as much “character,” as Edward said.

Clayton and I easily went through immigration with only a little lighthearted jostling from the immigration agents (one asked me what my major was and when I told him I was undecided, he said, “Oh, so you’re just screwing your parents into the ground until you figure it out, huh?” Sorry Mom and Dad!) Edward was not as lucky. His jostling was far more serious – they informed him that since his passport wouldn’t scan because of the huge wrinkles traversing across the bar code, he had a 50/50 chance of being let in to Turkey. If he were on the less optimal side of that 50%, however, he would be deported back to the US, do not pass go, do not collect $200. So literally right after making it through immigration, we turned around and went straight through security to get back into the airport. Edward called Prof. Shields, the professor that is leading the program, who told him to risk it, but to wait from a phone call from her after she called some of her Turkish contacts. A few hours and one really great airport bench nap (for me) later, she called back. “You need to stay in London,” she said. “If you try to get through immigration and can’t, they’ll put you in a Turkish prison for 24 hours before deporting you.” Edward decided that staying at UNC Honors house in London for a few days would be a better idea than a Turkish prison for 24 hours. So as Edward was figuring out his accommodations in London , Clayton and I decided to find somewhere get some lunch. Our only requirement for this restaurant was that it must have fish and chips, because we are huge tourists. We ended up at Garfunkels, and Clayton ordered a Stella Artois, tripping over the second word a little bit and having to repeat himself to the waiter. A few minutes later, the waiter brought out Clayton’s bottle of beer along with a glass filled ¼ of the way with a clear liquid and asked, “This is how you wanted it, right?” A perplexed Clayton answered haltingly, “Yes…” The liquid tasted like Sprite syrup – Clayton decided to use it as a chaser until he finally got the nerve to ask our not-so-jovial what the heck he had ordered. “You ordered Stella with a top didn’t you?” he said. “It’s lemonade, you mix it with the beer.” Clayton did as instructed and it was AWFUL. Almost as bad as the mashed peas that he decided that he HAD to join the Clean Plate Club and finish everything on his plate – including the mashed peas. Mmmm, British food. Thankfully, we would be enjoying a far more delicious cuisine in Turkey.

Inaugural Post

Hello All!

I will be updating this blog (hopefully) every day during my travels! There will be pictures and stories to tell. Please visit to check out what I've been up to!

Love,
Kristina