When in Istanbul..

So these past 4ish days I was in Istanbul, Turkey. It's going to be so hard to describe my experience there but I guess the only line that can sum up my experience was that I was so heartbroken to have left. 
Kate, Zehra, Hameed, and 19 other people went on this amazing 'class' excursion. 


Turkish Airlines serves the best food and was extremely comfortable, but has a hard time leaving on time. When we arrived in Istanbul as some people were collecting their bags, a man came up to the boys and started yelling at them shouting 'you kill my wife you Americans fuck you' or something to that effect. The boys were kind of laughing and Hameed had to tell him that we had just landed and nothing was wrong. At first we were all a little freaked out because that was legit our first interaction with anyone from Turkey, so it was obviously scary. But honestly, I've never met a more welcoming, accepting, women respecting culture...but we'll get to that later.
On our drive to our hotel we pass the basic Turkish McDonalds, Burger King, BP..yano, all the things I didn't expect to see in Turkey. After a cobblestone bumpy drive we arrive at our hotel, which looks more like a hostel. We settle in and all walk down the block to an extremely nice restaurant where we sat on the 3rd floor and had an extremely nice meal of hummus, pita, scoops of various turkish raw and cooked veggies, chicken kebab with crepe, and finally...baklava. Everybody got the house wine but I decided that I was going to try a drink I couldn't pronounce the name of. It was called Ayran, and what a mistake that was. Imagine drinking greek yogurt that's been watered down and salted. Apparently you're supposed to drink it with meat and everybody in Turkey loves it. I could barely get one sip down, but we passed it around the table so everybody could have a sip. That night we explored a little bit of the part of the city we were in, but after over a 4 hour flight, being 2 hours ahead of London and not finishing dinner until after 11..we were ready for bed.


The next morning I was slightly woken up at around 6:20am and confused. All I heard was this mans booming voice outside my window. Where we were located was right outside the Hagia Sophia, along with other various mosques around the area. That was the first time we heard the call to prayer. Turkish breakfast was served at the hotel; it included fresh whole grain bread, tomatoes, olives, yogurt, cheese, hard boiled eggs, oranges, and a nutella like spread. It was absolutely delicious, light, and a perfect way to start off the morning. I was served turkish coffee as I sat on top of the rooftop terrace eating breakfast while I read the morning news on my nook (I woke up earlier than everybody else). The view was breathtaking, and I'm sure I'll be using that word a lot. We started our day with a guest speaker, Dr. Keyman who spoke about politics in Turkey and relations between Islam and the west. It was so interesting to hear him speak about Turkey; I learned things about the history, government, people, and Muslim culture I never knew before. I didn't realize this was going to be a taste to the wealth of knowledge I was going to acquire along this trip. After the hour and a half lecture, we were led to the docks where we sailed across the Bosporus to Asia to have lunch. When we got to Asia, it was also the call to prayer and it was a mad rush to the mosque. I ate a really awesome lunch and then we headed back to the boat to have about an hour long boat tour around the Bosporus, where we met our tour guide. After the boat tour, we headed back to the European side of Istanbul and started off our tours with the Hagia Sophia. The history in Istanbul is incredible; although this Hagia Sophia is a mosque, and now it's a museum, it was once a church. So within all the arabic calligraphy and turkish deisgn and mosque like features, there are tiled pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and her baby. It looks giant from the outside, and then you walk inside and you feel like an aunt trying to make your way from one side to another. 


After the Hagia Sophia we went to the Basilica Cistern, which was left from when Istanbul was Constantinople. It's underground, and it's huge. It has 336 columns and it was where Justinian stored water for the palace. It has 2 Greek heads that nobody knows why its there. After that we went to the Hippdrome which was a open area where they used to have chariot races. A lot of it was destroyed during the crusades, but a 3000 year old Egyptian obelisk still stands to this day, and a column about 1600 which is so badly destroyed because they melted down the plaques to make coins, but it looks even more beautiful because of it. It was about 5pm at this point and the Grand Bazaar was closing at 7, so we decided to go to the bazaar to get a feel of what it would be like the next day when we had more time.
The Grand Bazaar is 60 blocks of shops. I can kind of compare it to Chinatown where it's the same stuff and you can haggle your way down in price and if you don't like the price you move on...but this is on a completely different level. First of all, everything is handmade. And I know most things are made by hand, but like, people are either sitting down on the floor or in the back of the little shop actually making the items they're selling in front of you. Bowls, plates, tiles, bags, shirts, jewelry, you name it...it was bold colorful beauty for blocks and blocks. Now, we were warned that because we were American we were going to get spottled out like a sore thumb and heckled, but we thought hey, how bad could it be. THESE TURKISH MEN ARE RELENTLESS. If I ever want a husband..I'm moving to Istanbul. Cheesy pickup lines such as "even if you don't buy anything..you can have my heart for free" skims the surface of what I heard.
Count: 
"Espana?!" (because apparently I looked Spanish): 46
"Turkish?!" (because apparently I looked Turkish): 15
"Ohhh Spice Girls!": 11
"Charlies Angels!!": 3
and those were only the ones I really remember. Putting all kidding aside though, these people were seriously the most friendly culture. It's part of their culture to make foreigners feel welcome and at home, so almost half the shops we were in we got offered Turkish, Chai, or Apple tea. They were so excited to talk to you, hear about your past, and I think I ended up with almost 15 business cards and email addresses. After we were done looking at the bazaar, we headed back to have dinner and then we decided to hit the town. We went into Taskim Square, which I guess I could compare to Times Square, but not really. There were no cars in the place where the bars/restaurants/shops were, and it was beyond packed. (oh, right, because 18 million people live in Istanbul). People were shouting and singing in the streets; just enjoying life. We were looking for a bar when all of a sudden this guy comes out of nowhere and offers us a free shot if we come into his bar. 


We end up at this club with a red carpet leading into it. Kelsey haggles with the owner saying free shot and free entry for 11 beautiful American women. We walk in and the place was kind of empty but the DJ was pretty decent and they gave us a free shot. He had 2 of his workers set us up a table and we got the party started. After dancing for a little while, we decided we were going to leave and try somewhere new, or possibly go back to the first place where we could get our other free drinks. The owner I guess saw we were going to leave...and that's when the drinks started to roll. The workers would just bring out trays of shots and then eventually the bottle where they would just pour in our mouth. The owner came over eventually and said 'all drinks now 5 lira', since before they were like 25 lira. (5 lira is equivalent to about 2 pounds). Laurel and I go up to the bar and get a shot of Raki, or Turkish Oozo. It's 40% alcohol shot and it tastes like black licorice, but hey...when in Istanbul, do as the Muslims. When we got back to the table with the shot, the workers came out with an entire tray of free pints of Turkish beer. So, I chased my shot with Turkish beer. Total amount of money spent in this club: 5 lira. or 2 pounds. or $3.80
We eventually left that club, promising to come back the next night. We headed to the first initial club with the two really hot Turkish men outside. They see us and roll us right inside and bring us a tray of shots as well. We don't stay very long and One of the men, who was very nice to me, said he was going to bring us to another place. He asked if we liked black rap music and we said yes, so he took us to the top floor of this club where they were playing Turkish swing music. Everyone was up dancing, happy and drunk. I think he thought we wouldn't like the music which is why he said 'black music' but we were so happy to have found the 'local' spot. 


The next morning was a hard wakeup at 7am. After another fantastic terrace turkish breakfast, we went to the Blue Mosque where, you guessed it, it had thousands of blue tiles. I think this was my favorite mosque we visited. The geometric patterns and arabic calligraphy is just incredible and intricate you just look up and stare. After the Blue Mosque, we went to the Tosikopi Palace where we had many adventures. There were 4 gardens and Kate, Zehar, Hameed, and our tour guide had given us a game where we had to take pictures and answer questions throughout the day at the mosques and palaces. We had to take a picture of a golden umbrella that when we got there was off  limits because they were doing restoration. Luckily, we of course had made friends with one of the security guards there who took us past the blockades and we got to take a picture under the umbrella with an amazing view of the city behind it. The security guard got caught and got yelled at by his boss and we made a run for it. We also saw the 5th biggest diamond in the world and other incredible relics, such as Moses' rod (he was mad short). We got lunch at an incredibly cheap place and somehow or another, I managed to pull a free lunch (when I went up to pay, I got a wink and told it was on the house. I had gotten used to this by now, free earrings because I had nice cheekbones, free pillowcase because I'm beautiful...etc). After lunch we went to the Rustem Pasa Mosque, which was a much tinier mosque in a sketchier part of the city. Following this mosque was a trip to the Egyptian spice bazaar which was so crowded the only way to describe it was 'packed like sardines'. It smelled delicious and while we were managing to push our way through I spotted dried papaya and got some for a really great price. (I always look for some in the states; it's really rare to find papaya that's not candied and when you do find it it's extremely expensive). When we finally managed to get out of there we went back to the Grand Bazaar to do our serious shopping. I wanted to get a bowl/plate/cup to eat off of in the flat (16 people sharing the same flatware...) and we met this guy who brought us into the 'back room' of the bazaar where it was literally floor to ceiling bowls, plates, mugs, and tiles...all hand painted. I got a beautiful plate, a mug with no handle, and a bowl that has a dancing Turk. I also got a lot too many other things (people, you will be getting gifts from Istanbul!). We went back to the hotel, got ready, and somehow managed to get all 20 of us and went back out to Taskim Square. We went back to that first bar where we got free shots to see if we could swing that again. No, we didn't get free shots...we just got 3 free bottles of Turkish Tequila. Don't even ask me how because I don't know either. All I know is the Americans are now on their website because their promoter was taking pictures of Kelsey on the couch pouring the bottle of Tequila in our mouths as we were on our knees lined up on the dance floor as the DJ played We Speak No Americano. We went back to the club where my 'boyfriend' was who brought us to Turkish swing club and Andrew and I had an amazing dance off (a winner will be decided at a later date). 


The next morning we had to wake up and pack to go home. It was so sad to think it was our last day in Istanbul. We went to the Dolmabahce Palace, which was the last thing that was built during the Ottoman Empire, but honestly the most gorgeous. The palace has a lot of European influence and has like 12 grand halls or something crazy like that. Also a 4.5 ton chandelier. Every single room we went into was more amazing then the next. Google image that shit. Our tour guide that day let us visit the Harem section, which was the family section of the palace. She really put to rest some of the rumors about the sultans having many wives in Muslim culture. They could only have 4 wives and they were many stipulations, and the entire home was extremely family driven. It was extremely interesting and so much more interesting than sitting in a classroom or a book. We were so hungry after the 3 hour tour of the palace (yes, it was that big) and we went to one of the stands who was selling these things that were like half bagels/half pretzels. They were one lira but I didn't feel like breaking my bills so I found a dollar bill stashed in the bottom of my bag and handed it to the guy and he gave me two! (it kind of my day). Then we went to the Syleymaniye Mosque which was the only Mosque that made us women wear head scarves. It was the one of the prettiest mosques we had gone to and definitely a great  end to a gorgeous tour. We then ate lunch across from the mosque and took our final long walk back. In the Istanbul International airport, they had two security checks which was interesting to say the least. 


Anyway, back to good ol' Londontown. Kelly comes from Cork this weekend and I'm sure I'll have an interesting week. Even though it's a little grey, I'll just have to bring some Istanbul color :)