Day 3 - Istanbul

Day 3 - Istanbul
Weather - 82 degrees, regular breeze of 15 mph, look up in the sky for a cloud, but found none all day
Plans - Egyptian Spice Bazaar, Sultahmet (Blue Mosque) tour, Hippodrome, Turkish & Islamic Art Museum, Tokpaki Palace, Archeology Museum, Grand Bazaar, Armaggan Cultural Center.

If it seems like we did a lot today, well, that's because we did. It's 10:00pm here in Istanbul, and I'm worn thin. It began last night when I couldn't fall asleep until 3:00am (which I cured after drinking a dairy drink called ayran coupled with a Turkish Kit-Kat), or it could be the fact that we were on our feet doing everything and anything today. I'm going to chock it up to both.


Breakfast & Bazaars

Our day began with a breakfast at the hotel again (which is delicious, by the way), and then we hopped on the bus and headed to the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. Mark and I palled around and checked out the shops, and I have to laugh about how these shop owners behave to Americans. "Oh, hey, what's up man, you want to buy this? 50 Turkish Lira... No?
Okay, I tell you what, I give it to you for 30..." (I walk away)
"Where are you from, Pennsylvania? Oh, I have a cousin from there. He goes to Pennsylvania University... okay, 25 Lira, and that's it."

And then I walk away with some awesome jewelry for 1/4 the price he begins tossing at me. I don't know if I could've pushed harder for an even better deal, but I'm almost certain there are dopey Americans who buy things at full price. Problem is, it's like shopping at a used car place, and so many of my colleagues feel uncomfortable doing the bargaining. Here's what I purchased at the two bazaars today:

• Fez tourist hat - price marked 15 Turkish Lira (TL), he offered me for 10, I bought it for 7
• I <3 Turkey t-shirt - price marked 13.50 TL, he offered me for 10, I bought for 8
• 2 gem pendants (for mom & Devin) - he offered to me for 75 TL, I gave him $20.
• Devin's birthday present - he offered to me for 100 TL, then 60, then 40, and I bought for 35 (after he said "thirty is dirty, I started laughing.")

$1 = 1.62 TL as of today, by the way. It's a really neat currency (all the images contain the founder, Ataturk), and the exchange rate is great for the USD.

Oh, and I know you all wanted to see Mark complete his burpees at the Grand Bizarre - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeJVOG1J42U


Sultanahmet / Blue Mosque

We were running late from the Spice Bazaar, and we hit traffic and another few teachers were late, so it really stole our time from the rest of the day, especially from the Blue Mosque, which was a shame. We literally had 25 minutes to check out this impressive facade (photo taken from Turkish & Islamic Art Museum, with Egyptian obelisk in foreground).

I dressed very conservatively today (wearing jeans in the midday heat here is conservative), just because the Blue Mosque, though a tourist attraction, is still used today. So one must be decent when entering (ladies have to cover shoulders, knees, and head), and we all have to remove our shoes. That made the carpet really beautiful, but man, you can smell feet in there as soon as you walk in. The structure, though it looks larger than the Hagia Sophia, is much smaller and there are pillars used inside that take up more of the open space.

Fun fact: The Blue Mosque was the 2nd mosque to have 6 minarets (after the Ka'bah in Mecca), and the fact that Mehmet built this to rival the mosque that every Muslim prays to angered many of them. So, in response, Mehmet (who controlled Mecca in the largeness of their empire) built a 7th minaret there to make the Ka'bah "more important" once again.

While the Blue Mosque is gorgeous, I was more captured by how it looks on the outside rather than the inside. So, it's fair to say that the Blue Mosque is more of like a supermodel with no personality, while the Hagia Sophia is a cougar with tons of it.

I can't believe I just compared a Islamic place of worship to types of women, but I did.

That doesn't mean you're going to see my stop snapping photos of this blue bombshell!


Hippodrome

The Hippodrome a stadium built by the Greeks for Constantinople, and it literally translates into horse ("hippo") racing / leading ("drome"). It's where the circus used to be held, where gladiators were put on trial, and home to the chariot races. Seems like a pretty cool place, except there isn't much left to it after the Ottomans built the mosques and the prayer centers between them. But one thing that still remains is this awesome Egyptian obelisk that dates back to 500 AD, which was sent to the Romans as a token of friendship between the two countries for defeating Persia in a fierce war - think of the Statue of Liberty, just much older and much smaller, but still quite awesome. I had my photo taken here for Hans' Frozen Yogurt (of Mechanicsburg) who are making flyers of their customers in famous places sporting their "Fresh..." t-shirt. Go Hans!

Click here to see Mark do burpees at the Obelisk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dsilQv9Bdo


Museums (Islamic & Turkish Art / Turkish Archeological)

The museums, I'm not going to lie, are somewhat bland for me. I love art when I get the chance to look at it all, but when we're told we have 25 minutes (for the art museum) and 45 minutes (for the archeological museum), my interest in the museums each dropped 10 fold. It just seemed like we tried to squeeze too much into one day, and these are two of the things I personally could've done without.


Topkapi Palace

The first major construction of the Ottomans after the Hagia Sophia renovation was building this enormous palace. Housing over 200 rooms and sitting on at least 7 acres right on the Manmara Sea, this is one pretty sweet place. The gorgeousness of the blue tile I thought was more incredible than that in the Blue Mosque. There was a pool, a bathhouse, a prison, many secret entry ways, and, of course, the Harem. Harem, by the way, means "no outsiders," not "brothel," as many of us in the west think.

The Harem was the largest part of the palace, but the funny thing is it's dedicated not to the Sultan, but to his mother. Here is where she played matriarch, and it displayed the importance the mother had in the culture of the Sultanate Ottoman Empire.

Below you'll see a photo of the Vizier (Grand Wizard)'s quarters. Think of the vizier as the vice president who, after appointed by the sultan, assumes the role of empirical leader while the sultan is abroad with the army or doing something else. One cool fact about the vizier's quarters was that he often received many of the dignitaries, and the sultan could go spy on him through a "dark room" which allowed him to see and hear but remain unseen and unheard. Another cool fact: you can't be fired as vizier, you were either beheaded or exiled from Istanbul, mostly the former.



Armaggan Cultural Center

By the time we did all this stuff and walked over 4 miles, I was puckered out. I didn't expect much from this Armaggan place, since it wasn't on our original schedule. It was, however, so modern, sleek and new, but it housed the most richness of the culture that I've seen. They remade some of the most famous Turkish carpets (on display and on sale for upwards of 65,000 TL / $40,000), remade the kaftan shirts, and the rich music. They also had some of the coolest art I've seen in a while (all modern Turkish artists), a lounge with a plant wall, and a metallurgist shop in the basement.

The tops, however, was up on the terrace level where I had my best meal to date. One thing the Turks / Ottomans are great about is the appetizer course of the meal, which is truly a delectable and different sampling of the food each and every time. This photo below was not just the most colorful food I've had on the trip, but also the most varied and the most tasteful. We then had a pasta dish in cold yogurt (which sounds odd, but it was great), with a super-tasty leg of lamb, and a glass of Turkish red wine, all to the tune of classical Ottoman music. My night finished well.

Just on a side note, while we ate for the first time at one table, I finally realized the largeness of our group. There are about 35 of us that stretch from every corner of the US (teachers from Hawaii, Washington, Maine, and Florida put the pins on all four), but with everything we've been doing it's been hard to get to know everyone. Some of the people I've connected well with, thus far:

• Mark - my roommate and Harrisburg High librarian, he looks like a dirty hippy and some of the kids call him Jesus when we walk down the street. We have a lot of fun and connect a lot, except for when he goes on Star Wars tangents.
• Cynthia Hartman - one of 4 Cynthias on the trip, she is our Harrisburg captain and is a teacher at HH with Mark. She's as easy-going as she is tall, and always has a smile from ear-to-ear.
• Meredith - a teacher from St. Louis, I could tell she used to be a soccer & softball player immediately. She teaches at a Catholic school down along the Mississippi, love the Cardinals, and is the self-proclaimed "ginger" and also the youngest person on the trip (I'm 2nd youngest).
  
• Gary - a teacher from Missoula, Vermont, Gary is a hipster (he has a tail that's been growing since 1985) but is a ball-buster and seriously student-centered guy. He's very inspirational to me when he hasn't assumed the role of jabbing punches.