Recent pics with Mom, Istanbul

These are from the Galata Bridge, the fish boats at Eminonu (the far side of the bridge for us), and at the Gullu baklava house, where the owner held up his Baraklava. Mr. President, if you're reading this, the owner says he's bummed you didn't make it to his shop during your recent visit. They're keeping your image under protective plastic wrap in the hopes that a late-night craving on one of your Eastern European or Middle East tours might lead you back.

29 July Back in Antalya

Mom and I flew yesterday from Istanbul to Antalya aboard the very pleasant Turkish Airlines. I'd read skiddish reports about their service, on-time percentages, etc. We got fairly reasonable rates for our flights, given that they were just booked in the past week ($215 each, R/T) and despite our 45 minute departure delay, we enjoyed the flight. The food was not spectacular, but it was fresh and wholesome and gave us leave to skip lunch. A fluffy white bread roll with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and the white cheese (beyas peynir) that Mom is so nuts over. Plus a cup of the Turkish yogurt that has fruit but is still not too sweet--we give that a big thumbs up too. What's the deal with sickeningly sweet American yogurt? Ick. So phony and plastic-y tasting. Yuck. (Liv and Ruby heartily disagree, mind you.) We got picked up by 2 guys who occupy different polar ends of the Turkish male continuum. Emre was young, slightly effeminate, a bit apologetic in aspect, trying to be in charge (well, -ish). The driver was a bald, swarthy, gruff but kind guy who popped in a Turkish CD when he heard that I was looking for the music of a certain Turkish percussionist, Burcan Ocal (Bur-chan Er-chal). Then our van got sideswiped by another driver and we saw the anger management capabilities of the driver kick in. He looked scary. I think he grew 6" side-to-side holding in his annoyance with the other driver. Anyway, to the hotel and the full sea view from the 16th floor. This hotel is kind of gross, as in "you wish you were here" gross. We have a full view of the Mediterranean extending out to the horizon, a deep beckoning blue, turquoise-y in the sun. Antalya is curved, an important harbor in Roman times, and we are at one end of the curve, about 4-5 kms. outside the old town. We can see the other side of the "U" the harbor makes off to the West, a full 3 (?) kms. of whitish-grayish mountains (in the glare and haze of the sun), speckled with evergreens and...well, other vegetation, sloping into the sea. They're probably 1000+ feet or so. Hard to tell from far away.

We're heading down there now, taking a dolmus (dole-moosh), a city van/bus. That will be its own adventure. I've done it once before, but now I labor under the notion that I ought to ask for things in Turkish to validate the time I've put in studying. I went over chapter 4 again at breakfast in my Teach Yourself Turkish book. I love it. It's just ridiculous that I have to leave in 4-5 days. 6 months??? I feel confident my Turkish would be strong if I stayed. I have thrown myself into it in a much more effective way than with Russian or Japanese. I am trying to overcome the "wait until you can say it perfectly before speaking" hangup. That's what has stymied my progress in the past. I keep preaching to students that mistakes are not necessarily to be avoided. On the contrary, that's how the brain learns. As such, they should be viewed as key opportunities for learning, for improving. Failure Avoidance is no way to go through life. How can you grow? Makes sense when I tell it to students. Now I'm trying to live in in practice. And it's working.

I hope we can get to the museum here. It's amazing. And a walk around the old city will do us good. We're off to a late start and it's going to hit 100 today, I think.

I'll upload a few pictures from Istanbul and from our flight over. Mom wants me to take more flattering pictures of her. I told her she should stop giving me so many instructions while I'm shooting. Ha.

And I'm finding that decelerating from our month's intense program is really hard for me. I wrote to Chris that it's funny: who else do we know who has trouble relaxing?? I'm so used to staying uberbusy, I feel unsettled if I'm not fully scheduled. Maybe that's what raki is for. (just kidding.)

This is a beautiful place. I need to let it wash over me and take the kinks out of my muscles and mind. Mom is able to. I will take a page out of her book, so to speak. And keep plugging with the Turkish!

Happy day, all.

pictures from 24-25 July Istanbul

A bit of Mom's journey thusfar. She talks to EVERYONE.

Sunday 26 July Istanbul

The Fulbright tour officially ended this morning with the departure of the main body of the group: 12 left for the States and 4 of us are staying on. Mom and I went out with the two Jims on Friday night. The farewell dinner was over by 12:30 and we were ready to hit the streets of Beyoglu. Mom has been a trooper--maybe jetlag is facilitating all this late-night action on her part. At any rate, she was pretty unstoppable, especially when it came to chatting up cute Turkish guys. And the Turks we've encountered thusfar have lived up to the billing of being some of the friendliest, most open people in the world. Great folks. And on Friday we went to a section of Beyoglu with a slightly different crowd, not as many people who spoke English, a little less urbane perhaps. It was great. Mostly men, but not exclusively. And we talked for hours and hours. We came back around 3:00, each of us grinning from ear to ear. Jim and I had had to delve deep and be creative to communicate in our pidgin Turkish, but we'd won friends for our efforts. Mom found Tarik, a blue-eyed Bosnia-Herzegovinian, totally charming and adorable. She tried to train everyone to look in the eyes as you clink glasses, then she wanted to ask questions about headscarves and Muslim-Turkish identity. Tough stuff for my limited Turkish, but we had fun.
Then the marathon blitz was on. Saturday was our last official day and Jim and I made the most of it. We took a long walk in the morning--a little over 2 hours along the sea walls of the old city. Thank goodness he has a strong sense of direction. And thank goodness for the obvious indicators of bridges and the water--my sense of direction is the adverse of my vocabulary (does that even make sense?) I'm not strong in the "where am I and how to I get to Point X" department. I try to see that as furthering the travel adventure, however. Glass half full. So Jim and I talked about a joint project proposal on the evolution of identity in Turkey. It's the seed of an idea, really. We'll have to let the whirling dust of experience settle in our brains for a while. Then I'll be able to sort through my time here, the learning that has occured on so many levels. But it's an exciting prospect.

Carlton and I hit the streets around noon, walked across the Galata Bridge to the Sultanahmet district. We seemed to hit every underground passage possible, not making the most efficient progress to our destination, but getting a good view of subterranean commerce. We walked through the Egyptian Bazaar, a.k.a. the spice market. I told Mom "no shopping!" because we'll do that next weekend. That can be a draining experience, and I didn't have the energy. We went to the Hippodrome, the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Cistern and the Cagadolugu (sp?) hamam. We dropped some serious cash, as only the Blue Mosque is free. It's an active mosque, but why anyone would want to worship there is beyond me. There are clueless visitors who disregard the clear postings about where to walk and what to do. There are women who don't cover themselves, who go into the men's section of worship. There are men and women who walk through the area for prayer, as folks are praying. I know this happens in many of the world's most beautiful and heavily visited places of worship, but still. I wonder why some tourists are so clueless and invasive. Mom was quite taken with the architecture, recalling the Moorish elements she'd seen at the AlHambra and other sites in Spain. She loved the Hagia Sophia and the cheerleaders in the relief panel on the bottom of the hippodrome's 7th c. BC Egyptian obelisk. Or maybe 12th c. BC. I get my centuries confused. The panel shows emperor Theodosius preparing to award a laurel wreath to the winner of the chariot races. Below his box sit the regular folks, who are entertained between races by musicians and young dancing/cheering girls. The first cheerleaders, immortalized in marble in the 3rd c. AD. Right on. Can't wait to show Kelli.
Unfortunately, the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum got short shrift from me, as my tank was on empty by then. It's housed in what used to be the palace of Ibrahim Pasha, one of the grand viziers under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (16th c.) He met his demise when Roxalena, the wife if the sultan, had him murdered. Apparently building a palace for yourself (out of stone, no less, when secular buildings were constructed of wood) was too clear an indication a person's designs on the sultanate (made up word). Roxalena saw him as too grave a threat, so she had him bumped off. Interesting. We only toured part of the museum, enough to see gorgeous tile work and carpets. I loved the dioramas in the ethnographic section: daily life in a yurt, in a black tent or in a house during Ottoman times. Those are almost always my favorite parts of museums, the windows into domestic life of other eras and cultures.

We spent 10 TL (Turkish lira) each for the Cistern and museum, 20 each for the Hagia Sophia, 60 each for the hamam (way more than I expected)...so about 200 lira, or $130. And that was before dinner. Actually, dinner was not much, and it was delicious. Plus we had the unexpected entertainment of a cat jumping from a second story balcony onto an outdoor table below, scaring the bejeezus out of the young woman onto whose plate the intruder landed. There was much crashing of plates and hurried scraping of chairs as people reacted to the "landing". I laughed.

And now the hamam: Cagaloglu (2 soft g's, so it's pronounced jaah-loh-lo). 300 years old, on someone's 1000 Things to Do Before You Die list, written about in the NYTimes and several other major publications. Milking the publicity for everything it's worth. We went in, apparently through the side door. We only saw the more opulent front entrance as we were heading home. Red carpet, fancy fountain, etc. Oh well, next time. We plunked down our money for a #2 which included full body sloughing. I figured I'd weigh a good 3 pounds less after they'd scraped all the dirt and dead skin off my well-worn body. We went up to our changing rooms, got undressed, put on the hamam towel and plastic slippers, then went through the lounge area with its low tables and towel-wrapped post-bath women sipping tea, into the first of the heated rooms. Following tradition (of the Turks, the Muslims and the Romans) the bath is laid out in a way that facilitates a gradual warming of the body and softening of the skin. The first room is warm but not steamy. We stayed there amid the stacks of clean towls and bowl of soaps for a few minutes, enjoying the warm air and trying to figure out what to do next. The first time is like that: part of the adventure is learning the system. Then to the inner room of the hamam, where there is a low round marble table in the center and banks of ornate marble basins and a low marble bench to sit on. We sat and relaxed and sweated profusely, chatting a bit, and watching the various scrubdowns the attendants were giving to the customers. You sit for about 10-15 minutes until it's your turn and the attendant calls you over. She has you lie down on the marble table, and as you gaze up at the designs in the high ceilings (with wonderful recessed mini-skylights), she scrubs you down with a loofah-like hamam glove. That's where I lost my 3 pounds of ick and grit. Some women got massages (looked heavenly but I couldn't afford the extra 30 lira). Then the attendant rinses you off by one of the basins--they can be pretty marshall, those women, and woe to the person who complains that the rinsing water is too cold!--and give you a shampoo and a face rub. Nice. A luxury. Then Mom and I sat in the Hot Room, like a sauna, for a few minutes before coming out for a final rinse off and exit to the mid-temperature room in which we'd started. We let our bodies get used to the cooler air, then went to the lounge where we sipped hot mint tea and felt happy about life. Expensive, but wonderful. And Secil says if we go again, we should expect to pay about 35 lira. That I could handle. And it would be good to compare hamams. Lonely Planet says Cagaloglu is good because the women's section is as nice as the men's and that that is not always the case, but Secil didn't seem to agree. We'll see.

Meze, fish and raki for dinner, with wonderful conversation. Then Mom left at midnight, we dropped off Jim Pasha, Secil and her charming friend Osman, and Jim St. Louis and I hit the streets one last time to whoop it up in Beyoglu. I've been writing this entry forEVER, so I'll be brief: we had a great time. Up 'til 2:30-3:00, met some fantastic folks, spoke as much Turkish as I knew, probably invented a bit in the process, and danced in the streets until I thought I was going to fall over. The beer might've impacted that, but I'll leave that consideration to the category of Past Actions. The archives. We had a great time and it was a fitting end to our joint efforts at Cultural Research. It's not a bad thing that the rest of the crowd is gone. My liver will be grateful.

Mom and I got up to see everyone off, then went back to bed and slept til almost 2:00! I have been needing that for ages. Sheer and utter exhaustion, but in a good way. I think we might hit the Museum of Modern Art. And maybe try to take a bus or a trolley. That would be its own adventure. The bazaar is closed today and the museums are closed tomorrow. It's good to have a down day. Maybe we'll just wander around and drink tea in cafes. That's something!

Much love to all--and drop me a line!

23July Princes' Islands

There are 9 islands in the Sea of Marmara, that body of water with the Dardanelles at the bottom (south) and the Bosphorus at the top (north). Of the 5 or so inhabited ones, we visited the largest yesterday, aptly called Buyukada (bew-YEWK-ah-dah), which lies about 20 kms SE of the Istanbul. The ferry ride over was crowded, but the throngs of people heading out of the city for the day thinned with each stop. Ours was the last, and well worth the hour or so it took to get there. Secil (Seh-CHEEL, our program coordinator, and one of the most elegant and sophisticated women I've ever known) explained that many of Istanbul's fashionable and moneyed people have second homes on the island. She said to be on the lookout for the Beautiful People of Istanbul, and I laughed. Aren't they all?? The harbor where the ferry unloads is lined with cafes and the road leads up to a central clock and little square where the queue forms for horse drawn caleches to haul visitors up to the island's main draw: the Hagia Triada Monastery. Pilgrims (both the devout and the curious) climb--or more likely are borne by the old-fashioned caleches--to a large open square near the top of the island. From there you can purchase a charm (?) to make a wish. I remember those for health (which I got), children, love, marriage, work, but there were half a dozen others. So with charm in hand (mind was a little metal elephant and an inch of thin white satin ribbon on a used-to-be-gold safety pin) you climb the cobblestone street to the very top of the hill, about 680 feet above sea level. Writing that now, it doesn't seem like much at all. But in the noonday sun, it's a reminder that we're getting out of shape from all our Anatolian hikes. The legend says each pilgrim should start with a roll of thin string at the bottom of the hill and unwind it as he ascends (for the record, I almost wrote "she"...I hate that English makes you make a choice.) The point is to make it to the top without your string breaking. You visit the church, pray, make your thematically-appropriate wish, relevant of course to the charms you purchased. Then you bring your charm back down and when the wish comes true, you either throw the charm into the sea, give it to someone you love, or bury it. But how will I know if my "health" wish comes true? Hmm...

We had a(nother) amazing lunch at the cafe beside the monastery. Gorgeous view of the Marmara, so blue, so inviting. So not going swimming. I walked back down rather than ride the caleche. Much of the island is punctuated with the strong smell of HORSE, horse poop in particular. Ew. There were 1000s of tourists there by midafternoon, and the 3:15 ferry was well-timed for our departure. I got a bit too much sun on the way home, but it was worth it.

Mom arrived safely, I ran into her out on Istiklal. She was pretty easy to spot, walking at .004 miles an hour looking up in all directions. She says her head's on a swivel. We had a stroll, a coffee at the base of the Galata Tower, then a drink at our hotel's bar, the one with the magnificent view. Then Jim, Mom and I walked across the Galata Bridge, went into the huge and lovely New Mosque, then had a quickly but affably served dinner at Ali's favorite Kebab house, the Hamdi. My yoghurtli kebab was succulent...minced lamb, yoghurt and spices. Humminah. We walked back along the pedestrian stretch under the Galata Bridge, packed with fish restaurants doing very brisk business at 11:00. We had a beer (2?) in the streets of Beyoglu, then called it a night around 12:00. In fact, we just woke up a few minutes ago and have to head out for a university visit this morning. Our farewell dinner is tonight and that makes me sad. No more Ali and soon no more Secil. Bummer.

Rats. The time here is coming to a close. But at least Mom's and my chapter is beginning. That'll be fun.

Upload pics later. Ciao!

22 July Topkapi Palace

Topkapi (Top-kap-uh) Palace is one of Istanbul's crown jewels, low and expansive with several large courtyards around a few key buildings. It's gently domed, rising not nearly as high as some of the city's more massive mosques and palaces. Still, as home to the Ottoman sultans for almost 4 centuries (1460s-1839) it was built (and enlarged) to impress. The location is high on a hill, right next to where the Byzantine palace stood. Apparently the 4 Seasons hotel wanted to expand its current facilities and bought the land adjacent to Topkapi, only to find during excavation that they'd hit the Byzantine palace. Ali told us that the hotel project will go ahead anyway; they'll just have a glass floor so guests can see the ruins as they move about the lobby. A bit bizarre, but if you're into top dollar novelty, go for it.
My shots of Topkapi cannot do it justice. Again, and a bit sheepishly, I recommend that you check out pictures of the place online. You definitely want to see the jewels from the treasury--Liv and Ruby would have loved a headpieces that had a huge emerald and a huge ruby surrounded by dripping diamonds, it was very Cher in Vegas, but the real thing. My favorite building was the library, which as my friend Jim says, shows that the structure was designed with reading in mind. It has 4 low couches (I didn't see any proper chairs all day) that recede into wall spaces, huge windows for ventilation (with elaborate inlayed shutters), and recessed bookshelves that blend into the tiled walls. Gorgeous. Topkapi has hundreds of thousands of Iznik tiles, and they're so beautiful, so cool and inviting, that if I lived in a warmed climate I would want much of my house surfaced in them. But Iznik tiles are several hundred dollars apiece, if you buy the real thing. Sigh.

We had one of our best lunches yet at the palace overlooking the water. Then down the lane to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, built in part with the fine money Heinrich Schliemann had to pay for smuggling out what he thought was Priam's treasure from Troy. Creep. At least the Turks got a headstart on their fine museum from that debacle. The highlights for me were the sarcophagus built supposedly for Alexander the Great. It was found in Sidon, in modern-day Lebanon. The workmanship on it suggests that the stone is soft, like cheese or butter. The degree of detail is astounding: you can see the muscles in the faces of the horses as they strain to their riders' movements. You can see the tension in the pointing fingers of the combatants. It's amazing. There were pieces from Xanthos, from Pergamom, and from other places we've visited. Plus the cuneiform examples were as good as the ones in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. To the average American blog-reader, a museum name like that might be like taking a Xanax (sp?) But to the contrary, it's really interesting to see a love poem in 13th c. BC cuneiform, or a kid's homework tablet. I cracked up. I will upload pics when I get the chance.

The tile museum could be my next residence. All those deep blue wall spaces made me feel calm and warm. There's something about that color that is really soothing.

Jim and I ventured out again last night: corba (chor-ba: soup) for dinner and beer for research. But we didn't end up talking to anyone but ourselves. Poor Jim. He's had to listen to the same half-dozen Wendy stories 11 times each. What a patient guy.

Carlton arrives today and then the real fun begins! We're off to the Prince Islands in 30 minutes. Looking back over this post, I'm wondering how much of this I said yesterday. That's the problem with getting only 5 hours of sleep day after day. I am becoming a jello brain. Please forgive me if I repeat myself...that seems to be part of the subtext of this trip.

Iyi gunlar! (ee-ee gewn-LAR: have a good day!)

walk through Fatih, Istanbul neighborhood, 21 July

Early morning, 22 July (Wed)

Whew! Another enormous day yesterday. Actually, all things considered, it was a manageable one--just paced a bit differently. I woke at 7 and called my friend Jim (St. Louis). He teaches 7th grade geography and did Ph.D. work in anthropology in...um, where they speak Swahili. Anyway, Jim is my GrammarNerd twin and he's handy with directions. So he's a great walking partner. We headed down the wide shop-lined pedestrian street called Istiklal (ee-steek-LAL, meaning independence) where our hotel is to Taksim Square, then (south?) down to the water. We puzzled through signs on buildings, working with our 100-150 word vocabulary to figure out what things were. Jim is like Dad, he can talk to anybody--the guy in the shop, the kids playing streetball, the lady selling pistachios--and an hour later they're having tea and swapping Turko-English bits of life histories. Nice. So our hour's walk finished with a super steep, Rocky-like staircase, only for the fit Rocky, not the lumpy version in the first movie. Istanbul has 7 hills and it's not kidding around. You can get pretty fit here. Think San Francisco and her older glamourous sister (sorry Kelli, I'll be SF if you want and you can be...um, Venice?)
We headed to Dolmabahce (dol-mah-BAH-chay) Palace to wait in a hugely long line and feel sorry for the Turkish military guard who has to stand at attention at its gates while a zillion people take goofy pictures next to him. Poor guy. All I could think, there in the hot morning sun with this guy in his full uniform (they wear gloves, ok) was the likelihood that some of these young men occasionally do this duty with a hangover and how painfully horrible that must be. Dolmabahce means stuffed garden, and the palace compound is beautifully landscaped, sitting right on the Bosphorus. Well, right next to it. You understand. It was built for Sultan Ahmednecid in the mid-19th century, and it's a clear example of the Ottomans' view West at that time. It clearly recalls the grand palaces of Western Europe: Versailles chief among them. I didn't take my camera in, so I only have a few pictures from the gate, but if you're interested in OCD opulence, check it out online. Liv and Ruby would poop in their pants if they could've seen it. It's so florid, inside and out, with the biggest chandeliers I've ever seen (the largest weighs 4.5 tons and hangs from a ceiling 182 feet high), it's a 6-year old girl's dream palace. Swirls and flourishes on every ceiling, in every corner, intricate parquet flooring (put together with no nails, no glue...and my poor husband broke his back doing 3 rooms in our house!) It's so pink, pearly, gold and...sultan-y. Unbelievable. Very airy, probably 20-25 foot ceilings everywhere. And the sultan's hamam (3 rooms in every proper Turkish bath) was the part I wanted to bring home. Man, I sure would be popular in the neighborhood. Marble blocks the color of polished dentures (there's an image), slightly yellowed and with a history. Like a marble igloo, carved by an imperial Inuit (do Inuits have igloos? But I digress...) More on Turkish baths later.
We took a separate tour of the harem (hah-REM), the separate living quarters for the sultan's mother, wives and extended family (women and children). Very educational. There is an important divide between the Western conception of the harem--the what, why and how--and the Ottoman reality. Part of the trouble stems from the paucity of English words to describe servant/serving relationships, particularly the word concubine. We don't have a social structure in which concubines function, so we have only a fuzzy understanding of what they were and did. They were servants of the harem, and I don't think they all were the sultan's sex toys. I mean, the sultan could do whatever he wanted, but I think his official wives were pretty powerful and held the fort with a lot of control. The harem was led by the sultan's mother, a woman who often wielded extraordinary power. Then the sultan had 4 official wives, as per the limitations of Islam (for the record, most men and women in most Islamic countries do not practice polygamy. Sadly, many Americans think otherwise.) Our guides yesterday explained that we need to be very careful in imposing what's called the "Orientalist" perspective as we learn about and teach the harem. It was not all about sex. Quite to the contrary, many families wanted their daughters to be selected for the harem, as they could get an education well beyond the means of most Ottoman subjects. Women were educated in the humanities, in music, in the arts...so it's not all as steamy and exotic as we make it out to be. Having said that, women's doorways to power and position did revolve around the axes of their male relatives. There's no denying that. I guess the takeaway message is that harem culture is way more complex than the fantasy-version many Americans hold in their minds. Just like not all American beaches are like Baywatch. Same thing.
Anyway, then we went to the Chora, a 5th century basilica famous for its mosaics. I don't know about you, but when I hear "church" and "mosaics" something in my brain hits the snooze button. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but there it is. This place was astounding, so there I am, exposed as Wrong Again. And delighted at it. The building was added to in the 13th and 14th centuries, and many of its mosaics were plastered over by the Turks. Those that were not plastered over were damaged, as in the case of most Christian imagery when the Muslims arrived faces, particularly the eyes, were often scratched out. Islam forbids the depiction of animate objects in art. There are inconsistencies with this, though, and I can't say I truly understand where the lines are for who gets to be depicted and when and why. But we've seen a lot of saints with no eyes. Chora's mosaics show the life and death (or dormition) of Mary; the life, actions and death of Jesus; the patriarchs of the Orthodox Church; some of the saints, angels and other luminaries. It is also worth checking out online, as my flashless pictures don't capture the glow and the artistry of the work. So beautiful, it was just sublime.

From there we went to the area known as Pierreloti, after the French military officer-turned-writer Pierre Loti. We went to a cafe with a sweeping view of the Golden Horn, then Jim and I took a sky-tram (like the ones at theme parks, cubes on wires high in the sky) down the hillside and walked to and on the 4th (5th?) century walls of Theodosius II. Then we snaked in and out the steep (!!) streets of the Fatih district. We talked to kids, who were eager to try out their English: Hello! Money, money, money! We laughed a lot, said Merhaba to everyone practically, went into a courtyard containing a Greek Orthodox church. Stella, the attendant, proudly opened it for us and let us have a look around. Wow. Lots of silver, lots of carved wood. And the Greeks paint buildings with a lot of punch. This exterior was Extra Yellow, beautiful in the afternoon light. Our walk lasted almost 3 hours, then back to the hotel, upload pics, off to dinner with Secil and her friend Osman, Ali and his friend Vahti (the Turkish George Michael, I call him). Jim and I continued our cultural research, but Tuesday night didn't yield much. We were tired and the Tuborg was not hitting the spot. Undaunted, we will try again tonight.

Off to a lecture on Byzantium, then to Topkapi Palace. Hope all are well! Carlton arrives tomorrow--yippee!!

More recent pictures, Istanbul and beyond

These pictures are from yesterday, from the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul. There are two from inside the Hagia Sophia, which was originally a Byzantine church but was then converted into a mosque. There is one pic from the Sultanahmet fountain that's by the 2nd century AD Roman hippodrome. The hippodrome doesn't exist anymore but three structures that were in its spina (the central portion around which the charioteers used to race) still stand: an Egyptian obelisk most likely taken from Karkan (?), at the tomb of Ramses II; a spiral column that used to be topped with the golden heads of 3 snakes (those have disappeared and our guide vaguely implicated a drunken Polish guy with the malfeasance, but he wouldn't name names); and the Magnetic Column, which is sometimes called the Column of Constantine or the Constantinian Column. It used to be covered in bronze, but over the years that layer was taken off. Go figure. Anyway, the hippodrome, which used to seat 100,000, is no longer there, but there is a fountain there now and I shot a picture of a covered woman washing off her little boy there. Very cute. And now I've talked so much about the hippodrome that I don't remember the last picture. I feel confident you'll figure it out, however.

More recent pictures, Istanbul and beyond

I have not spent time editing these, and sadly some of the files are huge (see previous notes about camera screw-up...my bad). But I want to get more pics up--this is for you, Laura!!

Hello from Istanbul

Holy cow (again). Where to start. Let's see, I stayed in tonight because I haven't been getting much sleep. Too much late night drinking and socializing. In a different context, that might be regrettable behavior, but here it's the access key to Turkish social life. Or at least the level of Turkish social life that I can have as a transient. You see, Turks go out to dinner at 8:30 or 9:00 in the summer, at the earliest. Things get really pulsing in the cities around 11:00 or 12:00. In fact, just the other night, my friend Jim and I decided to go out at midnight, after we'd come back from a small group dinner (that itself had started around 9:00). The Turks don't rush very much. Jim and I had a great time walking through the narrow streets crowded with small wooden cafe tables, tons of folks everywhere talking, smoking, drinking (not just alcohol...tea too!) Like most huge metropolitan places, Istanbul thumps large after dark. We're in Beyoglu (Bay-oh-lu) which is a really cool, funky place. It reminds me of Prague's main drag 15-17 years ago, before Prague got "hip". Our hotel has a bar whose ridiculous drink prices (about $17 for a martini) can only be excused by the totally kickass views of the city it boasts. I mean, For Real. Sick. So whatever. I shelled out 16 lira ($11?) for a glass of wine 2 days ago. Worth it, totally. There has been a municipal ban enacted on public smoking--it went into effect at midnight yesterday (?)--so people cannot smoke in restaurants anymore. They are not even supposed to smoke in partially open cafes...has to be totally open. Having said that, 3 women from our group (2 of the Ladies & Chicago Lizz) and I went to a nargile (nar-gee-leh) this afternoon when we had a 30 minute stop in the Bebek area of Istanbul. A nargile is a smoke shop, and we got water pipes with apple tobacco...actually 2 of them got a menthol spice blend, but I was happy to have the milder apple. I haven't smoked in ages (7+ years now) so it was a bit weird, but very fun. I can see why people spend hours and hours there...the process of smoking those pipes opens the door for contemplation, relaxation. Being first timers, we each got a pipe. That was ridiculous: 30 lira each. We could easily have split one or two, especially in that narrow time window. Still, it was a new thing, a bit on the edge and therefore fun to try.
We also went to the Spice Bazaar, aka the Egyptian Bazaar (Egypt used to be the provenance of most spices here). I got Iranian saffron, but when I told Secil how much I paid for it, she only nodded, leading me to believe I'd grossly overpaid with my 30 lira for 2 grams. She may be right, but I still have to figure out how to use 2 g worth of Iranian saffron. Anyone?
I bought apple tea and...oh yes, a cheap necklace. Turkey is the land of Stuff. You want it, it' for sale. And for you, special price. I am having the protracted occasion to work on my very poor negotiation skills. I do not relish shopping, and I am a poor bargainer. I come to the table, as it were, with a defensive posture. That is so not the Turkish style. I am working on emulating their far more open, amiable, flexible style of interaction, but I have a lot to overcome. I am not sure how much is personal and how much is cultural. Americans are not bargainers, per se. Actually, Chris might disagree with me there, and he bargains with far more ease--and success--than I do. It is a way of life in Turkey, and there are linguistic riffs that reinforce that. During a language lesson with Secil, a former English language teacher at the national high school for gifted students, she asked if I would give her money (we were practicing grammar, keep in mind) and I responded "Hayir" (no). Both she and Ali laughed and said, independently, that the more natural Turkish response would be to say "how much?" instead of a flat "no". We're just different. For them negotiation is not threatening, it is a way of communicating.

I am dead dog tired. I have spent 3 hours poring through pictures and videos from the past few days. Still not fully done. And I have yet to post pics. I think I mentioned, I accidentally put my camera back to high resolution, so I have 2-3 days of pics that are totally huge files. Yipes. So I may upload those to facebook, still not sure. But I stayed in tonight to catch up on sleep. Ha. It's 1:15 my time as I write this.

Here's a quick update on our Istanbul time:
18 July: Saturday...Gallipoli is way more interesting than I expected. Makes me think of Iraq, a political decision that was ultimately proved to have been a disaster, an extraordinary loss of life, and for what? Total casualties of that 8-month campaign were over 500,000: about equal for the Allies (mostly Brits, Australians and New Zealanders, but also French and Indian) and for the Turks. The Allies wanted to take the Dardanelles to control supply lines to Russia. The Turks successfully resisted, a huge surprise to the Brits (almost ruined Churchill's career, as he was Lord of the Admiral Navy, or something like that...too tired to think). The Dardanelles was never captured, and the key military commander for the Turks, Mustafa Kemal, went on to found the Turkish Republic in 1923. That's right, it was Ataturk (which means father of the Turks. It's the name he adopted when he decreed that all Turks needed to take a surname. No one else was allowed to take Ataturk though).

So we saw Gallipoli, and it was very beautiful, very moving. We stopped at a site that shows some of the trench locations for the Australian and Turkish forces. The were about 6-7 meters apart. In fact, there were times when they would lob food or other supplies to each other in trade. Man, war sucks. It totally does. Did I mention over 500,000 casualties?

Yesterday we saw the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the remainder of the Roman/Byzantine hippodrome and the Basilica cistern (which was way cooler than it sounds). I am too tired to type out everything I thought/saw at those places. They are everything you would imagine. Super beautiful, amazingly elegant and thought-provoking. I am glad that I will be able to go back with Mom. She'll freak out (with glee, as the girls would say).

Today, Spice Bazaar, Bosphorus cruise, awesome lunch by the Bosphorus, Grand Bazaar, 360 terrace drink with a killer view, and no going out for me. Still, it's 1`Zillion o'clock and I have to go to bed. Will upload photos. Check out Beyoglu online if you want. It's pretty rocking.

hugs to all, and good night.

18 July from Canakkule (Chah-nah-koo-leh)

Hi all--
Have been unable to post for last few days due to funky internet connections. Last night in Assos, an unspeakably charming blip on the Aegean coast. The whole village could fit into our yard in Brookfield, no kidding. Had the best grilled mackerel ever for dinner. Humminah, humminah. Did not swim in the Aegean, and that's a minor point of regret. Went to Troy yesterday, which was far more an event of Appreciating the Process and Science of Archaeology than anything else. After having seen beautifully excavated and restored sites, returned to hints of their former grandeur, some of our group were a bit let down by Troy. It is not "sexy" the way Ephesus is. However, the explanations of how excavations are conducted were really informative for me.
Shoot, people are loading up the bus as I type this and we depart in 5 minutes. We go to Gallipoli today and onto Thrace, the European side of Turkey. I am so sad to leave the Asian side. I have loved it here. A buddy of mine and I played tennis as the sun set last night, right on the Dardanelles. I will talk more about this important place once we're in Istanbul. I'll be there, at the same hotel, for 8-9 days, depending on what Carlton and I end up doing.
Got to remember to talk about last night's walk along the waterfront of Canakkule. Too wonderful for words. The girls (Liv and Ruby) are going to want to move here, because Turkish families hang out outside until after midnight and the playground was full at 12:00. So jealous!
must go-will try a quick upload.
Out!

15 July, Last night in Kusadasi

OK all, this is where the big Marble Blur sets in. We have seen so many stellar sites over the past 3 days, it will be difficult to do each justice. Suffice it to say that the Fulbright-Hays operation has done a fantastic job in laying out a program that really teaches Anatolian history. Istanbul will be our Turkish history focus, with the Ottoman empire and then the founding of the Republic (1923-4). This trip has opened my eyes to vast chapters of my own ignorance--a humbling (read: embarrassing) phenomenon, but an important one for educators. Before I left the States, I had only a vague idea of what Anatolia meant, and certainly a vaguer (?) idea of who'd ever lived here and why any of it mattered. After all, when we teach about the Greeks and Romans, we can safely talk about the geographic entities of Greece and Rome...right? So not. Much of Anatolia was Greek and was Roman, or at least combinations of local peoples/traditions and the then-dominant (economic/political) cultures. Folks have lived here for 25,000 years at least. How did I not consider that? In the past 3 days we've seen some of the most outstanding cities/temples/monuments of the Greek and Roman empires...and they're all here. (duh) Here's a quick rundown:
Kaunos, used to be an important harbor until it silted up. Now a refuge for Mexican turtles, the caretta caretta (not making this up).

Carian tombs cut into rock face, on cliffs 50 meters up-holy cow.

Ephesus, one of the largest cities of the Roman Republic: 250,000 at its apex. It's only about 30% excavated, even though they've been working on it for 130+ years. It blew my mind. The terrace houses alone were such an education about life in antiquity (for the very rich). Our guide Ali has seen Sting perform at the theatre there--I won't tell you what kinds of comments my deep jealousy prompted. Not ladylike. Ephesus has been moved 5 times due to environmental shifts, namely silting of harbors and earthquakes. This is one active mass of land, that's for sure. Fundamentally, the fact that people have to react to changes in the earth is one of the surprising lessons I'm learning here. So many cities have been relocated due to environmental change, be it silting of harbors (very frequent in what we've encountered here), floods, fire, earthquake, and invasion by enemy groups. I cannot say enough about Ephesus. I understand why there were thousands of tourists there from cruise ships. It's one of the world's great sites of antiquity--how could people not flock to it?

The house of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus. I lit a candle for my mother-in-law and for the girls, Liv and Ruby. I also tied my wish to the wish board. No holy water though. I forgot an empty bottle.

The Seljuk Ephesus Museum was fantastic. We saw many friezes and statues that would have lined the main streets or decorated the temples of Ephesus. Such grandeur. And you would not believe the scale of things--I've started to take pictures with people in them (next to monuments, for example) just to suggest the sheer size of what we're seeing. It's incredible.

Hierapolis, in Pamukkale, and Aphrodisias--these are from yesterday, the pictures I downloaded and named today (took more than an hour--I'm starting to get my columns and theatres confused). Highlights of these were the calcium baths at Pamukkale--check it on the web. Full of Russians in skimpy bathing suits, these therapeutic baths have been used for centuries by people ostensibly seeking to cure rheumatism, arthritis, yada yada...but we think they just wanted to hang out in the sun and cool pools. The hippodrome at Aphrodisias was my favorite, although the museum there was really wonderful. That's what Chris would want to use to decorate our property. The statues were fantastic. They lined the stoa, the covered walkway of the agora, or marketplace.


Today was Priene, the first city actually planned out (5th c. BC...its predecessor was destroyed by an earthquake, so they rebuilt along a grid pattern, lots of organizational application. Smart) I almost didn't check out the home Alexander the Great had there, but figured my colleagues at school would kill me if I didn't photograph it for them. Apparently Alexander wanted to keep an eye on nearby Miletus which was a little too independent for his liking. He didn't stay in Priene long though, since he was so busy conquering the known world and all.

Then we went to Miletus, a famous Ionian city that St. Paul visited. I am embarrassed to say that, sitting here recalling the sites of the past several days, I cannot remember exactly what we saw in Miletus, a mere 6 hours ago. Holy cow--am I losing my mind? Sadly for Miletus, after it we went to Didyma and saw the famed Temple to Apollo, once inhabited by an oracle, or maybe string of oracles over time. The scale is hard to convey--columns of 20 meters? It had a temple within the temple, but regular people could not go there. It was never completed (expensive) but if someone wanted to fork over a few hundred million dollars, the full restoration could continue. I really liked it. And Ali explained a lot about construction techniques used to build structures of this size. That cleared up many questions for me, but as this is not my forte, it left some unanswered. I'm no physics genius, that's for sure.

And I've read Orhan Pamuk's book, Snow. Fantastic. If you're interested in Turkey, or in a wonderfully crafted psychological portrait of a man looking for happiness, but running from it just as quickly, read it.

Somehow I changed the setting on my camera and all my pictures from the past few days are HUGE. Hard to post. Will try to upload a few. Might end up sticking them on Facebook. I have videos too.

The food continues to be excellent, and I am working hard on my Turkish. Haven't swum in the Aegean yet (too choppy here at this hotel in this town) but plan to tomorrow. Laundry hung outside on a chair dries in 60 minutes, with this sun and wonderful breeze. Ah.

Day 2 in Kusadasi (Koo-shah-dah-suh)

Man. Where to begin. If you want to feel ill about the life you're living in CT, have a quick look at the Charisma Hotel (5 star) in Kusadasi, Turkey's main gateway to Ephesus. If there were no Ephesus (and the dollars/euros it generates), then there might not be any measurable Kusadasi. As it is, however, cruise ships and tour buses flock here to bring Western Europeans, Americans, and the odd-out Asian groups to the truly magnificent excavations of Ephesus. There is an extensive history lesson to give here, and I heard much of it today. However, I'll leave the serious details to the wikipedia folks (ouch, did I just really say that?) Just the basics for today, seeing how far behind I am in my blogging. Ephesus was a port town, a significant trading hub in the 6-5th centuries B.C. In fact, the Amazons were from here, with one of their queens, Apessa, lending her name to the settlement. I am not fact checking, even with my own notebook, so please cut me some slack if I get some details wrong. This is the oral tradition at work. I encourage you all to pursue personal points of interest in scholarly quarters. There are scads of reputable sites devoted to Ephesus. My purpose is to recount what I saw/experienced. I think it's important to issue this kind of disclaimer--my mental notes have holes. And I'm drinking a local wine as I type this. Easy, all.
So. We are ON the Aegean. The water does not seem as swimmable as the Mediterranean. More waves, more movement below the water. Not surfing waves, just choppy. Turgid. (I think I was almost 30 before I learned that word.) Our hotel is great. Yesterday we took a boat cruise--so very sad to say goodbye to Fethiye!!--in an area whose name I did not write down. We crossed the line (demarcated by a river) from the Mediterranean coast to the Aegean. The marshy river that we followed to see the Carian (not Lycian--I was so wrong) tombs cut into the cliffs is the current expression of land change. Apparently the whole vast estuary had once been a bustling harbor but had silted up. Earthquakes (4th c. BC and others) plus other subterranean shifts. I had an AHA moment: my anthrocentric perspective was giving me a limited view on the cause/effect of human life change. The earth has its own timetable. We (or our forebears) can live as responsibly, as earth-friendly as we want, but it an earthquake or volcanic eruption hits, our way of life may be destroyed regardless of our conscientious efforts. And so it was with the area we visited yesterday (beautiful though it was) and today. We took mud baths and my skin felt so relaxed I was almost comatose. I loved having camouflage-pattern skin as I waited for all the mud to dry. A real warrior look.
Today we went to Ephesus. Too much to write now, as it's bedtime and I have a Skype date. I'll just say this: it blew my mind. I had no idea the scale, depth and importance of the site. And our guide, Ali, says that once Aphrodisias is completed (the excavation, I mean) it will surpass Ephesus as the most important archaeological site in Anatolia (one of the top in the world, no joke.) I learned so much that could inform the Western Studies course at Shepaug. Incredible. Jaw-dropping structures, mosaics, frescoes, fountains...just the sheer genius of archaeology. I never knew how totally complex, how mind-bogglingly difficult this pursuit was. I have such respect for it now. It is amazing, what they do.